Pale Horses

by Jassy Mackenzie

  He parked at a crazy angle, straddling two bays, flung himself out of the car, tore his keys from the ignition and bolted for the exit door. There in the lobby were the two lifts, the ‘Up’ button still brightly lit.

  She hadn’t waited for the lifts. Must have taken the stairs, then, he decided.

  In three strides he’d reached the door to the stairway and pulled it open. The unglamorous back corridors of Nelson Mandela Square lay behind it. Stairs in raw concrete, dull and basic, smells and noises filtering down from the kitchens of the restaurants above.

  He powered up the stairs. One flight, two flights, and then he was at ground level, sprinting along the long, narrow passage that led to the square proper.

  Where the hell was she?

  Definitely not in the corridor. He skidded to a stop as he passed the ladies’ toilets. That would be a clever trick, hiding in there. He didn’t know where else she’d have had time to go.

  He pushed the door open and shouldered his way inside, ignoring the startled glance from the black woman washing her hands, who then grabbed her handbag and left in a hurry. He pushed all the cubicle doors. All were empty except for one. The scream that came from behind it when he hammered on it with his fists sounded like a young woman – a teenager. Even so, he went into the adjacent cubicle, stood on the rim of the toilet, and peered over the partition.

  Yup. A screaming blonde teen. Not the woman he was looking for.

  Jogging out of the toilet and putting some distance between himself and the cries of the terrified teenager, he went out into the square itself. The sun-drenched space, surprisingly warm for a winter’s morning, was already bustling with people. People lining up for ice cream at Baglios, breakfasting at Trumps, admiring the fountains in the centre and taking photo after photo of the massive six-metre-high bronze statue of Nelson Mandela.

  People of every race, colour and creed. Blacks, Orientals, Europeans. Girls of every shape and size. But not the one he was looking for. The babbling of ten different languages assailed his ears.

  Where, in all this chaos, could she have gone?

  Graeme’s heart sank as he realised she could have gone anywhere.

  He searched the square for a few minutes, going through the motions just so he could say he had tried. And then he trailed back down the corridor and took the lift to P3. He’d been an idiot. He hadn’t even locked Lance’s car, he’d been in such a hurry, although he knew the chances of it being stolen here were very small.

  When he entered level P3, his car was there … but hers was not.

  She’d outwitted him. Used the Sandton City trip as a ruse, and now she’d gone. She could be anywhere in Jo’burg and he had failed in the simplest of tasks, to dispose of a single, helpless woman.

  Graeme realised he was sweating under his leather jacket. He didn’t dare take it off though, because he was carrying one of Lance’s firearms and the rule was when you were carrying, you wore a jacket at all times. He might have exaggerated about his marksmanship talents – certainly, compared to Lance’s skill, he was an amateur who’d only done shooting for a hobby. He might also have lied about having shot and killed someone, when Lance had asked. He hadn’t. He had aimed a gun in anger but he’d never fired it, although he knew Lance had done so. And more than once. It was, after all, his livelihood.

  And now he wouldn’t have the chance. His opportunity to become a full-time member of their team was gone.

  Graeme ran a hand through his short, thinning hair and got back into the car, settling himself down with a heavy, defeated sigh before starting it up and driving out of Sandton City and straight into the slow-moving traffic that went all the way down to the corner of West and 5th, where the lights were not working.

  Inching along in the queue, Graeme realised he was going to have to phone Lance and let him know that he had failed. What reason he was going to give, he had no idea. There was no excuse for his incompetence.

  He took his cellphone out of his pocket and was about to dial the number when a woman’s voice, coming from behind his driver’s seat, said sharply to him, ‘If you want to live, put the phone down and keep your hands on the wheel.’

  29

  Graeme let out a frightened yelp. He couldn’t help it. What the hell? She was there, in his car, hiding behind the driver’s seat, and she was threatening him.

  Not for long. In this traffic … if he put the handbrake on and undid his seatbelt … he could have his gun aimed at her before she even had a chance to open the car door and run again.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking of doing,’ she pre-empted him in the same icy voice. ‘Let me demonstrate to you why it’s a bad idea.’

  The next moment a deafening explosion shattered his world and the vehicle was filled with the distinctive cordite-like stench that accompanied every gunshot.

  He shouted again and this time the sound was of pure terror. Holy God, she had a weapon. That changed everything. How come she was armed? Lance had stated categorically that he hadn’t seen her carrying a firearm.

  He glanced down and almost pissed himself when he saw where the bullet had gone. Just right of his ribcage, stuffing erupted from a hole where it had punched through the back of the seat and then re-entered so close to his knee that … if he’d moved an inch before she fired … well, it would have shattered his kneecap instead of embedding itself harmlessly in the car’s undercarriage.

  He broke into a sweat as he held onto the steering wheel, grasping it as tightly as a frightened tourist who had strayed into the bad side of town might have held onto his wallet.

  ‘Don’t shoot me,’ he pleaded, his voice thin and squeaky.

  ‘I ran downstairs instead of up when I left the car park,’ she told him. ‘I went to P4 and waited there while you went into the square. Then I moved my car. I didn’t drive it far. It’s parked on level one now. The ladies are busy washing it.’

  ‘I see,’ he said. The conversation was surreal. And then his body went rigid as he felt her hand scrabbling under his leather jacket. Efficiently, she removed from its holster the firearm Lance had given him.

  Now she had two weapons and he had none.

  Graeme found himself blinking stinging rivulets of sweat out of his eyes.

  ‘I’m telling you all this to explain my situation. My vehicle is being attended to, so I need a ride. You’re going to take me where I want to go.’

  ‘Where’s that?’

  ‘To your friends. The two guys who have Harris.’

  ‘But I …’

  ‘They hired you, right?’

  ‘What …?’

  ‘One or both of them was hired by somebody to do a job and they brought you on board too. Am I correct?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Traffic was thinning now. He arrived at the intersection. Looked left and right, as if obeying that basic road safety rule would go any way towards saving his skin when there was a maniac sharpshooter bitch with two loaded firearms just a seat’s width away from him.

  ‘Who hired them?’

  Oh, crap, a question he couldn’t answer. He felt his bowels loosen.

  ‘I swear to God I don’t know. I’d tell you if I did; I’m not suicidal, OK? All I know is Lance is paying me five grand to help out.’

  ‘What were you supposed to do to me?’

  ‘I was supposed to …’ How could he tell the truth; yet how could he lie when she’d already found his firearm? ‘They told me I should shoot you if I had the chance. Otherwise, follow you and tell them where you were. That was what I was planning to do,’ he finished hurriedly.

  ‘Have you ever killed a woman before?’

  ‘I’ve never killed anyone. There was this one guy … I used to be a bouncer, OK? He was drunk and disorderly and we threw him out, but things got out of hand and he suffered a brain injury and never came right. We went down for it together, Lance and I, both did five years in Modderbee. But to be honest, he was the one who booted the guy in the head.’

  �
��You think you could have done it? Pulled the trigger? For five grand?’

  ‘I don’t know.’ He was breathless now. Shaking all over.

  ‘My advice is don’t. It changes you inside. Once you’d pulled that trigger, you’d never have been able to go back.’

  ‘I … I see.’

  ‘Now, phone your friends. Tell them exactly what I tell you to say, and sound normal. No funny business, no code words. I’ll know from your voice and the next bullet will be in the back. But first, a question. The elderly man you guys shot at in Randburg. You do know he was killed?’

  ‘I … I know Lance fired his weapon at him. And I know he’s a crack shot. He does target practice every week at the range.’

  ‘Does he now? And the black man?’

  ‘He’s good. Experienced, but not at the same level.’

  Shit, he was spilling his guts to her. The woman fell silent, as if digesting his words.

  ‘That changes my impression of your setup. It doesn’t change what I’m going to do to you if I suspect any funny business is going on when you speak to Lance. If this gun has the same ammo as his, it means there’s some fancy hollow-points loaded. When I shoot you, the bullet will shatter your spine, leaving you paralysed from that point down. Then it will tumble through your gut like a miniature chainsaw so you’ll be able to see your intestines spread out all over the steering wheel.’

  ‘I won’t … oh, Jesus. We don’t have any code words.’

  ‘Didn’t think you’d need any?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell them you’ve got me in the car. Tell them you caught me in the garage and knocked me out and you’re bringing me through because you can’t do it. Tell them you want one of them to pull the trigger.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Phone now. And I want the call on speakerphone so I can hear both sides.’

  With slippery hands, Graeme scrolled through the phone log to make the call he’d so nearly started a couple of minutes ago, before his whole world had changed.

  ‘You get her?’ Lance’s voice. Excited, expectant.

  ‘Caught her running in the parking garage.’

  ‘And? Where’s the bitch’s body?’

  Lance, no! Lady, don’t shoot me, please don’t shoot me …

  ‘She was knocked out when I tackled her. Her head hit the floor really hard.’ Graeme swallowed, praying he sounded normal. In the circumstances, though, he guessed it wouldn’t matter if he sounded a little excited. Lance would surely expect it. ‘After that I kicked her in the guts a couple of times and loaded her up in the car. I can’t … I’m too nervous to shoot. I’d rather bring her to you.’

  ‘This is not what I paid you for.’

  ‘You haven’t paid me yet.’

  ‘Well, bring her here and let’s sort it out.’ Lance sounded disgusted.

  ‘Where’s here?’

  ‘At the guy’s place. We caught him here and we kept him here. Number… um … sixty-seven Vantage Street in Northcliff.’

  ‘I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.’

  ‘The gate’s open. Drive straight in.’

  Lance hung up and Graeme waited, breathless, for the woman to comment on their conversation. His entire midsection felt as if it was on fire. Thanks to his fevered imagination, every nerve ending was anticipating the devastation of the tumbling bullet.

  She didn’t say anything until he was turning right off Jan Smuts Avenue and into Gleneagles Road, by which time Graeme was a bag of nerves. When she touched his right thigh he jumped so badly he nearly hit his head on the roof of the car. But all she was doing was removing his wallet.

  ‘Graeme de Villiers. You still live at 23a Garden Clusters in Bracken-downs, Alberton?’

  ‘Y–yes.’

  An expensive walled complex with bond repayments that were just about crippling him. Ironic that he’d paid so much for security when he knew he would never feel truly safe there again.

  ‘With your family? These blonde kids yours?’

  His little angels. Now fear sank its talons deep into him.

  ‘Please …’ he whispered.

  ‘Don’t worry. Just getting a clearer picture of how things are for you, Graeme. Now, when we get to where we’re going, you will park and wait in the driveway until I get out of the vehicle. Then you will drive away. Immediately. Understand?’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Whose car is this?’

  ‘Lance’s.’

  ‘You might as well keep it then.’ The dismissive way in which she said the words made his blood run cold.

  ‘Why haven’t they killed Harris yet?’ she asked. ‘Seeing as how they’re not shy about pulling the trigger. Why isn’t he dead?’

  ‘They … wanted to …’

  ‘To ask him where I was?’

  ‘No, no. They wanted to question him. He has to tell them where the woman is. The journalist, the one who lives in the Randburg house.’

  ‘They haven’t got her yet?’ She sounded over-casual and Graeme wondered whether this was new information to her, or something she’d known all along.

  ‘Not yet. They think she’s in hiding. That’s all I know.’ Was it a test? All he could do was tell her the truth, as far as he was able to.

  He drove on. Through Greenside, across Barry Hertzog, winding his way alongside the Emmarentia parkland until he reached Beyers Naudé Avenue and turned right. Another five minutes and he was in Northcliff, obeying the GPS diligently as it directed him up increasingly hilly and zigzagging roads.

  He knew he should be relieved that they were almost there, but instead he felt like vomiting. Up until now he’d been useful to her. Once they had reached their destination he knew all too well that his usefulness would have come to an end. In fact, he would become a liability.

  He wondered what his guts would look like splattered all over the steering wheel and the thought made black spots start looming at the edges of his vision.

  With an effort, he forced himself to breathe.

  ‘This is the house,’ he said. He eased the car up the steep and winding driveway towards the house, which was a split-level mansion, set well back from the road in a large, treed garden.

  Graeme parked next to the white truck, which now had different plates.

  He heard a whine as she buzzed the window down. And then he saw Sipho, the black guy, walking out of the front door. Sipho was holding his gun unholstered. He looked pissed off, as if he couldn’t be bothered with a subordinate who hadn’t had the guts to do a proper job.

  For a brief moment, Graeme was unutterably relieved that he would never be working with these two men again.

  Then came another massive bang from the seat behind him. The sound burst out of the car and bounced back off the tall walls of the house. A bullet hole appeared in the centre of Sipho’s forehead. He stumbled forward and fell, flopping limply down three of the steps before coming to rest on the neat face-brick paving of the driveway.

  Just like that. She had killed him just like that.

  His hands fell from the wheel and he stared blindly ahead. Waiting for what he knew was going to come.

  ‘Thanks, Graeme,’ the woman said. He heard the door behind him snick open. ‘Don’t get involved in a setup like this again. It’s not worth it. And now you’d better go to hospital and get that leg seen to.’

  ‘But there’s nothing wrong with my …’

  At which point there was a third explosion. Graeme screamed with all his might as her bullet punched its way through the meat of his right calf.

  The car door slammed and then she was gone.

  30

  Jade sprinted for cover, dodging past the body of the young black man she’d just killed. She heard the grinding of gears as Graeme drove out, manoeuvring the car with some difficulty thanks to his injured leg.

  In her right hand she held the gun she’d taken from the old man’s house. She’d fired it five times now. Once yesterday when she’d tested it. Once thro
ugh the seat of Graeme’s car. Once into the forehead of the black man, once into Graeme’s calf. Then she’d fired one further shot, which she regarded as a form of insurance. That left a single round in the chamber before she had to start using the other, untested gun with the souped-up bullets.

  She was trembling now, with nervous energy and with fear. All she wanted to do was get out of here. Get away. Hide. Forget about the way that the black guy had crumpled to the ground. One minute alive, breathing, his mind filled with thoughts and feelings, plans and dreams, even if those plans and dreams had included putting a bullet into the unconscious woman he’d imagined was in the car. Even if he’d been a well-trained and cold-minded ex-army operator about to commit a cold-blooded act.

  The next minute, dead. His life simply and brutally stopped.

  She hadn’t known his name, and she was glad about that. It was easier to kill somebody if you knew nothing about them.

  Now, though, serious danger lay ahead. Lance was still alive and he was the skilled one, the sharpshooter. He hadn’t come running out when he’d heard the shots. Perhaps he hadn’t suspected anything was up. On the other hand, Lance might well have ordered that no shots be fired in this suburban neighbourhood, where police and security could arrive in a matter of minutes. He might have planned for them to drive somewhere else before ‘disposing’ of her.

  Multiple gunshots in this upmarket suburban area meant they had only minutes before security forces arrived. Jade was certain of that. So, if she could just stay alive long enough …

  Lance had killed the pensioner deliberately and without compunction. For the hell of it; for the joy of it; because he could. That meant she needed to put him down fast and efficiently. Which meant that asking questions would either be difficult or impossible. Always assuming that her hands would stop shaking for long enough to allow her to aim her stolen weapon.

  In front of the white truck she saw Harris’s car. The driver’s door was still open from when they’d dragged him out. Out of the car and inside the house … and then where?

  Jade edged her way to the open front door, listened, and stepped quietly inside. The house was light and bright and airy and absolutely quiet. No sound anywhere apart from the regular ticking of a large grandfather clock on the far wall. She pressed herself against the wall next to it and waited, trying to calm her breathing and slow down her thoughts. She was experienced in most of the areas her work got her involved in, but she didn’t have enough mileage in situations like this. An ex-Special Ops soldier or mercenary, anyone who’d received such prolonged and specific training would have a huge advantage over her.