Cobra

by Deon Meyer

  The general stood aside so they could bundle him through the door.

  Two more men sat inside, both coloured. They looked up. ‘Ja, that’s him,’ one of them said.

  Big room, one wall was just TV monitors, a number of radios were recharging on long workbenches down the walls. A double door right at the back, and a single door just here, beside the map of the V&A against the wall. Photos of people, low resolution, as if they were printouts of TV screen shots, on a noticeboard beside a handwritten notice saying NO TIME SHEETS, NO PAY!!!! Tyrone saw his picture there. Maybe four months old, he was in just black chinos and a black T-shirt. Summer time.

  He was fucked. More adrenaline, more fear shot through his body.

  Muscles let go of his arm and the relief was instant. His rucksack was pulled off, and Pimples shoved him into a chair. The general took the rucksack, came to stand in front of him, feet planted wide. Pimples and Muscles covered the door like two soldiers on guard.

  ‘Check this,’ one of the coloureds in front of the TV monitors said to him. Sneering.

  There was Tyrone standing beside the Mediterranean beauty, the hairpin in front of her, frozen and beautifully zoomed in on the screen.

  From a camera that he had never seen.

  ‘Call the SAPS,’ said the general.

  ‘So I wanted to give her back her hairpin,’ Tyrone spoke in desperation.

  ‘And now her wallet is in your trouser pocket,’ said the general. ‘And we’re going to leave it right there, until the police come. So they can get your fingerprints nicely. Call them, Freddie. And tell Vannie to bring the girl in, she probably still doesn’t know she’s been robbed.’

  ‘She dropped the wallet, look there on your cameras,’ said Tyrone. If only he could gain some time . . .

  Freddie was one of the guards who were sitting at the monitors. He picked up a phone. They listened in silence as he reported the whole thing.

  ‘Police on their way,’ said Freddie, his eyes searching the screens. ‘But the girl . . . I don’t see her . . .’

  Two minutes later it was not the police who came.

  20

  It was an odd noise that came from the direction of the door, almost like an asthmatic cough, then a low, sick sound. Pimples dropped like a sack of potatoes. Tyrone felt a spattering on his face.

  A cartridge clinked on the bare floor.

  Blood ran out of Pimples’s head.

  That sound again, and Muscles went down, right beside him. The same story.

  Tyrone saw the man appear in the doorway. The pistol, the long black silencer. The general looked around, indignant that his authority was being undermined. Another quiet shot. The general collapsed. The delicate metallic sound of a bullet cartridge against the wall, then the floor.

  It was surreal. Tyrone felt he wasn’t really there, he was paralysed, a mingling of fear and shock and relief. ‘Jirre,’ he said, and looked at the shooter, who now stood directly in front of him. A coloured man under a faded grey baseball cap, eyes like an eagle, all-seeing, looking through you. A fleeting thought: Who is this guy? Had he come to rescue him? Why was he shooting everyone?

  The pistol swung towards Tyrone.

  The security men at the TVs screamed.

  The firearm was aimed at Tyrone, between his eyes.

  Freddie jumped up, rushed towards the shooter.

  Pistol swung away, to Freddie.

  Tyrone did not think, it was just a sudden knowing: One chance.

  He dived blindly, under and past the gunman, grabbing the rucksack beside the general. It snagged, he looked back, a strap was looped around the general’s arm. Everything happened in a weird slow motion, like someone was holding back time. Freddie screamed, then the scream was cut off sharply. Freddie fell. Tyrone let go of the rucksack, because the shooter was turning towards him. He leaped at the door, adrenaline giving him strength and speed. The pistol was pointed at him again. He was at the door. The pistol coughed as he kicked off to the left, and out, he felt the burning pain across his shoulder blades. He was shot. He screamed, and ran the way they had brought him in. Jirre, Thank God for the sharp turns in the passage. One, two, and then the steps were ahead.

  Up the stairs, yelling in terror. The second to last step hooked his foot, he fell forwards, reached out his hands to fend off the closed door. He banged his head hard, a thundering, against the wood, just above his right eye. Scurried to his feet, half dizzy, grabbed the door, jerked it open. He heard the footsteps behind him, ducked instinctively and suddenly as he went out, a bullet smacked against the door jamb. He was outside, he ran to the people, the tourists, he ran as he had never run before. He didn’t look back, he sidestepped suddenly left, then right, he ran till he was in the midst of the crowd, he kept running, weaving between them. He felt blood run down his face, and down his back. Through the wide esplanade, into Mitchell’s Waterfront Brewery, right through to the kitchen, people standing dumbfounded. He ran out of the back door, turned right, up the steps to Dock Road.

  He wiped his hand over the blood, to get it out of his eyes.

  He felt his back was soaking wet. The gunshot wound was bleeding.

  He ran right in front of a car on Dock Road, tyres screeching. hooter blaring, it only just missed him. He ran over the central island, down to the Granger Bay car park, running right through, between parked cars, then took the stairs to the Coast Road level.

  Outside. Turn right, his chest was on fire. He looked back. Saw no one.

  Ran across the street, through the gate at Somerset Hospital, then through the big wooden doors.

  Someone at the reception desk shouted after him.

  He ran past, down the long cold corridors, past frowning nurses, and out of the back.

  Hospital grounds.

  He kept directly south, ran around buildings, past cars. Looked back again.

  Nobody.

  He saw the ruins, a building half demolished. Abandoned. He aimed for it, into it.

  He found a dark room with no windows. He staggered against the wall, his breathing like a bullet train, sweat pouring off him. Loose bricks, broken planks in the worn floor. The stink of cat piss.

  He picked up a length of wood, like a truncheon.

  He turned to face the door-less opening, raising the wood high, and stood there waiting, gasping.

  On Facebook Lithpel Davids found eighty-seven people with the surname of Alvarez, of whom only one had the first name Lillian.

  ‘At least we know it’s most likely a woman,’ he said drily.

  Cupido was still sitting back, not participating, while Benny Griessel and Lithpel went down the list. To number twenty-two. Beside the small photo and an icon of a house it said Cambridge.

  ‘That one,’ said Griessel.

  David clicked.

  A Facebook page opened up. A big photograph on top showed a kitten sleeping on the keyboard of a laptop. A smaller photo beside her name showed a young woman in her twenties, with long black hair and a sultry dark beauty.

  ‘Looks like a Spanish dolly,’ said Lithpel.

  Griessel did not hear him, his eyes scanned further down: below ‘Work and Education’ it stated Research Fellow at Applied and Computational Analysis (ACA) at DAMTP. He said, ‘That’s her.’

  For the first time Cupido sat up straight. He looked at the screen. ‘I don’t like this.’

  Griessel waited for him to explain. It took a while.

  ‘Is this Adair married?’ Cupido asked at last.

  ‘The Consulate said he’s divorced.’ And then he remembered Emma Graber’s little games, and how positively she had passed on that information. As though she didn’t want them making further enquiries.

  ‘I’m calling Bones,’ said Griessel.

  Tyrone Kleinbooi stood with the piece of wood in the air for a long time.

  But nobody came.

  His hands and knees began to shake uncontrollably.

  He lowered the plank slowly. He felt his face. The blood had be
gun to clot. He put the wood down without making a sound, and stretched an arm around his back. His jersey was torn across his back. Wet. Sore, but not unbearably so.

  He sat down, his ears still pricked. His heart hammered and his body trembled slightly.

  Shock. He was in shock. So this is what it feels like. He let his head drop, tried to slow his breathing down. He would survive, for now. I survived, Uncle Solly. Escaped. And then he thought of his rucksack, and the blows began to hit home. His cellphone. All the cash from this morning’s work. The video. The radios that had crackled . . .

  They were going to find the cellphone, the police. They would see there was only one name and number in the address book. Nadia’s. If the police phoned with it, she would say: ‘Hello, Tyrone.’

  Then they would have him.

  He had to go back. He had to get the rucksack before they came.

  It was too late. His face was bloody, and his back, and his clothes.

  He was large as life on that TV screen, the image frozen. His photo on that noticeboard.

  When the police walked in, they would see it. They would play the whole video back, of how he stole the wallet.

  There were other security guards at the V&A who would have heard over the radios that they had caught the pickpocket. That they had taken him to Security.

  Everyone would think that he had done the shooting. They would put his face on national TV, and in the papers. Crazy pickpocket killer on the loose. Police all over the country would be hunting him.

  Nadia would see all of that.

  Jirre.

  He would have to phone her. He would have to tell her some story. A story she would believe.

  He had to steal a phone. Quickly. He would have to lie low. Quickly.

  But first he had to get to his room, and wash, and put on clean clothes, and get his cash stash.

  He better get going.

  Bones let them carry on while he searched for information. He found it. ‘No, Adair is not married. That’s what Wikipedia says, nè. A bachelor.’

  Griessel relayed the information.

  ‘OK, so maybe she isn’t his skelmpie,’ said Cupido. ‘But still. Check out that chick, pappie. She’s fokken prime, she works with the donner, and she arrives here in the Cape saying: “Come into my arms, you bundle of charms.” Doesn’t that make you wonder?’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘About the whole thing, Benna.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘There’s a lot that doesn’t make sense in this thing. I mean, nothing quite fits. So I think it’s time that we consider a few alternative theories. Let’s say he’s the one who did the shooting. I mean, Benna, we really don’t know what went down there on the slave plantation.’

  Griessel wondered if Cupido was being deliberately obtuse because he was still unhappy that they hadn’t taken him into their confidence. ‘Why would he shoot them?’ he asked. ‘The people looking after him?’

  ‘It’s not as wild as you think, Benna. This guy has his hands on the whole financial system. Now that’s a very big temptation, doesn’t matter who you are. And he’s an expert, he knows how the whole system works. How difficult can it be to skim off the top. Just tell the system, just pay me two cents off every transaction, and I’m telling you, within months you’re a millionaire. Huh, Lithpel, that’s possible?’

  ‘Pothible, but they will catch you, thooner rather than later.’

  ‘And that’s my whole point,’ said Cupido.

  Griessel tried to object, but Cupido held his hand up in the air. ‘Just hear me out, Benna. With an open mind. Let’s say it’s something like this. Let’s say the professor had a big scheme, and he planned it a long time ago. And he knew, sooner or later, someone would realise it. You have to leave tracks, I mean, everyone knows you’re the guy who wrote this software. They know you’ve got your fingers in the pie, you’ll be suspect, eventually. So you build an exit strategy . . .’

  ‘Hell,Vaughn, I think that’s . . .’

  ‘No, Benna. Here we have an academic who suddenly has a false passport? How? I don’t buy it. Here’s this innocent professor who has a whole other Morris identity, and he makes his Gmail cleaner than a virgin’s conscience? I mean, come on. Here’s a man who for months protests about terrorists and organised crime, and then he goes suspiciously quiet? Here’s a middle-aged bok with a pretty young thing, but what can he offer her? A university salary? I don’t think so. And I ask you, where’s the soft spot in the whole bodyguards and safe house set-up? Inside, pappie. You’d never see it coming . . .’

  ‘But what about the cobra on the . . .’

  Griessel’s cellphone rang. He took it out of his jacket pocket.

  UNKNOWN.

  He answered. ‘Griessel.’

  ‘I have information for you about David Patrick Adair. I will call you back in two minutes. Make sure you are alone.’

  In the lecture hall Nadia felt the vibration of her phone. She peeped, saw it was Tyrone phoning. Three times.

  She waited for nine minutes, until the lecture was over. Then she walked out and phoned him.

  ‘Hello?’ an unfamiliar voice.

  ‘Who is this?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m the guy who picked up this phone on the street. I called you, because your number is the only one on here.’ It was an accent she could not place, but the man sounded polite.

  ‘Oh,’ she said.‘It’s my brother’s phone. Where did you pick it up?’

  ‘Here in the city. He must have dropped it – it was just lying there. Where can I contact him?’

  ‘You are a good person,’ she said.‘I . . . His phone is the only way . . .’

  ‘Sorry, what is your name?’

  ‘Nadia.’

  ‘OK, Nadia, I can take the phone to him. Where does he work?’

  ‘I . . . He’s on a painting contract, somewhere in the Bo-Kaap. I’m not sure . . .’

  ‘I’m flying out today, so I would really like to get it to him.’

  ‘That is very nice of you. Uh, let me . . . Can I give you his home address? He has a . . . There might be people at home, at the place where he has a room. Or you can drop it in the mailbox or something?’

  ‘Of course. What is your brother’s name?’

  21

  Griessel walked out into the corridor. The voice over the phone was a woman’s, full of self-confidence and authority. Speaking in Afrikaans. About something to which only the Hawks and the British Consulate were privy. It made no sense.

  His cellphone rang again. He answered quickly. ‘Griessel.’

  ‘Are you alone?’The same voice.

  ‘Ja.’

  ‘Let me just tell you up front, you can try to track these calls, but it won’t work.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘Your name is Benny Griessel. You’re a captain in the Directorate of Priority Crimes Investigation in Bellville. You have an eighty-three per cent crime solving rate, but you have a serious drinking problem. Your ex-wife’s name is Anna Maria, your children are Carla and Fritz. In 2006 and in 2009 you were involved in disciplinary hearings with the SAPS. Every time you were acquitted. You have three outstanding traffic fines against your name.’

  He said nothing, felt deeply uneasy.

  ‘The point is, I have access to information. That is all you have to know. If you doubt my trustworthiness, ask me a question.’

  ‘Who are you?’

  ‘Call me Joni.’

  ‘Joni who?’

  ‘Joni Mitchell.’

  ‘The singer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  He had never been crazy about Joni Mitchell, she hardly ever used decent bass guitar. But he just said ‘OK’, because he smelled Intelligence Services. Spooks.

  ‘Your only problem is, you can’t talk about these calls. Not to anybody. If I hear you blabbing, they will stop. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You should also know, this is not one-way traffic. I give a lit
tle, you give a little. Understand?’

  ‘It will depend on what you give.’

  ‘Naturally. I will give what I can, when I can . . .’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Good question. Because I want to. That is all I am going to say.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘Here is an example so long: last night at 20.42, the British High Commissioner in Pretoria asked via the Department of International Relations and Cooperation for a talk with the Minister of State Security. This meeting took place at ten o’clock at the minister’s house. The rumour is that you are going to receive an order not to proceed with the investigation.’

  ‘Someone will have to investigate it . . .’

  ‘SSA. The State Security Agency is going to take it over.’

  ‘That is . . . It doesn’t work like that.’ But his guts started to contract, nobody was going to take this case away from him.

  ‘We’ll see,’ said Joni. ‘I don’t have much time. Emma Graber told you about the Adair Algorithm.’ It was a statement, not a question.

  Now he was sure that Joni was a Spook. ‘Yes.’

  ‘It’s an old trick. Divulge part of the information to create a false trail. There is more, Captain. According to my information, Adair loaded a new version of the algorithm into the international banking system some time in the past six weeks, without permission.’

  He waited, but she said nothing more. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What is different about the algorithm?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  He thought of Cupido’s theory, and he wondered suddenly whether he had something there. ‘Would Adair have . . . Could he channel money out of the system?’

  She was silent for a moment. ‘It’s an interesting theory,’ she said with a measure of respect. ‘And surely a possibility . . . Now you must give me something. The correct email address that Adair used as Morris.’