Cobra

by Deon Meyer

‘Later, Mbali,’ said Griessel. ‘We have very little time. The SSA are on their way . . .’

  ‘Shit,’ said Cupido.

  ‘The SSA?’ asked Mbali in disbelief. ‘The State Security Agency?’

  ‘Please, everybody. We’ll talk later. Right now we need to look at that footage. Quickly, Lithpel, play it back.’

  Tyrone walked up and down the Company Gardens path. Once again Nadia had forgotten to turn her phone back on. Not for the first time.

  He phoned again.

  It rang. For a long time.

  His heart sank more. He was going to get voicemail again.

  Then she answered. ‘Hello?’ and he could hear in that single word that something was wrong. The cops had already phoned her.

  ‘Nadia, it’s me. I can explain, doesn’t matter what they told you, it’s not true . . .’ He heard something on the line, a hiss, as if Nadia were in a car.

  ‘They’ve got me, boetie . . .’ There was fear in her voice, fear as he had never heard it, and his gut contracted.

  ‘The cops?’

  ‘Is this Tyrone?’ A man’s voice. But it wasn’t a cop accent.

  ‘Who’s this?’

  ‘Tyrone, I have Nadia, and you have something I want. If you give it to me, we will let her go. If you don’t, I will shoot her, right between the eyes. Do you understand this?’

  Tyrone began to shake uncontrollably. ‘I don’t have anything . . .’

  ‘You stole a wallet at the Waterfront this morning.’

  He said nothing.

  ‘Do you have the wallet on you now?’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘Why are you being funny, Tyrone. Do you want me to hurt your sister?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you have the wallet on you now?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I want you to look in the wallet. There should be a memory card in there.’

  His heart leaped. A memory card? There was no memory card there. ‘There’s just cash and credit cards . . .’ he said.

  ‘I want you to look very carefully,Tyrone. Take your time.’

  ‘You will stay on the line?’

  ‘I will stay on the line.’

  He sat down on a garden bench, put his cellphone down beside him, took out the wallet. Trembling, his fingers riffled through the cash. There was nothing slipped between the notes.

  The wallet had three flaps for bank cards. He went through each one.

  He found it in the back flap, when he pushed his fingers into a sleeve that seemed empty from the outside at first. He pulled it out.

  A blue card, light and thin. Verbatim SDXC. 64GB.

  He grabbed the phone. ‘I have it.’

  ‘I want you to look at the card,Tyrone.’

  ‘I’m looking.’

  ‘That card is your sister’s life. If you lose it, she dies. If you break it, she dies. If you damage it in any way, and I can’t read the data, I will kill your sister. I will shoot her right between the eyes . . .’

  ‘Please!’ screamed Tyrone, and squeezed the memory card tightly in his hand. ‘I will give it to you.’

  ‘That’s good. Where are you now?’

  ‘I’m in the Gardens.’

  ‘Where is that?’

  ‘In Cape Town.’

  ‘That’s good. Did you call your sister from a mobile?’

  ‘A cellphone. Yes.’

  ‘And you will keep this phone with you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you will keep it on?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That is good,Tyrone. I will call you.’

  ‘When?’ he asked with fear in his voice.

  But the line was already dead.

  Mbali, Griessel, and Cupido watched Sergeant Lithpel Davids play the video back for them. They saw Knippies, the pickpocket, catch up with Lillian and attract her attention. He held the hair clip up in front of her while his right hand fiddled with her handbag.

  Smooth as silk, and fast. They observed the thief’s skill, the woman’s nervousness.

  ‘Lithpel, stop. What did he steal out of the handbag?’

  Davids rewound the video. They watched again, but the pickpocket’s hand was too fast. The item could not be identified.

  ‘Try slow motion,’ said Cupido.

  ‘Won’t help,’ said Lithpel, but he did it.

  The stolen item was still only a light brown, fast-moving blur behind the thief’s hand.

  ‘It’s a package of some sort,’ said Mbali.

  ‘Play it further,’ said Griessel.

  The camera turned slowly to follow Knippies when he walked away, showing how the two security guards grabbed him and escorted him to the shopping centre door, until they disappeared out of the image.

  ‘That bro is a pro,’ said Cupido. ‘But they all get caught in the end.’

  ‘You see that screen there?’ asked Mbali, and pointed at one of the smaller CCTV screens.

  ‘Yes,’ said Lithpel.

  ‘Can you get the video to play back to the time of the crime?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘We’ll have to hurry,’ said Griessel.

  Lithpel operated the mouse, moved the cursor on the computer screen. A new image appeared on the main screen – the scene in the corridor of the shopping centre outside the control room – and then became a comical fast-moving blur of people hurrying backwards when he rewound it at high speed. In the bottom corner a time indicator ran back just as fast.

  ‘Around nine o’clock,’ said Mbali.

  Lithpel rewound past the two officials bringing Knippies in. He stopped the video, fast forwarded, missed it again. ‘Dammit,’ he said, then found the right moment and played it back.

  The time code said 08:49:09:01. The guards pushed and pulled Knippies, the pickpocket’s arm pressed up high against his back.

  ‘Now just let it roll.’

  ‘We don’t have time,’ said Griessel. ‘Can you speed it up a bit?’

  ‘OK.’

  The speed doubled. The three people disappeared, camera left.

  Shoppers hurried past. Everyone on a linear path to the inside or outside.

  Only one man walked diagonally across the walkway, in the direction of the door. Disappeared.

  ‘Stop,’ said Mbali. ‘That guy.’

  Lithpel manipulated the video, wound it back, played it at normal speed.

  The man was athletic, tall, light brown complexion. Black wind-cheater, his right hand in his pocket. The head in the baseball cap was subtly but unmistakably bowed, as though he was aware of the cameras. At 08:49:31:17.

  ‘That’s him,’ said Cupido.

  ‘I don’t know . . .’ said Griessel.

  ‘That’s him, pappie,’ said Cupido.

  ‘Who?’ asked Mbali.

  ‘The Cobra.’

  She drew a sharp breath to ask something, but Griessel pre-empted her.

  ‘I’ll tell you everything later,’ he said, and looked at his watch. ‘Lithpel, speed it up. I want to see who comes out.’

  Fast forward. Just over five minutes later, and a dark figure sped diagonally across the walkway. ‘There he is,’ said Lithpel. He worked the console, found the right point. 08:55:02:51. Normal speed. Knippies ran, long skinny legs stretched, arms pumping.

  ‘Stop,’ said Griessel, and leaned closer. ‘Can you make it sharper.’

  ‘No,’ said Lithpel. ‘Motion blur, nothing you can do.’

  ‘OK,’ said Griessel.

  ‘Play it, Sergeant,’ said Mbali.

  Lithpel let the video run. Knippies disappeared from camera range. And then the man in the baseball cap ran across the image. With a rucksack in his hand.

  ‘Look,’ said Mbali.

  ‘Wait,’ said Griessel. He raised his hands, as though to make everything stand still for a moment. He closed his eyes for a moment, thinking over what they had here, and what lay ahead.

  His colleagues looked at him expectantly.

  Griessel opened his ey
es. ‘Vaughn, the passage door out there. See if it locks from inside. If the SSA come, delay them for as long as possible.’

  Cupido smiled happily and left in a hurry.

  ‘Lithpel, can you hide the videos? Or put them on a system where only you can find them?’

  ‘The files are too big, Cappie, we don’t have time. All I can do now is delete them.’

  ‘Do it.’

  ‘Benny, that’s tampering with evidence,’ said Mbali, deeply concerned.

  ‘Mbali, we’ve already seen the evidence. The SSA are not criminal investigators.’

  ‘You will be in trouble.’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Lithpel, erase the videos.’

  ‘Roger, Cappie.’

  They heard someone hammering on the door.

  Griessel moved fast. He took his iPhone out of his pocket. ‘Does your phone have a camera?’ he asked Mbali.

  ‘Yes.’

  Griessel aimed his cellphone at the notice board and took a picture of Knippies. ‘If you could take the same photo? Just in case . . .’

  ‘OK,’ she said, and dug in her handbag.

  Bellowing, indignant voices out in the corridor.

  Suddenly the doorway darkened. ‘Everybody out,’ said the herd leader of the State Security Agency. ‘Right now.’

  28

  Tyrone sat curled up on the bench in the Company Gardens, cellphone and wallet in one hand, memory card clutched in the other. He scarcely heard the footsteps that shuffled up to him, and only properly registered when the shadow fell across him.

  ‘Brother,’ came the voice abruptly, making Tyrone jump.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Askies, brother, I didn’t know you were meditating.’

  It was a bergie, a little, crumpled man, bent right over. The tramp’s apologetic grin was nearly toothless.

  Tyrone was back in reality. He stood up, pushed the wallet and cellphone instinctively and hastily into his pocket as he walked away.

  ‘Now where you going, brother? No offence, five rand for a loaf of bread, children didn’t eat last night, you’ve got it good, I saw.’ The whining words came ever faster as Tyrone walked away. The beggar pursued him. ‘Moenie soe wies nie, brother, hey man, don’t be like that. Show some solidarity, show some charity, just five rand . . .’

  Charity. Tyrone stopped.

  The bergie was startled by this turn of events. He took a step backwards.

  Never forget charity,Tyrone. To ease another’s heartache is to forget one’s own.

  Tyrone took out the wallet. He carefully put the memory card away in its original place. He remembered an Uncle Solly quote: But you don’t just give when you have. A bone to the dog, that’s not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog when you are just as hungry as the dog.

  He took out a fifty-rand note from the stolen wallet and gave it to the man.

  ‘God bless you, brother.’ The little grubby hands made the note disappear like a stage magician, and then he, too, melted away, as though he were afraid Tyrone would regret his lavishness.

  Tyrone began walking towards Queen Victoria Street.

  Keep moving.

  He could think while he walked.

  A pickpocket can’t afford to hang around. Keep moving.

  He could handle the dreadful tension inside better if he was moving.

  OK, so this is what happened. He stole the wrong wallet, on the wrong day.

  It wasn’t a drug deal gone south.

  The mall cops were dead because he stole the wrong wallet, at the wrong time.

  And now they had Nadia. For the same reasons.

  Keep moving.

  It didn’t help to beat himself up over this mess. He had to get Nadia out of there. Then he would worry about himself.

  It was easy. He would just swap the card for his sister.

  Then why are you so afraid?

  He walked along Perth and Vredenburg, towards Long Street.

  He was afraid, because that guy with those eyes, a guy who strolled in so calm and collected and shot mall cops, like one, two, three, four, five, fish in a barrel, no emotions . . . That guy wasn’t going to stand there and say: ‘Thanks, my brother, pleasure doing business with you’. He was going to take his memory card, and he was going to shoot him and his sister just like that.

  He shivered, because he had got Nadia involved in all this. If they laid a finger on his sister . . . His heart beat in his throat. He turned left into Long Street and walked south, towards the mountain.

  Keep moving.

  Get those pictures out of your head. Think.

  Tyrone Kleinbooi slowly suppressed his fears, and he walked, and he thought. He went through the whole thing from the beginning. He must forget about what happened to him, he must get into the mind of the man with the cool eyes, he must get a bird’s-eye view, that’s what he needed.

  He walked over the Buitesingel crossing and up Kloof Street, through the hubbub of students, business people, tourists, slim models, and bergies trying to guide motorists into parking places. He walked to the front of Hudsons The Burger Joint Est. 2009. Then he stopped, his hand resting a moment on the back of his head, deep in thought.

  Tyrone turned around and began running in the opposite direction.

  Griessel drove with Mbali to Schotsche Kloof so that he could tell her everything. He left nothing out.

  It wasn’t easy. She was a painfully law-abiding and over-cautious driver. And she was upset. She interrupted him, shaking her head, over the interference of the State Security Agency, over the ‘colonial tendencies’ of MI6, over the fact that she was an accessory to the destruction of evidence in a robbery and five murders.

  Griessel pressed on. He only finished when they had been parked in front of the house at 18 Ella Street for five minutes, beside the ambulance and the six SAPS patrol vehicles.

  ‘This is completely unacceptable,’ said Mbali.

  ‘I understand. But it is what we have,’ said Griessel.

  ‘This is a democracy,’ she said.

  ‘You think so?’ said Cupido.

  ‘Hhayi!’ said Mbali as if he was committing blasphemy.

  ‘That’s why I asked you to switch off your cellphones at the Waterfront,’ said Griessel. ‘Because I am now absolutely sure they are eavesdropping on our calls, and they can track us. We don’t want them to know we are here. We must remember they have access to exactly the same technology as us, but they don’t need subpoenas. And there’s a good chance our offices are bugged . . .’

  Mbali shook her head.

  ‘We have to assume,’ said Griessel.

  She merely nodded.

  ‘I’ll ask the Green Point SC to suppress the info of the cobra markings on the shell casings. If this shooting,’ Benny pointed at the big house, ‘. . . leads us anywhere, we’ll stay ahead of them.

  ‘Now, let’s talk about what happened at the Waterfront. With the pickpocket, I mean. Mbali how did you see it?’ He hoped Cupido would understand what he was trying to do, and shut up now.

  Mbali was quiet for a long time, her hands on the steering wheel.

  From the back seat Cupido sighed impatiently.

  ‘I think that this Cobra person kidnapped David Adair, and he is still alive.’

  Griessel heard a detached note in her voice. Her usual self-confident matter-of-fact manner was missing.

  ‘OK,’ he said.

  ‘I think Adair contacted Lillian Alvarez, because she had to bring something from Cambridge to Cape Town. Something this Cobra person wants. I think she was going to hand it over to him at the Waterfront, but then the pickpocket stole it.’

  ‘I’m not sure that makes sense,’ said Cupido.

  ‘Why?’ asked Mbali.

  ‘Because that pickpocket is quick. We couldn’t see what he stole, and I saw nobody in that video of the theft itself that looked like the Cobra. So, if he didn’t see, he couldn’t have known.’

  ‘Maybe he spoke to Alvarez just after the wall
et was stolen, and she told him what happened. Maybe he saw it happen, from a distance. Maybe he wasn’t sure what was stolen. We could have seen all that on the other cameras, if we hadn’t destroyed the evidence. And then this Cobra person followed the security officials, he was only about twenty seconds behind them on the video. And he shot everybody. The pickpocket escaped.’

  ‘Maybe . . .’ said Cupido, but he wasn’t convinced.

  Mbali shifted in her seat, eventually, turned to them. ‘The backpack is important,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’ asked Cupido.

  ‘The pickpocket had it on his back when he was arrested. But when he ran out, it was not there. The man who might be this Cobra person was carrying it in his left hand.’

  ‘So?’

  Mbali shrugged.

  Griessel nodded.‘Vaughn? You sound as if you have another theory.’

  ‘There’s no evidence that the Cobra thought Knippies still had the stolen item. Maybe he found what he was looking for, and just ran away from the crime scene . . .’

  ‘He would not have run if he had what he wanted. He’s a professional,’ said Mbali.

  ‘Maybe. But my theory still stands: Adair skimmed money on TFTP. And the Cobra is after the money. Alvarez brought something that said where the money is, or how you can get it. Swiss Bank account number . . .’

  ‘She could have emailed that,’ said Mbali.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Cupido.

  Griessel nodded, and opened the door. ‘Let’s go and see how this fits in with the rest.’

  From the sitting room of the big house, where he sat with the grieving owner, the Green Point SC saw the three detectives approach. In front walked the stout, short Mbali with her big handbag swinging from her shoulder, then the taller Vaughn Cupido in a black coat that made him look a bit like Batman, and then Benny Griessel, in height just nicely in the middle between the Zulu and the coloured man. His tousled hair needed a trim, and he had strange Slavic eyes. Everyone who had been in the Service for more than ten years knew about Griessel, the former Murder and Robbery detective who had once arrived at a murder scene so drunk that they had to load him in the ambulance along with the victim’s corpse.

  These were the Hawks, thought the SC. The crème de la crème. A vetgat, windgat and a dronkgat. The fat, the vain, and the drunk.

  What was going to become of this country?

  Woodstock lies only two kilometres from the heart of Cape Town’s business district.