Cobra

by Deon Meyer

  At 23.52 Mbali pulled the phone from the rubbish.

  It was a Nokia 2700.

  52

  Griessel took his colleagues back to the DPCI headquarters, because Dave Fiedler said there was one call to Tyrone Kleinbooi’s Phone One

  – the device that the Cobras most likely had in their possession now. The number had been active for sixteen minutes in Castle Street, and after that had disappeared off the air.

  ‘Go get some sleep, china. I’ll call you if there’s any action.’

  They met Nyathi down in the basement and informed him of the latest developments.

  The Giraffe gave them the photos of the five possible Cobras that were taken at O. R. Tambo Airport – not very useful, but better than nothing. ‘These are our five famous French authors. Take them with you. Maybe it will help.’

  Griessel agreed with Bones, Cupido and Mbali that they would phone as soon as there was news. It was better to get some sleep. He was going home, his house was only five or ten minutes away from Fiedler, and he would let them know if there was any activity on the numbers.

  Then he drove alone to Alexa’s house, mulling over the events of the past hour or two.

  The pickpocket had deliberately left Phone Two, according to Cupido a ‘prepaid special’ that you could buy at any backstreet cellphone shop for a couple of hundred rand, in a rubbish bin at Brights. Still switched on. As if he knew someone was going to trace the number and try to determine the location of the phone.

  It made sense. Tyrone knew they would find Nadia’s iPhone in the hospital and start analysing it.

  So Tyrone was nobody’s fool. He knew what could be done with technology. And he wanted to make some kind of statement. ‘I’m in Bellville,’ perhaps?

  Only to make the next call from De Waterkant?

  Which was not too far from where Tyrone rented the room in Schotsche Kloof.

  Did he go back to the city, to Bo-Kaap, because he felt at home there? Safe?

  That’s what fugitives from the law often did when the heat was on, when the chase became too intense, and their flight chaotic.

  And shortly after Tyrone had called Nadia, a new, unknown number had called Phone One, now with the Cobras.

  Jissis, thought Benny Griessel. How many phones did the fucker have?

  But then he realised the man was a pickpocket. He had as many phones as he needed.

  And if you were negotiating with a team that walked into the Waterfront in broad daylight and shot dead five security guards in cold blood, you’d want to make doubly sure that they can’t track you down via cellular technology.

  He felt a great sense of determination rising in him. He would have to keep his head, with all the phones, all the technological possibilities. He would have to show he had learned to be a modern-day detective. Even if Cupido called him an ‘old dog’, and Bones joked about the ‘old salts’.

  When he got home, he phoned Dave Fiedler and said he also wanted a complete analysis and monitoring of the number that had called Phone One from Castle Street.

  ‘Sure, china, but the meter is running.’

  ‘Just let me know as soon as there is any activity on any of those phones.’

  He walked through the cold, empty house to the kitchen. The rain drummed fiercely on the roof.

  And suddenly he missed Alexa, her presence, her happiness when she saw him, her embrace, her chatter, every evening so intense and enthusiastic, as if he really mattered. As if she really loved him.

  All this he saw and felt, now that she wasn’t here.

  He took the Woolworths food out of the fridge – chicken and broccoli, his favourite, which she’d bought specially for him – with a pang of guilt about his relief earlier in the day, at the thought of having the house to himself.

  He put the container in the microwave, pinged it on. Two minutes, thirty seconds.

  What was he going to do, between the devil of his self-doubt and his inadequate rascal, and the deep blue sea of his attraction to her? And the pleasure of being with her. She was so . . . full. Full of everything. He sometimes wished her joie de vivre, her intensity, her naivety would infect him.

  She was his perfect polar opposite. He didn’t want to, he dared not, he could not lose her. Despite, everything, he had begun to love her very much. And tonight, after he had regained a measure of relevance as a policeman, as a team member of the Hawks – for the first time in his career – he felt optimism. He wanted this thing with Alexa to work.

  If he could just find a solution to his dilemma.

  Griessel ate his supper.

  When he had finished, rinsed his dishes and put them on the drying rack, he phoned the Louis Leipoldt Hospital. He asked to be put through to the ward where Nadia Kleinbooi lay, identified himself to the night sister, and asked how the patient was.

  ‘We gave her a sleeping pill, Captain. She’s sleeping peacefully.’

  He thanked her and said she must see that the four constables got coffee regularly so that they were awake and alert.

  The night sister said yes, she’d see to that.

  He rang off.

  At least he knew now that there were four uniforms on guard.

  He went to shower, put on his pyjamas, which still smelled faintly of sex. He made sure both his cellphones were on. He set the alarm on the iPhone for seven o’clock, but he suspected Dave Fiedler would call him long before then.

  Then he slept.

  53

  Twenty to six.

  Tyrone woke suddenly from sleep, released from a dream where a man in a grey cap was shooting Nadia, one shot after the other. He felt his sister’s body jerk in his arms, and he tried to shield her with his hands, but it didn’t help, the bullets went right through, leaving big holes in his palms, but there was no blood, only Nadia bled, and then he was awake and a huge wave of relief washed over him.

  Just a dream.

  Had he screamed out loud in his sleep, the way he had heard his own voice in the dream?

  Moments of disorientation, the strange room, sounds of water dripping off a roof outside the window.

  And then, the full onslaught of reality returning. He was here. This was the day he had been preparing for. His body was stiff, his back was sore.

  Was Nadia OK?

  He wanted to phone the hospital straight away.

  But he couldn’t phone from here.

  He got up and walked through to the bathroom.

  Tyrone sat on the end of the bed. He was washed, dressed, packed. He’d taken two Panados already, but the pain still throbbed across his back. The cellphones on the dressing table lay neatly in a row, the pistol next to them.

  Phone the hospital. Hear if Nadia is OK.

  Switch on the phone the guys are going to send the money photo to.

  Twenty past six in the morning? You’re too anxious,Tyrone. Get a grip. Take a deep breath. Don’t fuck this up.

  Turn on the TV. If there was an attack at the hospital, it would be on the news.

  He switched it on. The high, exuberant voices of a children’s programme were suddenly too loud and shrill for the morning silence. He stabbed at the remote’s volume button over and over again until it could barely be heard. Navigated to SABC2 and Morning Live. An interview with a darkie dude that he didn’t know. The news would probably come on at half past.

  Breathe. Go through the schedule.

  He wanted to know if Nadia was OK. Watch the news. If there was nothing, phone later, once he was out of here.

  He must have breakfast, ’cause it was going to be a hectic day.

  He must buy chewing gum, to stick the memory card to.

  He must double-check the train times.

  He must wait for the photos of the money, the suitcase, and the guy.

  And then it was lights, camera, action.

  He looked at the TV screen.

  Twenty-four past six.

  Time stands still when you’re not having fun.

  The iPhone alar
m woke Griessel at seven.

  When he switched it off and lay back for a second, holding the phone, he was grateful for the six hours of unbroken sleep. And then he realised that it meant there had been no action on any of the numbers, and he wondered if his plan was going to work.

  Perhaps none of the cellphones was still in use.

  Wouldn’t that be typical: just when he started getting his head around all the technology, it turns out to be useless.

  He got up, in one restless, uneasy movement, walked to the toilet, lifted the seat, pulled his pyjamas down, aimed, and urinated.

  He suppressed the urge to call Dave Fiedler now.

  If there was news, he would have known.

  He flushed, put the seat down again, and walked to the hand basin. He must finish up and drive over to Fiedler’s.

  News item, four minutes past seven, Morning Live: ‘Western Cape police spokesperson Wilson Bala denied that the SAPS was investigating a shooting that allegedly occurred at Cape Town’s Victoria and Alfred Waterfront yesterday. This, despite claims by family members of Waterfront security personnel, and eyewitness reports of extensive medical and law enforcement presence at the shopping centre yesterday morning. Both the centre management and the Blue Shield security company declined to comment on the matter. The alleged shooting even drew attention in parliament today . . .’

  What the fuck? wondered Tyrone.

  And then a moment of huge relief. His face was not on TV.

  But why not?

  He watched the news until it was over, his thoughts occupied with possible reasons, his heart fearful of news of a hospital shooting.

  It didn’t come.

  But now he wasn’t sure if that meant anything. If the cops were denying that they were investigating a Waterfront shooting? A shooting he had seen with his own eyes.

  What was going on?

  The urge to move, to get going, to gain momentum, overwhelmed him. He must get out of here. He must phone Nadia.

  And then get breakfast, even though he felt queasy now.

  07.27

  Griessel had a coffee mug in his hand and a mouth full of toast with Marmite, when his ZTE phone rang.

  ‘Hello,’ he answered, swallowing quickly.

  ‘China, we’ve just had action. Phone Number Three came alive four minutes ago and called the same number as yesterday afternoon. Call lasted just thirty-seven seconds.’

  ‘Hang on . . .’ Benny plonked down the half full coffee mug and ran to the bedroom to get his jacket.

  He grabbed his notebook out of his jacket pocket, riffl ed through the pages until he found what he was looking for. ‘This number?’ He read it out to Fiedler.

  ‘That’s the one.’

  Nadia’s iPhone. It was Tyrone phoning her again.

  ‘Where’s the phone now? Phone Three.’

  ‘It’s gone off air, the call was too short for a good fix, but it was made in the vicinity of the Waterkant and Loop Street crossing, give or take five hundred metres.’

  ‘I’m on my way.’

  He rang off, and began calling his colleagues as he jogged to the front door.

  Tyrone sat on the planter box of black marble in front of Atterbury House in Lower Burg.

  Nadia was OK.

  In a manner of speaking.

  She was cross with him. ‘Tyrone, come in, and leave those things, the polieste say you’re not in trouble, please, boetie.’

  ‘Everything is fine, moenie worry nie. Are there cops guarding you?’

  ‘Ja,Tyrone, and it’s because you won’t let this thing go.’

  ‘Everything is going to be just fine, sussie.’ Then he’d ended the call and walked over here.

  Time to check in for the money shot.

  He switched the second cellphone on.

  On the way, Griessel phoned Nadia.

  She said, yes, her brother had phoned, he wanted to know how she was.

  Then he heard another call coming in, said goodbye, and took it.

  Dave Fiedler: ‘Funny thing, china. That fourth number you asked me to keep an eye on, the one that called Phone One from Castle Street last night . . .’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘It just came alive. I’m trying to get a fix on it now . . . hang on . . . Damn!’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Went off again. All I can tell you is it’s in the city.’

  Old dogs don’t believe in coincidences, thought Benny Griessel. Two phones calling shortly after each other from the city?

  Phone Four was also Tyrone’s.

  07.51.

  Tyrone ordered a Big Breakfast at McDonald’s in the Golden Acre. And Premium Roast coffee.

  He carried everything carefully on a tray in one hand, dragging the suitcase with the other. He sat down so that he could watch the door, although he couldn’t quite say why.

  Three sugars in the coffee.

  He ate and drank. The coffee was OK, the food was basically tasteless. He would have to dump the suitcase, he couldn’t drag it around with him all day, he had to travel light. Be highly mobile. Time to rock ’n’ roll, and yes, some running would be involved.

  He had only needed it to look legit for the guesthouse. He would leave it here, just put the underpants, socks, and shirts in the rucksack.

  When he had finished eating, he switched the cellphone on again. Only long enough to see there were no pictures of the money, the bag, or the guy yet.

  54

  08.12.

  Rush hour, the city traffic was crazy, even though it wasn’t raining – the sun broke through dramatic clouds, the sunbeams blindingly bright on the wet road.

  That’s how the Cape is, thought Griessel when he eventually parked in front of Fiedler’s house and office. When rain looked likely, every fokker in the Peninsula drove his own car to work, although it then took everybody twice as long.

  He got out. His ZTE rang. It was Fiedler. He answered and said, ‘I’m at your door.’

  ‘Phone Four was alive for three minutes. I’ll open up for you.’

  And when Fiedler opened the door, ‘Three minutes, and then it went dead again. Still in the city centre. I can’t get a close fix.’

  ‘So that’s twice?’

  ‘Yes, china. Twice, three minutes every time, then off again, for about five.’

  ‘He’s checking in for something. A call . . . ? And he’s worried that he will be tracked.’

  ‘If you check in like that, you’re waiting for an email, or a text,’ said Fiedler. ‘Not a call.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Griessel. ‘Will we be able to see a text?’

  ‘I was afraid that you’d ask that.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because accessing the server is against the law.’

  ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘For a Hawk? Are you crazy?’

  ‘Can you do it?’

  ‘Of course I can do it, china. But it’s going to cost a little extra. And you’ll have to sign something. I’m not going to incriminate myself.’

  ‘How much extra?’

  08.17.

  Griessel phoned Nadia Kleinbooi again. He apologised for bothering her.

  Anxiously, she asked if there was any news.

  No, he said. But he would love to know: did Tyrone have an email address?

  She said no without hesitation.

  ‘Are you absolutely sure?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘We just want to make sure.’

  This time she thought a bit before she answered. ‘No, he’s not into those things.’

  ‘Does he have a car?’ Something he should have asked a long time ago.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Does he have access to someone else’s car?’

  ‘No. I . . . No, I don’t think so.’

  Griessel thanked her and rang off. And he thought, Tyrone knew enough about technology to be careful with cellphones, and to hoodwink the Cobras with a memory card. He wasn’t so sure she was right.

  If the pic
kpocket had an email address, and that was how he was communicating with the Cobras, they were fucked. Completely.

  Metrorail train 2561 on platform 10 of Cape Town Station was full.

  At 08.26 Tyrone slipped through the door of the middle third-class carriage and stood in the aisle.

  He waited till just after 08.30, when the train jerked and pulled away, before he switched the cellphone in his hand on again.

  He held it so that the people pressing against him couldn’t see the screen.

  He watched it search for a signal, and find it.

  It always took a while for an MMS to come through.

  At least he was on the move. And he was going to stay on the move, until this thing was finished.

  He watched the time passing on the screen.

  One minute.

  The train picked up speed.

  Two minutes.

  The train began to lose momentum.

  Three minutes.

  He felt the action of the brakes as the train slowed to a stop at Woodstock Station.

  He waited until it came to a complete standstill.

  The doors opened. More people got on.

  He switched the phone off.

  Still no photos.

  Jirre.

  08.49.

  Mbali arrived first.

  ‘Turn around and drive to Bellville Station,’ said Griessel to Cupido over the phone. ‘We think he’s on a train – we picked him up in Woodstock, and again in Maitland, he was on for about three minutes . . . Hold on, Mbali is here . . .’

  Griessel pointed to where Dave Fiedler was busy at the computers. ‘We think Tyrone is taking a train. See if you can look at the Metrorail schedule. We need to know which train.’

  He turned his attention back to Cupido and the phone again. ‘Vaughn, are you there?’

  ‘I’m here. I turned around at the N7, but the traffic is hectic, pappie, it’s going to take a while to get back to Bellville.’

  ‘OK. We’re trying to find out which train it could be.’

  ‘How sure are you it’s a train?’

  ‘He doesn’t have a car, and he can’t move this fast in a bus or taxi during rush hour. Dave said three minutes is not long enough to get a precise fix, but every time it was within a kilometre of the stations, and the phone is moving, it looks like it’s moving.’