So Robbie’s words had been for Gillespie, not for her. She was weak with relief at the unexpected reprieve, but she still didn’t trust Robbie, not with ten bullets left.
Her ears were still ringing from the blast, and now there was another sound from outside: the shrilling of the emergency siren.
“What the hell is going on?” she yelled at him.
“Gillespie hired me to get rid of some people he said were interfering with the running of the place.”
“Who? Lisa Marais? Wouter Loodts?”
Robbie nodded.
“You killed Lisa?” Jade could hear the outrage in her own voice. “She was totally innocent, Robbie. She was working her ass off to make Inkomfe safe, even after being manipulated into leaving.”
“I didn’t know that.” Robbie spread his arms defensively, a gun still in each hand. “And in any case, baby, she was a chain-smoker with a forty-a-day habit. Scarlett and I watched her. It was fucking unbelievable. She literally lit the next one with the last one’s butt. All I did was slightly shorten her life expectancy.”
“And what’s this with Scarlett Sykes? She was your girlfriend.”
Robbie shrugged. “She was a messed-up kid who thought she wanted to hang with gangsters.”
“So you killed her?”
“Look, I gave her loads of chances. I didn’t want her to be involved in any of this. I tried to keep her out of things, even offered to pay for rehab. She didn’t take me up on it. She wanted to stay with me and help with jobs, but she was off her head with those fuckin’ tranquilizers and other shit. It was just a matter of time before she really screwed up. I told her—two strikes and you’re out. I gave her other options. It was like she had a death wish. She refused to help me dump Lisa’s body in the Robinson Dam and didn’t warn me properly that a witness was watching. Those were two strikes right there, but I gave her another chance. Crashing the car into the motel signpost was number three.”
Jade was silent for a moment. The siren’s scream filled the room. “What about Loodts? Why did you have to kill him?”
“It was supposed to be set up as a torture scenario. Something to do with secret codes for doors. Gillespie said he had them already, but it had to look like Loodts had been tortured for them. I didn’t really torture him, Jade. It was a clean kill. He didn’t know what hit him. I twisted his wrists and smashed up his fingers a little after he was dead.”
“And me? I was on the run with Botha. You were trying to kill me!”
“Are you dead?” Robbie tilted his chin up, sounding defensive.
Jade pressed her lips together. “He didn’t just hire you to kill a few people. He hired you so he could steal enriched uranium ingots from the strong room and sell them to terrorists. How can you justify putting thousands of innocent lives at risk, even for money?”
“What are you talking about?” Robbie frowned in confusion. “My guys and I were hired to kill three people. Lisa Marais, Wouter Loodts and Carlos Botha. We killed Lisa and Loodts. We haven’t killed Botha yet. The job got delayed because you helped him get away, and because my guys were all shot dead by cops today. I wasn’t hired to steal anything for terrorists. I wouldn’t do that.”
“But . . .”
Jade thought again about Gillespie’s behavior. The way that he’d been checking his watch. How he had cleared the area. Lisa’s notes, and what she had written.
Robbie was right. He hadn’t been hired for anything else, and yet Gillespie had arranged for him to end up here and triggered the alarm. He had planned to use Robbie, but not in the way Robbie had imagined.
“He’s already done it!” Jade shouted. “We need to shut down the red zone and get out of here, Robbie, quick. Do you know how?”
There was only one button it could be. The one marked emergency, lit up on the console. Jade jabbed at it, and a moment later was rewarded with the louder scream of a new siren.
Robbie was shouting something to her now; with the ringing in her ears, it took her a moment to understand. “Okay, baby. Let’s get going!”
He headed for the doorway at a run.
But as he reached it and sprinted out into the corridor, there was another burst of gunshots, the staccato sound of automatic fire. Bullets stitched themselves along Robbie’s body, and he twisted like a marionette, his body arching backward before falling to the ground.
Jade clapped a hand over her mouth in horror.
She was too late. Gillespie might have been murdered, but he’d already set into motion the second, deadlier phase of his plans.
She had only one chance. Robbie had dropped his guns when he fell, and the Desert Eagle had fallen just inside the door. She had to get to it.
But as she lunged forward, a shadow darkened the doorway.
One lone gunman: tall and lean, clothed in black, carrying an AK-47 machine gun. A balaclava covered his face, but she could see his eyes, deep-set and dark in pale skin; they were without mercy.
He stood still, staring into the control room, and his head turned toward Gillespie’s fallen body.
This sight gave him pause, and Jade realized that he had not expected to see the sandy-haired man dead on the floor. The gunman was operating under Gillespie’s instructions, and Gillespie had never intended for Robbie to leave this place alive. He had been covering his tracks, hoping to walk away in the clear. Dressed in a guard’s uniform, Robbie was always going to be disposed of, an Inkomfe employee tragically shot during the break-in.
Shot by the real enemy. The people Gillespie had been dealing with ever since he’d gotten himself indebted for hundreds of thousands of dollars while in Iraq.
Hamdan’s men.
Lisa had explained it all. Hamdan’s casinos, Baghdad City, Casino du Liba, Grand Sinai and The Oasis, are not only money-laundering operations. They serve to recruit vulnerable people for terrorism purposes by extending open lines of credit to certain gamblers, allowing them to incur vast debts and then at a later stage demanding payback either in cash or in kind, through facilitating terrorist acts . . . I believe Gillespie was earmarked by Hamdan as one of these individuals who could be useful in the future. He had an open line of credit at Baghdad City . . .
Upon seeing Gillespie’s body, the gunman was debating what to do. Reaching a swift decision, he raised the gun and aimed it at Jade as she leaped for cover behind the chair, knowing it would do nothing to stop the lethal barrage of automatic fire.
And then the gunman hesitated, turned his head. His gun muzzle wavered, and he started to spin around. She realized he must have seen somebody else approaching, but over the screaming of the sirens, she could hear nothing until Carlos Botha launched himself at the masked man in a desperate tackle, and the two of them sprawled to the ground inside the control room.
Chapter Fifty-Five
Botha had the element of surprise, and he was swift as a panther. He had the man on the ground and was wrestling his arms down, but the gunman still had his rifle in his hand. Bullets ripped along the wall in Jade’s direction, the gun taking on a life of its own in response to the shooter’s struggles.
Jade hit the ground, flattening herself until the stutter of shells had ceased. Looking up, she saw Botha had forced the man to drop the machine gun, but the man had pushed it out of arm’s reach. Botha had the man’s hands pinned down on the floor. His adversary was fighting with all the strength of desperation. He was bigger and heavier than Botha, but he didn’t have Botha’s raw power.
Botha was going to be able to hold him for now, but threatening the man with a gun would be an easier solution than using brute force. For that matter, a bullet through each wrist would severely hamper his ability to use that AK-47 again.
Jade scooted to the door, keeping her back to the wall and a careful watch on the struggling man. Leaning over, she snagged the gun with her left hand, her fingers wrapping around the grip. The
sirens were so loud she couldn’t hear her own voice, and it was only sheer luck that made her glance up at the doorway to see that a second masked gunman had arrived and was aiming his weapon at Botha’s back.
No time for anything but to shoot.
Left-handed . . . that’s why you train with both. For that one time when you need to use it.
Jade raised her left hand and pulled the trigger.
The gun’s kick nearly ripped it out of her grasp, but the shot was accurate. It hit the second gunman’s chest, and his fire went wide, his clenching trigger finger sending the shots rattling into the computer consoles, shattering their screens. Double tap . . . she fired again. Another hit. He folded down in the doorway, on his knees and then on his side, as his machine gun clattered to the ground.
Botha still had the first man’s hands behind his back. Straddling him, he climbed to his feet, yanking his wrists viciously higher. Stepping sideways, he aimed a hard kick at the man’s head. The gunman’s body jackknifed, the tension leaching from his limbs. Botha kicked his head again.
Then he turned to Jade. “You okay?” he shouted.
Jade nodded. “I’m fine. Let’s deal with him and get out of here. Emergency services should be on their way.”
They needed something to tie him up with, but the only materials on hand were the cables connecting this bank of computers. Jade prayed she wouldn’t cause a nuclear meltdown if she unplugged a few of them. Hopefully the alarm had already shut the reactor down. She crawled under the console and yanked out the first cables she could find, passing three to Botha, who used them to hog-truss the still-unconscious gunman.
Holding another cable, Jade stepped over the dead body of the shooter in the doorway. Emotions surged inside her as she looked down at Robbie’s slumped form, although she couldn’t say whether her regret or relief was stronger. How many times had he been hit? She didn’t know. His torso was soaked with blood, and a bloody stream was still oozing from a wound in his thigh.
She bent and threaded the cable around the top of his leg, pulling it tightly into a makeshift tourniquet before knotting it. Tears stung her eyes. There was barely any blood flow for it to contain, and she didn’t know why she was taking the time to do it. A token gesture, perhaps. Even in the afterlife, if such a thing existed, she didn’t want Robbie thinking she owed him.
As she climbed to her feet, the shrieking of the sirens stopped. Her ears were ringing, and the silence felt louder than the noise had done. The floor was a mess of blood, pooled in places, scuffed and smeared in others, littered with discarded shell casings. The shots to the computer bank had done some damage. A connection was misfiring, flashing sparks. As Botha reached the door, the power tripped, and the area was plunged into darkness. A moment later, with a hiss and a sputter, overhead sprinklers began to spray down.
Botha switched his phone flashlight on, casting a bright beam into the darkness and reflecting off the falling water. She could smell smoke from somewhere. Inkomfe was burning. They needed to get out, and fast.
He grabbed her hand, and they ran down the passage through the chilly downpour, back toward the elevator. With the power gone, it was out of commission, but a door beside it led to a pitch-black stairway. Keeping hold of Botha’s hand, Jade limped up the stairs, following his flashlight’s dancing beam.
“We need to get to Inqaba,” she shouted. “The strong room.”
They burst out the door at the top of the stairway and climbed into the security cart. Jade grabbed onto its side as they sped out of the building and down the road.
“Gillespie wasn’t interested in sabotaging the plant. He never was; that was all misdirection. He wanted those ingots. He needed them, because he was in a financial black hole of his own making. He did a deal with a terrorist sympathizer—or rather, he was forced to do the deal in exchange for money. I read Lisa’s notes,” she told Botha.
She remembered Gillespie mentioning his bonus. He had earned no bonus from his work in Iraq. Lisa’s extensive research had proved that while in Iraq, Gillespie’s gambling problem had cost him his job, his marriage and his savings, and had plunged him deeply into debt from both moneylenders and the casino. And he had lied. His wife had not been killed in Iraq. That had been another falsehood, told to Jade in order to gain her sympathy and compel her to do what he wanted. His wife had left him while they were in Iraq and traveled to Israel with her new lover, an American security consultant. The two of them had later been killed in a shooting incident there.
Jade was suspicious about that shooting. It could just have been chance bad luck, but Gillespie could easily have set it up. Perhaps a precursor to this whole debacle?
The cart rocked as they rounded a corner.
“I had to do my own research,” Botha told her as he whipped the cart around a row of concrete pillars. “Lisa was murdered before she could send the notes to me. We were trying not to communicate too often in the past few weeks. Phone calls and messages leave a record, and even secure emails can be hacked. I worried that Gillespie would get to her, and he did. He hired someone to take her out. So I had to do my own research. I started making some calls to the places he’d worked in Iraq and found out enough to get a picture.”
“Why were you trying not to communicate?”
Botha glanced in her direction before focusing again on the road ahead. “Because we’d already planned the sabotage attempt.”
Jade felt as if the breath had been knocked out of her. “That was you?”
Botha nodded. “It was the only way I could get Loodts to listen. Lisa and I discussed it; we looked into every angle. There was just no other way. We had to prove how vulnerable the research center was so that we could force him to make the changes we needed and get Gillespie out of there. At that stage, Lisa knew Gillespie had an agenda. She just wasn’t sure what it was. None of us knew the extent of the trouble he’d gotten himself into, or we might have decided to do things differently.”
“So you sabotaged Inkomfe?” Jade felt stunned by the news.
“Attempted sabotage.” Botha gave a tight smile. “Petrov helped me. He’s the expert who Lisa brought out to give talks for Earthforce. While he was here, he agreed to do it. I needed someone with military background and knowledge of nuclear plants, and the ability to leave without a trace afterward was a bonus. It was dangerous—more for us than for anyone else, because we’d agreed that no shots would be fired. Our weapons, which I stole from Inkomfe’s own stock, weren’t even loaded.”
“And you both had alibis?”
Botha nodded. “I was falling down drunk and trashing a Sandton bar, courtesy of my karate training partner Lorenzo. Petrov was giving a talk in Bloemfontein, booked to fly back to Johannesburg and Dubai the next day. He drove five hours from Bloemfontein to Inkomfe straight after his talk, did the job and was back in Bloemfontein by morning, ready to check out of his hotel and go to the airport.”
“So Petrov is based in Dubai?” Jade asked. Now the many phone calls that Botha had made to the Emirates made sense.
“For the moment, yes.”
Botha slowed the cart as they approached the paved yard Jade remembered from the night she’d met Sbusiso. The blaze of the floodlights dazzled her. There were the yellow notice boards with their danger warnings. Thanks to the sirens and the lockdown of the red zone, the yard was empty now, all security staff safely evacuated.
But Inqaba’s steel gate, which had been tightly closed the first time she’d seen it, had been left wide open. Beyond it, the storeroom was brilliantly lit. Neon ceiling lights cast their unwavering glare onto the massive iron structure, whose heavy door stood ajar.
The giant strong room was empty. Its numbered yellow shelves bore nothing except the faint dusty outlines of the deadly uranium that had rested there in its ordered piles.
They were too late.
The ingots were gone.
; Chapter Fifty-Six
Still staring at the empty strong room, Jade jumped as the noise of a helicopter cut the air. Looking up, she saw that the flying squad had arrived. Two choppers were circling the courtyard. A fire truck and an ambulance were heading at high speed to the reactor room, red lights blazing, and the pair was soon surrounded by a phalanx of security guards, drawn to the strong room by the sound of the chopper.
“Police.” Broadcasting over a megaphone as the first chopper descended, David’s voice filled the air. “All security guards must stand by and await police orders.” The helicopter blades whipped Jade’s hair across her eyes, stinging them.
A moment later, David was out, running to her, closely followed by his team. “Jade, are you okay?” He closed his eyes briefly at her nod. “Bring me up to speed,” he demanded.
“The ingots are missing. They’ve been taken already,” Jade shouted. “We need to find them. And there’s a live gunman hog-tied in the backup control room next to three dead bodies, including Gillespie.”
“I’m on it. We already have the main road to the east blocked, with all vehicles being pulled over. I’m going to send both helicopters up again—one going east, one west. I have backup cars arriving in the next few minutes that can help with the search. You said the cargo was in the form of ingots, about the size of a small brick?”
“A silvery, circular, flat brick,” Botha said.
“And they’re not detectably radioactive? How’s that possible?”
Botha answered his question. “Uranium has an extremely long half-life, which means it decays very slowly. Wherever they are, the bars aren’t emitting dangerous levels of radiation, but the bad news is they’re less trackable. A Geiger counter would only pick them up if the cargo was very close by.”
“We’ll get a couple counters to the roadblocks immediately. Now, it’s a load that you couldn’t fit into a car trunk. We’re talking a van, a minibus, something bigger, right?” David asked.
Bad Seeds Page 29