Bad Seeds

by Jassy Mackenzie

  “Definitely. A trailer, maybe. Or they could’ve divided the ingots into several cars.”

  “Got it.” David shouted updates into his walkie-talkie, putting roadblocks at the entrances of all major airports and border crossings, with an alert to all officials on what to look out for.

  Then he turned back to Botha. “The other possibility is that they’re still hidden here onsite, with plans to be shipped out later. You know Inkomfe well. Can you coordinate a search of this facility, sweeping everything—buildings, vehicles, containers?”

  “Will do,” Botha said. Striding away, he spoke urgently to the three security personnel on his right, then hurried toward the golf carts with them, speaking into a radio as he did so.

  Jade’s hair whipped across her face yet again as the helicopters took off. David was already in a golf cart with two other officers, driving purposefully toward the reactor room. Jade guessed that the fire had been contained before it spread. She couldn’t see any flames or smoke coming from that part of Inkomfe.

  She thought again of Robbie’s body, sprawled on the tiles, riddled with bullet holes and lying in a lake of bloody water, not unlike the contaminated scene he’d set up for Loodts and Scarlett. Robbie had never believed he would die. Mind over matter, he’d always said. Better lucky than careful, but luck could run out.

  Gillespie’s luck had ended—or perhaps he’d never been lucky. Despite his destructive actions, Jade felt sorry for him. A flawed man with a monkey on his back so big and greedy it had stolen his whole life. She’d seen addiction at work before. It overrode the most compelling arguments of logic or conscience. He’d become a pawn, used by people who had taken advantage of his weakness, promised him the money he so urgently needed in exchange for just one carefully planned favor. She remembered him talking about the house in Dainfern, the apartment in Sea Point. Dreams that he perhaps knew, deep down, would never be realized.

  Any money from Hamdan would have been placed on red or black, or on the face card in the hope of seeing the ten appear.

  This had been a carefully planned operation. Gillespie had used his own initiative to source domestic hit men in conjunction with his overseas contacts.

  That was what troubled her the most. She shivered as the early morning wind cut through her thin jacket, carrying with it the coolness from the recent rains. There was nothing for her to do here. David was coordinating his team. Botha was managing the search of the premises. Taking her phone out of her pocket, she called Sbusiso to tell him everything was all right. He sounded relieved to hear her voice, and told her he was with the police, helping to guard the entrances and exits.

  So Sbusiso also had a job to do. She was jobless, with nothing to do except to wonder at the folly of a plan with malicious intent that had been so well coordinated, but failed in its final step.

  Surely they had anticipated this? You couldn’t exactly smuggle ingots of enriched uranium out in your pockets, or swallow them down. Was the plan to hide them somewhere until the furor abated? To remove them one by one? That would mean possible months of logistics, patience, and potential vulnerability.

  How would she do it?

  Think like a criminal, Robbie had said.

  Words from a man whose voice she’d never hear again, but whose advice would live with her always, because it had become part of her.

  Jade brainstormed. She thought of the ingots, and Gillespie. Of the fire drills Sbusiso had told her about when they met right after one. Of the suspected terrorist sympathizer and the angry Gold City Gaming CEO David had mentioned.

  Most of all, she recalled that warehouse she’d seen, so conveniently close to Inkomfe, with its stash of slot machines and its welding operation, and the way the doors were abruptly closed when she’d tried to look inside.

  And Jade finally realized how they were doing it. How they had already done it.

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  “David!” Jade called.

  But David was underground now, in the concrete labyrinth leading to the reactor room. Not contactable on his cell phone, and his hands full dealing with the crime scene. She couldn’t drag him away from that now. And Botha was spearheading the Inkomfe search. Jade was certain that they’d find nothing on the premises, but even so, he couldn’t just abandon what he was doing.

  She’d go on her own, then. Sbusiso would let her out. She could call a cab and wait by the side of the road.

  A long walk to the gate, he’d said. He wasn’t kidding. It would take her ten minutes, at least, to limp the whole way, since the guards had commandeered all the golf carts.

  Well, she had no choice.

  Jade dialed directory inquiries on her phone as she walked. The lights of gate one still looked very far away as she listened to the automated voice tell her that the call would be answered in five minutes and forty seconds. Where were all the operators? On a midnight tea break?

  She heard the rattle of a security cart behind her. Turning to look, she saw to her surprise it was Botha. He was heading straight toward her. She stopped and waited for him to pull up beside her.

  “I thought you said you were okay,” he said, his voice filled with concern.

  “I am.”

  “You’re limping.”

  “It’s nothing. I twisted my foot when I climbed over the fence.”

  His eyes widened. “Over the fence?”

  “By the pedestrian gate. I went up the turnstile and then over the top.”

  “You sure it’s nothing more serious? Come on in.” He held his hand out and helped her into the cart. He smoothed his hand over her hair, stroking it through the tousled locks, his palm warm on the nape of her neck. “Where were you headed?”

  She lifted her fingers and touched his forearm, feeling the ropy, corded muscle under that soft skin. “I have a hunch. More than a hunch, actually. It’s a certainty.”

  “Tell me.”

  Jade gave him a brief summary.

  When he’d heard the full explanation, Botha was quiet for a few moments, then said, “Let’s go.”

  “Don’t you have to search Inkomfe?” Jade asked.

  “I’ve got a very efficient team doing that, and Ismail, who’s heading it up, is on top of things. They don’t need me there. And I have a car. We can ride together, and you can make your calls on the way.”

  “I thought your car was blown up.”

  “I borrowed Lorenzo’s car. He’s happy to let me use it, as long as I don’t drink and drive.” Botha grinned briefly as he turned the cart toward the parking lot.

  “Is that where you went when you left the hotel suite?”

  Botha nodded. “I wanted to comply with the detectives, and to believe that there was no longer any threat. But I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t sleep. There are a few Inkomfe guards I trust, old-timers who suspected things were going wrong, and Ismail was one. I called him to ask what the situation was. He said Gillespie was on-site with two men that Ismail didn’t recognize, and that there was another big fire drill set for eleven p.m. He didn’t like any of it, nor did I. I caught a cab to Lorenzo’s and spent some time updating him on the situation in case it turned really bad. I left my phone and laptop there, because there’s a lot of evidence on them that he could show the police if I didn’t come back. Then I borrowed his car and came here.”

  “After leaving the shower on and hiding my phone,” Jade said accusingly.

  “I didn’t know how dangerous it would be.” His tone was apologetic. “I knew I might be killed. So I decided to go quietly without telling you. When I got to Inkomfe, I had no idea where Gillespie could be. Then the fence alarm went off way down on the southern perimeter, so I rushed over to see what was happening. On my way back, I came across a guard who told me he’d just been blinded and had his vehicle hijacked by a woman carrying pepper spray. I knew that was you. He said he thought you’d d
riven in the direction of the reactor room, so I hot-footed it over there and found you.”

  “Just in time, too. I—” Jade began, but at that moment her call to directory inquiries was finally answered. Once she and Botha climbed into Lorenzo’s BMW and headed for the exit, Jade got all the numbers she needed and started making calls.

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Botha slowed down well before the police blockade outside Inkomfe. He showed his ID and explained where they were headed. Jade only picked up snippets of the conversation because she was still on the phone. Her first call had been to O.R. Tambo International Airport’s cargo section. She’d been frustrated but not surprised when it had rung unanswered. At this hour, there must be only a skeleton staff on duty. It was why she needed to get there in person as soon as possible.

  Her second call was to the Randfontein police station. She negotiated hard with them to obtain Officer Mweli’s cell phone number and was finally successful. Mweli sounded sleepy, as if Jade had woken her, and she heard the loud noise of a cat meowing in the background.

  Mweli promised to contact all the necessary people immediately. Jade knew the policewoman would be able to do so far quicker than she could.

  Then there was nothing to do except to watch the road unroll in front of her as she tried and retried the two phone numbers she had for the airport’s cargo section. Now that the roadblocks were behind them, Botha was driving faster, speeding at nearly double the limit. His lights were on high beam, his focus on the road ahead, but when Jade had finished her calls, he said, “Explain to me again why you suspect this?”

  “I was thinking about how clever Gillespie’s scenario was. He tried to make every aspect look as if someone else had been to blame. He wanted to come out of this without any dirt under his fingernails so that he could stay out of prison and spend the money he was being paid.”

  “So how did he do that?”

  “He had Loodts murdered in a way that it would look as if he’d been tortured for the new strong room door codes. Meanwhile Gillespie had the codes. He could open the doors anytime he wanted to. But because he wanted to point the finger at a different mastermind, Loodts had to die.”

  Botha nodded. He shifted gears to drive around a bend, engine racing.

  “That made me think. If Gillespie could open the doors anytime he wanted to, then he must already have done it. He could have committed the important part of the crime before the fact. Schedule a routine fire drill or emergency drill, clear the area, get Hamdan’s helpers in and pack up the bars. If alarms go off while the doors are open—well, it’s an emergency drill, and the area is evacuated anyway.”

  “Makes sense.”

  “I think he did it the night I drove to Inkomfe. He was late for our meeting even though he’d said he was on-site, and Sbusiso told me there had just been a big emergency drill. I think he packed the bars into one of the trucks that delivers the nuclear waste to the dumping site in the Northern Cape. The trucks leave at night, he said.”

  “Yes, they do.”

  “They fuel up at the new industrial complex nearby. It’s newly built, and only one warehouse next to the gas station is occupied—I know because I drove through a few days ago. I saw the slot machines being off-loaded there, and I saw them being worked on inside. It amused me, because I thought the machines were being rigged. But they weren’t. I think they were being prepared. Hamdan wanted his ingots, and this was a foolproof way of getting them out of the country undetected.”

  “So you think the bars were off-loaded while the truck fueled up?”

  Jade nodded. “Probably just beforehand. Tell the truck to stop by the warehouse door and pay the driver to look away for ten minutes. That’s all it would take to get them out of the truck and into the warehouse, if you had a few men working and the right equipment to help. Then the ingots would have to be put in place—carefully, I would think. One per machine, and the machines sealed up again to look like new.”

  She disconnected the unanswered call and redialed. Eventually somebody would have to pick up the phone.

  “Hamdan has gone back to Iraq. He wouldn’t have done that unless he’d known the cargo was organized. And freight takes time to book in. It would have had to be checked by customs, loaded up . . . You couldn’t do any part of that process in a hurry. That’s why I think it’s already been done. The only thing I don’t know is when the flight is due to leave. It could be any minute. It might already have gone. If the airport would answer their phone, it would help.”

  Botha’s fingers tightened on the gear shift as he sent the car powering forward, eating up the miles as they headed toward O.R. Tambo International Airport.

  The call was answered as they arrived at the cargo terminal’s entrance. Just as well, because the security officer at the entrance refused to let them through until a flying squad car, dispatched by Mweli, screamed up behind them. Once her captain had shown his ID, the gate was opened.

  They met the dispatcher on duty at the front entrance, a stressed-looking woman carrying a clipboard. “The slot machines went on the air charter flight,” she told them. “It took off half an hour ago.”

  Jade’s heart sank. They had tried so hard, all for naught. But then the woman checked again. “No, wait. Sorry. Everything was delayed after an oil spill on the runway. That flight is in the queue now, waiting for takeoff.”

  “Recall it immediately,” the officer ordered. “In fact, ground all flights until further notice. We’re officially seizing that cargo for close inspection. The charter plane must return to the terminal at once. Ms. de Jong, you say you saw these machines? Would you know where the ingots were inserted, so we can take a look?”

  “I know what parts of the machines were being worked on, and Botha has seen the ingots,” Jade said.

  Two hours later, in a sealed warehouse, they watched as the first of the slot machines was off-loaded from the shipping pallet. Wrapped in plastic and padding, it looked as good as new, fresh from the assembly line. It was only when the technician opened the machine’s backing and shined a light inside that its modifications were revealed. A metal cage had been welded to the inside, into which one carefully wrapped bar had been placed. Through the transparent packaging, Jade could see its silvery shine. A deadly material that had been moments away from being flown out of the country, to people who would use it in the most destructive way to achieve their ends.

  It took a few more hours for Jade and Botha to finish up their part of the investigation, write the necessary affidavits, and wait for a truck to be dispatched to collect the precious cargo once again. With Inkomfe shut down for repairs and the strong room’s codes breached, the ingots were transported to Koeberg nuclear power station in the Western Cape to be temporarily stored in their top-security area.

  Jade could only hope they would be safe there.

  Her eyes were red and scratchy as she walked out of the cargo area, blinking in the hot noonday sun. “Thanks for your help,” she told Botha. “You saved my life.”

  “Likewise.”

  They were standing close to each other, but not touching. Not because she didn’t want to. She wanted to hug him tightly, feeling those broad shoulders and his strong arms around her in turn. There was nothing stopping her. No hitches that she could foresee. No pregnant wives to contend with. Perhaps that was why she suddenly felt unsure.

  “What are you going to do now?” Botha asked her.

  She shrugged. “Get some sleep, I guess.”

  “Where?”

  Jade found herself smiling reluctantly. “At this stage, just about anywhere sounds good. Why do you ask?”

  “Because I was thinking I’ve always slept well in the sun. A beach in Phuket sounds good. Or maybe Jamaica, or the Yucatán Peninsula. I’m not going back to Inkomfe. I’m going to take long leave until my next job starts in mid-February, and I’d love for you to join me. We�
�re at the airport now. We could go book a flight and be on it by tonight.”

  Now Jade was smiling for real. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do it.”

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Jade stretched out her legs, feeling the edges of the towel dig into the soft sand. Her skin was browner than it had been two months ago, its dark tan contrasting with the brightness of her ice-blue bikini. Her feet were toughened from daily running on the sand, and her body was used to the feel of the salt water, the buoyancy as the waves carried her out deep enough that the breakers became swells, and she felt one with the body of the ocean.

  Their chalet was right on the beachfront, a five-minute walk from the nearest restaurant—a seafood grill—and a seashell’s throw from a tropical bar that served icy white wine and cocktails in coconut shells.

  It had been an amazing eight weeks, the longest holiday she’d ever had. Botha had left the previous week to start a six-month contract updating security systems in a plant in Namibia. They’d already made plans to meet up again as soon as he had some time off.

  Without him there, a little of the magic seemed to have gone from this tropical paradise. Jade was glad to be flying back tomorrow. Perhaps it was her own guilt or paranoia, but she’d found herself looking over her shoulder for the last day, imagining that she was being followed by unfriendly eyes. Maybe she could never escape the consequences of what she’d already done.

  Best to get back home. There were plenty of jobs to do, legitimate stuff that would keep her busy and bring in honest money. She’d had several inquiries while she’d been away, and now her phone was buzzing again with an incoming message.

  Jade turned onto her front and shaded her phone with one hand so she could read it. The number was unfamiliar to her. But as she scanned the words, her eyes widened, and the warmth of the sun seemed to leach away.