A Sailor's Honour

by Chris Marnewick

  ‘I still can’t see the need to abduct my wife,’ Weber said. ‘This has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘The major is in charge of operational matters,’ General van den Bergh said. ‘He thought it expedient to have the additional security.’

  De Villiers interrupted again. ‘So the major was in charge of the operation when your men killed my wife and children in 1992?’

  Spokie and the major exchanged another glance but neither answered.

  ‘That was a mistake,’ Spokie said. ‘It was a high-risk operation and, in my view, an unnecessary one. But we are not averse to making amends, as far as money can compensate for the lives that were lost.’

  ‘It wasn’t supposed to happen like that,’ the major said. ‘They were supposed to rough you up a bit, not to shoot anyone. That’s all.’

  ‘Money? To pay for my children’s lives? My wife’s?’ De Villiers said incredulously.

  The shameful fact, however, was that Weber had dealt with numerous cases where damages had been awarded by the courts for lives taken unlawfully or ruined by physical injury. ‘How much money exactly is there in this account?’ he asked.

  ‘About twelve or thirteen million US, I guess, not counting the interest which must have accrued since 1992,’ the major said. ‘Unless our friend here,’ he pointed at De Villiers, ‘has dipped into the fund.’

  ‘I’ve kept my side of the agreement,’ De Villiers said, ‘which is more than can be said for you. You agreed to let me go and to leave me alone. Now look what you’ve done.’

  ‘This is not getting us anywhere,’ Spokie van den Bergh said. He didn’t meet Weber’s eye but pointed at De Villiers. ‘We need you to go to Hamburg with the major and transfer the funds and close the account. That’s all. Will you do that or won’t you? We won’t ask again.’

  De Villiers looked around. People were streaming past their table in both directions. Some were coming off flights while others were rushing to the departure gates.

  ‘In case you’re wondering,’ the major said, ‘we have men in the crowd watching this table. And we have our captives well away from here and under guard.’

  ‘But they are safe and well looked after,’ Spokie van den Bergh hastily added.

  ‘We never had twelve million in that account,’ De Villiers said. ‘We only had about a million in it.’

  ‘We continued to put money in for other operations,’ the major said. ‘Which we never used because we could not get our money out without you, and you went and disappeared on us. In 1994 we put all our reserve funds into that account, thinking we could withdraw it when we needed to. But the bank wouldn’t let us. And now we want our money back.’

  ‘Is that why you came looking for me last year?’ De Villiers asked.

  ‘Yes,’ the major said tersely. ‘And if we’d known where to find you, we would have come for you a long time ago.’

  De Villiers shook his head. ‘All you needed to do was ask.’

  General Spokie van den Bergh intervened. He spoke softly, adopting a softer tone than the major. ‘We thought you were dead, until you turned up in hospital in Auckland at the end of 2008 and claimed on the Defence Force medical aid for it. Until then no one knew where you were. We tried to ask you in 1996, but when we got to your house, it had been sold and the buyer said he had never met you. Not even your brother, your sister in Pretoria or your mother knew where you were. Come to think of it, they also thought you were dead.’

  De Villiers asked the logical question. ‘So why didn’t you come and ask, once you knew where I was?’

  There was a fleeting moment of eye contact between the general and the major. ‘The major thought you would say no, unless we had some hold over you.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ the major asked. ‘Would you have said yes to anything we asked?’

  De Villiers thought about it. ‘No,’ he said. ‘Not in a hundred years.’

  The general inclined his head to the side as if to say, ‘So there you go.’

  Johann Weber decided to speed things up. ‘We’ll take half a million for each life, and half a million for each abduction,’ he said.

  The major started to argue, but Spokie held up his hand and said, ‘I think that’s fair.’

  ‘US dollars,’ Weber said, holding the general’s eye.

  ‘That’s a bit steep,’ Spokie said. He spoke like a man in complete command of the situation. ‘Rands, or the equivalent in dollars, into a bank account of your choice.’

  Weber didn’t back down. ‘No,’ he said. ‘You wouldn’t have resorted to abducting his child in New Zealand and my wife here if you didn’t need the money for a really important purpose, would you? US dollars.’

  General Spokie van den Bergh shrugged. ‘Alright then, US dollars it is. We can afford it. It can come out of the interest.’

  De Villiers stared at the major and renewed his vow to kill him. ‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.

  The major pulled a small notebook from his top pocket and consulted it briefly. ‘We fly out to Frankfurt tonight, land tomorrow morning and connect from there to Hamburg.’ He put the notebook back in his pocket. ‘We go to the bank and you transfer the funds into our account. I make a phone call and your daughter is released in New Zealand, and your wife,’ he pointed at Weber, ‘is brought back to your house. Both safe and sound.’

  ‘They’d better be,’ De Villiers said and stood up. ‘But I’m not flying anywhere with you,’ he said.

  ‘Is your answer a no, then?’ General Spokie van den Bergh asked. ‘You should think carefully of the consequences.’

  ‘For fifteen years now we have had to put our major operations on hold, or operate on a shoestring because our funds were tied up in this account,’ the major said, tapping with his finger on the table. ‘Don’t underestimate our resolve to get our money back, and to do so now.’ When neither Weber nor De Villiers responded, he added, ‘We are talking days here, not weeks. After that, all prior promises and undertakings are off the table. What’s your answer?’

  Spokie van den Bergh said, ‘I want it now.’

  De Villiers moved around to the general’s side of the table and went down on one knee so that his face was centimetres from the general’s. ‘I’ve made my decision, but before I tell you what it is, I want you to know this: I’ve done business with you before and you double-crossed me. I walked away every time after you’d double-crossed me, but this time you must know right from the beginning: if any harm should come to my daughter, there will be no place to hide from me.’

  ‘I’ve been threatened before, Captain de Villiers,’ Spokie said.

  ‘It’s Major de Villiers to you, or have you forgotten that part of the agreement too?’

  Spokie sighed. ‘Tell me your decision so that we can move on now that both of us know how tough we are.’

  De Villiers stood up. ‘I’m not flying anywhere with him,’ he said, pointing at the major. ‘I’ll see him at the bank. Just tell me when.’

  The major consulted his notebook again. ‘Two o’clock tomorrow afternoon. That will give you time to catch a flight to Frankfurt tonight and a connecting flight to Hamburg from there.’

  De Villiers looked to Weber for confirmation. There was just the slightest shake of the head. ‘That’s too soon,’ De Villiers said. ‘It will have to be the day after tomorrow.’

  ‘Suits me. Friday will be fine,’ the major said. He was pleased, because it gave him more time to put his own plans in order. ‘Here’s what we’ll do,’ he said, taking charge. ‘I’ll meet you at the front entrance of the HypoVereinsbank on the Alter Wall next to the Rathaus at two …’

  ‘I know where the bank is.’

  ‘Good. We can meet, say, in front of the City Hall and stroll across from there. As you know, the bank is virtually next door.’

  But De Villiers had other plans and the centre of the city was not the place to execute them. ‘I prefer St Pauli,’ he said. ‘That’s the area I know best. Remember, I had to stay
in a cheap seamen’s lodge amongst the whores and pimps while you were lording it about in the five-star Vier Jahreszeiten.’

  ‘It was an operational necessity,’ the major said. ‘We had to maintain our cover, yours and mine. You couldn’t have the captain of a fishing boat in a five-star hotel or a financier in St Pauli.’

  Van den Bergh had had enough of the wrangling. ‘I’m getting tired. Get on with it.’

  ‘I’m going to stay in St Pauli again. I’ll meet you on the steps of St Katharinenkirche in the docks,’ De Villiers said. ‘We can walk from there, or take a taxi if your legs won’t make it.’

  ‘I didn’t know you were of the praying kind,’ the major said. ‘And my legs are fine.’

  ‘I said cut it out, you two!’ Spokie snapped.

  There was a pause during which De Villiers and the major continued to glare at each other. ‘Say that again,’ the major said. ‘St what?’

  Johann Weber intervened. His childhood German was being practised regularly when he spoke to his mother. ‘St Catherine’s Church,’ he translated.

  ‘Where the hell is that?’ the major asked.

  ‘It’s one of the four most famous churches in Hamburg,’ De Villiers said. ‘It’s on the outskirts of the old city and on the harbour front.’

  ‘Alright, then,’ the major said. ‘I’ll find it. Say, one-thirty?’

  De Villiers nodded. ‘And don’t even think of having me followed,’ he said. ‘I’ll walk away as soon as I spot your goons.’

  ‘Take me home,’ Spokie said to the major.

  ‘Give me the account details first,’ De Villiers said.

  The major hesitated and looked towards his leader. ‘Get it over with,’ Spokie said.

  The major tore a sheet out of his notebook, folded it and handed it to De Villiers. De Villiers opened the sheet with one hand. The account was in Luxembourg. The name of the bank was on the sheet but the account holder was identified only by a number. Thirteen digits. A numbered account, untraceable, he realised. He nodded and turned his back on the major.

  They were ready to leave.

  ‘I told you I would get even,’ Spokie van den Bergh said. ‘It’s taken a long time, but now we’re even.’ His voice was tired, but the menace was still in every word.

  Johann Weber made to say something, but stopped himself. He stood looking at Spokie for a long time. ‘We’ll never be even,’ he said.

  ‘I consider us even as we stand,’ Spokie said. ‘You might even have done me a favour,’ he said with a chuckle, ‘getting rid of that bitch of a wife and that bitch of a teaching job in one go.’

  Weber remembered the afternoons with Spokie’s wife and shook his head. ‘Maybe so. We might be even as we stand, but if you’ve hurt my wife, we won’t be. You may beat me up, kick my dog, scratch my car, and I’ll let it slide. But if you hurt my wife, I will kill you.’

  ‘Hah,’ Spokie said. ‘I don’t remember you as one who ever fought back.’

  He reversed his wheelchair and turned to the side. ‘Take me home,’ he said to the major. Two men stood up from the next table and came over. They pulled the wheelchair back and wheeled their general away.

  Durban

  Wednesday, 24 June 2009 38

  ‘You’re going to have to eliminate him,’ the general said in the car. They were on their way to Virginia Airport in Durban North.

  ‘I thought you would say that,’ the major said. ‘Shall I make the arrangements?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Consider it done, General.’

  The car stopped at the intersection where the old drive-in used to be. General van den Bergh looked across to his right. The site used to be a military base, the headquarters of the army in the province. Natal Command, it was named. Now it was a pale shadow of its former glory and there were rumours that it had been sold to a film-maker.

  ‘What are we going to do about Weber?’ the major asked.

  They passed the site where the steel and concrete works for the football stadium were already in progress. ‘You’ll think of a way to end it,’ the general said.

  ‘Do you want him taken out?’ the major asked. ‘If we take De Villiers out in Hamburg, Weber will never know what happened. And he doesn’t know much about us, does he?’

  ‘He’s too dangerous to be left in place.’

  ‘We have a hold over him through his wife,’ the major said.

  ‘No,’ said the general. ‘Because of his wife, he has a hold over us.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘What I mean,’ the general said icily, ‘is this: if we hadn’t involved his wife in the operation, we wouldn’t be having this conversation now. And I suspect the same is true for De Villiers.’

  ‘But General, De Villiers would never have agreed to come to Hamburg unless we had a firm hold over him.’

  ‘Major, you don’t have to grab a man by the testicles to persuade him to give you what you want, especially if he doesn’t want for himself that which you want from him. Couldn’t you have been more subtle? Perhaps asked him directly and explained to him why his presence at the bank was required.’

  ‘But General,’ the major began, ‘he would never have agreed, after what happened in Pretoria.’

  ‘That’s my point exactly,’ the general countered. ‘We wouldn’t be here if those goons you sent to rough him up hadn’t killed his wife and children. That’s where everything started going wrong for us. And now we have a lot of cleaning up to do.’

  The major parked the car. He avoided the general’s eye while he manoeuvred the wheelchair into position and helped the general out of the car. He spoke from behind the wheelchair when they were next to the small plane waiting for them. ‘What do you want me to do then, General?’

  The general made the decision quickly. ‘Get rid of them,’ he said. ‘But for God’s sake, don’t make a mess of it again.’

  ‘Both of them?’

  ‘That’s what “them” means, doesn’t it?’

  The major smiled with relief. ‘I’ll get our precious Major de Villiers in Hamburg,’ he said. ‘I have just the man for that. And I’ll deal with Weber personally when I get back.’

  ‘It’s now your problem, Major, and I don’t want to hear of them again.’

  ‘What about Weber’s wife? And the girl in New Zealand?’

  ‘Let them go. As soon as we’ve got what we wanted.’

  The major saluted the general’s flight at takeoff. The northeasterly was blowing fiercely.

  De Villiers sat in silence in the passenger seat during the trip back to Weber’s chambers. They took the lift and sat down in the room where, years before, they had sat together to prepare the case of the Alicia Mae. They talked about their plans for the next two days. Neither was completely open with the other. De Villiers now knew with certainty, for the first time, who had been responsible for the killing of his wife and children all those years before. He still didn’t understand exactly why it had happened, but he knew for certain who was to blame. He was glad that he would have time to think about it before he saw the major again.

  This time they would meet on his turf. De Villiers knew the St Pauli area well.

  He had grown to admire Hamburg during his long visit all those years ago. He remembered that the city had been sacked and rebuilt four times. The Vikings had sailed up the Elbe in 845 AD and set fire to the village which then had only about five hundred inhabitants. In 1030 the king of Poland burned Hamburg down to the ground and in 1842 the rebuilt city was razed again by a great fire. In 1943 Allied bombers destroyed it more comprehensively than anyone had ever done before. But each time the Hamburgers returned and rebuilt their city from the rubble. Each time they built their city higher and better. Each time their attitude said: this is our city. You may knock the bricks down, but you will never conquer our spirit.

  De Villiers wondered whether he would have the courage and spirit to rebuild himself. He had done so partially before, but that had been a long time
ago. The world was different now and the stakes were higher. He was alone then; now he had a wife and child to take into account. Taking risks with his freedom or his life was no longer an option.

  Weber phoned James Mazibuko as soon as De Villiers was out of the door. He had promised the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

  ‘Ah,’ James Mazibuko said when Weber had finished his summary of the events at the airport. ‘We need a change of plan here. Do you have pen and paper on you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Weber said.

  ‘Take down the following,’ Mazibuko instructed.

  Weber carefully noted the details given by Mazibuko and smiled to himself. ‘So I might save my car after all?’ He didn’t know where the humour came from. Perhaps Mazibuko’s irreverent attitude was contagious.

  ‘It’s a crap car, anyway,’ Mazibuko said. ‘I’d rather have the money.’

  Hamburg

  Thursday, 25 June 2009 39

  It took De Villiers only eighteen hours from boarding the first flight in Durban to get to Hamburg and St Catherine’s Church.

  When he left Johann Weber’s chambers, he had an electronic ticket – business class, for Durban-Johannesburg-Frankfurt-Hamburg – in his pocket. Weber took him straight back to the airport to catch the first flight. Everything would depend on the timing, and they couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

  He made the telephone calls his New Zealand operation required while waiting for Lufthansa to call the passengers to the boarding gate. He also had to wait for the time zones to allow him to phone his daughter in New Zealand. He phoned Zoë at the appointed hour and told her again to cooperate fully with her captors and to be a good girl. He phoned Emma and promised that Zoë would be home within forty-eight hours. He phoned his men in Kawerau to make sure everything was in place for the final push. And then he made the most difficult call of all. He phoned his erstwhile colleague, Tau Kupenga.