‘It will make the Alicia Mae look like a Sunday-school picnic,’ the major said, before realising he’d said too much.
At the repeated mention of the Alicia Mae, albeit in Afrikaans, the engineer became restless. ‘There was a bomb on the Alicia Mae,’ he said. ‘I made it.’ He tapped with a finger on his own chest. ‘I made it,’ he said with pride.
De Villiers looked at the major. ‘You were going to blow up the ship with everyone on board. Me included.’
The major didn’t answer.
‘Have you no honour?’ De Villiers asked. ‘No honour at all?’
‘It was deemed an operational necessity,’ the major said.
‘And was it an operational necessity for you to send those men to kill my wife and children?’ De Villiers asked. His voice rose an octave. ‘You kill women and children because it is an operational necessity? Have you no honour at all?’
‘It was not supposed to happen that way,’ the major said. ‘All I was trying to do was to teach you a lesson.’
De Villiers felt the anger boiling inside him. ‘A lesson, you say. What lesson? And why?’
He took a deep breath. I could kill them here, he said to himself, no problem, and walk away. I need to calm down, he cautioned himself. He closed his eyes and waited for his breathing to return to normal. The roar of the traffic on Bei den Mühren combined with the rushing blood in his veins to drown out the major’s response.
Hamburg
Friday, 26 June 2009 45
I’m going to turn around and walk away, De Villiers said to himself. Put one foot in front of the other and repeat the exercise until I’m far away from here.
He turned and put his resolve into action. He put one foot in front of the other. It was as if in slow motion. I’m walking away, he said to himself. I’m walking away.
De Villiers descended the first of the church steps. The engineer grabbed him from behind by his collar. ‘Five million dollars,’ the engineer said into his neck. ‘Today.’
De Villiers tensed his muscles as a prelude to a judo move that would throw the engineer over his hip onto the lower steps but felt the sharp point of a knife under his ear. He forced his muscles to relax.
The man was strong and hauled De Villiers back to the top. De Villiers struggled for breath, but the engineer held him fast and turned him so that he had no option but to face the major.
‘You don’t have any choice,’ the major said, centimetres away from his face. De Villiers could see the red veins in the major’s eyes. ‘We have your daughter. I know where you live. I could tell you the registration number of your wife’s car and the colour of her eyes. I know what brand of underwear she wears. You think you can get away from me? Think again. I have you in my pocket, now and forever. I can reach you anywhere any time I want.’
Each word struck home with the metronomic beat of an army of jackboots marching on cobblestones. The words grated on his eardrums and De Villiers felt the rage rising within him, in every muscle, in pace with the major’s words. The engineer pulled him closer and the top button of his shirt flew off, releasing the pressure on his windpipe immediately. De Villiers gulped down deep breaths of air.
‘No,’ he heard himself say. ‘No.’
‘Yes, yes,’ the major said. ‘I own you and everything you have.’
De Villiers struggled in the grip of the engineer. ‘No,’ he croaked. ‘I won’t do it.’
‘Think of your daughter,’ De Villiers heard the major say. ‘Zoë, is it?’
At the mention of his daughter’s name, the suppressed rage inside De Villiers burst open like a pus-filled boil. In the millisecond it took his muscles to react, a raft of past events flashed through his mind and overwhelmed his senses. The president of Zimbabwe in the sights of his sniper’s rifle. The gunshot when Jacques Verster was killed. The hunger that marched with him and his bushman companion through the Angolan Kalahari. The taste of the tsama melons he and !Xau had to eat to survive. The smell of the medication forced down his throat at Weskoppies Psychiatric Hospital. The straightjacket wrapping him up like a baby. The smell of cordite mixed with his own blood when the men sent by the major had shot him in the chest and leg. The screams of his children as the bullets smashed into them. His wife’s bloody palm print on the window of his car. But most of all, he felt trapped in the past, unable to move, with the present, the here and now, fading from his conscious mind.
‘Think of your daughter,’ was the last thing he heard. ‘Zoë, is it?’
It was, indeed.
His muscles relaxed completely and he felt his knees and hips buckling under the weight of his torso. The engineer was forced to use both hands to support De Villiers in an upright position. De Villiers straightened up and turned at the same time. His hands came together for the briefest of moments and the spoke slipped naturally into his right hand in a practised move. The head of the spoke sat flush in the groove of his palm and formed an extension of the long bones of his forearm. Without having to think, he drove it deep into the engineer’s chest, right over the heart, in what looked like no more than an open-handed shove. The engineer’s eyes registered the shock. His knife clattered to the ground. He looked down, but there was nothing to see, nothing alarming, yet the excruciating pain at the core of his being told him otherwise. His heart muscles convulsed once or twice and then froze in a permanent cramp and stopped functioning. His brain registered nothing except that a vital organ had suffered a major malfunction signalled by excruciating pain. The engineer let go of De Villiers and sat down hard. Only the head of the spoke protruded from his jacket pocket; its full length was embedded in his chest with the sharp point touching a rib at the back. Its track had been pure, clean through the heart.
The major saw the engineer stumble on the steps and lose his balance, but had no idea what could have caused the big man’s sudden collapse. He stepped forward and reached out towards the man.
De Villiers’s hands came together a second time and he drove the spoke into the major’s heart, from behind, left-handed. He caught the major and held him upright and then turned him around. He slowly eased the major into a sitting position next to the engineer and draped his arm over the engineer’s shoulders.
Their death rattles sounded like laughter as they sat like old friends enjoying a joke together. The past faded into the background as De Villiers’s own breathing returned to normal and he once more became aware of his surroundings. On Bei den Mühren, the traffic flow continued as before. In the canal beyond, a tug slowly guided a barge into position on the quay. Seagulls flew above, spying for scraps of food.
On the steps of the church, De Villiers sat next to the major and the engineer with his arm around the major’s shoulders, gripping the engineer’s coat by the shoulder pad, holding them steady while their convulsions slowed. He kept them upright and still in their death throes. All the while he scanned the traffic on Bei den Mühren from left to right. A cyclist stopped right in front of the church and alighted. De Villiers stiffened, but the man left quickly after adjusting his chain.
They stopped breathing, the one soon after the other. The major’s redlined eyes were wide open. De Villiers leaned his body against the bulk of the engineer.
It was time to wrap up, to leave.
De Villiers pulled at the spoke in the major’s back, but it was stuck fast. It must have gone through a rib, he thought, but he had come prepared for that. With his free hand, he removed the Leatherman from its scabbard on his ankle and opened its pliers. He had to lever the spoke out, changing his grip higher on the spoke as it came out a few centimetres at a time.
The second spoke came out at the first pull.
Their passports were in the inside pockets of their coats. De Villiers pocketed those. The major’s wallet contained a thick wad of euros. De Villiers put half under the major’s shoe and spread the rest around on the steps behind the bodies. He wiped the engineer’s knife, put it in the man’s inside pocket, and removed the family photographs f
rom his wallet.
Now there were no items left which could assist with the identification of the engineer or the major and De Villiers left without a backward glance.
Once on the far side of Bei den Mühren, he threw the spokes into the water of the canal. The Leatherman, his companion on numerous missions, followed a few minutes later. He walked past the fish market and the seamen’s hostel where he had stayed in 1992 while the engineer, he now knew, was working below deck on the Alicia Mae building cells for prisoners. The area looked cleaner than he remembered it. There was a lot of greenery in the red-light district.
He walked on and turned right on the Reeperbahn. It would take him to the Rathaus and the bank in a roundabout way. He remembered the day he had met the major at the Vereins- und Westbank, as the bank was known at the time, to open the account. A subaccountant had been called from the back of the bank to help them. He remembered Herr Schmidt well. An unsmiling, serious man in his forties, Herr Schmidt had given them a sermon. Since they were foreigners, the account could have only one signatory. The major had pointed at De Villiers. The account holder’s passport must be shown at each cash withdrawal. The major had nodded in De Villiers’s direction again.
‘We want to run the account in US dollars,’ the major had said.
‘That will be in order,’ Herr Schmidt had said. ‘And,’ he’d added, ‘every cash transaction larger than ten thousand dollars will be reported to the tax authorities.’
The major had nodded. ‘We intend to pay by cheque or bank transfer,’ he had said. ‘And we expect some further deposits to be made from time to time from our account in Zurich.’
Herr Schmidt had looked at the major for a long time before he nodded. The significance of a Swiss bank between the source of the money and Herr Schmidt’s bank only struck De Villiers much later. Herr Schmidt and his colleagues at the Vereins- und Westbank would be unable to trace the source of the funds in the account. Neither, of course, would anyone else.
It was a good scheme. Except that the bank would not allow anyone other than De Villiers to access the money in the account.
De Villiers and the major had waited while Herr Schmidt activated the account. It had taken the whole morning. Afterwards, De Villiers had walked back to the seamen’s hostel alone.
He now walked along the same route he had then, but in the opposite direction. I could blame Herr Schmidt for this, he thought to himself. If it wasn’t for his conditions for operating the account, I wouldn’t be here in this dilemma. I wouldn’t have had to kill.
The engineer and the major’s wallets and passports needed to be burned, he knew, but he didn’t have any matches. As he walked, he studied the details of the two men he had killed.
The engineer had a Turkish passport, giving his names and occupation. Suleiman Hertzeoglou. There was a business card in the inside sleeve of the passport holder. The engineer’s employer was a Hamburg steel-engineering and construction firm with its offices in the city and its plant near the harbour. The card proclaimed that they were experts in the erection of bridges, arches and roof structures. The engineer’s wallet contained a few banknotes and a small folder with photographs. The top photograph was of a woman and three children. He had a family. The woman wore a full-face niqab and the children traditional Muslim garb. The second photograph was of the engineer. He was somewhere in a desert country and wore camouflage fatigues. He smiled at the camera while aiming an AK-47 at a cutout target of an American marine.
De Villiers tore the photographs into small pieces and discarded them in small batches in the bins he passed. He stopped next to a drain and pretended to tie his shoelace. He slipped the wallets into the drain and waited until he heard them splashing into the water below.
The major’s passport was South African. It had numerous visas and stamps in it. His last visit to Germany had been a few weeks earlier. De Villiers studied the passport photo. It was the major alright. He read the name aloud. Hermann Kunneke. After all these years, he had a name for the major. Hermann Kunneke. He wondered if it was the major’s real name.
On the way to the bank, he stopped on a bridge over a canal. He remembered, for no reason, a brochure he had seen at the hotel. It said that Hamburg had more than 2,300 bridges, more than Amsterdam or Venice. He tore the photo pages from the passports and tore them into small pieces no larger than a thumbnail. He looked around and, when he thought it was safe, he dropped the pieces in the water. He watched as they drifted away like confetti. He discarded the mutilated passport covers in different trash bins many city blocks apart after wiping them clear of his fingerprints.
In the men’s room opposite the Rathaus, he carefully checked whether there was any blood on his clothing and washed his hands.
He looked himself in the eye in the mirror and echoed the major’s words.
‘It was an operational necessity.’
He crossed yet another bridge en route to the bank. Herr Amsinck offered him tea. De Villiers declined.
‘There is a slight change of plan,’ De Villiers said. He handed Mr Amsinck the list with the account numbers and amounts. ‘I want these transfers to be made today. And then I want to make a donation to a charity.’
The bank official entered his password on his desktop computer and accessed the account. He picked up the list and entered the details of the first account. ‘Mr J Mazibuko, First Republic Bank, Port Louis, Mauritius, one million dollars,’ he read from the screen.
‘Correct,’ De Villiers confirmed.
Mr Amsinck pressed the enter button and folded his arms. A few seconds later there was a beep and he said, ‘It’s gone through.’
He processed the next two quickly: $11,245,307.55 into the first account and $5 million into the second.
De Villiers stopped him when he was about to do the next transfer. ‘Let me think for a minute.’
He considered what Johann Weber had said. ‘While we don’t want their money, you and I can’t waive the amounts payable to Liesl and Zoë without their consent. They are entitled to compensation for the wrong done to them, and considering the danger they’ve been in, the amount is entirely appropriate. In Zoë’s case, Emma has to give that consent. You can’t make a unilateral decision.’
Mr Amsinck watched the bank’s client with professional detachment. He had pronounced De Villiers’s name correctly, Duh-Ville-yeah, from the first meeting.
‘Let’s do it,’ De Villiers said.
It took less than a minute for each of the transfers. The beep confirmed the transfer of $1 million to his own account. Liesl and Zoë’s money.
‘There is now precisely one and a half million dollars left in the account,’ Mr Amsinck said when the last beep had sounded.
‘I want that to go to a church here in Hamburg,’ De Villiers said, ‘St Catherine’s.’
Mr Amsinck showed his surprise. ‘I’m a member of the congregation,’ he said. ‘But why?’
De Villiers hesitated. ‘The organ restoration needs more money, I see. But I don’t have the account details.’
‘No matter,’ Mr Amsinck said. ‘We have the account number.’ He punched away on the keyboard. ‘What name should I put as the donor?’
De Villiers took a deep breath. ‘Just say it is for Annelise.’
‘You mean, from Annelise? Auf Annelise.’
‘No, for Annelise,’ De Villiers said. He knew enough German to say, ‘Für Annelise.’
Mr Amsinck processed the transaction. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked when he was ready. ‘Für Annelise?’
‘Yes,’ De Villiers said without hesitation.
‘How much?’
‘All of it,’ De Villiers said.
Mr Amsinck pressed the key on the keyboard and De Villiers could hear the computer beep.
Once outside the bank, he carefully tore up the receipts and closing documents and allowed the pieces to fall one at a time from his hand as he walked back towards the Rathaus. He would catch a taxi to the airport there.
T
he first was a short flight and De Villiers kept looking over his shoulder through the airport and also on arrival at Frankfurt International. By the time they called the flight from Frankfurt to Singapore, De Villiers was well under the weather, but he was certain that there was no one on his spoor. He shaved off his beard in the bathroom of the first-class lounge and changed into his preferred gear for travelling: khaki cargo pants, Levi’s denim shirt, cotton socks and RM Williams boots. He stuck the clothes he had worn during the operation in the bin for used hand towels. A hot shower had done him good, washed the blood away, in a manner of speaking. He felt cleansed.
But he was slightly under the weather. Well, perhaps more than slightly. The stewards in the first-class lounge had ignored him when he first arrived, but after he’d had a shower and changed, they were all over him, offering champagne and refilling his glass every time he had taken a few sips.
At the computer terminal in the business section of the lounge, he accessed the website of the New Zealand Herald. He watched a news clip showing Zoë emerging from the house in Kawerau at Tau Kupenga’s side. The camera followed their progress down the driveway to the police car at the kerb. Halfway to the car, Zoë let go of Kupenga’s hand and started skipping.
Hop. Skip. Jump.
Hop. Skip. Jump.
De Villiers watched the clip a few times. The clip ended with Kupenga waiting at the door of his car. He was shaking his head. De Villiers decided to give him a call. He pulled his secret cellphone from under his shirt and punched in the number.
Kupenga answered immediately. ‘Kupenga.’ He sounded tired, but there was a big promotion waiting for him.
‘Hey, Bro,’ De Villiers said in the vernacular of close friends. ‘I didn’t break any laws in New Zealand or South Africa.’
‘Are you fucking mad?’ Kupenga said. ‘I haven’t had any sleep for two days. I’ve been up all night and I am still at the station writing up reports, and you phone from South Africa to tell me you haven’t broken the law?’
De Villiers ignored Kupenga’s mistaken assumption. ‘The law on its own is not enough, Tau, to bring the scales into balance. Sometimes you have to give it a little push.’
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