by Ian Patrick
Suddenly Thabethe leaped out from behind the galley wall. Ryder saw the movement a split second before Thabethe fired the SIG. Once. Twice. Three times. The rounds echoed off the laminated finishings in the vessel and the sound rolled up the stairs and out into the ears of anyone within thirty or forty metres, notwithstanding the heavy traffic beyond on Margaret Mncadi Avenue. Ryder rolled to escape the first bullet, ducked for the second, and ran smack into the wall to escape the third. He bounced straight back off the wall before Thabethe could fire the fourth round, with his right fist arcing round to smash Thabethe’s gun-hand. The SIG clattered down and slid back into the galley as, out of nowhere, Thabethe had the sharpened bicycle spoke.
He lunged toward Ryder, who responded with a wayward kick to Thabethe’s right hip. Pillay groaned as she saw the missed opportunity. Ryder would never have missed the opportunity if only he had attended her martial arts classes. She would have taken Thabethe down with that kick if it had been positioned correctly. Would have shattered the knee. Put him into a wheelchair for months. But Ryder had aimed far too high.
Nevertheless, the kick had made an impact. Ryder’s boot had at least connected with the hip and momentarily disabled Thabethe, who dropped the spoke as he screamed in agony. It gave Ryder time to launch himself at full stretch, but Thabethe rolled out of reach and scrambled toward the stairs. Ryder kicked out at him again and felt his left boot connect with Thabethe’s ankle. Another agonising scream from Thabethe, but he managed to kick back and drag himself away from the detective, grabbing hold of the rail and clambering his way onto the first two steps. Pillay was still screaming with her mouth firmly shut by the gag, resulting in nothing but a swallowed gurgle. She was trying to warn Ryder about something else. But Ryder missed it. As Thabethe reached the middle of the stairs he lunged forward and upward to make a grab for the escaping man’s foot.
18.03.
Cronje barged into Nyawula’s office, screaming.
‘Captain! Big shootout down at the Yacht Club. KoeksnDips are on their way, but they’ll take some time. They’re still out at Musgrave, and they...’
‘I’m on my way, Piet. Let’s go. No. You stay! Get the medics. Check out... Come down after you’ve sorted out...’
‘Don’t worry, Captain. I’m on it.’
Nyawula crashed through the door into the car park as Cronje continued to call after him.
‘Navi and Jeremy are supposed to be down there, Captain. At the wharf. Dipps got the call and asked me to tell you. The guy who called him said there were shots…’
Mavis ran after Nyawula, down the stairs into the car park.
‘What can I do, Captain? I heard Piet say...’
‘Ride with me, Mavis. Hurry.’
The two of them ran toward the Captain’s car and they roared off into the thick traffic as Cronje returned quickly to his office and snatched at the phone.
18.05.
As Thabethe dragged himself to the top of the stairs in an effort to escape the detective, Ryder lurched forward again after him, reaching for his damaged ankle in order to yank him back. Pillay finally managed to loosen her gag by rubbing it against the edge of the cupboard. She screamed.
‘Jeremyyyy. Behind you!’
She was too late. Before she got even the first of her three words out Ryder saw a quick shadow pass down over his eyes from above his head and immediately felt the rope bite into his flesh as it was looped around his neck and he was pulled back from behind. He instinctively brought his hands up to get a grip on the rope as it bit into his throat. But the enormous power of Big Red’s hands, coupled with a weight far exceeding Ryder’s, pulled him back relentlessly to the ground as the Rooster deliberately fell backward onto the floor, pulling the detective brutally back onto his stomach and wrapping his giant legs around Ryder’s thighs, pinioning the cop against himself as he applied relentless pressure on the rope from behind.
Ryder choked and, against all instinct and training and experience, panicked. He couldn’t breathe. He struggled left and right and forward and nothing budged. The big man had him cold. The rope was nylon and it bit deep into his neck. It was obstructed on the right by Ryder’s right hand, where the four fingers had been caught under the rope as the detective had instinctively sought to protect his right external jugular vein. On the opposite side his left thumb was similarly trapped under the rope against the left external jugular.
The Rooster, lying flat on his back, had him in a perfect position, with his muscular legs now wrapped tightly around from behind and pinning Ryder back against his own stomach, while his massive wrists pulled tighter on the rope. And tighter.
The back of Ryder’s head was on his assailant’s belly and the rope was being pulled upward, stretching him slowly up toward the Rooster’s sternum. Ryder had to either free his fingers and risk having the rope cut through into the jugulars, or try and use the fingers to fight against the ever-tightening nylon. He was losing the battle, and Pillay watched helplessly as the rope started cutting through Ryder’s flesh and blood started oozing through the broken skin, while Ryder’s face started turning purple.
Pillay screamed in helpless fear as she saw Ryder starting to fade. She was losing him. He was no match for the big man, whose biceps were turning rock-hard with the effort he was exerting on the rope. Pillay screamed in anguish.
‘Nooooo! Jeremyyyyy!’
She burst into tears as she saw him losing the battle. Ryder was going to die.
18.06.
Thabethe was unaware of the way the fight was developing in the cabin. He had made it to the quay and to possible freedom and that was all that mattered. He limped in agony to the Ford, which was parked a mere twenty metres from the yacht, ripped open the door and collapsed into the driver’s seat. He cursed as he fumbled with the ignition. The pain from his hip was excruciating. The sweat cascaded off his brow. Ignition. His eyes bulged. Purple veins pulsed against the yellow sclera. Take-off. There might just be a way out of this.
The Ford screamed at top revs as he crossed the railway lines and lurched into Margaret Mncadi Avenue. Cars skidded to a halt all around him. Horns blared. Drivers thrust their heads out of windows, hurling abuse at him. The car careened crazily as he swung the wheel left and right and left again, diving in and out of the traffic, every sinew in his arms and neck indicating that he expected to be smashed to pieces at any moment if he made the slightest miscalculation.
In the distance he could hear sirens. He caught a glimpse of blue flashing lights ahead, coming toward him but on the opposite side of the road and in impossible traffic. Two cop cars. One of them heading straight on toward the Yacht Club, oblivious to what was happening on the other side of the central island. But the driver of the second car realised that something was happening on the opposite side, and skidded to a halt as his partner leaped out into the traffic, bringing cars to a halt as he ran across to Thabethe’s side of the road. A truck driver saw the cop coming across and immediately pulled over to the left to stop. As he did so, Thabethe deftly avoided him from behind, weaving in and out and back again and roaring past the cop who held both hands up in a warning for him to stop. The cop scuttled back to the central island as he realised Thabethe’s intentions, and the Ford roared past him down toward the thinning traffic which would lead to two options for the north coast.
Thabethe started to believe that there might be the slimmest - just the slimmest - of chances for an escape.
18.07.
Pillay had never felt so completely and utterly helpless. She strained every sinew in her body to try and extricate herself. Fruitless. She was as helpless as a fly glued to a web. But in her anguished threshing as she watched her partner dying she managed to kick hard against the counter, splitting the wood upward and sending a sliver straight onto the kettle, which fell to the floor and sent a spray of scalding hot water flying upward onto both Ryder and Big Red.
The kettle was by no stretch of the imagination going to deter the big man from his in
tention to tighten the rope around the detective’s neck until it had squeezed every drop of life out of him. But it did produce the slightest moment of disruption. The pressure exerted by the big man didn’t ease, but it paused momentarily. It was a fraction of a second in which Ryder took an enormous gamble.
There was only one weak spot in his assailant’s entire physique, and that was his damaged left eye. There was no way Ryder could do any damage to the man except if he could reach that eye. It was fruitless trying to fight against the enormous power of the man’s steroid-inflated arms and hands and legs. He had to get to the eye. Yet to tear his fingers away from their trapped position under the rope would be to allow his neck to succumb completely to the ever-tightening nylon. Which would spell the end of his jugular veins.
But there was nothing else remaining in the detective’s armoury. It was this or nothing.
In the instant Big Red paused in reaction to the kettle, Ryder ripped his left thumb away from under the rope, exposing his left jugular, and like the backstroke champion he had been in the swimming pool two decades ago, he drove his arm in a perfect arc back over his head. It travelled, with his fist clenched and his thumb extended, as rigid as a piece of piping, straight over his head, as Ryder could only guess where the adversary’s left eye might be.
Bull’s eye. The thumb went straight into the big man’s left orbital socket, smashing into the sclera and fracturing the orbital rim that had been so carefully cleaned and repaired by the surgeon just over a week ago.
Big Red’s scream of agony was accompanied by a complete relaxation of the rope as his left hand flew up to clutch the newly shattered eye socket. This gave Ryder the chance to lurch upward into a sitting position with a view to springing to his feet. But even in his pain and trauma the half-blinded Rooster knew he had to act to regain the initiative. Still on his back, as Ryder sat up in front of him, he kicked out with his right foot, getting his right boot smashing into the detective’s lower back as he was getting to his feet, and sending him sprawling forward into Pillay. As both detectives fell in a tangle, the big man leaped to his feet and scrambled his way up the stairs.
Big Red hit the quayside before Ryder could make it to the top of the stairs inside the vessel. He ran, losing his balance as he realised that his left eye was now completely blind, and made for the Lamborghini. As Ryder got to the deck, he saw the Rooster’s intention immediately. But the Big Man had a good start. He had the key in the ignition as Ryder hit the ground, and he was already tearing out of the parking bay with tyres squealing and his door still open as Ryder reached him.
With a superhuman effort Ryder left the ground, diving for the car as it roared off. He had a momentary image in the recesses of his consciousness of the Sharks player he and Fiona had seen a couple of days ago, floating like a dolphin toward the tryline. He stretched out agonisingly and just managed to grab the steering wheel, his feet dragging along the tarmac and his body about to smash into a parked car as Big Red sought to side-swipe the vehicle and smear the detective off into a pulp. But Ryder pulled hard on the wheel and caused it to turn into the back of the parked vehicle instead of swiping it sideways. The consequence was a massive crumpling of both vehicles as the Lamborghini came to a shattering, shuddering halt and the parked vehicle ended almost perpendicularly halfway up a wall.
Ryder was flung some five or six metres across the tarmac, rolling two or three times before his lower back smashed into a low wall on the edge of the parking area. He dragged himself off the ground, preparing for the next phase of the titanic struggle with the Rooster.
But Big Red was out of it. The action was over.
18.10.
Travelling at one hundred and sixty kilometres an hour Thabethe shot through four consecutive red lights, expecting at every one of them to be smashed to pieces by someone coming through at right angles on the green.
His luck held. The Ford still whined at top revs as he swung left then right then left again and then he pushed even harder on the gas to hit the N2 travelling at well over one hundred and eighty. He maintained top speed, flashing past startled drivers who themselves were worrying about picking up speed traps at the significantly lower speeds at which they were travelling.
It was only when he swung onto the M41 that he slowed slightly before then coming back to maximum revs on the R102. He continued to pass every vehicle without slowing down, judging to perfection the distances needed for the overtake. Finally, as he approached the outskirts of KwaDukuza, he slowed to below one hundred and twenty.
He abandoned the car just outside KwaDukuza and hailed one taxi to the intersection then a second taxi shortly thereafter, going east on the R74.
He called the taxi to a halt and climbed off about halfway between KwaDukuza and the N2. In great pain he made his way immediately into the bush. From there he started climbing the hills, slowly, cursing with each step as agonising spasms shot through his limbs. Each spasm made him think of Ryder.
He had to get rid of Ryder, and if he couldn’t get to Ryder himself, then Ryder’s family. His wife. His kids. Ryder himself. The cop had to pay. For weeks now he had destroyed every one of Thabethe’s plans to extricate himself from poverty and create a new life for himself. Ryder. Ryder was in his face every single day. He had to deal with it.
But for now he had to get further away from the road. He felt safer in the bush and on the hills. Alone. No-one to burden him. Alone with his wits and his intuition.
And soon, he would be in the dark, where he functioned best. Where he could be alone with his thoughts. He would feel safer when the sun disappeared.
18.15.
Ryder sat on the low wall as the police vehicles poured in, sirens blaring. The medics were also arriving. He saw Nyawula arrive. Mavis Tshabalala was with him. There, behind them, were Nadine Salm and her assistant. Big smiles from those two, as they approached. No smiles but lots of concern from all the others. Including, even further back, Koekemoer and Dippenaar, who all arrived together.
Nadine and her companion stopped, as they realised that there were more important people approaching Ryder. But Nadine waved, and smiled. Ryder nodded back at her, and raised an arm to wave back, painfully. He knew she would want to get started immediately. Niceties could come later. She whispered to her assistant and they both chuckled, then moved over to the scene of the carnage, opening their bags as they did so. Within seconds they would be busy, thought Ryder. Flashlights, camera, note-pads, and deep, focussed concentration. Ryder smiled, wryly. Nadine was the best.
Then, way behind, came the sound of the worst profanities and foul language Ryder had heard in a long time. Not even Ed Trewhella could swear like that. The crowd parted as Pillay pushed her way forward, cursing and swearing. Not even the sight of Nyawula could calm her down. It was only when she saw Ryder sitting there, alive, and smiling, that she stopped, dead in her tracks. And then a strange thing happened. Which the unit would talk about for some time.
Pillay’s eyes suddenly spurted tears. There were no sobs. Just tears.
It was a shock to Ryder too, and Nyawula was also somewhat taken aback. He instinctively stood back to allow Pillay to pass.
By which time Pillay recovered a little.
‘You stupid bastard, Ryder,’ she said, smearing away the tears.
‘I know, Navi. Sorry.’
Pillay punched fists with Ryder. She paused, and could think of nothing else to do. So she punched fists with him again. Then she turned and shouted at the medics.
‘What the hell are you guys waiting for? Get over here, guys. We’ve got a detective who needs attention.’
19.00.
The dusk crept in, tumbling down the gullies of the brown hills on either side of the R74. The lone figure, moving slowly across the rocky slope on the southern side, stumbled on a loose stone and paused, momentarily, as he corrected his balance. In response, a startled grey-brown rock hyrax sprang from its cover. The dassie was gone in an instant, burrowing into a thick mess of
tangled bracken twenty paces away. The man cursed and continued, picking his way a little more carefully over the uneven surface.
He found a flat rock with a view over the road far below. He sat down slowly and painfully, easing his bruised hip and stretching out the damaged leg. He settled, leaning backward, propped up by both arms stretched out behind him to ease the pain in his lower back, and contemplated the growling traffic. Tyres thudding against potholes. Headlights beginning to be switched on. His gaze drifted to the opposite slope, where the once flourishing grassland seemed to him so thin and eroded that no cattle could possibly now survive there. He looked down from his perch and over to his right at the rocky pathway that used to be the Mbozamo.
He remembered his mother telling him that when she was a young girl growing up in these hills it was a full-flowing stream in which she loved to bathe with her friends. Now it was dry and barren and rocky.
A small fire on the hill opposite drew his attention to two small boys. It was too far to see clearly, but from their movements he concluded that they were smoking. Hands to mouths, followed by jerking movements that indicated coughing, then rough slapping on the back. Two kids probably experimenting with whoonga, he conjectured. Far behind them a goat sniffed vainly at an unyielding thicket of what were probably thorns. Was that a single cow further in the distance? And was that the smoke of another random fire on the hill beyond?
He looked to his left. Over there, somewhere, was KwaDukuza. The dusk, chasing away the last remnants of the setting sun, limited his view. Nothing out there but the implacable night closing in on him. He turned to his right. A slightly longer view, leading, in the distance, toward the Indian Ocean. He would make his way down there later tonight under cover of darkness. He would draw comfort from the protection offered by the bush. On the beach. Where he might also strip and plunge into the salty waters. To cleanse himself. To wash away the day. To try and wash away indelible memories.