by Deon Meyer
He took another sheet of paper out of the file. 'Here is a letter from the Director confirming that they are making an exception with the import permit, since it is an "emergency",' and he drew quotation marks with his thick index fingers.
'Diederik ...' I said.
'Lemmer, I know what you are going to ask. What has all this to do with you? Let me tell you then. You know Lourens le Riche?'
'I know of him.'
'You know Nicola, the game farmer?'
'He is a friend.'
'Right now Lourens is in Musina with Nicola's game lorry. Tonight he is loading the rhino just east of Vhembe on the Zim border, and then he has to drive all the way here with a cargo that is worth a fortune, and I don't just mean in money terms. That's over 1,500 kilometres. If something goes wrong ...' Brand looked at me meaningfully. It took me a while to get it.
'You want me to travel with him?'
'Please, Lemmer, buddy.' Like we were old friends. 'I will pay full price, just let me know your fee.'
I could read on Emma's face that she thought I should support this worthy cause.
'Diederik, it's not that simple ...'
'Everything is official, Lemmer, you don't have to worry about that.'
'That's not the issue. I'm on contract. I can't do freelance work.'
'What do you mean?'
'I work for a company in Cape Town. Body Armour.'
'Yes, yes, your bodyguard job. You look after all those rich and famous ...'
There are no secrets in the Bo-Karoo, only false impressions. 'They are mostly businessmen from overseas ...' I said.
'But you're off now?'
'Diederik, I have a contract with Body Armour. It says I can't do freelance work. Everything has to go through them.'
'They must take a commission.'
'That's right.'
'Lemmer, man ... how will they know? You load tonight, the day after tomorrow you'll be back.'
How could I explain - without offending him - that my loyalty to Jeanette Louw, my boss, was not negotiable?
'I'm like you, Diederik, I prefer official sanction too.'
He looked at me thoughtfully.
'OK,' he said. 'Who is in charge there? What's his phone number?'
'How will that help? Musina is a day's drive from here.'
'That plane ...' he pointed his thumb towards the airfield. 'It's Lotter. He's waiting for you.'
After a ten-minute conversation he passed the phone to me. 'She wants to talk to you.'
'Jeanette,' I said.
'Glad to hear you are recruiting clients yourself now ...' She had the usual irony in her hoarse Gauloise voice, followed by the single barked 'Ha!' Which meant she was laughing.
I said nothing.
'I'll manage the admin, if you want the job.'
Did I want the job? This one was close to home. I had questions, as yet unformed, everything was moving too fast, too soon after the Knights. And then there was Lemmer's First Law: Don't get involved. And this was all about getting involved. With a local farmer, with Something Big.
Jeanette interpreted my silence correctly 'Perhaps you know more than I do. It's your decision.' Then she added: 'It's in a good cause, Lemmer. He sounds like a mensch. And you know how it is, with the recession ...'
I knew. Body Armour's turnover was down by fifty per cent, thanks to the international meltdown. It was two months since I'd earned a cent.
I looked at Emma's pleading eyes. Just like Jeanette, she was a Diederik disciple already. I thought of the young Lourens le Riche, hard-working student. What would the village say if I forsook him? I thought about the payment on the new Ford bakkie. And my roof. Oom Ben Bruwer's soft whistle as he climbed down out of the ceiling and told me the woodwork was rotten. I would have to put on a whole new roof.
I sighed. Deeply.
'I'm in,' I said.
22
To be able to recognise signs, trackers must know what to look for and where to look for them. Someone who is not familiar with spoor may not recognise it, even when looking straight at the sign.
The Principles of Tracking: Recognition of signs
Lotter looked like a middle-aged rock star. Balding, the hair he still had all gathered into a ponytail, with round spectacles on a gypsy face. 1 le shook my hand with a friendly smile, took my black sports bag and walked over to the aircraft. It was incredibly small, a toy plane in white, red and blue, with a Perspex bubble dome over the cabin, two seats, and a slim joystick where you would have expected something more substantial. It looked like the sort referred to in news bulletins as a microlight, usually followed by the word 'crashed'.
Emma inspected it curiously, caught up in what she had just referred to as my 'fun adventure'.
Diederik Brand came to stand beside me. 'You don't have to worry, Lotter is an international champion.'
It wasn't how he flew that worried me, but what he flew. I held my tongue.
'This is just in case,' Brand said, and passed me a package wrapped in a grimy cloth.
I smelled gun oil, and started to unwrap it.
He put a hand over it. 'I would wait until you're in the air ...' and he cast a significant look at Emma. 'I don't want to upset her.'
'Is there something I should know?'
'You know how it is on our roads,' he said.
I hesitated. My Glock 37, with ten .45 GAP rounds in the magazine, was in my sports bag. I didn't need anything else. But Diederik Brand had already turned away and walked towards the deathtrap. He clapped his hands, 'Come on, you must get moving.'
I checked my watch. Five to twelve.
Two hours ago my life had been a breeze.
I stood at the wing, ready to board. Emma came to me with a peculiar mix of emotions on her face - concern, pride, tenderness ...
I wanted to kiss her. She embraced me unexpectedly and pressed her body against mine. She said something that was lost in the roar of the plane's engine.
'What?' I shouted.
Emma moved so her mouth was against my ear.
'I love you, Lemmer.'
'Cape Town information, Romeo Victor Sierra, good morning,' Lotter said over the radio as the Bokpoort Road slid by below us and my stomach lodged in my throat.
'Romeo Victor Sierra, good morning, go ahead,' crackled a voice over the ether.
'Cape Town, Romeo Victor Sierra has taken off from Loxton at ten zero four Zulu, on flight plan reference zero two five, Romeo Victor Sierra.'
'Romeo Victor Sierra, squawk four zero six six, no reported traffic and call me crossing the FIR boundary.'
It was the language of another world. Lotter repeated the ghost voice's words in confirmation, made a couple of adjustments, and studied his inscrutable instruments. I wondered which one would give the first indication that we were going down in a ball of flame. I looked reluctantly out of the bubble dome. Below us the Karoo had swiftly spread wide and open and the heaven above was deep blue and immeasurably great.
Nausea began to rise in my gut.
I remembered the package on my lap. I unrolled the cloth from the firearm and revealed a peculiar object. It was a MAG-7, the locally manufactured short-barrelled shotgun, like an Uzi on steroids. Twelve- bore, five cartridges in a long box magazine. Serious stopping power. The sort of thing the police task force would use for inside work. There were another twenty cartridges in a plastic bag.
Lotter whistled in my headset. 'I swear, I'm on your side.'
'But who is on Brand's side?'
'What do you mean?'
'These weapons are only for government use. Civilians don't get licences for these.'
Lotter laughed. Ja, that Diederik,' and shook his head. He glanced at me. 'You're a bit pale.' He pulled a brown paper bag from under his seat and passed it to me. 'In case you get air sick.'
Which happened just beyond Hopetown.
'Had a big breakfast?' Lotter asked sympathetically.
I didn't reply, too afraid to open my mouth
.
'It's perfectly normal,' he said, with reference to my discomfort. 'You'll feel better now.'
Twenty minutes later another town slid by below us. I took a deep breath and asked hopefully if we needed to land to refuel.
He grinned. 'This thing flies 3,000 kilometres on a tank.'
'That's far for a microlight,' I said sceptically.
'What?' He was insulted. 'This is no microlight, this is an RV-7.'
An RV-7 and a MAG-7. Maybe Nicola's game lorry had a seven in its name. I might win the jackpot.
Lotter saw my lack of enthusiasm. 'Best kit plane in the world,' he said. 'She's one of Richard Van Grunsven's designs. Top speed over 190 knots, that's about 340 kilos per hour, she can cruise, she can do aerobatics, hell of a range ...'
'You mean Wretched Van Grunsven ...?' My stomach lurched at the word 'aerobatics'.
Lotter laughed. 'It's the speed and height,' he said. 'Your inner ear says you are moving at a helluva speed, but your eyes don't register it. It's like reading in a car. Just look down often. You will feel better soon.'
Promises, promises.
He busied himself on the radio, talking his unintelligible flight language. 'Cape Town, Romeo Victor Sierra is crossing FIR boundary.'
'Romeo Victor Sierra, call Johannesburg Central on one two zero decimal three, good day,' said the radio voice.
I tuned out, and looked down at the Karoo slowly but surely turning to grassveld. Lotter was right, because after a few minutes my guts began to stabilise. My thoughts began to drift. Slowly. Carefully. To Emma.
I love you, Lemmer.
It was the first time.
Emma and I.
Nine months ago we had been strangers, polar opposites from different worlds. She was tiny, sophisticated, determined, and as lovely as a nymph in a children's fairy tale. She was wealthy, exceptionally wealthy, thanks to an inheritance from her industrialist father. Back then, Emma was on a desperate search for her lost brother - and for someone to shield her from the suspected dangers connected to his disappearance. I was the bodyguard Jeanette had assigned to her. I was dubious, distrustful, sceptical, because Emma was everything my Laws warned me against.
She had conquered me slowly, against my will, against my expectations and, above all, against my better judgement. Firstly she was a client. And secondly I am Lemmer. White trash from the back streets of Sea Point, with serious anger management problems, a powerful affinity for violence, and on parole after four years in jail for manslaughter. I knew my place, I understood the realities of life.
I found her brother. And after all that I went home to Loxton, sure that I would never see her again, and probably for the best. But Emma is never predictable.
She tracked me down. I thought it was just to say thank you, at first, because she was always so painfully polite, faultlessly proper.
I was wrong.
The growth of our relationship had a certain surrealism to it, a dream-like quality, as if I were merely an observer. Perhaps because of my disbelief in the simple possibility that a woman like her would be interested in me. Blinded by the magic of myself with Emma, by my relief and amazement and need. And a morbid curiosity over where and how it would all derail.
Until this morning beside the RV-7. I love you, Lemmer.
The trouble is that Emma still doesn't know.
I hid my sins from her. She thinks I live in Loxton because it is a pretty place with good people. She doesn't know I went there to escape the city triggers that set off my firing pins. She doesn't know of my desire to be healed by the peacefulness, patience and integrity of the townspeople. She doesn't know of my stupid quest for their acceptance.
Stupid, because in the eyes of the Bo-Karoo, I was an outsider, a newcomer, an unknown quantity who kept my distance, subtly, politely, and according to my First Law. My strange job also had implications. The freelance bodyguard who worked in other places, stayed away for weeks at a time and sometimes returned with visible injuries. The shadowy figure who rattled off rounds with a handgun every week at the shooting range, and went on long runs at sundown on the gravel roads.
Townspeople like the eccentric Antjie Barnard, jovial Oom Joe van Wyk and my coloured housekeeper, Agatha le Fleur, were the only ones who, despite all that, accepted me without hesitation. But they were the exceptions. Until Emma's arrival.
She was a sign of normality. Through association, she was proof of acceptability, this spontaneous, attractive, well-spoken young woman who appeared out of nowhere and since then visited me once or twice a month. She had swapped her Renault Megane for a Land Rover Freelander to handle the dirt roads. She had taken my old Isuzu diesel on a Friday afternoon in August to buy groceries in Beaufort West and on the way home had rolled it on the turn near Jakhalsdans, a complete wreck.
The next morning, while looking for a 'green' solution for the ant infestation in my garden, she had made the grizzled farmers laugh hilariously with her tale of how she had taken the corner 'a bit too fast because I was missing Lemmer'.
'And then?'
'Then I rolled the bakkie.'
'And then?'
'I saw I was OK. So I walked the last seven kilometres back to town.'
They shook their heads in amazement: 'And what did Lemmer have to say?'
'Dunno. I don't understand French.'
According to Oom Joe she had them in stitches, and they slapped each other on the shoulder and took great pains to explain to Emma that the Karoo ants weren't really bothered by 'green' poisons.
Emma convinced me to accompany her to the Loxton church on Sundays. She was the reason we were invited to a barbecue at the water ski dam, and a rugby-test dinner in the Blue House. Emma le Roux was my passport to acceptance, my visa to safe asylum. And lost in love, I allowed it all to happen, suppressing the quiet accusing voice that said: What if they all found out who you really are?
Because, like Emma, Loxton had no idea.
I suspected they were vaguely aware of some aspects. Antjie had asked some subtle questions. Emma had glimpses of it while she was a client. In the search for her brother I had occasionally displayed my talents in practice. Maybe the brother had revealed some of those aspects to his sister in relating the events. Maybe they had intrigued her, could that be part of the attraction? When I guarded her, she had slipped easily into the role of the protected - as most women would.
This morning with the Knights, she had seen it. And tried to stop me, without reproach. Maybe she thought she could control me.
But she only knew part of me.
I had to tell her the whole truth.
I wanted to. There were moments when I came so close, the desire for confession so great that I could taste it in my mouth. I beat a man to death in anger, Emma. And I found satisfaction in it. And enjoyment. Because I am the product of violence. It lives in me. It is me.
But every time, before it all came out like the evil genie from the lamp, I was stopped by the stifling fear that I would lose her, and with that, all possibility of her love. Even more, losing the potential of her love changing me into someone who would be worthy of it. She was already doing that. She made me laugh, she lured me to make her laugh, to be light-hearted and playful and witty. To forget about the dark alleyways in my head. For the first time in my life I began to like myself. Just a little. I had her approval. And now, her love.
I love you, Lemmer.
I had stood there beside the plane in her urgent embrace, her mouth to my ear, and I had said nothing. I knew, before I could answer her that I would have to tell her everything.
But it was too late now, the potential for hurt and damage was way too great. For me and for her.
I gazed over the endless plains of the Northern Cape and wondered what had made me throw up - this little plane, or my great dishonesty.
23
Trackers will often look for spoor in obvious places...
The Principles of Tracking: Recognition of signs
To escape my
thoughts, I asked Lotter how he had come to know Diederik.
'Friend of a friend. A few years ago he called me up. He said he had heard that I would fly anywhere. He wanted to inspect a potential investment in Mozambique, but it was too far to drive, time is money, could I pick him up? That was the start of it. Nowadays it works like this, Diederik rings me up and says he urgently needs some tractor parts from Ermelo, or let's pop over to Windhoek quickly, or come and pick up my buddy in Loxton. You know how it is, getting paid for what you love doing ... Did you know he has a landing strip on the farm?'
I said that in fact I knew very little about Diederik.
'He's a real character. And a shrewd businessman. Finger in every pie ...'
The tarred runway of Musina lay from east to west, stretched out long and luxurious across the dark brown landscape.
At twenty past two we came in low over the sewerage works and the graveyard, with the town on our right. Lotter touched down as light as a feather, with casual ease, made a U-turn and taxied back to the eastern end, then right on a pipe-stem access road to a collection of low buildings and hangars. He stopped and opened the clips of the cabin dome. Heat flowed in thick and heavy.
'This is it. The lorry will pick you up here.'
But there was no lorry to be seen.
I unclipped the quite considerable seat belt, took my sports bag and the swaddled shotgun from behind the seat and offered my hand to Lotter.
'Thank you.'
'Any time. And good luck.' He pointed at the bundle I cradled like a baby in my arms. 'I hope you don't need to use that thing.' Then, as I stood on the tarmac, and just before he fastened the Perspex bubble again, he called over the idling engine: 'Lemmer, I suppose you already know: with old Diederik, you always take your money up front...'
At the gate the tar road stretched out in front of me through the dull brown, dry, hard landscape. Here and there a tree grew. I stopped and unzipped my bag, placed the MAG-7 in it, zipped it shut. Walked on. The heat gradually got the better of me, sweat slid down my back, in thin trickles.