by Diane Capri
Tebogo levered himself to his feet and ran for the cockpit. The two pilots were at the controls. They had switched on the taxi lights. The aircraft was pointing across open ground, an expanse of rough and bare earth.
“What are you doing?” Tebogo yelled over the roar of the engines.
Neither pilot replied. The captain pushed the throttles full forward. They had started all the engines.
The lightly loaded Antonov responded immediately. It leaned back on its rear wheels and accelerated. The aircraft jostled and bounced across the rough ground. The captain fought with the pedals to keep the aircraft straight, but the lurching terrain threatened to throw the aircraft over.
Tebogo held onto the bulkhead that separated the cockpit from the passenger area.
The bouncing aircraft buckled his knees and slammed his head against the aluminum wall.
The engines screamed and the rotors thrashed the air.
Along the side windows, dust swirled, but ahead was nothing but blackness.
The pilot pulled back on the yoke.
Tebogo’s stomach felt the acceleration. He held a fearsome grip on the bulkhead and stared out the dark windows.
If there was anything out there to hit, a fleeting glimpse is all he would have before they were all crushed in a raging fireball.
The rear wheels left the ground.
The pounding the undercarriage had taken on the bare earth stopped.
The smoothness was uncanny.
The pilot kept the yoke back.
Tebogo felt the acceleration as they climbed higher.
He abandoned his deathwatch on the windows, and saw the altimeter reading grow.
They passed five hundred feet, then leveled out below a thousand to keep under the radar.
Once across the border they would climb to twenty thousand to give the engines the thinner air they needed for best efficiency and range.
Tebogo breathed out. He looked back down the length of the dark aircraft.
The side door was closed. Umi sat beside it, watching the airbase disappear behind them.
Mort’s huge body filled two seats. A cigarette glowed red between his fingers.
The captain banked for the border.
The man in the copilot’s seat tapped Tebogo on the arm. “I thought you said there were five aircraft?”
Tebogo shook his head. “Four.”
“Then why five of us?”
Tebogo laughed. “We didn’t think you’d all make it.”
The copilot’s mouth was still open when Tebogo took a seat in the passenger compartment.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Sunday, August 21
1 a.m. WAT
Rooibank, Africa
After Hadlow had driven for an hour, Jess took the wheel. The road’s washboard surface pounded the car’s entire frame and bounced her around like a rag doll. Whatever suspension had once existed on the battered Opel was long gone. The headlights shook and shivered, sending light beams vibrating erratically over the dusty surface.
At fifty miles an hour, the steering grew light, and the car weaved from side to side as if it was about to take control of its own destiny. Jess eased off to forty-five miles an hour and held it there.
They passed no towns or villages. Two hours after they set off, the lights of Rooibank glowed on the horizon. Ten minutes later they rolled across the city limits.
The homes were dark at this early hour, and she saw only an occasional street lamp. The road led them straight to the harbor. A square building with a flat roof had a neon sign that read Nova Cuca.
Hadlow said. “Well, the bars are open.”
It took five minutes to circle the town and find Cantor’s address, which was a sketchy hotel off the main drag. The Hotel Africans was as dark as the other buildings around it. Hadlow hammered on the door with an iron fist, but no one answered.
When he returned to the car, he said, “There was a place on the seafront. Let’s try there.”
Jess found her way back to the harbor and Hadlow pointed a route to The Seaside Inn. Plenty of parking spaces at the entrance and, like the bars, its lights were on.
Hadlow carried the gray bag. Jess still had no idea what was inside, but at least it suggested they were a traveling couple.
“Two rooms?” Hadlow said.
Jess shook her head. “If anything happens, we’ll be better off together.”
“Fair enough.”
When they reached the front desk, Hadlow requested three nights in the largest double, facing the water. The clerk seemed unfazed by travelers arriving in the middle of the night. He made a note of Hadlow’s fake passport number and handed over a key on a heavy key ring.
“Why three nights?” she said as they climbed the stairs to their room.
“One night is a plain giveaway if anyone is searching. And a longer stay makes us seem less suspicious. This isn’t the kind of place for a one-night stopover.”
She nodded and wondered how long it would be before Morris, and her editor became alarmed by her failure to get on that flight home from Valencia. And what they would do once they found out.
The room was clean and had an air conditioner in the window. She adjusted the dials and buttons, and ten minutes later the temperature was comfortable.
The bathroom had two plastic toothbrushes in plastic wrappers and a thin tube of toothpaste. The mint flavor was heaven in her mouth, and the water washed today’s grime from her face.
Hadlow said, “I’ll sleep in the armchair.”
“Okay.” She placed the gun on the bedside table, and checked the safety. “Did you get another weapon from Chapman?”
“Yeah. You keep that one.” He balanced a glass on the lower sash of the window, testing it to see if it fell with the slightest movement. Satisfied, he wadded up a towel, and wedged it under the door. Finally, he dragged a chest of drawers behind the towel to brace the door.
She watched with a reporter’s eye for observing odd behavior. “What are you doing?”
“Habit.” He folded himself into the armchair and shrugged. “If anyone tries to break in while we’re sleeping, we’ll have a bit of warning and a brief opportunity to shoot him first.”
She pulled the gun from the nightstand into the bed and closed her eyes.
CHAPTER SIXTY
Sunday, August 21
4 a.m. WAT
Rooibank, Africa
Jess woke with a start. The room was pitch black. A sliver of light escaped from the thin drapes around the window. Long shadows illuminated the hunched Hadlow, peering outside between the drapes.
A siren started in the distance, rising and falling as the emergency vehicle moved.
“Police,” he said.
She picked up the Vektor and joined him at the window. She saw no one moving around outside. “What did you hear before the siren started?”
“Some sort of sharp noise loud enough to wake me up.” He shrugged.
“I heard a helicopter. In the distance. About an hour ago,” Jess said.
The siren stopped, and everything went quiet.
Hadlow gestured to his satellite phone. “I got some bad news. They can’t get around the encryption on Cantor’s phone.”
“Not at all?”
“They have his number, and they’re trying to get access through the Spanish government, but that’s likely to be a slow process. Meaning months, at least.”
A car drove through the center of town, then the quiet returned.
He checked both ways along the street then moved to the door, pressing his ear to the woodwork for a minute before returning to his crouched position at the window.
“I might be paranoid,” he said.
“Now you tell me.”
He checked his watch. “Four o’clock. Catch another hour’s sleep. I’ll keep watch.”
Jess returned to bed with the Vecktor, but there was no way she could sleep. The noises and the police sirens were probably nothing related to them or thei
r mission, but her nerves tingled like she’d been electrified.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
At five o’clock, Hadlow left the window and showered. He came out a few minutes later, clean-shaven and dressed in different clothes from the gray bag. He tipped it upside down to show it was empty. “Sorry. I didn’t know you were coming when I asked for the clothes.”
“Mrs. Beaumont can buy a new outfit later.” She offered a flat smile. “I always travel with a few things in my handbag. Stake out Cantor’s place? See if Elden shows up?”
“Yup.”
She rolled out of bed and showered. The bar of soap was tiny, and the bottle of shampoo was absurdly large for a single use. She had clean underwear, but not a fresh set of clothes. She shook out the ones she’d been wearing and dressed. She felt revived a little.
The window air conditioner rattled, working hard to bring down the humidity in the room, but with the steam from the shower, it was a losing battle.
She checked outside. The sun was still below the horizon, but a faint golden light was making its way into the world.
The harbor was to their left, and a narrow strip of fine-sand beach to the right. On several boats, men were assembling the nets and paraphernalia for the day’s fishing.
The seawall had seen better days. The road that ran along the seafront was covered by patches of sand blown in by wind or washed up by storms. Steady breakers rolled in and lapped gently at the shore, but she suspected this ocean also had a cruel side.
More important than the geography was the fact that no one stood idling, watching the hotel.
Hadlow cleared the chest of drawers and towel from the door, and they went downstairs.
A tall, thin police officer was talking to the receptionist. He wore khaki shorts and a white short-sleeved shirt. An Uzi hung from his belt, and a radio was suspended from webbing across his chest.
His eyes followed Jess as she grabbed coffee in a paper cup and a couple of pieces of fruit from the breakfast bar.
Hadlow filled a paper bowl with a thick porridge and ate it standing up, staring out the window to the front of the hotel. Jess stood beside him, sipping the hot coffee.
The officer approached them. “Mr. and Mrs. Beaumont?”
Jess went on alert. He knew their names, or at least the names on their passports.
Hadlow turned. “That’s us,” he said with a jaunty lilt.
The officer held out a silver badge with writing too small to read. “Captain Yano. I need to talk to you.”
Hadlow smiled like a carefree tourist might. “Nothing serious, I hope.”
Yano didn’t smile. “You arrived late?”
“Our flight was delayed.”
“And which flight was that?”
“The one from Gibraltar to Casablanca. We had two connections. Miss the first one, and well, you know how that goes.”
“You had no booking here.”
Hadlow shrugged. “Spur of the moment thing.”
Yano grunted. “And now you’re leaving early?”
“We’re not leaving. We just want to get a head start on the day.”
“And what are you planning to do? Here in Rooibank?”
“Relax. Unwind. Walk around. Soak up the atmosphere. We have a friend who made his way down here as well.”
“I see.” Yano shifted his weight. “Your friend’s name?”
“Felipe Cantor.”
“When did he come here?”
“He was on a flight before us.”
“You didn’t want to travel with your friend?”
“We couldn’t get seats on the same flight.”
“I see.” Yano took a deep breath. “You’ll need to come with me.”
“Why? What’s wrong?”
He held his arm out, gesturing to the front door.
Hadlow picked up an apple and tucked it in his pocket. He held up his paper cup. “I’ll just get a refill.” He topped up his cup and walked out in front of Jess.
CHAPTER SIXTY-TWO
Captain Yano’s car was a white Audi from the late nineties, with a dark blue hood, and the word Policia in dark blue along the sides.
He opened the rear door. The passenger compartment was separated from the driver with a dense wire mesh. There were no door handles on the interior doors.
Hadlow looked at Yano. “Exactly what are we doing?”
“I have a matter that needs investigating.”
Hadlow glanced at Jess. “Does my wife need to go?”
“Get in. Both of you.” Yano put his hand on his Uzi and flashed a lopsided taunting grin. “Please.”
Hadlow folded himself into the rear of the car. Jess slid in beside him.
The wire mesh barrier between the seats was secured to the sides of the car with large crude bolts. The barrier ran from the ceiling to the floor, blocking the space for feet under the front seats. Hadlow and Jess twisted sideways to relieve the stress on their ankles.
As Yano, drove, the car labored unevenly, and the engine misfired. He looped around several blocks, ignored a no entry sign, and parked in front of The Hotel Africans. Cantor’s hotel.
Another empty police car was parked in front of the entrance.
Jess’s skin prickled. Sirens in the night and now two police cars at Cantor’s hotel. Nothing good could come of this. “What’s going on here?”
Yano didn’t reply. He opened Jess’s door and pointed to the hotel’s entrance. “Inside.”
The front door led directly into a corridor with a service window cut into the wall.
A tired woman wearing a flowered dress sat behind the counter. She rose as Jess and Hadlow entered. Yano stood behind them, his hand resting on the Uzi.
She spoke with an accent that sounded vaguely Spanish, but Jess didn’t recognize any of the words.
Yano turned to Hadlow. “She says you were here late last night. Banging on the door. She didn’t answer because it was too late.”
Hadlow nodded. “We were looking for a hotel. No one answered so we went to the seafront.”
Yano grunted. “You’re the only strangers in town.”
Hadlow shrugged. “Rooibank is off the beaten track, that’s why we came here.”
Yano repeated his grunt. “And you say you came with Felipe Cantor. I think I have bad news for you.”
Jess frowned. “What?”
Yano shifted his weight. “A man was killed last night. Here. In this hotel. He may be your friend.”
Hadlow’s shoulders sagged.
Jess’s mouth hung open, and she covered it with her palm.
Yano nodded. “It would be helpful if you are able to identify the body.”
Jess swallowed. “Why don’t you know who it is?”
“There are no personal belongings in his room and,” he glanced at the woman behind the counter, “there is no signature in the register.”
The woman shrugged.
Jess guessed that Cantor’s late-night arrival had been a good opportunity for the woman to make some extra money without letting her employer know by making a record in her register.
“Follow me, please.” Yano led them upstairs. At the end of a long corridor, an officer sat on a window ledge. He jumped up and hustled back to room five.
Yano spoke to him briefly before putting his hand on the doorknob.
He looked at Jess and Hadlow. “Are you ready?”
Jess nodded.
Yano opened the door.
One glance was enough to see the entire room. A single low-wattage bulb hung from a wire in the middle. A chest of drawers and a sink filled one corner. The small window was covered with a thin drape that could barely keep back the faint dawn light. The room would be sweltering long before midday.
Most of the floor space was occupied by a single bed. A naked man lay across it on his stomach. His torso was twisted over the far side. His head and shoulders hung out of sight on the other side.
Large dark stains on the white sheets testified to the fact t
hat the man had died from knife wounds. Nothing else could have generated so much blood.
Hadlow and Jess stood in silence for a good thirty seconds. Tears sprang to Jess’s eyes, and she turned her back on the body. Only yesterday, she’d been in the same room with, talking to this handsome, virile man.
Hadlow put his hands in his pockets and squeezed himself with his arms as if trying to ease the pain of losing a friend.
“Can you identify Felipe Cantor?” Yano said.
Hadlow took a deep breath. He put his hand on her arm and squeezed. “Let me. Wait here with Captain Yano.”
Jess shook her head. “I want to see him.”
Yano studied her.
“He was my friend, too,” she said.
Yano nodded.
Hadlow went first.
Jess picked her way around the bed. From the moment she glimpsed the dark hair she was sure this was Cantor.
There were only a few marks of blood on the carpet around the upper half of his body.
Hadlow dropped to his knees to lift Cantor’s head a few inches. The muscles in his neck were stiff, and the movement lifted his shoulders and the upper half of his body, but his face wasn’t visible.
He lowered the body back onto the bed and twisted down close to the floor, to look at Cantor’s face.
From his position at the doorway, Yano said, “Is this Felipe Cantor?”
Hidden from Yano’s view on the far side of the bed, Hadlow placed Cantor’s phone on the floor by the dead man’s hand. He eased the thumb onto the device’s fingerprint reader.
Jess fought back the desire to look at Yano for any sign he realized what was happening.
The phone displayed the words Print Not Registered.
Yano stepped into the room. “Well? Can you recognize him?”
Hadlow slid the phone to the other hand and pressed it against the thumb. The display showed Try Again.
Hadlow lined up Cantor’s thumb one more time, but Yano was leaning closer, perhaps close enough to see.
Jess stood and began panting. She turned to Yano. She held her hands in front of her. “I…” She breathed hard. “I think I…” She held her hand across her mouth and made choking noises.