Angel in the Shadows

by Walter Lucius

  ‘And that led Thaba Zhulongu to contact you.’

  ‘He didn’t reveal on the phone who he was or that he worked for the South African Ministry of Defence; only that he’d seen my piece and had important additional information.’

  Paul saw Thaba Zhulongu before his eyes, tied to a pillar in Ponte City. His face beaten to a pulp by Lavrov’s thugs … unrecognizable.

  ‘How is his wife doing now?’

  ‘Miriam was moved to a safe house, together with her three children. They’re being well taken care of.’

  Dingane had been scanning the street the entire time they were eating and talking. Paul could tell he was anxious.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘See that white Toyota Land Cruiser that just passed us?’

  Paul caught a glimpse of the vehicle just as it turned the corner.

  ‘That’s no coincidence. They followed us.’

  ‘PIU guys?’

  Dingane gave him a telling nod. ‘They were probably just establishing where we were the first time they went by. Driving by a second time means they’re keeping a close eye on us. It doesn’t seem wise to wait until a third drive-by, unless you want to take your last bite of kudu pie riddled with bullets.’

  Dingane stood up, threw some money on the table and walked away from the restaurant with Paul.

  ‘Market on Main is a few kilometres away, in the middle of the Maboneng district,’ Dingane said. ‘As much as you can, stick to the quiet side streets and make sure you’re not being followed. Gallery Arts on Main: I’ll pick you up there in thirty minutes.’

  Dingane crossed the street and, before Paul knew it, was swallowed up by the chaos of pedestrians, traffic and illegal street vendors who cluttered the already narrow streets with their carts and stalls.

  Paul ducked into the first side street, then turned left and arrived in a place where vacant blocks of housing alternated with run-down office towers, now full of illegal workers and their families from Zimbabwe, Mozambique and Malawi.

  He didn’t recognize the neighbourhood. He wasn’t sure in which direction to walk and looked over his shoulder more times than he cared to. The matter-of-fact way Dingane had behaved had thrown him. If Dingane knew he was being watched, why had he met him out in the open, in the middle of airport arrivals? And why didn’t they go directly to Miriam Zhulongu’s safe house? Why did he choose a table at the Hut right on the street? Was it Dingane’s plan all along to abandon him in this neighbourhood?

  In a doorway of a neglected block of flats – owned by speculators waiting for a good offer and in the meantime appropriated by junkies, illegal immigrants and criminals – he saw young boys lying on mattresses on the floor. Skadukinders, ‘twilight children’ of ten, eleven, twelve years of age at the most, unconscious because of glue they’d been sniffing from half-litre milk cartons.

  He glanced at his watch. He hadn’t even been walking for ten minutes and already he was completely lost in a concrete wasteland of tower blocks wedged between up-and-coming districts. On each and every corner he passed, Nigerian drug dealers clicked their tongues and hissed at him, ‘Coke, ecstasy.’

  At that moment, he became aware of an unkempt pair coming up right behind him. From their silence, he knew that this was anything but a coincidence. He could literally feel the man closest to him breathing down his neck.

  Just before Paul took action, his mind registered the image of young white woman about ten metres away running towards him. She had snow-white hair and was wearing a dark-grey jogging outfit.

  This image stuck in his mind as his right fist hit the man behind him in the solar plexus. Paul spun around and planted the second punch right between the guy’s eyes. With the flat of his left hand he rammed the Adam’s apple of the second guy. He got him in a headlock and then kicked his calf and right leg out from under him. Paul retreated a bit, pulled the guy towards him in a stranglehold and let him fall backwards on his buddy like the piece of shit he was.

  The woman was now eye to eye with Paul. For a split second he thought she looked familiar, but he couldn’t place her. She smiled oddly and addressed him calmly, not in Afrikaans or in English, but in Russian.

  ‘Hello, Paul.’

  This was followed by a painful electric shock to his chest, which knocked him unconscious.

  6

  The Jalan Surabaya Antiques Market, which was tucked away in Menteng’s leafy embassy district, came in for a lot of criticism – most of the goods were fake and customers mightily ripped off – but two things more than made up for this: it got you out of the scorching heat and the vendors left you in peace.

  That said, Farah’s planned meeting with Saputra’s contact was a risky endeavour. Not least because of Saputra himself. Or, rather, because of his vanishing act.

  Edward had phoned his old friend from his office in Amsterdam, only to discover that his mobile number was no longer in service. He reckoned it meant Indonesian State Intelligence had cut him off from the outside world. And this led Edward to assume they’d analysed Saputra’s call history. If that was the case, they would have noticed he’d been in touch with the Editor-in-Chief of the AND, the newspaper that had dispatched a supposed terrorist to Moscow.

  All possible alarm bells would be ringing by now.

  And then there was the very real chance Saputra would crack during his interrogation.

  It could also mean plainclothes policemen had been planted among the vendors at Surabaya Market and Farah’s contact replaced by a BIN agent. Put differently: she could be walking straight into a trap, which was precisely what Paul and Anya had warned her about.

  Did that mean she shouldn’t do it? Standing still equalled going backwards. Taking risks was an inextricable part of the attack. It was her father’s number one rule.

  She glanced over her shoulder. Within a radius of around fifteen metres, five other women, including Aninda, were keeping a close eye on her. They were the same Waringin Shelter women who’d escorted the children to the museum. As it turned out, all of them had been trained in basic self-defence skills by Satria. Born Satria Wanengpati, the old woman used to be one of the country’s most renowned Pencak Silat masters. She’d managed to weave diverse combat techniques together in such a formidable way that she was unbeatable, even for most men.

  Five years ago she’d called it a day. Now she only trained the female Waringin workers. And not without reason. The way in which the street kids were being resocialized at the various commune-style Waringin shelters in Jakarta had attracted a great deal of opposition. There had even been attacks. Because of this, founder Baladin Hatta had made it compulsory for all female workers to practise self-defence techniques. And Satria Wanengpati’s training sessions had provided an exceptionally strong basis.

  Farah slowed her pace.

  She’d reached the location Saputra had mentioned to her: Andy’s Record Shop. The Valhalla of vinyl fanatics who didn’t mind digging around in crates for musical gems, bootlegs and obscure live recordings by forgotten artists.

  She looked around and saw the other women unobtrusively scanning the market. There was nothing to suggest they were being shadowed.

  Aninda came and stood beside her. On Farah’s nod, she entered the record shop first. Aninda had insisted on doing it this way. If there were any BIN agents inside, she’d recognize them at once. Farah wouldn’t be in any danger.

  Through the glass door Farah watched Aninda wander around and engage in animated conversation with a handful of older men. Before long, she received the all-clear signal. She was still wary, though. It all seemed a bit too easy. That said, contact had yet to be established.

  When she stepped inside, she was met by cool, air-conditioned air. There were a total of seven men in the small shop, all over forty, all rummaging in crates in which nothing was arranged in alphabetical order or by genre. It was a total hotchpotch, an impenetrable jungle of vinyl.

  ‘That’s Andy, the owner, over there,’ Aninda whispered. She pointe
d to an ageing rocker with a fuzzy goatee and long grey hair tied into a ponytail that was dangling through the rear opening in his baseball cap. ‘Back in the day, he used to be pretty famous.’

  Farah approached Andy just as he lit a kretek. She caught a whiff of clove.

  ‘I’m looking for a record by Foreigner,’ she said in Bahasa.

  Andy looked at her with barely disguised contempt. ‘And you’d like me to help you with that.’

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘Women always need help in here,’ he said, before walking over to one of the many crates and flicking through it like a seasoned pro. In no time at all, he dug out a record with a young woman’s face on it. He pressed it into her hands and sauntered back to the till.

  Farah looked down at the sepia sleeve. She didn’t know what to do next.

  ‘A Foreigner fan, I see?’

  She looked up. The man who’d addressed her in impeccable English was Chinese Indonesian. He wore the kind of branded casual wear you’d normally put on for lunch in an expensive restaurant, not for finding records in obscure vinyl stores. He was the type of man who could get away with a Clark Gable moustache without looking ludicrously old-fashioned. Farah hadn’t seen him come in.

  ‘An acquaintance told me to ask for this album,’ she offered.

  ‘May I, please?’ He took the sleeve from her and studied it like some kind of rare find.

  ‘This is the sixth album they released,’ he said. ‘Not their best, if you ask me. But in those days the masses went crazy for the dullest ballads. The kind you know before you’ve even heard them. So saccharine they make battle-hardened generals wave white flags.’

  He gave her a winning smile. ‘But I don’t know if this is the kind of information you’re after.’

  She considered her options. The man seemed to be too friendly, too jovial for a BIN agent. Then again, maybe that’s exactly what he was: an intelligent charmer with a sense of humour, a trained master in establishing contact.

  She decided to take her chances.

  ‘I’m more interested in this,’ she said, pointing to the album title: Inside Information.

  His gaze grew sombre. He lowered his voice. ‘What is it you’d like to know?’

  Anya had explained to her how they could gain access to Gundono’s computer network. It would need to be done via the router, the device that channels processor requests to the internet. A router was a digital gateway with its own internal logic. And in that system, Anya reckoned, lay their best chance. Fierce competition was forcing manufacturers to rush their devices on to the market, leaving them with less time for exhaustive testing. As a consequence, most router operating systems contained a few unidentified weaknesses. Once she’d found and analysed those, Anya reckoned they effectively had a way into Gundono’s digital network. But before she could do that, she needed to know the router’s model and serial number.

  ‘I need a good look at the router used in Gundono’s compound beforehand,’ Farah whispered.

  ‘You mean you need a photo of it?’ the man asked.

  ‘A photo, yes,’ Farah explained, ‘that clearly shows the make and model.’

  He nodded. ‘When do you need it?’

  ‘As soon as possible. Preferably today.’

  ‘Is this evening all right?’ he asked.

  ‘Fine.’

  With a smile, he slipped the record back in its sleeve.

  ‘Why don’t you leave this here? It’s middle-of-the-road dross from the eighties. I’m more of a Stan Getz man myself. This evening, when you return, I’ll make sure Andy has a Getz album for you. It was nice meeting you.’

  He was about to leave, but she stopped him.

  ‘The person who told me to ask for this record … How is he?’

  His face fell. ‘I can’t tell you that.’

  ‘Do you know where he is?’

  ‘I have my suspicions.’

  ‘The BIN?’

  He leaned towards her. ‘That’s an acronym you’d better not mention again. Certainly not in public.’

  ‘What are the chances he’ll crack?’

  ‘Negligible, ma’am.’

  ‘How can you be so sure?’

  ‘Because I know my friend.’

  And with that he turned and walked out of the shop.

  7

  Radjen had taken a long, hot, morning shower. When he came into the kitchen in the oversized sweater and much too short, ragged joggers that Esther had lent him, she was sitting at the kitchen breakfast bar behind her laptop, with a large mug of black coffee and her usual packet of Gauloises within reach. She was barefoot and wearing only a black T-shirt that was so big on her it looked like a dress. Her long hair was in disarray, but her eyes were clear.

  She looked up at him with an amused smile. ‘I hope you feel better than you look?’

  ‘Doing great,’ he said, touching the bump on his forehead. ‘But I guess I only learn the hard way.’

  She poured him a mug of coffee and placed a croissant on a plate in front of him. ‘You know,’ she said, ‘I’ve been thinking about that comparison you made to different levels of a computer game. Well, we’re after the guy at the highest level now …’

  ‘That’s the idea, yes.’

  ‘But perhaps we’ve overlooked the help available to us at lower levels.’

  He responded with a question mark on his face, his coffee mug in limbo somewhere between the counter and his mouth.

  ‘Last night I took another look at all the case files related to our investigation.’

  ‘All the files?’ he said. ‘Must have been one hell of a night.’

  ‘It was worth it.’

  She clicked open a file and directed the laptop towards Radjen. He saw the file of the woman who’d called the emergency number after Sekandar was found on the road, Angela Faber.

  ‘Why was so little done with her statement?’ Esther asked.

  Radjen washed down a last bite of croissant with a swig of coffee. ‘All in all, an unfortunate affair. Initially, she denied having anything to do with the hit-and-run; said she wasn’t even in the Amsterdamse Bos that night. But the telephone number she used to report the accident was in her name. After the interrogation, we just released her. She was no longer a suspect. The forensics investigation confirmed the boy was run down from the other direction. Detectives Diba and Calvino handled the matter.’

  ‘Handled? More like botched it.’

  She indicated some sentences from Angela Faber’s statement that were highlighted in yellow.

  ‘She first says she was blinded by an oncoming light as she neared the spot where the boy was lying. But what happened after that?’

  ‘What do you mean after that?’

  ‘After the headlights blinded her.’

  ‘Somehow, she avoided hitting the kid who was lying in the middle of the road.’

  Esther quickly lit a cigarette.

  ‘I meant in that brief interval. What happened in between the moment she couldn’t see anything and the moment she saw the boy? Calvino and Diba didn’t give this any attention.’

  She clicked open another file. The one belonging to Thomas Meijer.

  ‘I have his first statement here. Try following my logic.’

  She started to read aloud. ‘ “She appeared unexpectedly. Out of nowhere. As if she had wings. I still see her face in front of me. Her eyes when she hit the glass.” ’

  ‘He thought Sekandar was a girl,’ Radjen said. ‘Because of how the child was dressed.’

  ‘Yes, clearly,’ Esther said, as she took a quick sip of coffee and continued reading. ‘ “I slammed on the brakes, but it was too late. She bounced off the car, as if she were a rubber doll. But that blow, the blow was so hard. It’s stuck in my head. I can’t sleep any more. Whenever I close my eyes, I hear it over and over again. And I see her eyes, staring back at me.” ’

  ‘He slammed on his brakes,’ Esther repeated. ‘Thick oily skid marks on the road. So that vehicle pr
actically came to a standstill. But “Lombard yelled to keep driving. He kept shouting. So, I gave it gas.”

  ‘The bastard takes off. Switches gears, speeds ahead. But less than two hundred metres later there’s an approaching car: Angela Faber’s Citroën.’

  She took a quick puff of her cigarette.

  ‘Now from Angela Faber’s point-of-view. Hello?’ She waved her hand. ‘Are you still with me, Chief Bulging Brow?’

  Radjen nodded.

  ‘Angela Faber was awfully upset that night. She’d walked in on her husband shagging someone else. A guy, for that matter. She’d been drinking and drove into the woods without thinking. She saw the approaching lights coming straight at her and hit her brakes. Meaning both cars crossed each other’s path that night at relatively slow speeds. So that brings us back to the question that was never asked: what did Angela Faber see?’

  ‘You know what I think?’

  ‘Enlighten me, my guru in drag.’

  ‘Angela Faber didn’t see anything. Even if she managed to glance inside the passing car, she still couldn’t have recognized anyone. It was a split second, and, besides, it was too dark in the woods to see anything.’