Heart of the Hunter

by Deon Meyer

  “The Re-publican Hotel?”

  “In Lusaka, Monica. Lusaka in Zambia.”

  They could hear the indrawn breath.

  “Have you got that?”

  “Yes.”

  “don'’t be late, Monica. And don'’t be stupid. He is not a young man, you know. Old men die easily.”

  The line went dead.

  The director nodded. “That’s not all.” He knew.

  “Yes, sir.”

  She tapped again. The sound of dialing. It rang.

  “Yes?”

  “Could I talk to Tiny?”

  “Who’s speaking?”

  “Monica.”

  “Hold on.”

  Muffled, as though someone were holding a hand over the receiver.

  “One of Tiny’s girlfriends looking for him.”

  Then a new voice.

  “Who’s this?”

  “Monica.”

  “Tiny doesn'’t work here anymore. Nearly two years now.”

  “Where is he now?”

  “Try Mother City Motorrad. In the city.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Tiny?” asked the director.

  “Sir, we’re working on that one. There’s nothing on the priority list, sir. The number she phoned belongs to one Orlando Arendse. Also unknown. But we’re following it up.”

  “There’s more.”

  Mentz nodded. She set the program running again.

  “Motorrad.”

  “Could I speak to Tiny, please?”

  “Tiny?”

  “Yes.”

  “I think you have the wrong number.”

  “Tiny Mpayipheli?”

  “Oh. Thobela. He’s gone home already.”

  “I need to get hold of him urgently.”

  “Hold on.”

  Papers rustled, soft cursing.

  “Here’s a number. Just try it. 555-7970.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  The line was already dead.

  New call.

  “Hullo.”

  “Could I speak to Tiny Mpayipheli, please?”

  “Tiny?”

  “Thobela?”

  “He is not home yet.”

  “When do you expect him?”

  “Who is calling?”

  “My name is Monica Kleintjes. I he knows my father.”

  “Thobela is usually home by a quarter to six.”

  “I must speak to him. It’s very urgent. Can you give me your address? I must see him.”

  “We’re in Guguletu. Twenty-one Govan Mbeki.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There is a team following her and we’ve dispatched another team to Guguletu, sir. The house belongs to a Mrs. Miriam Nzu-lulwazi and I expect that was her on the phone. We will find out what her relationship with Mpayipheli is.”

  “Thobela Mpayipheli, also known as Tiny. And what are you going to do, Janina?”

  “The tail reports that she is traveling in the direction of the airport. She could be on her way to Guguletu. As soon as we’re sure, sir, we’ll bring her in.”

  The director folded his delicate hands on the shiny desktop.

  “I want you to hang back a bit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Let’s see how this unfolds.”

  She nodded.

  “And I think you had better call Mazibuko.”

  “Sir?”

  “Get the RU on a plane, Mentz. A fast one.”

  “But, sir I’ve got this under control.”

  “I know. I have absolute confidence in you, but when you buy a Rolls-Royce, sometime or other you must take it for a test drive. See if it is worth all the expense.”

  “Sir, the Reaction Unit ”

  He raised a small, fine-boned hand. “Even should they do nothing, I think Mazibuko needs to get out a bit. And you never know.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And we know where the data is going. The destination is known. This creates a safe test environment. A controllable environment.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “They can be here in”— the director examined his stainless-steel watch—“a hundred and forty minutes.”

  “I’ll do as you say, sir.”

  And I assume the Ops Room will get up and running?”

  “That was next on my agenda.”

  “You’re in charge, Janina. And I want to be kept up-to-date, but I’m leaving it entirely in your hands.”

  “Thank you, sir.” She was being put to the test. She and her team and Mazibuko and the RU. She had been waiting a long time for this.

  3.

  The boy was not waiting on the street corner, and unease crept over Thobela Mpayipheli. Then he saw the taxi in front of Miriam’s house. Not a minibus, a sedan, a Toyota Cressida with the yellow light on the roof— PENINSULA TAXIS— hopelessly out of place there. He turned up the dirt driveway and dismounted, more a case of careful extraction of his limbs from the motorbike, loosened the ties that held his tin box and the packet with the fungicide on the seat behind him, rolled the cords carefully in his hand, and walked in. The front door was standing open.

  Miriam rose from the armchair as he entered; he kissed her cheek, but there was tension in her. He saw the other woman in the small room, still seated.

  “Miss Kleintjes is here to see you,” said Miriam.

  He put down his parcel, turned to her, put out his hand. “Monica Kleintjes,” she said.

  “Pleased to meet you.” He could wait no longer, looked to Miriam. “Where is Pakamile?”

  “In his room. I told him to wait there.”

  “I’m sorry,” said Monica Kleintjes.

  “What can I do for you?” He looked at her, slightly plump in her loose, expensive clothes: blouse, skirt, stockings, and low-heeled shoes. He struggled to keep the irritation out of his voice.

  “I am Johnny Kleintjes’s daughter. I need to talk to you privately.”

  His heart sank.

  Johnny Kleintjes.

  After all these years.

  Miriam’s back straightened. “I will be in the kitchen.”

  “No,” he said. “I have no secrets from Miriam.”

  But she walked out anyway.

  “I really am sorry,” said Monica again.

  “What does Johnny Kleintjes want?”

  “He’s in trouble.”

  “Johnny Kleintjes,” he said mechanically as the memories returned. Johnny Kleintjes would choose him. It made sense.

  “Please,” she said.

  He jerked back to the present. “First, I must say hello to Pakamile,” he said. “Back in a minute.”

  He went through to the kitchen. Miriam stood by the stove, her eyes outside. He touched her shoulder but got no reaction. He walked down the short passage, pushed open the child’s door. Pakamile lay on the little bed with a schoolbook, looked up. “aren'’t we going to farm today?”

  “Afternoon, Pakamile.”

  “Afternoon, Thobela.”

  “We will go farming today. After I have talked to our visitor.”

  The boy nodded solemnly.

  “Have you had a nice day?”

  “It was okay. At break we played soccer.”

  “Did you score a goal?”

  “No. Only the big boys kick goals.”

  “But you are a big boy.”

  Pakamile just smiled.

  “I’m going to talk to our guest. Then we’ll go farm.” He rubbed his hand over the boy’s hair and went out, his unease now multiplying. Johnny Kleintjes— this meant trouble, and he had brought it to this house.

  * * *

  They strode in time across the parade ground of First Parachute Battalion, also known as the Parabats, or simply the Bats. Captain Tiger Mazibuko was one step ahead of Little Joe Moroka.

  “Is it him?” asked Mazibuko, and pointed to the small group. Four Parabats sat in the shade under the wide umbrella of the thorn tree. A German shepherd lay at the feet of the stocky lieutenant, its tongue lolling, panting in the Bloemfontein heat. It was a big, confident animal.

  “That’s him, Captain.”

  Mazibuko nodded and picked up the pace. Red dust puffed up at each footfall
. The Bats, three whites and one colored, were talking rugby, the lieutenant holding forth with authority. Mazibuko was there, stepped between them and kicked the dog hard on the side of the head with his steel-capped combat boot. It gave one yelp and staggered into the sergeant’s legs.

  “Fuck,” said the Bat lieutenant, dumbfounded.

  “Is this your dog?” asked Mazibuko. The faces of the soldiers expressed total disbelief.

  “What the hell did you do that for?” A trickle of blood ran out of the dog’s nose. It leaned dazedly against the sergeant’s leg. Mazibuko lashed out again, this time in the side. The sound of breaking ribs was overlaid by the cries of all four Parabats.

  “You fucker ,” screamed the lieutenant, and hit out, a wild swing that caught the back of Mazibuko’s neck. He took one step back. He smiled.

  “You are all my witnesses. The lieutenant hit first.”

  Then he moved in, free and easy, unhurried. A straight right to the face to draw attention upward. A kick surely and agonizingly to the kneecap. As the Parabat toppled forward, Mazibuko brought up his knee into the face. The white man flipped over backward, blood streaming from a broken nose.

  Mazibuko stepped back, hands hanging relaxed at his sides. “This morning you messed with one of my men, Lieutenant.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at Little Joe Moroka. “You set your fucking little dog on him.”

  The man had a hand over his bloody nose, the other on the ground trying to prop himself up. Two Bats came closer, the sergeant kneeling by the dog, which lay still. “Uh ,” said the lieutenant, looking down at the blood on his hand.

  “Nobody fucks with my people,” said Mazibuko.

  “He wouldn'’t salute,” said the lieutenant reproachfully, and stood up, shaky on his feet, the brown shirt stained darkly with his blood.

  “So you set the dog on him?” Mazibuko strode forward. The Parabat raised his hands reflexI'vely Mazibuko grabbed him by the collar, jerked him forward, and smashed his forehead into the broken nose. The man fell backward again. Red dust billowed in the midday sun.

  The cell phone in Mazibuko’s breast pocket began to chirp.

  “Jissis,” said the sergeant, “you’re gonna kill him,” and knelt beside his mate.

  “Not today ”

  The ringing got louder, a penetrating noise.

  “Nobody fucks with my people.” He unbuttoned the pocket and activated the phone.

  “Captain Mazibuko.”

  It was the voice of Janina Mentz.

  “Activation call, Captain. At eighteen-fifteen there will be a Falcon 900 from Twenty-first Squadron standing by at Bloemspruit. Please confirm.”

  “Confirmed,” he said, his eyes on the two Parabats still standing, but there was no fight in them, only bewilderment.

  “Eighteen-fifteen. Bloemspruit,” Mentz said.

  “Confirmed,” he said once more.

  The connection was cut. He folded the phone and returned it to his pocket. “Joe. Come,” he said. “We’ve got things to do.” He walked past the sergeant, treading on the hind leg of the German shepherd. There was no reaction.

  * * *

  “My father said more than once if anything ever happened to him, I should get you, because you are the only man that he trusts.”

  Thobela Mpayipheli only nodded. She spoke hesitantly; he could see that she was extremely uncomfortable, deeply aware of her invasion of his life, of the atmosphere that she had created here.

  And now he’s done a stupid thing. I we ”

  She searched for the right words. He recognized her tension but didn’'t want to know. Didn’'t want it to affect the life he had here.

  “Did you know what he was involved with after ’ninety-two?”

  “I last saw your father in ’eighty-six.”

  “They He had to Everything was so mixed-up then, after the elections. They brought him back to help . The integration of the intelligence services was difficult. We had two, three branches, and the apartheid regime had even more. The people wouldn'’t work together. They covered up and lied and competed with one another. It was costing a lot more money than they made provision for. They had to consolidate. Create some order. The only way was to split everything up into projects, to compartmentalize. So they put him in charge of the project to combine all the computer records. It was almost impossible, there was so much: the stuff at Infoplan in Pretoria alone would take years to process, not to mention the regime’s weapons manufacturers like Denel and the Security Police and the Secret Service, Military Intelligence, and the ANC’s systems in Lusaka and London, four hundred, five hundred gigabytes of information, anything from personal information on the public to weapons systems to informants and double agents. He had to handle it all, erase the stuff that could cause trouble and save the useful material, create a central, uniform, single platform database. He I kept house for him during that time, my mother was sick. He said it upset him so much, the information on the systems. ”

  She was quiet for a while, then opened her big black leather handbag and took out a tissue as if to prepare herself.

  “He said there were some strange orders, things that Mandela and Defence Minister Nzo would not approve, and he was worried. He didn’'t know what to do, at first. Then he decided to make backups of some of the material. He was scared, Mr. Mpayipheli, those were such chaotic times, you understand. There was so much insecurity and people trying to block him and some trying to save their careers and others trying to make theirs. ANCs and whites, both sides of the fence. So he brought some stuff home, data, on hard drives. Sometimes he worked through the night on it. I kept out of it. I suspect he ”

  She dabbed at her nose with the tissue.

  “I don'’t know what was on the drives and I don'’t know what he meant to do with it. But it looks as if he never handed it in. It looks as if he is trying to sell the data. And then they phoned me and I lied because—”

  “Selling it?”

  “I ”

  “To whom?”

  “I don'’t know.” There was despair in her voice, whether for the deed or her father, he couldn'’t say.

  “Why?”

  “Why did he try to sell it? I don'’t know.”

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “They pushed him out. After the project. Said he should go on pension. I don'’t think he wanted that. He wasn'’t ready for that.”

  He shook his head. There had to be more to it.

  “Mr. Mpayipheli, I don'’t know why he did it. Since my mother died I was living with him but I had my own life, I think he got lonely. I don'’t know what goes on in an old man’s head when he sits at home all day and reads the white men’s newspapers. This man who played such a major role in the Struggle, pushed aside now. This man who was once a player. He was respected, in Europe. He was somebody and now he is nothing. Maybe he wanted, just one more time, to be a player again. I was aware of his bitterness. And weariness. But I didn’'t think Perhaps to be noticed? I don'’t know. I just don'’t know.”

  “The information. Did he say what was so upsetting?”

  She shifted uneasily in the chair; her eyes slid away from his. “No. Just that there were terrible things .”

  “How terrible?”

  She just looked at him.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “They phoned. From Lusaka, I think. They have some hard drives, but that is not what they want. I had to get another drive from my father’s safe.”

  He looked her in the eye. This was it.

  “In seventy-two hours I must deliver another hard drive in Lusaka. That’s all the time they gave me.”

  “Not a lot of time.”

  “No.”

  “Why are you wasting time sitting here?”

  “I need your help. To deliver the data. To save my father because they will kill him anyway. And I”— she raised the hem of her long, wide skirt—“am a little slow.” He saw the wood and metal, the artificial legs. “And not very effective.”

  * * *

  Tiger Mazibuko stood under the wing of the Falcon 900 in his camouflage uniform and
black beret, feet planted wide, hands behind his back, his eyes on the twelve men loading ammunition boxes.