Heart of the Hunter

by Deon Meyer

  N: What kind of trouble?

  w: He unlawfully took an object that belongs to the state and—

  N: He took nothing. That woman gave it to him.

  w: Miss Kleintjes?

  N: Yes.

  w: Why did she give it to him?

  N: So that he could take it to her father.

  w: But why did she choose him to do this?

  N: He owes her father a favor.

  w: What kind of favor?

  N: I don'’t know.

  w: He didn’'t tell you?

  N: I didn’'t ask.

  w: Do you and Mr. Mpayipheli live together?

  N: Yes.

  w: As man and wife?

  N: Yes.

  w: And you didn’'t ask him why he was receiving stolen property and agreeing to take it to Lusaka?

  N: How do you know he is going to Lusaka?

  w: We know everything.

  N: If you know everything, why are you sitting here asking me questions in the middle of the night?

  w: Do you know what Mr. Mpayipheli was involved with before his present work?

  N: I thought you knew everything?

  w: Mrs. Nzululwazi, there are gaps in our knowledge. I have already apologized for disturbing you so late. As I have explained, it is an emergency and Mr. Mpayipheli is in big trouble. You can help us by filling in the gaps.

  N: I don'’t know what he did.

  w: Did you know he worked for organized crime?

  N: I don'’t want to know. He said he had another life, he said he did things that he wants to forget. In this country it wasn'’t very hard. He would have told me if I had asked him. But I didn’'t. He is a good man. There is love in this house. He is good to me and to my son. That is all I need to know.

  w: Do you know if he was a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe?

  N: Yes.

  w: Was he?

  N: Yes.

  w: Did he tell you that?

  N: In a way.

  w: Did you know where he served?

  N: He was in Tanzania and Angola and in Europe and Russia.

  w: Do you know when?

  N: That is all that I know.

  w: But he told you that as a member of MK he—

  N: No. He never told stories. I worked it out myself.

  w: What do you mean?

  N: Like when he talked to Pakamile about other countries.

  w: Pakamile is your son?

  N: Yes.

  w: And this is all you had to go on?

  N: Yes.

  w: He never actually said he was with MK?

  N: No.

  [Silence— eight seconds]

  w: Mrs. Nzululwazi, the favor he owed Johnny Kleintjes

  N: I have already told you I don'’t know.

  w: You didn’'t find it strange that Miss Kleintjes came in here and Mr. Mpayipheli immediately agrees to undertake a long and dangerous journey on her behalf?

  N: Why would it be dangerous to go to Lusaka?

  w: You are not aware of the data on the hard drive?

  N: What data?

  w: The stolen data that he has with him.

  N: Why should it be dangerous?

  w: There are people that want to stop him. And there are—

  N: People like you?

  w: No, Mrs. Nzululwazi.

  N: You want to stop him.

  w: We want to help. We tried at the airport, but he ran away.

  N: You wanted to help.

  w: We did.

  N: You must leave. Now.

  w: Madam

  N: Get out of my house.

  There is a plaque at the entrance to the air force base at Bloem-spruit, just outside Bloemfontein. In military terms it is a new plaque, being scarcely three years old. On the plaque are the words 16 SQUADRON and below that, HLASELANI. Black inhabitants of Bloemfontein know what hlaselani means, but just to be sure that everyone understands, at the bottom of the plaque in brackets is the word ATTACK.

  It is the pilots of the Sixteenth Squadron in particular who look at those words with satisfaction. It defines their purpose, separating them from the winged bus drivers and freight carriers of other squadrons, especially the other helicopter jockeys. They are an attack unit. For the first time in nearly sixty-five years of existence. Forget the quasi bombers like the Marylands, Beauforts, and Beaufighters of the Second World War. Forget the Alouette III helicopters of the bad 1980s.

  Their satisfaction was due in large part to the content of the giant hangars: twelve almost brand new AH-2A Rooivalk attack helicopters, impressive air platforms with nose-mounted 20 mm cannon that could fire 740 rounds per minute and the capacity to carry up to sixteen air-to-ground missiles such as the ZT-35 laser-guided antitank missile. And on the wingtips were fittings for the Darter air-to-air missiles to lie snug. Add the Rooivalks electronic warfare capability, the fully integrated HEWSPS (Helicopter Electronic Warfare Self-Protection Suite) with radar warning, laser warning, and countermeasures system and the pilots felt they were the only ones in the South African Air Force with twenty-first century technology between their legs, which was their regular joke in the officers’ club over their Red Heart rum and Coke.

  The call came at 21:59 from General Ben van Rooyen at air force headquarters for two Rooivalk helicopters with extra fuel tanks for an extended operating range of 1,260 kilometers, to take off for Beaufort West as part of a real-life operation (and not the simulated warfare of the past thirty-six months). The biggest dilemma of the Sixteenth Squadron’s commander was how to explain to the pilots and gunners who were not chosen how he had made his choice.

  * * *

  “How is it possible that MK has no record of him, Rahjev? If she is right and he was in Russia and Angola, how is that possible?”

  “Ma’am, we don'’t know. We can only look at what is in the databases and analyze it, that’s all.”

  “What is the probability that an MK member is not on record?”

  Rajkumar pulled at his ponytail hanging over his shoulder with a plump hand. “Hell, ma’am fifteen percent?”

  “Fifteen percent.”

  “Round about.”

  “If there were ten thousand MK soldiers, as many as fifteen hundred are not on record?”

  “Not on electronic record.”

  “If there were fifty thousand, are seventy-five hundred just missing?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “But they might be in the files in Voortrekkerhoogte?”

  Radebe answered: “I think the odds are greater that they will find him in the Voortrekkerhoogte files.”

  “How long before we hear?”

  “An hour or two. They have three people searching the archI'ves.”

  “And the Boers’ microfiche library?”

  Radebe pulled up his shoulders. “It depends how strongly the orders from above came through.”

  She did a circuit of the room. To be dependent on others was a great frustration. She shook it off.

  “What is a motorcycle gofer doing with a consultant at Absa?” Janina asked the Ops Room in general.

  “Tell me I can scratch around in the Absa system, ma’am. Please?” Rajkumar stretched his interlaced plump fingers in front of him, cracking his joints in anticipation.

  “How much time do you need?”

  “give me an hour.”

  “Go for it.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah!”

  “What is the situation on the road?” she asked Radebe.

  “The tollgate says no big bikes have gone north tonight— a few came through south, but no black man. We are working through Police Head Office. They say the local law enforcement and petrol stations as far as Touws river have been alerted. They are phoning Laingsburg, Leeu-Gamka, and Beaufort West now. But if he doesn'’t take the N 1 ”

  “He will.”

  He nodded.

  She looked at them. They were keen to please.

  “Are we making progress with the people that helped Kleintjes with the computer integration?”

  “There is a transcrip
t coming, ma’am.”

  “Thank you.”

  This is the one, she thought. The one she was waiting for. She looked over the room. They didn’'t know everything. Only she held all the pieces to this particular jigsaw.

  So much careful planning. So much exception management. Long, careful months of fitting the gears one by one into this clock. And now it must all change, thanks to one middle-aged motorbike gofer.

  10.

  Miriam Nzululwazi lay on the double bed in the dark room, hands folded on her chest, eyes turned to the ceiling. She did not hear the familiar sounds of Guguletu at night, the eternal barking of dogs, the shouts of groups going home from the shebeen, their last fling before the week began again, the revving of a car engine in a backyard repair shop, the insects, music somewhere only audible in bass, the sigh and creak of their house settling for the night.

  Her thoughts sought out Thobela and came back every time to the same conclusion: he was a good man.

  Why were they chasing him? He was doing nothing wrong.

  This country. Would it never stop banging on your door in the middle of the night? Would the ledger of the past never be closed?

  Was he doing a wrong thing?

  Was Thobela someone else than the man she knew?

  “I was different,” he had said one afternoon, when their relationship was young, when he had to fight to win her trust.

  “I had another life. I am not ashamed. I did what I believed in. It is over. Here I am now. Just as you see me.”

  That first day in the consultant’s office she had not even noticed him, just another client. She had transferred the tea from the trolley onto the tray and slid the tray onto the desk and nodded when the consultant and his client thanked her, and she had pulled the door closed behind her, little knowing that that mundane service would change her life. He had come right into the kitchen looking for her, apparently telling the consultant’s secretary he wanted to tell her how good the tea was, and had put out his hand to her and said, “My name is Thobela Mpayipheli.” She thought it was a nice name, an honest name—“Thobela” meant “with respect”— but she wondered what he wanted. “I saw you in Van der Linde’s office. I want to talk with you.”

  “What about?”

  “Anything.”

  “Are you asking me out?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “No.”

  “Am I too ugly?” he asked, with his smile and broad shoulders.

  “I have a child.”

  “A boy or a girl?”

  “I haven’t time to talk. I have work to do.”

  “Just tell me your name, please.”

  “Miriam.”

  “Thank you.” He had not used any of the popular slang, none of the quasi-American

  cool

  of the township rakes; he had left and she had gone on with her work. Two days later there was a phone call for her; no one phoned her at work, so she feared someone had died. He had to remind her who he was, he asked her when she took lunch break, she answered evasively and asked him not to phone her at work— there was no outside line to the kitchen, and reception didn’'t like it if the staff kept the lines busy.

  The next day he was waiting outside, not leaning against a wall somewhere but standing right in front of the entrance, his legs planted wide and his arms folded on his chest, and when she sought the sunshine in Thibault Square he was there. “May I walk with you?”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want to talk to you.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you are a lovely woman and I want to know you.”

  “I know enough people, thank you.”

  “You never told me if you have a son or a daughter.”

  “That’s right.” He walked next to her, she sat down on a step and opened the waxed-paper wrapping of her sandwich.

  “Can I sit here?”

  “It’s a public place. You can sit where you like.”

  “I am not a tsotsi.”

  “I can see that.”

  “I just want to talk.”

  She let him talk. She was in a dilemma— fear on one hand, loneliness on the other. The experiences behind her argued with the possibilities that lay ahead. She had to shield her child and her heart from the big, handsome, gentle, proper man sitting in the spring sunshine alongside her. Her solution was to wait and see, to be passive. Let him talk, and he did, every other day he was outside, sometimes he brought something to eat, never luxuries: bunny rolls, hot chips with the irresistible flavor of salt and vinegar, sometimes a little bowl of curry and rice or his favorite, a chili bite from the Muslim takeout on Adderley Street, fresh and fragrant and sharp, and he let her taste it. He shared his lunch with her, and slowly she began to melt. Relaxing, she told him about Pakamile and her house for which she had worked so long, how hard it had been to pay it off, and one day he brought a gift for the boy, a jigsaw puzzle, and she said no, that’s it, she wouldn'’t see him anymore, she would not expose Pakamile, men always left. Men never stay, he was a good man, but she thought men couldn'’t help it. That is how life is: men are temporary. Unde-pendable. Unnecessary. Unnecessary for Pakamile.

  Not all men, he had said, and it was on the tip of her tongue to say, “That is what you all say,” but there was something in his eyes, in his look, in the set of his mouth and the clenching of his teeth that stopped her, that touched her, and she let it go and then he said, “I had a wild life. I did things. ”

  “What things?”

  “Things in the name of the Struggle. I was different. I had another life. I am not ashamed. I did what I believed in. It is over. Here I am now. Just as you see me.”

  “We all did things in the name of the Struggle.” She was relieved.

  “Yes,” he said. “I was searching for myself. Now I have found myself. I know who I am and I know what I want. I am not a deserter.”

  She had believed him. He looked into her eyes and she believed him.

  * * *

  “Rooivalk One, we have a weather situation,” said the tower at Bloemspruit. “Trough developing in the west, all the way from Verneukpan to Somerset East and a weak frontal system on the way. It could get wet.”

  The pilot looked at his flight plan. “Can we get through?”

  “AffirmatI've, Rooivalk One, but you had better shake ass,” said the tower, knowing the Rooivalks operational ceiling was just under twenty thousand feet.

  “Rooivalk One ready for takeoff.”

  “Rooivalk Two ready for takeoff.”

  “Rooivalk One and Two cleared for takeoff. Make some thunder.”

  The noise of the double Topaz turboshaft engines was deafening.

  * * *

  He mastered the R 1150 GS just before the Hex river valley. He knew it when he came out of a bend and opened the throttle and there was pleasure in the power. The exhaust pipe snorted softly behind him and he kicked back one gear, chose the line for the curve, tilted the bike, his shoulder dipping into the turn, and there was no discomfort, no fear of the angle between machine and road, just the tingling of pride for a small victory, skills acquired, satisfaction in control of power. He accelerated out of the turn, eyes focused on the next one, taking in the red lights a kilometer ahead, a lorry, aware, in control, bits and pieces, the instructor’s voice at the advanced riding school slowly making sense now. He could like this, a little adrenaline, a little more skill, lorry ahead, manipulate clutch and gears and accelerator, a whisper of the front brakes, shoot past, and then he looked up and the moon broke away from the mountain peaks, full and bright, and in that moment he knew it was going to work, the trouble lay behind him, just the twisty, open road ahead, and he opened the taps, and the valley opened ahead of him, a fairyland in the silvery light of the moon.

  * * *

  Monica Kleintjes sat hunched in the sitting-room chair in her father’s house, the lines of suppressed tears down her cheeks. Opposite her, Williams sat on the edge of his chair, as if he would reach out to her in empathy. “Miss Kleintjes, I would have done precisely the same if it were my father. It
was a noble action,” he said softly. “We are here to support you.”

  She nodded, biting her lower lip, hands clenched in her lap, her eyes large and teary behind the glasses.