Heart of the Hunter

by Deon Meyer

  When she had scurried out to begin writing, he had called after her: “We’ve got a head start. When you’re done, go get us more.

  Who

  is this guy? Why do they want him? And what the hell is he doing on a BMW bike, for God’s sake?”

  * * *

  “The Rooivalks are in Beaufort West, ma’am,” said Quinn. “They are waiting for your instructions.”

  “Tell them to get some sleep. If we haven’t heard anything by dawn, they can start patrolling the N1 southward. But they must talk with us before they take off. I don'’t want contact with the fugitive before we are ready.”

  “Very well, ma’am.”

  She gave him time to relay the message. She counted hours. He couldn'’t be close yet, too early. If he made good time on the BMW, he would be somewhere on the other side of Laingsburg. Another two hours to Beaufort West. Not a great deal of time.

  “Is the roadblock ready at Three Sisters?”

  “The police and traffic people are there already, ma’am. They are moaning. It’s raining in the Karoo.”

  “They’ll grumble about anything, Quinn. They know they have to check all vehicles?”

  “They know, ma’am.”

  “How long before Mazibuko gets there?”

  “Anytime now, ma’am. Ten minutes, no longer.”

  * * *

  Captain Tiger Mazibuko sat with folded hands, eyes closed in the yellow-lit vibrating interior of the Oryx, but he did not sleep.

  It was the dawning realization that the Reaction Unit would never come into its own that kept him awake. His teammates were asleep. They were accustomed to the cramped, uncomfortable conditions, able to snatch a few minutes or occasional hour of sleep between events. Mazibuko, too. But rest eluded him; the germ of unease over their deployment had grown since his last exchange with Mentz. He had never thought about it this way before: they were somewhere between a counterterrorist instrument and a hostage rescue unit, cast in the mold of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team and the similar group of the British Special Air Services, the SAS. They had been operational for thirteen months and had done nothing more than simulated training exercises. Until now. Till they had to invade a drug den like fucking blue-trouser cops, and now they were to man a roadblock in this godforsaken desert to wait for a middle-aged fugitive who might once have been an MK soldier.

  Maybe he should go see his father and ask him whether, before he sold out to the Boers, before he sang his cowardly song of treason, he had known someone called Thobela Mpayipheli.

  His father. The great hero of many kitchen battles with his mother. His father, who beat his wife and who beat his children to the breaking point because he could not live with his humiliation. Because in a Security Police cell he had broken, and the names and places, the methods and the targets had bubbled out over the floor with the spit and the blood and the vomit. And then, deliberately released, the shame shackled to his ankles defined the shuffling course of his life.

  His father.

  isn'’t it time to move out from your father’s shadow?

  Janina Mentz’s words could not be blocked out.

  Did you know Mpayipheli, Father? Was he one of those you betrayed?

  Since the beginning he had had visions, dreams at night and fantasies in his solitary moments. Fired up by the training and Mentz’s propaganda, prospects of microbattles, of lightning raids in dark passages, shots cracking, grenades exploding, smoke and cordite and life and death, bullets ripping through him, bursting his head, spattering his rage against the walls. He lived for that, lusted after it. It was the fuel of his zeal, his salvation, the ripping loose from the sins of his father, the destruction of the cells of his brain with the memories, and now he wondered if it would ever happen. Mentz telling him so seriously that the world had become an evil place, presidents and countries not knowing who was friend or foe, wars that would no longer be fought with armies but at the front of secret rooms, the mini-activities of abduction and occupation, suicide attacks and pipe bombs. September

  II

  was water to her mill, every statement of every radical group she held up as watertight evidence. And where did they find themselves now?

  He heard a change in the note of the engines.

  Nearly there.

  Now they sat in a land the world had passed by. Even the terrorists were no longer interested in Africa.

  The Reaction Unit, sent to man a roadblock. The world’s best-trained traffic officers.

  A good thing the fucker had two pistols. A pity he was alone.

  * * *

  Just after two

  A

  .

  M

  . he swept easily around the last bend and saw Laingsburg brightly lit before him. Conscious that the dark blanket of night had lifted, he felt his heart beat beneath his ribs. The reserve tank light shone bright orange, leaving him no choice. He slowed down to the legal sixty, saw the big petrol station logo on the left— time to get it over with— turned in, and stopped at a pump, the only vehicle at that time of night.

  The petrol jockey came slowly out of the night room, rubbing his eyes.

  Thobela put the motorbike on the main stand, climbed off, and removed his gloves. He must get money out.

  The jockey was at his side. He saw his eyes widen.

  “Can you fill up? With unleaded?”

  The man nodded too eagerly. Something was not right.

  He unlocked the tank, lifted the valve.

  “They are looking for you,” said the jockey, his head conspiratorially close, his voice a hoarse whisper as he placed the spout in the tank.

  “Who?”

  “Police.”

  “How do you know?”

  “They were here. Said we must look for a Xhosa on a motorbike. A bee-em-double-you.”

  “So what are you supposed to do?”

  “I have to phone them.”

  “And will you?”

  “They say you’re armed and dangerous.”

  He looked at the man, into his eyes. “What are you going to do?”

  The attendant shrugged his shoulders, staring into the tank.

  Just the noise of the fuel running in, the sweet aroma of petrol.

  Eventually: “It’s full.”

  The digital figures on the pump read R77.32. Mpayipheli took out two hundred-rand notes. The attendant pulled one only from his fingers.

  “I don'’t take bribes.” He took a last look at the man in the helmet, turned on his heel, and walked away.

  * * *

  “Masethla. NIA. I understand you need our assistance,” said the voice on the phone without friendliness or subservience.

  You need our assistance.

  “I appreciate your calling,” said Janina without appreciation. “We inquired about any references to a Thobela Mpayipheli in the microfiche library and you sent a fax with a 1984 memorandum from Washington.”

  “That is correct.”

  “I can’t believe that this is the only reference. There must have been a response.”

  “Possibly. What is it about?”

  “Mr. Masethla, I don'’t see the necessity to explain that. It was an urgent official request in the national interest. We are all working for the same interest. Why can’t we get the other documentation?”

  “There isn'’t any.”

  “What?”

  “There isn'’t any other documentation.”

  “You say this memorandum is all?”

  “Yes.”

  “I can’t believe that.”

  “You will have to.”

  She pondered this for a moment. “Mr. Masethla, is your library complete?”

  He was silent at the other end.

  “Mr. Masethla?”

  “It is not my library. It was the Boers’. In the old South Africa.”

  “But is it complete?”

  “We have reason to believe that some films were removed.”

  “Which films?”

  “Here and there.”

  “By whom?”

  “Whom do you think, Mrs. Mentz? You
r people.”

  “The PIU?”

  He laughed at her. “No. The whites.”

  Rage swept over her. She gripped the receiver with whitened knuckles, fighting it back, swallowing it, waiting till her voice would not betray her.

  “The sender and receiver of the memorandum. I want their contact details.”

  “They have left the agency.”

  “I want their details.”

  “I will see what I can do.”

  Then she unleashed her rage. “No, Mr. Masethla. You will not see what you can do. You will have their details to me in sixty minutes. You will get rid of your attitude and you and your people will get to work if you don'’t want to become another unemployed statistic tomorrow. Do you understand?”

  He took just long enough to answer that she thought she had won this round. “Fuck you, you white bitch,” he said. Then he put the phone down.

  * * *

  Captain Tiger Mazibuko was first out of the Oryx with a hand on his hat so the rotor blast would not blow it away.

  In the pitch dark he saw one white van from the SAPS and one blue and white Toyota Corolla from the provincial traffic authority, blue lights revolving. They were parked beside the road, and a single traffic officer with a flashlight in hand stood on the N1 road surface. A few orange traffic cones indicated a parking area for vehicles. The officer was indicating an 18-wheeler truck to stop.

  Mazibuko swore and strode over to the police van, saw one of the occupants opening the door. He stood directly in the opening, one hand on the roof and leaned in.

  “What is going on here?” He had to shout, as the engines of the Oryx were still winding down.

  There were two inside, a sergeant and a constable; each had a coffee mug. A thermos stood on the dashboard. Faces looked back at him guiltily.

  “We are drinking coffee, what does it look like?” the sergeant shouted back.

  “Is this your idea of a roadblock?”

  The two policemen looked at each other. “We haven’t got a flashlight,” said the sergeant.

  Mazibuko shook his head in disbelief. “You haven’t got a flashlight?”

  “That’s right.”

  The helicopter’s motors wound down gradually. He waited until he no longer needed to shout. And what are you going to do when an armed fugitive on a motorbike races through here? Throw the thermos at him?”

  “There have been no motorbikes so far,” said the constable.

  “Lord help us.” Mazibuko shook his head from side to side. Then he slammed the door and walked back to the helicopter. The men had disembarked and were standing, waiting, their faces glowing in the reflected blue lights. He barked orders about weapons and equipment and their deployment. Four men must take over for the traffic officer, four must walk a hundred meters up the road as backup, four must put up two tents next to the road as shelter from the rain.

  The truck crawled past him. The officer had not even looked in the back. He walked to the dark figure with the flashlight. He saw that the two policemen were out of the van, standing around aimlessly.

  “What is your name?” he asked the traffic officer.

  “Wilson, sir.”

  “Wilson, would a motorbike fit in the back of that truck?”

  The traffic officer was tall and impossibly thin, a floppy fringe hung over his eyes. “Uh er possibly, but ”

  “Wilson, I want you to pull your Corolla onto the road here. Block off this lane. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir.” His eyes glanced from Mazibuko to the helicopter and back, deeply impressed by the importance of the arrivals.

  “Then tell your friends to pull their van there, in the other lane, about ten meters farther on.”

  “Right, sir.”

  “And then you sit in your vehicles and start the engines every fifteen minutes to keep them warm, do you understand me?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you got a road map of this area?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Can I look at it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Pulsating white light suddenly lit up the night around them. Thunder grumbled above, a deep rolling from east to west. A few drops plopped on the blacktop.

  “It’s getting closer, sir. It’s going to be a mother of a storm.”

  Mazibuko sighed. “Wilson.”

  “Yes, sir?”

  “You don'’t have to ‘sir’ me. Call me ‘captain’ instead.”

  “Right, Captain.” And he saluted him with the wrong hand.

  * * *

  Thobela Mpayipheli saw the far-off flashes of light on the northern horizon, but he didn’'t know it was the dance of lightning. Above him the starry heavens were clear, but he didn’'t see them, he rode at 150 km per hour, the headlights illuminating the road straight ahead of him, a bright cocoon in the night, but his gaze was on the rearview mirrors.

  What had the petrol attendant done?

  There was nothing behind him. They would have to drive to catch him. At 160 or 180, and even then the gap would not close quickly. Or they would radio ahead, to Leeu-Gamka or Beaufort West.

  Probably both, a pincer with him in the middle.

  They knew. The spooks from the Cape knew about him and the GS. They had guessed his route correctly.

  Not bad.

  And if the jockey had reported him, they would know he knew they knew. If the man had reported him. He couldn'’t read his expression; that nothing-to-do-with-me attitude could have been a smokescreen.

  They say you’re armed and dangerous.

  The pistols. That he didn’'t even have. Well, let them miscalculate. But

  dangerous’?

  What did they know? Possibilities danced through his head and he felt the tension run through his body and then Otto Müller came to visit. In the night on a Karoo road he heard the voice of the Odessa instructor, the East German with the fine, almost feminine features below a grotesque bald head, nearly twenty years past. He heard the heavy Germanic accent, the stilted English.

  It is game theory; it is referred to as the Nash equilibrium. When two players have no reason to change from their chosen strategies, they continue with those strategies. The equilibrium. How do you break the equilibrium? That is the question. Not by second-guessing, because that is part of the strategy and therefore part of the equilibrium. In a game of chess, you will lose if you think only of your opponent, think of every option, think of every possibility. You will go crazy. Think what you will do. Think about your strategy. Think how you can change it. How you can dominate. How you can break the equilibrium. Be the actor, not the reaction. That is the key.

  Otto Müller. There was a bond between them; he was one of only ten operators, the rest from the Eastern bloc, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Romania. He was one of the chosen and he fascinated Müller.

  I have never taught a schwarze before.

  So he said,

  I haff never taken orders from ze whitezer before.

  Lord, he was full of fire in those days. Müller laughed at his put-on German accent.

  You have the right what is the words attitude?

  He didn’'t tell the Stasi man he had been born with that

  attitude;

  he didn’'t have the self-knowledge then, his

  attitude

  engulfed him, his

  attitude

  was him, his complete being.

  A month or so ago he had read in a textbook about enzymes, very large molecules in the human cell that elicit a chemical reaction by presenting a surface that encourages that particular reaction. He pondered this, found in himself the metaphor of this biology. His whole life he had floated through the bloodstream of the world with a surface that encouraged violence as a reaction, until that moment when it had made him sick, that moment for the first time in thirty-seven years when he could step back from himself and see and find it repugnant.

  The difference was that enzymes cannot change their nature.

  People can. Sometimes people must.

  In a game of chess, your opponent is l
ooking for patterns of play. give him the pattern. give him the Nash equilibrium. Then change it.

  But to do that he needed information.

  They expected him to follow the Ni. He could change this pattern only if he knew what his options were. He needed a good road map. But where on earth could he get one?

  * * *

  Her first impulse after replacing the phone was to be with her children.

  She fought it, understanding the need, understanding that Masethla’s cutting words made her look for comfort, but her head said she must get used to it, she should have known that Masethla would not like being leaned on from above, would be incapable, too, from a relatI've position of power of taking orders from a strong woman.