Heart of the Hunter

by Deon Meyer

  She made a noise, a groan of reluctance to rise out of the deep sleep, sitting half upright in bed, the sheet falling away to bare her rounded nakedness to the room.

  “Hullo.”

  “Allison?” It was the voice of a colleague, she couldn'’t place which one.

  “What?”

  “Are you awake?”

  “Sort of.”

  “You had better come down here.”

  “What’s going on?”

  “There’s a shoeshine man downstairs. He wants to talk to you.”

  “A shoeshine man?” She wondered if she was awake. “He’s a friend of your big, bad Xhosa biker.” “Oh shit,” she said. “I’m coming.”

  16.

  He had drunk coffee and swallowed an uninteresting sandwich at the petrol station while the attendant filled up, and he had asked how far it was to Bloemfontein and if there were police on the road. He had tried to look like an “armed and dangerous” fugitive and had no idea if anyone would take the bait. The jockey was jumpy as a cat in a dog run, but that meant nothing and now the dark bank of clouds hung before him, twenty, thirty kilometers away, and the road stretched out before him, the light washing the Karoo in pastels. He rode fast, 185, because he wanted to pass Three Sisters on his way to Kim-berley before they could react, and the caffeine had awakened anxiety that he should have felt since Laingsburg. If they knew he had taken the motorbike and knew he was on the Ni, why had there been no attempt to stop him, why were they not waiting for him?

  Never mind, he thought, never mind.

  He was here and he had done all he could to establish Bloemfontein as his destination. All he could do now was ride as hard as he could, try 200 kilometers per hour; in daylight perhaps it would be less terrifying. He kicked down to fifth and twisted the ear of the great machine, feeling the vibration of the two flat cylinders, the boxer engine— strange name. He was consumed with urgency, anxiety. Where were they? What were they up to? What were they thinking? And when he heard the thunder, his first instinct was that it had come from the heavy clouds up ahead, but the noise was continuous and his heart turned cold. It was an unnatural thunder and then a dark thing swept over him, a huge shadow whose noise drowned out the boxer beneath him and he knew they were here; he knew what they were up to.

  * * *

  Miriam Nzululwazi was rinsing Pakamile’s porridge bowl in the kitchen. She missed Thobela, he was the one who brought good humor to the morning. Before, it had been a silent, almost morbid rush to be ready before the school bus came and she had to catch the Golden Arrow to the city. Then had come the man who swung his feet off the bed at the crack of dawn with a lust for life, who made the coffee and carried the fragrant steaming mugs to the bedrooms, singing all the way— not always in tune, but his deep voice buoyed up the house in the morning.

  She had said the boy was too young for coffee, but he said he would make it especially weak. She knew that hadn'’t lasted long. She had said she didn’'t want to hear that Afrikaans radio announcer in her house, but he said he and Pakamile couldn'’t learn to be farmers by listening to the music of Radio Metro every morning. They listened to the weather forecast and the market prices and the talk about farming topics, and the child was learning another language, too. He kept Pakamile on the go with RSG when the boy dawdled, saying, “Pakamile, it’s raining on the farm,” or “The sun is shining on the farm today, Pakamile, you know what that means?” And the boy would say, “Yes, Thobela, the plants are growing with chlorophyll,” and he would laugh and say, “That’s right, the grass is getting green and sweet and fat, and the cattle are going to swish their tails.”

  This morning she had switched on the radio to compensate for his absence, to restore normality. She listened to the weather forecast from habit, wanting to shake her head— here was Miriam Nzululwazi listening to Afrikaans; Thobela had changed so many things. She must go and see how far along Pakamile was. “Pakamile, have you brushed your teeth?”

  “No, Ma.”

  “It’s going to be hot on the farm today.”

  “Oh.” Uninterested. He was missing Thobela, too. The time signal sounded on the radio, time for the news, she must hurry. The newsreader’s somber voice sounded through the house, America in Afghanistan, Mbeki in England. The rand had dropped again.

  “don'’t dawdle, Pakamile.”

  “Yes, Ma.”

  Petrol was going up. Thobela would always talk back to the announcers and newsreaders, would always say when petrol prices were announced each month, “Get to the diesel price— Pakamile and I have a tractor to run,” and then he and the boy would grin at each other and Pakamile would mimic the Afrikaans word trekker, rolling the rs that drew out each end of the word.

  “According to a Cape newspaper, intelligence authorities are hot on the trail of a fugitive, Mr. Thobela Mpayipheli, who allegedly stole a motorcycle in Cape Town and is thought to be heading ” She ran to the kitchen and snapped off the radio before Pakamile could hear. Stole a motorcycle.

  Stole a motorcycle, Thobela?

  Her hands trembled; her heart beat in her throat.

  What had he done?

  * * *

  In the Ops Room the voice of the pilot came clearly over the speakers. “Rooivalk One to Ops Control. We have intercepted. Thirty kilometers outside Beaufort West, fugitive on a yellow motorcycle, estimated speed 200 kilometers per hour. This guy is sending it. Over.”

  They applauded, the entire room, punching the air, shouting. Janina Mentz smiled broadly. She had been right, but mostly she felt relief, more than anything else, enormous relief.

  “Ops Control to Rooivalk One, we hear you, interception verified. Just stay behind him, Rooivalk One. Do not attempt contact.”

  “Confirm no contact, Ops Control. We are just chasing him on.”

  “Ma’am,” said Radebe, but over the applause she couldn'’t hear him.

  “Ma’am?”

  “Vincent?”

  “The vehicle team says we must get hold of a Cape Times.”

  “Why?”

  “They say there are posters all over town, ma’am.” It took an effort to change gears, to make the shift and understand what he was saying. “What do they say, Vincent?” The anxiety in her voice quickly silenced the entire room, only the radio static hissed.

  SPOOKS

  SEEK

  BIG, BAD

  BIKER

  It was like a blow to her chest.

  “Will you get us a paper, Vincent?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Quinn, tell Mazibuko the subject is on his way, he must confirm contact with him. Rahjev ”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  She looked up at the bank of television screens on the wall. “Put on TV2 for us. And eTV And please ask someone to monitor the radio news.”

  “Okay, ma’am.”

  The police. She knew the leak came from the police.

  Luckily, this thing was almost over.

  * * *

  The helicopter flew low over him, its dark belly scarcely a hundred meters above his head, and then it swooped back behind him and when he looked around he saw there were two of them, side by side, predatory birds biding their time behind him. He could feel the vibrations of their great engines in his body; the adrenaline ran thickly in his veins; the accelerator was fully open, but he knew it was in vain— these things were much faster. A truck came from ahead. The driver with disbelieving eyes nearly swerved in front of him. Why were they hanging back?

  The needle was just beyond 200, the cloudbank loomed. Oncoming traffic had windshield wipers and lights on; he began to hope: How deep was this weather? How hard was it raining? Would the helicopters follow him in? He wanted to pass a car, the driver confused by the tremendous noise from above, brake lights— oh God, here’s trouble— he swerved just in time, spray hit the helmet visor— shit— he was going too fast, he saw the rain ahead, a dense curtain, spatter became drops, hard to see, dying to lift a hand and wipe, but at this speed A truck in front of him, he couldn'’t maintain this speed, couldn'’t see, he braked, closed the thro
ttle, then the rain hit, sheets, gusts, the drops hard and stinging on his body, the truck’s tires spurting up plumes of mist, he couldn'’t see oncoming cars, slower, slower, at last wiping his visor, just rearranging the water patterns. The rain was harder now, African rain, the lorry moved over, he went down a gear, accelerated, past but not fast, visibility was terrible— what to do?— and then he realized the helicopters’ noise was fading, they were no longer with him.

  * * *

  “My name is Immanuel,” he said to Allison Healy “I’m the shoeshine man.”

  She put out her hand to him. “Hullo, Immanuel.”

  “I get the Cape Times every morning. I fetch my lot at the back here, I sell them. And when I have set out all my stuff, then I read it because there are not many clients so early.”

  “I understand,” she said patiently.

  “So this morning I read about Thobela.”

  “Mpayipheli?”

  “He is my friend. And the things you wrote about him are not right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He is not a ‘big, bad biker.’ ”

  “Uh It’s just a way of writing, Immanuel.”

  “But it’s not true. He’s a good man. He’s a war veteran.”

  A veteran?”

  “That’s right. He was a soldier in the Struggle. He fought in lands far away. Russia and Germany.”

  “MK?”

  “He fought for all of us.”

  “You say he was an MK fighter?” This was news. Big news.

  Immanuel just nodded.

  “Why did he steal the motorcycle?”

  “That’s not true. Thobela doesn'’t steal.”

  “How do you know, Immanuel?”

  “I know him. He’s my friend. We talk, three, four times a week. He is an honest man. A family man.”

  “He has a family?”

  “It’s the most important thing in his life. Why would he steal?”

  “Where can I find his family?”

  * * *

  “It’s impossible. Ops Control, visibility is too poor. Heavy turbulence. We have to turn back. Over.” Static crackled on the radio connection, the voice breaking up.

  Quinn looked to Janina Mentz. She shook her head; he translated: “NegatI've, Rooivalk One, stay with him. Over.”

  “Ops Control, visibility is zero. We don'’t know where ‘with him’ is. We don'’t even have visual contact with each other. These are nonoperational conditions. Over.”

  He looked at Janina. She stood with folded arms, her lips thin. “How many million rand did it cost to develop these machines? And they can’t fly through rain.”

  Quinn waited.

  “Tell them to turn around. Tell them to make sure he doesn'’t go back.”

  Her cell phone rang in her pocket. She looked over the bank of televisions, where the country’s channels were flickering: early-morning cartoons, local news, sports, CNN, the voices and music whispering. On TV2 the newsreader was talking. Behind him was a graphic of a man on a motorbike.

  The cell phone rang.

  Rahjev Rajkumar touched a panel, and the sound filled the room:

  “ somewhere in the Western Cape on a stolen motorcycle. Considered to be armed and dangerous, it is not clear why authorities are seeking Mr. Mpayipheli at this time.”

  She felt like swearing. She picked up her phone.

  “Mentz,” she said grimly.

  “Ma, Lien says I’m fat,” said her daughter in a whiny tone.

  * * *

  He crept forward at fifty kilometers per hour, the leather gloves were sodden, his hands cold although he had turned on the electric heaters in the handgrips. His biggest problem was seeing the road ahead, the inside of his helmet was steamed up and rain poured down the outside, the road was slippery. How to see the traffic ahead in time. The urge for speed and distance gnawing at him. At least the helicopters were quiet, but he knew they were out there somewhere. He had to get away.

  They must want him very badly to use that sort of technology.

  Johnny Kleintjes, what is on that hard drive?

  They had waited for daylight, patient and easy, like a cat for a mouse, waited for the early morning, knowing he would be tired, knowing that the helicopters were excessive, that they would intimidate and conquer.

  They were not fools.

  The helicopters had stayed behind him.

  Like dogs herding a sheep.

  Into the pen.

  They were waiting for him. Somewhere up ahead they were waiting.

  * * *

  Allison Healy’s finger ran down the pages of the phone book, found “Nzululwazi,” found “M. Nzululwazi, 21 Govan Mbeki Avenue.” She scribbled the number down in her notebook, pulled the phone closer, and dialed. It rang.

  A war veteran. A family man. A good man.

  Still ringing.

  What was going on here? Why were they after him?

  Ring, ring, ring. There was nobody home.

  Time to ring Laingsburg again. Perhaps there was news.

  17.

  Seventeen kilometers south of the Three Sisters roadblock the gravel road turns west off the Ni, an insignificant branch going nowhere, merely a connection that ends in a T junction at the normally dusty route between the forgotten villages of Sneeukraal and Wagenaarskraal.

  Two soldiers were standing nearly three hundred meters from the paved road where the police van had dropped them off in the bend of the first turn. Little Joe Moroka and Koos Weyers were dry under their plastic raincoats, but the cold had seeped through their camouflage uniforms. Their faces were wet; water ran down the barrels of the R .6 assault rifles and from there streamed down to the ground.

  In the hour before dawn they had talked about sunrise and the light that would bring relief, but the rain still poured down. The only improvement was the visibility extending another forty or fifty meters to expose the low thorn trees and Karoo veld, the stony ridges and pools of mud.

  It had been twenty-four hours since they slept, if you could even count that restless dozing on the Oryx. Their exhaustion was showing in the feebleness of their legs and the red scratchiness of their eyes, in the dull throbbing in their temples. They were hungry. Conversation ran to a fantasy of hot, sweet coffee, sausage, eggs and bacon, and toast with melting butter. They could not agree on the necessity for fried mushrooms. Moroka said fungus was snail food; Weyers responded that when taste was at issue, 60 million Frenchies couldn'’t be wrong.

  They did not hear the motorbike.

  The rain was a soundproof blanket. The exhaust of the GS fluttered softly at the low revs needed for the muddy road. The soldier’s senses were dulled by weariness and tedium, and their voices drowned out the last chance of warning.

  Later, when Little Joe Moroka gave his full report in the face of the spitting fury of Captain Tiger Mazibuko, he would attempt to break down and reconstruct each moment: They should not have stood so close to each other. They should not have been talking, should have been more alert.

  But there are some things you cannot plan for, such as the fact that the fugitive had lost control. The straight just before the bend had a good surface where the bike would have accelerated; the turn would have been sudden and unexpectedly sharp. And just in front of them it was muddy, thick snotty porridge where a boot would sink twenty centimeters deep. The rider had followed the contour of the road formed by the regular traffic, but in the mud the front wheel had lost its grip at the critical moment.

  They saw him— saw the light over the predatory beak of the monster machine and heard the engine when it was right in front of them, an apparition. Moments, fractions of moments, within which the senses register, signals are sent, the brain interprets and searches via a network of tired synapses for the right reaction in the memory banks of endless training.

  In reflection Little Joe Moroka would will himself to react faster, but in the real moment he registered the uniform snicking of safety catches as he and Weyers reacted in unison, conditioned by training, the motorbike sliding, iron and steel colliding with Wey
ers. The rider falling away from the machine, Moroka staggering, slipping, falling on his back, finger in the guard of the R6 pulling the trigger unwilled, shots in the air, rolling, jumping up. The shoulder of the fugitive driving into his midriff, falling again, winded.

  Captain, that man, I don'’t know how he did it. I saw him fall, I saw him falling over the front of the bike to the right of Weyers, but when I stood up he hit me, he was so fast .

  He’s fucking forty years old, Mazibuko would scream at him, the commander’s face centimeters from his.

  Rain in his eyes, gasping for air, boots kicking for a grip to get up, the rider on top of him, bashing him in the face with the helmet, pain coursing through him. The man grabbed his firearm, pulled, jerked and twisted it from his grip. Blood, his blood, against the front of the helmet, then the barrel of the R.6 in his eye and he could only lie there in the mud until the man pushed up the helmet visor and said, “Look what you’re making me do.” He heard Weyers groaning, “Joe.” Weyers calling him but he could not turn his head to his mate. “Joe?” A weird expression on the face of the man above him, not anger— sorrow almost. “Joe, I think my leg is broken.”