Heart of the Hunter

by Deon Meyer

  “It’s not me who must believe, it’s you.”

  They hadn'’t visited like that again. Rather, he and Van Heerden went somewhere to eat and talk once a month. About life. People. About race and color, politics and aspirations, about the psychology that Van Heerden had begun studying intensely to try and tame his own devils.

  He sighed, turned onto his back, the shoulder aching more now. He had to sleep; he had to get his head clear.

  What could you do?

  You could walk away from circumstances that brought out the worst in you. You could isolate yourself from them.

  The hatred in Captain Tiger Mazibuko’s voice over the radio. Pure, clear, sheer hate. He had recognized it. For nearly forty years it had been his closest companion.

  It’s not me who must believe, it’s you.

  * * *

  It took Allison nearly fifteen minutes to convince the Xhosa woman that she was on Thobela’s side. Miriam’s mouth remained stern, her words few; she evaded questions with a shake of the head but finally gave in: “He’s helping a friend, that’s what. And now look what they’re doing.”

  “Helping a friend?”

  “Johnny Kleintjes.”

  “Is that the friend’s name?” Allison did not write it down, afraid to intimidate the woman. Instead, she memorized it feverishly, repeating the name in her head.

  Miriam nodded. “They were together in the Struggle.”

  “How is he helping him?”

  “Kleintjes’s daughter came around yesterday evening to ask Thobela to take something to him. In Lusaka.”

  “What did she want him to take?”

  “I don'’t know.”

  “Was it a document?”

  “No.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “I didn’'t see it.”

  “Why didn’'t she take it herself?”

  “Kleintjes is in trouble.”

  “What sort of trouble?”

  “I don'’t know.”

  Allison drew a deep breath. “Mrs. Nzululwazi, I want to be sure I’ve got this straight, because if I make a mistake and write something that is not true, then I and the newspaper are in trouble and that won’t help Thobela. Kleintjes’s daughter came to your house yesterday evening, you say, and asked him to take something to her father in Lusaka?”

  “Yes.”

  “Because her father is in trouble?”

  “Yes.”

  And Thobela agreed because they are old comrades?”

  “Yes.”

  And so he took the motorcycle ”

  The tension and confusion were too much for Miriam. Her voice broke. “No, he was going to take the plane, but they stopped him.”

  For the first time the reporter saw the stubbornness in the light of deep worry and put her hand on the thin shoulder. For a moment Miriam stood stiff and humiliated before leaning against Allison, letting her arms fold around her, and the tears ran freely.

  * * *

  For two hours Janina slept on the sofa in her office, a deep dreamless sleep until the cell phone’s alarm went off. Her feet swung to the ground immediately and she stood up with purpose, the rest a thin buffer against fatigue and tension, but it would have to suffice. She showered in the big bathroom on the tenth floor, enjoying the tingling water, the scent of soap and shampoo, her thoughts going on to the next steps, laying out the day like a map.

  She pulled on black trousers and a white blouse, black shoes, wiped the steam from the mirror, brushed her hair, made up her face with deft movements of fingers and hands, and walked first to her office for the dossiers and then to the director’s door.

  She knocked.

  “Come in, Janina.” As if he had been waiting for her.

  She opened the door and entered. He was standing at the window, looking out over Wale Street toward the provincial government buildings and Table Mountain behind. It was a clear and sunny morning with the flags across the street waltzing lazily in the breeze.

  “I have something to confess, sir.”

  He did not turn. “No need, Janina. It was the rain.”

  “Not about that, sir.”

  When he stood etched against the sky like that, his hunchback was obvious. It was like a burden he carried. He stood so still, as if too tired to move.

  “The minister has phoned twice already. She wants to know if this thing will become an embarrassment to us.”

  “I am sorry, sir.”

  “don'’t be, Janina. I am not. We are doing our job. The minister must do hers. She is paid to handle embarrassments.”

  She placed the dossiers on the desk. “Sir, I involved Johnny Kleintjes in this.”

  He did not move. The silence stretched out between them.

  “On March seventeenth this year a Muslim extremist was arrested by the police on charges of possession of unlicensed firearms. One Ismail Mohammed, a leading player, probably a member of Pagad, Quibla, and/or MAIL. He repeatedly requested a meeting with a representative of the intelligence services. We were fortunate that the police approached us first. I sent Williams.”

  The director turned slowly. She wondered if he had slept last night. She wondered if it was the same shirt he had been wearing yesterday. His face betrayed no weariness.

  He walked over to the chair behind his desk, not meeting her eyes.

  “Here is the full transcript of the interview. Only Williams, the typist, and myself know about this.”

  “I am sure you had a reason for not showing me this, Janina.” Now for the first time she could see that he was tired, the combination of inflection and body language and the dullness in his eyes.

  “Sir, I made a choice. I think you will eventually agree it was a reasonable one.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Mohammed had information about Inkululeko.”

  It was a moment she had waited a long time for. He showed no reaction, said nothing.

  “You know there have been speculations and suspicions for years.”

  The director seemed to sigh as if releasing internal tension. He leaned back in his chair. “Do sit down, Janina.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  She pulled the chair closer, drawing a breath to proceed, but he held up a small hand, the palm rose-colored, the nails perfectly manicured.

  “You kept this from me because I am under suspicion.” Not a question, a mild statement.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Was that the right thing to do, Janina?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I think so, too.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “No need to thank me, Janina. It is what I expect from you. That is how I have taught you. Trust no one.”

  She smiled. It was true.

  “Do you think it necessary now for me to know everything?”

  “I think you need to know about Johnny Kleintjes.”

  “Then you may tell me.”

  She considered awhile, collecting her thoughts. The director would know of Inkululeko’s history back through the eighties, when the rumors in the leaders’ circle of the ANC were put down to counterintelligence maliciously planted by the regime to damage the unity between Xhosa and Zulus in the organization. But even after 1992 the rumors persisted, the violence in Kwa-Zulu, the Third Force. And since the 1994 elections the feeling that the CIA were too well informed.

  She tapped the dossier in front of her. “Ismail Mohammed says in the interview that Inkululeko is a senior member of the intelligence arm. He says he has proof. He says Inkululeko is working for the CIA. Has been for years.”

  “What proof?”

  “Not one big thing. Many small ones. You know the Cape Muslim extremists have connections with Qaddafi and Arafat and bin Laden. He says they deliberately fed misinformation into the system here and watched things unfold in the Middle East. He says there is no doubt.”

  And we must assume they have decided to remove Inkululeko by giving us information.”

  “We must consider that possibility at least, sir.”

  He smoothed his tie slowly as if removing imagined wrinkles. “I t
hink I understand now, Janina. You fetched Johnny Kleintjes out of retirement.”

  “Yes, sir. I needed someone credible. Someone who would have had access to the data.”

  “You sent him to the American consulate.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “He was to tell them he had data he wanted to sell. And if it had been me, I would have told Johnny to use the September eleventh attacks as motivation. Something like ‘I can no longer sit back and watch these things happen while I have information that can help you.’ ”

  “Something like that.”

  And the name of Inkululeko as an afterthought, an incidental extra?”

  She merely nodded.

  “So that they can know we know. Clever, Janina.”

  Apparently not clever enough, sir. It may have backfired on us.”

  “I would guess you had a few names you wanted to experiment with, a few possible Inkululekos? To test reactions?”

  “Three names. And a lot of harmless information. If the Americans said the data is nonsense, we would know he is not one of those three. If they pay, we know we are on target.”

  And my name was one of them.”

  “Yes, sir. After Johnny’s visit to the consulate, the CIA reacted as we expected. They told Johnny not to make direct contact again, that the building is being watched. don'’t call us, we’ll call you. I arranged for his phone to be monitored. A week ago they called, a smokescreen for a meeting in the gardens at the art museum. There they asked Johnny to take the info to Lusaka.”

  “What went wrong, Janina?”

  “We think Johnny used his own initiative, sir. We think the hard drive he took was empty. Or filled with pointless data.”

  “Johnny Kleintjes,” said the director with nostalgia. “I think he did not completely trust you, Janina.”

  “It’s possible. It took a lot of persuading to get him to go along. The three names ”

  “He knows all three.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  And he does not believe any one of the three is Inkululeko.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Typical of Johnny. He would want to check things through first. But with an escape route if the Yanks got serious.”

  “I suspect Thobela Mpayipheli has the real hard drive.”

  “The one you prepared.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And you do not want that data to reach Lusaka.”

  “I thought we would stop Mpayipheli at the airport. I wanted to send the drive with one of my own people. That is still the plan.”

  “More control.”

  She nodded. “More control.”

  The director pulled open a drawer in the big desk. “I too have a confession, Janina,” he said, lifting out a photograph, a dog-eared color snapshot. He held it out to her. She took it carefully, holding it up to her eyes with her fingertips on the edges of the faded card. The director, young— easily twenty years ago. He had his arm around a tall broad-shouldered black youth, supple and muscular, regular features, a strong line to mouth and chin, determined. In the background was a military vehicle.

  “Dar es Salaam,” said the director. “Nineteen eighty-four.”

  “I don'’t understand, sir.”

  “The other man in the photo is Thobela Mpayipheli. He was my friend.” There was a faint smile lingering on the small Zulu’s mouth.

  A chill swept over her. “That is why you let the Reaction Unit come.”

  He looked up at the ceiling, his thoughts in another time. She waited patiently.

  “He is a ruthless man, Janina. A freak of nature. He is he was only seventeen when he enlisted. But they picked him out from the start. While the others had general infantry training in Tanzania and Angola, he was sent with the elite to the Soviet Union. And East Germany. The KGB fell in love first and kept us up-to-date with his training. The Germans pinched him. They knew ”

  “That’s why there is no record.”

  The director was still somewhere in the past. “He was everything they needed. Dedicated, intelligent, strong— mentally, too. Fast He could shoot, ah, Tiny could shoot .”

  “Tiny?”

  A dismissive gesture. “That is a story in itself. But above all he was unknown in their world, a wild card that the Americans and Brits and even Mossad knew nothing of. A black unknown, a brand-new player, an unrecorded assassin with the hunger ” The director pulled himself back to the present, his eyes slowly focusing on hers.

  “They bought him from us, Janina. With weapons and explosives and training. There was one small problem. He was unwilling. He wanted to come back to South Africa, to shoot Boers and blow up the SADF. His hate was focused. They sat with him for nearly two weeks, trying to explain that he would make a contribution, that the CIA and MI5 were hand in glove with the Boers, that war against one was war against the others. Two weeks until they turned his head.”

  She pushed the photo back across the desk. She met the director’s eyes and they sat, staring, testing, and waiting.

  “He makes me think of Mazibuko,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Was he the so-called Umzingeli?”

  “I don'’t know the whole story, Janina.”

  She stood up. “I can’t afford to let him reach Lusaka.”

  The director nodded. “He is the sort of man who will retrieve Johnny and the data.”

  “And that would not do.”

  “No, that would not do.”

  Silence descended between them as each considered the implications, till the director said: “I want you to know I am going home for some rest. I will be back later. Will you be sending the usual team to watch me?”

  “It will be the usual team, sir.”

  He nodded wearily.

  “That is good.”

  19.

  The editor of the Cape Times looked at the rounded figure of Allison Healy and thought once more, If she could lose ten or fifteen kilograms She had a sensuality about her. He wondered if it was the curves, or the personality. But there was a beautiful slender woman somewhere inside there.

  “ and nobody else knows about this Johnny Kleintjes, which gives us a great angle for tomorrow’s story. I’ve got his address, and I will get an interview with the daughter. And this afternoon, we’ll get a pic of Mrs. Nzululwazi and the boy. Exclusive.”

  “Right,” said the editor, wondering if she was a virgin.

  “But there’s more, Chief. I know it. And I want to use this radio show to put some bait in the water. Stir the pot.”

  “You’re not going to leak our scoop, are you?”

  “I’m going to be all coy and clever, Chief.”

  “You’re always coy and clever, Allison.”

  “Fair enough,” she said, and he laughed.

  “Just make sure you plug the newspaper. And if you can let it slip that we will be revealing a lot more tomorrow morning ”

  * * *

  Self-assured, at ease, Janina sat at the big table.

  “Can you hear us, Tiger?” she asked.

  The entire room listened to the captain’s voice as it came over the speakerphone. “I can hear you.”

  “Good. What is your status?”

  “Team Bravo has arrived with our vehicles. We expect the Oryx back any moment and another is on the way from Bloem-fontein.” She could hear the impatience in Mazibuko’s voice, the suppressed anger.

  “What’s the weather doing, Captain?”

  “It’s not raining so hard anymore. The air force says the system is moving east.”

  “Thank you, Tiger.” She went to stand alongside Vincent Radebe. “We have established beyond reasonable doubt that Thobela Mpayipheli was an MK member who received specialized training in the Eastern bloc. There are still some details outstanding, but he is a worthy opponent, Tiger. don'’t be too hard on your team.”

  Just hissing on the line, no response.

  “The point is, he is not an innocent citizen.” She looked pointedly at Radebe, who boldly met her eyes.

  “He knows how serious we are about that data and he did not scruple to use violence. He chose confronta
tion. He is dangerous and he is determined. I hope we all understand this.”

  Some heads nodded.

  “We also know now that the data he is carrying is of an extremely sensitive nature for this government and especially for us as an intelligence service. So sensitive that you have the right to use any necessary force to stop him, Tiger. I repeat. Any necessary force.”