Heart of the Hunter

by Deon Meyer

  Now the lieutenant had a more difficult decision to make. One thing was for sure: if you are a member of the military faced with a complicated choice, your first option is to pass the decision up the chain of command. That is how you cover your back.

  So he did not hesitate to resort to the radio.

  “Oscar Hotel,” he said to the ops commander at the Anti-Aircraft School. “I have stopped nineteen riders on BMW motorbikes here. One says he is a lawyer and will get an injunction against us if we don'’t let them through. Over.”

  He could swear he heard the colonel say “Fuck,” but perhaps the radio reception was not clear.

  “Stand by, Papa Bravo.”

  Papa Bravo.

  Military abbreviation for Petrusburg. There was once a time when he had felt like a clown using these terms, but it had passed. He waited, looking out of the tent that stood beside the road. The BMWs stood in ranks of two, all with headlights on and engines idling. Where the fuck were they going? His men stood with their assault rifles over their shoulders, looking on curiously. There is something about a group of bikers. Like a Mongol horde of Genghis Khan on the way to cause desolation

  “Papa Bravo, this is Oscar Hotel Quebec, come in, over.”

  “Papa Bravo in, over.”

  “Are you sure there are no black guys on any of the BMWs, over.”

  “We are sure, Oscar Hotel, over.”

  “Let them through, Papa Bravo. Let them through. Over.”

  “Roger, Papa Bravo over and out.”

  27.

  In the editorial office of the Cape Times Allison Healy read the story that had come in from the Star'’s offices in Johannesburg.

  “A violent man, an aggressive troublemaker, perhaps a psychopath” is how a former comrade-in-arms of the fugitive Thobela Mpayipheli describes the man now being sought across three provinces by intelligence authorities, the SA National Defence Force, and the SAPS.

  According to Brig. Lucas Morape, a senior member of the Supply and Transport Unit at SANDF headquarters in Pretoria, he served with Mpayipheli in Tanzania and at a Kazakhstan military base in the former USSR, where Umkhonto we Sizwe soldiers were trained as part of Eastern bloc support for the Struggle in the eighties.

  “In one instance, he almost beat a Russian soldier to death in a mess-room fistfight. It took the leadership weeks to repair the diplomatic damage done by this senseless act of brutality.”

  Mpayipheli allegedly received sensitive intelligence data from his Cape Town employer and is heading north. He slipped through a military cordon at Three Sisters early this morning during a heavy thunderstorm. His current whereabouts are unknown.

  In an issued statement, Brig. Morape goes on to describe Mpayipheli as a compulsive brawler who became such a problem to the ANC that he was removed from the training program. “I am not surprised by allegations that he worked for a drug syndicate in the Cape. It fits his psychopathic profile perfectly.”

  “Psychopathic profile,” she said softly to herself, and shook her head. Suddenly everyone was a psychiatrist.

  How well the brigadier’s opinion fitted in with the efforts of the minister.

  The wheels were rolling, the great engine of the state was building up steam. Mpayipheli did not stand a chance.

  And then her cell phone rang.

  “Allison Healy.”

  “This is Zatopek van Heerden. You were looking for me.” The tone was belligerent.

  “Thank you for returning my call, Doctor.” She kept the tone cheery. “It is in connection with Mr. Thobela Mpayipheli. I would like to ask a few—”

  “No.” The voice was brusque and irritable.

  “Doctor, please ”

  “don'’t ‘doctor’ me.”

  “Please help, I—”

  “Where did you hear that I know him?”

  “Orlando Arendse told me.”

  He was silent for so long that she thought he had hung up on her. She wanted to say, “Doctor,” or something again and was wondering how to address him when he asked: “Did you say Orlando Arendse?”

  “That’s right, the um ”

  “The drug baron.”

  “Yes.”

  “Orlando talked to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “You have guts, Allison Healy.”

  “Um ”

  “Where do you want to meet?”

  * * *

  Thirty minutes south of Petrusburg, just across the Riet river, the road curves lazily between the Free State kopjes, a few wide sweeping curves before it returns to straight as a die. Enough to draw his concentration back to the motorbike again; the engine was running optimally in the heat, a reassuring constant, tangible heartbeat beneath him. This extension of his body lent him security. It was the moment he realized he could keep on riding, past Lusaka, continuing north, day after day, he and the machine and the road to the horizon. It was the moment when he understood the addiction the white clients had spoken of.

  It was that time of day.

  The sun shone a benign orange, as if it knew the day’s task was nearly done.

  He had discovered the magic of late afternoon in Paris, during his two years of desolation after the Wall had fallen. He had fallen, too, his lot inextricably entangled with the Berlin barrier, from celebrated assassin, the darling of the Stasi and KGB, to uneducated unemployed. From wealthy man of the world to the disillusionment of knowing that the thirty dollars in his account was the last and there would be no more income. From arrogance to depression, angrily and reluctantly accepting the new reality in between. Until he picked himself up from self-pity and went door-to-door looking for work like any lowly laborer. Monsieur Merceron had asked to see his hands—“These hands have never worked, but they are built to work”— and he got the job, just west of the Gare du Nord in Montmartre, gofer at the bakery, sweeper of floury floors, bearer of sacks and boxes, scrubber of the big mechanical blenders, early-morning deliverer of baguettes, with arms full of loaves. In the winter the steam rising from the warm bread into his nostrils had become the fragrance of Paris, fresh, exotic, and wonderful. And in the late afternoon when the sun angled down and the whole city was in transition between work and home, he would go back to his first-story apartment near the Salvador Dalí museum. Every day he walked the long route, first up the steps on the hill to the Sacré-Coeur, the Basilica of the Sacred Heart, and went to sit right at the top, his body delightfully weary, and watched the evening claim the city like a jealous lover. The sounds rose up, the shadings slowly shifting to grays, the crouching mass of Notre-Dame, the twisting Seine, the sun sparking gold off the dome of Les Invalides, the dignified loneliness of the Eiffel Tower and in the east the Arc de Triomphe. He sat till every landmark disappeared in the dark and the lights flickered like stars in the city firmament, the scene changing to a wonder world without dimension.

  Then he would rise and go into the church, allowing the peace of the interior to fill him before lighting a candle for each of his victims.

  The memory filled him with a deep nostalgia for the simplicity of those two years, and he thought that with the money in the sports bag, if he kept the nose pointing north, he could be there in a month.

  He smiled sardonically in the helmet— how ironic, now he wished to be there. When the one thing, the single lack, the great desire, when he had been there was this very landscape that stretched out before him; how many times had he wished he could see the umbrella of a thorn tree against the gray veld, how he had longed for the earthshaking rumble of a thunderhead, the dark gray anvil shape, the lightning of a storm over the wide open, endless plains of Africa.

  * * *

  Vincent Radebe was waiting for her at the door of the Ops Room and said, “Ma’am, I will bring in a camp bed for Mrs. Nzululwazi; I realize now we can’t let her go,” and Janina put her hand on the black man’s shoulder and said “Vincent, I know it wasn'’t an easy decision. That’s the trouble with our work: the decisions are never easy.”

  She walked to the center of the room. She said every team must decide who would hand
le the night watch and who would go home to sleep, so that there would be a fresh shift to start the day in the morning. She said she was going out for an hour or two to see her children. If there was anything, they had her cell phone number.

  Radebe waited until she was out before slowly and unwillingly walking to the interview room. He knew what he must say to the woman; he needed to find the right words.

  When he unlocked the door and entered, she sprang up urgently.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “Ma’am ”

  “My child,” she said. “I have to fetch my child.”

  “Ma’am, it is safer to stay here. Just one night ” He saw the fear in her face, the panic in her eyes.

  “No,” she said. “My child ”

  “Slow down, ma’am. Where is he?”

  “At the day care. He is waiting for me. I am already late. Please, I beg you, you can’t do this to my child.”

  “They will take care of him, ma’am.”

  She wept and sank to her knees, clutching his leg. Her voice was dangerously shrill, “Please, my brother, please ”

  “Just one night, ma’am. They will look after him, I will make sure. It is safer this way.”

  “Please. Please.”

  * * *

  Thobela saw the sign beside the road that said only ten kilometers to Petrusburg. He drew a deep breath, steeling himself for what lay ahead, the next obstacle in his path. There was a main route that he had to cross, another barrier before he could spill over into the next section of countryside with its dirt roads and extended farms. It was the last hurdle before the world between him and the Botswana border lay open.

  And he needed petrol.

  * * *

  The traffic officer of the Free State Traffic Authority stopped at the office in Koffiefontein. He opened the trunk of the patrol car, removed the Gatsometer in its case and carried it inside with difficulty put it down, and closed the door.

  His two colleagues from Admin were ready to leave. “You’re late,” said one, a white woman in her fifties.

  “You didn’'t catch the biker, did you?” asked the other, a young Sotho with glasses and a fashionable haircut.

  “What biker?” asked the traffic officer.

  * * *

  Allison Healy found the plot at Morning Star with difficulty. She did not know this area of the Cape; no one knew this area of the Cape. “When you drive through the gate, the road forks. Keep left, it’s the small white house,” Dr. Zatopek van Heerden had said.

  She found it, with Table Mountain as a distant backdrop. And far out to sea a wall of clouds stretching as far as the eye could see hung like a long gray banner in front of the setting sun.

  * * *

  Lizette ran out of the house before she had stopped the car, and when Janina opened the car door, her daughter threw her arms around her theatrically. “Mamma.” A dramatic cry with the embrace and she felt like laughing at this child of hers in that uncomfortable stage of self-consciousness. With arms around her neck she felt the warmth of her daughter’s body, smelled the fragrance of her hair.

  “Hullo, my girl.”

  “I missed you.” An exaggerated exclamation.

  “I missed you, too.” Knowing the hug would go on too long, that it was as it should be, she would have to say, “Wait, let me get out,” and Lizette would ask, “aren'’t you going to put the car away?” and she would say no, I have to go back soon. She looked up and Lien stood on the steps of the veranda, still and dignified just to make the point that she could control her emotions, that she was the elder, stronger one, and Janina felt that her heart was full.

  “Mamma,” Lien called from the veranda, “you forgot to turn off your blinker light again.”

  * * *

  Vincent Radebe carefully closed the door of the interview room behind him. He could no longer hear the sobs.

  He knew he had made the wrong decision. He had realized it inside there, with her face against his knees. She was just a mother, not a player; she had one desire, and that was to be with her child.

  He stood still a second to analyze his feelings, because they were new and unfamiliar to him, and then he understood what had happened. The completion of the circle— he had finally become what he did not want to be and just now realized he must get out of here, away from this job, this was not what he wanted to do. Perhaps it was something he could not do. His ideal was to serve his country, this new fragile infant democracy, to raise up and build, not to break down— and look at him now. He made up his mind to write his letter of resignation now and put it into Janina Mentz’s hand, pack his things, and leave. He expected to feel relief, but it was absent. He went over to the stairs, the darkness still in his mind.

  Later he would wonder if his subconscious had made him leave the door unlocked.

  Later he would run through his exit of the room in his head, and every time he would turn the key.

  But it would be too late.

  * * *

  Captain Tiger Mazibuko put away the gun cloths and oil in the olive green canvas bag and stood up. He walked purposefully over to where Little Joe was sitting with Zongu and Da Costa. He still felt guilty about shouting at Moroka.

  “Do you feel like a bit of fun?” he asked.

  They looked up at him, nodding and expectant.

  “How many of us can take on forty Hell’s Angels?” he asked.

  Da Costa got it immediately and laughed, “Hu-hu.”

  “Just one or two,” said Little Joe, looking for his approval.

  “Take the whole of Alpha, Captain,” said Zongu. “We deserve it.”

  “Right,” said Mazibuko. “don'’t make a big issue of it. Get the men together quietly.”

  That was when they heard running steps and turned around. It was the bespectacled soldier, the colonel’s messenger.

  “Captain, the colonel ,” he said, out of breath.

  “What now? Guys on Hondas?”

  “No, no, Captain, it’s Mpayipheli,” and Mazibuko felt that internal shock.

  “What?” Too nervous to hope.

  “The colonel will tell you—”

  He grabbed the soldier by the shirt. “Tell me now.”

  The eyes were frightened behind the glasses, the voice shook. “They know where he is.”

  28.

  He recognized the symptoms, the heart rate increasing I steadily, the soft glow of heat, the fine perspiration on palms and forehead, and the vague light-headedness of a brain that could not keep up with the oversupply of oxygen. He reacted out of habit, drew a deep breath, and kept it all under control. He pulled in at the first petrol station in the main street of Petrusburg and watched two F 650 GS riders pull away. He stopped at the pumps, the engine still running when the petrol jockey said, “Can you believe it, black like me.”

  He did not react.

  “Do you know what bee-em-double-you stands for?” asked the jockey, a young black guy of eighteen or nineteen.

  “What?”

  “Bankrot maar windgat, that’s what the Boers say. Bankrupt but boastful.”

  He tried to laugh, switched off the bike.

  “Fill up?”

  “Please.” He unlocked the fuel cap.

  “What are you going to do when you find the Xhosa biker?” the jockey asked in Tswana as he pushed his electronic key against the petrol pump. The figures turned back to zeroes.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You guys are just going to be in the way. That man needs a clear road.”

  “The Xhosa biker,” he repeated, and understanding came to him slowly. He watched the tumbling numbers on the pump.

  Eventually the attendant asked: “So where are you from?”

  The pump showed nineteen liters and the petrol was still running.

  “From the Cape.”

  “The Cape?”

  “I am the Xhosa biker,” he said on inspiration.

  “In your dreams, brother.” Twenty-one liters and the tank was full. “The real one is at Kimberley and they are never going to catch him. And you know what? I say good luck to him,
because it’s high time somebody stopped the gravy train.”

  “Oh?”

  “It doesn'’t take a rocket scientist to work out what he’s got. It’s the numbers of the government’s Swiss bank accounts. Maybe he will draw the money and give it to the people. That would be real redistribution of wealth. You owe me R74.65.”

  Thobela Mpayipheli handed over the money. “Where’s the roadblock?”

  “There are two, but the BMWs can go through. They shouldn'’t, because you guys are just going to get in the way.”

  He put away the wallet and locked the case. “Where?” His voice was serious.