Heart of the Hunter

by Deon Meyer

  “Put down your weapons,” said Mpayipheli. The shock of the two 9 mm rounds combined with the chemistry of his body to make him shake.

  They just stood there.

  “Shoot him,” said Little Joe.

  “No one is getting hurt,” said Thobela.

  “Kill the dog,” said Little Joe.

  “Wait,” said Da Costa.

  “Put it down,” said Mpayipheli.

  “Please, man, shoot him,” Little Joe pleaded. He could not face Tiger Mazibuko’s anger again, no more humiliation. He writhed and struggled in the grip of the fugitive and then Thobela Mpayipheli hit him with the butt of the HK where the nerves bunch between back and head, and his knees sagged, but the arm locked around his throat and held him up.

  “I will count to ten,” said Mpayipheli, “and then all the weapons will be on the ground,” and his voice sounded hoarse and strange and distant, a desperate man. His mind was on the helicopter: Where was the pilot? Where were the men who could use the radio to send a warning?

  They put their weapons down, Da Costa and Zwelitini and Cupido.

  “Where are the other two?”

  Da Costa looked around, betraying their position.

  “Get them here. Now,” said Mpayipheli.

  “Just stay calm,” said Da Costa.

  Little Joe was beginning to come around and started wriggling under his arm. “I am calm, but if those two don'’t get here now ”

  “Captain,” Da Costa called over his shoulder.

  No answer.

  He’s using the radio, Mpayipheli knew; he was calling in reinforcements.

  “One, two, three ”

  “Captain.” There was panic in Da Costa’s shout.

  “Four, five, six ”

  “Shit, Captain, he’s going to shoot him.”

  “I will. Seven, eight ”

  “Okay, okay,” said the pilot as he and his colleague walked over the rim of the riverbank with their hands up.

  “Stand away from the weapons,” said Mpayipheli, and they all moved back a few steps. He shoved Little Joe up the bank so he could see the helicopter better. The soldier was unsteady on his feet but still mumbled, “Shoot him,” and Mpayipheli said, “You don'’t want me to hit you again,” and the mumbling stopped.

  They stood, the fugitive with his hostage, the other five in a bunch.

  In his head a clock ticked.

  Had the pilot got a message out? How much blood had he lost? When would he feel the light-headedness, the loss of concentration, and the loss of control?

  “Listen carefully,” he said. “We have a bad situation. don'’t make it worse.”

  No response.

  “Is his name Joe?”

  Da Costa was the one to nod.

  He felt the armor of the Kevlar vest under Little Joe’s shirt. He chose his words carefully. “The first shot goes in Joe’s shoulder. The second in his leg. You understand?”

  They did not answer.

  “You three”— he gestured with the barrel—“get the motorbike.”

  They just stood there.

  “Hurry up,” he said, and pressed the barrel against Little Joe’s shoulder joint.

  The soldiers moved down to the bottom of the bridge.

  “You haven’t got a chance,” said the pilot, and Thobela knew then for sure the man had used the radio.

  “You have thirty seconds!” he screamed at the three at the motorbike. “You”— he motioned to the copilot—“fetch the helmet and my suit. They are over there. And if I think you are wasting time ”

  The man’s eyes were wide; he jogged off, past the men struggling to push the motorbike up the incline.

  “Help them to get it in the helicopter,” he said to the pilot.

  “You’re fucking insane, man. I’m not flying you anywhere,” and that is when Little Joe suddenly jerked out of his grasp with a drop and a twist of the shoulders and dove toward the pile of weapons on the ground. Thobela followed him with the Heckler’s barrel as if in slow motion, saw him grab a machine pistol, roll over, fingers working the mechanisms with consummate skill. He saw the barrel turn toward him, saw everyone else frozen, and he said softly to himself, once, “No,” and then his finger pressed the trigger as the choice was no longer to shoot or not, but to live, to survI've. The shots cracked; he aimed for the bulletproof vest, and Little Joe jerked backward, Mpayipheli moved toward Little Joe, right leg caving in (how much damage?), and jerked the weapon out of the young soldier’s hands, threw his own down, looked up. The others still stood transfixed; he looked down, three shots were harmlessly to the chest, and one was in the neck, ugly, blood spurting.

  He took a deep breath; he must control himself. And them.

  “He needs to get to the hospital. You determine how fast,” he said. “Load the bike.”

  They were shocked now.

  “Move. He will die.”

  Little Joe groaned.

  The GS was at the open door of the Oryx.

  “Help them,” he said to the pilot.

  “don'’t shoot,” said the copilot, coming up the bank with the helmet and clothes.

  “Put it in.”

  The four battled with the heavy machine, but the adrenaline in their arteries helped them lift first the front and then the back.

  “Do you have first aid equipment?”

  Cupido nodded.

  “Put a pressure bandage on his neck. Tight.”

  He walked to the Oryx, his steps wobbly, the pain in his hip throbbing and sharp, demanding. He knew he was nearly out of time.

  “We must go,” he said, looking at the two air force pilots.

  34.

  In the second Oryx, which stood beside the R.64, halfway between Dealesville and Boshof, Captain Tiger Mazibuko was the one who heard the emergency signal. “Mayday Mayday Mayday. They are shooting here below, I think we’ve found him ”

  And then it was quiet.

  First, he shouted outside where the helicopter crew stood around, smoking and chatting to the other members of Team Alpha. “Come!” he screamed, and then over the radio: “Where are you? Come in. Where are you?” But there was silence and his heart began to race and frustration was the bellows of his rage.

  “What?” said the pilot, now beside him.

  “They’ve found him; someone called in Mayday,” he said. “Come in, Mayday, where are you, who signaled?”

  The officer had his headset on in the control cabin.

  “Rooivalk One to Oryx, we heard it, too.”

  “Who was it?” asked Mazibuko.

  “Sounded like Kotze, over.”

  “Who the fuck is Kotze?”

  “The pilot of the other Oryx.”

  “Come!” yelled Tiger Mazibuko, but his pilot had the engines running already. “I want all the Rooivalks, too,” he said into the mouthpiece. “Do you know where Kotze and them are?”

  “NegatI've, Oryx, over.”

  “Fuck,” said Mazibuko, struggling with the map in the dark cabin.

  “Show me,” said the copilot. “Then I’ll give the coordinates.”

  “Here.” He jabbed the map with his index finger. “Right here.”

  * * *

  They tore over the landscape and the pilot shouted, “Where?” and he shouted back above the racket, “Botswana,” and the captain shook his head.

  “I can’t cross the border.”

  “You can. If we keep low, the radar won’t pick us up.”

  “What?”

  The pain in his hip was enormous, throbbing; his trousers were soaked in blood. He had to have a look. But there were more urgent things.

  “I want a headset,” he said, and gestured.

  The copilot got it, hands trembling and eyes on the HK in Mpayipheli’s hands. He got earphones and passed them over, plugging the wire in somewhere. Hissing, voices, the Rooivalks were talking to each other.

  “Tell them about the wounded man,” said Thobela Mpayipheli in the microphone to the copilot, “and nothing else. Understand?”

  The man nodded.

  Thobela searched the instrument panel for the compass. He knew Lobatse was no
rth, almost directly north. “Where’s your compass?”

  “Here,” said the pilot.

  “You lie.”

  Their eyes met, the pilot assessing him, glancing down at his wounds and his trembling hands, like a predator eyeing its prey. Mpayipheli listened while the copilot called in the news about the wounded soldier. “Oryx Two to Oryx One, we have a casualty, repeat, we have a casualty, we need help immediately.”

  “Where are you, Oryx Two?” Mpayipheli recognized the voice. It was the one from this morning, the crazy guy.

  “That’s enough,” he said to the copilot, who nodded enthusiastically.

  “Listen carefully,” he said to the pilot. “I need only one pilot. You saw what happened to the soldier. Do you want me to shoot your partner, too?”

  The man shook his head. No.

  “I want to see the compass. And I want to see the ground, all the time, understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “Show me.”

  The pilot touched the top of the instrument. 270, it read.

  “Do you think I am a stupid kaffir?”

  Voices talked on the radio, Mazibuko’s incessantly calling, “Oryx Two, come in. Oryx One to Oryx Two, come in.” The pilot said nothing.

  “You have ten seconds to turn north.”

  A moment of hesitation, then the pilot turned the helicopter, 280, 290, 300, 310, 320, the instrument swung under its cover, white letters on a black background, 330,340, 350,355.

  “Keep it there.”

  He must take care of his wounds. Stop the bleeding. He must drink something, the thirst made his mouth like chalk, he had to stay awake, he must stay ready.

  “How long to Lobatse?”

  “Hour, hour and a quarter.”

  * * *

  The atmosphere in the Ops Room was morbid.

  Janina Mentz sat at the big table, trying to keep the tension off her face. They were listening to the cacophony over the radios.

  It is chaos up there,

  she thought, chaos everywhere, the meeting with the American was chaos, the ride back with the director was not good, and what she found back here was a demoralized team.

  Everyone knew of the death of Miriam Nzululwazi now, everyone knew Radebe had gone, everyone knew one of the RU members was badly wounded, and the fugitive— no one knew where the fugitive was.

  Chaos. And she had no idea what to do.

  In the car she had tried to talk to the director, but there was distance between them, a breach of confidence, and she couldn'’t understand it. Why had his circle of suspicion extended to include her? Or was it a case of kill the bearer of bad news?

  Or did the director see all this chaos as a threat to his career? Was he thinking ahead, to explaining this mess to the minister?

  She heard the first Rooivalk arriving at the wounded soldier.

  She heard Da Costa report in over the radio of the Rooivalk.

  Thobela Mpayipheli had hijacked the Oryx.

  Her heart sank.

  She heard Tiger Mazibuko’s reaction, the cursing tirade.

  He is not the right man for the situation,

  she thought

  .

  Rage would not help now. She would have to step in. She was about to get up when she heard Mazibuko call the other Rooivalks. “The dog is going to Botswana. You must stop him. Get that Oryx.”

  One by one, the attack helicopters confirmed their new bearings.

  What are you thinking, Tiger? Are we going to shoot down the Oryx, with our people and all?

  A terrible choice.

  “And get Little Joe to a hospital,” said Mazibuko over the radio.

  “Too late, Captain,” said Da Costa.

  “What?” said Mazibuko.

  “He’s dead, Captain.”

  For the first time, the ether was still.

  * * *

  Vincent Radebe looked at the sleeping child in the sitting room of his Sea Point flat. He had made up a bed on the sofa and put the TV on, skipping through the channels for something suitable.

  “I don'’t want to watch TV” said Pakamile, but he couldn'’t keep his eyes off the screen.

  “Why not?”

  “I don'’t want to go stupid.”

  “Stupid?”

  “Thobela says it makes people stupid. He says if you want to be clever, you must read.”

  “He’s right. But it’s too much television that makes you stupid. We are just going to watch a little bit.”

  Please, Lord,

  he prayed silently

  let me keep the child occupied, let him go to sleep so I can think.

  “Just a little?”

  “Just until you go to sleep.”

  “That must be okay.”

  “I promise you it will be okay.”

  But what do you let a child watch?

  And there, on one of the SABC channels, was a series on a pride of lions in the Kalahari and he said, “This will make you clever, too, because it’s about nature,” and Pakamile nodded happily and rearranged himself. Vincent had watched as sleep drew an invisible veil over the boy’s face, slowly and softly, till the eyes fell shut.

  Radebe switched off the TV and the sitting-room light. The one in the open-plan kitchen he left on so the child would not be bewildered if he woke up in the night. He stood on the balcony and thought, because it was a horrible mess.

  He would have to tell him his mother was dead.

  Sometime or other. It was not right to lie to him.

  He had to get the boy clothes. And a toothbrush.

  They couldn'’t stay here; Mentz would find out that he had collected the child, and she would take him away to that little room.

  Where could they go?

  Family was no good. That was the first place Mentz would look. Friends were also dangerous.

  So where?

  * * *

  Allison Healy lit a cigarette in her car before turning the key. She inhaled the smoke and blew a stream at the windshield, watching the smoke dissipate against it.

  A long day. A strange day.

  Woke up and looked for a story and found a complication.

  Moments of truth. Tonight she had wanted to write another intro.

  Thobela Mpayipheli, the fugitive motorcyclist, is a former hit man for the KGB.

  No.

  Thobela Mpayipheli, the man the media had dubbed the “big, bad BMW biker,” is a former KGB assassin.

  She had broken off-the-record agreements before.

  It was a nebulous agreement at best. People didn’'t always mean what they said. The source talked and talked and talked, and somewhere along the way said, “You can’t write that,” and in the end no one remembered what was on the record and what was off. Of course, the really juicy bits, the real news, lay in those areas. Some people used it as a “cover my ass” mechanism but actually wanted you to write it as long as they could protest, “I told her it was off the record.”

  Sometimes you wrote regardless.

  Sometimes you trespassed knowingly, weighing up the consequences, and

  publish and be damned

  and if people were angry— they would get over it, because they needed you, you were the media. With others it didn’'t matter— let them be angry, they got what they deserved.

  Tonight the temptation was exceedingly strong.

  What had prevented her?

  She took out her cell phone. She felt her heart bump in her chest.

  She searched for the number under receiveD CALLS. Pressed the button and put the phone to her ear.

  Three, four, five rings. “Van Heerden.”

  “There is something you said that I don'’t understand.”

  He did not answer immediately. In the silence there was meaning.

  “Where are you?”

  “On the way home.”

  “Where do you live?”

  She gave him the address.

  “I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  She put the phone in her bag and pulled deeply on the cigarette.

  Dear God, what am I doin
g?

  35.