The Prey

by Tony Park

  ‘We don’t put our money into armed thugs, we put it into surveillance and intelligence gathering. We find out who the middlemen are, who the buyers are, and through them, who the principals are.’

  There was a pause on the end of the line. ‘You mean, we do the police’s job for them and then hand them the intelligence so they can bust the big men?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Hmmm. It’ll cost money.’

  Kylie knew she was right and that Jan was just testing her now. ‘It will cost lives if Cameron sends down more armed security men to pick a fight with the zama zamas.’

  ‘True. I’ll give it some thought. Now, what’s your plan for getting Chris Loubser back, or even finding out if he’s still alive? We can’t sit on our hands.’

  ‘I’m working on that right now,’ she said. ‘By the way, do you know Cameron’s home address?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He gave it to me. He has to go home and see his daughter and he told me to come to his place so we can discuss strategy, but I lost his address and directions and he’s not answering his cellphone for some reason,’ she lied.

  ‘Strange. He wouldn’t have given you a street address because he doesn’t really have one.’

  ‘That’s right,’ she said quickly. ‘I meant I lost the directions.’

  ‘You head out of town, towards the old Agnes mine, past the prison, and he lives up in the hills, on a forestry road to the left. The turn-off’s just after a trio of small identical houses.’

  ‘Ah, yes, that sounds right.’

  ‘What aren’t you telling me, Kylie?’

  She swallowed. He was too clever and she was no good at lying. ‘My signal’s dropping out, Jan. I have to go.’

  ‘Are you two playing nicely?’

  Kylie heard the smile in Jan’s words. ‘What do you think? Bye, boss.’

  ‘Bye, Kylie.’

  10

  Cameron unzipped his overall top as he walked through his empty home. Jessica was still at school. The sight of her in her last school photo, on the wall, smiling back at him, snatched at his heart. He was being crazy, thinking about himself only, and not her.

  He forced his eyes away from his daughter’s, though his steps slowed as he made his way to his bedroom. Tania’s pillow was plumped on her side of the bed, while his was indented from his last sleep – he could barely remember when that was. Seeing the emptiness of his room galvanised him again.

  Whatever happened, Jessica would understand. She was a smart kid, and tough too. She’d weathered her mother leaving relatively well, given the circumstances. Cameron was doing this for himself, but in a way he was also doing it for Jess. She would learn, soon enough, of his move from mine management to the desk job in Johannesburg. Hell, Cameron thought, she might even prefer living in Jozi as she’d be closer to shopping malls and cinemas and all the stuff teenage girls liked. But she would remember the times he’d said to Tania he would fight a promotion if it meant him leaving the mine – any mine – and moving to the city. Jess would know he had been shifted sideways, against his will, and that he had been sold out.

  What irked him, too, was that Kylie Hamilton was right about him. He hadn’t done enough to stop the zama zamas and this Wellington Shumba was calling the shots from his black hole. Cameron would be damned if he sent mine security down to mount a rescue of Chris, and be damned if he did nothing. He tossed his shirt in the corner and went to the built-in wardrobe.

  He reached up and pulled down the long green canvas bag and unzipped it. He pulled out the twelve-gauge pump-action shotgun and opened the breech. From a drawer he took the box of shells. He loaded five into the gun, gaining a small measure of confidence with every shell he slotted home. He laid the weapon on his bed and found a black long-sleeve T-shirt. He took off his boots and changed into black jeans, then re-laced his boots. He shifted an old suitcase and the cardboard box full of the photos of Tania that he’d taken down from the walls but hadn’t yet had the heart or the balls to throw out. Jessica might still want them if something happened to him.

  He dragged the green vinyl dive bag from the back of the closet and lifted it out. He unzipped the bag and took out the brown canvas and nylon combat vest. It smelled mouldy. He hadn’t worn it in nearly twenty years. Cameron opened the right front pouch and poured in the remaining shotgun shells from their box. In the drawer there was a box of nine-millimetre bullets and a spare second magazine for his Sig. He loaded the magazine and put it in another pouch. He took his belt from his pants and rethreaded it, along with his Leatherman, onto his jeans.

  Cameron stuffed the Sig in the waistband of his jeans, pulled his T-shirt down over it and then slid the shotgun back into its zip-up carrying bag. The last things he took from the cupboard were a big Maglite torch and a tin of black boot polish. Jessica watched him from a photograph as he walked down the hallway. He tried not to look back. If something happened to him, Jessica would end up with his sister and brother-in-law in Krugersdorp. They were good people.

  He drove down his paved driveway and onto the winding gravel road that led down the mountain. The phone rang again and he held it out at arm’s length to read the number, but he already knew who it would be. Kylie again. He didn’t want to talk to her and there was no way he could tell her what he was going to do. He ignored the call, as he had done the previous two. At the bottom, where the dirt road met the tar, he turned right and drove past the prison into town. He reached into the back of the double-cab and tossed the dog’s travelling blanket, covered in hair, over the shotgun and his combat vest.

  Cameron turned left into Generaal Street and then right into the Jock of the Bushveld shopping centre, a low-rise laager of businesses arrayed around an open-air car park. He found a spot outside the Pick n’ Pay, which was next to the Wimpy. Most of the seating was in front of the restaurant, under the cover of an awning roof. There were, predictably, a couple of faces he recognised, one of his miners and his wife and children, and the wife of the head of Jessica’s school. The woman had been a friend of Tania’s. She waved and smiled, and he nodded back to her. He opened the door of the restaurant. ‘Table for one?’ the waitress asked him as he entered. ‘Inside or outside?’

  He looked around the interior and saw Gideon sitting with his back to the far wall, his look of cocky disinterest not quite covering his uncertainty. ‘No thanks. I’m just here to collect someone,’ he said to the girl. Cameron pointed at Gideon, cocked his finger and turned and walked out.

  Cameron stood outside on the pavement, in front of the outdoor seating area, and hoped Gideon’s curiosity would get the better of him.

  The miner walked out of the restaurant. ‘You said I could have my job back.’

  ‘Get in my bakkie. We’ll talk about it there.’

  Gideon shifted his weight from one foot to the other. ‘Why? Where are we going? I thought we were going to the Wimpy.’

  Cameron looked up and down the street, then lifted his T-shirt and wrapped his right hand around the grip of the Sig. ‘Get in the car.’

  Gideon’s eyes widened and he, too, looked around, for a means of escape rather than potential witnesses. Cameron grabbed him around the bicep. The younger man tried to shrug him off, but Cameron’s grip was iron. ‘In the bakkie. You can come and listen to me, or we can go to the police.’

  ‘You have nothing on me.’

  ‘I have Tobias and he gave you up to save his own neck. I’ll play you the digital voice recording if you like, or we can all listen to it together at the police station.’

  Cameron nodded to the truck and Gideon reluctantly allowed himself to be led to it. He opened the passenger door and got in. Cameron went quickly around to the driver’s side and slid into his seat, started the engine and reversed.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  Cameron turned left out of the car park and accelerated up Generaal Street. The brick bulk of the police station was on his right as he waited to turn left at the robot back into Crown Stree
t. The building was ugly and incongruous with the rest of the town, a symbol of how things had changed in Barberton. The light went green and he turned back towards Eureka. ‘We’re going to work.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘You will soon.’

  ‘What if I don’t do what you want me to do?’

  Cameron shrugged. ‘Then I’ll kill you.’

  *

  Kylie nosed into a spot in the corner of the shopping centre car park furthest from the Wimpy. She shifted in her seat so she could just see Cameron’s truck. She made out his broad back at the entrance to the restaurant.

  She had followed Jan’s directions to Cameron’s house, driving up the steep hill until she passed a driveway to a house near the peak. Kylie carried on until she reached a forestry boom gate, restricting access to the pine plantations beyond. She did a three-point turn on the narrow track and headed back down, realising the earlier driveway – the only one she had seen – must be Cameron’s. As she approached the home she could see, from the benefit of her uphill vantage point, Cameron’s truck parked outside a garage. She stopped her car, wondering again at the merits of an angry confrontation.

  Just then, Cameron had walked out of his house and loaded a long gun bag into the back of his pickup truck. The presence of what seemed to be a weapon checked her desire to confront him in his driveway. But she was curious. Surely he wasn’t going on a hunting trip while one of his workers was still missing underground. She had decided to follow him some more, but gave him a couple of minutes’ lead. Behind and above him, she had been able to keep him in view, just, and see him turn right off the access road, towards town. If he knew there was a car behind him he gave no indication.

  Now, as she waited for him to leave the restaurant, she wondered again if she should just get out and march up to Cameron and ask him why he was continuing to ignore her. Cameron came out again just a minute or two later and stood outside the Wimpy. To her surprise, the next person who came out was Gideon, the man Cameron had fired that afternoon. Cameron had his back to her but he seemed to be talking to Gideon, so it was no coincidence. Next, he led Gideon to his pickup truck.

  Kylie felt her heart beat faster. She slid down in her seat as Cameron reversed out of his parking spot, drove through the car park and turned left into Generaal Street. She put her car into gear and eased out of the car park. There were already two cars between her and Cameron, and she slowed as he pulled up at the traffic light just past the municipal offices, diagonally opposite the police station. His left indicator was on, so she was sure he was heading back towards the mine. She followed him, keeping the other cars between them. It was one thing to give him space to deal with his issues at the mine, but it was another thing entirely if he was in cahoots with a man who by rights should have hated him. Kylie was also worried about the presence of the gun. Jan had told her Cameron’s wife had left him and she wondered, now, if he was suffering some kind of breakdown.

  Kylie eased off the accelerator as she saw Cameron indicate to turn into the mine. She pulled over onto the side of the road and thought about her options. She could go to her hotel room and confront him in the morning, catch up to him now, or call Jan and report that Cameron was acting like a madman. A thought crossed her mind that made her shiver: what if Cameron was actually in business with Gideon and the zama zamas? She wondered if instead of grilling Tobias while she was out of the room Cameron had been plotting some new crime, or even just shooting the breeze. Maybe Gideon’s firing had all been for show, to make it appear to her that Cameron was actually in control of the mine. It was possible Cameron was now going to let Gideon slip underground, between shifts, to continue working – for the zama zamas.

  Kylie gave it two minutes then drove to the gate. She showed her company ID to the security guard. ‘Did Mr McMurtrie say where he was going?’

  ‘No madam,’ the guard said. ‘But he has not proceeded to the office. I saw him drive towards the headgear just now.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  She drove slowly along the access road. When she came to the headgear she saw Cameron’s parked truck. Again she weighed up her options. The sensible one would be to do nothing for now, and to confront him later. She got out of her car and walked over to the Hilux. It was unlocked so she opened the passenger door and looked inside, scanning the cab. Next she unhooked the rubber bungy cord securing the vinyl cover of the load area. Nothing. The rifle case was missing.

  Kylie knew she couldn’t go to Tobias and she doubted she could mobilise mine security to go after Cameron and Gideon on the flimsy pretext that she now thought the mine boss might be in partnership with the criminals below.

  So she did the only thing she could do: she went back to her hire car and got her borrowed hard hat out of the boot. If Cameron was up to something, she needed to know about it.

  *

  Gideon had dredged up a little courage on the drive to the mine and had threatened to call the police and lodge a complaint against Cameron for abducting him and threatening him with a gun.

  ‘All I want is Chris Loubser back above ground,’ Cameron had said to him. ‘If you help me get to where the zama zamas are holding him you can do whatever you want. You can come back to work if you want. I don’t give a fuck. But if Loubser dies, then so do you.’

  Once at the mine they had gone to the locked storage room where the seized contraband was being stored before being destroyed or, in the case of the drugs, being handed over to the police. Cameron unlocked the door and picked one of the emptied SCSR packs and told Gideon to fill it with a mix of food, alcohol and a bag of marijuana.

  When they arrived at the cage at the bank, the top of the shaft, Cameron saw the mix of confusion and fear in banksman Cassius’s face as Cameron told him to tell the hoist operator to send them to level fourteen. Cameron was sure Cassius was in the pay of the zama zamas and suddenly he was sick of it all – sick of turning a blind eye, sick of head office’s non-confrontational approach, sick of Tobias’s duplicity, and sick of thinking about what he could have done differently to keep his wife from running away from him. And as much as he hated to admit it, Kylie was right. They needed to go after the middle and upper management of the zama zamas rather than the illegal workers themselves. It was time to go find his subterranean counterpart. Cameron unzipped the gun case and pulled out the twelve-gauge. He tossed the bag on the floor and said to the operator as he motioned for Gideon to get into the cage: ‘Call the police – not mine security – if I’m not back by the time the shift comes up.’

  ‘You made sure that Cassius saw the gun and saw me. The zama zamas will know it was me who led you to them,’ Gideon said.

  Cameron nodded. ‘Still want your job back?’

  ‘There is nowhere I can run now. The Lion will find me and kill me and my family.’

  Cassius signalled to the driver in the hoist room that the cage was bound for level fourteen. Ten seconds later the brakes were released and they began to drop. The black rock walls hurtled past them. Cameron switched on his headlamp, in case Gideon tried something in the dark. He shone it in the other man’s eyes and saw the terror. Gideon was crooked, but perhaps no more so than half his employees. ‘I will give you money for a bus ticket.’

  Gideon closed his eyes. ‘Even if you give me enough rand for an aeroplane ticket Wellington will find me. I cannot do this. Please.’

  The cage juddered to a halt and Cameron opened the door. He hardened his heart. He raised the shotgun and pointed it at Gideon, motioning with a flick of the end of the barrel for him to get out.

  Gideon stepped into the darkness and turned on his lamp.

  ‘Just take me as far as where their workings begin, where you usually make your drop-offs and pickups. After that you can come back here and wait for the cage. You heard what I said to Cassius. They will come for you eventually if something happens to me.’

  Gideon looked back at him and smiled. ‘They will kill you, and Wellington the Lion will fe
ed on your heart to make him strong. I have heard he does that.’

  ‘We’ll see who eats who.’ Cameron’s words belied his nerves. He knew what he was doing was stupid, perhaps suicidal, but at the same time he felt more alive than he had in years. The shotgun felt like a natural extension of his hands and he experienced the scarily familiar surges of adrenaline electrifying his nerve endings, just as he had in the moments before a contact in Angola.

  When they had moved a hundred metres Cameron allowed himself to lag behind Gideon. He slung the shotgun and reached into a pocket for the tin of black boot polish he’d taken from his home. He quickly smeared the greasy substance on his hands and face. Next he opened the pouch slung across his body and pulled out a set of night-vision binoculars. He had bought them with his own money, online, from the United States. They had cost a small fortune. He’d put in a request for mine security operators to be issued with them, but Australia had turned him down. The reluctance to hire outside specialist mine security teams or properly equip his own men for offensive operations had prevented him from gaining the upper hand in the fight against the criminal miners.

  He switched on the binoculars and Gideon appeared as a ghostly glowing green image. Gideon stopped and looked back. Cameron lowered his eyes as he knew a bright light, such as Gideon’s headlamp, would blind him and possibly damage the cathode tube inside the night-vision goggles.

  ‘I am still here,’ Cameron said. ‘And I can see everything you do, even if you turn off your lamp. Carry on.’

  Gideon moved off again. Cameron knew that the night-vision binoculars drew on ambient light and intensified it, but if there was no light at all he could switch on an infra-red beam that would cast an invisible light ahead of him.

  As Gideon led him through a maze of tunnels and stopes, Cameron realised he had been right to think that it was not enough for him to know which level of the mine to get out on in order to find the zama zamas.