Zulu

by Caryl Ferey

  “I thought they were secure?” Brian said.

  “So were the army records Janet looked at.”

  Brian made an exasperated gesture. There was corruption at all levels of society, from the individual buying stolen equipment on a street corner to the ruling elite. Tax evasion, fraud, financial irregularities, fiddling of accounts—two-thirds of the leaders were implicated.

  “Janet, do you feel up to it?”

  She nodded with almost military stiffness. “Yes, captain.”

  Playing at being a soldier.

  “O.K. I want you to concentrate on Project Coast. Brian, take a look at the ADT office in Hout Bay. See if you can find something, papers, anything. The four-by-four wasn’t in the vicinity of the Muizenberg house for no reason, and they took the risk of leaving those bodies in the cellar because they were trying to hide something else.”

  Brian followed his reasoning. “Their traces.”

  “Presumably. Covered up by all the blood and shit.”

  Janet abandoned what was left of her milkshake.

  “What do you think was in the house?” Brian asked. “A drug factory?”

  “That’s for you to find out.” He gave Brian a knowing look. “Be discreet. I’ll take care of the rest. Let’s meet again tomorrow morning, same place. Shall we say eight o’clock? Until then, let’s keep communication to a minimum.”

  Neuman needed Krüge’s authorization for a large-scale raid in the township. If, as he believed, Gulethu had been sacrificed during the suicide attack on the shebeen, then Mzala and the Americans were accomplices. They couldn’t be arrested without a ruckus.

  The last ferry from Robben Island was returning on the evening breeze by the time they finished working out the final details of their plan. Janet Helms was the first to leave, school exercise book under her arm, heels clicking on the floor, off to look for her precious codes. Brian went to the bar to pay, and Neuman took advantage of his absence to make a call.

  Zina picked up at the first ring. “So,” she laughed, “left your sarcophagus, did you?”

  “Let’s say I’m fond of my bandages. Am I disturbing you?”

  “I’m going onstage in three minutes.”

  “I won’t be long.”

  “We have time.”

  “Not sure of that.”

  “Why? Do you still think I’m a terrorist?”

  “Yes—that’s why you’re going to help me.”

  “So nicely put. Help you with what?”

  “I’m looking for a man,” he said. “Joost Terreblanche, a former army colonel who’s gone into the security business, with numbered accounts in tax havens and a fog of mystery surrounding his activities.”

  Zina blew into the phone. “You’re pissing me off, Ali.”

  “Terreblanche has disappeared from our records, but I’m sure he’s still in yours.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Inkatha’s records.”

  “I don’t give a fuck about Inkatha.”

  “That wasn’t always the case.”

  “I’ve given up politics! All I do now is dance and put together stupid powders for idiots like you, or hadn’t you noticed?”

  Dead kisses were raining on the deserted terrace.

  “I need you,” he said.

  “Not as much as I do, Ali.”

  He kept glancing toward the entrance, where Brian might appear at any moment. He didn’t want to be seen talking to her.

  “Terreblanche worked with Doctor Basson,” Neuman resumed in a low voice, “but never testified before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Someone’s protecting him. His name has virtually disappeared from our records. Inkatha must surely have kept a file on him, with information we don’t have access to.”

  “I don’t belong to Inkatha anymore,” Zina said.

  “But you still have contacts. One of your musicians is the brother of Joe Ntsabula, who’s close to Chief Buthelezi, and Joe is an old friend of yours, isn’t he?”

  She said nothing.

  “Terreblanche has a base somewhere,” he insisted. “Either abroad, or here in South Africa.”

  “Is that all you could find to trap me?”

  “You said the word ‘trap,’ not me. It’s Terreblanche’s skin I want, not yours.”

  “Really?”

  He sensed her hesitation. “This’ll be strictly between the two of us,” he assured her.

  She brooded at the other end of the phone. The stage manager was making panic-stricken signs in the doorway of the dressing room—it was time.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “This is urgent.”

  “I’ll call you.”

  “Ngiyabonga.”33

  Neuman hung up just as Brian came out of the bar. Brian threw the check in the garbage, and saw his friend standing there in the middle of the terrace, looking distraught.

  “Did you talk to the Inkatha girl?”

  “Yes,” he said. “She’s having a look on her side.”

  The walkways of the Waterfront had emptied.

  Brian went closer to Neuman. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing.”

  But for a moment Brian thought Neuman was going to cry.

  “Send me a message when you get back from Hout Bay,” Neuman said, cutting things short. “We’ll meet tomorrow morning.”

  Brian nodded, his heart in a vise. “Bye, Cassandra.”

  “Yeah, bye.”

  A horrible feeling. As if they were seeing each other for the last time.

  *

  The stuff had all been collected, the samples, the tests, the hard disk. Terreblanche closed the second trunk and looked up at Debeer, who’d just entered the room.

  “Someone’s gotten into our files,” Debeer announced.

  “What do you mean, someone’s gotten into our files?”

  “A hacker.”

  Terreblanche’s face went red. “What was in the files?”

  “The company’s accounts. The cop who came here the other day was looking for a Pinzgauer. Maybe they’ve made a connection with the house.”

  The police hadn’t risen to the bait. They knew the vehicle existed. Terreblanche hesitated a few seconds, connected the working circuits in his brain, and soon felt reassured. There was no way they could trace things back to him, unless they caught him red-handed, and it was too late for that. Everything was ready, finalized, the lab had been destroyed, the research team was already abroad. They just had to get the stuff out—the plane was ready—and wipe out the last traces.

  “How many men are left?”

  “Four, including me,” Debeer replied. “Plus the two workers.”

  They didn’t know a thing. They could leave a security guard at the office, the others would come with him. Terreblanche picked up his cell phone and dialed Mzala’s number.

  The rooms situated in back of the shebeen had been spared during the shootout. The sticks of incense burning near the knife couldn’t hide the smell of feet, but Mzala didn’t care. He was in the middle of getting a blow job on the straw mattress he used as a bed when his cell phone rang—the ringtone was a burst of machine-gun fire downloaded from the Internet, which always made people laugh. He pushed away the fat girl in a bra slobbering over his cock, saw the number on the display—what did that asshole want now?—and stuck the girl’s head back again.

  “Yeah?”

  Terreblanche wasn’t in a playful mood. “I want you to throw a big party tonight in honor of the Americans,” he announced in a voice that didn’t match the event. “Tell all your friends to be there with flowers in their buttonholes.”

  “That won’t get them excited!” Mzala laughed. “What are we celebrating?”

  “Victory over a rival gang, the money that’ll be coming in soon, whatever you like. Drinks on the house.”

  Mzala screwed up his eyes, while making sure the girl was still doing her job.

  “That’s nice, boss. What’s this all about?
”

  “You just have to keep an eye on what they drink,” Terreblanche said. “I’ll supply the sleeping powder and the after-sales service. The important thing is that everyone involved should be there tonight. We have to be out of here by dawn.”

  Mzala abruptly forgot all about the girl, her large breasts crushing his balls. This was the Big Night.

  “A clean sweep before we leave, is that it?”

  “A clean sweep, right. I’ll be at the church around seven-thirty to hand over the material.”

  “O.K..”

  “One more thing. I don’t want a single witness left. Not one.”

  “You can trust me,” Mzala assured him.

  “No way I’d risk that,” Terreblanche said. “I need you to bring me proof. Do whatever you have to. No evidence, no money, is that clear?”

  Mzala’s mind wandered over a carpet of blood. “Very clear,” he said, hanging up.

  The girl sucking him off was moaning, her fat ass in the air, as if being mounted by a thousand bulls. Mzala smiled as she sucked him rhythmically. He thought of her big breasts dangling over his balls, her round throat that would soon receive his sperm, the knife lying next to the straw mattress, and came very quickly.

  *

  “Do you still need me, Mr. Van der Verskuizen?”

  It was seven in the evening and Martha had finished for the day.

  “No, no, Martha,” he said. “You can go home!”

  The secretary smiled back, grabbed her pink purse from behind the counter, and opened the door.

  “See you tomorrow, Mr. Van der Verskuizen.”

  “See you tomorrow, Martha.”

  Rick watched her as she left the clinic. He had only just hired her, she was still on probation. Martha, a blonde fresh from the employment agency, who must have the tightest pussy in the southern hemisphere—ha ha! He had just gotten rid of his last patient, a tiresome architect who was suffering from an abscess caused by a stray wisdom tooth. He had managed to land him with six appointments. If you have money, you might as well spend it, right?

  There was a knock at the door of the clinic. Martha must have forgotten something. Her knickers maybe—ho ho ho. He opened the reinforced door, and his oily smile froze as if he’d just been given an anesthetic.

  Ruby.

  “You look surprised. Were you expecting someone else?”

  “No, of course not!” he cried, taking her by the arm. “It’s just that you never come to the clinic. Everything O.K., darling?”

  Rick had regained his George Clooney smile, the one he used on local celebrities, to show them they were equals. He drew Ruby into his office, with its huge plate-glass window looking out on Table Mountain.

  “I just have to find a few papers, and then I’m all yours.”

  “I was talking to your old secretary on the phone earlier,” Ruby said, her voice sounding exaggeratedly calm. “She told me you were quite intimate with your younger patients.”

  “What?”

  “No need to look so scared.”

  He’d seen Ruby in this state before. It wasn’t how he liked her. He liked her wild ass, her solar energy, her passion, the hope that had driven her into his arms, but her uncontrollable side completely put him off the idea of marriage.

  “Well?” she insisted.

  “Fay’s a little tramp,” Rick hissed. “A tramp who lies as easily as drawing breath!”

  “For a liar, she has quite a memory,” Ruby said. “She’s particularly good on names and times of appointments.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Kate Montgomery was always your last patient of the day,” she said. “She always arrived just as your secretary was leaving. What do you think of that?”

  “My God, Ruby,” he said, imploringly. “We chose times that were convenient for her! What on earth will you think up next?”

  Ruby wouldn’t let go. “Admit you slept with Kate,” she spat.

  “You’re crazy!”

  “At least admit you tried to sleep with her!” Her eyes were glittering with rage. A madwoman. He was living with a madwoman.

  “Ruby, I’m telling you the truth! I never had relations with Kate Montgomery. Jesus! I was looking after her teeth!”

  “With your dick.”

  Rick closed his eyes and put his face in his hands. He had never slept with Kate. She wouldn’t have wanted it. Unless it was the one thing she had wanted. In any case, she was a sensitive girl, a girl with problems. He cared for his patients, in every sense of the term—the main thing was to keep them. Rick sighed, suddenly weary. He was hemmed in on all sides, and now Ruby showing up here like a fury.

  “It was that bloody cop,” he said at last. “That bloody cop put all these stupid ideas in your head, didn’t he?”

  Through the window, a plane passed in the sky. Ruby lowered her head.

  She didn’t want to admit it. She felt ashamed of her desperation. Suspicion and resentment were playing dirty tricks on her. She always expected the worst—worse still, she provoked it. She was eating her own tail, like a fucking scorpion, stinging herself with her own poison. Her need to be loved and protected was too strong. The world had abandoned her before, when she was thirteen. Ruby felt confused, torn between two realities. She didn’t believe either of them. Rick was standing there, a few feet away, waiting for a gesture from her, a gesture of love. But something still told her that she was right, that she was going to be betrayed yet again. Ruby gritted her teeth, but her lips were quivering by themselves. Her lips were going to move without her. Her lips were moving without her.

  “Take me,” she whispered. “Take me in your arms.”

  *

  Josephina had passed the information around the clubs and associations in the township. They were mostly run by women, charitably minded women who fought hard so that the rats could survive the sinking ship. The kids her son was looking for were lost children. Ali could have been in the same situation if he hadn’t fled the militias that had killed his father. And all these children who were going to lose their mothers to AIDS, the orphans who would soon be swelling the ranks of the unfortunate—if they didn’t take care of them, who else would? The government had quite enough on its hands already, what with urban violence, unemployment, the mistrust of investors, and this World Cup everyone was talking about.

  But she was in luck. Mahimbo, a friend from the Churches of Zion, had contacted her. She had seen two boys matching the description ten days earlier, near Lengezi—a slender boy in green shorts and a younger one in a khaki shirt, with a scar on his neck. There was a church in Lengezi, on the edge of an open space, where they tried to provide food for the most disadvantaged. The priest had a young maid, Sonia Parker, who ran a soup kitchen at least once a week—she may have seen them often. Sonia Parker didn’t have a telephone, but she finished work at seven, after the evening service.

  It was now ten after seven.

  The bus had dropped her half a mile from the church. But Josephina was getting over her pains. She walked up the street, trusting the shadows, and made out the church in the gathering darkness. The area was deserted. People preferred to stay in and watch TV in their own houses or at a neighbor’s house if he had one, rather than wander aimlessly and risk running into some crazy person coming out of a shebeen. A dog without a tail walked alongside her, intrigued by her stick. She stopped on the steps of the church to catch her breath, big beads of sweat on her forehead. A few stars hovered in the petroleum-blue sky. Josephina felt the plywood planks under her feet with her stick, and hoisted her weight to the wooden door.

  She didn’t have to knock, it was open.

  “Is anyone there?” she called into the shadows.

  The chairs seemed empty. The altar was in darkness.

  “Sonia?”

  Josephina couldn’t see any light, and smelled a familiar smell as she approached the great hanging Christ. A sooty smell. The candles had not long been blown out.

  “Sonia?�
��

  She waddled to the altar, which was covered in a white cloth, and looked up at the cross. The martyred Son of God looked down at her passively.

  It suddenly felt cooler under the vaults of the church, as if there was a draft, chilling her. Josephina sensed a presence behind her, a still indistinct shape that had emerged from behind a pillar.

  “Well, well. What are you doing here, Big Mama?”

  She froze. The Cat was lurking in the shadows.

  4.

  The night wind coming in through the window covered the distorted sound of Cop Shoot Cop on the car radio. It was two in the morning on the M63, which ran toward the south coast of the peninsula. Brian Epkeen was driving fast, his equipment strewn over the seat. According to what Janet Helms had found out during her hacking session, the ADT building had a security camera on the outside, which covered the entrance and most of the forecourt, but not the garage. A security guard in an ATD uniform patrolled on the outside, linked by radio to a colleague inside watching the TV monitors. There was a switchboard operator in reception to take calls and contact the night teams crisscrossing the area.

  When Brian reached the outskirts of Hout Bay, he slowed down. The town was empty at this time of night. He drove past the harbor restaurants and the deserted parking lot, and parked the Mercedes at the far end of the jetties. The cry of a seagull echoed from the direction of the sea. He grabbed the equipment from the seat. It was years since he’d last done this kind of thing. He took a deep breath to relieve the stress creeping up his legs. There wasn’t a soul near the landing stages. He put on a black ski mask, checked he had all his gear, and set off into the night.

  The fish warehouses were padlocked, the nets piled up. He wormed his way between the pallets, reached the sheds, and stood waiting in their shadows. The ADT building stood out beneath the mouse-gray clouds. The only sounds were the wavelets lapping the hulls of the trawlers and the wind in the wooden buildings. A beam of light soon appeared from around the east wing of the former mansion—the security guard, his cap pulled down on his head. He didn’t have a dog, but there was a holster and a club hanging from his leather belt. Brian calculated the length of his round: he had exactly three minutes and sixteen seconds before the man’s alter ego sitting at the monitor got worried. He let the guard turn the corner and then, avoiding the eye of the camera, ran to the garage.