Fever

by Deon Meyer

More jeering, as Whisky Nose hit me back, so hard on the head that I fell to the ground, dazed.

  ‘The radio,’ said one of them loudly. ‘They’re calling us on the radio.’

  The laughter and mockery stopped. I lay on the ground, dizzy, a rushing in my ears. I heard a faint voice over the radio. ‘There’s a truck coming, ETA Hanover thirty minutes.’

  I looked up, saw the man with the whisky nose walk away from me, pick up the handset, speak into it: ‘That’s too close to us, we’ll ambush in Colesberg.’

  ‘Roger,’ said the radio voice.

  He walked back towards me and I tried crawling away from him on my hands and knees, but he grabbed me by the rucksack and dragged me to the other motorbikes. ‘Cable-tie her hands, let’s go.’

  When the KTM shepherds positioned themselves behind us, Domingo gave the order: ‘Battle stations.’ That meant we each had to buckle ourselves in to our places, so that no one would be hurt if the driver braked suddenly.

  Domingo described what he saw through the peephole: they rode in formation, one up ahead, three side by side. They kept a distance of nearly two hundred metres from the Volvo, also travelling around eighty kilometres per hour. Each KTM rider had a rifle slung across his back.

  ‘Stand by, Hanover coming up,’ said Cele from the front.

  ‘Stand by,’ said Domingo.

  My heart hammered in my chest.

  The Volvo slowed.

  Nobody said a word.

  Eventually: ‘Nothing,’ said Brits. ‘Not Hanover then.’

  Sofia Bergman

  They tied my hands behind my back. Whisky Nose climbed on to his bike, and one of the others manhandled me on to the back of his motorcycle. They tied us together with a length of rope. I still had the rucksack on my back. The crossbow was strapped to it, but I didn’t know where my rifle was.

  Whisky Nose said to me, ‘You can try whatever you like, doll. But at a hundred and sixty the tarmac road will make mincemeat of you.’

  I was bound so close against him I could smell his foul breath, and his body odour – old sweat and booze. He put his helmet on and pulled away, so fast that I was jerked back and would have fallen off if I hadn’t been tied to him.

  He rode fast, my hair blew in the wind, I thought, now it’s going to get full of knots. At least I couldn’t smell him now.

  Cele said, ‘That sign says ten kilometres to Colesberg.’

  Dead silence in the back of the trailer. We had been waiting more than forty minutes. We were uncomfortable, wound up, set to go, yet nothing had happened, except for the Shepherds behind us.

  ‘Stay sharp,’ said Domingo.

  In my mind I ran through everything I must do when we made contact.

  One. Open the firing hole beside me, the one facing portside.

  Two. Look. If I saw an ‘Ali Baba’ – the term that Domingo used for the enemy – and I could hit him, then I had to shoot. Single shots. Disciplined. Accurate.

  Three. When my port sector was completely clear, I had to shout ‘port side front clear’.

  Four. When Domingo shouted ‘deploy’, I would know Phase One of the attack was successful. Then I had to free the ladder. It was suspended from the roof, I had to pull a rope that withdrew the locking pin. I had to pull that ladder down, take my R4 DM and climb up the ladder. I had to open the hatch in the roof and first make sure it was safe to stick my head out.

  Five. I had to give sniper cover to Team Bravo.

  We had practised it over and over. I was as ready as I ever would be.

  Minutes dragged by.

  Domingo said, ‘The Shepherds are falling back. This is it. Cele, maintain your speed, and then drive a little bit faster as if you’re glad they’ve lost interest.’

  A moment of silence, then a sharp warning from Cele, ‘There they are!’ He hit the brakes. My back slammed into the seat behind me, my helmet hit the steel panel.

  Chapter 62

  The first KTM war: IV

  Sofia Bergman

  There, on the N1, on the back of that motorcycle, I realised I was in trouble.

  It’s hard to explain quite how naïve I was. I grew up so sheltered, my parents, my brothers . . . And then the three years on the farm with Meklein and Vytjie, two loving people, it made you believe all people were like that: caring. Gentle and harmless. The things that happened at Hanover happened so fast, so unexpectedly, that I couldn’t process it. And then the blow to my head as well. But when I had been on the back of that motorcycle for half an hour, I had time to think, and I realised I was in deep trouble, these were not good people. And then I knew I had to get away. They had to stop somewhere, somewhere I would find my chance. And I thought, okay, I’ve got the Leatherman in my rucksack, in the side pocket. That Leatherman had blades and screwdrivers and a file and everything in the handles, but the pliers themselves would easily cut the cable ties. I could threaten this disgusting swine with a blade. Or something. I must just get to those pliers.

  I wriggled and squirmed, to see if I could. But old Whisky Nose hit me with his elbow. So I sat still again.

  I didn’t have a crash helmet on and they were riding very fast; the rushing wind made it hard for me to see, but I knew we were on the N1, I knew the next town was Colesberg, and I thought, if they go on to Bloemfontein there will be people who can help.

  As we reached Colesberg they suddenly slowed, at the big junction that was built before the Fever, where the N1 and N9 crossed. Pa always filled up with fuel there, I thought the bikers were also going to fill up, perhaps there would be someone at the garage – can you believe anyone could be so silly as to think that?

  They rode under the N9 flyover, and they stopped at the second flyover that bridged the N1. Whisky Nose untied the rope that bound us and he dismounted, and dragged me, and he ran, they all ran. I could see that the road under the bridge was blocked, there were two sections of old lorries blocking the road, right beneath the bridge. Some of the bikers ran up the embankment to sit on top of the bridge, and others hid away behind the lorry parts. All of them had their rifles ready and they called to each other, and Whisky Nose had his radio in his hand. We ran up the embankment to the top of the bridge.

  He spoke into the radio. Someone told him, ‘No, you’ve got a good half an hour, the truck isn’t in a hurry.’

  Whisky Nose yelled to the others, ‘We’ve got half an hour!’

  On the bridge there was an old Toyota Prado, its tyres flat. Whisky Nose pushed me into the back door and he said, ‘You sit here, and sit still, or I’ll belt you again.’ He walked to one of the other doors, picked up my rifle, and inspected it. Then he took his weapon and there were these big fuel drums on the side of the bridge that had been placed upright two by two, and on some of the drums there were car doors or corrugated-iron sheets, with stones to keep them in place. I saw Whisky Nose sit down between two drums, under the corrugated iron, and he rested his rifle on the railing of the flyover. That’s when it dawned on me they were setting up an ambush. And if you saw everything that had been arranged here, it wasn’t the first time they’d done it. They were organised.

  But I was alone in the Prado, and began to carefully shift and move and pull and stretch to get the rucksack off my back, or at least my hands on the Leatherman.

  My hands were tied behind my back, so it wasn’t easy.

  But we had half an hour.

  The reports on our expeditions that had been led into KTM ambushes varied.

  Sometimes the KTM didn’t shoot at all. They just threatened, and stole everything that was edible or usable. Sometimes they took women too, or the people under twenty. We never knew what happened to these people.

  Sometimes they fired warning shots. Sometimes they would shoot one of the men because he looked dangerous.

  We didn’t know what to expect. We all wore bullet-proof vests.

  Domingo told us you could prepare for contact, you could train as long and as hard as you liked, but when it happened, it was absolute ch
aos and everything went wrong.

  Our Volvo braked, the tyres screeched. It came to a stop. We all regained our balance. Domingo stood in the back of the trailer, looking at the Shepherds. He said, ‘Hold your fire.’

  I looked out of my peephole. I couldn’t see any target. And then Domingo said, ‘Fire,’ and all hell broke loose.

  Afterwards everyone would tell their battle stories, everyone would embellish and embroider, because no one could remember the details exactly. A skirmish is an overdose of adrenalin, it is naked fear, high stress. And it happens faster than you could ever expect, much faster than you can be ready for, in the eye-blink of chaos. But basically what happened was that Domingo waited for the Shepherds to close the cordon around us. And then we started shooting, deafening explosions of sound in the enclosed trailer, the smell of cordite choking us, and smoke, so that I could see nothing outside. Suddenly something ran into my field of vision and I aimed and shot and missed completely. The crack shot of the SpOT team, and I missed. I fired again and again, too quickly. Domingo had told us to fire disciplined, single shots, but we all forgot, everyone except him; we all emptied a magazine in seconds and had to reload. Domingo shouted, ‘Single shots, single shots!’ Nobody heard him. But I got my man, he was fifteen metres away and I saw the blood spray, I saw the fear and surprise, the way his legs still pumped, trying to run, but he was down. I felt nothing. I felt like an animal. The other guy wants to kill me. If I hesitate, I die. I felt disconnected from that man’s death. I forgot to shout that my sector was clear. My ears buzzed, my blood boiled, everyone shouted into our radios.

  Cele said, ‘I’m wounded, I’m wounded.’

  Domingo shook my arm and yelled, ‘Is your sector cleared?’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’

  ‘Deploy, deploy, deploy!’ shouted Domingo.

  I stood rooted to the spot.

  Domingo shook me: ‘Get your ass up there.’

  Shame engulfed me. And doubly so, as I forgot to take my DM, and Domingo had to pull me back and hand the rifle to me.

  The rear door was open, daylight streamed in, Team Bravo jumped out. I was up the ladder, and lifted the hatch. I spotted one of the KTM on the flyover in front of the Volvo, sixty metres away, I saw him firing at my comrades, I heard the lead smacking down in front. I got him in the sights, easy shot, and shot him through the forehead.

  The rest of Team Bravo advanced, as they had been trained, covering each other, running, covering fire, running, to cover all the sectors.

  I looked for targets, I scanned three hundred and sixty degrees, and saw nothing except fallen KTM members.

  And then I saw the girl with long blond hair.

  At first I just sensed movement, far to the right; out of the corner of my eye, I saw someone running, three hundred metres away. Then I pointed the telescope, and I saw her.

  I had never seen anyone run like that, with so much rhythm and grace. She was wearing shorts and boots, and her legs were indescribably long and tanned, and her long blond hair streamed out behind her as she ran. In her hand, she was carrying a wheel spanner.

  I realised she was chasing someone with that wheel spanner, her body language showed she was chasing someone, and she was going to hit him with it if she caught him. I moved the scope. There was a KTM man with a fat belly running away from her. He had a crossbow, and was about ten paces ahead of her. She was closing the gap.

  Our battle cry was: ‘Don’t let a single one get away.’

  The girl and the KTM man were in the town, in a Colesberg street, between the houses now.

  He mustn’t get away.

  I made the shot.

  Sofia Bergman

  Yes, I was furious that Nico shot Whisky Nose, because I wanted to hit him with that wheel spanner, the disgusting swine.

  I was sitting in the Toyota Prado, in the half-hour we waited, and I wriggled and struggled, but eventually I did get the Leatherman and I cut my hands free, very quietly. Whisky Nose got up and came to check on me, but I lay still, and he touched my leg, pushed his hand up there. You must know, my hands were already free, and I had to clench my teeth not to try to stop him, I knew I had to wait until the right time. But then he left me alone again, walked away and went and sat under the corrugated iron between the drums, and the radios were talking to each other, and I heard the big truck coming, and I heard the big truck braking. And Whisky Nose saying over the radio, ‘Okay, Kelly, get those people out of the lorry.’

  Suddenly everyone was shooting at each other. Bullets were slamming into the Prado and I dived between the seats and lay wondering what was happening.

  But then I felt something tugging at me, and I looked around, and saw Whisky Nose. He was trying to pull the crossbow off my rucksack, which was still on my back. He had used up all his ammunition, now he wanted my crossbow. I realised suddenly that the man was afraid, I saw it on his face, as he wrestled the crossbow free and ran. The others were still shooting, but this guy runs off with my crossbow, the disgusting swine.

  So I thought, I want my crossbow back, it was my brother’s crossbow. I lay in the Prado with shots going off and bullets hitting all around, and I kept alternating between being scared and angry, so that gave him a head start. Also I was looking for . . . I can’t say a weapon, ’cause that’s not completely true, I was looking for something to sort of give my anger something to hold on to, if that makes any sense. And I saw here under the Prado’s seat something sticking out, and I grabbed it, it was the spanner, and it gave me courage to jump out, God knows why. And I jumped out and saw the whisky-nose man was already quite a long way away.

  He wasn’t that fast, but the rucksack was holding me back. So I threw it off and I ran, spanner in hand. He heard me coming, he heard my boots on the gravel and the tarmac, he looked back, and then he screamed, I don’t know what he screamed, but it was the scream of a man who knew he was in trouble, and it was the most beautiful sound that I ever heard in my whole life.

  I was catching up with him, and I knew I wanted to whack him with the spanner, just a few times before I took my crossbow back, and then the bullet hit him. It’s an awful sound to be so close to someone and hear a bullet hit them, a sick dull sound, and he fell just like a sack of potatoes, just dropped down in the dust.

  And then I was furious, because I had wanted to hit him first. He had hit me, he had squeezed my breast and groped my leg, he was a disgusting swine, and I never got the chance to hit him.

  I had the long-legged girl with white-blond hair in my telescopic sights. I saw her look towards me, with a furious expression. She bent down and picked up the crossbow he had been carrying. I assumed that she was with the KTM. It was a semi-logical assumption. I couldn’t let her get away. She was more than three hundred metres away, between houses, chances were good that she was going to disappear from view soon.

  I aimed, drew the sights on her, I squeezed the trigger.

  Chapter 63

  The first KTM war: V

  But I couldn’t shoot. Not a girl.

  I don’t know why.

  I released the trigger, and watched through the scope, saw her disappear behind the concrete wall of a house.

  Don’t let a single one get away.

  Everything was suddenly quiet, nobody was shooting any more. Domingo stood beneath the flyover, between the truck wrecks strategically positioned there. He held a fist up in the air. I heard his voice in my earphones: ‘Hold your fire.’

  I said over the radio, ‘Captain, there’s a girl who got away.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘In the town. East.’

  ‘One girl?’

  ‘Yes, Captain.’

  ‘Then go fetch her, Storm.’

  I slid back into the trailer and ran to the rear door and jumped down. She had a head start on me and I had seen how she could run. I wouldn’t be able to catch up with her.

  I ran around the Volvo. I saw Aram and Wessels lift Cele out of the cab, Cele was bleeding from the arm, lots of
blood.

  I ran. I used the embankment to get up the bridge, where I saw the motorcycles that had been left there.

  I swung the rifle strap over my shoulder, jumped on to the nearest motorcycle, started it and raced after the girl.

  Sofia Bergman

  Now you have to understand, I heard a motorbike coming, and this time I wasn’t just a silly farm girl beside the N1, I knew what these men did. So I stopped, and pulled a bolt out of the quiver – the quiver is fastened to the crossbow when you carry it – and I cocked the crossbow, and waited, just around the corner of the wall, and I waited. I heard the engine coming closer and closer, and I held the crossbow ready and I stepped out around the corner and shot the bike rider full in the chest.

  She appeared in front of me all of a sudden and shot me with her crossbow. The bullet-proof vest stopped her killing me, but the impact of the bolt was so strong that I fell backwards off the motorcycle, my battle helmet smacked on the tarmac. I was winded, and it felt like my heart had stopped, it was one helluva blow. The motorcycle sailed past her on its own, and I saw her coming. My rifle was behind my back, I gasped for air, saw she was fitting another bolt into the crossbow. This girl was going to kill me. I rolled, heaving, I had to get my rifle free, but there was no time. I stood up, I was slow and winded and sore, but I knew my life depended on how fast I could move.

  I was up and charged at her and tackled her to the ground. I sat on her and held her hands down.

  Then I had a good look at her. I could see she wasn’t afraid, just angry. It was a splendid fury, like a force of nature, a source of magnificent pure energy.

  I realised she was the most beautiful girl that I had ever seen in my life. Breathtakingly beautiful.

  In that instant I fell in love with Sofia. That was the moment I knew I was going to marry her.

  Sofia Bergman

  I screamed at him, ‘Get off, you disgusting swine, get off.’ He just sat there making croaking noises as he tried to breathe, and he smiled, such a stupid smile.