In the Company of Killers

by Bryan Christy

  “Pigeon pipe goes through the metal detector, little cloth sack on his foot, diamond or two in the sack, out the little window. Skips the X-ray.” He popped an orange slice into his mouth. “Millions, I made that way.” Botha picked his nose. “They arrested me on sable that time, but you probably read about it. We moved them in bakkies kitted out like farm trucks.” He raised a hand over his head. “Stacked with vegetables up to the sky. Secret compartment inside. Moved them from red zone to green zone. All we had to do. Millions on that one, too.”

  “What’s red zone to green zone?” Klay asked.

  “Hoof and mouth,” he said. “Sable in the green zone, certified. Worth five or eight times red zone sable. Just had to cross that border. Do you see what I’m saying to you?”

  “Borders don’t matter to you.”

  “Ach, that’s one way to tell it. Another is, borders are where the money is. You should remember that.”

  “Thanks for the lesson. How ’bout if we talk about Kenya.”

  “Kenya?”

  “I don’t have time for your bullshit, Botha.”

  “You don’t have time?” Botha sat back and smiled. “You want, you can borrow some of mine.” He broke off a large section of orange and took his time chewing it.

  “I’m talking about your elephant poachers. The two men you murdered.”

  “Hey!” Botha called out. Klay heard a magazine crackle. Botha reached into his pocket and slapped a few bills down on the table. “Jacob, my friend, why don’t you go get yourself a Coke?”

  Jacob took the money and left.

  “So, counselor, you have something you want to say to me?”

  Botha wasn’t wearing handcuffs. He was shorter than Klay, compact.

  “Tell me about your shooter.”

  Botha sat back in his chair and grinned. “I told you before. Elephants are property. What people do with them is their business.”

  Klay thought of Bernard. Klay might be built bigger than Botha, but Botha was meaner—he could see that. There was no question, no uncertainty in his dark eyes. Botha was a killer.

  Botha’s eyes narrowed. “You’re thinking too much, counselor,” he warned. “You want to get emotional? You should be thinking about that little poes you got right here. Advocate Hungry Khoza. That skirt is property, too. How long you been fucking the very special prosecutor?”

  Klay came out of his chair, his fist in the air. Suddenly he was down, his face slammed into the tabletop, Botha leaning all his weight on Klay’s locked arm. Botha put his mouth against Klay’s ear. “Know your target, Tom. Didn’t they teach you that in Assessments?”

  “Assessments” was a CIA term.

  “Take your fucking hands off me.” Klay rose from the table, lifting Botha off the ground with him. His chair crashed to the floor and the office door opened. Jacob entered with his nightstick drawn. Botha stepped away from Klay. He raised a hand and Jacob paused. Botha tilted his head toward the door, and Jacob backed out of the office and closed the door behind him.

  Klay wiped blood from his nose and lip.

  “You were the gun,” Botha said calmly, retaking his seat. “Not me, counselor.”

  Klay spat. Botha wiped Klay’s blood and spit off his cheek with the back of his hand.

  “I was the gun? The fuck are you talking about?” Klay said.

  Botha looked at Klay’s untouched orange. “I have a client. American. Very powerful guy. I been to the States many times. Many, many times. Did you know that? Miami. Dallas. Vegas. This guy’s got a big place in Zim, bigger than the King Ranch. Beautiful fucking place. Used to be mine until I sold it to him. The Kimber, it’s called. Anyway, this client, he wants a hunt. Always does after a big deal goes off. And he makes some big fucking deals. This time he’s blooding his kid. Wants a good lion for her and then something bigger for himself. Gets off on it. My PH tells him he knows a buff. Great big dagga boy I been saving for myself.” Botha spread his arms above his head to indicate the buffalo’s wide horns. “Minotaur. Client says he wants to get his daughter her lion, take Minotaur, then out. Boys set up camp for him, bait up the lion. Only she can’t take the shot, wants to tranquilize it for a school project. Client shoots the lion, then snotklaps her. Pop!” Botha swung his hand. “Put her on a plane home that night. Next day, my trackers locate his buff. Jump in the bakkie. There he is. Bigger than God, and not enjoying his age. Isaac sets up the shooting sticks. Njovu gets the truck ready.”

  Normally Klay would give a guy like Botha all the time he wanted to tell his stories. He would come back again and again and listen as long as his target would talk, letting the guy unleash his ego. Rope-a-dope him with innocuous questioning; then, when the target was worn out, Klay would wade in with his real questions. But this time he didn’t have that luxury. Unchaperoned time with Botha might never come again. He needed to move Botha toward something Hungry could use to prosecute him. Investigate Botha so Hungry can take down Ncube—that is your mission, he told himself. And control yourself.

  Still, something about Botha’s story smelled funny. Something about the man said, Wait.

  “You listening to me, counselor?”

  “I’m waiting for the movie to come out.”

  Botha shook his head. “You know,” he said, wagging a finger, “you are some fucking crazy fucker. You remind me of me. So the fucking client waves the shooting sticks away. Wants to free-hand his shot. Now, he’s carrying a .416 Rigby. But it’s a single, and if he misses—? I have a motto for my camp: never leave a wounded animal behind. If it’s shot, we kill it.”

  “Your camp? I thought it’s not your property anymore.”

  “Yeah. We’ll see. Client asks Old Pete Zoeller for a range check. Pete carries my Holland and Holland double rifle in five hundred nitro express. If anything goes wrong, he’s there to second him with two. Pete’s making his check when the client fucking shoots. Misfire. Round’s a dud. No time for a second with his fucking single shot. It’s on, and it’s no joke. Minotaur is no fucking joke, I’m telling you. They got a locomotive coming down on them. Now here’s the part—client doesn’t sweat it. He pushes Old Pete out of the way, takes a step to the side, pulls a .45, and wham, shoots the boy.”

  “The boy?” Klay said.

  “Shoots Isaac, dead. Confuses ’em,” he tells Pete. “Says his lads did it with the hajjis in Afghanistan. Called it a Crocodile Dundee. He was right, too. Minotaur stopped mid-charge. ‘Send me the funeral bill,’ he tells Pete.”

  Botha wiped a few drops of Klay’s blood off the tabletop with his paper towel. He looked at Klay.

  Klay’s mind was spinning. He scanned Botha’s eyes, his breathing, his posture, and was startled to find no clue whether the man was lying.

  “You know a lot of fucking assholes. That your point?” Klay asked.

  Botha leaned forward. He punctuated his words carefully. “My point, counselor, is that boy never knew he was fair game. My point is, you take care with your assumptions. Didn’t they teach you that at the Farm? No? Maybe things have changed.”

  Jacob put his head into the room and Botha nodded. He gathered bits of orange peel into a pile and scooped them into his palm with his paper towel; then he pushed back in his chair and stood. “You work for him now,” Botha said.

  “I work for who?”

  “The American. Terry Krieger. You work for him now.” Botha picked up Klay’s untouched orange. “I’m in here because of you. You ever think of that? Your girlfriend’s looking on the wrong tree branch.”

  He dropped Klay’s orange and his peels in a wastebasket near the door. “She’s got her hands on some dangerous documents. Ask her where she thinks they came from.”

  He nodded to Jacob and left.

  THE UNRAVELING

  Office of the Special Prosecutor

  Pretoria, South Africa

  The big steel door
was propped open with a mop handle and bricks again. It was the same everywhere, Klay thought as he entered. You can erect all the defenses in the world, but if it’s not convenient, it’s not safe at all.

  “What does ‘gatvol’ mean?” Tenchant was asking.

  “Fed up,” Miss Edna answered. “As in, ‘We’re gatvol of that tsotsi.’”

  “Yeah,” Tenchant echoed. “We’re gatvol of that tsotsi. Oh. Hey, Tom.” Tenchant put down his file. “I might have something.”

  “In a minute.”

  “I think you’ll be interested: Botha and Ncube’s wife share a post office box,” Tenchant said. “It’s in their company registrations . . .”

  Klay paused. The two female lawyers were looking at him expectantly. Sehlalo was not in the room. “Help me with something downstairs, will you, Tench?”

  Klay led Tenchant across the catwalk and down the stairs to the garage. He took him to the front of the garage out of sight and earshot of Hungry’s team.

  “Tell me,” Klay said quietly.

  “It’s crazy, right? I mean, we’re here for Botha, and somehow it looks like he’s connected to their Ncube investigation. But it could help all of us, right? What’s the matter?”

  “Keep going.”

  “They used the same address, a beauty parlor owned by one of the Ncube nieces. That address ties to several of Botha’s companies and a number held by Ncube’s family. Important thing is, they made a mistake. It proves there’s a link between them.”

  “Doesn’t ‘prove,’ suggests.” Klay looked up toward Hungry’s office. “You told the team you found a link?”

  “Maybe I shouldn’t have. Chinese wall. But I can help them. Is something wrong?”

  “What was their response?”

  “They wanted to see it.”

  “Who did?”

  “Sehlalo.”

  “Did you show it to him?”

  “I did.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He didn’t say anything. He left.”

  Klay’s jaw muscle flexed. “All right. See what else you can find, but keep it to yourself. Don’t share any more.” He turned toward the stairs. “I have to talk to Hungry.”

  “She’s not here.”

  Klay hesitated. “Where is she?”

  “I don’t know. She didn’t say.”

  “All right.” Klay turned for the door. “Get back to it.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

  Outside on the street, he texted Hungry: “Where are you?”

  “Silverton HQ. Depos,” she responded.

  “Need to talk.”

  “Call in 30?”

  “In person.”

  “The Klipspringer. 3:30?”

  He sent a thumbs-up emoji. And later, the room number.

  * * *

  • • •

  They stood in the middle of a hotel room identical to the one where they’d made love days earlier. A faucet dripped in the bathroom. Sunlight burned through the muslin drapes, casting a yellow stain on the carpet. She’d come straight from the national prosecutor’s office. “What is it, Tom?”

  Klay sat in a side chair and motioned for Hungry to sit on the bed. The hotel had been convenient to the restaurant that night and sufficiently down-market that she was unlikely to be recognized in the lobby. He hadn’t noticed the tacky furniture then and couldn’t recall whether the orange bedspread he was looking at now was the same design as in their former room.

  Hungry looked at him with a puzzled expression and remained standing.

  “I need to know how you arrested Botha,” he said.

  “How? We pulled him over on N1, outside his game farm in Polokwane.”

  Klay’s phone rang. It was Tenchant. He turned off the ringer and put the phone in his pocket.

  “But how did you know to be there, Hungry?”

  “We got a tip. We have a corruption hotline. The team monitors it. We get dozens of them every week.”

  “Dozens? And you respond to all of them?”

  “No. Not all.”

  “So, why did you act on this one?”

  “Is this an interrogation?”

  “Humor me, please.”

  “Officer Sehlalo phoned me and told me the tip looked legitimate,” she said warily. “There’d been a break-in at the police station in Polokwane. The safe was opened. According to the tip, an officer on Botha’s payroll had done it and Botha would be transporting the stolen rhino horns personally. We got a date and time. It checked out. Rhino poaching is outside my jurisdiction, but Botha has a hand in everything in this country. He knows the president personally. I knew we’d never flip him, but I thought, why not shake his tree, see what falls out. I authorized Julius to proceed. He organized a few of the Hawks and intercepted the car. The tip was accurate. They recovered the horn.”

  “So, it was Sehlalo?”

  “With my authorization. Julius Sehlalo is part of my team, my trusted team.”

  “I went to see Botha this morning. He said he was in prison for me. Because of me, is what he said.”

  “I don’t know what that means.” Her confusion was turning to anger. “I do know that you must not trust Ras Botha. Everything he says is a lie within a lie. He’s a master manipulator. You know that.”

  “He knew things he shouldn’t know.”

  “What things?”

  That I am a CIA agent. The thought ricocheted inside his head.

  “Is there a chance he got arrested on purpose. To get inside, somehow? To . . . I don’t know . . . to occupy your resources?”

  Hungry sat down at the foot of the bed. “What are you saying?”

  “He’s in prison because of me . . . What if he meant, to give The Sovereign a reason to send me? To give you a reason to let me in?”

  “That doesn’t make sense.”

  She was right. It didn’t make sense. Botha seemed to know he was a CIA asset. But if Botha was in with the CIA, why had Eady and Barrow sent him?

  “Let’s go back. Does Sehlalo have history with the Americans? With the intelligence community?”

  “Not possible,” she scoffed.

  “What?”

  “Sehlalo would never betray me.”

  “Does he?”

  “With your intelligence community? You mean the CIA?” She stood up from the bed. “Do you know what you’re suggesting? Are you completely ignorant of our history? Mandela spent twenty-seven years in prison because of your CIA. The CIA helped hunt and kill our comrades in Angola, Botswana, Zambia, Mozambique. And later, when Apartheid fell and the rest of the world said its humble apologies, your CIA and your State Department kept Madiba on your terrorist watch list! Our democratically elected president, an international terrorist, until he was ninety years old!

  “Any connection, any appearance of a connection, between my team and the CIA would be fatal. I’d be branded Third Force. We could all wind up in prison. Or dead. This is no game, Tom. No,” she said, turning to the window, “Sehlalo would not help the CIA. It would jeopardize everything we’re doing, everything I’ve devoted my life to.”

  Klay’s muted cell phone began buzzing. Something in his gut was buzzing more.

  “You have a cache of files.”

  She did not respond.

  “Botha knows it, Hungry. He said to ask you where you got them.”

  When she didn’t respond, he continued, “Was it Sehlalo who brought them to you?”

  “Sehlalo did not betray me.”

  Klay’s eyes narrowed. “But there is something?” His voice was determinedly steady. “I can see it. You’re not telling me something.”

  “It’s not important. Not relevant,” she corrected.

  “What?”


  Hungry faced him. “It’s personal.”

  “It’s all personal.”

  “I’m engaged, Tom. I’m going to be married.”

  Something in his chest tightened. He laughed bitterly. First Erin, now Hungry. “Well, I look forward to meeting him.”

  Her eyes clouded in disbelief. She shook her head. “You already have.”

  Sehlalo. He sighed. He’d missed that, too. “Well, I’m happy for you,” he said.

  “It’s not public. The staff know. But you see, he would never betray me.”

  “Not intentionally.”

  She shook her head. “Not at all.”

  “CIA can arrange things, Hungry. Arrange them so you don’t even know you’re working for them.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “You know this from personal experience?”

  He shook his head. “I’ve seen it. I’ve seen them succeed with people I know.”

  She sensed his deception—he could see that—but he had accused Sehlalo of betraying her, and the absurdity of that distracted her.

  She stood. “He’s a kind man, Tom. A good man. And an excellent detective.”

  “Good enough to know about us?”

  Her eyes narrowed to knife edges. “Good enough to know we all come with baggage. Smart enough not to open mine without asking.”

  “And if he asks?”

  “‘Tom Klay and I were close once, just never close enough.’”

  Klay nodded. That seemed about right. He reflected on Sehlalo. The hostility he’d perceived scanned differently now. “He seems like a solid guy,” he said.

  “You have a lot in common actually. It might surprise you to know he also had misgivings about Botha’s arrest. He said it was too easy the way we picked him up.” She shook her head. “Botha mentioned files? What did he say?”