Dead at Daybreak

∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧

51

Bart de Wit and Mat Joubert had Tony O’Grady on the carpet.

“Van Heerden made something of this case with nothing – no forensics, no team of detectives, no squad of uniforms, nothing. Now’s the time for you, Anthony O’Grady, to move your ass, because the SANDF is laughing at us and the media are laughing at us and the district commissioner screams over the telephone and the provincial minister of justice phoned to say you’ve got to move it, it can’t carry on like this. You’re in charge now. Tell us what you need. Make things happen.”

And now he was standing in front of an impressive matron of the Milnerton MediClinic and his meaty face blushed a dark red and his lumpish body shook with rage and his mouth was struggling to choke back words that shouldn’t be used in front of a woman.

“He’s gone?” he managed eventually.

“Yes, sir, he’s gone. The military people took him away against the wishes of the entire medical team.” Her voice was calm and soothing; she saw O’Grady’s red face and shaking torso and wondered whether he was going to have a heart attack in her office.

“Ffffff…” he said, and controlled himself with superhuman effort.

“Just about ten minutes ago. Not even in an ambulance.”

“Did they say where they were taking him?”

“Into custody. When I objected, they said they had medical treatment available for him.”

The curses were poised on his tongue but he bit them back.

“What was his condition?”

“He was stable but we were about to run tests on him. A blow like that to the head, there could be major brain damage.”

“Was he conscious?”

“Delirious, I would say.”

“Coherent?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who took him?”

“A Colonel Brits.”

The frustration, the impotent rage, washed through O’Grady’s big body. “The bastard,” he said, and then he could no longer hold the obscenities back. “The motherfucking, absolute, total, complete cunt of a bastard,” he said, and deflated like a big balloon.

“Feeling better now?” asked the matron. But O’Grady didn’t hear her. He was on his way down the passage, cell phone in his hand. He was going to speak to that dolly-bird attorney, but first he would phone Mat Joubert. Joubert must phone Bart de Wit. Bart de Wit must phone the commissioner and the commissioner could phone whomever he wanted, but Bester Brits was going to get fucked before the day was out.

He was wrong.

♦

The man whose skull had been cracked by a spade was sitting on a wooden Defence Force chair, in a prefab building in a forgotten area in a Port Jackson thicket on the far edge of the Ysterplaat Air Force Base. He wasn’t tied down or shackled. Bester Brits, standing in front of him, was in complete control: there was no need for restraints.

Outside there were four soldiers with R5 rifles, and in any case, Spadehead wasn’t in great shape. His head was lolling, the eyes rolled up every few seconds, his breathing was fast and uneven.

“Does it hurt?” Bester Brits asked, and slapped Spadehead on the purplish red head wound.

The sound that came through the swollen lips was just decipherable as “Yes.”

“What’s your name?”

No reply. Brits lifted his hand again, poised threateningly.

A sound.

“What?”

“Ghaarie.”

“Gary?”

Nod, head rolling.

“Who sent you, Gary, to the house to attack the women?”

Sound.

“What?”

“Please.” Hands lifted to protect the wound.

Brits swept the hands aside, slapped again. “Please? Please what?”

“My head.”

“I know it’s your fucking head, you moron, and I’ll keep on hitting it until you talk, do you understand? The faster you talk, the faster – ”

Sound.

“What?”

“Oh-ri-un.”

“Orion?”

“Yes.”

Brits hit him again with the frustration of more than twenty years, all the hatred, the rancor in him that opened like an old, stinking sore. “I know it was Operation Orion, motherfuck.” The words unlocking memories.

Gary moaning, “No, no, no.”

“What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“O-ri-unShh…” The word slurred in the saliva that ran from a corner of his mouth.

“What?”

No reply. Gary’s eyes were closed, the head flopping.

“Don’t pretend to be unconscious, Gary.”

There was still no reply.

♦

“I can’t talk to you now,” Van Heerden said to Kara-An Rousseau.

“I heard it on the radio. About the shooting.”

“I’ve got to go.” He stood in the doorway of his house, machine pistol in his hand.

“Why were you at my house last night?”

“I wanted to…tell you something.”

“Tell me now.”

“I’ve got to go.”

“You want to know why I am like I am.”

He shifted past her. “This isn’t a good time,” he said, and walked toward his mother’s house. He had to get Tiny.

“Because you’re afraid you’re like that, too.” Not a question.

He halted, turned. “No,” he said.

She laughed at him. “Zatopek, it’s in you, too. And you know it.”

He looked at her beauty, her smile, the perfect teeth. Then he walked away, faster and faster, to get away from the sound of her laughter.

♦

At four minutes past two Nougat O’Grady walked into Hope Beneke’s office and said, “We have taken over the case. Completely.”

“I know,” said Hope Beneke, wondering how she could get rid of him in the next few minutes.

“I believe Van Heerden has not been absolutely frank with us,” he said, and wondered why this female attorney always wore clothes that hid her talents. He suspected there was a nifty body underneath it all. He sat down on a chair opposite her. “A lot of people have died, Miss Beneke. And unless you share everything with us, the killing won’t stop. Now, do you want that on your conscience?”

“No,” she said.

“Then please – ”

The phone rang. She started.

“Been expecting a call?” he asked, and knew instinctively that something was cooking here. “Please go ahead. We’re a team now, so to speak.”

♦

The owner of the Girls-to-Go Agency on Twelfth Avenue, Observatory, looked like a retired film star – long, elegant nose, square jaw, black hair flecked with gray, bushy Tom Selleck mustache – but when he opened his mouth to speak, he showed a set of teeth that were terrifying in their decay: stained yellow, crooked, half of them missing.

“It’th confidenthial information,” he said to Zatopek van Heerden and Tiny Mpayipheli, lisping slightly.

“A prostitute’s destination is not confidential information,” said Van Heerden.

“Thyow me your badge.” The lisp was more marked.

“I’m a private investigator. I don’t have a badge,” he said slowly and patiently. But he didn’t know how much more of the man’s attitude he would be able to take.

“Here’s my badge,” said Tiny Mpayipheli, the impatience strong in his voice as he opened his jacket to show the Rossi model 462 in its shoulder holster.

“I’m not thcared of gunth,” the film star said.

The Xhosa took out the .357 Magnum revolver and put a hole in the O of GO in the sign behind the man, the noise of the gunshot earsplitting in the small room. Behind a door a few women shrieked.

“The next one goes through your knee,” said Mpayipheli.

The door opened. A young woman with green hair and big eyes asked: “What’s going on, Vincent?”

“Nothing I can’t handle.” Calm, unintimidated.

“The address, Vincent,” said Van Heerden.

Vincent looked at them with eyes that had seen everything, looked at the Rossi aimed at his leg, slowly shook his head back and forth as if he didn’t understand the universe, and patiently pulled a large black book toward him, then took the credit card slip that Van Heerden had put on the counter and lazily started leafing through the book.

Tiny put the weapon back under his jacket. They waited. Vincent licked a finger, leafed on.

“Here it ith,” he said.

♦

“This telephone is tapped by Military Intelligence,” Hope said to the man on the phone. “I must ask you to phone another number, a cell phone number. My colleague is waiting for your call.”

A moment’s silence. “No,” he said. “Go to the Coffee King at the Protea Hotel next to your building. I’ll phone there in five minutes.”

“Fffff – ” said Hope Beneke, biting back the word. “I’ve got to go,” she said, and stood up swiftly behind the desk.

“I’m coming with you,” said Nougat. “Where are we going?” They ran down the passage, out through the door, down the stairs, and out of the building, a fit Hope ahead, a puffing O’Grady a few yards behind her.

“Wait up,” he shouted. “They’ll think I’m trying to assault you.” But she kept on running, jerked open the door of the Coffee King, and stopped at the counter.

“I’m expecting a telephone call,” she said to the Taiwanese woman.

O’Grady steamed in, breathing hard.

“This is not a telephone booth,” said the Taiwanese woman.

“It’s police business, madam,” said O’Grady.

“Show me your identification.”

“Jeez, everybody watches television these days,” he said, still trying to catch his breath as he put his hand in his pocket.

The telephone next to her began ringing.

♦

“This man urgently needs hospitalization,” said the captain with the insignia of the SA Medical Services on his uniform.

“Not necessarily,” said Bester Brits.

“He’s dying.”

“He has to talk before he turns up his toes.”

The captain looked disbelievingly at the officer from Military Intelligence. “I…I thought the Truth and Reconciliation Commission had eradicated your kind.”

“I wasn’t always like this.”

“Colonel, if I don’t get him stabilized in intensive care, he’s never going to speak again. We have half an hour, maybe less.”

“Take him, then,” said Bester Brits, and walked out. He walked to a Port Jackson tree, leaned against the trunk. Hell, he wished he still smoked.

Oh-ri-un.

Orion.

“No, no, no,” Gary had said. Not Operation Orion?

What, then?

Oh-ri-unSh…

♦

Tiny Mpayipheli held the Rossi in both hands and stood next to the door while Van Heerden knocked, on the sixth floor of a block of flats in Observatory with a view over the mountain and Groote Schuur Hospital.

“Yes?” A male voice on the other side of the door.

“Parcel for W.A. Potgieter,” said Van Heerden, imitating the bored voice of a delivery man.

Silence.

“Get away from the door,” said Tiny.

Van Heerden stood aside, pushed his hand down inside his jacket, felt the butt of the Z88, knocking again with his other hand. “Halooo.”

The bullet holes splintered out in that nanosecond before they heard the automatic gunfire, the cheap door exploding in a rain of wooden chips. They dropped to their knees – he held the Z88 in his hand now, the other hand protectively over his eyes – then sudden silence.

“Shit,” said Tiny Mpayipheli.

They waited.

“You should have kept the Heckler and Koch.”

“Maybe.”

“And that?” Tiny nodded at the Z88.

“It’s a long story.”

“We’ve got time,” said Tiny, and grinned.

“Is this the only door? The fire escape is in front, next to the lifts.”

“He can only get out through here.” Tiny pointed the Rossi’s barrel at the remains of the door.

“And they have the heavy artillery in there.”

“Yes, but you have your Z88.” Sarcasm.

“Anything in your Russian training for this situation?”

“Yes. I take my antitank missile out of my backpack and blow them to smithereens.”

“We need them alive.”

“Okay, scrap the missile. You’re ex-SAP. You ought to know what to do.”

“Gunfights were never my strong point.”

“I’ve heard.”

Voice from inside. “What do you want?”

“His ammunition is finished,” said Van Heerden.

“Is that a wish or a fact?”

“Do you want to bet?”

“One of your mother’s pictures that’s hanging on your wall.”

“What do I get if I’m right?”

“The Heckler and Koch.”

“Forget it.”

From inside: “What are you looking for?”

“I see you’re also hopeless with women. Your mother’s painting against a guaranteed formula for getting the attorney into bed.”

“That Russian training was thorough.”

“Come in with your hands up. Or we’ll blast you,” the voice yelled from inside the flat. From somewhere in the streets outside came the sound of the first sirens.

“He’s bluffing about the ‘us,’ ” said Tiny.

“You want to bet?”

“No.”

“There’s something else I have to tell you,” said Van Heerden.

Tiny sighed. “Fire away.”

“I was a policeman for a long time, but I never had the opportunity to do the kick-open-the-door-and-rush-in-shooting bit. And to do it for the first time scares me more than you can ever imagine.”

Voice inside: “We’re counting to ten.”

“All I need. A cowardly whitey.”

“We going in?”

“Yes,” said Tiny. “You first.”

“Fucking cowardly Xhosa,” said Zatopek van Heerden, and then he moved, rose from the crouch, shoulder first, and burst through the door.