Thirteen Hours

Chapter 43

Griessel told the Constables to let no one out of the adventure shop; they didn't know who was involved. Once reinforcements arrived, they were to seal off the offices upstairs, no records were to leave the place, no calls were to be made, to let the phone ring, nobody was to answer it. Anyone who came in must stay.

They nodded keenly.

Out through the door, into the busy normality of Long Street. He pushed the pistol back into his holster, ran fifty metres and stopped suddenly. The traffic. In the police sedan with no siren or lights. He turned back, sidestepping people on the pavement, and banged open the glass doors again. Every eye in the place was on him. Do you have a patrol vehicle with a functioning siren?

Yes, Captain. The Constable rummaged in his trouser pocket, took out his keys and flung them in an arc to Griessel. He missed them. Melissa made a scornful noise but he ignored her, picked up the keys, jerked open the doors and ran.

There was only one vehicle between Vusi Ndabeni and Jeremy Oerson when they stopped at the traffic lights where Browning joined Main Road.

Vusi pulled the sun visor down and sat as high in his seat as he could to hide his face. Oerson's indicator light was on, ready to turn right.

Where was Stanley Street?

African Overland Adventures? And the Metro police? He couldn't see any connection. The light changed to green. Vusi gave him a lead, a hundred metres, then he pulled away intending to turn right as well, but a car approached from the front and he had to wait.

When he did turn into Main Road he couldn't see Oerson's Sentra.

Impossible.

Vusi accelerated, tense again. Where could he have gone? He drove past Polo Road leading off to the left, looked down it and saw nothing. He looked right, there were no options, only the Muslim Graveyard and the hospital. He passed the Scott Road turn-off on the left. He saw the Sentra, in the distance, a long way down Scott.

Vusi braked - too late - he was past the turn. He slammed the car into reverse and looked back. Traffic was coming down Main Road. He had no choice. He reversed quickly. Two minibus taxis rocketed down on him, one leaning hard and continuously on his hooter. It swerved in behind the other and barely missed Vusi. But he had reversed far enough and turned left down Scott, just in time to see Oerson turn right half a kilometre away.

Was it really him?

De Waal Drive would be the quickest. Griessel flipped the switches for the siren and blue lights and pulled away with screeching tyres. The traffic opened up in front of him, past St Martini, the Lutheran Church where everything had begun that morning. It felt like a week ago, what a fucking day. The light was red at the Buitensingel crossing, he drove only marginally slower, the motorists saw him coming. Then he turned left, fighting with the steering wheel, into Upper Orange, more traffic.

The Upper Orange crossroad was also red. It took precious seconds to get across carefully and then he put his foot down, over the bridge at the Gardens Centre. The bends of De Waal lay ahead, he picked up his cell phone from the seat, he must call Vusi, he must get reinforcements. The task force, SWAT, the plump girl had called them. No, that would take too long, even if they mobilised within the theoretical fifteen minutes, it would be too late.

He and Vusi would find out what was going on first.

Vusi answered on the second ring. 'Benny.'

'Where are you?'

His black colleague said something inaudible.

'I can't hear you.'

'Stanley Street, Benny, I don't want to talk too loud. I can see the warehouse. Their trucks are parked there. African Overland Adventures.'

'Tell me how to get there, Vusi, I haven't got a map.'

'It's easy, Benny. Take the Groote Schuur off-ramp, right into Main ...'

'I'm coming down De Waal, Vusi, that's not going to help me.'

Vusi said something in Xhosa, a cry for help, then he asked: 'Will you find Main Road in Observatory?'

'Yes.'

'Then turn down Scott ... eastwards. Then all the way down over Lower Main, then first right and you will see them.'

'I'm coming.'

'Oerson has gone in, Benny, hurry.'

Jeremy Oerson pushed the big sliding door only wide enough for him to enter. He took off his dark glasses and put them in his breast pocket and closed the door behind him.

The big warehouse was quiet: tents, sleeping bags, water cans, tools, petrol drums, sand shovels, car jacks all in tidy piles. On one side was a new white Land Rover Defender.

'Halloo,' he said.

To the left and right two men stood up from behind piles of goods, each with a Stechkin APS pistol aimed at him.

'Christ,' he said and lifted his hands high. 'It's me.'

They slowly lowered the weapons. Jason de Klerk came out from behind the Land Rover. 'I tried to call you, Jeremy.'

'I'm a senior fucking police officer, I can't answer my cell when I'm driving.'

'You're a fucking traffic cop.'

He ignored the remark. 'Where is she?'

'Mr B wants to know: can you get to the luggage?'

Oerson walked deeper into the warehouse and looked about. Behind a pile of tents sat another one, sulky, with blood on his upper lip. 'Not now,' he said. 'So what happened to him? Did she get rough?'

'I didn't mean now, Jerry,' said Jason irritably. 'But you can get it, right?'

'Don't worry, as long as they don't know what they're looking for, we're fine. They'll take it to an evidence room, and then it's easy.'

'How easy?'

'I'll grease a few palms, and get some dumb fuck to go in and take it. Little video tape, slip it in your pocket, easy-peasy. Tomorrow, next week, this will be old news, girl's gone, pressure's off. Relax. Where is she?'

'You're absolutely sure?'

'Of course I'm fucking sure. For a thousand bucks they'll be standing in line to do it.'

'OK,' said Jason and took out his cell phone.

'She's alive, isn't she?' Oerson asked. 'Because you guys owe me a favour.'

When the Roodebloem turn-off flashed past, Griessel realised he should have taken it. He cut through to the Eastern Boulevard and the same route as Vusi, but it was too fucking late. The only alternative was Liesbeeck Park, then down Station Road, but it was going to take a minute or two, three, longer.

The van's wheels squealed around the last turn before De Waal joined Hospital corner. Traffic was dense, there was no time to think. What was Jeremy Oerson's connection with the whole affair? He nearly drove into a pharmacy delivery motorcycle and had to swerve out in front of another car. Horns blared, couldn't the idiots hear the siren? Then he was around the bend on the N2 Settlers road and swung over into the left-hand lane. They gave way now and he stomped on the accelerator. Jeremy Oerson? Metro? African Adventures?

What the fuck?

He entered the Liesbeeck off-ramp too fast, the turn much sharper than he remembered, and the red traffic light was totally unexpected. Cars were crossing the road in front of him. Too late to brake. The van began to skid, he was going to hit someone. Then he was through between two cars, wrenching the wheel to get it under control, accelerated again. Out the other side.

He only turned off the siren when he turned onto Lower Main.

Benny was taking too long.

Vusi's car was parked halfway between Scott and Stanley on the pavement. He had his service pistol on his lap, ready cocked. He could see the warehouse through the windscreen - a long building, brick walls, galvanised zinc roof. Large white-painted sliding doors behind four trucks and four trailers, each bearing the legend African Overland Adventures. Big vehicles, the seating deck high with luggage space below. She was in there. Where was Benny? Perhaps he should go inside. But how many were there? Oerson and the person Oerson had spoken to over the phone. How many more?

He sat there, breathing fast, his heart thumping in his chest.

He pulled the car keys out of the ignition, got out, walked around, opened the boot and looked up. They wouldn't be able to see him. There were no windows on this side anyway. He put his pistol down in the boot, took off his jacket and picked up the Kevlar bulletproof vest. He put it on and picked up his pistol. He checked his watch. 15:22. Late.

He would have to do something.

He came to a decision; the girl's life was the main priority. He pulled back the pistol's slide and gently closed the boot.

He was going in.

Then he heard the squeal of rubber on tar behind him and looked back. A SAPS patrol van came around the corner, drove straight towards him and stopped in a cloud of dust on the pavement. A figure jumped out with unkempt hair and gun in his hand.

Benny Griessel had arrived.

'Hey!' said Jeremy Oerson, but she didn't look up. She just lay slumped against the pole, stark naked, he could see everything, the tits, the bush between her legs, the bleeding right foot and three toes lying in the dust like fat insect grubs.

He stood with his feet planted wide in black boots, the pistol in both hands aimed at her head.

'Get her to look at me,' he said to one of them.

'Just fucking get it over with.'

'No. I want to see her face. Hey, Yankee, look at me.'

Slowly she lifted her head. Hair hung over her forehead in strings. He saw the eye swollen shut, black and purple, dried blood on her temple. 'You guys really fucked her up,' he said.

Her head was raised, but the eyes were still somewhere else.

'Do it, Jerry.'

'Look at me,' he said to her, saw the eyes rise to meet his. He pressed the safety off with his thumb.