Dictator

71

The street was crowded with cars and people: a few white tourists who’d ventured inland from the scenic harbour-front, but mostly locals bustling purposefully to and fro, or standing in groups, talking and gesticulating with a vehemence and energy that belied the cliched image of Chinese inscrutability.

Mabeki had parked the Rolls-Royce on the left-hand side of the road, about fifty yards ahead. He was standing by it, watching Carver’s Honda crawl towards him, hemmed in by cars and trucks, taunting Carver, challenging him to make the next move.

Carver pulled over to the left, double-parking and ignoring the horn-blasts and shouts from the drivers now half-trapped behind him as he got out of the car and tried to push his way through the crowds towards the Rolls-Royce. Mabeki stood quite still, just staring in Carver’s direction until he’d caught his eye. Then he raised a hand, waved mockingly and walked away, heedless of the fact that he was turning his back on an armed enemy, his tall, twisted figure towering over most of the people around him.

And he walked away alone.

The question ripped through Carver’s mind, driving every other thought from his head: what had Mabeki done with Zalika?

The Rolls-Royce was just ahead of him now, its boot pointing at him. Mabeki had left it unlocked so that it had opened a fraction. If Zalika was in there, she could get out, so why hadn’t she?

He ran through the possible reasons. She was bound and immobile. She was unconscious or even dead. And then it struck him that Mabeki had left him an invitation. ‘Open me,’ the boot seemed to be saying. ‘Open me and see what happens next.’

It would have been so easy for Mabeki to set a booby trap. Carver flashed back to the memory of Justus’s prized VW van: the nylon line and the hand-grenade that had blown when the door was opened. Was that what Mabeki had in store for him now? Or was his real aim simply to buy a little time?

The longer Carver stood around wondering what to do, the further away Mabeki would get.

‘Zalika,’ he called out, ‘are you there? You OK?’

There was no reply.

Carver moved closer to the boot, bent down and peered at the narrow opening, trying to spot any sign of a trap. Oh the hell with it. He’d had enough pussyfooting around. He grabbed the boot, swung it open with one swift movement…

And nothing happened. There was no explosion, no trap… and no Zalika.

But that was impossible. Carver had tracked the signal from her phone all the way from the Gushungos’ house. Mabeki hadn’t stopped at any point in the journey, apart from the delay at the tollbooth by the Western Harbour Tunnel. So where was the girl?

Frantically, irrationally, Carver opened the driver’s door of the Rolls, leaned in and peered into the interior as if there was some faint chance that Zalika might be sitting there. She wasn’t.

But her phone was sitting on the passenger seat. And it was ringing.

Carver picked it up. He pulled himself back out of the car, stood up again and looked down the street, searching for Mabeki, knowing that it would be his voice he heard as he pressed the ‘receive’ button and held the phone to his ear.

‘Goodbye, Reverend,’ said Mabeki. ‘Or rather, goodbye, Mr Carver. You will not see me or Miss Stratten again.’

The phone went dead. Carver hurled it to the ground, anger and frustration getting the better of him. Then he looked up again and the anger was replaced by the chilly realization of imminent danger. There were five men walking abreast across the pavement, barging people out of their way as they made their way towards the Rolls-Royce. But it didn’t take a genius to work out that it wasn’t the car they were aiming for. Mabeki had indeed set a trap for him. And it had just been sprung.