Tony Park - Silent Predator

‘How concerned are you, Isaac, about this wholesale theft of government property?’ she asked him. In journalism school she’d been taught how to ask open questions, ones that couldn’t be answered with a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’, and to load her queries with emotive words that made for good copy.

Isaac Tshabalala had been talking to reporters for many, many years. ‘Shelley, the South African Police Service takes any reports of the loss of property extremely seriously and investigates all such matters to the full. Now, as I was saying to you on the phone yesterday, our new speed cameras provide a valuable tool in the fight against dangerous driving in the Kruger Park.’

Shelley frowned. He was going to be a tough nut to crack, but she liked Isaac and would play along with his lame speed camera story for the moment to keep him happy. ‘How many people were charged with speeding in the park last year?’

‘Well, there were — ’ Isaac’s mobile phone played a rap tune.

Shelley smiled. The guy was old enough to be her father.

‘Talking on your phone while driving is also illegal, unless you have hands-free. I just had mine installed,’ Isaac said as he pushed the green button to take the call. ‘Captain Tshabalala.’

‘Isaac, hi, it’s Sannie van Rensburg. We’ve got a big problem.’

Shelley sat up straight in the passenger seat of Isaac’s Toyota Venture.

Isaac looked across at her, his face creased with a flash of panic as he swerved off the sealed road onto the dirt verge. He reached out for the phone, but appeared to be unfamiliar with the locking device which held it in its new hands-free cradle. The woman on the other end of the line said, ‘Isaac, are you there? Greeves is missing. And an aide — it looks like they’ve been kid — ’

Isaac wrestled the phone free at last. ‘Sannie, I’ve got a reporter with me. Say that again. I might have to call you back.’

Even with the phone pressed to Isaac’s ear, Shelley heard the woman on the other end of the line swear in Afrikaans.

‘Oh, dear god, Tom,’ Sannie said, and it was more prayer than blaspheming. They were in Greeves’s room.

‘I’ve just called Captain Tshabalala,’ she went on. ‘He’s sending some uniformed officers here.’

Tom nodded. He would have to contact London. It was a call he had hoped he’d never have to make in his career but, as much as he dreaded it, he knew speed was of the essence. He dialled the number he’d saved for just such an emergency.

‘Reserve room, DC Hyland,’ a male voice said on the other end of the line in New Scotland Yard. The night duty officer yawned.

‘This is DS Tom Furey, providing close personal protection to the Minister for Defence Procurement, Robert Greeves, in South Africa. We have a situation here. The minister is missing.’

‘Do what?’

Tom repeated himself and the man seemed to become fully alert. The night duty officer worked in the reserve room of the Counter Terrorist Unit. Tom wasn’t calling him because he suspected this was a terrorist action — not yet, at least — but because this number was manned twenty-four hours a day. The duty officer would now consult the night duty binder, a list of names and numbers of everyone who needed to know about an incident such as this. The man would be busy for some time. Tom gave him the details he had, left his cell phone number, then hung up. Next he called his immediate superior, at home.

‘You’re calling early,’ Shuttleworth said.

Tom repeated the facts.

‘Good god almighty. Are the South Africans on the job?’

‘Uniforms are on their way, and the detectives will be called next, I expect.’

‘What are you going to do next?’

‘I’m going to bloody well find him.’

‘Keep your cool, Tom. If a crime’s been committed in South Africa you’ve no jurisdiction. We’ll need you there, in contact, as our link man. I’ll be on the next available flight. There’ll be two detectives coming with me, to start our investigation. Jesus Christ, Tom.’

There was no way Tom was going to sit on his hands and play receptionist. ‘Okay. I’ll sit tight,’ he lied. He ended the call.

Sannie walked back into the living area of the suite from the bathroom where she had been making calls on her mobile phone. ‘Tshabalala’s on his way, but he’s up near Orpen, so he’ll be a couple of hours. He’s got two officers at Skukuza, and they’re closing up and heading here now-now.’

Tom had learned already that repeating the word ‘now’ meant immediately in Africa. Two officers. ‘What about detectives?’

‘According to the plan, Tshabalala will be mobilising a team from Nelspruit — the nearest big town.’

‘Good.’

‘I thought you had Greeves’s room alarmed?’ Sannie said.

Tom nodded. ‘It didn’t go off. I checked the laptop that controls the passive alarm, but it hasn’t registered a thing, and I didn’t hear it in the night — obviously. I don’t know how they got around it.’

‘Um, there’s something else, Tom.’

‘What?’

Sannie told him about the reporter in the car with Isaac, and the fact that she had overheard at least part of Sannie’s message.

‘Jesus. I was hoping we could keep a lid on this for a little while longer. What’s the chance that Isaac can keep the reporter quiet?’

‘If you were a twenty-two-year-old journalist straight out of varsity and you found out a foreign government minister had been kidnapped in your backyard, would you sit on the story?’

The obvious answer meant Tom had no time to lose. ‘I’m going after them.’

‘You’re what?’

Tom walked out of Greeves’s room onto the walk-way. Sannie followed him, opening her mouth to protest.

‘Hey, what’s all the commotion?’ Carla, her hair in disarray and buttoning her safari shirt, walked out of Tom’s suite. She was barefoot and her green skirt was askew, a rear pocket facing the front.

Sannie shook her head in disgust. ‘You tell her,’ she said to Tom. ‘I’ve got more calls to make and you, Tom, are going nowhere. This is now a South African Police Service matter and I have jurisdiction until a more senior officer arrives. Get yourself cleaned up, Carla. There’s bloody work to be done.’

Tom turned and walked back through reception, past the South African minister and his advisor, out front to where the Land Cruisers were still parked in preparation for the morning game drive.

‘Duncan, get your rifle; we’re walking!’ On the dashboard of Duncan’s Cruiser was a Czech-made Brno hunting rifle, which the guide carried in case he took his tourists for a game walk in the Tinga concession.

‘What?’

‘I’ll explain as we walk.’ And Tom did. ‘Ignore them,’ he said as they moved through reception. It seemed everyone had a cell phone pressed to his or her ear and all were talking at the same time.

Tom led Duncan back into Greeves’s unit and then to Joyce’s, explaining what had happened. Duncan climbed over the balcony railing outside Bernard’s suite and dropped the metre to the long grass below. He started moving in an arc, around the front of the suite, to the far side of Greeves’s and then back to a central spot between the two. ‘This way,’ he said.

Tom jumped down into the grass. He would have liked to have changed into trousers and a stouter pair of shoes, but shorts would have to do as there was no time to waste.

Duncan pointed back towards Bernard’s suite. ‘That man put up more of a fight. Is he the young one?’

‘Yes,’ Tom said. It figured. Joyce was ex-navy, physically fit and well built. Over dinner last night, he’d lamented the lack of a gym, saying he visited his local in Westminster daily when in London. Greeves didn’t carry any excess weight, but as a politician his life consisted of being driven from one free meal to another. It was not surprising the older man had been easier to subdue. Tom was already impressed with Duncan’s skills.