Tony Park - Silent Predator

No. The man was evil, a trader in human misery who had turned his back on a noble profession, but it wasn’t in Tom’s nature or training to execute a man in cold blood.

Tom snatched the phone from Khan’s belt and slid off the deck onto the grass, about a metre below the surrounding railing. As he started to circle the lodge he looked across and saw Robert Greeves lying on the stone tiles, a pool of blood slowly ebbing from him. As Tom drew alongside the prone form, he saw the lifeless eyes staring out across the darkened lake. There was no faking this time.

Greeves had taken a bullet to the head, from his own wife’s hand. The woman who had gone to such elaborate lengths to protect her family, the political party to whom she owed her allegiance, and even the man who had betrayed her, had eliminated the cause of her woes.

Tom prised Sannie’s pistol from Greeves’s lifeless hand and stuffed it in the waistband of his shorts.

He sat on the grass, resting the AK on the edge of the verandah, and pointed towards the entrance to the lodge through which Janet had disappeared. He turned on the satellite phone and closed his eyes for a second, trying to visualise Sannie’s mobile phone number. He had called it enough times and he forced himself to remember the digits.

The phone started ringing.

‘Mom, your phone’s ringing!’ Christo called from the kitchen. Sannie had moved to the lounge room to try to hear what Wessels was saying to the departing policemen. She looked over at her son and saw that Christo had traced the ring tone to her sports bag, which she had dumped on the floor.

‘I’m coming.’

Christo hoisted the bag up onto a bar stool, behind the breakfast bar, and unzipped it. He was rummaging among her clothes. ‘Here, my boy. Let me find it.’

The front door of the house opened behind her and she heard Wessels’s footsteps on the polished concrete floor.

She found the phone just as it beeped, signalling she had a message.

‘Sannie?’ Wessels said.

She ignored him for the moment, as the voicemail service told her she had one message.

‘ Sannie, it’s Tom. Listen to me, this is very, very important. Wessels, your boss, is working with them… with the gang. You have to stay away from him. Take the kids somewhere safe and wait for me to get back from Malawi. I’m going to get on the first plane out of here and fly back, and…’

‘Sannie, I need to talk to you, in private,’ Wessels said from behind her.

She smelled him. The cheap aftershave she’d once been prepared to overlook. She let her free hand casually fall into the sports bag. Slowly, she sifted through the clothes.

‘Put the phone down, Sannie, this can’t wait.’

As she turned her head, lowering the phone, she saw him casually brush his jacket to one side. She saw how the weight of the spare magazine in his coat pocket aided the movement, how it started to swing open. She glimpsed the black metal of his pistol, and saw where his fingers were heading.

Sannie’s hand closed around the hilt of her dead husband’s diving knife. She drew back her other hand and threw her mobile phone at Henk’s head. It bounced off him, barely causing him to check his pace.

‘Run!’ she screamed at her kids as she pulled the knife from the bag. With her now free hand she ripped off the plastic sheath and discarded it. She lunged at Wessels and felt the blade’s movement slow as it ran along the side of his belly, under his open suit jacket. ‘Get out!’ she said to Christo again, who was transfixed.

Wessels grunted and looked down as the red smear stained his white business shirt. There was a rent in the fabric, but Sannie thought she had only cut him, not penetrated any vital organs. She snatched back her hand to stab again, but Wessels bellowed with rage and lashed out with the back of his hand, the blow catching Sannie across the side of the head. She staggered back against the breakfast bar, clutching for support with her free hand.

Christo grabbed Ilana by the forearm and ran out the back door of the house, from the kitchen. Sannie righted herself and lunged again at Wessels, her primal protective instincts seeking to keep herself between danger and her children.

‘Bitch,’ he hissed, this time drawing his pistol.

She threw herself on him as he paused to rack the weapon, grabbing the slide with his left hand and pulling it back to chamber a round. Sannie stabbed blindly and felt the knife sink into flesh. Wessels toppled backwards onto the floor.

Sannie pulled on the hilt to free the blade, but the pressure inside Wessels’ stomach was sucking at the steel, holding it in. She grunted with the effort, but Wessels recovered his wits. He was at least twenty kilograms heavier than she, and, even wounded, far stronger. He flung her off him with his free hand, and lashed out with his foot, kicking her in the ribs and sending her sliding another metre from him.

Wessels stood and grabbed the knife handle. He bellowed, a low, animalistic groan as he wrenched it free. A spurt of bright blood followed the terrible sucking noise and Wessels staggered, the colour draining from his face as he fought the pain. He dropped the knife, but raised his pistol at the same time. He fired once, the noise like a small explosion in the confines of the house.

Sannie’s first instinct was to run out the back, but she knew that would draw the killer after her, and he would have a clear shot at either her or her kids. Instead, she stood and ran towards him, weaving as he fired another erratic shot. She hit him hard in the chest with all her weight, and pushed him onto his back again. She clawed at his eyes and grabbed his pistol hand with one of hers, trying to wrest the gun from him.

Wessels wrenched his gun hand from her clutch, drew it back and with the butt of the weapon landed a vicious blow on Sannie’s temple. The force stunned her, and she slumped against him.

‘Now you fucking die,’ he said, wheezing with pain and the shortness of breath from her charge, which had winded him. He turned the gun so that the barrel was against her head.

‘Why, Henk…?’ Sannie blinked to try to focus on his face. ‘Why my children?’

‘Khan’s caretaker in the Timbavati called them, in Malawi, and told them Furey was on their tail. I tracked his border crossings through Interpol. It was only a matter of time before he found Greeves. Furey’s a nobody, but if he told you, and you got the authorities here involved, then it would have all gone to shit for them. They wanted me to buy your silence, but I told them you were too high-minded to take a bribe. I told them the only thing that would keep you quiet was your kids’ safety. Roberts told you not to tell me what he wanted you to do, Sannie, but you did. What kind of a fucking mother are you?’

She stared into his eyes. ‘I hope hell exists.’

Christo had run outside and led his screaming little sister to a backyard shed, where he had ordered her to wait. Hearing the gunshots inside, he knew his mother was in mortal danger. He thought of his father, and the terrible, terrible memories of the funeral. He had only been little then, but he hoped he would never again have to see someone laid out in a box and then buried in the ground. He ran down the side of the house, back to the front door. It was still open. He paused. In the distance he heard police sirens. Help was coming, but how long would it take for the police to arrive? He heard a crash inside, and the sound of something or someone falling over. His mom needed him.

He crept inside and saw the pair of them, Captain Wessels and his mother, lying on the floor. His mother’s boss had his gun at her head. Christo saw the bloodied knife on the floor, just behind them.

Christo hesitated. This couldn’t be right. Captain Wessels was a good man. He’d heard his mother say so. Then the captain said something bad — called his mother a bad name.