Деон Мейер - Cobra

31

Zola Nyathi, the inscrutable, stood there, his intense gaze fixed on the fat captain. For perhaps the first time Griessel saw emotion on the colonel’s face, rage that was gradually replaced with something else. Regret? Shame?

The Giraffe suddenly turned his back on them and raised his eyes to the stretch of Market Street that was visible between the rear wall and the vehicle entrance. He clasped his hands strangely in front of his chest, almost as if in prayer.

Silence, just far off the sound of traffic on Voortrekker Road, and an ambulance siren on the way to Tygerberg Hospital. Seconds passed while Nyathi stood stock still.

He turned back to them. ‘What do you think,Vaughn?’

‘I never thought I’d say this, Colonel, but I’m with Mbali.’

Griessel thought he actually had no right to ally himself politically with his colleagues. He had been a law enforcer under the former regime, and he couldn’t pretend he’d been something he wasn’t. But Nyathi did not spare him, he looked him in the eyes and asked, ‘And you, Benny?’

‘Sir, I don’t think we have a choice. There is a young woman in Stellenbosch who might be in real danger, and we are the only ones who know . . .’

‘What young woman?’

Griessel told him.

‘Jesus,’ said Nyathi. Another first, as far as Griessel could remember.

The colonel raised his hands in frustration, and dropped them again. He looked at the three of them, then in the general direction of the entrance to the building. ‘Oh, what a tangled web we weave . . .’

‘Amen,’ said Mbali.

‘And have you thought how you would approach this?’ Nyathi asked Griessel.

He hadn’t.

‘Sir,I . . .’ His thoughts raced as he spoke.‘I want Mbali and Vaughn on the team, sir.’ Then his discomfort and suspicions found words and he said, ‘And Bones. Because we need to try and find out why State Security wants control. It’s about Adair, that’s what this case is really about, and Bones is the only one . . . Just the four of us. We’ll report to you. Here, where no one can listen. But we need to get to Stellenbosch fast, and we need to get clean cellphones.’

‘I can get the cellphones,’ said Cupido.

‘Where from?’

‘You don’t want to know, sir.’

Nyathi was quiet. He shook his head as if he was about to do something crazy, like jump off a cliff. Then the expressionless mask was back, control restored. ‘This is not just about losing our jobs. If they find out, they will prosecute us. Aggressively. At worst, they’ll send us to prison. Or permanently ostracise us, at best. We will never work for the government again. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I have children. So do you, Benny.’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I’m going to try and keep the brigadier out of this. For as long as I can. I don’t want to destroy his career as well. So you’d better get it right. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Switch off your phones. Check your cars for tracking devices. Get moving.’

Griessel told Cupido to go and buy the five cellphones, and bring one each for Nyathi, Bones and Mbali. ‘I’m going to drive to Stellenbosch so long, meet me at the girl’s flat. Vaughn, we don’t know if they’re following us. Just keep an eye on your rear-view mirror . . .’

‘Vigilant, pappie, that’s my second name.’

He asked Mbali to bring Bones to the underground car park and brief him fully. ‘You have to tell him everything, and you’ll have to give him a choice. He has a family too. Bones said he’d do more digging on Adair. Ask him if he’s found anything, and let me know on the new number. And I want you and Bones to start calling every hotel and guesthouse in the city. Use your land lines in the meantime. It’s a risk, but I’m sure they’ll be monitoring our cellphones, and there are simply too many Telkom lines going out.’ He hoped he was correct. ‘Check at the hotels if a Lillian Alvarez has booked in. She must be staying somewhere. Start with the City Lodges, that kind of place – she’s a student, she won’t be staying at the Cape Grace . . .’ He saw the misgiving on Mbali’s face, and then: ‘I know it’s a needle in a haystack, but if we find her it could help a lot. Our biggest problem is that we don’t know who we are chasing.’

‘OK,’ she said solemnly before she began to walk away.

‘Mbali,’ Griessel called after her.

She turned around.

‘Thank you for not saying anything. About the video. I know it must have been difficult.’

‘No, Benny. My father said he had to lie many times, under apartheid. He believed, most of the time, that the truth will set you free. But under certain circumstances, a lie can do the same thing. I often pray for the wisdom to know what circumstances those are.’

‘You’ve always been a wise woman.’

‘I know,’ she said in all seriousness.

He lay under his Hawks’ vehicle, the BMW 1 Series. He was looking for tracking devices. His cellphone rang and he nearly bumped his head on the undercarriage. He should have switched the damned thing off. Griessel wriggled out from under the car. On the screen he read UNKNOWN .

He had a suspicion who it might be.

‘Griessel,’ he said, as he straightened up.

‘There are bugging devices in Musad Manie and in Werner du Preez’s offices,’ said the woman’s voice. Joni Mitchell.

Colonel Werner du Preez was group head of the Hawks’ CATS unit, an abbreviation for Crimes Against the State. It made sense that the SSA would monitor him too, but Griessel was infuriated. Why was she still bothering him? She was part of the organisation that had taken over the case now.

‘And you people are listening to our cellphones,’ he said angrily.

‘We are?’ she asked, as if it were a light-hearted game.

‘You work for the SSA,’ he said.

‘Interesting conclusion. How did you arrive at it?’ Still playful and teasing.

‘My phone is bugged by the SSA, but you phone me on it. That means you know when it’s safe to call.’

‘I did hear that you’re not stupid.’

‘What do you want?’ He saw no point in this conversation, and time was short.

‘Information. I gave you something, now I want something in return. That was the agreement.’

‘And now we’re off the case. Your information is no use to me.’

‘I had hoped you wouldn’t be so easily discouraged . . .’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Exactly what I said. I hoped you would go on with the investigation discreetly.’

It made no sense. ‘Why would you . . . ?’ He’d had it with these games. ‘I can’t talk now, I’ve got work to do.’ He got into the BMW.

‘What work?’

He switched on the engine. ‘I have other cases too. Goodbye.’

He rang off. And he drove.

His cellphone rang again immediately.

UNKNOWN .

She had warned him, at the Waterfront, that the SSA were on their way. And now: I hoped you would go on with the investigation discreetly.

He stopped at the exit to Market Street, and answered.

‘Please,’ she said seriously, ‘we must help each other.’

‘What for?’

‘I know you found something at the Waterfront. On the video you deleted. I know all three of you turned your cellphones off after that, and you went somewhere where you were busy for more than forty minutes. I think it also had something to do with the investigation. Something tells me that you don’t so easily drop a matter just because another state department wants to take over.’

‘I really have nothing more to say to you.’

‘You don’t have to say anything to me. Just don’t drop the investigation.’ For the first time she sounded desperate.