Деон Мейер - Cobra

To his annoyance, Bobby now gave a thumbs-up, acknowledging the signal.

Tyrone nodded vehemently.

Bobby turned away.

The bum had remembered.

Maybe this would work after all.

Hoodie and Nadia had crossed the road. He steered her past the steel railing, to right under the Shoprite sign.

‘OK. Stop, I can see you clearly. Did you bring a laptop?’

‘Yes.’

‘Where is it?’

‘On my back.’

For a moment they were out of sight again, behind a knot of people. When there was a gap again, he saw Hoodie had turned sideways. He could see the rucksack now.

Tyrone breathed deeply. Everything depended on the next few minutes. ‘Now listen very carefully. You know there is a ZIP file on the memory card? Fifty-six gigabytes in size.’

‘Yes.’

‘And you know that the ZIP file has a password?’

‘Yes.’

‘OK. I had the ZIP file encrypted again. With a new password. Do you understand that?’

‘ Va te faire foutre, connard !’

‘Excuse me?’

‘You are playing games, connard . I will shoot your sister. I have a gun, right here.’

‘I know you have a gun. I’m telling you, if you don’t follow my instructions, you will never get the password. If you hurt Nadia, if you don’t do what I say, I will not give you the password.’ Tyrone shot a lightning prayer heavenwards that he would get the words right that PC Carolus had so patiently taught him. ‘The encryption is AES 128 bit. It will take you thousands of years to decrypt it without the password. Do you understand?’

There was tangible fury in the silence, before Hoodie answered, ‘Yes.’

‘Right. You must also know I haven’t written the password down. It is in my head. So if you kill me, you won’t have the password.’

Hoodie did not reply.

‘The password is sixteen letters. Remember that. First, I will give you the disk. Then you can test it on your laptop. OK?’

‘Yes.’

‘When you see that the file is there, we will start to open it with the decryption key. But then you have to tell Nadia to start walking, slowly, straight ahead, and around the corner, past the hairdresser. As long as she walks, I will give you a letter of the key. Do you understand?’

‘Yes.’ Impatient now.

‘Now, I want you to look up the passage, between the shops. Straight ahead,’ said Tyrone.

Hoodie stood still, his features shadowed by the hood, but he was facing in the right direction.

‘Do you see the shop with the big green sign that says Hello Mobile?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you see the guy with the blue jacket standing next to the door?’

‘Yes.’

‘He has the card, and he will give it to you when you reach him. If you hurt him, I will not give you the password.’

‘OK,’ said Hoodie.

‘Walk towards the guy now. Slowly.’

36

Griessel gazed out at the Stellenbosch mountains, the student beside him momentarily forgotten.

At La Petite Margaux he had had a vague suspicion that it could have been more than one assailant, but the cobra on the bullet casings had muddled his thinking. The same engraving, the same shooter. That was the logical assumption, though instinct had argued against it. He had made the same mistake as Interpol. And their report had reinforced his error.

He should have known. Two highly trained bodyguards, a reasonably good security system, the abduction of a man who did not want to be caught at all costs – naturally there would have been more than one operator. Now it made absolute sense.

Cobra was not one killer for hire. It was a group.

That explained superintendent Marie-Caroline Aubert’s speculation over the different pistols used. And that there were hits that did not carry the Cobra trademark.

It changed a whole lot of things.

Also the fact that a single operator would always be harder to catch. But three men working together, who had to stay together, travel together, move around together, were perhaps slightly more obvious.

Griessel looked back at Nadia Kleinbooi’s door, saw the student waiting there eagerly. He would have to temper that enthusiasm.

‘Johan, I want you to understand one thing very clearly,’ he said strictly. ‘You can’t repeat anything of my conversation with the brigadier. It’s very sensitive information. If it leaks out, I’ll have to arrest you for obstructing the law.’

‘Never, Captain.’ But Griessel could see his disappointment.

He took his wallet out of his jacket pocket and took out a twenty-rand note.

‘We need to make one more call,’ said Griessel, and held out the money.

‘That’s OK, Captain, keep it,’ said the student.

‘You’re going to hear more things that you would love to tell your friends, but if I hear you’ve repeated a single word, I will lock you up. You stay off Twitter, and off Facebook and What’s Up . . .’

‘WhatsApp.’

‘That’s right. Understand me?’

‘Yes, Captain.’ Solemnly.

‘Thank you.’ Griessel looked at the phone in his hand. It was a BlackBerry Z10. The screen had locked.

‘Can you show me how to phone from this thing?’

The student tapped in his code, brought up the dialling panel and passed it to Griessel. He phoned the DPCI’s land-line number, and asked to speak to Mbali Kaleni.

The first thing she said was: ‘Benny, Ulinda Radebe called from O. R. Tambo. He thinks he has identified the Cobra.’

Tyrone watched Hoodie and Nadia slowly climb the steps under the

Shoprite banner and walk towards Bobby.

Don’t look at me, Bobby – whatever you do, don’t look at me.

Bobby stood still. He looked worried. He looked around, but he didn’t look at Tyrone.

‘When the guy has given you the card, tell him he can go.’

Hoodie did not answer.

Nadia still looked as though she was in a daze. She kept looking down, as if she didn’t know what was going on.

Had they drugged her?

Four metres from Bobby. Three. Two.

Bobby noticed them.

Don’t look at me, Bobby. Please.

Hoodie and Nadia reached Bobby.

‘You have the card?’Tyrone heard Hoodie say.

A fat couple obscured his view for a second. When he could see again, Bobby was taking his hand out of his pocket. Too far away to see if the memory card was in it, but Hoodie put out his hand, it looked as if he took something.

‘You can go,’Tyrone heard Hoodie say.

Bobby’s head turned in Tyrone’s direction.

Don’t look at me, you idiot.

But Bobby looked at Tyrone, as if he wanted to know if he had earned his money, if he could really go now.

Tyrone ducked behind the corner of the shop. He didn’t know if Hoodie had seen him. He counted one, two, three, four, five. He peered around the corner of the shop. He saw Bobby was walking away towards Kruskal. He would be heading for Hassan Ikar, the Somalian, for his pay. That’s for sure.

Well done, whitey, even though you did look when you shouldn’t have.

‘Your sister not here yet?’ The voice took Tyrone by surprise, because all his attention was on Hoodie.

It was the security man with the red beret. He came and stood right in front of him, too close, no respect for personal space, this guy, so that he couldn’t see Nadia.

Tyrone shook his head. He couldn’t talk now, it would confuse Hoodie, it would make him look around. And identify Tyrone, if he hadn’t already.

‘I can’t let you stand here for so long,’ said Red Beret. ‘You must go wait on the platform.’

Probably a complaint from a shop owner: What’s that guy doing there so long?

Tyrone nodded. Go away, please, he thought.

Red Beret stared at Tyrone in disapproval.

‘OK,’ said Tyrone. He covered the phone as much as he could. ‘Just a few more minutes, please. She says she’s almost here,’ and he pointed at the phone.