Деон Мейер - Cobra

‘This is my business card. Take it.’

Tyrone took it.

‘I’m getting off in Bellville just now. You are going to stay on the train. You are going to go all the way to Stellenbosch. Go and stay in your sister’s flat, until you get your own place. Don’t go back to that room in Schotsche Kloof. There’s still people who might try to find you, for a week or two. So, lie low. If you have any trouble, call me. If you want to make absolutely sure the whole thing is over, call me.’

Tyrone nodded, dumbfounded.

‘But no more pickpocketing. I am going to check the system. If you ever get arrested, if I see you on a CCTV camera, if you jaywalk, my bru , then I will come and bliksem you, and I will put you away, versta’ jy ?’

Tyrone nodded again.

‘Make a life,Tyrone. Few people get the chance.’

‘I will.’

Cupido put out a hand and squeezed Tyrone’s shoulder. ‘You’re a brave ou . Very brave. Your sister is lucky to have you.’

And then the motherfucker stood up, smiled at him, and walked to the door of the railway carriage.

The train slowed. It stopped at Bellville. Tyrone watched Cupido walk away in his long swanky coat. The dude didn’t look back, just stepped out when the doors opened. He followed Batman with his eyes, he watched the cocky walk, until he disappeared completely from view.

Tyrone sat there, staring, until the doors closed again, and the train left the station.

Then he shuddered, and began to cry.

He cried all the way to Muldersvlei, his tall, skinny, sore, tired body shaking uncontrollably.

60

They were questioning Joaquim Curado in a small office of the DPCI building in Bellville, away from the suspicious eyes of Criminal Intelligence, when Benny Griessel walked in.

There was blood on Griessel’s jacket. His hair was even more dishevelled than usual, he was harried and stressed, but his eyes burned clear and full of fire.

‘He won’t say a word.’ Cupido pointed at Curado, who sat like a sphinx at the table, still handcuffed.

‘He doesn’t have to talk,’ said Griessel, ‘but tell me first, who is with Nadia?’

‘I’ve convinced the Bellville SC to send eight more people. They have every entrance covered,’ said Zola Nyathi.

‘OK. Thank you, sir.’

‘How come he doesn’t have to talk?’ asked Cupido.

‘Dave Fiedler has tracked the Cobra phone,’ said Griessel. ‘We have four other phone numbers. Two are registered with Orange France, and Dave can’t do anything with them. The other two are Cell C, they must have bought them here. Dave has been plotting their location over the last twenty-four hours. I think David Adair is on a farm by the name of Hercules Pillar, near the R304.’

Griessel was watching Joaquim Curado closely. When he said the words ‘Hercules Pillar’, there was an infinitesimal movement of his head and eyes, and he knew that he was right.

‘Dave said the place is advertised on the Internet: Rent a farmhouse, privacy and solitude, just twenty minutes from Cape Town. Here is the Internet address . . .’

They walked to Cupido’s office, where they could look up the Hercules Pillar website.

‘It’s perfect,’ said Mbali, because the old farmhouse, beautifully renovated and whitewashed, was situated on a hill. You would be able to see any intruders coming a kilometre away.

‘We’ll have to go in with speed and superior firepower,’ said Nyathi. ‘That is the only option.’

There were eight of them: Griessel and Cupido, Nyathi and Mbali, Radebe and Vusi Ndabeni, Frankie Fillander and Mooiwillem Liebenberg. Quietly, in pairs, each collected an assault rifle in the Hawks’ weapon safe, then crept though the corridors to the car park.

They drove off in four cars.

On the N1, in the leading car, the Giraffe asked Mbali, ‘What happened to the memory card?’

She tapped a chubby hand on her big black handbag.

‘What are you going to do with it?’

She looked out of the window. She said, ‘I’ll keep it as a safeguard.’

‘Against what?’

‘Against people who want to harm our democracy, and the spirit of my father’s struggle.’

Nyathi just nodded. He couldn’t think of a better guardian for it.

In their car, second in the convoy, Griessel asked, ‘What happened to Tyrone?’

‘Canny coloured daai . He gave me the slip,’ said Cupido.

‘Yes,’ said Griessel. ‘We old dogs don’t have the speed to keep up any more.’

Cupido’s laugh was a little forced.

And Benny realised what must have really happened.

Their plan was simply to race up to the farmhouse on the hill: there was nowhere to hide, no room for surprise.

They would drive up to the farmhouse, park the four vehicles around it. Then they would give the Cobras a chance to come out before they stormed the house and began shooting.

The plan worked, up to a point.

When all the cars had come to a halt, when they had jumped out and found shelter, assault rifles cocked and aimed at the windows and doors behind the wide veranda of the big house, there was only silence. Just the cooing of a few doves, and a cow mooing somewhere.

Nyathi called out over the megaphone, ‘You are surrounded. Please put down your weapons, and come out with your hands on your heads.’

They waited, the adrenaline pumping, fingers on triggers, heads shielded behind the safety of the vehicles’ metal bodies.

No reaction. Only the afternoon hush, and the shadow of a fat white cloud that came and went.

Griessel looked at the bare ground outside the front door. There were the tracks of other vehicle tyres in the mud of last night’s rain. The Cobras had parked in front of the door, with at least two vehicles. Maybe three.

Nyathi repeated the message, even louder.

Nothing happened.

‘Sir, let me run to the door,’ Cupido said.

‘Wait,’ said Nyathi.

They waited. The minutes crept by.

‘OK, let’s cover Vaughn,’ said Nyathi. ‘Wait for my signal.’

They stood up, lifted the barrels of the rifles over the roofs and bonnets of the cars, pointed them at the door and windows, where there was still no sign of life.

‘Go!’ yelled Nyathi.

Cupido, in his long, elegant coat, ran across the open yard to the front door, slightly crouched, as if that would somehow help. The automatic rifle in his hand made him look like a character from a 1930’s film.

Only his footsteps were audible on the saturated ground.

He was safely at the door.

Silence.

‘I hear something,’ said Cupido. He knelt down in front of the door.

They waited, dead quiet.

‘Yes, there’s somebody in there.’

He shifted closer to the door.

‘Someone is shouting for help,’ he said. ‘I think we should go in.’

They found David Patrick Adair in the master bedroom of the house. He was stretched out and tied to the bed, with cable ties and rope. He was unshaven, dirty, and smelly, but unharmed. His first words when Cupido walked in were, ‘Are you the cavalry, or a different kind of trouble?’

‘We are the Hawks,’ said Cupido.

‘I’m not sure that answers my question . . .’

Shouts from the other team members, as they declared the house safe, room by room.

‘We are the South African Police Service,’ said Cupido.

Nyathi and Mbali walked in, then Griessel and Fillander.

‘And what a splendid representation of the Rainbow Nation you are,’ said Adair, his nonchalant tone trying unsuccessfully to disguise his immense relief. ‘You wouldn’t happen to know if my student, the lovely Lillian Alvarez, is safe, would you?’

Adair politely requested a chance to shower. ‘And, please God, let me brush my teeth.’