Deon Meyer - Dead at Daybreak

“Bester Brits got his voice back. ‘What are you doing, what are you doing?’ he asked Speckle when he climbed out of the Dak, and Speckle thrust his Star pistol into his face and said, ‘Where are we?’ Brits shook like a leaf and tried to bat the gun away and Speckle hit him with the butt and he fell and Speckle held him down with his foot and asked again where we were. I think Bester knew he was going to die there – he had seen it in Speckle. ‘Botswana,’ he said. Speckle removed his foot and Bester tried to get up, got to his knees, and then Speckle asked, ‘Where in Botswana?’

“ ‘North, just west of Chobe.’ And then Speckle thrust the barrel into his mouth and he fired and turned round and asked me, ‘Porra, are you with me?’

“What could I say, Jesus, what could I say…”

“Gently does it, Mr…Miller.”

“I’ll see where the coffee is.”

“Please let me finish.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I must.”

“Very well.”

“What could I say? There are only two choices: you die quickly or you die slowly, and I wasn’t prepared to die quickly. I wake up next to my wife and then I’m there again and I have to choose again, and every time I choose to die there, but that night, that morning, I chose the other way. I said, ‘I’m with you, Speckle,’ and then he asked Rupert and Rupert’s mouth contorted and he looked at Brits and he looked at Speckle and he said, ‘I’m with you, Speckle’ and Gerry de Beer started crying like a child and Red Verster was the only man that night – he jerked up his R1 and then Bushy shot him and Speckle fired as well, shot Gerry and Red and Clinton Manley and Koos van Rensburg, shot them like dogs. And then it was quiet and I saw Rupert de Jager’s body jolting with shock, and Speckle said, ‘I know how you feel, Rupert, but I’m not throwing away my entire fucking life for an accident that was no one’s fault in a war where it’s kaffir against kaffir in a country that feels fuck-all for me. Not me. If you want to cry, you can cry, but I want to know if you’re still with me.’

“He shook his head. ‘I’m with you, Speckle.’

“And then he made us carry the dollars and diamonds back to the Landy and we drove away. We left them just like that and drove away, just as it had begun to get light in the east.”

Q: How did you get back into the republic?

A: We exchanged the Landy and a bag of diamonds with LPs for a ten-ton truck and civvy clothing and we drove during the night on back roads, Speckle making all the decisions, with that load of money and stones, for two weeks, buying petrol and food in small villages that didn’t even appear on a map. We crossed the border somewhere north of Ellisras, simply flattening the fence, and drove to Johannesburg. Speckle said we would share everything there.

Q: Did you?

A: Yes.

Q: How much?

A: Each got about twenty million dollars and a few bags of diamonds.

Q: Twenty million.

A: Just about.

Q: Jesus.

Q: And then?

A: We talked. Talked a lot. About how we could change the dollars and the diamonds into rand. No one knew. Speckle went to Hillbrow, a few days after another guy and him got some of the dollars changed, and then he said we must decide. He and Bushy were going to stay together; what about us? I wanted to go to Durban, I just wanted to get away. Rupert said he was going to the Cape. Speckle rented a box number in Hillbrow and said he had paid the rental for a year, here’s the address, we must stay in contact. I bought a car, loaded my dollars and my diamonds into it, and went to Durban. The diamonds were the easiest, even if I was stupid to start with. But you learn. There was a guy at a pawnshop I showed one to after I’d hung around there a few times, and he said he’d take everything I could get. I was careful. I was scared, but after the first deal nothing happened. And the money was good. I rented a flat, met someone in a nightclub. Said I was on holiday…

Q: Did you see Venter and the others again?

A: Once a year I wrote to the address and gave my own box number in Durban, and then Speckle wrote after months and said we must have a reunion, and I flew to Johannesburg. He and Bushy both had new IDs; Rupert and I had nothing. He gave us names and telephone numbers, said he’d buy the dollars from us at thirty cents per dollar. I said I’d bring mine; Rupert said he’d think about it. Then we parted company.

I brought some of the money and got my rand and went back, and the following year we were together again, Speckle bragging about his new business. He and Bushy were hanging around mercenaries but they weren’t organized and he wanted to start an agency to sell their services and he had just the name for it.

Q: Orion?

A: Orion Solutions. He thought it was very funny.

Q: And then?

A: After the third year I didn’t go back. I found a new name on the black market. I became bad. Too much money. Too much liquor. Pot. Cars, women. And seventeen dead bodies in my head. Until I woke up one morning and pissed blood and knew I didn’t want to live like that. I couldn’t change anything that had happened, but I didn’t want to go on living like that. So I packed my stuff and sold the flat and drove to Pretoria and looked for work. I started working for Iscor, in the stores. Became foreman. And then I met Elaine.

Q: Your wife.

A: Yes.

Q: You saw Venter or Schlebusch last year, you said?

A: Yes.

Q: Where?

A: At my home.

Q: How did they find you?

A: Speckle said it was his business to know where we were. He said he didn’t gamble with his future.

Q: What did he want?

A: Money. He was big, all those muscles. He said he’d done bodybuilding, said it was the only way to ensure respect without shooting people.

Q: His money was finished?

A: He said the world had changed. No one wanted to make war anymore. No one had money for war any longer. He said they had lost everything. And Rupert and I were cozy – that was his word, “cozy” – we had women, we had children, the time had come to share again, we only had one another.

Q: Did you give him money?

A: I had buried the dollars I still had in 1985, on a smallholding I’d bought for the children to keep their horses.

Q: Did your wife never ask where the money came from?

A: I told her I’d inherited.

Q: And you fetched the money?

A: It had rotted. Speckle was furious; he said I should’ve buried it in plastic bags. I thought he was going to shoot me. Then he told me to draw money. I told him that it was invested, that there was only a hundred thousand in cash, and he told me to draw it.

Q: Did you?

A: Yes.

Q: And then they left?

A: Yes. With a final threat. I knew I’d see them again. But then I saw Rupert’s photo in the newspaper and then I knew.

Q: And then you came to the Cape?

A: What else could I do? The thing just wouldn’t go away. But I knew that. From the time beside the plane, I knew. This thing would never go away.

∨ Dead at Daybreak ∧

59

Hope Beneke came in the evening. “He must rest,” the nurse said protectively.

“She’s been waiting for a week,” his mother said.

“She’s the last one today.”

“I promise.”

As if he had no say in the matter.

They both went out and then she came in. “Van Heerden,” she said, her gaze taking in the drip, the now-dormant monitors, the bandages, and the deep, dark circles round his eyes as a worried frown clouded her face.

He looked at her and something registered: a glimpse, a shadow. Something had changed there, in the way she held her shoulders, the way she carried her head and her neck, in the fine adjustments of facial nerves and eyes. A certain acceptance.