Allegiance (16 page)

‘How long do they keep the camera footage, any idea?’ Shabalala asked.

‘Nah, but there’s obviously a time limit, so I’m gonna do it now.’

Durant’s office phone rang and after listening for thirty seconds, he wrote a number on his desk pad and smiled. ‘That’s the warrant number for Nathi Khoza’s cellphone. We’ll go live tomorrow.’

‘It’s a beautiful place,’ Mariam said, admiring the rows and rows of baby toys, clothes and puzzles.

Amina pointed upstairs. ‘There’s more up there. The lady makes all this stuff herself. And there’s a place to drink tea upstairs.’

‘I’ve never been to a place like this before.’

Amina took Mariam’s arm. ‘I want you to choose some things for Siraj. Some clothes, some toys, anything you need.’

The younger woman smiled sadly. ‘I wish I could, but I can’t afford any of this stuff. It’s all lovely.’

‘No, Mariam, you choose, I’ll pay.’

‘No, I can’t accept anything more from you, Amina. You’ve already done so much.’

‘You’re my friend. I want to spoil you. Choose some clothes, come on, really, I mean it.’

‘You’re such a sweet person. I’m so bad and you treat me like a queen.’

‘Stop calling yourself bad. You’re not bad. You made a few mistakes, but you’re not bad. I think you’re a super person.’

Mariam shook her head. ‘There’re a lot of things I need to change and I will change them. I need to get out from under Arshad’s spell for a start.’ Mariam was shocked that she had opened up to Amina after only knowing her a few short weeks. She hadn’t even shared her personal issues with her sister, Yasmin. Perhaps it was because Yasmin suspected Arshad was bad for her and she didn’t want to admit she’d made a mistake. She trusted Amina. Her friend affirmed her and made her feel worthy.

‘You’re a strong woman, Mariam. Don’t let him push you around. Don’t ever let any man push you around. I learnt that lesson. Use whatever tools you have, and you have plenty. You’re sexy, beautiful, confident. Don’t ever think otherwise.’

‘Thanks. I need someone to tell me that.’ Mariam paused at a brightly coloured T-shirt. She needed some colour in her life.

‘Don’t be held back by your past.’ Amina put the shirt in her basket. ‘You can still have an amazing future. It’s a choice only you can make.’

The words were wise. Mariam knew Amina was sincere and caring. But Amina didn’t know the extent of the grip Arshad had over her. Perhaps if she did, she would understand why it was too late to go back on what she’d promised him.

Durant spent his lunchtime on the Internet, looking at pictures of New Zealand. Happy pictures of Paradise where everything seemed perfect. He thought of Alexis and her schooling and her friends and wondered how she would cope. His spirits lifted slightly when Shabalala came to his office with an envelope and a smile.

‘Our photos have arrived,’ Shabalala said in an upbeat voice. ‘I’ll let you open them.’

Durant slipped open the envelope with his car keys and tossed eleven photos onto his desk. He picked up one, studied it for a few moments and nodded to Shabalala. ‘It’s our guy all right.’ Durant pointed to a figure in the front passenger seat, an Indian man with a silver moustache and frameless round glasses. ‘He’s the guy who walked past me.’

‘You recognise him? You sure?’

‘It’s him, no question. I saw him up close and personal. Speed freak as well. The metro cops just don’t know where to send the traffic fines to. The guy’s using someone else’s plates.’

‘The cameras the metro guys use, what’s the resolution?’

‘No idea. Looks pretty clear to me.’

Shabalala frowned. ‘Do they use analogue or digital?’

‘Ced, what are you getting at?’

Shabalala pointed to the licence disc on the print. ‘I’m sure the technical guys can magnify this picture enough to read the
VIN
number on the disc. People who use false number plates usually don’t have false discs too.’

Durant nodded in agreement. ‘We’ve got nothing to lose. Some cars also have the
VIN
number just inside the windscreen on the dash. But it’ll take some technical wizardry magnifying that up.’

‘We’ve got better equipment than the metro police. I’m sure the technical guys can magnify it. Have you got the original pics in digital format?’

Durant nodded. ‘Want me to email it to them, give ’em a challenge?’

‘Let’s see them earn their salaries this month.’

The delay in communication between the two men speaking and the transfer of that data to a room-sized third-party server where it was digitally grabbed and stored was infinitesimal – measured in nanoseconds. But the conversation between Nathi and an unknown male only came to Durant’s computer as an audio file a few hours later, and he only opened the file the next day at 10:13.

Click. ‘Hello?’ It was Nathi.

‘Broer. That guy’s got a big parcel, about thirty units. He wants five kilograms. Straight swap.’

‘Five kilograms is a big load.’

‘But thirty units. We can resell them.’

Durant leaned forward towards his computer and clicked his mouse to rewind the conversation slightly.

‘Five kilograms is a big load.’

Durant picked up his phone and dialled Shabalala’s extension. Within seconds, Shabalala was there and they listened to the rest of the conversation together.

‘But thirty units. We can resell them.’

‘Is the guy a hundred per cent?’

‘Ja.’

‘What’s he want to use it for?’

‘We don’t ask that.’

‘Okay. When’s it gonna happen?’

‘Tomorrow at eleven.’

‘Where?’

‘We’ll do it at the dump.’

‘Okay, I’ll see you there.’

Durant stopped the conversation and looked at his watch.

‘Flip, it’s twenty past now. This meeting’s happening in a half an hour.’

‘You think the five kilograms is explosives?’

‘He’s an
ATM
bomber. What else can it be?’

‘Not drugs?’

‘I don’t know. But I think the thirty units they’re talking about are those weapons that were stolen.’

‘What makes you think that?’

‘Because we know about forty units were stolen from that truck. Sell thirty and keep ten. I’m guessing, but it’ll be nice if it is.’

Shabalala looked at the map on the wall. ‘What dump are they talking about?’

‘Dunno. Like a landfill site? What dump sites do you know? I’ve got the one on the Bluff, there’s one in Mount Edgecombe, one in Wyebank . . .’

‘Big one in Shongweni . . .’

Durant lifted his phone. ‘Too much to cover, we don’t even know if it’s in Durban.’

‘So what do we do now?’

Durant spoke into the receiver. ‘Mr Masondo, we need
SAPS
to help
US
with something.’

Raj Doorasamy ground the Hilux into reverse and cursed as the old pickup jumped out of gear. He had to back up the trailer to the edge of the landfill site and he couldn’t do that until the stubborn old donkey cooperated. He would have overhauled the clutch if the gardening service was doing better, but competition was tough these days and his prices were so competitive there was hardly any profit. The old Hilux would have to soldier on. Another bone-wrenching grind followed by a thud and a jerk and the vehicle lurched backwards. Doorasamy edged the trailer between a bottle-green Audi and a double cab. Strange, these two vehicles didn’t have trailers. Doorasamy saw a group of men standing about fifty metres away, talking. Three men. There was no one else around. All at once, he felt silly for choosing a spot to dump the garden refuse right between the two vehicles, but he wasn’t going to move it now. He may not get her into reverse again. The Hilux door creaked open and Doorasamy’s shoes sunk into the spongy gunge that characterised landfill-site earth. He smarted at the stench of the place and wiped a handkerchief across his forehead. It was hot and he wanted to finish this drop as quickly as he could. Then one day he could afford a double cab like this. What a lovely vehicle. This one had a tarpaulin pulled over the bin. He shrugged his shoulders and began untying the net which held the branches together in his trailer. He was momentarily distracted by the voices. The men seemed to be arguing. There was waving of hands. Two black men and what looked like an Indian. Perhaps he should go over and see if he could assist. No. Too dangerous. Let them sort it out. He had grandchildren. He could see another vehicle now, a white car. No number plates. Strange. The knots were giving him trouble. He pulled a pencil from his shirt pocket and tried to manoeuvre it into the knot to loosen it. The two black men were now walking towards the double cab and he felt his chest tighten slightly. These guys were well dressed; one was talking on his phone. Surely they weren’t going to hijack him? Hadn’t they seen him struggling with the Hilux’s gears? In the distance, the Indian man had walked back to his car. The black men were metres away now, but he couldn’t hear what they were saying. Doorasamy raised a hand and greeted them. ‘Sanibonani.’ He’d loosened the knot and the net was free. He wanted to get the load off and be on his way as quickly as possible. The one on the phone waved at him, but didn’t look at him. Doorasamy saw the white car speeding off and that was the last thing he ever saw. A millisecond later, the double cab disintegrated. The explosion lifted the chassis and spun it sideways, causing the burning hulk of metal to land upside down on Doorasamy’s Hilux. The old man need not worry about the grinding gearbox any more. His body was flung ten metres into the air and landed close to where the bodies of the two black men lay, among the smoking debris scattered around them.

Durant gunned the Land Rover’s engine and swung the big vehicle onto the Mariannhill toll road heading towards the Shongweni landfill site. He wasn’t sure why he’d chosen that one, but he had a good feeling about it. It was already 11:15 and too late, but no one had phoned him with the news he wanted – that they’d spotted Nathi Khoza. He hoped
SAPS
had managed to deploy to all the dumps quickly enough, but at the same time he knew that there were just too many of them and too little time. His phone beeped and it was Masondo. An explosion. In Pietermaritzburg.
SAPS
got there a minute after it happened to find three burning vehicles and at least three bodies. It was a disaster of epic proportions. They were too late.

Durant was back in the office thirty minutes later and an operational assistant, who had been tasked to quickly go through the latest calls on Nathi’s intercepted phone, handed him a file as he walked through the reception area. He started reading the written transcript before he got to his office. The expletives had been deleted by the transcriber as was common procedure, as it didn’t add any value to the information contained in the conversation.

11:12: Nathi Khoza to unknown male.

Khoza: Nathi here, where’s Bheki?

Unknown male: Why?

Khoza: (Deleted) We’ve got a problem here. We’ve given these (deleted) guys the (deleted) parcel, and they’ve brought the (deleted) hardware.’

Unknown voice in background: Sanibonani.

Khoza: It’s in the double cab. I don’t trust this guy. Foreigner.

They’re driving off. (Voices arguing in the background, unclear.)

Unknown male: What’s (deleted) happening there?

Khoza: Don’t like this (deleted) scene any more . . .

The transcriber wrote ‘call terminated suddenly’ and Durant realised that at that moment, Nathi Khoza himself was terminated by whoever had taken the commercial explosives and disappeared without a trace.

Masondo flipped a tablet into his mouth and downed a glass of water.

‘Vitamin C,’ he said, ‘1 000 mg a day.’

Shabalala shook his head. ‘Your body only absorbs forty per cent of those synthetic tablets,’ he said. ‘Rather have some cinnamon and raw chillies, it’ll do you more good.’

Masondo took a deep breath. ‘Shabalala, can anything pass into my body without your commenting on it? Anything?’

Shabalala shrugged. ‘Just trying to help, sir.’

‘You’re not. You’re just annoying. Now tell me what’s happening.’

There was a brief knock on the door and Durant entered.

Masondo lifted his eyes above his glasses as Durant slunk to the vacant chair next to Shabalala.

‘Sorry I’m late,’ he said sheepishly.

‘Thank you for finally joining us. You missed a fascinating lecture on the futility of drinking vitamin C tablets. Now tell me what went wrong.’

‘It was an exchange that went wrong,’ Durant said. ‘Nathi’s boys swapped some of their commercial explosives for guns.’

Shabalala shook his head. ‘No honour amongst thieves. Whoever bought the explosives decided he didn’t want to do business with Nathi again.’

‘What’s Nathi’s sister telling your agent?’ Masondo asked. ‘Or hasn’t she heard yet?’

‘Splinters hasn’t called yet. He will when he has that information.’

‘My contact at
SAPS
tells me it was Powergel,’ Masondo said. ‘Commercial explosives. It doesn’t take a lot to cause that amount of damage.’

‘It was a big bang,’ Durant said.

‘Well, the shock waves travelled all the way to Pretoria because I got calls from some heavyweights up there wanting to know what happened.’

‘Weapons were apparently found in the debris, same as the type from the stolen consignment. At least some of that’s off the street now. Maybe console the big chiefs with that thought.’

Masondo leaned forward intently. ‘So who blew them up?’

‘We have no idea. The transcription says Nathi mentioned a foreigner.’

‘This is bad,’ Masondo suggested.

‘We’re putting the cellphone data onto Analysts’ Notebook to see if we can find a link to the contact,’ Shabalala said. ‘We haven’t had the intercept long and this thing might have been set up some time ago. Also these guys probably used once-off
SIM
cards to do the deal. They’re professionals.’

‘Stay on it, Cedric,’ Masondo said. ‘I don’t like what’s happening here. Somebody’s making a fool of us. They’re plotting right under our noses and we haven’t got a clue who they are. We’re under pressure here, Cedric, right from the top, we need to make progress.’