Thirteen Hours (38 page)

'Bitch!' the black man yelled and hit her with his
fist. The blow landed above her eye and a cascade of light exploded in her
head. She fell to the right, onto the grass, hearing their shouts. She
struggled to get up, but they were on her, one, two, three of them, more.
Another fist slammed into her face, arms pinned her down. She heard their
short, brute grunts, saw an arm lifted high, something chunky and metallic
swinging at her face, and then the darkness.

Griessel raced. He had taken the blue revolving light
out of the boot and plugged it into the cigarette lighter. It was propped on
the dashboard, but the fucking thing wouldn't work. So he just drove with the
Opel's hazard lights flashing, but that didn't help much. He pressed long and
hard on the hooter, saying to Vusi: 'I should have taken a car with a fucking
siren.' They sped up Long Street through one red traffic light after another.
Every time he had to slow down, stick his arm out of the window and wave
frantically at the crossing traffic. Vusi did the same from his window.

'At least she should be safe,' said Vusi warily, ever
the bloody diplomat. Griessel knew that what he really meant was: 'We needn't
drive so madly - she said she was with a good man.'

'She should be,' Griessel said and waved wildly,
hooting continuously, 'but I can't afford a fuck-up.' He put his foot down, and
the Opel's tyres squealed.

Mbali Kaleni was driving serenely down Annandale in
dense traffic near the turn into Upper Orange. She put on her indicator light
to change lanes, waiting patiently, but no one would give her a gap. She shook
her head, Cape Town drivers; in Durban this sort of thing would never happen.
Eventually the stream in the right- hand lane thinned and she swung over,
keeping the indicator on.

The traffic lights were red.

It looked like a hornet's nest, Fransman Dekker
thought, the crowd abuzz, with microphones poised to sting you.

He stood on the stairs, and shouted loudly:
'Attention, everyone.'

They swarmed on him, there must have been twenty
people, all talking, the stingers aimed at him in desperate hands. He could
only hear snatches of the questions '... Ivan Nell shot him?''... the Geysers
praying for?''... tried to murder Alexa Barnard?' 'Is Josh Geyser under
arrest?''... Xandra dead?'

He held up his right hand, palm forward, dropped his
head to avoid eye contact and just stood there. He knew they would quieten down
eventually.

Kaleni saw them.

She spotted the panel van in front of the house,
thinking at first it was those clowns from Forensics. She couldn't stand them,
and wondered irritably what they were still doing here.

There was movement on the other side, the Belmont
Avenue side, as she approached.

People were carrying something.

What was going on?

Closer still she saw there were four men in a hurry,
each holding onto a piece of something. They moved crab-like along the
pavement, but the picket fence hid their burden. She saw they were heading for
the panel van parked in Upper Orange. Strange.

They were carrying a person, she saw as they came
around the corner and out from behind the obscuring fence. She kept her eyes on
them: it was the girl, lifeless, they were gripping her arms and legs. Mbali
accelerated and her hand reached for her hip, pressed the leather loop off her
service pistol, swung across the road and aimed for the front of the panel van.
She was going too fast and could not stop in time, braked hard. In front of her
one man jumped out of the van from the driver's side, holding a pistol fitted
with a silencer. The small tyres of the Corsa squealed, the car skidded
sideways, on a collision course for the kerb. She wrestled with the steering
wheel and came to a standstill just a metre from the Peugeot, at right angles
to it. Instinctively, she noted the registration number, CA 4 ...

She saw a pistol aimed at her, the windscreen starred
and the bullet slammed against metal behind her. She wanted to dive down, but
the safety belt held her.

'ujesu
,' she said quietly and reached a hand to unclip it.

He shot her. She felt the dreadful blow to her body,
but the safety belt was loose, she flattened herself, right hand reaching for
her pistol. She lifted it and fired off three blind shots through the
windscreen. The pain was an earthquake that rippled through her, slowly,
unstoppable. She checked the wound. A hole below her left breast, blood
trickling into a pool on the upholstery. Pity, she always kept the car
spotless. She fired off more shots and sat up quickly. The pain ripped through
her torso. Quickly she scanned for him through the windscreen. He wasn't there.
Movement, here he was, just beside the door, pistol in both hands, long deadly
silencer aimed at her eye. She saw a kind of African necklace around his neck,
the beads spelling out a word. She jerked back her head, swung her pistol
around in the certain knowledge of death. Fleeting sadness, so short, this
life, as she saw his trigger finger tighten with purpose.

Griessel blasted a path through the traffic with his
hooter and turned from Annandale into Upper Orange. A man in a fucking yellow Humvee
gave him the finger, two cars had to brake sharply as he raced over the
crossing. Vusi clutched the handle above the door, speechless.

Benny sped, on, accelerating out of the corner. They
were nearly there. A madman in a big silver panel van came racing downhill in
the middle of the road. Benny hooted again and swerved out of the way. He
caught a glimpse of the driver's face, a young asshole with a fierce
expression, then he looked up at the street ahead, which was suddenly empty. He
changed down a gear, flattened the accelerator, engine protesting, another gear
change, charged up the hill. This was his territory, his flat was only one
block away in fucking Vriende Street; stupid bloody name, he still thought so.
De Waal Park to the right, then Vusi said, 'It's just up there,' and they
crested the rise. They both saw the Corsa at the same time, and neither spoke,
because from the angle it had stopped, something was not right.

The single cab bakkie drove right in front of him,
reversing out of a driveway from the left side of the street. Griessel slammed
on the brakes and the Opel nose-dived, rubber screeched and smoked, and he
skidded until the left wheels struck the kerb. 'Fuck,' he said smelling the
burning rubber, jerked the Opel back, just missing the Toyota's front fender.
He saw the man behind the wheel's big, wild, shocked eyes. Griessel looked at
the Corsa, was the window smashed? He swung across the road and stopped behind
the small white car, leapt out and heard the Toyota racing away towards the
city. He glanced quickly after it, fucking asshole. He noted the street number
on the wooden gate. Number 6. Bullet casing, he smelled cordite. Trouble here,
bullet holes in the windscreen and the driver's window and there was someone
behind the wheel, fuck, fuck.

'It's Mbali,' Vusi shouted as he pulled open the other
door.

Griessel saw her head on her chest, blood on the
headrest. He pulled open the door. '
Jissis
,' Griessel said, trying to feel her neck for a pulse.
His fingers slipped in the blood. He saw the wound below her ear, bits of jaw,
white chips and a pulsing vein pumping out thick red fluid.

'Get the ambulance! She's alive!' He shouted louder
than he meant to, his heart racing. He gently pulled her by the shoulder, until
he had her turned over with her back to him, then he put his hands under her
arms and felt more blood lower down. Carefully he pulled her out of the car and
laid her on the pavement. Vusi came running around the car with his cell phone
in his hand.

Two wounds, but the one in the side of her head was
bleeding the most. He got up quickly and felt for his handkerchief, found it,
bent beside Mbali Kaleni and pressed the hanky against the hole. He heard Vusi
talking urgently over the phone. He swapped the hand holding the handkerchief
and got hold of his phone, hearing a car skid around the corner in Belmont at
great speed, he couldn't turn in time, just saw the tail, something. He looked
at Kaleni, she wasn't going to make it, the ambulance would take too long.

'Help me,' he said to Vusi, 'I'm taking her myself.'

Vusi knelt beside him and said calmly, 'Benny they're
on their way.'

'Jissis
, Vusi, are you sure?' as he searched his phone for
the Caledon Square number.

'They know it's a policewoman. They're coming.'

Griessel pressed the hanky harder. Mbali Kaleni moved,
a jerk of the head. 'Mbali,' he said in despair.

She opened her eyes. Looked far away, then focused on
him. 'The ambulance is coming, Mbali,' he wanted to encourage her: 'You're
going to make it.'

She made a noise.

'Take it easy, take it easy, they'll be here soon.'

Vusi picked up Mbali's hand. He talked quietly to her
in an African language. Griessel noted the small Xhosa man's calmness and
thought Vusi might not be hardass, but he was strong.

Mbali was trying to say something. He felt her jaw
moving under his hand, he saw the blood running out of her mouth. 'No, no,
don't talk now; the ambulance will be here soon.'

He looked up at the house. 'Vusi, you will have to see
what's going on inside there.' The black detective nodded, jumped up and ran.
Griessel looked at Mbali. Her eyes were on him, pleading. He held the hanky
tight against her neck, realising he still had his phone in the other hand. He
phoned the station. They needed more people. Mbali Kaleni's eyes closed.

At first she was only aware of the noise, voices
shouting, the high revving of an engine. Then she felt the pain in her face and
she wanted to put a hand over it, but she couldn't. There was the sensation of
movement, a loss of balance, a vehicle turning sharply, accelerating.

Then she remembered everything and she jerked.

'The bitch is waking up,' one of them said. She tried
to open her eyes, she wanted to see, but she could not. One eye was swollen
shut, the other would not focus, her vision was blurred. Four people were
holding her down. The pressure on her arms and legs was too much, too heavy,
too painful.

'Please,' she said.

'Fuck you.' The words were spat out with hatred,
flecks of saliva spattered her face. A cell phone rang shrilly.

'It's the Big Guy,' said a voice she knew.

'Fuck.' Another familiar voice. 'Tell him.' She
flicked her eyes across, but could not see them, only the four holding her.
They were all looking forward now.

'Jesus. OK.' Then: 'Mr B, it's Steve. The fucking
bitch stabbed Eben ... No, he was with Robert, on the back door ... It's bad, chief
... No, no, he's with Rob in the bakkie, you'll have to call him ... OK. Yes,
it's here ... No ... OK, hang on ... The boss wants to know what's in the bag
...'

The one holding her leg let go. 'Here, take it,' he
said and then she kicked him with all her might, struck him somewhere.

'Fuck!' A heavy blow against her head, her leg clamped
fast again, and she screamed, in frustration, pain, fury and fear. She fought
wildly, straining her arms and legs to break free, but it was no good.

Vusi came running, Griessel could hear his hasty
steps.

'Benny, there's an old man inside. He's been shot, but
he's alive.'

'An old man, you say?'

'Yes, wounded in the chest, through the lung, I
think.'

'Nobody else?'

'Nobody.'

'Fuck.'

Then suddenly and clearly, the wail of an ambulance.

'You do that again, I'll shoot you in the fucking leg,
you hear me?'

The spit-sprayer's face was right up against hers,
grimacing, his voice crazed. She closed her eyes and went limp.

'It's not in here,' said Steve up front.

'Jesus,' said Jay.