Red Earth (33 page)

‘I'm coming out.'

You do that.
Suzanne watched the edge of the trench, waiting for her shot.

‘We have your money, Suzanne.'

She lowered the end of the barrel of her rifle a little. She felt a physical pain in her chest.

‘It's true,' Dunn called. ‘We felt the microchip in the baby's neck and scanned it at Boyd Qualtrough's surgery. We got the account number and the passcode number. Nia Carras is in Switzerland now. I just got an SMS from her. She's got access to the account if she wants it.'

‘I don't believe you,' she called back.

Dunn crawled out of the bunker and stood. Hands up. ‘You haven't seen her in the camp, have you? I'm unarmed. Let's talk. We want to give you your baby back, let you go in peace.'

Suzanne's mind raced. Dunn could be bluffing, but on the other hand it was possible that he was telling the truth. Omar had told her, just before leaving on his mission to blow up the American ambassador, that he had taken Hassan to a friend, a veterinarian, the evening before. She'd believed him when he told her he had just taken the child out in its stroller for a long walk, to say goodbye to him. When she'd detected the sticky plaster on the back of Hassan's neck Omar had told her he had been bitten by a horsefly. It wasn't until she kissed Omar goodbye that he'd whispered in her ear, on the remote chance that their house was bugged, that he'd had a microchip implanted in Hassan's neck.

Omar had told her that he would find a way to leave her the account number and a clue to the password, and as they had discussed, she would receive the number and clue or be able to find it after his death and after she was out of South Africa and safe. If she was caught leaving the country the Americans would surely get the number and code out of her somehow. As tough as she was she knew everyone broke eventually.

The money, twenty million euros, had been specifically earmarked by the Sheik, Osama bin Laden, to purchase a nuclear device, should one ever actually come on the market. Omar had believed that they were tantalisingly close to a deal with the Russians, and that deal was still a possibility.

Omar had been worried, though. Not by the effects that a nuclear blast might have on the country they attacked, or the rest of the world, but rather that he might be detected and somehow arrested or assassinated by the Americans before he was able to detonate the device. Paulsen had received intelligence from a Russian former military man that a corrupt contact of his in the FSB had told him the CIA suspected Omar – no one else – of being in the market for a nuke.

Suzanne and Omar had discussed how they might both each make the ultimate sacrifice for their cause and go to paradise as martyrs. The visit by the American ambassador to Durban, so soon after the news that Omar may have been compromised, had seemed like a sign. Omar had left knowing his wife had the means to see through the deal to buy the ultimate weapon of terror.

‘The account number and the passcode number were on the microchip,' Dunn said now. ‘We've got all the information. Give up, Suzanne, you've lost.'

‘Give me my child.'

‘Put down your rifle, as I have, and I will bring the baby to you. Then you and whatever men you have left alive may leave.'

‘I'm pointing a gun at you. What's to stop me shooting you right now?'

‘I've got a man with a gun trained on you as well,' Mike said.

Suzanne looked to the bunker and saw the face of the teenage boy, Themba Nyathi, appear over the parapet. He had an AK trained on her. ‘Ha! A child, not a man.'

‘No, that young Zulu is a man,' came a voice from off to Suzanne's right. A tall man stepped from the bush, pointing an R5 at her. ‘And I'm another man.'

She glanced at him. It was the older white Zimbabwean. She looked behind her; now was the time for Alberto to step out and even the odds.

‘Looking for Alberto Flores?' the grey-haired man said.

Suzanne said nothing.

‘I've been looking for him for a long time, and after what his gang have done tonight, and to the rhinos and elephants of my country for so long, it was only a pleasure for me to slit his throat just then. You're on your own now.'

Suzanne lowered her AK-47 and slowly put it down on the ground. Then, she reached into the pocket of her pants.

‘Keep your hands where we can see them,' Dunn called. He had picked up his rifle again.

Suzanne ignored him as well as the old anti-poaching man who was striding towards her, rifle up and ready. From her pocket she pulled the hand grenade Alberto had given her.

‘Want me to kill her?' the Zimbabwean called to Dunn.

Suzanne looked up and behind her at the phenomenal, endless natural theatre of the African sky at night. She had loved gazing up at the stars as a child. How had her life gone so horribly wrong?

The whine of the Sea Hawk's turbine engines washed over her and its big blades cleaved the air above. A spotlight fixed on her, blinding her.

‘Suzanne Fessey, do not move. Drop your weapons or we will open fire,' came an American-accented voice from above.

Suzanne looked around her. The others had moved out of range. The two teenagers were scrambling out of the bunker, dragging a wounded man between them. Dunn was backing away, but keeping an eye on her.

‘The baby. Where is he?' she yelled over the engine noise.

‘In an orphanage, safe,' Dunn called. ‘Lerato's been carrying around a doll wrapped in a blanket.'

Suzanne dropped the hand grenade beside her and smiled to herself as she watched the others run from her.

Chapter 34

‘She gave up, just like that?' Nia asked, her voice clear in Mike's cell phone even though she was in Switzerland.

‘I know, amazing, right?' he said. He was in an aircraft hangar at Air Force Base Makhado near Louis Trichardt in South Africa, not far across the border from Zimbabwe. It was hot inside, the day's heat trapped under the steel roof. The Sea Hawk sat on the tarmac outside the open sliding door. Inside was a South African National Defence Force Gripen jet fighter. ‘She had a hand grenade and dropped it beside herself when she was cornered, but she hadn't even pulled the pin.'

‘How is everyone?' said Nia.

‘Themba's doing OK, even with his wound and all he's been through, and Lerato is in front of me, being hugged by her dad. The South African police brought him here. I misjudged him – he really was taking part in an undercover sting when I had him arrested at Mtubatuba. The serious and violent crimes squad detectives that were supposed to be there to arrest Paulsen got caught in Durban because of the bombing. He lost a lot of money but the police apparently found the cash on Paulsen's body.'

‘I'm pleased Lerato's safe.'

‘Me too.'

Mike gave Nia a rundown of the firefight in Zimbabwe and told her how the US Navy helicopter crew had taken the wounded anti-poaching operators, Shane Castle, Jordan Penquitt and Oscar Mpofu, to Chiredzi Hospital. Sylvester had been shot in the back, fatally through the heart, while he carried Jordan on his shoulders.

‘Such brave men,' Nia said.

‘Yes. Tim's looking after them.'

‘Where's Suzanne?'

‘The last I saw of her she had a hood on her head, cuffs on her wrists and Franklin Washington was escorting her to a black Chevrolet van with a couple of South African police detectives in tow. Jed's here with us. He wants to talk to you.'

Nia had already told him, as soon as she'd ascertained he was safe, that she'd had no luck at the bank. Mike had been bluffing when he told Suzanne that Nia had accessed the account. Suzanne had no idea of how early Nia had left Zimbabwe for Switzerland, but the fact was that it was three in the morning when the gunfight went down near Fish Eagle Lodge.

Nia had told him the banker she was dealing with at the bank in Geneva had confirmed the account number was valid, but the password, 828866, was not valid.

‘What else can we do about the account?' Nia asked on the phone. ‘I tried giving them the number in reverse, but that didn't work either. It's some other sort of code, I guess.'

Themba was finished with the police, evidently, because he wandered towards Mike and stopped a couple of metres away, waiting for him to finish the call. Mike held up a finger and Themba nodded that he was happy to wait. Jed, too, was hovering nearby, though out of earshot. ‘828866,' Mike said aloud. ‘Assuming it's a code, then the repetition of numbers might help us.'

‘I'm not a code breaker,' Nia said.

‘Talk to Jed for now. He's not a bad guy,' Mike said.

‘OK.'

Mike motioned for Jed to come over and handed him his phone. The CIA man walked away, apparently to avoid Mike overhearing. Mike didn't care; he was sure Nia would fill him in on what the American wanted. Themba, meanwhile, had moved off as well, to the side of the hangar. Outside a crew room was a whiteboard with flight schedules on it. An airman in camouflaged fatigues stood looking in interest as Themba wrote on the board with a pen the man had let him borrow. Mike walked over.

‘What are you doing?'

‘I wanted to help. I heard you talking about a number, a code. Those sorts of things interest me.'

Mike could tell from soon after he'd met Themba, then a surly criminal on probation, that he had an enquiring mind. As part of the rhino guard course Mike had set some challenges that he'd picked up during his own army training, and Themba had always been among the first to solve them. On the board he'd written the numbers one to nine, in three rows of three. He was busy writing letters under each digit. ‘What are you doing?'

Themba glanced at him, over his shoulder, then went back to writing. ‘I don't have a phone on me, but I'm writing out a cell phone keypad.'

‘Why?'

‘Look. You know those companies that get their own personalised phone numbers from the phone companies? They make the number out of the name of their firm, using the letters on a keypad.'

Mike folded his arms and nodded.

‘Your number is 828866, right?'

Mike was impressed with his memory. Themba had only just overheard that number. ‘Don't tell Jed or anyone else, OK?'

‘I won't.' Themba finished writing and stepped back so Mike could see the whiteboard. Themba reached out and tapped the numbers he'd written. ‘Eight comes up three times, and under it, on a phone, see here, are the letters “T”, “U” and “V”.'

Mike rubbed his chin. ‘So we try “T” first, maybe?'

‘Yes. And if we look at the number that's also repeated, six, it could be “M”, “N” or “O”.'

‘There are some words in English that have two of all of those letters, but if you supposed “T” was the letter designated by eight, then …'

Mike was tired, more exhausted than he'd been since his army days or when he was on patrol looking for poachers. Tracy was good at cryptic crosswords and sudoku, but he had never seemed to be able to apply his mind to such things. ‘What?'

‘Look here, the number one never has letters under it – I never worked out why – but under two, the other number in your code, the first letter is “A”. “T”, “A”, “T”, “T”.'

Themba looked at him like a patient teacher waiting for a slow child to grasp something. ‘Tattoo?'

‘It's a word. Does that woman who was following us have a tattoo?' Themba asked.

‘I don't know. The Americans might, but like I said, I want to keep this between us for now, OK?'

‘I won't say anything.'

Mike had a second thought. ‘Actually I do know someone else who spent some time with Suzanne.'

Jed had finished his call and was striding across the hangar to them. Themba picked up a felt eraser and rubbed his part of the schedule board clean.

Banks squared up to him. ‘Mike, I know I've asked you nicely a couple of times, but you really need to tell me what was on that microchip.'

‘I'm guessing Nia wouldn't tell you, either.'

‘You're guessing right. What are y'all doing here with the board?'

‘Homework,' Themba said. ‘I've been out of school a few days.'

Jed shook his head. ‘That money's not Nia's or yours.'

‘Nor yours either, I would have thought,' Mike said.

‘Nia could be in danger, Mike. The bank might have been under instructions to call someone if a person showed up and tried to access the account and failed. That sort of thing happens.'

Mike thought he was bluffing. ‘Who are they going to call? Suzanne Fessey? Her husband Omar Farhat? Egil Paulsen? Osama bin Laden? They're all dead or incommunicado.'

‘I represent the US Government, Mike.'

Mike put his fists on his hips. ‘Yes, and I'm a South African.'

Jed ran a hand through his thick fair hair. ‘OK. I told Nia that the US Government will probably offer a reward, perhaps a cut of whatever's in the bank account. I can't say that for sure, but our aim is to shut that account down, even if we can't get the money, so that it's not accessed by someone else for the use we think it was set aside for. That money was for something that history would remember forever, for all the wrong reasons.'

‘A nuclear weapon?'

‘Yes.'

Mike didn't want that either, but he did want to make sure the baby, Lerato, Themba – and Nia and himself – got out of this safely and didn't end up in a CIA interrogation facility in some country in America's debt.

‘The baby's safe, right?' Jed prompted Mike.

‘Yes.'

‘Well, I trust y'all on that front. I understand your concerns, Mike, but I'm not going to torture this out of you.'

‘I'm pretty sure you wouldn't, Jed, but how do I know what the rest of the CIA has planned for us? I'll tell you what, give Nia and me the night to think about this. I've got friends in the government, and so does Bandile Dlamini. I want some ironclad guarantees for the safety of the children and I want lawyers and senior people aware of what's going on.'

‘A word in private, Mike?' Jed said. ‘Excuse us, please, Themba.'

Themba moved away, heading to where Lerato sat on a bench next to her father. Mike was pleased he wasn't heading for that confrontation. ‘What is it, Jed?'

Jed checked to make sure there was no one else in earshot. ‘If you get the money, you and Nia will be targets. The terrorists will come looking for it, eventually. I can broker something. If you guys want to take a cut, I'm cool with that. No one knows how much is in there, anyway.'

Mike was annoyed. ‘We're not criminals, Jed. We don't want to line our own pockets with terrorists' money.'

Jed raised his hands. ‘OK, sorry. Just keep me in the loop, all right?'

‘Give me some time.'

Jed looked him in the eye. ‘I can hold off my boss, Chris Mitchell, 'til dawn, no longer.'

Mike got the message. Jed might be a good guy, but he worked with some bad ones.

*

Themba felt more scared than he had at any time since his cousin Joseph had forced him into the stolen Fortuner.

Bandile Dlamini had his arm around Lerato, holding her close to him. She had sobbed for a long time and Themba could see the big man's shirt front was damp. Her father kissed her on the top of the head and turned his head slowly in Themba's direction. Themba was reminded of the old male buffalo that had nearly killed him in Hluhluwe.

‘What do you want?' Dlamini asked, drawing out each word.

Themba swallowed. ‘To apologise, sir. I am very sorry for everything that happened to Lerato.'

Dlamini scowled. ‘You are a criminal. If I so much as hear from a teacher that you have even spoken to my daughter I will have you arrested.'

‘Father.' Lerato lifted her face from his chest and sniffed. ‘Themba can't be blamed for what happened.'

‘He was supposed to see you home safely.'

‘And he did, Daddy,' she said.

Dlamini glared at him. ‘If I had known you were a car thief, I would never have allowed you to escort Lerato.'

‘He's not a thief, Daddy,' Lerato said. She grabbed her father's forearm.

Themba cleared his throat. ‘I have something to ask.'

Dlamini raised his eyebrows. ‘You have some temerity.'

Themba drew a breath. ‘I would like permission to see Lerato, outside of school hours.'

‘No.'

Lerato let go of her father and stood. She went to Themba and stood so close to him she was almost touching him. ‘Themba, I would love to go out with you.' His worried face broke into a grin. ‘Though perhaps not to a game reserve, at least not for some time.'

He laughed, and then got such a shock he thought he might faint when she reached out to him, put her arms around his neck and kissed him on the cheek.

*

Nia walked down the street from her hotel to the bank in Zurich. The buildings were three and four storeys high, painted in subdued colours.

It was sunny but cool enough for her to have needed to buy a coat. There wasn't a scrap of litter on the footpath or in the gutter and the people she passed were dressed neatly and conservatively, mostly in business attire.

She went to the door of the bank, which was located in a nondescript, modern stone building, and pushed the button on the intercom. Only a tiny plaque the size of a postcard advertised the bank's name, Grunelius. She'd felt foolish earlier, and as polite as the bank manager had been he'd been unable to hide his disapproving look of suspicion as she had fumbled her way through as many combinations of the passcode as she could think of.

‘Miss Carras, how nice to see you again.' The man's eyes spoke otherwise as he let her into the building.

‘I have the passcode,' she said.

He raised his eyebrows. ‘Please, take a seat.'

Nia read the account number to him, as she had done yesterday, and his fingers were barely audible on the keyboard.

‘The passcode is 30–1–16,' she said.

Mike had called her, in the night, and told her that he had spoken to his ex-wife, Tracy. He had remembered that Tracy had met Suzanne Fessey when Suzanne had been masquerading as a policewoman, and he'd asked Tracy whether she had noticed a visible tattoo of anything on the other woman. Tracy had told Mike that Suzanne had a date tattooed on the inside of her right arm, and that the two of them had discussed its significance. The day and month of the date, the birthday of Suzanne's son, were the same as their daughter Debbie's. Suzanne had explained that her son had been born in 2016.

The banker typed in the numbers and dashes, then looked at her over the top of the computer monitor. ‘Here we are. How can I assist you?'

‘Can I see the balance of the account?'

‘Of course.'

The man swivelled the large monitor of his computer around so Nia could see it.

‘
Eish
,' she said aloud.