Thirteen Hours (28 page)

'Yes, Captain, that is exactly what I have been thinking
these past few hours .. .That is why I am so concerned. Tell me, Captain - can
I trust you?'

'Yes, Mr Anderson. You can trust me.'

'Then I will do that. I will trust you with my daughter's
life.'

Don't say that, thought Griessel. He had to find her first.
'I will do everything I possibly can,' he said.

'Is there anything we can do from here. I... anything ...?'

'I am going to give you my cell phone number, Mr Anderson.
You can call me any time you like. If Rachel calls you again, please give her
my number, and tell her I will come to her, just me, if she is worried ... And
I promise you, I will call you if there is any news.'

'We were thinking ... We want to fly out there ...'

He didn't know how to respond to that. 'I.. .You can, of
course ... Let me find her, Mr Anderson. Let me find her first.'

'Will you, Captain?' There was a desperate note in his voice,
grabbing at a lifeline.

'I will not rest until I have.'

Bill Anderson put the phone down carefully and sank back into
his chair. He put his hands over his face. His wife stood beside him, her hand
on his shoulder.

'It's all right to cry,' she said to him in a barely audible
whisper. He didn't reply.

'I will be strong now, so you can cry.'

He slowly dropped his hands. He looked at the long rows of
books on the shelves. So much knowledge, he thought. And so useless now.

He dropped his head. His shoulders shook. 'I heard him,' said
Jess Anderson. 'He will find her. I could hear that in his voice.'

Captain Benny Griessel sat with his elbows on the director's
desk and his chin in his hand.

He shouldn't have said it. He didn't want to make promises.
He should have stuck to: 'I will do everything I possibly can.' Or he should
have said: 'In the circumstances I don't want to make predictions.' But Rachel
Anderson's father had pleaded with him.

'Will you, Captain?'

And he had said he would not rest until he found her.

Where the fuck did he begin?

He dropped his arms and tried to concentrate. There were too
many things happening at once.

The helicopter and patrols were not going to find her. She
was hiding, afraid of the police. And he didn't know why.

The solution was to find out who was hunting her. Vusi's plan
looked better and better. He must check on their progress.

Griessel stood up and reached for his cell phone. But then it
rang loudly in the silent office, startling him.

'Griessel.'

'This is Inspector Mbali Kaleni of the South African Police
Service, Benny.' Her Zulu accent was strong, but every Afrikaans word was
enunciated with care. 'We traced a Land Rover Defender that fits the number. It
belongs to a man in Parklands, a Mr J. M. de Klerk. I am on my way.'

'Very good work, but the Commissioner asked if you would help
with another case. Fransman Dekker's investigation ...'

'Fransman Dekker?'

Griessel ignored the disdain in her voice. 'Can I give you
his number? He's in the city ...'

'I have his number.'

'Call him, please.'

'I don't like it,' said The Flower, 'but I will call him.'

'On the eleventh of January we electronically transferred an
amount of fifty thousand rand into an ABSA account, on Adam's instructions,'
said the accountant of AfriSound, Wouter Steenkamp, with modulated precision.

He was comfortably ensconced behind a large fiat-screen
computer monitor, elbows on the desk and fingers steepled in front of his
chest. He was a short man in his early thirties with an angular face and heavy
eyebrows. He clearly took trouble with his appearance - the thick-rimmed
glasses and short hair were equally fashionable, there was a careful,
deliberate two-day growth of black stubble on his chin, and dark chest hair was
just visible at the open collar of his light-blue sports shirt with narrow
white stripes. Chunky sports watch, tanned arms. No lack of self- confidence.

'Who was it paid to?' Dekker asked from his chair opposite.

Steenkamp consulted his screen without untwining his fingers.
'According to Adam's note the account holder was "Bluegrass". The
bank branch code was an ABSA branch in the Bloemfontein city centre. The
transaction was successful.'

'Did Mr Barnard say what the payment was for?'

'In his email he asked me to put it under "sundry
expenses".'

'That's all?'

'That's all.'

'Was there also a payment of ten thousand?'

'Exactly?' Steenkamp's eyes scanned the spreadsheet on his
screen.

'I believe so.'

'In the past week?'

'Yes.'

'Not on my records.'

Dekker leaned forward. 'Mr Steenkamp ...'

'Wouter, please.'

'According to my information, Adam Barnard used an agency to
determine who was behind the Bluegrass account. At a fee of ten thousand rand.'

'Aah ...' said Steenkamp, sitting up straight and reaching
for his neat in-tray. He lifted documents and pulled one out. 'Ten thousand exactly,'
he said and offered it to Dekker. 'Jack Fischer and Associates.'

Dekker knew the company - former senior white police officers
who had taken fat retirement packages five or six years ago and set up their
own private investigation business. He took the document and examined it. It
was an invoice.
Client:AfriSound. Client contact
person: Mr A. Barnard.

Under
Item
and
Cost
was printed:
Administrative enquiries, R4,
500. Personal interview, R5,500.

'Personal interview?' he read aloud.

Steenkamp just shrugged.

'Is this Adam Barnard's signature here?'

'It is. I only pay if either he or Willie has signed it.'

'So you don't know what the account was for?'

'No. Adam didn't discuss it with me. He put it in his
out-tray and Natasha put it in here. If it was signed by him—'

'Do you often use Jack Fischer?'

'Now and then.'

'You know they are private investigators?'

'Inspector, the music industry is not all moonlight and roses
... But Adam usually handled that sort of case.'

'Would Willie Mouton know?'

'You will have to ask him.'

'I will have to keep this account.'

'May I make a copy first?'

'Please.'

Inspector Vusi Ndabeni had never flown in a helicopter
before.

The pilot passed a headset to him over his shoulder, someone closed
the door, the engine made a mighty roar, the rotors turned and they lifted off.
His stomach churned. He put on the earphones with trembling hands and watched
De Waal Drive shrink below him.

Sometimes these machines dropped out of the sky, he thought.
One shouldn't look down, someone once told him, but the city was below them
now, Parliament, the Castle, the railway tracks leading to the station in tidy
ranks; the harbour, sea, blinding as the sun reflected off it. Vusi took his
dark glasses from his jacket pocket and put them on: 'Does Table View know
we're on our way?' he said, looking down at Robben Island in wonder.

'Turn the microphone - it's too far from your mouth,' said
the co-pilot and demonstrated what he should do.

Vusi bent the microphone around to the front of his mouth.
'Do Table View know we're coming?'

'Do you want to talk to them?' asked the pilot.

'Yes, please. We're going to need patrol vehicles.' 'Let me
get them for you.'

With glittering Table Bay to the left and the industries of Paarden
Island stretching away to his right, Inspector Vusumuzi Ndabeni spoke to the SC
of Table View over a helicopter radio. When he had finished, he wondered what
his mother would say if she could see him now.

Benny Griessel jogged down Buitengracht again. The
traffic jam had cleared as though it had never existed. His mind was on the
fugitive Rachel Anderson. Where was she heading? The only possibility was the
Cat & Moose Youth Hostel; that was where her luggage was, and her friend
Oliver Sands. Where else could she go?

He phoned Caledon Square and asked the radio operator to send
a unit to Long Street. 'But they must not park in front of the Cat & Moose.
Tell them to wait inside. If she does come, she mustn't see them.'

That was all he could do. According to Vusi, the eyewitness
at Carlucci's had looked at the covert photos of Demidov's troops, shaken his
head and said no, it was none of them.

That really meant fuck all, because Organised Crime might not
have sent all the pictures. Or the pictures could be out of date. Or they
didn't have photos of all of Demidov's people.

Either he or Vusi would have to go back to Van Hunks again.
But first he would see what the house in Table View produced. He had to give
the whole search some direction. He would use Caledon Square as the base; it
was central, that was where the radio connection with the patrol cars was.

He ran the last two hundred metres to his car, aware of the
heat now smothering the city like a blanket.

'I don't know what it was for,' said Willie Mouton, and
passed the Jack Fischer invoice back across the desk to Dekker. 'I don't think
they will tell you.'

'Oh?' 'It's sensitive. Client privilege.'

'What is?'

'No, Willie,' said Groenewald, the lawyer.

'Of course it is. They guarantee confidentiality. That's why
we use them.'

'Privilege only counts for doctors, psychologists and legal
practitioners, Willie. If the police have a warrant, they can get the
information.'

'What is the use of their guarantee then?' The Adam's apple
bobbed.

'Is there anyone specific that you deal with at Jack
Fischer?' Dekker asked.

'We work with Jack himself. But you're barking up the wrong
tree, I'm telling you.'

Rachel Anderson could no longer hear the helicopter.

At first the silence was eerie, but gradually it became
reassuring. In spite of her tracks in the flower bed, even though a black
policewoman had been only two steps from her hiding place, she had evaded them.

She made up her mind. She would stay here until dark.

She checked her watch. It was eleven minutes to twelve.
Another eight hours before the sun went down. A long time. But let them look
for her in other places; let them forget about this garden.

The pain from the scratches and bruises was a dull constant
in her body. She would have to make herself comfortable if she were going to
lie here that long.

Slowly she sat upright and pressed the thick, thorny branches
to one side. She didn't want to make any noise, or show movement. She didn't
know whether there were eyes trained on these plants.

The rucksack would have to come off. She could use it as a
pillow.

She loosened the clips, pulled the straps off her shoulders
and lowered the rucksack. It snagged on the branches and thorns, awkward,
behind her. With care she untangled it and put it on the ground. She turned on
her back slowly and let her head rest on the bag.

The ground underneath her was not too uncomfortable. The
dense shade would protect her from dehydration. She knew her blood sugar was
low, but she would survive until night fell. She would have to find a
telephone; somewhere someone would allow her to phone, they must, she would
beg. She had to tell her father where she was.

She drew a deep breath and looked up through the dense leaf cover
to where patches of sky shone through. Her eyes closed.

Then she heard the front door of the house open.

Barry drove up in his Toyota bakkie from the city side. Upper
Orange was quiet now, the police vehicles and uniforms gone. Only a white
microbus with a SAPS emblem still remained up on the corner.

He wondered if it would be worthwhile to watch the Victorian
house.

He looked for the driveway that he had noted earlier, turned
up it and drove to the back against the garage door. He picked up the binoculars
that lay beside him on the worn seat cover. He realised he couldn't see the
house from here. The wall on the left was too high.

He climbed onto the load bed of the Toyota and leaned back
against the cab with the binoculars to his eyes. It was barely a hundred metres
to the Victorian house. He let the binocular lenses sweep across the house.