Twelve Days (34 page)

NEAR BLOEMFONTEIN, FREE STATE PROVINCE, SOUTH AFRICA

T
he countdown clock was more than ticking now.

Flying Riyadh to Johannesburg took eight hours. Even after gaining a time-zone hour, Wells and Duto didn’t clear South African immigration until 4 p.m. local. Worse, they didn’t have the prearranged help that would have come if they’d been on agency business. No car waiting in the O. R. Tambo International parking garage. No dossier with Witwans’s address. Most important, no pistols, silencers, or box of ammunition in the trunk.

They solved the first two problems easily enough, thanks to Avis and the Internet. Thirty-five minutes after immigration, they had an Audi A3 and turn-by-turn directions to Witwans’s mansion. He lived in farm country a couple hundred kilometers southwest of Johannesburg. The location was a blessing and a curse. They would waste at least three hours getting there. But once they did, they wouldn’t have to worry about neighbors or a quick police response.

Their lack of weapons was far more serious. The bag that Duto had brought to Wells had all manner of helpful paraphernalia, including several pieces he’d already used. What it didn’t have was a pistol. Wells
hadn’t packed one because he feared losing the entire bag to an airport screen. He hadn’t known in advance Duto would be bringing it to him, or flying private. As a result, they had only one pistol, the Sig P238 that Duberman’s bodyguard had handed over in Tel Aviv. It was an undercover weapon, small, underpowered, and with just a six-shot magazine. Salome’s bodyguard would be waiting on them, and they didn’t know how many guys he had with him.

“You have anyone who can hook us up?” Wells said.

“Not on this continent.”

“Then let’s find a gun shop.” Given South Africa’s crime rate and hunting culture, Wells expected that they could legally pick up a rifle or shotgun. He scrolled through the phone he’d picked up at the airport. “How about this one? Great Guns of Sandton?” Sandton was a wealthy white neighborhood north of downtown Johannesburg.

But Wells was wrong. The Great Guns manager explained that South Africa had strict firearms laws. Police performed background checks on all buyers. “Backlog is years now. Typical of this regime.”

The man’s contempt for the black-run government gave Wells a glimmer of hope that he might break its laws. “Any way around it?”

“I wish,” the manager said. He had the friendly but wary expression that Wells had seen before on gun enthusiasts.
Sure, we’re buddies. For now.
“Why the rush? Come to Joburg on business, now you want to hunt the mighty dik-dik? Your guide will gladly supply everything you need.”

Wells looked at Duto. “Can I talk to you outside?”

—

In the lot, Wells handed over the Audi’s keys.

“I’m going to have to do something I don’t like. Get in and keep it running.”

“You’re not—”

“No.” Gun store robbers were instant Darwin Award finalists.
Sir, I see that you believe deeply in your right to use firearms to protect yourself, but please
stand aside while I take these.
“I’m going to ask. Politely. Even so, he might make a citizen’s arrest.”

“Good luck with that,” Duto said.

—

The manager conspicuously laid a pistol on the counter when Wells reappeared. “More questions, brother?”

Wells had two choices here, wink-and-a-nod—
We’re hunting, but not dik-dik, see what I’m saying—
and straight-up desperate. This guy didn’t strike him as the wink-and-a-nod type. “My friend and I, we’re in a bind.”

“I wish I could help.” Though his tone implied the opposite.

“If you know anyone. A friend who needs cash.”

“What’s your name?”

“John.”

“Looking for anything in particular, John?”

A pop quiz to see whether Wells knew what he was talking about. “I used to be partial to Makarovs. I know they’re junk, but they were popular where I operated. Plenty of ammo and spare parts. Then, a couple years ago, my girlfriend made me switch to a Glock. Which I admit is more accurate, more stopping power.”

“What about your friend?”

“Never asked him.”

The man shook his head. Wells felt weirdly negligent.
You’ve known him all these years and you can’t even name his favorite pistol? What do you two talk about, anyway?

“What were you doing, in the places you needed the Mak?”

So he still had the guy’s interest. “About what you’d expect.”

“And this? Today?”

Wells shook his head. “Better if I don’t say.”
You’d never believe me anyway.

“You look like the real deal, John. But you can’t trust me, I can’t trust you. You’d best go.”

Never argue with a man standing in front of an arsenal. Wells turned away.

“Where will you try next?”

“Soweto, maybe.” The district lay on the other side of the city. Decades after the end of apartheid, it remained ninety-eight percent black and desperately poor.

“Foolishness. By the time you get there, it’ll be dark. They’ll take your money and your car and leave you in a ditch. That’s if you’re lucky. Otherwise, they’ll just—” The man raised his index finger,
pop-pop.

“My friend has a Sig if it comes to that.” Wells barely kept himself from adding
You racist prick
as he opened the front door.

“John—”

Wells stopped.

“I can’t help you. My boss finds out, he’ll sack me on the spot. But Soweto, no. I know a man who might have something.”

Now the guy’s racism was working
for
Wells.

“In Roodepoort. West of here. Your saloon has a navvy?”

Wells needed a second to understand—
Does your car have a GPS?
“Yes.”

The man scribbled a phone number and address, handed it over.
“Name’s Pieter. Tell him Marion sent you. Make sure you have plenty of geld.” He rubbed his fingers together.

“Thank you.”

“You look like you need a break.”

—

Outside, Wells plugged the address into the GPS. “Twenty minutes. Let’s go.”

“Great.” But Duto didn’t sound happy.

“What?”

“I just talked to Roy Baumann. My chief of staff. Had to be sure my events are canceled for the next couple of days.”

Chief of what?
Wells almost said. With everything that had happened in the last day, he had nearly forgotten that Duto was still a senator. “So?”

“FBI came to my office yesterday. This morning they showed up at Roy’s house. Six a.m. Four guys, wanting to know if he had any idea where I am.”

“Does he?”

“Dummy. It doesn’t matter. I’m traveling under my own name. On a diplo passport. They don’t even have to ask the NSA to look, those get tracked automatically. And as soon as they look at the Tambo landing logs, they’ll find the plane.”

“So they know where you are—”

“Know what else they asked? Whether Roy knew who I was traveling with or what I was doing. He said no, which is true, because he’s been smart enough not to ask. Then they brought up Shafer, did Roy know when I’d last spoken to him, what we’d talked about. Of course he said no to that, too. They asked him if he’d be willing to tell them if he got a call from me. That’s when he told them that they’d gotten their three free questions at the top of the mountain and if they wanted more they’d better come back with a subpoena.”

“Sounds like he handled it.”

“He’s been around. But you get what’s happening here, right? They’re looking to put us on Shafer’s indictment, an excuse to bring us in as material witnesses. Or just arrest us.”

“We knew it could happen.”

“Difference between knowing it could and seeing that it
has
.”

“So they track you to Tambo. You dead-end there. I rented the car, not you. If they’re smart, maybe they figure I’m with you, look for the alias I used to clear immigration. But that means getting the NSA involved to see who else arrived when you did. And correct me if I’m wrong, Vinny, that’s a big step. Way bigger than sending the FBI to talk to your chief of staff. If that blows up, they just say they were worried
that Shafer and I duped you, they wanted to give you a friendly heads-up. But that excuse won’t wash with the NSA. Before it starts chasing a U.S. senator, it’ll want paperwork. An active criminal investigation.”

“At this point the AG”—Attorney General—“or even the President will have no problem signing off on that.”

“Fine. Let’s say they make that move today
and
NSA figures out who I am right away. Even then, they won’t get the car that fast.”

“Credit cards,” Duto said.

“You may not have noticed, but the credit card I used didn’t exactly match the passport.”

“That’s why the rental guy was giving you a hard time?”

“Yes. Used my middle name instead of my first and misspelled the last by one letter,
Ishmael Jeferson
instead of Michael Jefferson.” Shafer had taught Wells the trick. Amazing how big a difference a one-letter change could make.

“Then how come he let you rent it?”

“Because Ishmael’s my middle name on the passport, and I gave him an extra five hundred bucks as a cash deposit. But the NSA isn’t looking for Ishmael.”

“If he hadn’t bit—”

“I had a card with the right spelling if I needed it. Point is, it won’t come up right away. They’ll have to start canvassing hotels and car companies in person, and you can’t do that from Langley. In fact, they can’t do it without local help, no matter what. And guess what, it’s past five here already and this is a tricky story for the chief of station to be giving South African intel. Much less the local cops. Way I figure it, we have at least until tomorrow morning, probably the afternoon, before we have to worry about this car being hot. If we can’t find Witwans by then, we’re done anyway. And if we do, and he confirms he sold Salome the HEU, it won’t matter how many Feds are waiting when we land at Dulles, the White House has to listen.”

Wells watched in silence as Duto considered the case he’d made.

“Starting to understand how you’ve lasted so long,” he finally said.

“Let’s just hope that Pieter in Roodepoort doesn’t prove me wrong by shooting us both.”

—

Pieter arranged to meet them in the parking lot of a Steers, a popular South African burger chain.
Orange Honda,
his text explained
.
He was there when they arrived, eating a messy-looking burger and leaning against a beat-up Accord. The car was more red than orange, but Wells wasn’t arguing.

“You’re the ones from Marion?” Pieter crammed down the last of his burger and stepped toward them. He was a wiry man with tattoos that curled up his neck like his chest was on fire. He wore a baggy T-shirt emblazoned with the South African rugby logo. Wells would have been shocked if the shirt
didn’t
hide a pistol.

“That’s us.”

“Wait in your car,” Pieter said to Duto. He led Wells to the back of the Honda and popped the trunk. Inside, an unzipped blue canvas bag held two Glock 19 pistols and a pump-action Mossberg shotgun, along with a box of 9-millimeter ammunition and a dozen or so 12-gauge shells loose in a plastic bag.

“Fifty thousand rand.” About five thousand dollars. Almost three times what these weapons would cost in a store. A black-market price for black-market guns.

“I take a look?”

Pieter nodded. Wells reached into the bag. The pistols were unloaded. Wells racked their slides, made sure their magazine releases were smooth, dry-fired them. He couldn’t be sure without actually shooting them, but they felt right. He didn’t care about the shotgun. The pistols were what mattered.

“Okay, then, chief?”

“Can we give it to you in dollars. Five thousand?”

“What bills?”

“Hundreds, mainly. New.” Guys like Pieter didn’t always like hundreds, the denomination most targeted by counterfeiters.

“Six, then. Your friend has it?” Pieter dumped out the fries from his Steers paper bag and handed it to Wells. “Put it in the sack. I’ll put the duffel on the ground. You toss me the sack and I drive off.”

Wells didn’t like the sequence. There was a tarp in the trunk behind the bag that could be hiding a second bag that looked identical to the first but was filled with junk instead of guns. Pieter could grab the second bag and throw it down while Wells got the money from Duto. By the time Wells looked inside it and realized the con, Pieter would be on his way out of the lot, the money in his pocket and the weapons still in his trunk. He’d be making a stupid move, since Wells and Duto were paying far more than the firearms were worth. But guys with neck tattoos were rarely strategic thinkers.

“Vinny. Bring over six thousand.”

“I told him to stay,” Pieter said. He stepped back from Wells, lifted his rugby shirt to reveal a black pistol tucked into his waistband. He made the move in a half-assed wannabe gangster way that told Wells he had no intention of using it.

“Good for you.” Wells nodded at Duto. “He has one, too. Take out the bag, put it on the ground.”

From the way Pieter looked at the trunk, Wells knew he’d tried to scam them.

“Seriously? After your buddy brought a tear to my eye with the white-solidarity speech?”

Pieter ignored him, tossed down the bag.

“We’re going to pay you anyway. Give him two thousand dollars, Vinny.”

“I said six.”

“Before you tried to rob us. Two thousand is what they’re worth.” Now Wells was the one acting stupid. Two thousand or six thousand made no difference. But Wells was all out of patience. He felt like a walking incarnation of that T-shirt favored by bratty five-year-olds:
I only have one nerve left and you’re getting on it.
The last month had been exhausting, and the longest night was still to come.

“He’ll put it under the wiper, I’ll grab the bag, and we’re done.”

Duto reached into his pocket, counted out the money, fanning the bills so Pieter could see them. He stuffed them under the wiper blade. Wells picked up the bag, backed away carefully. Pieter grabbed the money and made a show of counting it. “Good.”

“Everybody’s happy, then.”

Pieter offered Wells his twin middle fingers.