The rain was coming down like a solid sheet of water and the meeting place, a bus stop on the Victoria Embankment at the entrance to the harbour, was well chosen: exposed, isolated, dangerous. A warm coffee shop would have been better, but when it came to meetings with informers, Durant knew that the best-chosen spots were often the least comfortable. No active opposition or crooked contact of Splinters would risk going out in this weather, at midnight, on Christmas Eve. The meeting place was safe. No chance of surveillance.
Splinters looked bad at the best of times, and tonight, Durant thought, he looked at his worst. The few long grey hairs left on his head lay plastered across his wet face, his eyes barely visible through the dark folds which surrounded them. An ugly scar ran from his forehead to his chin. The life of an informer was a precarious one. Constantly living in fear of detection, running with the dregs of society while secretly reporting valuable information to the Agency, Splinters had had his share of trouble. But he had also secreted invaluable street-level intelligence to Durant which had led to major breakthroughs. The scars were trophies, earned on the street, and Durant knew he was proud of them.
Splinters was shivering and the thin coat wrapped around his skeletal frame did little to keep the rain out. He wasn’t afraid of the rain, or the cold, or the police or any of his many enemies or confederates. His only fear was that Durant would one day find he was no longer useful and terminate his services. Durant was more than his handler – he was brother, friend, fellow spy. He loved Durant. He had no one else.
‘Kevin, sorry, it’s raining like hell, man.’
‘It’s okay, Splinters, it’s not your fault.’ He didn’t mean it to sound facetious, but it did anyway. ‘What’s up?’
‘Hey, Kevin, my face hurts in the cold. You still don’t smoke?’
‘No, but if I did, I would be lighting up about now.’
Splinters fumbled in his pocket and pulled out a single cigarette, which he held for a second in his shaking hand, and then shrugged as the rain all but destroyed it. He tossed it onto the pavement. ‘Bad habit anyway. It’ll kill me one day.’
Durant smiled. ‘Don’t worry about it.’ He slipped Splinters a twenty.
‘Thanks, Kev. I’ll give it back to you, I promise you.’
‘It’s fine, don’t worry. What’s happening? Must be important.’
Splinters coughed violently for all of thirty seconds, spat on the pavement, apologised; spat again, coughed again. ‘I met someone I thought you might be interested in.’
Durant was cold and wet, and he wanted to get home to Stephanie. Alexis was six years old and he wanted to wake up on Christmas morning with her and watch her open her presents. Christmas morning. It was only five hours away. ‘I’m interested, go on.’
‘You know Frank?’
‘Nigerian Frank?’
‘No, the panel beater guy in town, the ugly guy who steals cars, strips them down, I’ve mentioned him before. Burnt his workshop down for insurance, remember?’
‘No, but anyway, what about him?’
‘He came to me at about six. Said there was a guy looking for papers. You know, they always come to me first, they know what I can do for them.’
‘You’re the best, Splinters, no question.’
Splinters used his finger to flick a long strand of wet hair off his face and smiled proudly. ‘That means a lot to me. I always think of you first, Kev, when this happens. I think, “Can Kevin benefit from this thing?” I swear that’s my first thought before anything else.’
Durant nodded and smiled, but was certain it didn’t come out as a smile. ‘So what did Frank have for you, and me?’
‘Well, Frank said that this guy came off a ship this morning and had some
US
dollars. Wanted a temporary residence permit. So I said no problem, Frank brought him over and I bought him a beer.’ He dug into his pocket and brought out a crumpled piece of wet paper that he handed to Durant. ‘Here’s the slip. Sorry it’s wet. And sorry it went to four beers, and a few whiskies; it was cold and the guy was talking, I knew you wouldn’t mind.’
‘It’s fine, I’ll cover it. What’s his story?’
Splinters smiled again, wiped his nose with the back of his hand, apologised, and put his hand on Durant’s shoulder. ‘Well, now it gets interesting. The guy is a Filipino; he was hired to load cargo onto a ship in China. He was supposed to stay in China, but he stayed onboard. A couple of days later, the crew finds him and wants to throw the poor guy overboard. He runs and hides in a paint locker for four days. The ship docks here in Durban harbour, and he jumps off and runs for it.’
Durant rubbed the back of his neck; the cold rain seemed to have stiffened every muscle in his body. ‘Okay, well, thanks for that. We’ll let the Immigration guys know and they’ll have him deported. Is that it?’
‘Am I finished, Kevin?’ Splinters asked indignantly. ‘Would I bring you out here in this weather, at night, away from your family, to meet me, to tell you that? On Christmas Eve?’
Durant was embarrassed and frustrated. ‘Sorry, didn’t mean to be rude.’
Splinters seemed really offended. ‘You know, Kevin, other people maybe give you that kind of rubbish information, but not me, hey, you know me to be better than that.’ He paused for a moment to compose himself. ‘Okay, so he tells me some really first-class stuff, and that’s why I had to buy the whiskies, he just kept talking. He said earlier today he’d met up with some Zimbabwean guys, the bomber guys, you know,
ATMS
.’
‘What did they want?’
‘They wanted a contact for
US
dollars. He asked me if I could get. Can you get?’
‘Hang on, so these guys blow up autobanks, and exchange the cash for dollars?’
‘I know. I also had questions. The good news is, I persuaded him to meet you.’
‘Really? Okay, well let’s set up a meeting, maybe . . .’
‘Kev, I mean now, he’s here.’
‘You brought him here?’ Durant felt his jaw clench a little, this time not from the cold.
Splinters looked puzzled. ‘Did I mess up?’
Durant looked around. The streets were empty. It was quiet, other than the sound of the rain falling. Across the road, a prostitute walked towards a low wall and leaned against it. Durant felt a disturbing sense of unease.
‘I don’t know if it was wise to bring him to this meeting. What if he was followed?’
‘Kev, how long have we known each other? You think I would take chances? I was trained by the best, my brother. You trained me.’
Durant nodded, but still felt troubled. Splinters had brought a third person he didn’t know to the meeting. He didn’t want to be within a hundred kilometres of the Filipino on this rainy night.
‘Relax, Kev; I can see you’re tense now. Want me to rub your shoulders?’
‘Thanks, but no thanks.’ Durant tried to hide the annoyance he felt. ‘Where’s the guy?’
Splinters whistled and a figure stepped out of the shadows from behind an electrical substation. He motioned to the figure and he stepped forward hesitantly, nervously bowing his head and wringing his hands together.
Durant looked around again, but the streets were still quiet. ‘I think we should move somewhere else. I feel uncomfortable here.’
The Filipino stopped when he got within five metres of Durant and Splinters. In the distance, the low rumbling of a car engine, but no lights. They motioned for him to come closer, but he stood frozen. Durant felt a burning sensation in the small of his back and saw the Filipino half turn. White sparks flew off the electrical substation equipment and for a brief second Durant thought that lightning had struck the transformer. There was a deafening burst of popping sounds, and Durant was confused; there was the surreal sensation of floating in space for an undecided period of time, and then he felt he was falling. An action he hadn’t initiated consciously, but which was started by an autonomous processing subsystem of his brain which produces automatic reactions. It felt as if someone was throwing pieces of wet paper at him. Two chemicals flooded Durant’s body from his adrenal glands – adrenaline and noradrenalin, increasing his heart rate and breathing to ensure delivery of extra glucose and oxygen to the muscles. He felt the warm gum that he knew was blood but felt no pain. Adrenaline is a natural anaesthetic and pain is irrelevant to survival so the brain usually suppresses it while it deals with more pressing damage-control issues. Durant put his arms out to protect himself from falling, a superfluous exercise. The prostitute stood frozen against the wall across the street with both her hands over her mouth, and Durant knew something terrible had happened.
Stephanie Durant awoke to the telephone call just after 2 a.m.
Alf Masondo, operational head at the National Intelligence Agency and her husband’s boss, didn’t say a lot, and this worried her more.
She could see the skin over her knuckles going white. Biting her fist had been a completely involuntary reaction. ‘It’s Christmas,’ her voice crackled. ‘I don’t want my husband to die on Christmas Day.’
Masondo’s voice was firm, but not comforting. ‘He’s not going to die, I’ll see to that.’
Stephanie’s voice quivered. ‘How can you be sure?’ In her mind she went over what Masondo had told her. Kevin had met an agent in town. She knew this because he’d reluctantly left home at about 23:30 after getting a call on his cellphone. A witness saw a car slow down and someone shooting from the window. She saw three people go down and while she was phoning for an ambulance, paramedics arrived.
‘He’ll have to take some time off work,’ Stephanie sobbed. She didn’t know what she was saying; she didn’t know what to do. Her daughter. What about Alexis? How would she cope? She couldn’t do without Kevin, not for a day. She hadn’t told him that she loved him before he’d left. She’d been angry that he’d had to go. She hadn’t even kissed him goodbye.
‘I can understand how you must feel now,’ Masondo said gently. ‘We all need to be strong and have faith. Kevin is in good hands, the best hands, and I have every hope that he will pull through this thing and I want you to believe that too.’
Stephanie sat on the bed and cried. ‘Stay with me, Mr Masondo. Don’t leave me, please, just don’t leave me alone now.’
‘Stephanie, as I’m talking to you, I’m driving to your house to fetch you and we’re going to the hospital together and we’ll stay there as long as we have to.’
She looked at her hands and they were shaking uncontrollably. Next to the bed was a notebook and pen which her husband had left behind when he got the phone call. He’d written at the top ‘Things to do tomorrow’. He hadn’t written anything else.
Amina Yusuf had already turned out of the driveway of the townhouse complex when her cellphone rang. When she heard Masondo’s voice, she was surprised. He hadn’t spoken to her much since she’d resigned from the Agency and she always believed he still resented her for doing it.
‘It’s bad news, Amina. Kevin was shot last night, he’s in hospital.’
Amina screamed, recklessly turning her car onto the pavement and bringing it to a sudden halt. ‘What?! Is he okay?’ There was a restrained panic in her voice.
Masondo’s deep voice stayed calm. ‘I want to say yes, but it’s still too early. He’s in
ICU
at Westville. He was shot more than once, early this morning. I thought you should know.’
Durant was more than an old colleague; he was a friend. She’d spoken to him a few weeks earlier and he’d joked about how boring her life must be. From intelligence officer to crèche owner, he scoffed, from saving the world to changing nappies. She was reminded why she’d left that dangerous world in the first place. It wasn’t a place for people with families and it was the fear that she might one day leave a loved one behind that had helped ease her out of the Agency. Then again, she didn’t have a family to leave behind. Only a husband who didn’t care much for her and an empty hope that one day she would have a child of her own. Then an unexpected guilt surged in her – it should have been her. Durant has a loving wife, a young daughter. She almost didn’t want to know what happened to Kevin Durant, because it brought a cruel sense of realisation of her own fallibility.
Stephanie Durant approached the family room and extended her hand to the man in the white coat. ‘Pleased to meet you, Dr Abdul. I’m told you’re the best.’
Dr Abdul’s eyes were clear and attentive, an admirable feat considering it was close to eight in the morning and he’d spent the past six hours in surgery. He took Stephanie gently by the hand and sat next to her in the hospital lounge.
He adjusted the wire-framed glasses on his face and Stephanie noticed his eye twitch. ‘I won’t lie to you, Mrs Durant. I’m going to give you the truth, no matter how bad, because I think that’s what you would want.’
Stephanie nodded dolefully, and braced herself for bad news. ‘I appreciate that, Doctor.’
‘The surgery went well, but your husband is still critical and it’s too early to know how well he’ll recover.’
‘He’s always been a fighter,’ she said, trying to convince herself the words would somehow make it true. ‘He’ll be okay,’ and she nodded to reinforce her belief as Dr Abdul squeezed her hand.
‘We need to always believe things will get better. Our bodies can tolerate a lot. We can fix most things that are broken but it’s still early days. There was a lot of damage and the next few days are going to be crucial.’
‘Thank you for what you’ve done.’
Her mind drifted to the realisation that she might lose her husband that very night. Curse his work. She was left with the prospect of being a widow in her early forties purely because of his career choice. It was unfair. To return to a career after six years of being a full-time mother? She doubted she had the will or the energy to go back to the fast-paced business environment that had consumed her all the years before Alexis was born. Then there was the depression that followed the birth and the closeness she felt she had earned through all the time and love she had put into Alexis since. It felt as though her life was in a perfect place now with Kevin enjoying his work and earning enough to allow her to be there for Alexis. Her perfect place had been shattered by Masondo’s phone call and been turned into a maelstrom of conflicting thoughts and emotions. How could she be so selfish? Her husband was fighting for his life and she was worried about having to go back to work. She forced the thoughts out of her mind and remembered the doctor’s words. She had to believe things would get better; she had to hold onto that. Stephanie touched a tissue to her eyes and gathered her long auburn hair into a pony tail. It was going to be a long wait.