‘Once an intelligence officer, always an intelligence officer. You can’t expect to share a house with a spy and not be discovered.’ Amina squeezed the dummy back into Siraj’s mouth.
‘Discovered doing what?’ Yusuf threw his keys on the dresser.
‘Oh, come on, Ahmed; you know what.’ Amina paused, noticing for the first time there was a hint of green in Siraj’s eyes. ‘I’ve known for a while.’
‘You’ve got nothing. And without me, you
are
nothing.’
‘You’re wrong. Without you, I’m free.’ The eyes were Mariam’s. She had that green pigment. ‘I don’t need you any more.’
Yusuf began unbuttoning his shirt angrily. A button popped off and landed on the floor. ‘Are you threatening me?’
‘Actually, I am. I’ve got samples, photographs; I even have the list of suppliers and buyers. I’ve got everything, darling.’
Yusuf licked his lips. His mouth had gone dry. ‘I can explain all of that.’
‘No, you don’t have to explain anything. You can just leave.’
‘Leave?’ Yusuf laughed, but it came out like a sneer. ‘This is my house.’
Amina smiled, frowned and shook her head, in that order. ‘Not any more. It’s mine now. You can stay in that flat in Westville you use. I’ll be staying here with Siraj.’
‘You don’t know what you’re doing. You’re crazy.’ Yusuf ran his hand through the stubble on his chin then unclipped his belt.
‘Me? Not me, Ahmed. I’m normal. I’m just fighting back with the only weapons I have. Information. Deception. Foreknowledge. It’s what I do, remember?’ Her tone was measured, calm. Siraj’s eyes were closing. It must have been the evenness of her voice.
‘You’ve been spying on me?’ His indignation made Amina laugh.
‘No, not at all. I’ve been protecting my future. A while ago I realised my future wasn’t with you, so I had no option. I had to find a new future.’ She looked out the big bedroom windows at the Durban skyline and remembered the moment she made the decision. ‘I didn’t want to sacrifice all I’ve worked for, so I’m sorry, but this is the only way.’
‘It’s not proof, it’s not evidence.’ The words were full of scorn. He held the belt tightly in his hands and for a moment he wanted to unleash punishment on this woman who had ruined his life.
‘Really?’ Amina stepped forward. ‘You want to test me? You think I’m an idiot? I’ve got everything I need to send you to prison for drug dealing. And take down your network and really upset your suppliers in South America.’ She thought of the lever arch file filled with documents she’d meticulously copied night after night. ‘But I won’t use it. It’s all in a safe place. I just want you to leave, that’s all.’
‘But what about us?’ Yusuf’s voice had more than a hint of desperation in it. It was pathetic. He rolled up the belt and placed it on the dresser.
‘Us?’ Amina sneered. ‘There is no us. There’s only me. And my son, Siraj. Narcissistic, I know, but there we have it.’
Yusuf punched the dresser top in anger. ‘You’re crazy; I can’t believe you’ll do this to your own husband!’
‘I thought, for so long I fought the bad guys, really evil people, and even recently, this terrorist,’ Amina paused to let it sink in, ‘yet I can’t do anything about the evil going on in my own house. So I made a decision to fight back.’
‘I’ll change, Amina, give me a chance, just one chance, I’ll prove it to you.’ A distended vein pulsated in his forehead. Amina wondered if he might have a stroke. Then she resolved that if he did, it wouldn’t matter.
Amina turned away her face indifferently. ‘You’ve destroyed lives. You don’t care. You can’t love me, you can’t even love yourself. You chose this way. I wasted so much time hoping things would change, but you chose the other way.’
Yusuf took a step towards her and hesitantly took her by the arm. ‘But what about Siraj? The son we’ve always wanted?’
Amina shook herself free from him and Siraj stirred momentarily then settled down again in his mother’s comforting arms. ‘He’ll be fine with me. I don’t want Siraj growing up with yet another bad man as a role model. He’s been through enough as it is. It’s just him and me now.’
Yusuf scowled, his teeth exposed like a hungry animal’s. ‘You can’t support him, you . . .’
‘Oh yes. The other bit of good news.’ Amina rose to her feet and gently laid Siraj into the cot, kicking Yusuf ’s shirt out the way on her way there. ‘I got my old job at intelligence back.’
‘Why do they call you Frost?’ Durant asked after introducing himself as Harold Perkins, asset security manager for a large banking group. So far, the plan had worked faultlessly. Splinters had dropped Perkins’s name to Nathi’s sister, Tamara, and mentioned he was willing to assist the syndicate if the price was right. The message got to Frost and then Splinters informed him Frost had summoned him to a seedy bar in the city centre for a meeting. He’d been ushered into a small office behind the counter, stocked from floor to ceiling with beer boxes, but with enough space for a small desk. Frost sat on the desk, a man in his late-forties, well dressed and clean shaven.
‘That’s personal,’ the big man replied, wiping his hand over his bald head and then grunting to a sidekick who scurried away. ‘What do you have for me?’ His voice was gravelly, curt. Durant knew he was a dangerous man, and that danger was palpable. Durant felt fear, but just momentarily while the man’s dark eyes surveyed him. He had to maintain the cover, focus, set aside the fear.
‘I authorise the routes,’ Durant said, hearing his voice gain confidence. ‘I know exactly where the cash-in-transit trucks are at any given time. I know who the drivers are, how much cash is in them and the times and places of delivery. I can help you.’ Durant was still sweating and it wasn’t part of the act. Although it could have been. The bank official would have been nervous selling out his employer’s secrets. ‘They give me all this responsibility, I spend my days worrying about these millions of rands, and they pay me . . .’ he tossed a folded page onto the table, ‘a pittance.’ Pocket litter. Nothing like pocket litter to reinforce a cover story. The salary slip looked genuine, because it was. It even had Harold Perkins’s name on it. He just wasn’t Harold Perkins.
Frost tossed the paper back at Durant. ‘What do you want?’ There was a sharp edge to Frost’s voice.
‘Well, all I want is a piece of the pie. Only if it all works out, of course.’ Durant shifted uncomfortably as Frost’s sidekick returned and whispered something to him. When he left, he closed the door behind him.
There was silence, punctuated only by the sound of Durant’s heavy breathing.
Frost narrowed his eyes momentarily. ‘So you’ve been working there a long time?’
This was it, Durant thought. They’d checked. The backstop was too shallow, they were on to him. ‘I always liked figures,’ Durant said, remarkably calmly considering he felt as though someone already had him by the throat with a garrotte. Then added, ‘Especially the blonde ones.’
It was a penetrating two seconds of quiet, then Frost erupted into a guttural laugh, and Durant laughed too, relieved that the focus was off him momentarily.
‘Blondes! That’s funny.’ Frost composed himself quickly and dabbed his forehead with a white silk handkerchief. His voice was abrupt again. ‘You have access to the drivers’ personal details? Home addresses, stuff like that?’
Durant smiled and leaned towards Frost, confident now. ‘All of that. The drivers, the crews, the dispatchers, even the shift managers. They all belong to me. And if I belong to you, I don’t mind sharing.’
Frost nodded slowly and licked his lips. Durant could just imagine what he was thinking. For a criminal mastermind, this type of access was manna from crime heaven. ‘I want that, all of that. Every name is worth R1 000 to you.’
Durant snorted indignantly. ‘I’m worth more than that, Mr Frost.’
‘You’re worth what I say you’re worth. I was being generous when I said R1 000. Maybe it should be R100.’ Durant could see the anger rise, right up to his dark eyes.
‘Maybe I should find someone else who would be interested.’
‘There is no one else. I control this market.
ATMS
and cash-in-transits are my territory. You have nowhere else to go. R750, my last offer.’
It was time. Durant knew it was a gamble, but it was a calculated risk. Anyway, the
SAPS
task force was outside – if it went wrong, they would extract him, hopefully alive. If it went right, this case was solved. Durant shook his head. ‘Here’s the thing. You’re gonna want to kill me. You’re probably gonna wish you did long ago. Last Christmas Eve, out there on the Esplanade.’ Durant spoke in a measured tone as he lifted his shirt to reveal the scars on his body.
Frost’s head jerked back, instinctively, as if some invisible hand had landed a blow under his chin. The handkerchief wiped his face, once, twice. ‘Who are you?’ The words were as cold as the beers on the other side of the door.
‘Durant. nia. The guy you nearly killed.’
‘That’s not a bank,’ Frost said bitterly, almost indignant that he’d been told a fib.
‘Sorry, I lied about the bank part. I still want to make a deal with you though.’ Durant’s voice was steady now, self-assured.
Frost pursed his lips. ‘Our business is finished here.’
He started towards the door, but stopped when Durant took his arm. ‘If you walk through the door, the deal’s off. Twenty cops will be all over you. You’ll go to court, you’ll go to jail for murder and attempted murder. If we talk in here, and walk out together, you can keep walking. No one will touch you.’ Durant let go his arm. ‘Your call, Frost.’
Frost put the handkerchief to his face and held it there. For all of thirty seconds, his eyes were closed. Durant could only imagine the thoughts going through his head. How much did this man know? Was he bluffing? Could he take the chance? ‘What’s this deal?’ He thrust the hanky in his pocket and looked Durant in the eye. ‘Talk to me.’
Patient 28763 was the only white patient in the secure ward at the Hopelands Institute with an isiZulu name. The staff had given him the name ‘Umthakathi’, which means ‘evil’ and it was hard to imagine that this thin, pathetic-looking man, eyes wide and saliva dripping from his dry and drawn lips, could have actually been responsible for the biggest terrorist attack on the subcontinent. It was pointless calling him Ruslan Vakhayev because the real Ruslan’s body was lying in a numbered municipal grave on the outskirts of Durban. This man wasn’t dead. His brain was still functioning, but only at its most basic level. The
M
99 had stopped his heart and lungs from functioning for too long, depriving his brain of blood and oxygen. The rag in his mouth hadn’t helped either. And the body, in a state of half-wake, half-sleep wasn’t going anywhere. The handcuffs and police guard only lasted three days. Only his eyes moved, and there were few staff members who could even look into the wild, darting eyes of Umthakathi without being haunted by the sight of the demons which tormented him.
Durant received a scanned copy of the email Frost’s attorney had sent to the senior public prosecutor. Frost was willing to testify that he dealt with Ruslan’s alias in the weapons-for-explosives exchange. If the terrorist was ever fit to stand trial, Frost would testify against him and finger him as the link between the explosives and the terrorist attack against the ship. There was, however, a proviso he’d negotiated with the State. In return, he wanted indemnity from prosecution for the shooting of the Filipino, Durant and Splinters. Durant lifted his feet off his desk and sighed. He was glad it wasn’t his decision to make. For now, that suited him. He’d made another deal with Frost and it was time to go.
No one was outside the prison gate when Faizel Mohammed was released. No press, no relatives and nobody from the centre. His lawyer had offered to send a taxi to take him home, but he’d declined. He also declined to sue the police for false arrest. He had no need for money or revenge. He praised Allah for his freedom; although the prison cell was so much more comfortable than his stable at the centre. It didn’t matter; he wasn’t going back to the centre anyway. It was time to move on and leave South Africa’s experience of jihad for the history books to judge. A minibus taxi stopped at the prison entrance and he got in. As the full taxi headed for the city, Mohammed reflected on Durban – a city changed – more fearful, more paranoid, and closer perhaps, to realising that nowhere in the world was safe or free. As long as there was unbelief, there would be war. It was a small step in the long journey, but he was grateful having been part of it. The mission was a success, but he would never give a report to his masters. The media reports were enough. There was only one failure. The man he’d known as Ruslan had failed. His carelessness had cost him his mind. But he posed no danger now. Ruslan was as good as dead. Perhaps his soul had already departed. Anyway, on Resurrection Day, his blood would smell of musk. Perhaps he was already enjoying the virgins in Paradise and tasting the sweetest dates. The taxi entered the city, and Mohammed lifted the newspaper on the seat beside him. A story caught his eye. Julian Dos Santos had been arrested for writing an article which ‘jeopardised’ the police’s investigation into the bombing. Mohammed smiled, his sense of pride inflated. Silently he recited the first verse of the Quran: Bismallah rahmani rahim al hamdulillah rabbi lalamin. He had hit Dar al-Harb, the Place of War – literally, an American warship was the epitome of American aggression – with a hammer blow and the only arrest the authorities had made was of a journalist who reported the truth.
Suddenly the taxi shuddered to a halt. Mohammed felt bewildered. The taxi passengers on either side of him had his arms in a lock.
‘What . . . are you doing?’ he stuttered, pulling feebly against the strong hands that pushed him against the seat. Another passenger behind him now had his head in a lock and he felt something being pulled over his head. Now his wrists, something being tied around his wrists and pulled tight. He felt cold and helpless. What was happening? The sliding door opened and he felt himself being dragged out by big hands, these gloved. He was being lifted now, unceremoniously, but efficiently, and carried a few metres. Another vehicle sliding door opening. It was pointless struggling. They had him. There was no escape. He was lowered onto a chair and cuffed to it. The sliding door closed and someone behind him pulled the hood off.