A Sailor's Honour (7 page)

‘
DI
McCarten here,' she said when he answered.

‘Yes,' he said.

‘I want you and your partner to come in for a recorded interview,' she said. There was no please, by your leave or if its suits you.

‘I've told you what I know,' De Villiers said. He wasn't sure why, but she irritated him immensely.

DI
McCarten ignored his tone. ‘I want you to come in so that we can record an interview to be broadcast on the news tonight. I want you to look the camera in the eye and speak directly to the kidnappers and call upon them to bring your daughter back.'

It was a trick and De Villiers knew it. ‘That's never worked in the past, and I assume you have no reason to believe it will work now,' he said.

Her answer must have been rehearsed it came so quickly. ‘So may I record then that you refuse to cooperate in the investigation of the disappearance of your daughter?'

De Villiers was about to say, ‘Yes, because I'm going to conduct my own investigation while you sit on your backside and harass me,' but got the better of his temper. ‘I don't believe that people who abduct children will ever heed the kind of call you want to make.'

‘So you refuse to help?' she asked. ‘Is that the message you want to convey?'

‘No,' he said. ‘The message I want to convey to you, and which you may convey to the media, is that I am leaving the matter in your capable hands.'

But he had no intention of doing that. There was too much of the soldier in him.

In stark contrast with the relative luxury of the Range Rover Sport taking Zoë to the safe house in Kawerau, Liesl Weber was being transported in the steel-and-aluminium cage of the back of an old Land Rover. Her resolve not to cooperate in any way had caused some consternation in the beginning, and her abductors had the strictest instructions not to hurt or harm her in any way. Handling a recalcitrant prisoner without inflicting some pain is not an easy task at the best of times; much worse when the prisoner is a woman who bruises easily.

After two days of indecision, the orders came to bring Liesl Weber to the Third Force lodge. They strapped her to a stretcher and carried her into the back of the Land Rover. They drove in the deep of the night along hundreds of kilometres of back roads with their blindfolded passenger sliding from one corner to the other behind them. Through coastal KwaZulu-Natal, Zululand, Swaziland and the eastern escarpment. It took twelve hours.

When they arrived at the lodge, Liesl Weber was semiconscious, dehydrated and bruised all over. But unlike Steve Biko, another ab-ductee of the Third Force, she had survived the trip.

It was late but there was still time. De Villiers used his new cellphone and rang each of the names on the list of numbers Telecom New Zealand had provided. He had the names and they had the numbers. The dialling codes suggested the general localities where these sixteen soldiers now lived. All but two were at home and came to the phone. Each time De Villiers said that his cellphone was ringing and that he would call again. When he had finished, he had crossed fourteen names off the list. He eyed the other two names and rang the first for the second time.

A woman answered at the first ring. ‘Yes.'

‘It's me again,' De Villiers said. ‘Could you please tell me where he is and when he'll be back? This is really important.'

‘Are you Sandy's boyfriend?' she asked.

De Villiers hedged. ‘Sandy?'

‘Yes, Sandy's boyfriend.'

De Villiers played for time. ‘I know Sandy, but she's not my girlfriend.' He elaborated on the lie as he progressed. ‘At least, she doesn't think so.'

The woman started crying. ‘He's having an affair with Sandy, I'm sure. He said he was going pig hunting in the Ureweras, but I know he's with Sandy.'

‘How do you know?' De Villiers asked.

She sniffed. ‘I spoke to her school and they said she'd taken two weeks' leave. That's exactly what he's done. Taken two weeks' leave.'

They expect the operation to take two weeks, De Villiers thought. That is atypical for the recces, who specialise in surprise attacks and quick exfiltrations. There were Special Forces operators involved in Zoë's abduction, but they were not behaving like typical recces.

He was forced to lie again. ‘Do you have the school's number for me, please? I had it but I've dropped my phone and now it's not working.'

‘No,' she said. ‘But it's in the book. St Peter's College.'

‘Thanks,' De Villiers said. ‘Did he say that he was going with someone else?'

‘He always goes with Mooikats,' she said. ‘And he also cheats on his wife. With Sandy's sister.'

‘Mooikats?'

‘Yes, his surname is Britz. Hendrik Britz.'

De Villiers didn't have to write the name down. It belonged to the next number he was going to dial. De Villiers was now certain with whom he was dealing. Mooikats was the nickname of a legendary recce operator who, according to the legend, went about barefoot on operations in the bush as well as in urban counterterrorism operations. While it had never been formally admitted, not even to the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Mooikats was credited with a number of assassinations both inside and outside the country.

The next lie came seamlessly. ‘Do you have a cellphone number for him? I need to talk to Sandy, but I lost her number when my phone broke.'

‘So you
are
her boyfriend.'

‘Not really,' he lied again.

‘Hold on,' she said. He could hear her fiddling with something and guessed it was her handbag. ‘Here it is.'

She repeated the number to make sure he had it down correctly. ‘And let me know if Sandy is with him,' she said. ‘He's in for a big surprise when he gets home.'

De Villiers took a chance. ‘And the number for Mooikats, if I don't get through to your husband?'

She readily obliged. ‘They've been friends since their army days, and they always cover for each other.' Recces to the death, De Villiers thought, even here, ten thousand kilometres from the theatre of war.

De Villiers looked at his watch. It was too late to catch Sandy's school principal at work. He phoned him at home and lied.

An hour later he had four cellphone numbers. According to the principal, Sandy and her sister Cathy, a nurse at Auckland Hospital, had taken leave together to go hiking: tramping, in the vernacular. It had been a rather sudden affair and he had had quite a problem to find a locum
PE
teacher to stand in for Sandy.

One of the cellphones was on Telstra and the other three on Vodafone. He called
DS
Veerasinghe. She was the latest addition to his team and he was glad to have her. She was always first to arrive in the morning and last to leave. At the selection interviews, she had impressed him with what she called her father's philosophy. ‘Never leave your desk in the evening until you have done all the work on it.'

Her husband called her to the phone. ‘I'm going to put your father's philosophy to the test, Vaishna,' De Villiers said. ‘I have another job for you and it's urgent.'

He gave her the list. ‘I need the phone records for each of these numbers for the last three months.'

He waited for her to read the numbers back to him. ‘And then find out which cellphone towers are nearest to their current locations and, if they are moving, where they are heading.'

‘Is this still about your daughter's case, sir?'

‘Yes.'

‘I'll get to it immediately.'

‘But this is off the record. I don't want this to be logged in the investigation diary,' De Villiers said. ‘This is part of something far bigger than my daughter's case.'

She had children of her own. ‘Nothing can be bigger than the case of a missing child,' she said without fear of contradiction.

‘Get on with it,' De Villiers said. ‘And please keep me informed.'

The secret phone rang. De Villiers pulled it by the thong from under his shirt. He maintained his speed in the middle lane of the motorway.

‘Johann?'

The caller ignored the question. ‘Speak to your daughter. Don't try any tricks. You have one minute. We are listening in.'

De Villiers's ear had become detuned to South African regional accents, but he thought that there was a hint of East London in the voice. The curious phrasing of the warning left no doubt that it was a South African speaking.

‘Dad?'

De Villiers glanced in the rear-view mirror and steered to the left so that he could stop in the emergency lane.

‘Hello, Babyshoes.' He glanced at his watch. Time was of the essence and there was so much to say, to find out. ‘Are you okay?'

There was a pause before Zoë spoke. De Villiers stopped the car and cut the motor. ‘I'm okay, Dad,' she said.

‘Did they hurt you?' De Villiers asked, the words getting stuck in his throat.

There was a small pause before she answered. ‘No, Dad.'

The pause was an affirmation. He made a special effort to remain calm and steered the conversation in another direction. ‘What are you doing, Babyshoes?'

‘They gave me crayons and paper and dolls to play with.'

The seconds were ticking by. ‘Listen to me, Babyshoes. You must do everything they tell you, okay? You must be very, very good.'

‘Okay, Dad. When are you coming to fetch me?'

‘Soon,' De Villiers said. ‘Mum said to say hello and that she loves you.'

‘Okay, bye,' she said.

De Villiers could hear Zoë's abductor's breathing. He spoke slowly and deliberately. ‘If you hurt my daughter, I will find you and I will kill you in the slowest and most painful manner imaginable. Is that clear?'

The man laughed. ‘And you're a policeman and all that,' he sniggered. ‘Sworn to uphold the law and to give even the vilest criminal a fair trial?'

‘Not this time,' De Villiers said. He was about to voice another threat, but realised that it would have no bite.

‘Ha fucken ha,' the man said.

The line went dead. De Villiers glanced at the display. The call had lasted exactly sixty seconds. I'm going to have to be patient, De Villiers said to himself. This is going to take time and patience, and I am going to have to go against my instincts. I am going to have to resist killing them and work alongside those who have abducted my daughter.

DS
Veerasinghe phoned a minute later. ‘We've triangulated the signal and we can pinpoint their location to within a radius of half a kilometre.'

They think like soldiers, De Villiers thought. A policeman would know that cellphone calls could be traced if not to the precise position of the caller, at least to the general area.

‘Where are they?' he asked.

‘Have you got a map?' she asked.

‘No, not here. Tell me. I'll find it on the map later.'

‘In Kawerau. The lines cross well within the limits of the town.'

He made his decision quickly. ‘Vaishna,' he said, ‘I want you to listen very carefully.'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘I want you to destroy all notes and records about the enquiries you've made. Okay?'

She was silent and he had to ask her, ‘Did you hear what I said?'

‘Yes, sir.'

‘Will you do it?'

She hesitated before she answered. ‘If I knew why.'

‘Because I think it is wrong for me to be involved in the investigation of my own child's disappearance. That's why.'

‘But why should I destroy records, sir? I could be fired for it.'

She was right. ‘I'll take the blame,' De Villiers said. ‘I'll give you a written order.'

She sounded doubtful when she spoke. ‘Yes, sir.'

‘Vaishna.'

‘Yes, sir?'

‘Give me the coordinates please.'

‘The centre of the five hundred metre radius area is at the intersection of River Road and Ballantrae.'

‘Spell that please.'

‘
B-A-L-L-A-N-T-R-A-E
.'

‘Got it. Thanks.'

Still parked in the emergency lane, De Villiers powered up his MacBook and opened Google Maps. Within seconds he had Kawerau on the screen. He found the intersection quickly. It was in the middle of the town near the river. He sat back and thought about the decision he had made.

He was a policeman, but this was a military operation. The people who had abducted Zoë were soldiers, of that he was convinced. You cannot fight soldiers with a policeman's methods. Too many constraints. Too many rules. Too many agencies looking over your shoulder to ensure that no one's civil rights are infringed. In his capacity as policeman, De Villiers was disqualified from participating in any investigation. Just as well, he thought, because here I want to act like a soldier. Policemen take prisoners. They have to. But a soldier is employed to kill.

De Villiers folded his arms and stared at the screen. His eyes lost their focus. In the web of streets and houses on the screen, he saw himself as he thought he knew himself. He spoke aloud without realising he was doing so. ‘From now on, I play by the rules of war.'

De Villiers looked at his watch again. It would be twenty-four hours before he could speak to Zoë again. He returned his focus to the computer screen and tapped with his finger on the intersection. It looked like any other small town in New Zealand.

They also misjudged Weber, but for completely different reasons. Johann Weber
SC
was a respected senior advocate – the letters
SC
after his name stood for Senior Counsel – and they thought that he would stay within the law and would respond to the kidnapping of his wife by reporting the matter to the police and leaving it in their hands.