Bones Omnibus (37 page)

He would have to get closer.

Moqoma dropped to his stomach and commando-crawled ahead, the dirt giving way to sand. Bones followed suit, keeping low to the ground as he inched forward as well. But as they neared, the shepherd became agitated, alerting to something he picked up on the wind.

“What is it?” Moqoma hissed, following Bones’s gaze.

That’s when he spied the diminutive form of Li moving among the men. As she passed, each bowed deeply to her. The detective thought he recognized Chan’s stoopless posture as well as that of Qin. But when he saw who was moving along behind Li, his blood went cold.

It was Xiang.

Moqoma stared at the man in horror before noticing the eye patch over his left eye. Beyond that, however, there was nothing to suggest he’d had a brush with the abyss earlier in the day.

“What in Hell’s name?” Moqoma whispered.

Over the sound of crashing waves, the whine of an engine echoed over the dunes. One of the container ship’s lifeboats, a large, motorized self-rescue model with a fiberglass shell, approached the shore at speed. Moqoma squeezed the trigger guard of the AK-47 with his finger, knowing he had to make a decision.

“Fuck it,” he said, getting to one knee and aiming the assault rifle at the nearest of the Triad gunmen. “Get ready, Bones.”

The detective had misjudged the range of the drum-fed AK. As he fired fully automatic bursts of high-velocity rounds at the heads and torsos of the armed silhouettes, the bullets were drawn like magnets to their targets. He watched as heads exploded from the barrage and those nearby panicked as they were showered with blood and grue.

But just as quickly, he stopped shooting and quickly rolled a dozen meters to his left. As the Triad gunmen brought their weapons around, aiming where they’d last seen muzzle flash, Moqoma opened fire again, the spent cartridges popping out of the chamber at almost the same rate he was seeing the bodies of his enemy hit the ground.

When he rolled again, this time forward ten meters, he noticed that Li, Xiang, Qin, and Chan all seemed to have vanished. He searched the beach as he blasted a few more of the gunmen off their feet, but then he saw movement on the ground.

“Oh, shit,” he managed to say, just as a half-man, half-snake erupted from the sand in front of him and attacked.

Miraculously, Moqoma managed to hang onto his assault rifle even as the serpent slammed him to the ground, then coiled its body around him like a boa constrictor. He fired into the creature’s belly at close range, but the bullets glanced off its scales like a tank being shelled by a group of children with slingshots. The snake-man opened its mouth, revealing its massive fangs. It tongue flicked against Moqoma’s face even as it raised up, ready to strike.

Expecting the icy feeling of the sharp blades diving into his torso, the detective was then surprised when he instead felt something land on his back, only to launch off again. Almost immediately, the bone-crushing grip the snake-man held him in began to relax, and Moqoma fought his way out. When he could get a good look at his would-be killer, he saw that Bones had landed on the thing’s head, his teeth dug deeply into the monster’s forked tongue. The shepherd appeared to be trying to yank the soft organ straight from its mouth.

A second later, he succeeded.

The amount of blood that erupted from the serpent’s mouth was incomprehensible. It was as if the dog had popped the cork on a bottle of champagne, releasing the same frothy discharge, albeit black and steaming as it splashed onto the sand. The serpent bobbed away as if drunk, but then sank to the ground. As it slowly returned to a fully human shape, Moqoma could see that it was Chan.

That fucking dog
, Moqoma thought.
Sitting there figuring out that thing’s weakness and not even giving me the heads-up
.

He grinned, swung the second assault rifle off his shoulder, shoved a second drum on the first, and turned just as a second snake-creature launched itself from the darkness, jaws open and aimed for his face. This time, however, Moqoma was ready.

The sheer number of bullets he fired into the serpent’s gaping maw would’ve been enough to kill fifty men. But as the red-hot lead chipped away at the top of the monster’s mouth while others punctured its tongue, Moqoma was happy to merely draw blood. The snake-man reared up, closing its mouth even as blood poured over its jaws. Moqoma saw that one of its eyes was destroyed and knew it must be Xiang. He pulled the Glock from his belt and emptied the entire clip into Xiang’s remaining eye. The security guard hissed and thrashed blindly as blood pulsed from his ruined eye socket. Moqoma brought the shotgun around, and, as Xiang’s head swung by, he blasted the creature twice in its gaping mouth, shredding its tongue.

Xiang’s head thudded heavily onto the ground, sending up a cloud of sand, blood seeping out of his head like pulped tomatoes sluiced through a colander.

Two down
, Moqoma thought.

He wheeled around, chambering another round in the shotgun, and saw Bones tussling with another of the snake-creatures. The shepherd was having a harder time with this one, as it was sliding around quickly, keeping its mouth shut while trying to use its tail to coil around the dog. Just as the detective hurried over, the serpent succeeded in gripping the enforcement dog in its lower torso. As it pulled its muscles tight, Bones let out a yelp.

But then Moqoma swung both AK-47s around and unloaded two hundred rounds into the creature’s face.

The snake flopped over but kept its ever-tightening grip on Bones. The cop grabbed at the tight coils, trying to pull the dog free, but the serpent had the strength of ten men. Even as it lay stunned and possibly dying, its body reacted to the indignity by fulfilling one last task: the execution of the German shepherd.

“Dammit, Bones!” Moqoma cried, trying to free the dog.

He could see the pain on the shepherd’s face as his body contorted under the reptilian coils. The air was being squeezed from his lungs even as his ribs were seconds from splintering like toothpicks.

Moqoma threw his arms around the snake’s body, straining every muscle to pull it away. But it wasn’t enough. He saw the light dimming in Bones’s eyes as the dog’s mouth opened, his tongue flopping out.

“NO!” the detective shouted.

But then a familiar voice cut through the darkness.

“Stand back, Lieutenant.”

Moqoma looked up and saw Special Agent Zhu and a handful of men wearing the silver laurel and commando knife badge of the South African Special Forces, known as Recces. The detective rolled away as the one nearest the dying serpent carefully inserted a fragmentary grenade in the creature’s mouth. When it exploded a second later, rather than contract in death, the coils relaxed immediately, sloughing away from Bones like a cut anchor line.

But as soon as they had fallen aside, the German shepherd collapsed.

“Bones!” Moqoma shouted, hurrying to the dog’s side.

He put his head on the dog’s furry chest and detected a faint heartbeat. He began gently massaging the animal’s side and snout.

“Come on, boy. You’re tougher than that.”

But Bones’s eyes were cloudy and his jaws still. Zhu squatted down next to them.

“Lieutenant. You’ve done all you can.”

As Moqoma watched the light go out of the German shepherd’s eyes, the dog sinking into unconsciousness, he got back to his feet.

“Where’s Li?”

“We’re afraid we might’ve arrived too late.”

Moqoma turned to the water. The lifeboat bobbed up and down with the tide about fifty meters from shore. A large object moved through the waves straight to it, its body rippling in a serpentine motion to propel it along.

“Nope,” said Moqoma.

He looked along the row of soldiers until he saw one with an M-16, the optional M203 grenade launcher attached just below the barrel.

“I need to borrow that, soldier.”

The young man shot a questioning glance to Zhu, who had clearly been put in command of this detachment, and she nodded.

With the weapon and several grenades in his hands, Moqoma raced to the water’s edge in time to see the snake-woman board the lifeboat as a serpent, then slowly return to her human form. Moqoma aimed the machine gun at the boat, then adjusted slightly up. He shoved a grenade in the launcher and fired.

The first grenade made a direct hit atop the lifeboat’s hard plastic shell, shattering it into thousands of pieces in a fiery explosion. From Moqoma’s vantage point, he could just see a couple of the people on board, now set aflame and screaming, hurry to throw themselves overboard. He calmly reloaded, and this time, with the cover obliterated, aimed at the engine. The grenade made a loud pneumatic “pop” as it exited the launcher. It whistled through the sky, slowing like a softly hit baseball, before missing the lifeboat’s engine by an inch, albeit landing on the watercraft’s twin reserve gas cans instead.

This time the entire boat exploded, a great fireball rising into the night sky, illuminating the dark water all the way to the shore. This time there were no screams, even as severed body parts flew into the air before raining back down into the water.

That’ll bring the sharks
, Moqoma thought.

But even as he imagined Li, in her snake-form, being torn apart by South Africa’s finest great whites, he loaded another grenade, aimed for the smoldering wreckage, and fired again. The explosion was smaller this time, but no less satisfying to the detective.

He loaded another grenade, aimed, and fired again.

B
y sunrise, almost the entire Cape Town police force was down on the beach. Cape Point had, needless to say, been closed for the day, though Moqoma didn’t envy the officers tasked with turning away visitors and tour groups any more than he did the guides who would have to return their meager fees to angry foreigners back up in the City Bowl.

The detective had stayed on the beach all night, pacing up and down while scanning the waves for any sign of the snake-woman. When there was movement, he immediately zeroed in on it with a night scope one of the soldiers had provided, only to see that it was indeed sharks drawn to the area by the bloodbath.

Only once had any of the officers combing the sand called over to him. As he hurried over, he saw something massive washed up on the shore, almost twenty feet in length. When he got to the officer’s side, he saw that it was the corpse of a great white shark, its head almost severed by what looked like twin scythes.

He stared back out at the waves, a thrill going up his spine every time a new dorsal fin pierced the water, moving quickly, as if bearing down for the kill.

He didn’t leave until almost sunset, having been awake for over thirty hours straight. Special Agent Zhu had left much earlier to sleep, make a full report, and tie up a few loose ends within her own department. When she returned, Moqoma was getting ready to leave.

“What’re they saying?” Moqoma asked. “My people, I mean.”

“That you’re a hero. That you singlehandedly brought down a criminal organization that had made significant inroads to both the Western Cape and the South African government, all while pursuing the assassin of Charles van Lagemaat, the identity of whom you also discovered.”

Moqoma stared at Zhu with incredulity. “Come on.”

She smiled wryly. “Fine. They’re saying there was some gang fight out on the beach with a couple of deaths, but that it was just a bunch of teenagers. They found evidence in Roogie Mogwaza’s office tying him to van Lagemaat’s assassination and, after locating the corpse, announced that he’d been killed by his own men over money.”

Moqoma laughed out loud. Zhu glanced down, her smile replaced by a troubled look.

“What?” Moqoma asked.

“Part of the reason I wanted an overseas posting was to get away from those sorts of lies and political intrigue.”

“Then South Africa was the absolute
wrong
choice, madam,” Moqoma replied, returning to his feigned obsequiousness.

Zhu’s smile returned. “Thank you, Lieutenant.”

“No trouble, Special Agent. I’ll see you around the Cape, then?”

“Looking forward to it,” she replied, but then remembered something else. “Did you hear about the dog? The American?”

Moqoma looked surprised. He’d forgotten all about Bones in his determination to locate the snake-woman. He realized he owed Moosa the mother of all apologies, but that his explanation of what happened would never pass muster, given the cover-up to come.

“No, what about him? He died, yes?”

“That’s what they thought, but as they were loading him in one of the police trucks, he woke up and immediately bit the officer in the wrist. They dropped him, and he bit the second one. It took four officers and two soldiers to get a leash on him and force him into the truck. They drove him to the vet’s office in the city, where he was sedated and checked out. Would you believe it, he was
fine
. A couple of broken ribs and some dehydration, but that was it.”

Moqoma sighed, a great weight he didn’t know was there lifting from his shoulders.

“That crazy
inja
,” he said, shaking his head.

“That crazy
inja
,” Zhu agreed.

When Billy Youman returned to the training compound in Muizenberg two days later and saw Bones’s taped ribs, he stared at Moosa with incredulity.

“Wait,
what
happened to my dog?”

Moosa shrugged. “He had a fall. He was up in the training house, ran through a door, and, I suppose, didn’t realize it was on the second floor. They took him to the vet and taped him up good, though. He could’ve broken his neck.”

“Shit, well, how am I supposed to work him out the rest of the week?” Youman asked.

Moosa shrugged again. “You can’t. He needs rest and relaxation. In fact, we’ve heard from on high that he’s to be treated with the greatest of care as he rehabilitates.”

Youman shook his head, as if trying to wrap it around this new information. But he finally shrugged, jamming his hands in his pockets.

“So what am I supposed to do for the rest of my time here?”