Gun Dealing (The Ryder Quartet Book 2) (32 page)

18.03.
  

Cronje barged into Nyawula’s office,
screaming.

‘Captain!
 
Big shootout down at the Yacht Club.
KoeksnDips are on their way, but they’ll take some time. They’re still out at
Musgrave, and they...’

‘I’m on my way, Piet. Let’s go. No.
You stay! Get the medics. Check out... Come down after you’ve sorted out...’

‘Don’t worry, Captain. I’m on it.’

Nyawula crashed through the door into
the car park as Cronje continued to call after him.

‘Navi and Jeremy are supposed to be
down there, Captain. At the wharf. Dipps got the call and asked me to tell
you.
 
The guy who called him said
there were shots…’

Mavis ran after Nyawula, down the
stairs into the car park.

‘What can I do, Captain? I heard Piet
say...’

‘Ride with me, Mavis. Hurry.’

The two of them ran toward the
Captain’s car and they roared off into the thick traffic as Cronje returned
quickly to his office and snatched at the phone.

18.05.
  

As Thabethe dragged himself to the
top of the stairs in an effort to escape the detective, Ryder lurched forward
again after him, reaching for his damaged ankle in order to yank him back.
Pillay finally managed to loosen her gag by rubbing it against the edge of the
cupboard. She screamed.

‘
Jeremyyyy
.
Behind you!’

She was too late. Before she got even
the first of her three words out Ryder saw a quick shadow pass down over his
eyes from above his head and immediately felt the rope bite into his flesh as
it was looped around his neck and he was pulled back from behind. He
instinctively brought his hands up to get a grip on the rope as it bit into his
throat. But the enormous power of Big Red’s hands, coupled with a weight far
exceeding Ryder’s, pulled him back relentlessly to the ground as the Rooster
deliberately fell backward onto the floor, pulling the detective brutally back
onto his stomach and wrapping his giant legs around Ryder’s thighs, pinioning
the cop against himself as he applied relentless pressure on the rope from
behind.

Ryder choked and, against all
instinct and training and experience, panicked. He couldn’t breathe. He
struggled left and right and forward and nothing budged. The big man had him
cold. The rope was nylon and it bit deep into his neck. It was obstructed on
the right by Ryder’s right hand, where the four fingers had been caught under
the rope as the detective had instinctively sought to protect his right
external jugular vein. On the opposite side his left thumb was similarly
trapped under the rope against the left external jugular.

The Rooster, lying flat on his back,
had him in a perfect position, with his muscular legs now wrapped tightly
around from behind and pinning Ryder back against his own stomach, while his
massive wrists pulled tighter on the rope. And tighter.

The back of Ryder’s head was on his
assailant’s belly and the rope was being pulled upward, stretching him slowly
up toward the Rooster’s sternum. Ryder had to either free his fingers and risk
having the rope cut through into the jugulars, or try and use the fingers to
fight against the ever-tightening nylon. He was losing the battle, and Pillay
watched helplessly as the rope started cutting through Ryder’s flesh and blood
started oozing through the broken skin, while Ryder’s face started turning
purple.

Pillay screamed in helpless fear as
she saw Ryder starting to fade. She was losing him. He was no match for the big
man, whose biceps were turning rock-hard with the effort he was exerting on the
rope. Pillay screamed in anguish.

‘
Nooooo
!
Jeremyyyyy
!’

She burst into tears as she saw him
losing the battle. Ryder was going to die.

18.06.
  

Thabethe was unaware of the way the
fight was developing in the cabin. He had made it to the quay and to possible
freedom and that was all that mattered. He limped in agony to the Ford, which
was parked a mere twenty
metres
from the yacht,
ripped open the door and collapsed into the driver’s seat. He cursed as he
fumbled with the ignition. The pain from his hip was excruciating. The sweat
cascaded off his brow. Ignition. His eyes bulged. Purple veins pulsed against
the yellow sclera. Take-off. There might just be a way out of this.

The Ford screamed at top revs as he
crossed the railway lines and lurched into Margaret Mncadi Avenue. Cars skidded
to a halt all around him. Horns blared. Drivers thrust their heads out of
windows, hurling abuse at him. The car careened crazily as he swung the wheel
left and right and left again, diving in and out of the traffic, every sinew in
his arms and neck indicating that he expected to be smashed to pieces at any
moment if he made the slightest miscalculation.

In the distance he could hear sirens.
He caught a glimpse of blue flashing lights ahead, coming toward him but on the
opposite side of the road and in impossible traffic. Two cop cars. One of them
heading straight on toward the Yacht Club, oblivious to what was happening on
the other side of the central island. But the driver of the second car
realised
that something was happening on the opposite side,
and skidded to a halt as his partner leaped out into the traffic, bringing cars
to a halt as he ran across to Thabethe’s side of the road. A truck driver saw
the cop coming across and immediately pulled over to the left to stop.
 
As he did so, Thabethe deftly avoided
him from behind, weaving in and out and back again and roaring past the cop who
held both hands up in a warning for him to stop. The cop scuttled back to the
central island as he
realised
Thabethe’s intentions,
and the Ford roared past him down toward the thinning traffic which would lead
to two options for the north coast.

Thabethe started to believe that
there might be the slimmest - just the slimmest - of chances for an escape.

18.07.
  

Pillay had never felt so completely
and utterly helpless. She strained every sinew in her body to try and extricate
herself. Fruitless. She was as helpless as a fly glued to a web. But in her
anguished threshing as she watched her partner dying she managed to kick hard
against the counter, splitting the wood upward and sending a sliver straight
onto the kettle, which fell to the floor and sent a spray of scalding hot water
flying upward onto both Ryder and Big Red.

The kettle was by no stretch of the
imagination going to deter the big man from his intention to tighten the rope
around the detective’s neck until it had squeezed every drop of life out of
him. But it did produce the slightest moment of disruption. The pressure
exerted by the big man didn’t ease, but it paused momentarily. It was a
fraction of a second in which Ryder took an enormous gamble.

There was only one weak spot in his
assailant’s entire physique, and that was his damaged left eye. There was no
way Ryder could do any damage to the man except if he could reach that eye. It
was fruitless trying to fight against the enormous power of the man’s
steroid-inflated arms and hands and legs. He had to get to the eye. Yet to tear
his fingers away from their trapped position under the rope would be to allow
his neck to succumb completely to the ever-tightening nylon. Which would spell
the end of his jugular veins.

But there was nothing else remaining
in the detective’s
armoury
. It was this or nothing.

In the instant Big Red paused in
reaction to the kettle, Ryder ripped his left thumb away from under the rope,
exposing his left jugular, and like the backstroke champion he had been in the
swimming pool two decades ago, he drove his arm in a perfect arc back over his
head. It travelled, with his fist clenched and his thumb extended, as rigid as
a piece of piping, straight over his head, as Ryder could only guess where the
adversary’s left eye might be.

Bull’s eye. The thumb went straight
into the big man’s left orbital socket, smashing into the sclera and fracturing
the orbital rim that had been so carefully cleaned and repaired by the surgeon
just over a week ago.

Big Red’s scream of agony was
accompanied by a complete relaxation of the rope as his left hand flew up to
clutch the newly shattered eye socket. This gave Ryder the chance to lurch
upward into a sitting position with a view to springing to his feet. But even
in his pain and trauma the half-blinded Rooster knew he had to act to regain
the initiative. Still on his back, as Ryder sat up in front of him, he kicked
out with his right foot, getting his right boot smashing into the detective’s
lower back as he was getting to his feet, and sending him sprawling forward
into Pillay. As both detectives fell in a tangle, the big man leaped to his
feet and scrambled his way up the stairs.

Big Red hit the quayside before Ryder
could make it to the top of the stairs inside the vessel. He ran, losing his
balance as he
realised
that his left eye was now
completely blind, and made for the Lamborghini. As Ryder got to the deck, he
saw the Rooster’s intention immediately. But the Big Man had a good start. He
had the key in the ignition as Ryder hit the ground, and he was already tearing
out of the parking bay with
tyres
squealing and his
door still open as Ryder reached him.

With a superhuman effort Ryder left
the ground, diving for the car as it roared off. He had a momentary image in
the recesses of his consciousness of the Sharks player he and Fiona had seen a
couple of days ago, floating like a dolphin toward the
tryline
.
He stretched out
agonisingly
and just managed to grab
the steering wheel, his feet dragging along the tarmac and his body about to
smash into a parked car as Big Red sought to side-swipe the vehicle and smear
the detective off into a pulp. But Ryder pulled hard on the wheel and caused it
to turn into the back of the parked vehicle instead of swiping it sideways. The
consequence was a massive crumpling of both vehicles as the Lamborghini came to
a shattering, shuddering halt and the parked vehicle ended almost
perpendicularly halfway up a wall.

Ryder was flung some five or six
metres
across the tarmac, rolling two or three times before
his lower back smashed into a low wall on the edge of the parking area. He
dragged himself off the ground, preparing for the next phase of the titanic
struggle with the Rooster.

But Big Red was out of it. The action
was over.

18.10.
  

Travelling at one hundred and sixty
kilometres
an hour Thabethe shot through four consecutive
red lights, expecting at every one of them to be smashed to pieces by someone
coming through at right angles on the green.

His luck held. The Ford still whined
at top revs as he swung left then right then left again and then he pushed even
harder on the gas to hit the N2 travelling at well over one hundred and eighty.
He maintained top speed, flashing past startled drivers who themselves were
worrying about picking up speed traps at the significantly lower speeds at
which they were travelling.

It was only when he swung onto the
M41 that he slowed slightly before then coming back to maximum revs on the
R102. He continued to pass every vehicle without slowing down, judging to
perfection the distances needed for the overtake. Finally, as he approached the
outskirts of KwaDukuza, he slowed to below one hundred and twenty.

He abandoned the car just outside
KwaDukuza and hailed one taxi to the intersection then a second taxi shortly
thereafter, going east on the R74.

He called the taxi to a halt and
climbed off about halfway between KwaDukuza and the N2. In great pain he made
his way immediately into the bush. From there he started climbing the hills,
slowly, cursing with each step as
agonising
spasms
shot through his limbs. Each spasm made him think of Ryder.

He had to get rid of Ryder, and if he
couldn’t get to Ryder himself, then Ryder’s family. His wife. His kids. Ryder
himself. The cop had to pay. For weeks now he had destroyed every one of
Thabethe’s plans to extricate himself from poverty and create a new life for
himself. Ryder. Ryder was in his face every single day. He had to deal with it.

But for now he had to get further
away from the road. He felt safer in the bush and on the hills. Alone. No-one
to burden him. Alone with his wits and his intuition.

And soon, he would be in the dark,
where he functioned best. Where he could be alone with his thoughts. He would
feel safer when the sun disappeared.

18.15.
  

Ryder sat on the low wall as the
police vehicles poured in, sirens blaring. The medics were also arriving. He
saw Nyawula arrive. Mavis Tshabalala was with him. There, behind them, were
Nadine Salm and her assistant. Big smiles from those two, as they approached.
No smiles but lots of concern from all the others. Including, even further
back, Koekemoer and Dippenaar, who all arrived together.