The Fallen (30 page)

And, in the light of this environmental catastrophe, the prospect of dune mining in a park that was otherwise a wasteland would suddenly seem a whole lot less important. In fact, it could be seen as a solution to the new—and serious—problems that would beset the area.

Mining would provide jobs that could no longer be offered by tourism. Zulu was certain that in the event of an act of environmental terrorism that put a stop to tourist-related activities in the area, the industrial and mining sectors would, through necessity, be encouraged to grow.

And legislation would be swiftly changed to allow it.

It had all seemed so good on paper, and putting the plan into action with the help of the corrupt harbour master and his Pakistani connections had seemed so surprisingly easy.

Until that damn blackmail attempt. He should have ignored it; told Bradley to pay the woman a couple of grand, which would have kept her quiet for long enough. And he would have, if he hadn’t feared that somehow the blackmailer had found out about this operation, that Bradley had let something slip.

After that, everything had started going wrong. That single
decision had precipitated a chain of events that would prove to be as destructive as acid water leaking from a badly drained mine. Starting, of course, with the shocking discovery that the wrong woman had been murdered at the resort where Bradley’s blackmailer was working. Why had Kobus done that? Even though he hadn’t admitted to it, this error had almost jeopardised the entire operation.

There were still some loose ends to tie up—the policeman in hospital was one that he still had to sort out, and he hoped he would be able to do that discreetly and in time.

Whatever happened next, the
Karachi
would complete its deadly mission, providing the opportunity for Richards Mining to move into the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.

‘Almost out of harbour waters,’ Chetty said.

And then Zulu was jerked away from his thoughts as, suddenly, the impossible happened.

The tug tilted up like a see-saw, throwing him off his feet and flinging him back against the window he’d so recently been staring out of. The back of his head hit the glass and his vision blurred.

Then the tugboat was hit by a massive shockwave and the sea turned from rippling velvet into a jagged series of peaks and troughs. Huge waves crashed around them, flinging the tug from side to side.

‘What the hell?’ he heard Chetty cry. The engines accelerated to a scream as the
Amandla
bravely struggled to obey her captain’s demands, but, even on maximum power, her efforts had no effect.

Again the deck tilted backwards. Steeper and steeper. Coffee cups, glasses and pieces of equipment tumbled off the shelves and slid around the floor.

Struggling to his feet, Zulu grabbed hold of the wall in front of him, which was now slanted at a forty-five-degree angle. He peered out through the porthole, unable to believe what he was seeing.

The
Karachi
was sinking, and fast. Faster than he had ever believed a ship could go down. Her prow was already fully underwater. As Zulu looked on in horror, a wave hit the glass of the captain’s cabin and left behind a streak of oil.

‘Hayibo!’ he cried in shock. Her hull had been breached and
there was only one way that it could have happened so suddenly and violently. The explosives that had been so carefully placed at strategic points on the newly built hull must have been triggered.

Once the hull was pierced, the rusting vessel would have no integrity against the waves. Water would shoot straight up into her decaying body. Inside, the
Karachi
was like a colander. He remembered Bradley saying that.

Like a colander.

Two hundred tons of colander. Enough to drag the
Amandla
down with her.

‘Get the cable undone!’ he screamed at Chetty. ‘The towrope. Get rid of it! The ship’s going to drag us under!’

‘The men are gone!’ Chetty wailed. ‘The men on the
Karachi
must have fallen overboard. They aren’t responding to my requests.’

‘Don’t you have a bloody emergency cut-off mechanism here on this ship? Something that will free the damn line? What the hell good is a tugboat without a contingency plan in place for …’

But the tug lurched sideways and Chetty tumbled out of his seat and slid backwards down the near-vertical floor, howling with fear.

Moments later, Zulu felt the inexorable downward pull.

The tanker sank to the ocean floor, dragging the
Amandla
down along with it.

Dark, oily water surged around the tug and there was a sudden smoothness as the choppy surface of the ocean was replaced by still water. The power flickered and then died. The pressure of the water forced open the doors to the steering room and Zulu felt it lift him swiftly up against the canted ceiling. He kicked hard, desperately striving to keep his head above it, but his head banged against the ceiling and then there was no room.

There was no room.

Zulu’s last thoughts were strangely comforting.

If Bradley had tried to double-cross them, he would not have lived to see the fruits of his efforts. Just a few moments after the explosives were detonated, he too would have died.

Jade waited for the call to connect. All it took was a couple of seconds, although it felt like half a lifetime, before she heard it ringing.

It rang once. Twice.

Then she heard a click and the call was cut off.

Standing in the old station, holding the phone with its broken lanyard in both her hands and looking down at its screen, Jade had absolutely no idea if her hunch had been correct. They were too far away from the sea to hear, or feel, the blast, which would in any case have taken place underwater and been muffled by tons of water.

Had she managed to sink the
Karachi
before it reached open water?

She had no idea.

Perhaps she should redial, to be sure. If it rang again, that would mean that the
SIM
card at the other end was still in existence and that the explosives hadn’t been detonated.

But she didn’t.

Jade couldn’t have said what made her do what she did next—whether it was just one factor or a combination.

Perhaps it was instinct, perhaps blind luck. Perhaps it was the feeling she had that every loose end in this operation was being cut off with ruthless efficiency.

With a gentle underarm motion, she tossed the heavy phone back to Bradley. It landed on his thigh and slid down onto the floor.

‘Oh, no, Ms De Jong, don’t give it back to him now,’ Pillay warned. ‘He’ll destroy any evidence on it.’

Eyes bulging, Bradley lunged forward with his handcuffed hands and grabbed hold of the instrument, groaning again as the effort hurt his damaged shoulder. Pulling himself into a kneeling position, he bent over the phone.

‘Take it away from him and put it in an evidence—’

In a blinding flash of light, the cellphone that Bradley was clutching exploded.

Jade twisted away from the white-hot fireball, squeezing her eyes shut as she heard Pillay and his assistant shouting in shock. Flying shards stung her back and pricked her arms like miniature daggers.

She looked back and saw that, for Bradley at least, it was over.

His hands were gone.

The project manager lifted bloody stumps to a sightless face, a face that was running with blood. His starched shirt and shiny tie looked as if somebody had taken a shredder to them.

He collapsed into a crouch, and then forward onto his head. His choking gasps soon fell silent.

David blinked, bright lights piercing his strangely sensitive eyes.

Where was he? Lying face-up on a hard mattress, the muted beeping of machinery all around him and the sweetish smell of disinfectant in his nostrils.

A tube in his wrist that tugged painfully at him when he shifted his arm, and his chest hurt.

Clearly, he was in hospital somewhere, but his befuddled brain refused to tell him where or why.

Memories trickled back, interrupted by periods of drowsiness when he fell asleep again, although whether this was for moments or minutes, he wasn’t sure.

He remembered being shot and that Jade had been in the car with him when it happened.

Was she all right? When he tried to recall exactly what had happened in the time after the shooting, the best he could come up with was a confused and painful blur.

She must be alive. She must.

She was. Another memory, this one more puzzling than the others. Jade had been standing by his bed. Her hair was wet and bedraggled—she looked for all the world like she’d just climbed out of the sea.

‘You took a bullet for me, David,’ she said. ‘You should never have done that, but you did. I love you.’

David smiled at the memory. And then he opened his eyes to see her there again, standing at the foot of his bed, watching him.

‘Jade,’ he said in a voice that was surprisingly hoarse and rusty.

The figure moved closer and David focused on her face.

It wasn’t Jade.

It was Naisha. Dark hair tied back in a neatly pinned knot. Wearing a pale-blue maternity blouse over a pair of grey trousers. One hand protectively over her stomach and a look of confusion in her eyes.

‘I’m sorry,’ David whispered. ‘I didn’t mean …’

She shook her head. ‘It’s all right,’ she said in a small, hurt voice. ‘I’ll come back later.’

She turned and left his bedside, walking swiftly away.

‘Naisha, no!’ David’s attempt at calling her back didn’t work. Shouting made him cough, which sent a lance of agony into his chest and set a machine behind him beeping loudly.

A nurse hurried over and fiddled with his drip.

‘No talking,’ she reprimanded him. ‘Please, Mr Patel. And definitely no shouting.’

The world faded away into a grey blur.

When David woke again, another figure was standing at the top of his bed and staring down at him. Luckily, the identity of this solidly built man was unmistakable.

Moloi.

‘Welcome back, Sup,’ the black detective said.

‘Where the hell am I?’ David now found himself able to think more clearly.

Moloi looked pleased with himself. ‘Richards Bay General Hospital. I took the early flight to Durban this morning, along with your wife.’ He shifted his feet, frowned down at them and winced. ‘You know, these new shoes are killing me. I’ve been standing here in them for about half an hour waiting for you to wake up.’

The black detective looked round for a chair. Spotting one at the other end of the ward, he walked over and fetched it. He lowered himself down into the flimsy plastic seat with a sigh of relief.

‘I’m in
ICU
?’ David asked.

Moloi nodded.

‘How’d you get in here then?’

‘It was difficult.’ The smug expression on Moloi’s face dissolved as the chair let out an ominous cracking sound. Planting his feet more firmly on the floor, he continued. ‘They said family only. I said I was family. They didn’t believe me. Said if I was family, I’d be an Indian, like you. So I had no choice, Sup. I told them I was your brother-in-law. Do you even have a sister?’

David found, to his cost, that laughing produced the same painful results as coughing.

‘Anyway, they let me in.’ Moloi continued.

David tried to speak, but choked, each movement of his chest prompting a fresh wave of extreme pain.

‘Take it easy, sir.’ Moloi had obviously noticed his struggle.

David fell silent for a while. Every fibre in his ruptured, damaged body seemed to be screaming at him. He prayed for it to stop, but it didn’t of course.

‘I followed up on Themba, your man in Yeoville.’ Moloi said.

The chair gave another loud creak and the black detective jumped. He stood up and carried it back to the corner of the ward. Then he returned to David’s bedside and stood, shifting his feet uncomfortably.

David was still trying to make sense of his last words.

‘Themba who?’ he asked.

‘Themba Msamaya, according to his lease agreement. The one you asked me to investigate.’ Seeing David’s blank look, Moloi hastened to explain. ‘The postcard in the bedroom of the dead scuba-diving instructor. Something about 813. You said it might have relevance to her murder.’

‘Oh, yes. Yes, of course.’ The facts surfaced in David’s befuddled mind, as did the recollection that something about the postcard had been nagging him. ‘So, did you go there? What did you find?’ he asked, realising he’d lost his familiar impatient tone, and instead sounded quivery and frail, like he’d suddenly aged by thirty years.

‘I did.’

‘And?’

‘Msamaya wasn’t in.’

‘What do you mean, wasn’t in?’

‘I mean he was out. Not at home. His flat was locked.’

‘Did you speak to anyone else?’

Moloi nodded. ‘I spoke to the landlord, who also happens to be the caretaker. Not that it looks like he’s been taking much care of the building.’

‘What’d he say?’

‘Said Msamaya hadn’t caused any problems since he’d moved in, which was about six months ago. Paid his rent on time, lived quietly. The only issue Msamaya had was wanting Internet access, but the landlord couldn’t organise a Telkom line so I think he gave up on that and found another way.’