The Prey (12 page)

One man raised his hand. ‘Boss, someone tampered with my SCSR. I didn’t know it had food for the
zama zamas
in it until just now.’

Cameron shook his head. ‘I say again, you know you are to check your pack before you start your shift, to ensure that doesn’t happen, Gideon. Safety is my number one priority. My
number one
priority, and it should be yours, too. It’s your life we’re talking about. Now I know that some of the other men who just went down for their shift were also carrying gear for the
zama zamas
and they will be complaining because all that stuff in the bin bags, which they paid for and expected to make a profit on, is going into the furnace. But they still have their jobs. You seven do not.’

A few of the men looked at each other in silence as the words sunk in.

‘I’m going to speak to each of you now, in the presence of Dr Hamilton, and with your union shop steward in attendance as well.’

Kylie looked to the door at the sound of footsteps. A man in jeans and a polo shirt walked in. She guessed this must be the union man. He folded muscled arms across his broad chest and stared at the men. They could expect little intervention from their representative this time. Cameron nodded to the man, who returned the gesture. This had either been done many times before, or Cameron had lied and it was choreographed for her benefit. It didn’t really matter either way. Kylie was actually pleased to see him exhibiting some modicum of managerial skill. She had begun to wonder how the man had ever made it to mine boss in the first place.

‘Tobias?’

The security guard stiffened. ‘Sir?’

‘Have these men escorted to my office. They are not to leave, unless they want to forfeit what pay they’re owed from this month, and they are not to talk to each other.’

‘Yes, sir.’

Cameron walked to Kylie, pointedly ignoring the beseeching stares of the men. ‘Come, let’s go.’

She resented his tone, but she was curious about what was going to happen next. Kylie replaced her lamp in its numbered spot,
effectively registering that she was not underground. If there was an accident and her lamp was not in its place it could be assumed she was lost in the mine somewhere.

She quickened her step to catch up with Cameron as he strode back to the office block. ‘So, what happens to the men who dumped the grass and the pills? Do they just get away with it? You can hide a bag of grass anywhere on your body, but bananas and oranges would have to be carried in the SCSR containers. Surely drug supply is a worse offence than supplying food?’

He waved a hand in the air. ‘Yes, you’re right, it’s not a perfect system. The reality is that we can’t really stop the contraband getting to the
zama zamas
, nor the gold coming out. If I investigated and prosecuted everyone who was involved in supplying the illegals I’d be hard-pressed putting together a shift.’ Cameron looked over his shoulder then opened the door to the office block for her, not moving until she went ahead of him. He lowered his voice. ‘And I’d have no head of security.’

‘Tobias? Really?’

‘Don’t let his “yes Dr Hamilton, no Dr Hamilton, three bags full Dr Hamilton” fool you. I’ve changed my head of security three times in the last four years. He’ll be next. Paulo was in the process of getting me proof that the bribery of the security men goes all the way to the top.’

She put her hands on her hips. ‘Surely this is a matter for the police?’

‘Like I said, they’re not interested, or more likely they’re being paid to look the other way. Besides, they have bigger problems on their hands, trying to keep a lid on the violent street crime in this country. What’s it to them if a multibillion-rand goldmining company loses a few million here and there?’

‘What about the men we lost?’ she countered.

‘On average, a policeman is killed every day in the line of duty here in South Africa and we have a higher murder rate than Iraq. The cops are drowning above ground, we’re not a priority.’

‘I give up,’ Kylie said, throwing her hands in the air in exasperation. ‘Is there nothing we can do?’

‘In the past we worked with a specialist underground security company and apprehended plenty of
zama zamas
. I know the board in Australia thinks the security guys were a bunch of Rambos, but losses on both sides were minimal. We worked with the local prosecutors to prepare dockets for court cases: in effect, we did the police service’s job for them. But that’s all stopped,’ Cameron said, unable to hide his bitterness.

‘Your idea of
minimal
losses and ours were different.’

He shook his head. ‘Please go through to my office. I have to get something out of my car. The union rep is on his way and Tobias’s men will bring the workers.’ Cameron closed the main door to the administration block behind her and walked over to his
bakkie
. She went to his office and let herself in.

*

Chris sat on a pile of rock in the blackness, hugging his knees. The claustrophobia came in waves; but funnily enough, the longer he was entombed, the easier it became to deal with it. Wellington blew a stream of cigarette smoke in his direction and Chris coughed. He’d given up five years earlier and couldn’t stand the smell now.

‘How much are you worth?’ the Zimbabwean asked from the dark, his face momentarily illuminated as he drew on his cigarette again. Chris doubted he would be able to recognise him in daylight – if he ever saw daylight again.

‘I don’t understand. Do you want to know how much money I have?’

‘Hmm, not yet. I hope it won’t come to me demanding payment from your family. I know you’re not married, and I don’t imagine your retired parents have much money.’

Chris shivered, despite the oppressive heat. It unnerved him how much Wellington knew about him. He was no madman. He’d done his research. ‘Are you going to ransom me?’

‘Very astute. How much do you think Global Resources will pay me to get you back alive?’

Chris thought it was a very good question. ‘They won’t negotiate with criminals.’

Wellington laughed, the peals echoing off the walls. ‘We’re not talking about the US government negotiating with the Taliban. There are no morals or ethics or public relations issues to consider here, Christiaan. This will be a commercial arrangement. They want you back alive, presumably, and Global Resources is a very powerful company. Besides, you know it’s not without precedent. There was the strike last year.’

Chris remembered the incident well – a shift boss, an unpopular man whose management methods had not moved with the times, was taken hostage by his own workers at the time of a protracted pay claim being put to Global Resources by the union. The shift had gone on strike and sent a message above ground that they would stay underground, holding the shift boss hostage, until the company agreed to the union’s demands. Cameron had been away in Mozambique on leave, uncontactable on the Island of Dreams where he was helping an old army buddy and his employer renovate a dilapidated hotel. Coetzee, Cameron’s deputy manager who had been left in charge of the mine, was a friend of the kidnapped man, and he’d sent word on the second day that the company would agree to meet the workers’ pay demands.

‘The deputy mine manager nearly lost his job and the shift boss who was taken hostage was later made redundant,’ Chris pointed out.

‘So what?’ Wellington said. ‘The point is the company paid. Think how bad the press would be for the company if I sent them your head when they refused to pay, along with a short video to SABC 3 or eTV. No, on second thoughts I’d send it to a television station in Australia, then the company might really take notice.’

‘They’d send the army in here to kill you.’

Wellington laughed at the empty threat, and Chris knew his captor was right. ‘They don’t scare me, Christiaan, and they could
never catch me. But back to business. How is the testing coming along?’

It was Chris’s turn to laugh, though he barely managed a snort of derision. ‘The testing is underway … but noxious gas, mercury poisoning, unsafe work practices and elevated dust particle levels are only part of the problem in your mine. All those will bring slow death, but you’ve got a real killer on your hands, an immediate threat to you and your men.’

‘I
know
that. So, find out what it is and how to stop it or you’ll end up like Nelson, screaming in the dark.’

Chris was concerned by any avoidable loss of human life, but part of him couldn’t care less if Wellington and his whole band of pirates all died of cholera. Chris felt something brush his head and he screamed. When he tried to flick it away he realised it was Wellington’s fingers, now wrapped firmly around his neck.

‘Christiaan.’ He’d come to him silently in the dark, like a black cat, and his breath, which smelled of mint toothpaste, was warm on Chris’s ear. He felt the panic rise in him again. ‘You’ll do the fucking job I need you to do. Or I will skin you alive.’

‘K
ylie, I wonder if you could give Tobias and me a moment alone, please,’ Cameron said.

He hoped she wouldn’t object, and undermine him, as she had been doing since she’d arrived in South Africa, and as she’d often done when they’d spoken on video conferences in the past.

To his surprise, and relief, she said, ‘No worries. I’ll just go get a coffee. Can I get you one?’

‘I’m fine, thanks,’ Cameron said.

‘Tobias?’

‘No thank you, Dr Hamilton, though thank you very much for asking. We have a girl who can get you coffee.’

‘Where I come from we look after some things ourselves.’ She looked at Cameron and excused herself. Perhaps she was smart enough to know that she didn’t want to be in the room for what happened next.

They had interviewed the men who’d been caught with empty rescue kits. It had all been done by the book. All of the men except Gideon admitted their guilt and apologised for their actions. Cameron, with the accordance of the union man and Kylie, was inflexible, though. Gideon, however, had ranted and yelled,
protesting he was innocent and that he had simply forgotten to check his emergency pack. He said he’d had no idea it had been tampered with. Cameron might have been tempted to believe him if he hadn’t been aware of the man’s track record – and if he hadn’t noticed the way Gideon repeatedly looked to Tobias, rather than his union representative, for support. Tobias, in response, kept pointedly looking away.

‘This man knew the consequences of not checking his emergency pack,’ Tobias had said at one point.

It wasn’t the security man’s place to make any comment on Gideon’s guilt or innocence, and Cameron had thought Gideon was going to get up and attack Tobias after the remark, such was the seething hatred in his jaundiced eyes.

Cameron had also smelled booze when he’d stood and moved to Gideon, on the pretext of getting him to sign an admission of guilt. Gideon had screwed the paper up and tossed it across the desk. Cameron suspected Gideon was still drunk at the start of his shift. He had been disciplined in the past for being caught with alcohol underground. He’d said it was for himself, but Cameron had suspected him of taking it for the
zama zamas
– and having a few nips by way of commission. Gideon had been adamant it had been for his own use and had volunteered to undergo alcohol counselling. The union had supported his request and his apparent contrition had saved his job.

But when Paulo had begun investigating the trail of corruption through the ranks of his own officers he had told Cameron that he had seen Gideon giving Tobias an envelope on returning above ground after a shift. It could have been a handover of something innocent, but Cameron couldn’t think for the life of him what a miner would carry in an envelope for several sweat-drenched hours underground and then present to the head of security on emerging.

Kylie closed the door behind her.

Tobias rose from his chair. ‘You did the right thing, Cameron. Now I should be getting back to work.’ He extended a hand.

‘Sit down.’

Tobias looked at him, then at the door, and realised it wasn’t a request. He lowered himself back into his chair.

‘Gideon will be waiting for you outside.’

Tobias seemed to visibly relax a little, as if he’d misjudged Cameron’s intention. Cameron liked that. Maybe Tobias was thinking that his stupid, weak boss was simply concerned about his safety.

Cameron walked around Tobias so that he was standing behind him. He rested his hands on the seat back. Tobias swivelled his head to look up at him. ‘I can look after myself, Cameron. I really can’t imagine why Gideon was so angry at
me
. Did you see the way he kept glaring at me?’

Cameron vaguely remembered Tobias making some reference to being an ex-MK man. It was probably bullshit, but if Tobias had served in the ranks of the ANC’s military wing, Umkonto we Sizwe, the Tip of the Spear, during the struggle against apartheid, then he
might
have had some resistance to interrogation training and therefore known that the best defence was often attack. Cameron would have been throwing questions back at his interrogator as well, for he had been through the training himself.

‘Oh, I saw it, all right.’

Cameron reached behind his back. When he had gone to his
bakkie
, after sending Kylie ahead of him inside to his office, he had opened the glove compartment and taken out the small lockable gun safe he kept there. Inside was his Sig Sauer nine-millimetre pistol. He drew it from the waistband of his overall trousers and placed the barrel up under Tobias’s chin, ramming it hard.

‘What –’

‘Shut the fuck up. Listen to me, China, I know you’re running the supply operation into the
zama zamas
and bringing the gold out.’ Cameron reached down to Tobias’s belt where, like the uniformed men in his charge, he carried a pair of handcuffs and a can of mace in leather pouches. He took out the handcuffs and opened one of the bracelets. ‘Put that on your left wrist.’

Tobias took the bracelet but paused. Cameron dug the gun in deeper into his throat. Tobias snapped the cuff in place.