Thirteen Hours (48 page)

'Call them.'

She walked reluctantly to the telephone and picked it
up.

'Which one of you is Jason de Klerk?'

It was a while before the other desk girl answered.
'Jason isn't here.'

'They're not answering,' said Melissa.

'They will. Where is Jason de Klerk?'

'We don't know.'

'All the men, I want you to show us your IDs.' To the
Constables he said: 'Check them.'

'Jason hasn't been in since yesterday,' said Melissa.

'So where can he be?'

'Your emergency number sucks. They're still not
answering,' she said irritably.

Griessel exploded. He walked up to the counter and stretched
over it, his face as close to her as he could reach. 'Now you listen to me, you
little shit: Jason and his friends cut the throat of one of your clients last
night, and they are going to kill again if I don't stop them. Right now, I'm
thinking you don't know anything about it, but that can change very quickly,
and you don't want that, take my word for it. So I am going to ask you one more
time: where can I find him? And if you get clever with me again, you are going
to be very fucking sorry, do you hear me loud and clear?'

She swallowed audibly. 'Yes,' she said. 'He might be
at home. He might be at the offices or the warehouse, they are between trips, I
just don't know.'

'The offices?'

'Second floor. You use the
entrance next door.'
'And the warehouse?'

'Stanley Road in Observatory,' then the emergency
number finally answered and she said: 'I've got an urgent message from a
...
What was your name again?'

All three came back through the door. Rachel did not
even look up.

'Hold her legs,' said Jason de Klerk and picked up the
pruning shears from the floor where he had left them. The other two squatted
down beside her and took hold of her legs.

'Rachel,' said de Klerk, but she did not respond.
'Rachel!'

'She's fucked, Jay,' one of the others said.

'We have to make sure.' He knelt at her foot. 'Rachel,
listen to me. We have to make sure you're telling the truth about the video,
OK? This is very important, it really is a matter of life or death, do you
understand?'

No reaction.

He put the blade around the base of the middle toe of
her right foot. 'So tell me again, where is it?'

'She's not even hearing you.'

'Please,' she said so they could barely hear. 'It's in
the big bag.'

He cut the toe off. Her body jerked. 'Jesus,' said one
of the men holding her legs.

'Are you sure?' Jason's voice was still calm. 'Are you
very sure?'

'Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes ...' loud and
hysterical, her body convulsing.

He held another toe. 'Exactly where is the bag?'

A primeval sound erupted from her.

'For fuck's sake, Jay, what more do you need?' the
other young man asked, his face misshapen with abhorrence.

Jason, furious, hit him with the back of his hand. 'Do
you know what's at stake here, arsehole? You want to spend the rest of your
life in prison?'

Vusi Ndabeni followed Jeremy Oerson as he took the
right-hand lane on the Nl's Eastern Boulevard and then the off-ramp to the N2.
He kept his distance, just over four hundred metres, with seven cars between
them. He picked up his cell phone and called Benny Griessel again.

The 'offices' of African Overland Adventures on the
second floor were behind a steel security door. Griessel pressed the intercom
button. A woman's voice said: 'Yes?' He said: 'Police. Open up.'

The locks clicked and the door opened. He immediately
looked to see if there was another exit. But he saw none, only three women,
desks, computers, filing cabinets. He kept his ID card handy. 'Come with me,
please, downstairs.'

'Why?' they were worried about the pistol in his hand.

'I'm looking for a Jason de Klerk?'

'He's not here.'

'I know. Come.' He gestured with his pistol. They
walked meekly ahead of him, to the stairs.

His cell phone rang. Who the hell wanted him so badly?
He pulled it out.
VUSI.

'Vusi, this is a bad time.'

'Benny, I'm sorry, but things happened, I think I'm
following someone who is on his way to Rachel.'

Griessel froze. There was something about Vusi's
rapid-fire voice, the flood of words, desperation.
'Jissis.'

'Benny, you'll never believe it. Jeremy Oerson. I
overheard him. He's involved, how, I don't know.'

Jeremy Oerson? What the fuck?

'Where are you?'

'On the N-two, just before Groote Schuur. He's just
taken the off-ramp to Main Road.' Observatory. The warehouse. 'Vusi, I think he's
going to Stanley Street, there's a warehouse, African Overland Adventures. Stay
with him, Vusi, I'm on my way,' and Griessel's feet clattered down the stairs,
making the three middle- aged women look back, fearful.

'Benny!' said Vusi. Afraid he would ring off.

'I'm here.'

'They're going to kill her,
Benny. As soon as Oerson gets there.'

Griessel told the Constables to let no one out of the
adventure shop; they didn't know who was involved. Once reinforcements arrived,
they were to seal off the offices upstairs, no records were to leave the place,
no calls were to be made, to let the phone ring, nobody was to answer it.
Anyone who came in must stay.

They nodded keenly.

Out through the door, into the busy normality of Long
Street. He pushed the pistol back into his holster, ran fifty metres and
stopped suddenly. The traffic. In the police sedan with no siren or lights. He
turned back, sidestepping people on the pavement, and banged open the glass
doors again. Every eye in the place was on him. Do you have a patrol vehicle
with a functioning siren?

Yes, Captain. The Constable rummaged in his trouser
pocket, took out his keys and flung them in an arc to Griessel. He missed them.
Melissa made a scornful noise but he ignored her, picked up the keys, jerked
open the doors and ran.

There was only one vehicle between Vusi Ndabeni and
Jeremy Oerson when they stopped at the traffic lights where Browning joined
Main Road.

Vusi pulled the sun visor down and sat as high in his
seat as he could to hide his face. Oerson's indicator light was on, ready to
turn right.

Where was Stanley Street?

African Overland Adventures? And the Metro police? He couldn't
see any connection. The light changed to green. Vusi gave him a lead, a hundred
metres, then he pulled away intending to turn right as well, but a car
approached from the front and he had to wait.

When he did turn into Main Road he couldn't see Oerson's
Sentra.

Impossible.

Vusi accelerated, tense again. Where could he have
gone? He drove past Polo Road leading off to the left, looked down it and saw
nothing. He looked right, there were no options, only the Muslim Graveyard and
the hospital. He passed the Scott Road turn-off on the left. He saw the Sentra,
in the distance, a long way down Scott.

Vusi braked - too late - he was past the turn. He
slammed the car into reverse and looked back. Traffic was coming down Main
Road. He had no choice. He reversed quickly. Two minibus taxis rocketed down on
him, one leaning hard and continuously on his hooter. It swerved in behind the
other and barely missed Vusi. But he had reversed far enough and turned left
down Scott, just in time to see Oerson turn right half a kilometre away.

Was it really him?

De Waal Drive would be the quickest. Griessel flipped
the switches for the siren and blue lights and pulled away with screeching
tyres. The traffic opened up in front of him, past St Martini, the Lutheran
Church where everything had begun that morning. It felt like a week ago, what a
fucking day. The light was red at the Buitensingel crossing, he drove only
marginally slower, the motorists saw him coming. Then he turned left, fighting
with the steering wheel, into Upper Orange, more traffic.

The Upper Orange crossroad was also red. It took
precious seconds to get across carefully and then he put his foot down, over
the bridge at the Gardens Centre. The bends of De Waal lay ahead, he picked up
his cell phone from the seat, he must call Vusi, he must
get
reinforcements. The task
force, SWAT, the plump
girl had called them.
No,
that
would take too long, even if
they mobilised within the
theoretical fifteen
minutes, it would be
too late.

He and Vusi would find out what was going on first.

Vusi answered on the second ring. 'Benny.'

'Where are you?'

His black colleague said something inaudible.

'I can't hear you.'

'Stanley Street, Benny, I don't want to talk too loud.
I can see the warehouse. Their trucks are parked there. African Overland
Adventures.'

'Tell me how to get there, Vusi, I haven't got a map.'

'It's easy, Benny. Take the Groote Schuur off-ramp,
right into Main ...'

'I'm coming down De Waal, Vusi, that's not going to
help me.'

Vusi said something in Xhosa, a cry for help, then he
asked: 'Will you find Main Road in Observatory?'

'Yes.'

'Then turn down Scott ... eastwards. Then all the way
down over Lower Main, then first right and you will see them.'

'I'm coming.'

'Oerson has gone in, Benny, hurry.'

Jeremy Oerson pushed the big sliding door only wide
enough for him to enter. He took off his dark glasses and put them in his
breast pocket and closed the door behind him.

The big warehouse was quiet: tents, sleeping bags,
water cans, tools, petrol drums, sand shovels, car jacks all in tidy piles. On
one side was a new white Land Rover Defender.

'Halloo,' he said.

To the left and right two men stood up from behind
piles of goods, each with a Stechkin APS pistol aimed at him.

'Christ,' he said and lifted his hands high. 'It's
me.'

They slowly lowered the weapons. Jason de Klerk came
out from behind the Land Rover. 'I tried to call you, Jeremy.'

'I'm a senior fucking police officer, I can't answer
my cell when I'm driving.'

'You're a fucking traffic cop.'

He ignored the remark. 'Where is she?'

'Mr B wants to know: can you get to the luggage?'

Oerson walked deeper into the warehouse and looked
about. Behind a pile of tents sat another one, sulky, with blood on his upper
lip. 'Not now,' he said. 'So what happened to him? Did she get rough?'

'I didn't mean now, Jerry,' said Jason irritably. 'But
you can get it, right?'

'Don't worry, as long as they don't know what they're
looking for, we're fine. They'll take it to an evidence room, and then it's
easy.'