Zulu (29 page)

Brian's one thought was to play for time.

“You're the one who dreamed up this Zulu business, aren't you?” he said. “You kept Gulethu alive so that his DNA would implicate him in Kate's murder and make it seem like a racist killing. Gulethu was supplying dope to the street kids in Cape Flats, except that he tried to double-cross you by selling to the young whites on the coast. He and his gang were guarding the house while Rossow was putting together his little potions. Were they the same kinds of experiments you used to do with Doctor Basson?”

Terreblanche, his big hairy forearms folded over his beige jacket, pricked up his ears.

“Was the Muizenberg house a mobile research unit that could be packed up quickly and put in the back of a Pinzgauer? You knew we were going to ferret around the area, so you dreamed up this story of the place being a squat and a base for the
tsotsis
. Who were you testing your miracle product on—street kids?”

Terreblanche was watching Debeer struggling impassively with his equipment.

“You should have used the mentally handicapped,” Brian went on. “They talk less than kids, and anyway, between you and me, what use are they to anybody? Don't you think?”

Terreblanche looked him up and down with a sardonic grin—the cop had regained his strength, it seemed. The machine was almost ready.

“Whites couldn't deal drugs in the townships, that was why you subcontracted the work to gangs. Except that with Gulethu, you came across someone who was really out to lunch. He was the one who killed Nicole Wiese, wasn't he? He wanted Ramphele to take the rap, without even knowing what was in the dope—a miracle product mixed with the crystals to test on guinea pigs, and a strain of AIDS to guarantee their silence. What was their life expectancy—a few weeks?”

Debeer made a sign that everything was ready.

“I'm asking the questions now,” Terreblanche said, approaching the chair. He passed the tip of his riding crop over Brian's eyes to irritate him. “For the last time, who else knows about the stolen files?”

“I told you, nobody. Too many leaks in our computer networks.”

“What did you do when you left Hout Bay?”

Brian tried to push the riding crop away from his eyes. “I went straight home to see what was on the hard disk. Your hit men arrived just as I was trying to make sense of it.”

“You might have tried to get a copy to your chief.”

“I don't have a chief.”

“Does Neuman have a copy?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“I didn't have time to give him one.”

The riding crop caressed his nose. “Why didn't you send it?”

“I was still trying to make sense of what was on the hard disk,” Brian retorted. “Do I have to say it in Afrikaans?”

“You're lying.”

“I wish I was.”

“You could have e-mailed the file in a couple of minutes. Why didn't you?”

“Our lines aren't secure.”

“That didn't stop you getting a fax.”

“If I'd sent a copy to headquarters, I wouldn't have taken the memory stick with me.”

“Is there another copy?”

“No.”

Brian was starting to sweat on his chair. Terreblanche lowered his riding crop. A veil fell over his clouded eyes, and he signaled to Debeer, who had just connected electrodes to the machine on the table. Debeer sniffed and pulled up his belt, then placed himself behind Brian, grabbed him by the scalp and pulled his head back. Brian tried to break free, but the ex-cop had a grip like iron. Terreblanche applied one clip to one lower eyelid, then the other clip to the other.

Brian's eyes were already damp with tears. The clips bit into his eyelids. This was quite painful in itself—but nothing compared with how it felt when the current went through them.

 

 

 

M
zala hadn't met up with the others in Hout Bay, as originally planned, but in Constantia, an area of vineyards and mansions where he'd never set foot before. He'd soon have his place in the country, too, with plenty of wine and lots of whores. A million dollars. That was worth making a few sacrifices for. Mzala placed a small bag on the living room table.

“It's all here,” he said.

Terreblanche, informed of his arrival, had just come up from the cellar. He opened the bag, and hardly batted an eyelid at the sight of all those pieces of bleeding flesh. Severed tongues. There were about twenty of them in the jute bag, a viscous mass that he emptied onto the polished wood. They looked disgusting, but they were definitely human tongues. Twenty-four in all.

“Are they all here?”

Mzala smiled blissfully, like an animal that had eaten its fill.

“Good. There's gasoline in the garage. Burn them in the garden.”

Mazala started collecting his tongues from the table. “Who's the girl in the bedroom?” he asked, casually.

“Who let you in there?”

“I saw her through the blinds as I came across the garden. Nice chick.” He was still smiling.

“Keep your hands off her,” Terreblanche said, threateningly. “I still need her . . . in one piece.”

“For what?”

“Just get on with your barbecue.”

Rick appeared at the door of the living room. He didn't know the black with the scarred face who was talking to Terreblanche. He saw his tapered nails and the movements of his reddened fingers, and only then the bits of bleeding flesh on the table. “When . . . when are we leaving?” he stammered.

“Soon,” Terreblanche said. “Are your things ready?”

“Yes. Well, almost.”

Mzala was taking his time collecting his booty.

Rick screwed up his courage. “Can we do something about Ruby? I mean—”

“It's too late, old buddy,” Terreblanche cut in. “She knows too much now. You played with fire, V.D.V. Your girlfriend's ex-husband was investigating the case, that really wasn't very clever.”

“Ruby told me he was a traffic cop,” Rick said apologetically.

“Tut-tut.”

“It's the truth.”

“Is this the old friend?” Mzala said, amused.

A cry rang out from the cellar. Someone was obviously having a bad time down there.

Mzala forgot his tongues for a moment. “Need a hand, chief?”

Terreblanche made a negative sign, then turned back to Rick. “We'll talk about it later. Now get your things together. The plane leaves in an hour.”

“Yes. Yes.”

Rick hadn't had the courage to say goodbye to Ruby. His past had caught up with him, youthful errors that needed to be seen in the context of the time. They had bought his silence. (What did Ruby imagine, that you became a friend to the stars with a seedy clinic on Victoria? That he had acquired this property with his army pension?) Terreblanche had kept reports with his signature on them, reports of experiments conducted on the fringes of Project Coast, including the names of political prisoners. A leak to the tabloids, and the “dentist of the stars” could swallow his own molars. Rick had obeyed orders, as he always had done. Kate Montgomery had been easy prey—a quick glance at Ruby's schedule and the thing was done. But her ex-husband had fucked it all up. Rick was sorry for her, for him. His life was draining away before his eyes and he knew nothing could stop the hemorrhage. He had to abandon everything he had built up over the last twenty years, leave the country, start again from scratch.

The sun was licking the first rows of vines beyond the garden. Rick turned to go upstairs to the bedroom. He would take what was in the safe, the cash, a few jewels.

Terreblanche let him take a few steps before pulling out the .38 he had taken from the cop. He aimed at Rick as he reached the glass door and shot him down like a nigger, with a bullet in the back of the head.

 

 *

 

A well-built white with a cowlick was standing guard outside the bedroom door.

“I need to talk to the girl,” Mzala said.

“Does the boss know?”

“Sure,” he said, smiling with his yellow teeth. “He sent me.”

The idiot opened the door.

The room was in semi-darkness. The girl was on the bed, her hands tied behind her back. Ruby threw a venomous look at the slender black who closed the door behind him.

“What do you want?”

“Calm down, sweetheart.”

The man was holding a small jute bag in his hand. His nails were filthy, tapered to points. He was wearing wide pants and a shirt with bloodstained sleeves.

“Who are you?” Ruby said.

“There . . . there.”

But his face reeked of vice and death. He was looking at her as if she were a trophy. Prey. Ruby's heart was pounding.

“Don't be afraid,” he whispered. “I'm not going to hurt you.”

He was stroking his bag as if it were a pet. In one piece, Terreblanche had said.

“I won't hurt you if you keep quiet,” Mzala said.

Ruby wanted to tear his eyes out but they were empty of humanity. Fear crept up her legs, and she pressed them tightly together and moved back against the wall.

“One word from you,” he said in a honeyed voice, “one word, and I'll slit you open.”

“Fuck off.”

“In your mouth, how would you like that? Hmm?” He smiled. “Yes, of course you'd like that. With a mouth like yours, you need them big. You're going to love it, darling, oh yes, you're going to love my big—”

“Come on, then,” Ruby cut in, threateningly. “I have good teeth.”

Mzala was still smiling, as if thinking of something else. Terreblanche had gone back down to the cellar, leaving him with the body of his “old friend” on the living room floor. The plane wasn't leaving for another hour. There was time for a bit of fun. The
tsotsi
plunged his hand into his little bag and chose a tongue at random. Ruby went white. She tried to retreat, but she already had her back against the wall. Mzala placed the piece of flesh on her hair.

“Scream,” he said, “and I'll make you eat it.”

The Cat wasn't smiling anymore.

She fell silent, paralyzed with fear.

Clearly pleased with himself, he put another of the tongues on her ear. The girl was shaking all over, like a sparrow in a storm. She would soon be eating out of his hands—or rather, she'd be eating his cock, ha ha ha. Ruby pursed her lips while he was decorating her, a cruel smile on his irregular features. Now she had tongues on her hair, her shoulders. When he adorned her cleavage, a tear slid down her cheek.

Mzala contemplated his work. She was perfect now. He had a hard-on that was almost painful. He was just taking out his powerful member when footsteps echoed rhythmically in the corridor.

Debeer was the first to come in, supporting a man who was in a pitiful state. Terreblanche followed them in. He saw Ruby, silently weeping, then Mzala, smiling nervously on the bed.

 

 *

 

The world wasn't formatted anymore, the data had been erased. Time, too, had become porous, gravity was turning in a loop. Brian let the cells dance around in the uncertain chemistry of his brain. With matter sent flying to the other side of the universe, he clung to the particles of thought that whizzed over his head like meteorites. At the end of his mad race with himself, he saw flecks of dust on the wooden floor, then Ruby, close to him. The blurred images drew burning tears from him.

“What have they done to me?” he murmured.

“I don't know,” she replied in a neutral voice. “But you pissed in your pants.”

Brian was content just to breathe. His eyes stung horribly, his muscles hurt, his bones, his whole body was nothing but one long moan, and the lioness he could see through the burned grass didn't look very happy, as if the hunting hadn't gone well. He examined the damage to his pants.

“Fuck.”

“Yes.”

His shirt, too, was soaking wet.

He remembered Terreblanche, the electric generator, his brain reduced to a transformer, his lashes burning, words coming involuntarily from his mouth, snakes he had spat out in the middle of his pain. A terrible doubt grabbed him by the throat. Had he talked? Incandescent sparks throbbed behind his eyelids, he could barely see Ruby on the bed, the shadows on the wall. He tried to stand, but couldn't, it hurt too much.

“Help me, please.”

“Help you to do what? A fucking madman came in here earlier and stuck tongues on my face! Men's tongues! Shit! Can't you see these guys are crazy? Can't you see they're going to kill us?”

Ruby was an inch away from a nervous breakdown.

“They would have done it already,” he replied.

“If anyone had told me we'd die together . . .”

“Stop daydreaming and help me up.”

Ruby grabbed one of his arms. “What are you planning to do, Superman—blow down the walls?”

Brian's tears were flowing by themselves over the floor. Getting to his feet made him feel like a lighthouse cast out to sea, but he could make out shapes better now. The lowered blinds, the window without a handle, the desk, the rickety wooden chair, and Ruby, her jaws clenched in order not to scream. She was a tough cookie, she wouldn't give up. He stuck his face between the drawn blinds. You could make out the fruit trees in the garden, then the vines stretching over the gray sides of Table Mountain. Even if they managed to escape, they wouldn't get far in their condition.

“We have to get out of here,” he said.

“Go on, I'll watch.”

Brian evaluated the situation—not great. “The reason Terreblanche hasn't killed us yet is because he's planning to use us.”

“As what, hostages? You're not worth much on the second-hand market, Brian. Me even less.”

She wasn't wrong about that.

He indicated his hands, held tightly together with adhesive tape. “You have good teeth, try to bite into this.”

“I've already tried, smart-ass. While you were out cold. It's too hard.”

“I wasn't exerting any pressure. Try again.”

Taking a deep breath, Ruby kneeled behind him and tried to find a way in.

“Go on!”

“That's what I'm doing,” she growled.

But the tape was solid, too tightly wound to offer the slightest grip for her teeth.

“I can't do it,” she said, giving up.

Birds were singing in the garden. However hard Brian tried, he could see only one solution. Something political prisoners used to do. The prospect, given his condition, made him sigh agonizingly.

“How far's the nearest house from here?” he asked.

“About half a mile. Why?”

“We don't have much choice, Ruby. I don't see any guard in the garden. With a bit of luck, you can reach the vines before they jump us. Run under cover without turning around, and when you get to your neighbor's house call the police.”

“Oh, yes?” she said, feigning surprise. “And how do I get to those vines? In my dreams?”

“There's only one pane in the window,” he said in a low voice. “If I can break it, you have a chance to escape. In ten seconds, you're in the vines. By the time the others react, you'll be a long way away.”

She frowned. “And you?”

“I'll follow you.”

“And what if there's a guard outside?”

“At worst he'll kill you.”

“And that's your plan?”

“At least you'll save time.”

Ruby shook her head, unconvinced by his two-faced smile. “You're forgetting one thing, Brian. How do we break the window?”

“I have a hard head,” he said.

She screwed up her pretty little face. “Smashing the window with your head—this plan of yours is completely pathetic.”

“It's rock 'n' roll.”

Ruby looked at him as if he were a half-wit. “Still as crazy as ever.”

“Isn't that what you love about me? Now come on, let's not waste any time.” He pushed the chair from the desk to just under the window. “Climb on that to get out. Are you ready?”

Ruby nodded, and focused on the objective. Their eyes met for a moment—fear, tenderness, a mixture of memories. He kissed her on the mouth and it didn't even occur to her to bite him. He moved back to the door, and evaluated the ideal trajectory. Finally, he wiped all thoughts from his mind and ran forward, head first.

According to his calculations, there was a fifty-fifty chance of knocking himself unconscious. His skull struck the glass, which shattered on impact. Ruby stifled a scream. Brian's head got caught in the blinds, stopping him from getting through the window. For a second, he stood there, tangled in the slats, then collapsed, surrounded by fragments of glass.

The light from the garden dazzled Ruby. The window was partly broken, the trees only a few yards away. She rushed forward, forgetting all about the remaining strips of glass, climbed on the chair he'd pushed up against the wall, and went through the window with her eyes closed. With one leap, she was outside. Her legs felt shaky on the cracked earth, warm blood dripped on her eyelids, but her one thought was to run. She cut a path through the trees, weaving between the low branches. The vines were only ten yards away now.

“Don't kill her!” a voice cried, somewhere to the right of her.

Ruby reached the first vines. She bent low, ran down one of the rows for twenty yards, then abruptly turned left. The bushes scratched her skin, her bound hands slowed her down in her headlong run, she went down another row, panting, and headed due north. About half a mile to the neighbor's house. Ruby was running through the vines when she ran straight into something and fell, face down. A huge weight immediately pinned her to the ground. A cry of pain escaped her lips—the man was holding her down firmly, his knee digging into the small of her back. People were running from the house, figures emerged from the rows of vines.