Zulu (31 page)

Neuman forgot the black rockets exploding in his head and grabbed the wallet. The document had no heading or anything to identify it, but it contained a complete report on the man he was looking for.

Joost Terreblanche had worked for the secret service during the apartheid regime and was a member of the Broederbond, the “League of Brothers,” a secret society bringing together the Afrikaner pseudo-elite, few of whose activities ever came to light. In spite of his involvement in Project Coast and the disappearance of several black activists, Terreblanche had never had any run-ins with the law. Most of the trials had come to nothing, which was why few former members of the army had cooperated with Desmond Tutu's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. As a result, some branches of the former security services had benefited from almost total immunity, despite serious human-rights violations. When the regime had fallen, Terreblanche had left the army with the rank of colonel and had gone into the private security business, working with a number of South African companies, including ATD, of which he was one of the principal shareholders. According to the source, Terreblanche enjoyed protection at all levels, both in South Africa and in Namibia, where the conflict between the two countries had allowed for a great deal of infiltration. He was suspected of conducting paramilitary operations in several countries of the Great Lakes, supplying arms and hiring mercenaries. The report mentioned, among other things, a base in the Namib Desert, a former farm in the middle of a protected area, where Terreblanche went about his business undisturbed.

Namibia.

The waves crashed on the shore, spewing out penguins. Zina was watching Neuman as he read the document, looking strangely pale. Their encounter had been something fleeting, an unexpected gust of wind that shouldn't have happened but had flung them together. This wasn't the moment, but it would never be the moment.

“Shall we stop playing games?” she said.

He looked up, a black totem planted in the sand.

“Do you think I'm shortsighted?” she went on, gallantly. “Do you think I don't see how you look at me?”

His face fell a little more, but he said nothing. Corpses were floating to the surface, dozens of them, drained of blood.

“The tour finishes tomorrow night,” she said. “After that, I don't know. I'm leaving town, Ali, unless you stop me.”

He had stopped hearing the roar of the waves or the cries of the penguins. The world had been turned upside down. He was in free fall.

“I'm sorry,” he said, halfheartedly.

Zina clenched her pretty teeth. “Say that again!” she hissed. “Go on, say that again!”

Tears were streaming down her cheeks. She had been waking up every morning with the smell of his skin, it resisted water, wind, the fire beneath her feet, his smell waited for her in her bed, in her dressing room, it followed her in the corridors, the streets, the warm air of evening, it was even in the sea spray, his smell, his smell was everywhere.

Neuman lowered his eyes. He saw her bare feet on the jagged rock, her shapely ankles, her legs, her dress blowing in the wind.

“I'm sorry . . .”

And he died there, surrounded by penguins.

 

 

 

T
he animals came out at night. A couple of oryx passed on the plain, in search of tender leaves that had grown since the last rain.

“What are those fucking things doing here?” Mzala cursed from the terrace of the farmhouse.

He was nervous. He didn't give a fuck about animals, sand, desert. He was thinking dollars. Mozambique. Early retirement. Luxury hotels and bitches in heat.

“How long are we going to stay here?”

“As long as it takes,” Terreblanche replied. “Why don't you get some sleep?”

The ex-soldier was drinking rooibos tea, comfortably installed in one of the armchairs on the terrace.

Mzala peered out at the desert. All this vastness depressed him. He didn't want to sleep. The amphetamines kept him awake—or better still, the fear of waking up with a knife between his shoulder blades. Terreblanche hated anyone who didn't go red in the sun. The Cat had taken certain precautions to stop the other man killing him on the spot, but he would only close his eyes once he was a long way from here, with his money. This wait was getting on his nerves—Mzala hated waiting. As a gang leader, he'd had privileges within the township, but that was all over now. The American gang was gone, God save their damned souls. Mzala had respected his side of the contract. He had collected the sleeping drugs from the Lengezi church, taking the opportunity to eliminate the little whore who fed the pigs and the big mama who had showed up unexpectedly, and finally doused the tongues in gasoline and set fire to them before following the others to the airfield.

“What's stopping you giving me the rest of the money here and now?” he grunted.

“We've already talked about that,” Terreblanche declaimed from his wicker throne. “They must be watching the borders, and I'm not crazy about you falling into the hands of the police. You'll go abroad when the coast is clear.”

It wasn't true—he could move from one country to another without the danger of coming up against an overzealous official. But the man was an idiot and, as soon as the money was pocketed, he would blow his fortune on luxury cars, gold jewelry, and flashy bimbos. The hard disk was in a safe place, with his sponsors; his fortune and his son's fortune were assured, but the cops were still on the alert. Joost would play dead until things settled down. Only then would he join Ross in Australia. Money bought everything. Money redeemed everything.

“This isn't the way we planned it,” Mzala said stubbornly. “We agreed that once the operation was over I'd take my cut and go.”

“No one's going anywhere without my approval.”

“Meaning what?”

“Meaning I have to agree.”

“We already agree, about the money. A million dollars. In cash. Where are my dollars?”

“You'll wait, like the others,” Terreblanche concluded. “Period.”

Mzala grimaced in the darkness. He was wondering if this moonface had the money here, in a safe somewhere, or some pathetic hiding place. The Cessna that had landed them here this morning had left again with the stuff, and now they were alone in the middle of this desert he didn't know.

A leaden silence fell over the terrace, barely disturbed by the night breeze. The night birds had fallen silent. The oryx, too, had fled. Mzala was about to lock himself in his room, his gun within easy reach, when a cry rang out from the direction of the garage.

 

 *

 

Neuman had parked the four-by-four on the edge of the trail, and done the last miles on foot. Holding the case in his hand sent shooting pains to his aching rib. According to his map of the region, the farm was located behind the Sossusvlei dunes, west of here, a long way from the tourist sites.

The moon guided him over the barren plain. He walked half a mile following the Southern Cross, the pockets of his dusty suit weighed down with the cartridge clips. The dunes stood out in the darkness. At last, he glimpsed a light in the distance, then a fence that marked the boundary of the farm.

An ostrich fled as he approached, a panic-stricken sentinel. Neuman threw the case over the fence, then climbed over himself, gritting his teeth. He was in private property—about fifty acres, according to Zina's information, stretching as far as the foothills of the Sesriem dunes. He made for the flickering light, stopping halfway to get an idea of the layout of the place. He wedged his case on his shoulder and, after a few minutes' difficult climb, reached the top of the highest dune. He could see Terreblanche's farmhouse in the moonlight, and the prefabricated building below it, near the pens.

Neuman put the metal case down on the sand. The rifle was a Steyr, equipped with a laser-zoom-x6 sight, a silencer, and three cartridge clips of thirty 7.62 caliber bullets each. A sniper's weapon. He assembled it carefully, and made sure it was in working order.

He wiped the sweat from his forehead and lay down on the smooth ridge. The sand was soft, almost cool. He swept the expanse with the infrared sight, checked out the farmhouse, the extension—a warehouse, presumably. There were two men on the terrace, who seemed to be arguing, and two four-by-fours in the yard. The prefabricated building was about fifty yards farther on. A guard was patrolling, with a light machine gun slung across his shoulder. Another was smoking on the path leading to the main track. Neuman put him in the center of his sight and shot him with one bullet in the back. The man fell face down. He aimed his rifle toward the yard and found the second man. The target danced for a moment in the sight before swiveling abruptly under the impact.

Neuman let out his breath. Nobody had stirred near the buildings. He made sure the guards had died immediately and aimed the sight at the terrace. He thought he recognized the figure of Mzala near the pillar. Just then, two men emerged from the nearby warehouse, both with shaved heads, carrying crates. Neuman followed their movement—they were heading for the four-by-fours—and pressed the trigger. He killed the first with a bullet in the throat, the second as he was turning to his partner.

A third man emerged from the farmhouse. He saw the bodies on the ground and took his revolver from his belt. Neuman hit him in the left shoulder, before a second bullet threw him back against the door. He cursed from the top of the dune—the guy had had time to sound the alarm.

Neuman aimed toward the terrace, but the two figures had taken shelter in the house. A man in an undershirt emerged from the prefab, a weapon in his hand. His head exploded. The building must be a dormitory. They were going to wake up, organize a counterattack. Neuman aimed at the window frames and methodically emptied his magazine, firing at random and sowing panic as the bullets went through the walls. He heard cries and the first clatter of returning fire. He took the second cartridge clip from where it lay on the sand, jammed it into the magazine, and fired thirty more bullets, one after the other. The dormitory was soon riddled with bullets. One man had attempted to come out, but Neuman had nailed him with a shot to the solar plexus. The survivors ducked inside the building.

Bullets whistled a few yards from him, punching holes in the sand. They had finally located his position. Neuman loaded the last cartridge clip and peered into the darkness. He spotted a man hiding just inside the door of the dormitory, carrying a light machine gun and signaling frantically to his invisible companions. Neuman fired twelve 7.62-caliber bullets, which shattered the door and the wall round it. Hit in the leg, the man dragged himself along the ground to escape the sniper. Neuman finished him off with a bullet in the cheek.

Neuman, focused on his objective, had stopped breathing. A figure crossed the infrared field—a man dashing out of the dormitory and running in a zigzag toward the farmhouse. Neuman followed him in a macabre dance, then squeezed the trigger and sent him sprawling onto the ground, face down.

His fingers were stiff, his breath coming from deep in his guts. At last, he relaxed. No movement in the moonlight. He abandoned the rifle case to its shroud of sand, walked along the ridge, and groaned in pain as he descended the dune. He heard doors slamming in the darkness. Neuman stopped, panting, and directed the sight of his rifle toward the farmhouse. One of the four-by-fours was escaping westward, raising a cloud of dust.

He fired six bullets, blindly. They vanished in the murk.

A deathly silence fell over the barren expanse. Neuman was not thinking of anything. All that was left was the night wind whistling through the bullet-riddled planks of the dormitory, the rifle he held in a madman's grip, and the Toyota parked in the yard.

 

The tracks ran toward the sea—sixty miles of dunes and pebbly plains in one of the largest national parks in the world. Neuman was following the parallel lines that ran ahead of his headlights, clinging to the wheel to ease the pain in his ribs.

He had found seven bodies in the dormitory, including a coarse-looking young white who was still alive, holding his stomach and shaking. He had left him to die. Apart from the bodies in the yard, the farm was empty. He had found weapons and ammunition in the warehouse, but Mzala and Terreblanche had fled. They were planning to join the Walvis Bay road by cutting across the desert, but Neuman wouldn't let go of them. He had cast from his mind any thoughts that might interfere with the job at hand. He peered at the dunes through the windshield, increasingly high the farther he got into the Namib. The Toyota jolted and swerved over the loose sand, sending shooting pains through his body. He clung even more tightly to the wheel.

A jackal flashed across his headlights. He was driving along, burning with fever, when, rounding a slope, he saw them. Two phosphorescent red dots, in the hollow of the dunes. Neuman stopped three hundred yards from them, at the top of a dune, and cut the lights. He opened the door and looked at them through the infrared sight of the Steyr. The four-by-four seemed to have gotten stuck in the sand. Alerted by the lights of the Toyota, Mzala had abandoned his money and taken refuge behind the bodywork. Terreblanche had joined him, a light machine gun in his hand. They were both hiding behind the four-by-four, waiting for an invisible enemy.

Neuman wedged the barrel of the Steyr against the door and aimed for the water tank. He fired five bullets, to no avail. They were using an armored vehicle.

Neuman thought hard, his shirt soaked in sweat. Finally he put the rifle down on the passenger seat, opened his pocket knife, and sat down behind the wheel. The fugitives' four-by-four was armored, but not the Toyota. The plan was simple, and suicidal.

The tires skated on the soft sand before getting a grip. He started driving down the slope. Two hundred and fifty yards . . . two hundred. He switched on the headlights, jammed the accelerator with the tip of the pocket knife, and headed straight for his target. Two gun barrels had emerged from behind the hood of the four-by-four. Neuman grabbed the rifle from the seat and threw himself through the door.

The windshield, the hood, the seats, the radiator grill, everything was demolished by the fire from the guns, but none of that stopped the vehicle from continuing to come straight toward them. The Toyota smashed into the rear of the other four-by-four, which was stuck so fast in the sand that it barely moved in spite of the impact. Terreblanche and Mzala had retreated toward the dune to escape the collision. Now they emerged from the darkness and aimed their weapons at the damaged Toyota. The front was smashed in, the windshield shattered, the door riddled with bullets, but there was nobody inside.

Neuman had rolled on the sand for about a hundred yards, recovered the rifle, and taken up position. His elbows on the ground, he aimed at the gas tank of the Toyota, which exploded with the third bullet. For a moment, the valley of sand was lit up by a jet of flame. Neuman couldn't see his targets, who were hidden by the screen of smoke. The flames quickly spread to the armored vehicle. Mzala and Terreblanche, who had been sheltering behind the bodywork, moved back. They fired a new volley, blindly, then another, which fell short. Overwhelmed by the inferno, the gas tank of the four-by-four now also exploded. The conflagration took Mzala by surprise, and the breath of the fire engulfed him.

Neuman heard his screams before he saw him. He was a human torch, turning around in circles, trying to flee the flames consuming him. He took a few clumsy steps over the sand, beating his arms to get out of the fire's fatal embrace, but it pursued him. He rolled on the ground, screaming ever louder. Neuman looked through his sight and searched the darkness for his other target, but all he could see was dense smoke. Terreblanche seemed to have vanished. A few yards away, Mzala was still screaming in agony. The smell of burning flesh reached Neuman. Mzala was gesticulating wildly and hitting the ground, all to no avail. Neuman finished him off with a bullet to the chest.

Beads of feverish sweat forming on his face, Neuman crawled about twenty yards, increased the angle of the zoom, and finally spotted Terreblanche, who had climbed to the top of the dune. He had a revolver in his belt, but no rifle. Neuman hit him in the shoulder as he was tumbling to the other side.

The flames were crackling, spreading black smoke. Neuman inspected the ridge behind which Terreblanche had disappeared, and slowly stood up. The earlier fall had rekindled the pain in his ribs. He went around the roaring inferno and followed the ridge that wound on in the moonlight. The tracks led to the top, which he reached after a laborious climb. The wind up here didn't exactly cool him. In front of him, the waves of sand stretched as far as the eye could see. There were footprints on the smooth side of the dune, running westward. Neuman cursed. He would never catch up with him on foot—not with this pain in his ribs.

He checked the magazine of his rifle, and gave a start when he saw the cartridge clip. He had only one bullet left.

A warm wind was blowing over the dunes. Neuman lay down and looked through his sight. A field of humps, their outlines indistinct, stretching away monotonously. Before long, he noticed a straight line of tracks. He followed them until he spotted the fugitive. He was walking with rhythmic steps, a revolver in his hand. Three hundred yards, as the crow flies. Neuman held his breath, forgot even the emptiness in his head, and pressed the trigger.