Gun Dealing (The Ryder Quartet Book 2) (34 page)

wat
- what

weet
- know (
jy weet? - you know?)

wena
- you

whatchamacallit
 -
what you may call it, thing, object, whatever it might be

whoonga
-
slang for nyaope

woes
- very angry, wild
(pronounced
voes
with a hard ‘v’)

yebo
- yes

yini
?
- what?

yislaaik
 -
variation of
yissus

yissus
- expression of
astonishment, derived from
Jesus

zamalek
- urban slang for local ‘Carling Black
label’ beer, referring ironically to the Egyptian football club

After working as an
actor, director and teacher in theatre, film and television, Ian Patrick turned
to an academic career, publishing scholarly essays in a range of international
academic journals. He believes that his years as an actor, director and researcher
play a modest part in his writing.

‘My fiction is based
to the best of my ability on research and field work. I have to believe every
word my fictive characters say, every action they undertake,’ he says. Which
explains why he has accompanied detectives to the front line, interviewed
forensics investigators, and spent many hours scouring actual locations for his
crime scenes: many of them based on actual events.

‘I endeavour to make
my fiction plausible and authentic. This requires exhaustive work and detailed
research. It takes me up to a year of full-time work to write an eighty thousand
word crime thriller. In my view although it is clearly desirable to arrive at
one's destination by bringing a work to publication, it is the journey that is
the really exciting and enjoyable part of writing. I can only hope that readers
will also enjoy the journey of discovering my characters and their foibles,
their actions and their experiences. I hope, too, that they will inform me
about and forgive me for any lapses in my work or any errors of detail.’

At the very end of
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If you enjoyed
Gun Dealing
, try another book in
The Ryder Quartet
here

Read on for an
exclusive extract from the thrilling action-packed sequel to
Gun Dealing
:

00.25.

The four men smashed their way through the
undergrowth. They headed toward the surf, still at least four hundred metres
away. Occasional flashes of moonlight out on the water guided them as they
stumbled in panic through the blackness. The whipping sound of 9mm bullets
spitting into the trees and foliage on either side of them prompted rapid
changes of direction as they
zig-zagged
their way
through the bush.

Screams and shouts from the five pursuing cops
forty metres behind them mingled with the crackle of radio. Orders were called
out from the detective still sitting in one of the two police cars back on the
road. In the distance, five hundred metres southwest of where he waited, he saw
reflections of flashing blue lights in the treetops as a third police vehicle
skidded to a halt halfway up the hill. He barked radio instructions to the new
arrivals. In response their doors sprang open and two more cops joined the
charge through the bush and down toward the beach, creating a second line of
pursuit from the south.

The pincer was in place. The detective mused:
impondo zenkomo.
The horns of the bull. Shaka would have approved.

Meanwhile the fugitives had burst through the
final line of foliage onto the beach. Clear white sand gleamed silver in the
moonlight. It was only then that they realised their error. At least the bush
had provided some cover. Now there was nothing but the open beach between them
and the surf. Instinctively, without pausing, they turned right rather than
continue the hopeless sprint for the water. Maybe they could run forty or fifty
paces southward along the edge of the bush before doubling back into a thicket
further down.

Too late. They travelled only twenty paces, slowed
down by the softer sand of the beach, before they saw the flashlights of the
two constables from the third car, who had
 
made it down the hill and were already approaching the beach from the
southern end. Having had less of the thick bush to tunnel through, these two
policewomen hit the shoreline even before the main group of pursuing cops.

The four fugitives switched direction again, sharp
left this time. The water was now all that was left as a possible escape route.

They ran past an outcrop of anthracite rocks
protruding onto the shore from the surf. One of them glanced momentarily toward
the outcrop as he saw movement from what he thought must have been a startled
seal, its wet black body glimmering in the moonlight as it slipped behind a
rock.

As the men reached the water the first lot of
policemen burst through the bush and hit the beach from the north, joining with
their two colleagues in closing down the options for the escapees. The four
fugitives considered doubling back to the rocks, which provided the only
visible cover. But the two policewomen from the south were approaching too
rapidly. The men switched back toward the open water. It was a lost cause. They
were fully exposed in the surf with a bright clear moon overhead.

All seven cops slowed to a walk as they joined up
and approached the water’s edge to watch the fugitives wading, as if through
quicksand, through the surf that was now halfway up their thighs. The
breathless pants and wheezes of the police now gave way to jeers and jokes as
they watched the four men wading out hopelessly in the direction of Australia.

The cops lined up on the edge of the water,
laughing and cat-calling as they waited for the four men to accept the futility
of their efforts. They did. All four of them turned, wearily, in despair, and
raised their hands above their heads. Two of them still held their weapons,
pointed upward at the sky.

The detective leading the first group of cops was
a giant of a man with a deep resonant voice that echoed over the silent scene.
He pointed his Vektor SP1 at them as he called out, his words intended for the
two men who weren’t holding their weapons above them.

‘Take out your weapons and hold them above your
head. Now! I won’t be asking you a second time!’

The two men looked at their companions already
holding their pistols overhead, one of whom snapped out an order.

‘
Yebo
.
OK! Make like he says. Quick,
wena
! I
know this cop. I seen him once before. Don’t mess with him!’

His two companions slowly, painfully, drew their
weapons, one from his belt and the other from a holster strapped under his arm.
Slowly, carefully, they too raised their pistols above their heads. The cops
sniggered and joked as they did so. The four men knew the game was up. They
thought only of the lengthy prison terms ahead.

The detective watched them carefully. They were
still fifteen to twenty metres out in the water, and starting to wade in,
slowly and dejectedly, weapons above their heads, as the detective spoke
quietly and with intimidating authority to his colleagues, four men and two
women.

‘OK people. Tell me, now. Who wants to spend a
couple of hours filling in forms? Spend a few hours in court? Hear later that
someone paid a bribe and bought the dockets for these men? Or watch some clever
lawyer get them off so that they can do the same stuff all over again? How many
of you want to do that? Tell me.’

There was a chorus of chuckles and laughter from
his colleagues and a refrain of ‘
tchai,
not me,
Captain,’ ‘
hayibo
! Captain,’ ‘
hayi
, boss, not me.’

‘S’what I thought, guys. So, OK. Each and every
one of you is a part of this. OK?’

The cops reacted as one and readied their weapons.
The detective called out to the four men, now only ten metres in from the
water’s edge.

‘OK stop there!’

The men stopped.

‘Now I don’t want to take any chances with you
guys, so
lissen
to me very carefully!
I want you four men to empty your pistols. Hold it! Don’t move!’

He barked out at the first man who had immediately
started lowering his pistol with the intention of ejecting the magazine. In
response to the detective’s angry shout, the man froze.

‘I don’t want you fiddling with any magazine. Keep
your hands above your heads! Pistol in one hand only! Pointed up! Up! I want
each one of you to point your gun at the moon, and I want you to fire off every
round remaining in your weapons!’

The four men exchanged shocked looks but were
brought back instantly into focus by the detective’s voice.

‘I don’t want any of you putting a foot on this
beach with a single bullet still sitting there in your gun. Now! Go on! Fire
your pistols. At the moon! If you lower your gun while you still have a single
round left, you’re a dead man. Go on. Now. Shoot!’

There was a moment of stunned silence and then the
first man obeyed. He pointed directly above his head and fired once. Twice.
Then, rapidly in succession, another and another and another until he had fired
off nine rounds altogether and then the weapon
clicked
. Nothing left. His startled companions stared at him,
bewildered. The detective continued, as his fellow cops sniggered.

‘Good man! Nine rounds. Good. Hope you didn’t hit
the man in the moon, hey? You can go to the
tronk
for that, you know? Now the rest of you. Go on! Go on, I’m telling you! Fire
now! At the moon.’

The three men followed their companion’s lead and
fired off all the rounds in their weapons. One of them fired off six then
click
. Each of his two companions fired
off eight rounds then
click
. When the
last round had been fired and the last
click
heard, they slowly lowered their weapons, arms exhausted from the effort. There
was a moment of silence.

Then the detective spoke again to his colleagues,
dropping the volume slightly.

‘Did you see these men, people? I give them a
simple order to put up their weapons, and what do they do? They fire at us.
They fire thirty rounds at us! I think, in fact, that I counted exactly thirty.
No. Thirty-one. Yes, thirty-one bullets. If any one of the six of you has not
yet had a chance to prove yourself a good cop and put down a really evil
skollie
rapist and murderer, this is your chance.
Self-defence, my people. I want ballistics to prove that a bullet from each and
every one of your guns went into at least one of these evil murdering
tsotsis
.’

There was a moment of sheer terror for the lead
fugitive as he realised what was happening, and before he could dive under the
water.

The seven cops, lined up on the edge of the beach,
fired at will.

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Plain Dealing
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