An Ordinary Day (35 page)

Durant frowned and paged through the document, reading portions out loud. ‘“Chief post-mortem findings … focal abrasions on the body, deep scalp bruising on the occipital area. Separation of the lambdoid suture. Focal subarachnoid haemorrhage over left occipital pole. Pulmonary oedema and congestion. Cause of death: drowning.”’ Durant looked up at Heath, puzzled. ‘She was still alive when he threw her into the river?’

Heath nodded. ‘The blow to her head didn’t kill her, only knocked her unconscious. The Umgeni River killed her.’

Durant paged to the end of the report and read the pathologist’s comment.

‘“The deceased sustained a blunt impact to the head with separation of sutures of skull and subarachnoid haemorrhage of the brain. This induced a concussion which resulted in unconsciousness and drowning.”’ Durant sighed and shook his head. ‘Leila didn’t deserve to die like this, I don’t care what she’s done. We’ve got to find this guy.’

Heath managed a half-smile. ‘We get to the next document.’ Heath passed Durant a piece of paper. ‘We may be closer to Salem than he thinks. I spent the whole day yesterday at various container depots trying to find one destined for Rafar Estates in Malta. There weren’t any, so I had to narrow it down by destination and then by refrigeration temperature. I eventually found one destined for another wine estate in Malta. The contents, wine for export. Interestingly, five hundred cases of wine – a relatively small consignment for a forty-foot container. All the duties were paid and when I traced the payments, they originated in Tel Aviv.’

Durant looked puzzled. ‘You think it’s Salem’s consignment?’

Heath smiled. ‘Wine’s a lot like a human being. It likes moderate temperatures; it needs air around it, it’s fragile. It can also change in mood and …’

‘Thanks, Brad, I get the picture. What’s your point?’

‘I think Salem
is
the consignment. I think he’s exporting himself to Malta along with the wine. The rest of the space in the container is living space.’

Durant was silent for a moment and stared at Heath in disbelief. He looked at the folder, then into the distance, and then back at Heath. ‘Is it possible?’

Heath nodded. ‘He’s got a couple of million dollars in cash on him. Anything’s possible. Some people have made shipping containers their permanent homes. What’s the difference if it’s at sea?’

‘I guess stowaways manage okay. And, as you said, with money, you could make it quite comfortable. Air purifiers, coffee machine. You think it could be what he’s done?’

‘It’s a good way of getting out the country if you’re a fugitive. He must know every border post’s being watched. The guy’s a professional.’

Durant smiled and then laughed. ‘I said a while ago that if we find that container, we find Salem, but I didn’t mean it literally. Where’s the container now?’

Heath pointed to the last sheet of paper. ‘It’s on that ship, the
Eastern Challenger
.’

‘Which is where?’

‘Leaves port today at 5 p.m.’

Durant wiped his forehead with a handkerchief and then took his cellphone from his pocket. ‘We need to stop him.’

‘No worries, Kevin. The special task team’s on standby and as she sails we’ll hit the ship from all sides. He’ll have no place to go. You want to be there?’

Durant looked at Heath incredulously. ‘No question. I want to ask him where Ali is.’

Baker looked around the
CIA
operations room at the us embassy and shook his head. ‘All this technology, and we still have to rely so heavily on human beings.’

Scott’s face was drawn and the dark rings under his eyes testified to the type of evening he’d had the previous night. ‘Damn it, chief, I don’t know how Durant found him. It was just bad, bad luck.’

Baker frowned and looked up over his glasses. ‘I don’t think luck had anything to do with it. It was perseverance. Durant was so determined to figure this thing out that he explored every possible avenue. Even an
NOC
can’t withstand that type of investigation. I got a call from
HQ
a few minutes ago – Vitoli made it to Germany safely.’

‘Any nasty dip notes hit your inbox yet, boss?’

‘The South Africans haven’t said anything to us, but I was at a meeting this morning with the
NIA
’s liaison people and they did look a little smug. Like they know that we know that they know. Hell, Paul, it’s just a game, but it’s a game with rules’.

‘Durant had no right to compromise our man.’

‘Durant didn’t compromise him. He simply asked him questions. We also gained some knowledge: we know Elhasomi wasn’t their informer; we know they’re also interested in Ali. We’re working on the same targets, that’s why I said it’s important to liaise. If we’d talked to the
NIA
when I said we should have, Vitoli might still be operational today.’

‘I still think we can crack this by ourselves.’

‘Paul, you don’t give up, do you? They’ve beaten us in a race which I never wanted to be in. I’ve given everything we have to the
NIA
for them to follow up.’

‘Chief, I don’t think that was …’

Baker raised his voice. ‘Will you shut up and listen for once, Paul? They’ll handle it from here. We’ll help them where we can. I also believe that you’ve damaged the credibility of this Agency and caused me to question my own judgement. I know I’ve only been here a short time and this is your second term, but, to my shame, I listened to you and believed you knew what you were doing. Perhaps I misjudged you. Perhaps you are driven by your personal agenda rather than the interests of the Firm.’

Scott moved some files aside on the conference table and then tried to meet Baker’s glare. He failed.

‘Mr Baker, I … I think you’ve misinterpreted my whole game plan. Sure, I took it personally sometimes, but I knew what I had to do.’

Baker pointed to the
CIA
crest on the wall and read the words beneath it.

‘“And the truth shall make you free.” Don’t lose sight of what we stand for, Paul. The truth. The objective, untainted truth. You failed the Agency, you failed me and you failed yourself. You took your eye off the ball, you let down the team. I don’t need agents in my office who are self-centred, pompous and arrogant.’

‘I object to the implication that—’

‘It’s not an implication, Paul, it’s pretty explicit. In this job, you leave your ego in your car in the parking lot. You bring your professionalism into this office.’

‘I can honestly say—’

‘Let me finish. I’ve recommended to Langley that you be recalled with immediate effect so that we can get back to the business of the profession. Now get out of my office and go and be a diplomat.’

The bow of the
Eastern Challenger
heaved to port and turned into the channel leading to the harbour mouth. It was five-thirty; a few minutes earlier, Durant and Heath had given a final briefing to Captain Nate Zondi, the commander of the
SAPS
special task force, which had assembled in an empty warehouse in the harbour, close to where the
Eastern Challenger
had been berthed. Zondi determined the safest option was to hit the ship once it left the quay, as this would diminish any chance of escape. The air force would provide a Squirrel helicopter, which would lower four task force members onto the top of the containers. The target container, below decks, was marked with invisible fluorescent paint by a
SAPS
member posing as a customs officer. It would be identified with a
UV
beam from the team leader’s torch and penetrated using a small explosive device. Durant, Heath, and other police officers would simultaneously board from the pilot boat on the port side and scale the rope ladder to the deck where they would meet the task force members at the container and take Salem into custody. The plan was simple and Durant liked it.

Masondo sat pensively at a table at one of the restaurants which overlooked the channel as the
Eastern Challenger
slowly approached and the pilot boat lined it up towards the harbour mouth. It was hard for Masondo to appear inconspicuous. His cellphone was pressed to his face and he spoke in short staccato bursts to Durant. Durant would have been happier if he’d had both hands available to climb the ladder to the ship. Real-time updates would be rather pointless if he lost his one-handed grip on the ladder and was crushed between the two vessels. The pilot boat shuddered and shook as it rode the swells. He would have felt more comfortable fast-roping down from the chopper. Small boats nudging big ones seemed quite everyday until you were on the small boat looking up at the big one. But the pilot-boat skipper obviously knew his stuff. He seemed at home in the wheel house, pipe in mouth, flicking the wheel over just as the
Eastern Challenger
would have pitched into the small boat and sent it to the bottom of the channel.

A radio crackled into life and Heath gave the thumbs-up to Durant. ‘That’s the signal. They’re going in.’

Beside Masondo was Ambassador Albirai. He too spoke into a cellphone, simultaneously waving his arms about as he tried to describe the scene to an unknown person who clearly also wanted a minute-by-minute update. Masondo pointed to the Squirrel helicopter as it descended towards the
Eastern Challenger
, the pilot expertly manoeuvring the machine between the ship’s masts into a sideways hover. Durant guessed the sound of the helicopter wouldn’t alert Salem; pilots were routinely winched up from the ships’ decks as they approached the breakwater. Four heavily armed policemen stood on the skis, two on each side. Masondo felt proud.

Within seconds, the four figures appeared beneath the chopper on ropes and rappelled down, landing almost simultaneously on the foredeck, unshackling their ropes and then bolting for the hatches leading below decks. Albirai’s knuckle was in his mouth as the pilot boat lurched alongside the
Eastern Challenger
and another four men scrambled up the rope ladder onto the deck. Durant reached the top of the rope ladder as the rotor wash from the chopper seemed determined to blow him off into the churning waters below. The noise from the blades was deafening and Durant wondered why he’d volunteered for this mission: he was a clumsy, unfit intelligence officer nudging middle-age, not a Navy Seal.

Durant saw a puff of smoke coming from the hatch accompanied by a sharp crack. A moment later, the silhouettes of two task force policemen appeared through the smoke, their weapons extended downwards. Masondo shouted from his cellphone ‘Durant! Update me!’

Durant was still negotiating various ladders to reach the hatch which opened to the hold area. His eyes felt like someone had thrown pool acid into them. Nobody had offered him a gas mask and he hadn’t asked for one. He tried to talk into his cellphone, but his saliva glands were overproducing and all he could do was stand still with his arms out so the burning in his armpits would go away. He didn’t feel like a hero. He felt like an idiot, a drooling, weeping scarecrow, and his only comfort was that Heath seemed to be doing as badly as he was.

‘Durant, what’s happening?’ Masondo’s voice could barely be heard above the sound of the helicopter hovering overhead.

‘Almost there, chief. Stand by for a few seconds!’ Durant needed the seconds to reach the container and also to regain control over his salivary glands.

Durant and Heath reached the door of the container less than thirty seconds later and were greeted by Zondi, dressed in camouflage and holding his gas mask in his hand. Durant desperately wanted that gas mask for himself, but he couldn’t ask because his vocal chords were still in spasm.

‘Where’s the suspect?’ Heath asked, and Durant was pleased to see him slur it out like a drunk.

‘No suspect, just boxes of export wine and some bags of labels.’

Heath took two steps forward and peered into the container incredulously. The acrid smell drove him back quickly. ‘You sure?’

The task force policeman nodded. ‘Sure. No suspect.’

Heath muttered an expletive and brought his fist down hard against the container. Durant moved away to where the air was clearer and lifted his cellphone to his ear.

Masondo leapt to his feet, shaking his head and said loudly into his cellphone. ‘Are you sure, Durant?’

The helicopter banked away and the restaurant patrons started finding their seats again. Masondo turned to Albirai.

‘Excellency, it’s bad news, I’m afraid. The bird’s flown. I’m embarrassed to tell you that the man wasn’t in the container as our intelligence sources reported.’

Albirai grunted and then turned his back on Masondo, the cellphone still clutched to his ear and the conversation now even more accelerated.

At a table in the far corner of the restaurant where there were mostly families, the children threw bread to the birds and fish and Salem sat alone. He looked up through his dark glasses at Masondo as he walked past slowly and hesitated momentarily at his table. Salem pulled the peaked cap down lower over his face and said, ‘What’s all the commotion over there?’

Masondo wiped his bald head with a handkerchief and shook his head. ‘Just some police business. Nothing to worry about. The show’s over.’ Masondo put his phone back to his ear and ran after Albirai who was already downstairs. Salem muttered after him, ‘And I missed it …’ He motioned to a waitress to bring his bill.