Pale Horses (21 page)

‘Where’s here?’

‘At the guy’s place. We caught him here and we kept him here. Number… um … sixty-seven Vantage Street in Northcliff.’

‘I’ll be there in about twenty minutes.’

‘The gate’s open. Drive straight in.’

Lance hung up and Graeme waited, breathless, for the woman to comment on their conversation. His entire midsection felt as if it was on fire. Thanks to his fevered imagination, every nerve ending was anticipating the devastation of the tumbling bullet.

She didn’t say anything until he was turning right off Jan Smuts Avenue and into Gleneagles Road, by which time Graeme was a bag of nerves. When she touched his right thigh he jumped so badly he nearly hit his head on the roof of the car. But all she was doing was removing his wallet.

‘Graeme de Villiers. You still live at 23a Garden Clusters in Bracken-downs, Alberton?’

‘Y–yes.’

An expensive walled complex with bond repayments that were just about crippling him. Ironic that he’d paid so much for security when he knew he would never feel truly safe there again.

‘With your family? These blonde kids yours?’

His little angels. Now fear sank its talons deep into him.

‘Please …’ he whispered.

‘Don’t worry. Just getting a clearer picture of how things are for you, Graeme. Now, when we get to where we’re going, you will park and wait in the driveway until I get out of the vehicle. Then you will drive away. Immediately. Understand?’

‘I understand.’

‘Whose car is this?’

‘Lance’s.’

‘You might as well keep it then.’ The dismissive way in which she said the words made his blood run cold.

‘Why haven’t they killed Harris yet?’ she asked. ‘Seeing as how they’re not shy about pulling the trigger. Why isn’t he dead?’

‘They … wanted to …’

‘To ask him where I was?’

‘No, no. They wanted to question him. He has to tell them where the woman is. The journalist, the one who lives in the Randburg house.’

‘They haven’t got her yet?’ She sounded over-casual and Graeme wondered whether this was new information to her, or something she’d known all along.

‘Not yet. They think she’s in hiding. That’s all I know.’ Was it a test? All he could do was tell her the truth, as far as he was able to.

He drove on. Through Greenside, across Barry Hertzog, winding his way alongside the Emmarentia parkland until he reached Beyers Naudé Avenue and turned right. Another five minutes and he was in Northcliff, obeying the GPS diligently as it directed him up increasingly hilly and zigzagging roads.

He knew he should be relieved that they were almost there, but instead he felt like vomiting. Up until now he’d been useful to her. Once they had reached their destination he knew all too well that his usefulness would have come to an end. In fact, he would become a liability.

He wondered what his guts would look like splattered all over the steering wheel and the thought made black spots start looming at the edges of his vision.

With an effort, he forced himself to breathe.

‘This is the house,’ he said. He eased the car up the steep and winding driveway towards the house, which was a split-level mansion, set well back from the road in a large, treed garden.

Graeme parked next to the white truck, which now had different plates.

He heard a whine as she buzzed the window down. And then he saw Sipho, the black guy, walking out of the front door. Sipho was holding his gun unholstered. He looked pissed off, as if he couldn’t be bothered with a subordinate who hadn’t had the guts to do a proper job.

For a brief moment, Graeme was unutterably relieved that he would never be working with these two men again.

Then came another massive bang from the seat behind him. The sound burst out of the car and bounced back off the tall walls of the house. A bullet hole appeared in the centre of Sipho’s forehead. He stumbled forward and fell, flopping limply down three of the steps before coming to rest on the neat face-brick paving of the driveway.

Just like that. She had killed him just like that.

His hands fell from the wheel and he stared blindly ahead. Waiting for what he knew was going to come.

‘Thanks, Graeme,’ the woman said. He heard the door behind him snick open. ‘Don’t get involved in a setup like this again. It’s not worth it. And now you’d better go to hospital and get that leg seen to.’

‘But there’s nothing wrong with my …’

At which point there was a third explosion. Graeme screamed with all his might as her bullet punched its way through the meat of his right calf.

The car door slammed and then she was gone.

Jade sprinted for cover, dodging past the body of the young black man she’d just killed. She heard the grinding of gears as Graeme drove out, manoeuvring the car with some difficulty thanks to his injured leg.

In her right hand she held the gun she’d taken from the old man’s house. She’d fired it five times now. Once yesterday when she’d tested it. Once through the seat of Graeme’s car. Once into the forehead of the black man, once into Graeme’s calf. Then she’d fired one further shot, which she regarded as a form of insurance. That left a single round in the chamber before she had to start using the other, untested gun with the souped-up bullets.

She was trembling now, with nervous energy and with fear. All she wanted to do was get out of here. Get away. Hide. Forget about the way that the black guy had crumpled to the ground. One minute alive, breathing, his mind filled with thoughts and feelings, plans and dreams, even if those plans and dreams had included putting a bullet into the
unconscious woman he’d imagined was in the car. Even if he’d been a well-trained and cold-minded ex-army operator about to commit a cold-blooded act.

The next minute, dead. His life simply and brutally stopped.

She hadn’t known his name, and she was glad about that. It was easier to kill somebody if you knew nothing about them.

Now, though, serious danger lay ahead. Lance was still alive and he was the skilled one, the sharpshooter. He hadn’t come running out when he’d heard the shots. Perhaps he hadn’t suspected anything was up. On the other hand, Lance might well have ordered that no shots be fired in this suburban neighbourhood, where police and security could arrive in a matter of minutes. He might have planned for them to drive somewhere else before ‘disposing’ of her.

Multiple gunshots in this upmarket suburban area meant they had only minutes before security forces arrived. Jade was certain of that. So, if she could just stay alive long enough …

Lance had killed the pensioner deliberately and without compunction. For the hell of it; for the joy of it; because he could. That meant she needed to put him down fast and efficiently. Which meant that asking questions would either be difficult or impossible. Always assuming that her hands would stop shaking for long enough to allow her to aim her stolen weapon.

In front of the white truck she saw Harris’s car. The driver’s door was still open from when they’d dragged him out. Out of the car and inside the house … and then where?

Jade edged her way to the open front door, listened, and stepped quietly inside. The house was light and bright and airy and absolutely quiet. No sound anywhere apart from the regular ticking of a large grandfather clock on the far wall. She pressed herself against the wall next to it and waited, trying to calm her breathing and slow down her thoughts. She was experienced in most of the areas her work got her involved in, but she didn’t have enough mileage in situations like this. An ex-Special Ops soldier or mercenary, anyone who’d received such prolonged and specific training would have a huge advantage over her.

And then she heard Lance’s voice, coming from upstairs. Cold, sharp, professional.

‘Sipho? That you? Why the hell did you shoot her on the premises?’

Jade listened to the seconds ticking away on the clock’s varnished wooden face, knowing that with each one Lance’s suspicions would be multiplying furiously.

As she expected, he didn’t repeat the question.

Like any professional, he’d immediately realised that the situation had turned bad. Now he’d be doing exactly the same as her. Analysing, formulating a plan, collecting information to gain the initiative. To stay alive and destroy the opponent.

But something about his words troubled her.

‘Sipho? That you?’

Jade had taken pains to be utterly silent when she’d entered the house. She was wearing rubber-soled shoes and her footfalls had been soundless as she’d padded across the hallway floor.

How, then, had Lance known to ask that question at that exact time?

Jade looked up.

The small implacable eye of a wall-mounted security camera stared blankly back at her.

She barely dared to breathe as she realised the truth of her predicament. Lance had the advantage, all right. He must have seen movement on the video screen and assumed it was his accomplice returning. By now, he knew that it was her because he could see her clearly on the monitor.

And then Jade heard an agonised shout from upstairs, followed by a muffled moan.

Her jaw clenched as she realised what his strategy involved.

Harris was still alive – but what had Lance done to him, and what was he going to do?

How many damn cameras were there in this house? She inched around the clock towards the staircase. The flooring and the stairs were covered with laminate, which was good news for her because she was lighter in weight and wearing shoes that allowed her to move more quietly than the man waiting for her on the first floor.

She would hear him if he was coming downstairs, but that hadn’t happened, which must mean he was in the same room as Harris with his gun drawn and aimed.

She glanced up but could see no video cameras in the stairwell. This part of the house, at least, was not under surveillance.

Jade sneaked up the stairs, keeping as close to the sides of the treads as she could, knowing that any creaks or movements were more likely to occur in the centre.

The moans were more audible now and seemed to be coming from the second room along. Her hand was welded to the grip of the gun she’d stolen. She was too wired to even blink. Any movement and she would shoot.

Far away she heard sirens. The flying squad were on their way.

And then another sound, coming from outside.

The sound of the truck starting up and the gearbox being ground into reverse.

Jade sprinted straight to the bedroom and skidded to a stop in the doorway, gun at the ready, but there was nobody there except Harris. And he was in a bad way.

He’d been tied up to a beam near the room’s glass sliding door, which was open and led out to a garden on the upper level. The contraption his tormentors had used was deceptively simple. A car’s tow rope had been slung over the beam. One end had been knotted to form a noose around his neck. The other bound his wrists together. The rope was short enough that his feet dangled helplessly above the floor.

A brutal and effective concept. When his arms couldn’t bear his weight any more, he would strangle himself. Swinging, struggling and sweating, while his captors watched and waited for him to break.

He saw her and groaned again. His face was crimson and looked swollen from the tight bite of the noose. His eyes were popping in terror.

Through the window, she saw the white truck exit backwards through the gate, weaving unevenly through the gateposts, and then make a frantic three-point turn.

Jade had to chase down Lance. She also had to do something about Harris. But she had no knife and the knots in the rope were firmly tied. If she abandoned him, he would choke to death before she could return.

Looking around for a possible solution, she saw a thickly padded armchair in the corner of the room. She pushed it across the floor towards Harris and helped him as he scrabbled to get his legs onto its
seat. His limbs were quaking with exhaustion. If he toppled off again, he might not be able to pull himself back up.

She couldn’t wait.

In any case, she didn’t expect to be gone for too long.

‘I’ll be back just now,’ she said. ‘Try not to fall.’

Jade shot out through the French door and followed the same route through the garden that Lance must have taken a couple of minutes earlier. She dashed over to Harris’s car and flung herself inside, praying that the keys were still in the ignition. She started the car and roared out of the property and down the hill in the direction that Lance had gone.

The polite chime of the warning alarm reminding her to fasten her seatbelt was totally incongruous, given the circumstances.

Jade didn’t have far to drive. As she had anticipated, the short distance was punctuated by curved smears of rubber on the road and white score marks where the vehicle’s wheel rim had scraped along the tarmac.

Jade had shot the fifth bullet – her insurance shot – into the front tyre on the passenger side of the white truck. Lance must have realised what had happened soon after he’d started driving, but desperation had kept him going. Perhaps he’d believed that even with a partially crippled car he could still get away. She’d expected that once he’d realised this was impossible, he’d abandon the truck and flee on foot, giving her a chance to close in and shoot him.

She had not expected this, though.

The truck had slalomed at high speed for less than a kilometre down the steep and winding road before finally coming to grief on one of the hairpin bends.

There, it had left the road, flattening the crash barrier, and sailed out over the edge of the steep and rocky hillside. From that point it had bounced and smashed its way down the slope, marking its passage with broken glass, pieces of engine and the exhaust and various items it had contained. It had come to rest about fifty metres down the slope, and in the process appeared to have rolled right over Lance, who had been flung out through the distorted gap where once the windscreen had been. Steam hissed out from under the twisted bonnet.

The crash must have made a thunderous noise, but by the time Jade got out of Harris’s car, all she could hear was the sound of wind whipping through the foliage.