Thirteen Hours (22 page)

'Please, this is hard enough.'

He rose from the chair, startling her into a backwards step.

'Your kind . ..' he said, losing control for a moment, other
words welling up behind the rage, his fists opening and closing, but somehow he
found control. He made a noise somewhere between disbelief and disgust.

'Please ...' she said.

He despised her. He walked out of the door, trying to slam
it. Outside, Benny Griessel was in the passage with his phone to his ear
saying: 'Vusi, I trust the guys from Organised Crime as far as I can throw
them.'

Barry sat on the veranda of Carlucci's and listened to the
sirens approaching through the city below. He saw a young man in an apron who
heard them too, and came outside.

The patrol vehicles raced up Upper Orange, blue lights
revolving. Four of them stopped in front of the restaurant with a screech of
tyres, doors flung open, blue uniforms tumbling out. From one passenger door, a
short, fat, black woman got out with a large handbag over her shoulder and a
pistol on her hip.

She came quickly across the street, with the horde of blue
uniforms following in her wake.

Around him at the other tables, the restaurant clientele
watched the procession with astonishment.

The young man in the apron waited for them on the veranda.

'Are you the man who called in about the girl?' Barry heard
the black woman ask with authority.

'I am.'

'Then tell me everything.' She heard shuffling behind her and
turned around to see the amused grins on the policemen's faces. Their smiles
disappeared under her angry glare.

'You can't all stand in here. Go wait outside.'

At seventeen minutes to four, American Eastern Standard Time
- five hours behind Greenwich Mean Time and seven hours behind Cape Town, Bill
Anderson sat at the laptop on his desk reading Internet articles about South
Africa. His wife, Jess, sat on the leather couch behind him, her legs drawn up
and covered with a blanket. She jumped when the phone rang shrilly.

He grabbed it. 'Bill Anderson,' he said, the concern
discernible in his voice.

'Mr Anderson, my name is Dan Burton. I am the US Consul
General in Cape Town.' The voice rang as clear as crystal despite the great
distance. 'I know what a difficult time this must be for you.'

'Thank you, sir.'

'Who is it?' Jess Anderson asked, coming to stand close to
her husband. He held a hand over the receiver and whispered: 'The Consul
General in Cape Town.' Then he held the phone so she could also hear.

'I can tell you that I've just got off the phone with both
the National and Provincial Commissioners of the South African Police Services,
and although they have not found Rachel yet...'

Jess Anderson made a small noise and her husband put his arm
around her shoulders while they listened.

'...they have assured me they will leave no stone unturned
until they have done so. They are allocating every available resource to the
search as we speak, and they think it is only a matter of time ..

'Thank you, sir ...'

'Now, the only reason why the Ambassador himself is not
calling you, is because he is away on official matters up north in Limpopo
Province, but it is my job to coordinate all functions of the US Government in
the Cape Town consular district, where I maintain contact with senior South
African officials, both provincial and national...'

'Mr Burton ...'

'Please call me Dan ...'

'Our biggest concern is that Rachel said something about the
police when she called.'

'Oh?'

'She said that she could not even go to the police.'

The Consul General was quiet for a moment. 'Did she say why?'

'No, she did not have time. She was very distressed, she said
"they're here", and then I just heard noises ...'

'She said the police were there?'

'No ... I don't know ... She said "they're here, please
help me"
...
But the way she spoke about
the police ... I don't know, it was my impression that she could not trust
them. And I've been doing some reading on the Internet. It says here the man in
charge of the whole police force over there is being charged with corruption
and defeating the ends of justice....'

'Oh, my God,' said Jess, looking at the computer screen.

'Well ...' the Consul General seemed to need time to digest
this information. 'I know how it looks, Mr Anderson, but I have every reason to
believe the law enforcement people in Cape Town are highly competent and
trustworthy. I will certainly call the Commissioner right away to get some
answers ... In the meantime, I've taken the liberty of giving your phone number
to the authorities. The Commissioner has assured me the officer in charge of
the investigation will call you as soon as he can, and he will keep you updated
on all developments. His name
is ...
Ghreezil, an
Inspector Benny Ghreezil...'

'Ask about Erin,' whispered Jess Anderson.

'Mr Burton, Erin Russel... Is there any news about Erin?'

'It is with great sadness that I have to tell you that Miss
Russel was killed last night, Mr Anderson ...' His wife let the blanket slip
from her shoulders, put her hands on her husband's shoulders, pressed her face
into his neck and wept.

Inspector Mbali Kaleni told the uniformed policemen that
Carlucci's Restaurant was to be treated as a crime scene. She had the whole
area cordoned off with yellow tape. Then she cleared the restaurant and had the
employees and clients wait at the patio tables while two Constables took their
names, addresses and statements.

She ordered a Sergeant to call Forensics to test the back and
outside doors for fingerprints. She asked the young man in the apron, the one
that had seen everything happen, to go with a Constable in a SAPS vehicle to
the Caledon Square police station to help compile an Identikit image of the
attackers. The young man said he couldn't; he was in charge of the shop. She
asked him if there was someone he could call to replace him. He said he would
try.

'Hurry up,' she said in her commanding way. 'We don't have
time.'

'Did you check the number?' he asked her.

'What number?'

'The Land Rover's registration number. I got part of it. I
gave it to the guys who were here.'

'I will check.'

Before the young man could walk away, she asked him to
confirm in what direction the girl and her assailants had run. He pointed, but
she held up a chubby hand and said, 'No, come show me.'

She put on her sporty Adidas dark glasses and led the way out
of the restaurant, to the corner of Upper Orange and Belmont. The young man
pointed towards the city centre. 'I want to make sure. You saw her run that
way?'

'No, I told you, I didn't see her run in any other direction,
so she must have gone down Upper Orange. The guys came back through the shop,
shoved me, ran down to the corner, and the next thing, they came back for the
Land Rover. Then they went that way too.'

'They were young?'

'Yes.'

'What is young?'

'I dunno, early twenties ...'

'Fit and strong?'

'Yes.'

She nodded and gestured that he could go. She called the
Sergeant who had come to take the statement. He confirmed that he had radioed
in the Land Rover's number.

'Call them. Ask them what they have found.'

He nodded and went over to a patrol car.

She looked at the street again.

Why would they come back for the Land Rover? Two young men,
chasing a girl from two o'clock that morning. She must be exhausted, but they
didn't run after her, they came back for a vehicle? Made no sense.

She wiped perspiration from her forehead, adjusted the strap
of the big black handbag over her shoulder and put her hands on her hips. She
was oblivious to the uniformed men watching her, sniggering and whispering
behind their cupped hands.

She turned around slowly, looking down every street. She
wiped her forehead again. They couldn't see her any more; that was the thing.
The two attackers would have pursued her on foot if they could see her. She had
disappeared; that was why they fetched the vehicle.

Kaleni called two young Constables who were leaning against a
police van. 'You, and you,' she pointed, 'come here.'

They came, laughing self-consciously. She told them to go out
the back of the restaurant as far as the wooden door, which was still bolted
shut.

'But don't touch anything.'

'Yes, Inspector.'

'And when I say "go", you run back through the
shop, out through the front door, until you get to me. Ask that guy with the
apron exactly where they ran, then you follow the same route. You understand?'

'Yes, Inspector.'

'OK.
Ngokushesha!'

Kaleni walked around the outside to the wooden door. She
waited- until she could hear the Constables' footsteps in the alleyway on the
other side of the door.

'Are you right next to the door?'

'Yes.'

'Don't touch anything.' She checked her watch, waited until
the second hand was close to the twelve o'clock mark.

'Are you ready?'

'Yes.'

'When I say go ...' She counted down from five to one, then
barked 'Go!' She heard them take off, feet echoing off the restaurant wall. She
watched the second hand travel five, ten, fifteen, twenty, then the two
Constables came around the corner. Twenty-four seconds to reach her.

'OK. Now, I want you to start from this door, and run down
the street, as fast as you can.'

They looked at her, out of breath, but willing. They took
off.

'No, wait!'

They stopped and turned back. They weren't smiling now.

'I will say "go" again,' she said, her eyes on the
watch. She Waited for the twelve mark again, counting down, and shouted 'Go!'
They sprinted away and she kept an eye on them and the watch. The young man had
said the attackers had pushed him over. Add one second for that, maybe two.
They might have run outside and, not knowing in which direction she had gone,
stopped and looked up Upper Orange and to the right down Belmont. Another two
or three seconds.

She marked the Constables' progress at twenty-four and thirty
seconds, then yelled at them, 'OK!', but they were out of earshot and kept on
running, two blue uniforms in full flight down the long hill.

'Hey!' she tried again, to no avail.

'Isidomu
,' she muttered and began to walk down the street herself,
keeping her eyes on the thirty-second mark.

Rachel Anderson heard the sirens racing up the street only
twenty metres from where she lay in the bougainvillea bush. She knew they were
for her because the man in the restaurant would surely have called the police.
And she could hear how the wailing stopped nearby, just up on the corner.

She lay still. All the thorns were out now, only the stinging
of her wounds remained, Her breathing was normal, the sweat dried in the deep
cool shade. They wouldn't be able to see her, even if they walked past down the
street, even if they came into the garden.

She would wait until they stopped looking. Until they went
away. Then she would decide what to do.

Mbali Kaleni walked to the corner of Upper Orange and
Alexandra Avenue - more or less the twenty-four second mark. She walked slowly
across the road to the opposite pavement.

The girl must have turned left here into Alexandra. That was
why the men couldn't see her.

Something wasn't right.

She stared up Alexandra Avenue. The slope. A very tired girl.
This morning early, before six, someone saw her high up on Lion's Head. Just after
ten she was down here in Oranjezicht. She had come a long way, but she was on
her way down, to the city. So would she get here and choose a street that led
away from her destination? It was uphill, steep; it would be hell' on tired
legs.

But if you are afraid and your pursuers right behind ...

Deep in thought, Kaleni rested her hand on the white picket
fence of the single-storey Victorian house on her left. She looked for the two
running uniformed idiots. Yes, there they were, walking back, chatting happily.

A block further on was the Molteno Reservoir. But that was
more than forty seconds from Carlucci's, even if Rachel Anderson could run as
fast as two fresh, fit constables. No, she had to have turned this corner.
Or ...

Kaleni considered the Victorian house, looked at the fence.
It was the only house in this part of the street without high walls or fences -
the only alternative.