Trackers (16 page)

It was the language of another world. Lotter repeated the
ghost voice's words in confirmation, made a couple of adjustments, and studied
his inscrutable instruments. I wondered which one would give the first
indication that we were going down in a ball of flame. I looked reluctantly out
of the bubble dome. Below us the Karoo had swiftly spread wide and open and the
heaven above was deep blue and immeasurably great.

Nausea began to rise in my gut.

I remembered the package on my lap. I unrolled the cloth from
the firearm and revealed a peculiar object. It was a MAG-7, the locally
manufactured short-barrelled shotgun, like an Uzi on steroids. Twelve- bore,
five cartridges in a long box magazine. Serious stopping power. The sort of
thing the police task force would use for inside work. There were another
twenty cartridges in a plastic bag.

Lotter whistled in my headset. 'I swear, I'm on your side.'

'But who is on Brand's side?'

'What do you mean?'

'These weapons are only for government use. Civilians don't
get licences for these.'

Lotter laughed.
\Ja,
that
Diederik,' and shook his head. He glanced at me. 'You're a bit pale.' He pulled
a brown paper bag from under his seat and passed it to me. 'In case you get air
sick.'

Which happened just beyond Hopetown.

'Had a big breakfast?' Lotter asked sympathetically.

I didn't reply, too afraid to open my mouth.

'It's perfectly normal,' he said, with reference to my
discomfort. 'You'll feel better now.'

Twenty minutes later another town slid by below us. I took a
deep breath and asked hopefully if we needed to land to refuel.

He grinned. 'This thing flies 3,000 kilometres on a tank.'

'That's far for a microlight,' I said sceptically.

'What?' He was insulted. 'This is no
microlight,
this is an RV-7.'

An RV-7 and a MAG-7. Maybe Nicola's game lorry had a seven in
its name. I might win the jackpot.

Lotter saw my lack of enthusiasm. 'Best kit plane in the
world,' he said. 'She's one of Richard Van Grunsven's designs. Top speed over
190 knots, that's about 340 kilos per hour, she can cruise, she can do
aerobatics, hell of a range ...'

'You mean Wretched Van Grunsven ...?' My stomach lurched at
the word 'aerobatics'.

Lotter laughed. 'It's the speed and height,' he said. 'Your
inner ear says you are moving at a helluva speed, but your eyes don't register
it. It's like reading in a car. Just look down often. You will feel better
soon.'

Promises, promises.

He busied himself on the radio, talking his unintelligible
flight language. 'Cape Town, Romeo Victor Sierra is crossing FIR boundary.'

'Romeo Victor Sierra, call Johannesburg Central on one two
zero decimal three, good day,' said the radio voice.

I tuned out, and looked down at the Karoo slowly but surely
turning to grassveld. Lotter was right, because after a few minutes my guts
began to stabilise. My thoughts began to drift. Slowly. Carefully. To Emma.

I love you, Lemmer.

It was the first time.

Emma and I.

Nine months ago we had been strangers, polar opposites from
different worlds. She was tiny, sophisticated, determined, and as lovely as a
nymph in a children's fairy tale. She was wealthy, exceptionally wealthy,
thanks to an inheritance from her industrialist father. Back then, Emma was on
a desperate search for her lost brother - and for someone to shield her from
the suspected dangers connected to his disappearance. I was the bodyguard
Jeanette had assigned to her. I was dubious, distrustful, sceptical, because
Emma was everything my Laws warned me against.

She had conquered me slowly, against my will, against my
expectations and, above all, against my better judgement. Firstly she was a
client. And secondly I am Lemmer. White trash from the back streets of Sea
Point, with serious anger management problems, a powerful affinity for
violence, and on parole after four years in jail for manslaughter. I knew my
place, I understood the realities of life.

I found her brother. And after all that I went home to
Loxton, sure that I would never see her again, and probably for the best. But
Emma is never predictable.

She tracked me down. I thought it was just to say thank you,
at first, because she was always so painfully polite, faultlessly proper.

I was wrong.

The growth of our relationship had a certain surrealism to
it, a dream-like quality, as if I were merely an observer. Perhaps because of
my disbelief in the simple possibility that a woman like her would be
interested in me. Blinded by the magic of myself with Emma, by my relief and
amazement and need. And a morbid curiosity over where and how it would all
derail.

Until this morning beside the RV-7.
I love you, Lemmer.

The trouble is that Emma still
doesn't know.

I hid my sins from her. She thinks I live in Loxton because
it is a pretty place with good people. She doesn't know I went there to escape
the city triggers that set off my firing pins. She doesn't know of my desire to
be healed by the peacefulness, patience and integrity of the townspeople. She
doesn't know of my stupid quest for their acceptance.

Stupid, because in the eyes of the Bo-Karoo, I was an
outsider, a newcomer, an unknown quantity who kept my distance, subtly,
politely, and according to my First Law. My strange job also had implications.
The freelance bodyguard who worked in other places, stayed away for weeks at a
time and sometimes returned with visible injuries. The shadowy figure who
rattled off rounds with a handgun every week at the shooting range, and went on
long runs at sundown on the gravel roads.

Townspeople like the eccentric Antjie Barnard, jovial Oom Joe
van Wyk and my coloured housekeeper, Agatha le Fleur, were the only ones who,
despite all that, accepted me without hesitation. But they were the exceptions.
Until Emma's arrival.

She was a sign of normality. Through association, she was
proof of acceptability, this spontaneous, attractive, well-spoken young woman
who appeared out of nowhere and since then visited me once or twice a month.
She had swapped her Renault Megane for a Land Rover Freelander to handle the
dirt roads. She had taken my old Isuzu diesel on a Friday afternoon in August
to buy groceries in Beaufort West and on the way home had rolled it on the turn
near Jakhalsdans, a complete wreck.

The next morning, while looking for a 'green' solution for
the ant infestation in my garden, she had made the grizzled farmers laugh
hilariously with her tale of how she had taken the corner 'a bit too fast
because I was missing Lemmer'.

'And then?'

'Then I rolled the bakkie.'

'And then?'

'I saw I was OK. So I walked the last seven kilometres back
to town.'

They shook their heads in amazement: 'And what did Lemmer
have to say?'

'Dunno. I don't understand French.'

According to Oom Joe she had them in stitches, and they
slapped each other on the shoulder and took great pains to explain to Emma that
the Karoo ants weren't really bothered by 'green' poisons.

Emma convinced me to accompany her to the Loxton church on
Sundays. She was the reason we were invited to a barbecue at the water ski dam,
and a rugby-test dinner in the Blue House. Emma le Roux was my passport to
acceptance, my visa to safe asylum. And lost in love, I allowed it all to
happen, suppressing the quiet accusing voice that said: What if they all found
out who you really are?

Because, like Emma, Loxton had no idea.

I suspected they were vaguely aware of some aspects. Antjie
had asked some subtle questions. Emma had glimpses of it while she was a
client. In the search for her brother I had occasionally displayed my talents
in practice. Maybe the brother had revealed some of those aspects to his sister
in relating the events. Maybe they had intrigued her, could that be part of the
attraction? When I guarded her, she had slipped easily into the role of the
protected - as most women would.

This morning with the Knights, she had seen it. And tried to
stop me, without reproach. Maybe she thought she could control me.

But she only knew part of me.

I had to tell her the whole truth.

I wanted to. There were moments when I came so close, the
desire for confession so great that I could taste it in my mouth.
I beat a man to death in anger,
Emma. And I found satisfaction in it. And enjoyment. Because I am the product
of violence. It lives in me. It is me.

But every time, before it all came out like the evil genie
from the lamp, I was stopped by the stifling fear that I would lose her, and
with that, all possibility of her love. Even more, losing the potential of her
love changing me into someone who would be worthy of it. She was already doing
that. She made me laugh, she lured me to make her laugh, to be light-hearted
and playful and witty. To forget about the dark alleyways in my head. For the
first time in my life I began to like myself. Just a little. I had her
approval. And now, her love.

I love you, Lemmer.

I had stood there beside the plane in her urgent embrace, her
mouth to my ear, and I had said nothing. I knew, before I could answer her that
I would have to tell her everything.

But it was too late now, the potential for hurt and damage
was way too great. For me and for her.

I gazed
over the endless plains of the Northern Cape and wondered what had made me
throw up - this little plane, or my great dishonesty.

Trackers will
often look for spoor in obvious places...

The Principles
of Tracking: Recognition of signs

To escape my thoughts, I asked Lotter how he had come to know
Diederik.

'Friend of a friend. A few years ago he called me up. He said
he had heard that I would fly anywhere. He wanted to inspect a potential investment
in Mozambique, but it was too far to drive, time is money, could I pick him up?
That was the start of it. Nowadays it works like this, Diederik rings me up and
says he urgently needs some tractor parts from Ermelo, or let's pop over to
Windhoek quickly, or come and pick up my buddy in Loxton. You know how it is,
getting paid for what you love doing ... Did you know he has a landing strip on
the farm?'

I said that in fact I knew very
little about Diederik.

'He's a real character. And a shrewd businessman. Finger in
every pie ...'

The tarred runway of Musina lay from east to west, stretched
out long and luxurious across the dark brown landscape.

At twenty past two we came in low over the sewerage works and
the graveyard, with the town on our right. Lotter touched down as light as a
feather, with casual ease, made a U-turn and taxied back to the eastern end,
then right on a pipe-stem access road to a collection of low buildings and
hangars. He stopped and opened the clips of the cabin dome. Heat flowed in
thick and heavy.

'This is it. The lorry will pick you
up here.'

But there was no lorry to be seen.

I unclipped the quite considerable seat belt, took my sports
bag and the swaddled shotgun from behind the seat and offered my hand to
Lotter.

'Thank you.'

'Any time. And good luck.' He pointed at the bundle I cradled
like a baby in my arms. 'I hope you don't need to use that thing.' Then, as I
stood on the tarmac, and just before he fastened the Perspex bubble again, he
called over the idling engine: 'Lemmer, I suppose you already know: with old Diederik,
you always take your money up front...'

At the gate the tar road stretched out in front of me through
the dull brown, dry, hard landscape. Here and there a tree grew. I stopped and
unzipped my bag, placed the MAG-7 in it, zipped it shut. Walked on. The heat
gradually got the better of me, sweat slid down my back, in thin trickles.

The road was quiet. Deserted. Where
was Lourens le Riche?

The whole thing had happened too fast, too uncoordinated. I
should have got le Riche's cellphone number. Diederik Brand's too. There were
questions I wanted to ask. Such as, why Brand approached me so late, only hours
before the rhino were to be loaded? When had he decided to hire me?

I spotted a crossroad ahead. I would
wait there.

The only shelter from the excruciating sun was four forlorn,
almost leafless trees. I put my bag down and searched for a little bit of
shade, leaned against a rough trunk. My shirt was stuck to my back, sweat stung
my eyes. I had no hat.

I checked my watch. A quarter to three.

I wiped
a sleeve over my forehead. Then I swore fiercely, and at length.

Most animals
prefer to remain hidden when feeding, and may take their food to a special
feeding place where they can be safe while feeding.