Beneath the Ice (21 page)

‘Gentlemen,’ she began, ‘what you are about to witness is something that cannot pass beyond these four walls.’

She gave them all a look of the utmost severity as she placed the folder down on the table. Predesh stayed still, seemingly content for Eugene to reach forward and open it. The first page consisted of a long and rambling history to the background of the Marange Mines in Zimbabwe. Eugene scanned through it, quickly realising that this was little more than information pulled from the internet.

His eyes narrowed in confusion as he flipped to the next page, then the next. There was nothing but generalities that would be accessible to pretty much anyone with a computer. He looked up, questioning how any of this was related to the case in hand, and noticed Bear backing off towards the bank of refrigerators while pulling the leather strap of her handbag tight across her shoulder. He then watched as she clicked open the back of the SodaStream and slid out the smooth gas cylinder contained within. In the drawer directly beneath she found two spare cylinders and, pulling the elasticated hair tie from her ponytail, she wound it around all three, securing them together in a bunch.

Eugene watched for a moment longer before a snarl appeared on his lips.

‘
Wat di fok
are you playing at?’ he hissed, raising himself to his full height. He was slightly overweight with a paunch that stretched the mid-section of his shirt, but still had quick reflexes, and knew it. His neck muscles twitched in anticipation.

Bear hesitated for a split-second more, torn between the need for action and an innate sense of self-preservation. Then her reflexes seemed to take charge and on pure impulse she swung round, throwing open the double-glazed window of the lounge. She stared out. The drop could be no more than ten feet.

Stretching up her arms, she grabbed hold of the dark-wood blinds and wrenched them off their fittings. Now both Frankie and Predesh had got to their feet and were staring in absolute bewilderment, as if witnessing the antics of a lunatic. Eugene was the first to react; but just as he took a step towards Bear she kicked off her shoes and hitched her skirt up past her hips. Confronted by the sight of her long thighs and a pair of black lace knickers, Eugene faltered. He tried to speak, but confusion momentarily paralysed him.

Without looking back, Bear planted her right foot on the windowsill then levered the rest of her body on to the ledge. Only then did the others fully understand what she was about to do, and both Eugene and Frankie pushed past Predesh, sending him flying back on to the sofa.

Bear dropped down on the tarmac outside, knees jarring from the impact. With the gas cylinders from the SodaStream clamped in her right hand, she ran as fast as she could, while somewhere behind her she heard shouts as both SSA men craned their necks out of the window, screaming at her to stop. She half turned, catching sight of Eugene trying to push past Frankie, but he was leaning so far out of the window that he couldn’t manoeuvre his way back for several precious seconds.

Eugene grabbed the collar of Frankie’s shirt and heaved his colleague back into the room. He himself then surged forward, jumping with both feet on to the windowsill, but as he pushed himself on, his right boot caught in what remained of the rope for the blinds. His body pivoted downward so that he fell head first, with the side of his face smacking against the tarmac with a grim slap. He groaned, briefly dragging his head off the ground before it slumped back down again. He passed out before his eyes had managed to close.

Ahead of him Bear ran barefoot over tarmac that was scalding hot from the midday sun. Passing the parked jets one by one, she quickly drew nearer to Pearl’s. There in the cockpit was the pilot. She could see him through the armoured glass windscreen, talking into the radio as he completed the last of the pre-flight checks.

Just as she drew level with the wingtips, the plane’s engines roared with deafening power. They slowly pulled the standing weight of the plane into a roll and Bear watched as the porthole windows lining the fuselage passed by her in sequence. Then, suddenly, she saw him.

The sheen from the glass obscured the lower part of his face, but she recognised Pearl’s slicked back hair and steel-grey eyes. His face moved closer, nose almost pressing into the glass as he returned her stare. His eyes hardened with absolute focus as if he were attempting to stop her by force of will alone. Then he twisted back towards the cockpit and she saw him yell something to the pilots. A second later the plane lurched forward as the captain quickly shunted in the power.

There was a great whooshing sound as the jet engines sucked the air through the fan intakes, followed by the roar of vaporising fuel. It was deafening, shaking the ground all around her, and Bear had to fight every instinct not to drop the cylinders and run in the opposite direction.

With eyes narrowed against the rush of air, she watched as the massive plane began its inexorable roll towards the runway, gaining speed with every passing second.

Almost tripping as she forced herself on, Bear ran beside the wings. She wasn’t thinking, only reacting. With her back arched, she ducked beneath the expanse of riveted metal to get closer to the engines underneath. Now she could feel the heat; the intense, searing heat of the exhaust fumes. Shielding herself as best she could, she raised the cylinders with one hand and lobbed them in a low arc into the open intakes of the jet engine.

There was a sudden clash of spinning metal, followed by a small explosion. Splinters of broken metal spun off into the air like shrapnel, while the exhaust flame spluttered, then, a second later, went out.

The plane continued rolling towards the runway, seemingly impervious to the damage, but then it jerked to a standstill. There was a moment’s pause before an explosion broke out across the open expanse of the airport. The force of the blast lifted the entire portside of the plane off the ground, wrenching it over to one side and buckling the length of one wing. Everything went quiet. The only movement was a smudge of acrid smoke clawing its way up from the broken engine and into the clear Cape Town sky.

Bear lay flat on the ground, dimly aware of a pain in her side. There was an intense ringing in her ears that seemed to block out all her other senses. The shockwave from the explosion had burst her right eardrum. As she lay on her side on the hot tarmac, a thin trickle of blood oozed out of her ear, running down the side of her jawline.

She stared in shock at the grazed palms of her hands before her eyes regained their focus and gradually settled on a group of four figures running around the corner of the Interjet building. She blinked, trying to see more clearly, but the silhouettes looked hazy and unthreatening. As she raised her head, her skull felt like it had just fractured across her temples and she let out a low groan before dropping it back down.

Seconds passed, with only the heavy thud of her heart pounding in her chest. Black spots blurred across her vision and she could feel herself slipping into unconsciousness.

Then something deep inside her commanded her to move. Bear groaned in protest, trying to ignore it, but the feeling rose within her, surging through the crippling apathy. The impulse was primordial, flooding new energy into each tired muscle. The baby. She had to save the baby.

Rolling on to her stomach, Bear pushed up from her palms, trying to wrench herself clear of the ground. She felt so heavy, as if a massive weight were pressing down on her back. Scraping her knees up underneath her torso, she struggled on to all fours and lifted her head. Through strands of black hair, she could see her pursuers clearly now, rounding the first of the planes.

‘Move!’ she whispered to herself as she struggled to get onto her feet. As soon as she stood vertical, her right ear seemed to explode with pain, making her stagger backwards and almost collapse. She swayed for several seconds, her knees threatening to give out from under her, as her gaze slowly settled on the airport fence line directly behind her. It was no more than three hundred metres away.

Swivelling her whole body round, she could see that beyond the airport and the motorway which served it was a brief stretch of scrubland before the first of the corrugated-iron shacks of Nyanga shantytown began.

Bear started moving forward, half stumbling, half running. Her legs dragged one after the other, while her whole body seemed to list to one side. She forced herself to keep moving, concentrating on pumping her arms and raising her knees high. Ten metres. Then twenty. With each step, the movement began to normalise and slowly her momentum built.

There was the crack of a pistol shot. Then another. The noise seemed tinny and innocuous in such a vast open space. Checking behind her, Bear saw two of the men had stopped, their shoulders hunched as they levelled their pistols. Another crack. But even as she ran, she knew that the distance was far too great for a pistol to be aimed accurately.

Further to the right, Bear caught sight of Frankie’s tall, spidery frame. He had managed to get down from the window and give chase, but the years of heavy smoking were taking their toll. He trotted forward as fast as he could, feet shuffling over the ground while his pistol hung limply from his right hand. He was trying to make up the ground between them, but even he knew the futility of his pursuit. The threat was from Predesh’s personal security team and Bear knew it. Her only chance was to outrun them.

She pushed on, the countless morning runs making her body respond automatically. As she crossed the furthest tip of the runway and reached the sandy ground of the outer perimeter she saw the fence line directly ahead of her. It was maybe ten foot high, with a single coil of razor wire running its length. Bear sprinted towards it, raising her hands, fingers outstretched in anticipation. Checking her stride, she sprang upwards, nearly reaching the top of the fence in a single bound. Her body smashed into the metal links, sending a reverberation along its length as she grabbed on to the razor wire and pulled herself higher.

The wire bit deep into her palms and Bear cried out in pain as she bundled herself on to the top. Teetering at the apex with her back arched like a cat, she tried to pause for a split second and catch her balance, but instead, simply toppled over, landing flat on her back with a heavy thud. She groaned, her hand reaching up to the back of her head to where a fist-sized chunk of hair had been ripped out by the wire.

Just ahead of her now was the busy N2 motorway, beyond that the first shacks of Nyanga shantytown. Crude corrugated iron sheets had been nailed together, barely big enough to shelter a single bed, while old shopping bags and scraps of tarpaulin were patched together to form roofs. These stretched on for mile after mile, a sickening mass of poverty and human suffering.

Nyanga – the single most violent place in the Cape Flats. It was a place ungoverned by law, where violence ran unchecked through the streets, like the streams brimming with rotting plastic and human effluent.

Bear dragged herself to her feet. Dodging the line of cars hammering down the motorway, she stumbled into the open arms of the shantytown. She passed one shack, then another, venturing deeper into the sea of corrugated-iron sheeting until it stretched around her in every direction like an apocalyptic city of ruined metal.

For all its horror, Nyanga had one saving grace – it was the one place where white men feared to tread.

FROM THE FAR
south of False Bay, a thunderstorm rolled in across the Cape Flats. The skies grew dark, bruising to a deep purple as a wall of rain steadily moved in from the sea and on to the parched land. Soon, the entire city became breathless and charged with electricity, everyone waiting for the release of the first strike of lightning.

As the rain began to fall in earnest, Bear forced herself to a halt. Her chest heaved from such a prolonged sprint, while her forehead and neck glistened with sweat. She looked one way, then the next, already feeling disorientated by the endless labyrinth of shacks.

Her clothes . . . She had to get rid of her office suit or they would immediately peg her as an outsider despite the colour of her skin. Leaning over a ramshackle wooden fence just to her right, she saw two rows of laundry still hanging on the spider’s web of electricity lines that spread out across the shantytown. The clothes flapped like prayer flags in the new breeze – the single burst of colour in an otherwise drab landscape.

Bear hopped over the fence, suddenly noticing a woman lying on her side by the back entrance to the shack. She was rounded and porcine, with a band of indelible fat stretching across her buttocks and stomach, while her weather-beaten face was of indeterminate age. She was slumped on the ground, snoring, inches from the smouldering remains of a cooking fire, while flies buzzed from one part of her body to the next.

Pulling a bright purple sarong off the line, Bear swapped it for her charcoal grey skirt. She then went to take off her shirt, but as soon as she raised her arms above her head there was a stabbing pain in her side. She stared in confusion, gently dabbing her fingers across the line of her ribs until she noticed a small puncture wound, no bigger than a pencil nib. It ran right through her, from just under her right breast to where it exited from her side. A piece of shrapnel from the jet engine must have hit her, and as soon as she pressed her fingers lightly against the wound, a trickle of blood oozed out and ran down her side. She stared at it for several seconds, thanking God that it hadn’t been a few inches lower and nearer to the baby.

After a couple more gentle dabs with her forefinger, Bear decided that there was nothing she could do about the wound right now. It was just going to have to wait.

Moving further down the line of shacks, she found a low-cut, black T-shirt that was greyed from age, followed by a short length of orange fabric to tie around her hair. The flashcard Lotta had given her was still wrapped in a paper napkin. Pulling it from the pocket of her skirt, Bear stuffed it into her bra. She then stared at her mobile phone, knowing that they would soon be tracking her on it. But she had to try and get hold of Luca one more time. Just once. For now, she told herself, it was worth the risk.