Breeders (5 page)

They hardly said a word during the twenty-mile trip. Moolman’s questions were answered with curt nods and grunts by the large man. They sat in silence as they drove.
 

They arrived at the police headquarters an hour later, and Moolman signed them both in. At the entrance to the morgue stood a solemn-looking Pierre de Kock, the station commander. He nodded to them both and then led them into the mortuary.

Pierre de Kock opened a large metal door against a wall. He pulled out a metal drawer to reveal a set of feet laying on an aluminum table. He pulled it out all the way and unzipped the green plastic bag that covered the corpse, revealing a pretty face. The young girl had dark hair. Her lips were covered in smeared black lipstick, and dark lines ran down her cheeks, like black tears. She looked like a fallen angel, her pale face beautiful and serene. He had seen the girl less than three months ago at her father’s home, and it definitely was Alida.

Moolman looked to his left as he heard a sob. He had forgotten about Eben for a moment. His large bucket-like hands covered his face, and his body jerked as he cried inconsolably. Moolman touched the man’s shoulders, but Eben slapped his hand away.

Eben de Vos leaned against the wall, his head on his arm, slamming the palm of his hand against the surface. “Oh, dear God, dear Jesus, why? How could you do this to me?”

Moolman and de Kock stood next to the big man, their hands on his shoulders, patting his back awkwardly. They had never seen Eben in such a state.

Eben de Vos sank down on his knees then rested his head on the ground, slapping his palm on the floor as he cried. They let him be, not knowing what else to do.

De Kock zipped the plastic back over the girl’s face then silently slid the table back into the refrigerated recess in the wall and closed the door with a soft click.
 

Moolman summoned a doctor, and the man gave Eben a mild sedative. It took Eben fifteen minutes to calm down to a coherent state. After a cup of coffee and a cigarette, Eben seemed better.

Moolman took his arm and led him out of the morgue.
 

Eben didn’t react to any questions; he simply plodded along like a zombie, his bearded chin resting on his chest as he muttered, “She can’t be dead, my baby isn’t dead. It wasn’t her, it couldn’t be. Dear Jesus, please say it isn’t so.”

Alexa squinted into the wind as the South African National Sea Rescue Institute’s Rodman patrol boat pounded through the choppy surf, trailing two lines of thick white froth in its wake. White gulls circled overhead, squawking, cawing, and hurtling down to dive-bomb their slender frames into the grey water, popping up with small silver fish in their beaks a couple of seconds later.
 

Inspector Dawid Moolman stood at the back of the boat looking miserable, clinging to the gunwale rail as if his life depended on it. At the bow stood a tall, bearded man with thick locks of windswept black hair sticking out of a beanie on his head. He stood comfortably, gently swaying in tune with the rocking motion of the boat with his hands shoved into his jacket pockets. Moolman had introduced the man as Eben de Vos. He was quiet and gruff; he would respond to their greetings with a curt nod and turn back to face the ocean, a faraway look in his eyes.

Apparently he had recently lost a loved one, and Moolman said he wanted to keep a close eye on the man, “In case he does something stupid,” whatever that meant. Alexa didn’t know the background to the case; she would ask Moolman about it later.

They had met Inspector Dawid Moolman at the Priority Crimes office in Cape Town. He had short reddish hair, and his brow was permanently furrowed. Everything about him seemed vanilla, no distinguishing features—like the kid you knew at school but couldn’t remember his name. When they greeted him, he stuck out a hand and smiled, and suddenly his face changed. His angelic smile lit his eyes, smoothed his features, and released his wrinkles for a moment. He seemed kind and gentle and caring: exactly the person you would want on your case. And then he became serious again as he pointed at the map, the worried frown returning.
 

A cork-boarded wall in his office had been dedicated to a map of Southern Africa, and there was a line of multicolored thumbtacks stuck in at various locations, meandering its way along the western coastline like a bright, poisonous snake. Alexa didn’t know what the different colors represented—Moolman probably had some reference system—but the gist of it was that the pins detailed the places where the sneakers had been found washed ashore. There were more than thirty pins dotted all over the map. She now understood why Laiveaux had prioritized this investigation.

Interpol needed an investigative lead on the case, and Laiveaux had assigned Bruce Bryden. They met him at Slander’s Peak harbor. Alexa and Neil hadn’t seen him for several weeks, and Alexa hadn’t realized how much she had missed her adoptive father. He was her rock, her sounding board for ideas, and the shoulder she cried on when life got tough. He’d taught her how to survive when a gang of double agents were hell-bent on wiping out her family. They had killed her dad, but she was lucky. Neil, Bruce, and General Laiveaux were the only three people in the world whom she could trust implicitly.
 

She watched Bruce, memories whirling around in her head. He stood talking to the skipper, bending down and nodding his head with his large hand on the man’s shoulder. He had decades of experience working tirelessly for Shin Bet in Israel to root out corrupt government officials and highly trained Mossad operatives. To beat the best, you had to be better. And Bruce was better than anyone she knew. Even better than Neil. He had never married, never had kids of his own. Taking care of Alexa had taken up most of his prime years—the years when a man finds a wife and marries and settles down. He had gotten her through in one piece, managed to track down and eliminate the people who were hunting her family, and kept her safe. She loved him with all her heart.
 

Bruce looked up at her as if reading her mind and winked, the side of his mouth turned up in a half-smile. He had the same strong jawline that Neil did, and amazingly he had never broken his nose in all his years in the military. Even Alexa had broken hers a couple of times. She smiled back, sticking a wisp of windblown hair behind her ear.

She looked sideways as Moolman shouted at the skipper, “How far?” for the fifth time during their fifteen-minute journey.

Skipper Ryan Barnes glanced at his GPS, which was mounted beside the steering wheel, and held up a hand. Five miles. Moolman grimaced and crouched, holding on to the railing for balance, his head tucked into his chest.

Neil shuffled to her side, sat down next to her, and leaned in. “Does the inspector look slightly green to you?” he asked with a mischievous grin, talking close to her ear to be heard above the wind and the roaring whine of the outboard motors.

Alexa glanced to her side then smiled. “We should have given him some Epilim.” A fellow recruit in the Legion had suffered from epilepsy, but he never got seasick. She soon realized that his medication had cured the seasickness.
 

Neil nodded thoughtfully then peered off into the distance, the wind buffeting his jacket. “Any idea what this is all about?”

Alexa shook her head. “Bruce reckons they belong to kids.”

Neil looked at her for a while, a worried furrow on his brow, then shifted his gaze toward the ocean, his lips pulled into a thin line.
 

The whine of the motor subsided to a low growl, and the boat started slowing down. “We’re close,” Barnes called.

Alexa stood up unsteadily and peered over the side of the boat. “Over there,” she called and pointed at something floating in the water. The skipper nodded and wheeled the boat deftly to the starboard side.
 

Neil leaned over and scooped up the sneaker. “Look,” he said, pointing at the water.

Moolman and Bruce joined them at the side of the boat, looking closely at what Neil had pointed out. Tiny bubbles were rising to the surface, almost invisible if you didn’t know what to look for.
 

“Decomposition gases,” Alexa said softly.

Neil put his hand on hers. “Want to go in?”
 

She nodded, slipping off her life jacket. “Yep, let’s go.” She wanted to get this over with.

They dressed in the companionway to the cockpit, and Neil helped her pull her air tank onto her back. He checked all her couplings and she did the same for Neil. She double-checked hers again. She had borrowed the equipment from the NSRI. First rule of diving: you’re responsible for your own safety. She tested her regulator, and a cold blast of air escaped with a loud hiss as she pushed the purge button. She smelled the air; it was nice and clean. She removed the regulator from her mouth and waddled to the skipper. “How deep is it?”
 

He glanced at his depth finder. “Eighty feet.”

She whistled softly. “
Merde
, that’s pushing it,” she said, glancing at Neil.

He shrugged. He didn’t look too concerned. “We’ll take it nice and easy.” He waved Bruce over. “Any chance of getting us some nitrox cylinders? I think we’ll be doing a couple of dives.”

Bruce shook his head. “Do this one, then stay out for the rest of the day. I’ll get them to adjust the mix when we’re back at the harbor.”

Neil nodded. “And we’ll need dry suits next time; the water’s going to be cold.”

Bruce grinned. “Pee in your suit.”

Alexa made a disgusted face and pulled Neil’s arm. “Let’s go.” She needed to find out what was down there.

They shimmied to the back of the boat, stood ready on the dive platform, glanced at each other, and gave the OK signal. Then they held on to their masks and entered the water with a giant stride.

Alexa sucked in her breath as the cold water seeped into her suit. It couldn’t have been warmer than twelve degrees Celsius, and she shivered involuntarily. She opened the cuffs of her wetsuit to allow the water in; her body heat would warm it to act as a thermal barrier between her skin and the cold water outside. She released all the air from her BCD, following Neil down toward the bottom of the ocean, equalizing her ears to the mounting pressure by moving her jaw.

The visibility wasn’t good, probably ten feet. Neil pointed toward the fine trail of bubbles, and they followed it down to its source, descending slowly to preserve their energy.

Alexa’s dive computer started beeping urgently at sixty-six feet, warning her that she was pushing the limits of a recreational dive, and she set it to silent. She showed Neil the OK sign, and they continued deeper into the murky depths, the color of the icy waters changing from a hazy green to a muddy brown and finally to black. Alexa fumbled with her flashlight; it was the old-fashioned type, made from a durable hard plastic with an on/off switch on the side. She flicked it on and swung her faint beam around, trying to find her bearings. Neil switched his flashlight on as well, and his beam caught the edge of what looked like a large metal container lying on its side, wedged into a crevice on the ocean floor.
 

Alexa saw Neil’s beam flick to the left, then she noticed a large shadow drifting toward them. The great white swam lazily toward them, probably noticing the beams of light, then turned away and disappeared into the murky haze. Another large shape entered the light, and Alexa held her breath as another shark glided past.

Great whites were primarily scavengers, and they would hang around places where there was plenty to eat, which was probably whatever was inside the container.
 

They dove down, examining the container. It was a large trash dumpster, the type that they load onto dumpster trucks with chains. Alexa swam around it, examining it closely. There were no identifying markings, and it was painted a neutral white. It had started to rust, and a few clams and barnacles had already sucked onto the lower edges. She guessed it must have been in the water for a couple of weeks. She swung her flashlight in a wide arc, trying to spot the sharks, not wanting to bump into one by mistake. She worried for a moment about exiting the water; divers were most vulnerable at the surface.

She swam to the top of the container. It had been closed up by thick, makeshift metal bars, which someone had welded to the top opening. Larger bubbles of air seeped out of the container, splitting up then fizzing away, gradually making their way up to the surface.

She noticed another large shape appear in the murky distance then glide by to disappear as soon as it had arrived. She guessed the sharks didn’t appreciate the sneakers, so they let them be. She wondered if the sharks would spit out stuff that they didn’t eat. She shivered and shone her flashlight inside the dumpster, holding on to a metal bar to steady herself.
 

At first she struggled to comprehend what she saw. Bumps and ridges were covered by a thin white gauze of some kind. She pressed the torch against the bar, shining the light onto an object against the opening, then pushed it away with her hand. It was soft; it turned slowly and floated back to the opening. A large bubble of air escaped from below. She pointed her flashlight.

It illuminated a skull, eyeballs in deep sockets. Long dark hair, still attached to the skull, swayed gently in the current. The flesh on the cheeks and lips had started to decay, and the skin was detaching from the bone. Alexa noticed small fish darting in and out of the dumpster, grabbing pieces of tissue as they swam.