The Prey (56 page)

‘We’ve got to go to Jan with this,’ Cameron said.

Kylie looked to him, then Musa.

‘What?’ Cameron asked.

‘Nothing. I don’t know. You’re right, we should tell him. If she’s come here to do a deal on the quiet with the Chinese, maybe we can get in first.’

Cameron shook his head. ‘They’ll just outbid us and, besides, there’s the problem of our cash flow. Jan still needs to know.’

The train started to slow and the manager announced over the PA system that they would soon be arriving in Kimberley. Outside the light was fading and a bloody sunset soaked the open landscape.

*

Luis was in the air, on an Airlink flight from Johannesburg’s OR Tambo Airport to Kimberley. He checked his cheap digital watch again. He was late. From his online research he knew the Blue Train would only be in Kimberley for a little more than an hour and if the train was on time, then it was already there.

The captain advised his passengers they were beginning their descent. Luis felt the knot grow in his stomach. He would have to organise a car or taxi from the airport. He didn’t know if he could make it in time, but he had to get to Cameron and Kylie and give them the information he had extracted from Wellington before he had killed him. Even if he was allowed to use his cellphone from the aircraft, which he wasn’t, it wouldn’t work as he had run out of credit.

His future and that of his son might be lost because he had been in too much of a rush to board his flight in Maputo to recharge his phone. He had only been late for the flight because he had killed a man – albeit a bad man – in cold blood. Perhaps the Lord had decided his fate long ago, when Luis had first cast his lot in with the criminal miners. He bunched his hands into impotent fists.

‘
Ja
, I get nervous at landing time too,’ the grey-haired Afrikaner matron next to him said. She reached over and patted his arm. ‘You’ll be fine, man.’ He smiled at her and her unexpected charity. Perhaps all was not lost.

*

Tertia followed the delegates from the mining companies into the cinema where they were to view the short film that was part of the Kimberley tour. She’d been here before and knew that afterwards they would all inspect the Big Hole, the remains of a huge open-cut diamond mine. She knew the Australians thought of her as a vindictive leech, hanging off the dying corpse of their company, and they were not far wrong. She couldn’t care less.

Mary Li hung back, pretending, no doubt, to defer to her male colleagues, and Tertia took the seat next to her as the cinema lights went down. The big screen was filled with the image of a small boy running through brittle, dry farmlands, and the story began of how diamonds were first discovered.

‘My chairman will see you this evening, after we get on the train but before dinner. There is a break in the interminable presentations,’ Mary Li whispered without preamble.

‘Good. You’ve passed on the amount we discussed?’

‘I have. We’re Chinese; we’ll want to negotiate. But you will do well out of this sale.’

‘They understand the need for absolute secrecy? If the man selling me the farm gets a whiff of this deal he will pull out,’ Tertia said.

‘I have told my board this,’ Mary said. ‘We, too, want this kept quiet until the purchase goes through.’

Tertia glanced along the row of seating. The Australian contingent was beyond the Chinese and Jan Stein was watching the screen. Just an hour or more to go, she told herself, until the beginning of a new, perfect life. It had been a long time coming and she did regret some of the things she had done to get here, especially what she had put Chris through.

He had loved her like a puppy, with boundless enthusiasm and without the need for her to match him. And he had been a beautiful boy. But he was a means to an end and nothing could have come of their relationship. It was always bound to end, and at least he had died in love and not with a broken heart.

Tertia looked back at the rows of seats behind her. Cameron McMurtrie and Kylie Hamilton were not there. She had watched them on the train, at brunch, and had seen how close they were sitting in the departure lounge. They had become more than business colleagues, she thought. She wondered if they had skipped the tour in order to stay on the train and fuck.

She remembered Chris’s touch, and his lips, as soft as a girl’s. Yes, she missed him, but it would all be worth it. She had saved Lion Plains, even if it would forever exist next to an open-cut mine, and she was about to reclaim her family’s fortune.

*

Kylie and Cameron looked out over the Big Hole. It was more than two hundred metres deep and four hundred wide, Kylie had read. It was a fitting monument, she thought, to endeavour and greed.

‘We can sink Tertia,’ Cameron said.

‘By calling old man Berger and ratting her out, you mean?’ Kylie said.

‘Yes.’

Kylie sighed and leaned against the railing, staring down, literally, into the abyss. ‘She’s doing something immoral, but not illegal. I wonder how many people have levelled the same criticism at our industry over the centuries.’

‘I know what you mean,’ he said. ‘I was never happy about us mining in a wildlife area, but I guess when you think of it, everywhere there’s a mine now was once a pristine piece of wilderness.’

‘I still believe in what we do,’ she said. ‘I know of communities in Australia and other countries where mining is their lifeblood. We can do it well, better than the likes of China Dynamic, and still give something back to the environment.’

Cameron shrugged. ‘Well, Global Resources looks set to pass into history, whether Tertia gets rich out of it or not, and –’

‘Luis!’ Kylie pointed to the man jogging up the walkway.

Cameron walked to meet him and they shook hands, then Luis took Kylie’s hand. ‘I’m so glad I have found you both.’

‘It’s good to see you, Luis,’ Kylie said, ‘but I think you may be too late to help us. Tertia Venter, the woman who runs the Lion Plains Lodge, has secured a neighbouring property and is about to sell the rights to mine on it to the Chinese company that’s in the process of buying Global Resources.’

‘She can’t do that.’

‘Well,’ Cameron said, spreading his palms, ‘there’s nothing we can do to stop her.’

‘No, but the law can.’

‘How so?’ Kylie asked.

‘She is guilty of murder, of arranging and paying for murders at least. Of your man Chris Loubser, of the security guard and Loubser’s assistant, and of the attempted killing of you two.’

‘But Wellington was behind all those,’ Kylie said.

Luis shook his head. ‘Wellington had a boss.’

‘This Mohammed whom he supposedly reported to, but no one knows anything about,’ Cameron said.

‘Mohammed was in South Africa all along,’ Luis said. ‘Wellington told me, just now, in Maputo. And Mohammed was not a “he”, but rather a “she”.’

‘Tertia Venter?’ Cameron said.

‘I can’t believe it,’ Kylie said.

‘Yes,’ said Luis. ‘She wasn’t just trying to save Lion Plains. She had been bankrolling Wellington by buying his gold for the last few years. By bringing down Global Resources she could stop the coalmine and increase illegal production at Eureka while your legal operations were shut down. Wellington told me she paid him to kidnap Chris Loubser and to get him to take contaminated air samples. She thought you two were getting close to discovering the truth, so she sent Wellington to sabotage your aircraft in Zambia. Wellington was ruthless, for sure, but this woman is evil. Even he seemed scared of her.’

‘And my daughter?’ Cameron asked.

‘Wellington wanted to kill her, but Mohammed – Tertia – wanted her kept alive. Apparently she dealt with gold buyers from the United
Arab Emirates who would visit Lion Plains to negotiate, and one of them had expressed an interest in buying a white girl.’

‘I’ll kill her,’ Cameron said.

Kylie put a hand on his arm. ‘Cameron, be calm. We have to think this through. We need proof. Did Wellington sign a confession? Where is he? Do the Mozambican police have him locked up?’

Luis looked at the walkway for a second, then into Kylie’s eyes. ‘I was wearing a wiretap when I met with Wellington. He confesses to everything on the tape and names Tertia Venter, but my cousin, a policeman, took it from me and said he was going to erase it.’

‘For God’s sake, why?’ Kylie said.

‘Killing my wife was Wellington’s idea, so I didn’t think it fair that he live out his days in a prison. The recording makes it clear Wellington was begging for his life when I shot him. I am sorry, not for what I did, but for you not having your proof about Tertia.’

‘Shit,’ Kylie said. She rubbed her temples as she thought. ‘We’ve got to get Jan in on this. There’s no way Tertia can profit from all this killing. We’ve got to get the South African police onto the case. There must be phone records or bank details or something that can link her to Wellington and these gold buyers. We won’t let up until we’ve got her, but first we’ve got to put her out of business.’

‘I will testify, in court, as to what Wellington told me, but it will be the word of a former
zama zama
against a wealthy white woman,’ Luis said.

‘I’ll SMS Jan. He’s in the museum now. You have to tell him everything you’ve told us, Luis.’

He nodded. ‘Of course. And I need to talk to your Mr Stein, with you two present. I have found a coal seam in Mozambique, near my home town, which dwarfs the concession you bid for at Lion Plains, but we can negotiate a very good deal for Global Resources.’

‘Who’s “we”?’ Kylie asked.

‘My cousin, Alfredo Simango, is a police captain and his wife’s uncle is the governor of the province. While Alfredo and I cannot buy this land and sell it to you, we have already spoken to the right
people. Mozambique needs more investment and employment and this will give you a presence in a different African country. People there will welcome a new mine and not care about Lion Plains and your problems here in South Africa, and the coal seam I have discovered is on land not being used for anything else.’

‘And what do you want out of this?’ she asked.

‘A job. Any job in a future joint-venture mine between Global Resources and the Mozambican government. I don’t care if I am a humble miner or the driver of a truck. I want an honest start, in my own country, in the industry I love.’

Kylie swallowed. They had gone out on a limb for Luis and he was repaying them with a find potentially worth millions of dollars. Jan had to hear about this. They would find a way to make this deal happen and Tertia would get her comeuppance, according to the letter of the law.

‘Here he comes now,’ Cameron said.

Kylie looked down the walkway and saw the tall figure of Jan Stein striding towards them.

‘Cameron, Kylie. I hope this is important. I had to leave the board with the Chinese and I don’t want them talking with me away from them.’

‘Jan,’ Kylie said, ‘this is Luis Domingues Correia. He helped us when Cameron went to rescue Chris. He’s got a deal for Global Resources – a new coal find in Mozambique.’

Jan gave a pained look but extended his hand to Luis. ‘So what is this deal you have for us? I really don’t have time to waste on a wild goose chase.’

‘No,’ Luis shook his head. ‘I will not waste your time. There is no deal.’

*

The Blue Train passengers were filing back onto the bus, their brief visit to Kimberley over. Luis showed the train manager his booking and agreed that, while it was highly unusual for a passenger to
board the train halfway to Cape Town, there was nothing stopping him from doing so.

Luis had walked away from Jan Stein without another word and Cameron and Kylie had followed him. ‘I’ll tell you on the train,’ was all he had said to Cameron.

Cameron got up from his seat on the bus and walked to the rear, where Tertia was sitting by herself. He slid into the seat next to her. His rational side knew he should gather more evidence and get the police involved before he confronted Tertia, but quiet rage over what she had done consumed him. ‘I know who you are.’

‘I should think you should by now,’ she said to him.

‘Mohammed.’

She didn’t flinch. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’

‘You were going to sell my daughter into slavery. You had good people killed. Wellington was your attack dog. You’re going to jail, Tertia, for a very long time.’

She turned to him and fixed him with her narrowed eyes. ‘Prove it. I heard today Wellington was killed in a police raid in Maputo. Shoddy work, as now he couldn’t testify even if he wanted to.’

Cameron got up and went back to his seat, his fists balled by his side. When they got off, he and Kylie followed Luis and a carriage butler onto the train and waited impatiently for the suite briefing to be done with, then crowded into Luis’s suite. Cameron closed the door behind them. ‘You came all this way to make a deal and now you won’t even talk to Stein? Why not?’

‘His name’s not Stein. It’s Lotz.’

‘What are you talking about?’ Kylie asked.

‘I’ve seen him before, back in 1987, during the Mozambican civil war. He was a South African military adviser to the Renamo anti-government rebels. He was with the Renamo commander who ordered a massacre of civilians at the town of Homoine, near my home.’

Cameron ran a hand through his hair. ‘Are you sure it’s the same man?’

‘He had a moustache and sideburns then, and he’s put on a little weight, but it’s him – I could also tell by his crooked nose. I was pretending to be dead, lying in the grass, wounded. He was working with the Renamo commander and was as guilty as any of the rebels. Also, as soon he spoke I recognised his voice. I cannot deal with a war criminal.’

Cameron took out his cellphone and scrolled through his contacts until he found the number for Gert Cronje. He called it.

While he was waiting for the connection to come through Kylie asked him who he was calling.

‘I’ve got an old army friend, Gert, who wrote a book about the recces. I never remembered a Jan Stein – or anyone called Lotz for that matter – but on the odd occasions Jan and I talked about days on the border I could tell he’d been to the places he talked about and done the things he said he’d done. You get some guys who pretend they’ve been part of special forces and you know they’re faking it, but I could tell Jan was genuine – even if his name isn’t.’