Trackers (5 page)
Authors: Deon Meyer
Journalist. Permanent
position in Cape Town. Relevant experience preferred. Excellent research and
writing skills required. Must relish team work. Tertiary qualification
essential. Market related salary. Please call Mrs Nkosi. Apply before 31/08/09.
It was
the 'preferred' that gave her a modicum of courage, made her sit up straight,
fold the newspaper so that the ad was clearly visible, and pick up the cup of
rooibos tea.
At 12.55 the
bergie
tramp
pushed a shopping trolley down Coronation Street with his left hand, past the
row of cars in front of the mosque. He swayed drunkenly. In his right hand he
held a bottle wrapped in a brown paper bag.
The street was abandoned, the owners of the cars inside the
mosque for the Dhuhr prayers.
Beside a white 1998 Hyundai Elantra the
bergie
stumbled and fell. He held the bottle
aloft, desperate to avoid breaking it. He lay a moment, dazed. He tried to get
up, but did not succeed. He shifted around, so that his head was under the car,
just beside the rear wheel, as if he were looking for shade. Then he pulled the
bottle under the car to take a drink, and his hands were no longer in sight. He
lay like that for a while, fiddling, before he slowly scuffled out again.
He put the bottle down on the tarmac, put one hand on the
edge of the mudguard and tried to stand. He struggled, so that he had to take
hold of the vehicle again, then pulled himself upright with great effort.
He
brushed imaginary dust off his ragged clothes, picked up his bottle and, still
unsteady on his feet, reached for the trolley and began meandering along again.
In the electronics room of the Presidential Intelligence
Agency, Rahjev Rajkumar sat with a computer operator, while Quinn, the Chief of
Staff: Operations, stood beside them. All three stared at the
computer screen that displayed a street map of Cape Town.
Quinn glanced at his wristwatch and then back at the screen.
A sudden electronic blip broke the silence. A tiny red triangle appeared on the
screen. 'Zoom in,' Rajkumar said.
The operator clicked on the magnifying glass icon, then on
the triangle, twice, three times, until the name of the street was clear:
Coronation.
'I think we're in play,' said Rajkumar.
'I'll wait for Terry's report,' said Quinn. 'But so far, so
good.'
Quinn, Chief of Staff: Operations, reported directly to
Advocate Tau Masilo, the Deputy-Director: Operational and Strategy. In the late
afternoon in his superior's office, Quinn told Masilo the GPS transmitter was
successfully attached to Baboo Rayan's white Hyundai Elantra. The monitoring
showed that the car had been parked in front of a new address for over an hour.
15 Chamberlain Street, in Upper Woodstock.
'Let's
do a drive-by,' said Masilo. 'The pharmacy motorcycle?' 'That should do.' 'I'm
on it.'
Photostatic record:
Diary of Milla
Strachan
Date of entry:
1
7
August 2009
The Swing. One-Two-Three, One-Two-Three. Backstep. The
Foxtrot. Slow. Slow. Quick, quick. The Waltz. One. Two. Three.
The Tango. Slow . . . Slow . . . Slow . . . Quick, quick. The
Morse Code of dance. 'School figures', Arthur Murray called them, baby steps I
have to practise. How different from the woman I had seen dancing last
Thursday. But still, there was something comforting about it: if you want to
get there, you must begin here. At the bottom. One step at a time. Strange how
somehow it relieved the anxiety, the insecurity.
14
August 2009. Friday.
In her office, at the round table, Janina Mentz told Rajkumar
and Masilo about the President's alleged vision of a single intelligence
service. Masilo did not react. Rajkumar obsessively examined a piece of skin
beside his thumbnail.
'Our careers are on the line,' she said. Rajkumar began to
chew the skin.
'Are we the only players in the Supreme Committee
developments?' she asked.
'Of course,' said Tau Masilo. 'Then we must exploit it.' 'So
you're saying ...'
'Yes, Raj, I'm saying this is our ace in the hole. Our last
resort. Unless you know of something else where we have exclusivity ...' 'No
...'
'Then we had better make it work for us, or we will be
running the back-office of the new super-duper intelligence conglomerate the
President is planning, wondering why we didn't work a little harder and a
little faster when we had the chance.'
'But what if we're right? What if it isn't local action, just
al-Qaeda in a last gasp attempt to send a few AK's to Afghanistan.'
'Then we will have to find a way to make that little fact
work in our favour, Raj.'
Milla Strachan was reading when her cellphone rang at half
past three in the afternoon.
UNKNOWN CALLER. 'Hello?'
'Is that Milla Strachan?' 'Yes.'
'I am Mrs Nkosi. From the agency. I have good news. We would
like you to come for a job interview.'
'Oh ...' She was relieved and surprised and thankful.
'You are still interested?'
'Yes.'
'Could you come next week?' 'Yes. Yes, I can.'
'Wednesday?'
'Wednesday would be good.' She'd nearly said 'great', had to
steel herself not to sound too grateful or too eager.
'Wonderful.
Twelve o'clock?'
Advocate Tau Masilo opened a file on his lap, took out a
photo and placed it on the desk in front of Mentz. 'Late yesterday afternoon, taken
by the pharmacy motorbike at 15 Chamberlain Street in Woodstock...'
The photo showed the Sheikh, Suleiman Dolly, Chairman of the
Supreme Committee, walking around the front of a car.
'There's a strong possibility that this is their new meeting
place,' he said.
She studied the pictures. 'They chose well.'
'They did. That says something. Look at that photo. Dolly
isn't driving his Volvo any more, which means he is being very careful all of a
sudden. This is the new meeting place, with live-in security, because we saw
Baboo has moved into one side of the semi-detached. There's the choice of the
house itself. Middle-class neighbourhood, most of the residents are at work
during the day. Few inquisitive eyes, quiet streets. Strange vehicles will be
spotted quickly. Double storey, from that highest window you can watch most of
the street.'
'A great deal of trouble,' said Mentz.
'A great deal. There must be a reason for it.'
'What do you have in mind?'
'Our only option is to put someone in one of the four houses
across the street. We are studying the title deeds. The ideal would be if one
of them was let...'
'Is it going to help, Tau?'
'What do you mean?'
'Is it going to help to get someone into one of those houses?
A few more photos of them coming and going. That gives us nothing new. We need
to know what they are talking about.'
'Ma'am, we are planning a great deal more than a camera.'
'Oh?'
'We are going to erect cellphone antennae, parabolic microphones
...'
Mentz made a dismissive gesture.
Masilo wasn't put off his stride. 'Look at this, for example,
here on the front wall. If we can replace one of these screws with an electro-
acoustic microphone ...'
'If?'
'Ma'am, you know we have to do surveillance first.'
'Tau, sometimes I get the impression that we are just
playing. With all this technology, with the idea of espionage. It's all so
filmic, so much fun and excitement. But when it comes to results, we fall
short.'
'I object...'
'You can object all you want, but where are the results? We
had Ismail Mohammed inside, we tried to tap them with technology that I don't
completely understand, and here we are. In the dark.'
'Not entirely.'
Janina Mentz pulled a face and shook her head. 'Bring me
results, Tau.'
He
smiled at her. 'We will.'
'Would you describe yourself as ambitious?' asked the
maternal, middle-aged Mrs Nkosi.
Milla thought before she answered, because she suspected it
was a trick question. 'I believe if you work hard, if you fulfil your
responsibilities faithfully and to the best of your ability, you can be
successful.'
Mrs Nkosi said 'uh-huh' again happily and wrote something on
her papers. Then she looked up. 'Tell me a bit about yourself. Your
background.'
Milla had expected that, and prepared for it. 'I was born in
Wellington, I grew up and finished school there. My mother was a housewife ...'
'A home maker,' said Mrs Nkosi, as if it were the most noble
of professions.
'Yes,'
said Milla. 'And my father was a businessman, I suppose you could say ...'
Transcription:
Audio surveillance, M. Strachan. No
74
Daven Court,
Davenport
Street, Vredehoek
Date and Time:
7 October 2009. 23.09
MS:
They were Afrikaner hippies, my mom and dad. Very eccentric, very different
from the other children's parents. I still don't know whether. . . what effect
it had on me. There was a time when I was so ashamed of
them ...
I mean, my mom
was ...
Sometimes she walked around the
house in the nude when we were alone. My dad smoked dope now and then. In our
sitting room. He worked from home. The garage was his workshop. He fixed cash
registers, at first. Then
computers...
He was ...
not just eccentric, he was clever. He read widely,
science, history,
philosophy...
He
was a great fan of Bertrand Russell, he considered himself a relatively
political pacifist, his favourite quotation was 'free intellect is the chief
engine of human
progress' ...
'I got married the year I completed my honours in journalism.
Also pregnant. Then home maker ...' she let the designation hang between them
with a bashful smile, because it was Mrs Nkosi's.'... for seventeen years. And
now I am on my own again. I must add, that I am not officially Strachan yet. It
is my maiden name, but the divorce is not through ...'
'Good for you,' said Mrs Nkosi. 'How long have you been on
your own?'
'Oh a few months already.' A lie, born of necessity. 'Good,'
said Mrs Nkosi. Milla had no idea why. The entire experience had a certain surreal
feeling. The employment agency was a disappointment. On the fifth floor of a
charmless building in Wale Street, the letters on the door were small and
unimaginative.
Perfect Placement Employment Brokers.
The furniture and decor were without character, vaguely depressing. Which
magazine
was
the position for,
she wondered. A small industrial publication? A new, free
suburban newspaper?
They chatted for over an hour and a half, wandered off in
slightly apologetic exploration of her background, her personality, her opinions
and ideology, every answer rewarded with a 'good', a fascinated 'uh-huh' and
the occasional 'wonderful', as though it were perfect and exactly right.
Eventually: 'Is there anything that you would like to ask
me?'
'I would like to know to which publication I am applying?'
'To be honest, it isn't a publication as such. In the first
place my client needs journalists for their skill in the processing of
information. And good writing, of course.' Mrs Nkosi consulted her notes. 'The
successful candidate will be responsible for the assimilation and structuring
of facts, and the writing of concise, clear and readable reports for senior
management. The reports play a cardinal role in the decision-making process of
the institution.'
'Oh.' Her disappointment was visible.
'It's an important job,' said Mrs Nkosi.
Milla nodded, lost in thought.
'You will earn exactly the same as someone in the media.
Perhaps a little more.'
'What institution is it?'
'I am
not authorised to reveal that now.'
Photostatic record:
Diary of Milla Strachan
Date of entry:
20 August 2009
The first six dance classes completed, the introductory
cycle, and official transfer to Mr Soderstrom, my new, long-term instructor. I
don't know what his first name is, that is Arthur Murray convention, the
old-fashioned forms of address, 'Mr' and 'Mrs' and 'Miss', all gallantry and
dignity. Mr Soderstrom is lean and such an incredibly good dancer. I asked him,
after a session of sweat and struggle, did he think I could ever get there.
'Oh, yes,' he beamed. 'You
will
dance!'