‘I didn’t know about your daughter. I’m sorry about her. But let me tell you what I know. I know the local police are looking for you. It’s just a matter of time before they figure out where you are as I figured it out.’
‘How? How did you figure it out?’
Dahdi smiled. ‘They found your chai in Elhasomi’s hand when they pulled her from the river. I hope the irony isn’t lost on you, Mr Salem. The Arab woman you killed held the Jewish symbol of life in her hand.’
Salem shook his head. ‘My mistake. I only remembered the next day.’
Dahdi nodded. ‘I knew you’d need to get another one before you left South Africa. There’re only a limited number of shops in Durban which sell chais. You paid with a credit card in the name of Kovashov. We already had the name. When you bought your air tickets using the same card … well, you would have been doomed if it wasn’t me who figured it all out.’
‘You’re too old to be in the police service.’
‘I’m a functionary, that’s all. A minor one at that. I work independently of anyone else. I tell them what they need to know.’
‘What do you want me to do?’
‘The money. Where’s the cash?’
Salem smiled. ‘You’re a mercenary. Now this is making more sense.’
‘Where is it?’
‘In a safe account, most of it. The rest travels with me.’
‘I want a million dollars sent to a nominated account in return for your freedom.’
‘I’ll need some time.’
‘Very well. You have five minutes and then my offer expires.’
‘How do I know you’re telling the truth?’
‘Would I lie and risk losing a million dollars? What are your alternatives? The police will be here soon.’
‘How’re you going to help me?’
‘Trust me. I have a driver waiting below who will take you to a place where you’ll be safe until we can move you out of the country. I’m connected in this city. I can get you a new identity, travel documents, anything you need.’
Salem smiled. ‘Our motto is “Without subterfuge, our nation falls”.’
‘It’s my motto too. We need to move fast, Mr Salem.’
It took Salem six minutes and two calls to have the money wired from an account in the Cayman Islands to a Jerusalem bank via Zurich.
Dahdi walked briskly beside Salem to the big glass doors of the terminal exit. A black Mercedes with tinted windows was idling outside, and Dahdi opened the door for Salem. He hesitated for a moment, looked around and climbed in. Dahdi closed the door for him and climbed into another waiting car.
The cars moved off and Salem watched as the terminal buildings flashed past. The Mercedes turned up a road and sped towards the cargo area of the airport. Salem looked a little perplexed, but he remained quiet.
The car came to a standstill beside a seemingly deserted airport building in the cargo area. ‘Driver, what are we doing here?’
The driver turned around. Durant’s face was tired and drawn, but his eyes could not contain the excitement he felt.
‘We’ve arrived, sir.’
Salem appeared bewildered now, and looked out each window as if he was missing something nobody else had. ‘I … don’t understand.’
‘We’ve arrived at the end of the road.’ Durant smiled for the first time in what seemed like weeks and said simply, ‘Ever heard of cadaveric spasm?’
‘What?’
‘It’s the intense muscular contraction of the hands at the moment of death. In her final seconds of life, Elhasomi was in extreme emotional and physical distress. It caused her hands to tightly close around the piece of jewellery in her hand. That small object is what led us to you, Benjamin Salem. It means you killed Elhasomi in cold blood.’
Salem’s face turned pale.
‘This is my country, Salem, and you can’t do that here. I’ve promised to protect all people in South Africa – local or foreign – from hostile forces and Leila Elhasomi depended on me for protection. I just wish I’d been able to save her.’
Salem’s eyes widened and beads of perspiration appeared on his forehead. All the while, he was thinking of escape.
‘What’s happening?’
‘You can’t expect to just walk away.’
Salem looked through the rear window of the Mercedes. ‘Where’s Dahdi?’
Durant sighed. ‘Sorry, Dahdi’s with us. He’s Jewish, like you. He even agrees with some of your sentiments, but he absolutely doesn’t agree with your methods.’
A heavily armed task force police officer pulled open the car door from the outside and forcibly jerked Salem out. Two other task force members leapt onto him as he fell onto the concrete and rolled him over. As they handcuffed him, Salem tried to lift his head, but was prevented by a combat boot.
He became aware of a face close to his ear.
‘I’m Inspector Heath of the South African Police Services. Benjamin Salem, I’m arresting you for the murders of Farouk Ali and Leila Elhasomi.’
Durant looked up and saw Amina running towards the car. She hugged him and laughed. ‘You’ve just got your life back. Congratulations.’
‘Teamwork,’ Durant replied, and felt the adrenalin pumping through his body.
‘What a day!’ Amina said. ‘The hardest part was getting you to the office when Dahdi phoned and said he’d found Salem. I felt terrible.’
‘Dahdi did well. Since I’ve known him he’s been trying to make peace with himself.’
‘We wouldn’t have done it without him.’
‘Delivering Salem to us was his ultimate sacrifice – betraying one of his own. Don’t you love this job, Ami?’ he said bitterly.
She smiled sadly at the pain behind Durant’s words. ‘I wish Mike could have been here with us.’
Durant nodded. ‘Salem probably won’t be charged for murder. The only real evidence against him is the video tape. And that can’t leave my safe. The state would rather let a murderer go free than suffer the embarrassment of admitting to bugging a diplomat.’
‘Was it all worth it, Kevin?’
‘Of course. The objective was achieved. A crime boss,
WMD
procurer and a spy and his network have all been neutralised. I think South Africans can sleep better tonight.’
‘And how about you? Will you sleep better tonight?’
Durant half smiled. ‘Ami, I never sleep well at night. This operation cost a lot. I’ve got many debts to repay, most of them to my family.’
Amina looked around as Salem was pushed unceremoniously into the back seat of a police car. ‘Masondo phoned while you were busy.’
‘To congratulate us?’
‘Ah, no. He said if he sees you at the office next week, you’re fired.’
Durant raised his eyebrows and shook his head. ‘Then I’m fired. Our work’s never done. Mojo’s already taken over Ali’s operations, and we suspect he killed Mike. We owe it to Mike to wrap up the investigation we started. You in?’
Amina shook her head. ‘I’m out.’
Thandi Shezi was in the yard, staring at the never-ending green hills and valleys beyond with a deep calm. Her pregnant body was uncomfortable and weighty, but the life she felt inside energised her. The doctor said it was a boy and she knew Mike had always wanted a boy. She didn’t remember even taking the decision to have children; the days before Mike left and never came back she had felt a sense of foreboding about the future which made her scared. An extra mouth to feed. How would it be possible? Mike’s optimism had always inspired her and made her believe in the impossible. It had been a leap of faith. It had been an act of God.
She had so much to thank God for, but most of all, for Kevin and Stephanie. They had treated her like a sister and had helped her through her grief. Kevin had vowed to find Mike’s murderer and she graciously encouraged him, knowing full well that he never would. Perhaps the effort, the investigation, the pursuit of the ideal would give him closure. As for her, she already had it. Finding the note Mike left her brought her to an emotional and moral crossroads. The note had been just a few words: ‘My love, this is the only way. I promised you and your family a better life, and now you’ll have it. Forgive me. I love you more than you’ll ever know.’
She had stared at the handwritten note for the entire day, hoping the words would make sense, hoping there was a deeper meaning to what she saw, hoping it was all just a bad dream and that there wasn’t a note, or it was part of some deception, or a fake. It would have been easier to live with, easier to accept if there wasn’t a note. It would have been easier if Mike had been murdered. Murdered by the vicious criminals he had dedicated his life to neutralising. Durant would find the murderers. They had the motive; Mike had plenty of enemies. When she touched the burning edge of a match to the note and watched it burn into thin slivers of charred paper and blow into the air, Thandi felt a great sense of relief and irrevocability. It made the interviews with the police that much easier. No, he would never kill himself. Did she suspect he was murdered? Yes, he had many enemies. No, there was no suicide note. There was never a suicide note. Yes, he died a hero.
‘Freeze!’
Mojo didn’t freeze; instead he leapt up onto a catwalk running between two containers and then turned and fired two shots. The first one caught the task force policeman in his bulletproof vest and sent him stumbling backwards. The second went wide and struck the metal of a shipping container close to where Durant and Heath took cover. Durant fell backwards, grazing his elbow on the tar and Heath grimaced in pain as a shard of metal tore into his left eyebrow. There were four more bangs, this time louder; clearly a heavy-calibre rifle. Durant rolled over in time to see Mojo’s body fall sideways, first against the catwalk railings, and then off the catwalk onto the tarmac five metres below. Durant saw a task force officer’s smoking rifle still on his shoulder and there were a few seconds of silence.
‘Damn!’ Durant shouted as he ran towards the body.
‘Get down!’ someone shouted, but Durant kept running. The officer who shot him got to Mojo at the same time as Durant. The back of Mojo’s skull was missing, and the officer lowered his weapon.
‘He’s dead,’ Durant said simply. ‘Alive would have been better.’
Heath and another plain-clothes detective ran up to where Durant was kneeling over the crumpled form of Mojo. Heath’s forehead was bleeding copiously now, but he seemed oblivious to it. Durant felt cold and his head was pounding. A green key ring shaped like Africa hung on a chain around Mojo’s neck. ‘Mike’s! That’s Mike’s!’
Heath lifted the key ring with his pen. ‘You sure?’
‘He had Mike’s key ring! He had to take a damn trophy.’
Durant dialled Masondo’s number.
‘Chief. Mojo’s been shot. Yes, dead. Evading arrest, fired a few shots and the police fired back. But we found Mike’s key ring on him. He killed Mike.’ Yes, it’s better this way, he thought as he took time to process the facts. Mike had been killed. After all those months of wondering. Mojo had killed Mike and taken a trophy. It’s better that Mojo’s dead. Thandi wouldn’t have been up to a trial, not with a small baby. It would have just reopened the wounds.
***
‘Be careful!’ Amina shook her head as the boy hung upside down by his legs from the jungle gym. ‘Don’t fall!’
She smiled and looked at the children playing in the garden, the boys in the sandpit, the girls colouring in at the small tables. The crèche, as demanding as it was, was still relaxing to her. The most dramatic event of the day had been washing sand out of a three-year-old’s eye. She felt a little sad sometimes, thinking back. Intelligence was still in her blood. Whenever parents brought a child to her crèche, she always questioned them further than necessary. She caught herself being suspicious of the smallest, most insignificant thing. To her shame, she inevitably scrutinised the parents’ occupations, asked the children about where they’d travelled to, and interacted with the mothers to glean information about the fathers. No useful piece of information escaped her attention. Perhaps that paranoia, that inquisitiveness, would go away eventually. Perhaps it wouldn’t.
‘Hello?’
‘Hi, it’s Kevin. How’s life in the slow lane?’
‘Jealousy makes you nasty.’
‘You’re starting to sound like your kids!’
‘No, I haven’t changed my mind. I’m not coming back.’
‘What a pity; I really miss you.’
‘I miss you too. Hey, I had a guy this week who says he goes to South America every month on business. Isn’t that odd? Don’t you think it’s odd?’
‘Amina, stop thinking like an intelligence officer; start thinking like a nursery-school teacher. Here is the news …’
‘You got Mojo?’
‘Well, sort of. We almost had him. The idiot started shooting at the police, so they shot back. Killed him.’
‘Killed him?’
‘Yip. He had Mike’s green Africa key ring on him.’
‘Mike’s key ring. Really?’
‘So the investigating officer’s closing the case.’
‘Amazing. So that whole thing’s over?’
‘It’s over. I’m taking some leave, spending some time with the family.’
‘You deserve it, Kevin, go on, enjoy yourself.’
‘Thanks for your contribution to the case. It was long and tough, but we did it.’
Amina smiled into the phone. For her, the toughest part had always been going home in the evenings.
Stephanie leaned over and kissed Durant.
‘Bye.’ She was dressed in a smart black business suit, and perfectly made up.
‘Have a nice day,’ Durant said, hitching Alexis onto his lap.
Her phone rang as she ran out the door, clutching a briefcase and a folder. She put the phone to her ear. ‘Yes? Impossible. I want those goods delivered by tomorrow. You can’t create a demand and then not supply. If you delay, I lose business. No, that’s unacceptable. Put me through to dispatch.’
Durant smiled. Stephanie was back.
Emile Dahdi looked across at the worshippers at Jerusalem’s Western Wall and his eyes fell on a lone figure. He walked up to Salem and touched him on the shoulder.
‘Shalom Aleichem.’
‘What do you want?’ Salem asked.
‘You think I betrayed you. I saved you.’
‘And how is that?’
‘You would have been a fugitive for the rest of your life. They might have even killed you. You would not have served the memory of your daughter well.’