floor.
She found the phone just as it beeped, signalling she had a message.
‘Sannie?’ Wessels said.
She ignored him for the moment, as the voicemail service told her she had one message.
‘ Sannie, it’s Tom. Listen to me, this is very, very important. Wessels, your boss, is working with them… with the gang. You have to stay away from him. Take the kids somewhere safe and wait for me to get back from Malawi. I’m going to get on the first plane out of here and fly back, and…’
‘Sannie, I need to talk to you, in private,’ Wessels said from behind her.
She smelled him. The cheap aftershave she’d once been prepared to overlook. She let her free hand casually fall into the sports bag. Slowly, she sifted through the clothes.
‘Put the phone down, Sannie, this can’t wait.’
As she turned her head, lowering the phone, she saw him casually brush his jacket to one side. She saw how the weight of the spare magazine in his coat pocket aided the movement, how it started to swing open. She glimpsed the black metal of his pistol, and saw where his fingers were heading.
Sannie’s hand closed around the hilt of her dead husband’s diving knife. She drew back her other hand and threw her mobile phone at Henk’s head. It bounced off him, barely causing him to check his pace.
‘Run!’ she screamed at her kids as she pulled the knife from the bag. With her now free hand she ripped off the plastic sheath and discarded it. She lunged at Wessels and felt the blade’s movement slow as it ran along the side of his belly, under his open suit jacket. ‘Get out!’ she said to Christo again, who was transfixed.
Wessels grunted and looked down as the red smear stained his white business shirt. There was a rent in the fabric, but Sannie thought she had only cut him, not penetrated any vital organs. She snatched back her hand to stab again, but Wessels bellowed with rage and lashed out with the back of his hand, the blow catching Sannie across the side of the head. She staggered back against the breakfast bar, clutching for support with her free hand.
Christo grabbed Ilana by the forearm and ran out the back door of the house, from the kitchen. Sannie righted herself and lunged again at Wessels, her primal protective instincts seeking to keep herself between danger and her children.
‘Bitch,’ he hissed, this time drawing his pistol.
She threw herself on him as he paused to rack the weapon, grabbing the slide with his left hand and pulling it back to chamber a round. Sannie stabbed blindly and felt the knife sink into flesh. Wessels toppled backwards onto the floor.
Sannie pulled on the hilt to free the blade, but the pressure inside Wessels’ stomach was sucking at the steel, holding it in. She grunted with the effort, but Wessels recovered his wits. He was at least twenty kilograms heavier than she, and, even wounded, far stronger. He flung her off him with his free hand, and lashed out with his foot, kicking her in the ribs and sending her sliding another metre from him.
Wessels stood and grabbed the knife handle. He bellowed, a low, animalistic groan as he wrenched it free. A spurt of bright blood followed the terrible sucking noise and Wessels staggered, the colour draining from his face as he fought the pain. He dropped the knife, but raised his pistol at the same time. He fired once, the noise like a small explosion in the confines of the house.
Sannie’s first instinct was to run out the back, but she knew that would draw the killer after her, and he would have a clear shot at either her or her kids. Instead, she stood and ran towards him, weaving as he fired another erratic shot. She hit him hard in the chest with all her weight, and pushed him onto his back again. She clawed at his eyes and grabbed his pistol hand with one of hers, trying to wrest the gun from him.
Wessels wrenched his gun hand from her clutch, drew it back and with the butt of the weapon landed a vicious blow on Sannie’s temple. The force stunned her, and she slumped against him.
‘Now you fucking die,’ he said, wheezing with pain and the shortness of breath from her charge, which had winded him. He turned the gun so that the barrel was against her head.
‘Why, Henk…?’ Sannie blinked to try to focus on his face. ‘Why my children?’
‘Khan’s caretaker in the Timbavati called them, in Malawi, and told them Furey was on their tail. I tracked his border crossings through Interpol. It was only a matter of time before he found Greeves. Furey’s a nobody, but if he told you, and you got the authorities here involved, then it would have all gone to shit for them. They wanted me to buy your silence, but I told them you were too high-minded to take a bribe. I told them the only thing that would keep you quiet was your kids’ safety. Roberts told you not to tell me what he wanted you to do, Sannie, but you did. What kind of a fucking mother are you?’
She stared into his eyes. ‘I hope hell exists.’
Christo had run outside and led his screaming little sister to a backyard shed, where he had ordered her to wait. Hearing the gunshots inside, he knew his mother was in mortal danger. He thought of his father, and the terrible, terrible memories of the funeral. He had only been little then, but he hoped he would never again have to see someone laid out in a box and then buried in the ground. He ran down the side of the house, back to the front door. It was still open. He paused. In the distance he heard police sirens. Help was coming, but how long would it take for the police to arrive? He heard a crash inside, and the sound of something or someone falling over. His mom needed him.
He crept inside and saw the pair of them, Captain Wessels and his mother, lying on the floor. His mother’s boss had his gun at her head. Christo saw the bloodied knife on the floor, just behind them.
Christo hesitated. This couldn’t be right. Captain Wessels was a good man. He’d heard his mother say so. Then the captain said something bad — called his mother a bad name.
Christo ran forward and scooped up the knife.
Wessels turned his head at the sound behind him and looked up into the grim-set face of the small boy.
Sannie watched Wessels’s hand move, the squat black barrel of the pistol travelling towards her son’s face.
‘No!’ she screamed. Half rolling, she sank her teeth into his wrist and bit down as hard as she could. The gun discharged again, nearly deafening her, but she clamped her jaws tighter, not stopping even when she felt the first spurts of blood in her mouth.
She was aware of movement above her, and a momentary reflection of light on polished stainless steel as the knife came down in an arc, and into Henk Wessels’s right eye.
Tom heard a moan from inside the lodge.
He wiped the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. Khan had stopped his crying — for good, he thought. Tom looked up over the raised deck of the verandah and heard the groaning again.
He’d tried three times to get a number for the Malawian police, first at Cape Maclear, and then at headquarters in Lilongwe, but each time he’d got one — from UK directory assistance who put him through to Malawi — the number was either wrong or simply rang off.
Janet Greeves had shown she was ready to kill, and he didn’t fancy going into a darkened building to flush her out. His strategy was to sit tight until daylight and try either to negotiate with her, then take her into custody, or keep trying until he made contact with the local police. The other unknown was Nick Roberts. He was supposedly en route, and Tom tightened his hand on the pistol grip of Khan’s AK 47 in anticipation of that showdown.
The satellite phone rang.
Tom looked at the screen and saw the caller identification had been blocked.
‘Hello,’ he said into the handset.
‘Khan?’
There was a noise behind the voice, like the whining of a motor. Tom turned the phone away from him slightly, to muffle his voice. ‘Yes.’
‘The sun will shine on those who stand.’
Shit, Tom thought. It was obviously a coded challenge, and Tom had no idea of what the reply was. ‘What did you say?’
‘Is that you, Furey?’
Tom said nothing.
Nick laughed on the other end of the crackly satellite connection. ‘I heard the gunfire. I wondered if it had all gone pear-shaped. If you’ve got Khan’s phone, then he’s dead. Have you met our Janet yet?’
