The Devil's breath

later in the day than when the picture was taken. The tide would have shifted quite a bit, but she could make allowances. The deep-water harbor would also have had a lot of shipping moving through the port, so the ebb and flow of the displaced water would have influenced where the body ended up, although there was no way she could ever work that out. She would stick with the tides, she decided.

“ ‘Scuse me, can you tell me when high tide is?”

The man with a clipboard, talking into a two-way connected to an overhead crane, had just guided a container down from ship to shore.

He looked at her, liking what he saw. She was attractive. The flying cap shielded her eyes, but he could see they were blue with a fleck of green, and she had a great smile.

“Why would you want to know that?” He smiled at her.

“My dad is buying me a kayak.”

“Lucky girl. But you should be over at the marina, not here.” The man couldn’t take his eyes off her. There was a squawk on the radio which he ignored. “You have to be careful out there. Tides are fast. And what with the trawlers over there and the seals, well, they bring in the sharks. You don’t want to get tipped into the water. You shouldn’t be wandering down here, either. Harbor’s a rough place.”

Kallie glanced around. Dockside workers were coming and going, forklift trucks ferried smaller crates around. She was sure that if anyone tried anything, there were enough people around to help.

“I’m just checking the place out, there’s a lot of shipping out there. All a bit scary.” She was unsure whether the look of worry on her face conveyed the right degree of helplessness.

“Yeah. It changes all the time. There’s usually a couple of meters between tides. Look, I’ve got my break coming up, why don’t we go and have a cup of coffee and I’ll tell you whatever you need to know.”

“Thanks, but my dad wouldn’t like that.”

“Well, maybe you don’t have to tell your dad everything you do.”

“He’d find out anyway.”

“You think?”

“Yeah. He’s head of police here,” she lied easily. She could barely keep herself from laughing aloud at the look on the man’s face. “But thanks anyway.”

She walked past him as he managed to mutter, “No problem.”

The quayside was one and a half kilometers long, divided into eight berths for the big ships. Kallie walked its length; every berth was full except for the one at the end, and two tugs were busy fussing and nudging a big container ship into place.

If Anton Leopold’s body had been found, or at least photographed, at the time the police said it was, it must have bobbed down the tide from one of these furthest points. A chain-link fence topped with razor wire stopped her getting any closer to the ship being edged against the quayside. This berth had its own unloading facility; a massive shed acted as an on-shore warehouse and she could see containers stacked inside. On the far side of the shed, a barrier, manned by an armed guard, was the only way in or out of the facility. An emblem was painted on the roof of the warehouse, identifying the company: a cobra, its fangs bared, entwined itself around a spear, which she recognized as an assegai, the short, broad-bladed stabbing spear used by Zulu warriors in their many wars. On each side of the spear was the letter S. She caught her breath. SS-Shaka Spear. Chang’s company owned the facility.

A shadow appeared. Kallie turned. The man she had spoken to minutes earlier was standing a few meters behind her. She had boxed herself in-the wire fence behind her, stacked containers to her left and, to her right, the sea.

Now the man had an unpleasant smile-his tongue licked his lips nervously. “So, you’re more interested in Mr. Chang’s ships than in me.”

The big ship had been nudged against the quayside. She looked up at the name bending across the curved stern: Zulu King. Shaka Chang owned the shipping line and the warehouse, and he was bringing in hundreds of containers. If Anton Leopold had seen this, had it aroused his suspicions? Had he found out what was in that warehouse, or in the containers? As thoughts raced through her mind, the man reached out and caught her by surprise. Twisting her around, he dragged her into the stacked containers’ dark alleyway. She struggled, but he clamped his callused, oil-smeared hand, as rough as sand, over her mouth.

“You can scream as much as you want when I’m finished with you,” he growled.

The stench of his breath made her want to gag. She dropped her shoulders, reached behind her, dug her nails into his face and eyes, and then rammed her heel down his shin into his instep, just as her dad had taught her. The man yelled in pain, but still he kept hold of her despite her struggling. She sank her teeth into his hand, yanking his wrist down as she did so, and, as she held his arm as tightly as she could away from her mouth, screamed: “FIRE! FIRE!”

He tightened his grip on her but she kept screaming, “FIRE! FIRE!” And then she did what her dad had said might be the last resort in attack, she willed herself to relax every muscle in her body and collapsed in a heap. Even strong men could lose their hold on a dead weight. She had to be ready to roll clear when she hit the ground. She went down; the sudden lack of resistance took the man by surprise and he failed to hold her.

She rolled. He stumbled over her, fell forward and tried to stop himself from slamming into the nearest container. His hand partially broke his fall, but he banged his head on the harsh, ribbed metal. It was enough for Kallie to break free, get to her feet and run.

As she raced back into the sunlight, three or four men were running from one of the ships being unloaded. In a split second she knew that if they were hostile she would plunge into the freezing water and take her chances with the current and the sharks. But as soon as they saw her, one of them shouted, “Where’s the fire?” A quayside blaze could be deadly serious, especially with a ship riding high out of the water, less than thirty meters away, its fuel tanks nearly empty except for highly explosive fumes.

Kallie pointed towards the containers and, as they went past her, she ran as hard as she could in the opposite direction. She wanted to get as far away from the danger and violence as she could. At least in the wilderness savage animals could be identified.

Max had spent the last few hours trying to come to an understanding about what!Koga and the others had told him. He had inherited his father’s sense of practicality, of not believing in any waffle or mumbo-jumbo about seeing the future, trances or seances or just about anything that he couldn’t experience directly. Scientists liked to prove things, and if the data and research added up, then the results were duly accepted-up to a point, or until someone else came along with a better argument. But his dad had also taught him to respect other cultures. Emotional belief was a powerful force to be reckoned with and, if!Koga and the others believed that the BaKoko, the shapeshifter, could take on the form of animals, then Max was going to have a hard time convincing them that there was no reason on earth why!Koga would, or should, kill him.

These were just thoughts. What Max needed was to take action, and if some crazy guy’s vision was distancing the boy who had helped him this far, then Max had to press on alone. All day the Bushmen had gone about their business in the camp, but!Koga had also stayed away from him, keeping to himself, obviously as troubled about the prophecy as Max was confounded by it. So Max had decided he would make his own way from the camp. He only needed a general direction to follow, and the sun’s journey across the sky would give him that. And his watch; without!Koga’s instinctive sense of direction, he would use it to navigate his way onwards. It used to be his father’s and was Max’s prized possession. If Max held it horizontally so that the number 12 pointed towards the sun, then the midpoint between that and the hour hand would give him the north-south line.

He was ready to go. He would steal provisions. He had identified where the women stored water in empty ostrich eggs, and the dried meat hanging in strips would keep him going for a few days. He realized he could not simply wander off; he needed a way out of the camp. For the past couple of hours he had moved casually through the area, behind the grass huts, near where the children played, and had skirted the hunters, who now slept in the heat of the day. There were two ways he could strike out-the first through the gnarled shepherd’s trees, which were low enough to obscure the upright figure of someone moving away. A hundred meters or so from the camp, the trees were less dense and he would have to sweep around the far edge of the settlement. He caught himself thinking that what he was actually doing was not continuing on his journey but escaping from a threat of death.

There was a second option for a way of escape. The trees behind one of the huts had been cut down to form