Dead at Daybreak

“Found anything?” she asked.

“I don’t know.” He couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice.

“You upset?”

“He wasn’t a good correspondent. He didn’t know why we would need the letters one day.”

“My partner will complete the preparation of the interdict. It’s virtually ready.”

“Thank you.”

“And Military Intelligence took the answering machine. Marie says the telephone still rings occasionally but she doesn’t answer it.”

He nodded. He sketched the background to the letters, explained his plans and notes. He shifted the packet of photographs toward her. “We’re looking for the faces on this list.”

She nodded and picked them up, the faded color snapshots, bleached to pastel. She saw there were inscriptions on the back, as she put down one face after another; some had dates, some differing handwriting. De Jager senior and junior? She read the inscriptions first, then turned over the pictures. Boys’ faces, she thought. Too young to be soldiers. Excessive exuberance for the camera. Tired faces sometimes. Sometimes small figures in bush country, savanna, semidesert.

“Would you like some coffee?”

“Please.”

She went to the kettle, hesitated, walked down the passage. Carolina de Jager, Wilna van As, and Joan van Heerden were in the living room. They were speaking quietly, smiled at her as she peeped in. While she waited for the water to boil, she thought about the women who always remained behind, the widows and the mothers and the loved ones.

She took the two mugs back to the table, sat down, looked at Van Heerden, reading the letters, a slight frown of concentration, the two of them, working together, a team. She picked up the pile of photos.

“Porra, Clinton, and De Beer” – written on the back of a photo. She turned it over and they stood, arms over one another’s shoulders, in full uniform, smiling broadly. They looked so…innocent. She put it aside.

Four photos later, “Speckle playing the guitar.” The picture was taken with a flash at night, the lighting bad.

“Cobus and me carrying water.” She recognized the young Johannes Jacobus Smit/ Rupert de Jager. He and a sturdy boy were struggling with a large, evidently heavy drum through dusty white sand.

“Sarge Schlebusch,” she saw on the back of one photo. She turned it over. A young white-blond man without a shirt, wearing only army pants and boots, his torso shining and hairless and muscled, large rifle in one hand, the other shoving a threatening forefinger at the camera, the mouth verbalizing at the moment of the click, the upper lip curled back in derision. There was something…a shudder shook her. “Zatopek,” she said, and held out the photograph. He put down a letter, took it, looked at it.

“It’s Schlebusch,” she said. He turned the picture over for a moment, read the inscription, turned it back, and stared at it for a long time and intently, as if he wanted to take the man’s measure.

Then he looked at her. “We’ll have to be careful,” he said.

“I know,” she said. “I know.”

¦

The black man was a terrifying size, tall and broad, and on his cheek a zigzag scar ran down to his neck. Next to him stood a colored guy, short and painfully thin, with the finely chiseled features of a male model.

“Orlando sent us. I’m Tiny Mpayipheli. This is Billy September. The weapons are in the car,” said the black man, and he gestured with his thumb over his shoulder to a new Mercedes-Benz ML 320 at the front door.

“Come in,” said Van Heerden. They walked to the living room.

“Lord save us,” said Carolina de Jager when she saw Mpayipheli.

“And protect us,” said the big man, and he smiled, showing a perfect set of teeth. “Why don’t they write hymns like that anymore?”

“You know the old hymn book?” Carolina asked.

“My father was a missionary, ma’am.”

“Oh.”

Van Heerden introduced everyone.

“You’ll have to share the spare bedroom,” said Joan van Heerden. “But I don’t know if the bed is going to be long enough for you.”

“I brought my own bedding, thank you,” said Mpayipheli in a voice like a bass cello. “And we’ll sleep in shifts. I just want to know whether there’s an M-Net channel here.”

“M-Net?” said Van Heerden blankly.

“Tiny is a weird Xhosa,” said Billy September. “Likes rugby more than soccer. And on Saturday it’s the Sharks against Western Province.”

Joan van Heerden laughed. “I’ve got M-Net because I don’t miss my soaps.”

“We’ve died and gone to heaven,” said September. “I’m a Bold and the Beautiful fan myself.”

“Do you want to look at the weapons now?”

Van Heerden nodded and they walked to the car outside. September opened the trunk.

“Are you the weapons expert?” Hope asked the small guy.

“No, Tiny is.”

“And what’s your…speciality?” asked Van Heerden.

“Unarmed combat.”

“You’re not serious.”

“He is,” said Mpayipheli, and he lifted a blanket from the trunk of the Mercedes. “I didn’t bring a large assortment. Orlando says it’s window dressing because none of you can shoot.”

“I can,” said Hope.

“You’re not serious,” said September, a perfect echo of Van Heerden’s intonation.

There was a small arsenal under the blanket. “It’ll be better if you take the SW99,” he said to her, and took out a pistol. “Collaborative effort of Smith and Wesson and Walther. Nine millimeter, ten pounds in the magazine, one in the barrel. It’s not loaded. You can take it.”

“It’s too big for me.”

“Is there somewhere we can shoot?”

Van Heerden nodded. “Beyond the trees. It’s the farthest from the stables we can get.”

“You’ll see. It handles easily,” Mpayipheli said to Hope. “Polymer frame. And if you can’t handle it” – he took out another pistol, smaller – “this is the Colt Pony Pocketlight, .38 caliber. Firepower enough.” He turned to Van Heerden. “This is the Heckler and Koch MP-5. Fires from a closed and locked bolt in either automatic or semiautomatic mode. It’s the basic weapon of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team and the SWAT units and it’s what you want when you work at close quarters and you’re not a good shot. Can you really not shoot?”

“I can shoot.”

“Without hitting anything,” said September, and giggled.

“With that mouth I sincerely hope you’re really good at unarmed combat.”

“You want to try me, Van Heerden? Do you want firsthand credentials, so to speak?”

“Zatopek,” said Hope Beneke.

“Come on, Van Heerden, don’t chicken out. Go for it.”

“Billy,” said Mpayipheli.

He measured the small man. “You don’t scare me.”

“Hit me, PI man. Show me what you got.” Mocking, tempting, challenging.

And then Van Heerden hit at him, open-handed, annoyed, and lost his balance, felt himself falling, and then he lay on the gritty gravel of his mother’s drive with Billy September’s knee on his chest and his pointed fingers lightly against his throat. And September said: “Japanese Karate Association, JKA, Fourth Dan. Don’t fuck with me,” and then he laughed and put out his hand to help Van Heerden up.