Family was no good. That was the first place Mentz would look. Friends were also dangerous.
So where?
Allison Healy lit a cigarette in her car before turning the key. She inhaled the smoke and blew a stream at the windshield, watching the smoke dissipate against it.
A long day. A strange day.
Woke up and looked for a story and found a complication.
Moments of truth. Tonight she had wanted to write another intro.
Thobela Mpayipheli, the fugitive motorcyclist, is a former hit man for the KGB.
No.
Thobela Mpayipheli, the man the media had dubbed the ?big, bad BMW biker,? is a former KGB assassin.
She had broken off-the-record agreements before.
It was a nebulous agreement at best. People didn?'t always mean what they said. The source talked and talked and talked, and somewhere along the way said, ?You can?t write that,? and in the end no one remembered what was on the record and what was off. Of course, the really juicy bits, the real news, lay in those areas. Some people used it as a ?cover my ass? mechanism but actually wanted you to write it as long as they could protest, ?I told her it was off the record.?
Sometimes you wrote regardless.
Sometimes you trespassed knowingly, weighing up the consequences, and
and if people were angry? they would get over it, because they needed you, you were the media. With others it didn?'t matter? let them be angry, they got what they deserved.
Tonight the temptation was exceedingly strong.
What had prevented her?
She took out her cell phone. She felt her heart bump in her chest.
She searched for the number under receiveD CALLS. Pressed the button and put the phone to her ear.
Three, four, five rings. ?Van Heerden.?
?There is something you said that I don'?t understand.?
He did not answer immediately. In the silence there was meaning.
?Where are you??
?On the way home.?
?Where do you live??
She gave him the address.
?I?ll be there in half an hour.?
She put the phone in her bag and pulled deeply on the cigarette.
35.
It was difficult to watch the compass, to gauge their altitude, keep an eye on the crew, and get the sports bag out of the luggage case while juggling the HK in one hand.
He did it step-by-step, aware of the need to concentrate. Nothing need happen quickly, he just had to stay alert and monitor all the variables. He placed the bag next to him.
He pulled up the shirt to get at the wound. It did not look good.
He heard the first Rooivalk arriving at the scene, listened to the reports. Heard the Rooivalk?s orders to come after them.
They knew he was going to Botswana.
It was the voice from this morning.
Not yet, Captain Mazibuko. Not yet.
Mazibuko barking out,
It was the pilot who looked around, disgusted at the Xhosa?s presence here. The injustice registered with Thobela, but that was irrelevant now.
But his status
relevant. And that had changed dramatically. From illegal courier, in their perspective, to murderer. Although
