the door open and went out. The wind was blowing. He closed the door behind him and found Ngubane?s number on the cell phone.
?Tim, are you aware that Organized Crime?s people aren?t guarding the mother anymore??
?No. I haven?t been there today. I called, but she didn?t say anything.?
?Jissis, they?re idiots.?
?Maybe they think she isn?t in danger anymore.?
?Maybe they think it?s not their problem now.?
?What can we do??
?I haven?t any spare people. My entire team is busy in Camps Bay.?
?I?ll talk to the sup.?
?Thanks, Tim.?
He gazed out over the city. The last rays of the sun reflected off the windows of the hotels in the Strand area. Was she in danger? His SVC team was watching Sangrenegra. His four henchmen were still in the cells.
Boef Beukes would know. He would know how big Sangrenegra?s contingent was. How many there were who did not live at the Camps Bay place. There had to be more. Local hangers-on, assistants, people involved: you don?t run such a big drug operation with only five people. He called SVC and asked if Captain Helena Louw was still there. They put him through and he asked her if she had Boef Beukes?s cell phone number.
?Just a minute,? she said. He waited until she came back and gave it to him.
?Thanks, Captain.? Could he trust her? With Domestic Violence part of the Organized Crime structure? Where did her loyalties lie?
He called Beukes. ?It?s Benny, Boef. I want to know why you withdrew Christine van Rooyen?s protection.?
?It?s your show now.?
?Jissis, Boef, don?t you think you might have told us??
?Did you tell us anything? When you decided to hang Carlos up for bait. Did you have the decency to consult with us??
?You feel fuck-all for her safety??
?It?s a question of manpower.? But there was something in his voice. He was lying.
?Fuck,? said Griessel. He ended the call and stood with his handset in his hand thinking, that?s the problem with the fucking Service, the jealousy, the competition, everyone had to fucking PEP, everyone was measured by Performance Enhancement Procedure and everyone?s balls were on the block. Now they were stabbing each other in the back.
Commissioner John Afrika had phoned him while he was on his way to Christine van Rooyen. Benny, are you sober? he had asked. He had said yes, Commissioner, and John Afrika had asked him, Are you going to stay sober and he said yes, Commissioner. Afrika said, I will get the people who ran to the papers, Benny. Matt Joubert tells me you are the best he has. He says you are on the wagon and that?s good enough for me, Benny, you hear? I will stand by you and I?m going to tell the papers that. But, fuck, Benny, if you drop me . . .
Because if he dropped the commissioner, then the commissioner?s PEP was blown to hell.
But he appreciated it that the man was standing by him. A colored man. He was thrown on the mercy of a colored man who had to swallow so much crap from the whites in the old days. How much mercy had John Afrika received, then?
He had said: ?I won?t drop you, Commissioner.?
?Then we understand each other, Benny.? There were a few beats of silence over the air, then John Afrika sighed and said, ?This backstabbing gets me down. I can?t get a grip on it.?
Griessel thought over his conversation with Beukes. Organized Crime were onto something. He knew it. That?s why they went to the papers. That?s why they withdrew the guard detail.
What?
He opened the sliding door; he couldn?t hang around out there forever.
Before he came in, while he was putting his phone away, he tried to think like Boef Beukes. Then he understood and he froze. Christine van Rooyen was OC?s bait. They were using
as an ambush. But for whom? For Sangrenegra?
His visit to Beukes?s office. The other detective there, the one in the suit and tie. Nobody dressed like that anymore. Who the fuck was that? The Scorpions, the special unit for the public prosecutor?
Never. Beukes and Co. would rather slit their wrists in the lavvy than work with the Scorpions.
He became aware that Christine had got up and was standing watching him.
?Are you okay??
?Yes,? he said. But would
be okay?
In the sultry late afternoon of a Highveld summer, at the New Road filling station between the old Pretoria Road and Sixteenth Avenue in Midrand, the stolen BMW 32
d stopped in front of the Quickshop. John Khoza and Andrew Ramphele got out and walked through the automatic glass doors. They walked casually up to the fast-food counter in the back of the shop.
