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South Africa
Thabo Nkosi was tired but content.
The eight-year-old trotted by the side of the N1, the freeway that began in Cape Town and ended at the border of Zimbabwe. It was the first section in the famed Cape-to-Cairo Road.
Thabo was on the outskirts of Kraaifontein, a small town to the northeast of the larger city.
He had been wandering up and down in Brackenfell, a Cape Town suburb, selling his wares to cars that stopped at traffic lights.
Carved, wooden eagles and lions, beads, plastic jewelry. He carried them in his backpack and hung them off a metal rack that he carried in his hand.
He had on a faded, grimy tee that had once been white. Khaki shorts that came to his knees and worn sandals on his feet.
His head was bare. He had a water-bottle in his backpack and some food.
It had been a good day. He had sold two lions to an American family and three eagles to other tourists.
He patted his pocket where he had the rands notes rolled up, and glanced at the sky. The sun had set, and darkness was rolling in fast.
His father sold his wares in the same neighborhood but on the other side of the highway.
It was another kilometer to join his papa in the public clearing that was hired out for sports events. The vendors had rented it for a few nights. It was where they all had a braai, spent some time together, before each family went to their own homes. These get-togethers happened in the summer, organized by the vendors to give the children a break from their routines.
It was the only life Thabo knew. Go to school in the morning, sell wares in the evening and then join his father later.
His papa was a man of few words and he spoke even less after his mother had been killed. Those had been difficult days, but he and his father had pulled through and had gotten closer to each other.
Thabo skipped, humming, as he ran. Bandile, his close friend, had promised to show him how to carve an eagle, and he was eager to meet his friend before they had dinner.
It was dark by the time he reached the field where the street vendors set up camp.
Thabo frowned when he saw it was dark and silent. He should have been able to hear the sounds of cooking and people and smelled the food.
He got off the freeway’s shoulder and climbed the earthen bank to the field.
The vendors’ bakkies, vans, were there. Vans and cars as well, parked deep in the field. They were dark and seemed to be empty.
There were two vehicles where the cookout should have been. They looked black, but it was hard to make their colors out in the night.
Both were pointing to the north and had their headlights turned on.
Thabo was about four hundred meters from them.
He could see three men in the light, their backs to him.
He crouched low instinctively when he got on the field and looked around.
Now he saw the tents, the temporary shelters the vendors had put up for the evening, their lighter colors contrasting against the earth, but they were destroyed and lay on the ground. He couldn’t see anyone else, and it was too dark to make anything out.
He heard one of the men raise his voice.
Thabo fell to his belly and wondered what he should do.
He decided to crawl closer. Maybe his papa was with the men.
He heard another voice. It seemed to plead.
He cocked his head. That sounded like … he listened hard.
Yes! It was his father.
Fear gripped Thabo.
He shrugged out of his backpack, placed it on the ground and crawled faster to the men.
Got close enough to see between them.
He gasped.
His father was on his knees.
The three men had guns.
One of them rumbled softly.
Thabo couldn’t hear what he said.
His father shook his head.
The man raised his voice.
Still, Thabo couldn’t make his words out.
His father tried to stand up.
The man shot him in the head.
Thabo blinked.
He looked away and back again.
His father was on the ground.
‘PAPA!’ he screamed and shot towards the men.
He ran, his small legs pumping, lungs bursting, ignoring the men who spun around at him and weaving between their legs, then felt something smash into his head.
He fell on his father, who lay unmoving.
His vision started darkening.
‘He’s just a kid,’ he heard a voice say.
‘He saw us,’ another man replied. ‘We can’t take any chances.’
Thabo tried to rise and then he heard a sound, and he heard nothing else.
New York
Cutter Grogan was in his loft office on Lafayette Street.
Sprawled in his chair. Feet propped on his desk.
A paper bag within reach.
It held his lunch sandwich and a couple of pastries.
Not anymore, he growled inwardly.
In front of him were his visitors.
FBI Special-Agent-In-Charge Peyton Quindica and her partner, New York Police Department First Detective, Gina Difiore.
Quindica led a high-profile Joint FBI-NYPD Task Force and reported only to the federal agency’s director. The unit went after terrorists, organized crime, international gangs—high-visibility cases. Difiore, on long-term secondment from the NYPD, was her deputy. Both women were rock stars in the agency, rising fast and destined to reach places in the FBI.
The two of them were a formidable team with the highest case-closure rate in the organization and often worked with allied countries’ law enforcement agencies.
They were among his closest friends.
Doesn’t feel like it sometimes. His lips thinned.
Quindica was in a chair opposite him, finishing off half of his sandwich.
The rest of it was in Difiore’s hands and even as he watched, she ate the last of it.
The detective’s butt was on his desk. Sideways to him. Her normal expression was one of distaste when she regarded him.
It was replaced with one of bliss when she held up the pastries.
They were from Lin Shun’s bakery. New Yorkers fought among themselves to get her delicacies fresh out of the oven, such was her repute.
Cutter stood in line patiently, gave his order, paid for it, brought it back to his office, locked it, turned off his phone … only for Difiore and Quindica to barge in, using their keys, and for the detective to grab the food from his hands.
It happened so frequently that he suspected the detective had ordered Lin Shun to tell her when he visited the bakery.
Boundaries, he thought bitterly when Difiore and Quindica ate the pastries. Difiore didn’t have any when it came to Lin Shun’s offerings.
Especially when Cutter had them in his possession.
His ownership of them was a minor, irrelevant detail to her.
‘That was mine,’ he snarled.
‘Was.’ She dusted her fingers, reached across his desk, uncapped a new bottle of water, which was also his, swigged from it, wiped her lips, and handed the bottle to her partner. ‘Now, where were we?’
He made to answer but his phone rang.
He took the call while
glowering at her. ‘Yeah,’ he rasped.
He stood up when the voice spoke. He felt as if he had been punched in the gut. ‘I’ll fly out today,’ he said hollowly and hung up.
He stood for a long time staring sightlessly until Difiore’s and Quindica’s voices registered.
‘Grogan.’ The detective tugged his sleeve. ‘What happened? Who was that?’
‘I have to go.’ He bent to his desk and brought out his passport.
‘Go where?’
‘Cape Town.’
‘What?’ She shot to her feet. ‘Why?’
‘My friend Sizwe Nkosi has been killed. His eight-year-old-son too. Thabo was my godson.’
He carded his fingers through his hair as his visitors looked on with shocked expressions.
‘This goes back several years,’ he said absently. ‘When I was still in the military.’
They were aware he had been in 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta, 1st SFOD-D, often referred to as Delta Forces. Special Forces then. He didn’t have to elaborate.
‘We were in Mozambique.’ His eyes took on a faraway look. ‘In the Cabo Delgado province. Our Green Berets had been stationed there to train that country’s army. My team was deployed in a covert operation. Five of us. No more. We were hunting Jorge Alawa, an Ansar al-Sunna member. That’s a militant outfit active in that region. Alawa was suspected of carrying out the bombing against the American Embassy in Paris. The one where—’
‘Five of our citizens and three French women were killed.’ Difiore nodded. ‘I remember.’ Her forehead creased. ‘Why were you deployed there?’
Cutter smiled grimly. ‘My unit was the closest. We were carrying out joint-training exercises with Recce, the South African Special Forces Brigade. We cut short our training.’ He went to the kitchen counter at the back of his office and filled three cups with Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee from a hot jug.
Served his visitors and rested his butt against his desk. Still the faraway look in his eyes. ‘Palma, a small city on the Indian Ocean coast, not far from the Tanzania border. About seventy-thousand people. A western oil company had an LNG base there. A lot of the city’s and the region’s economy was dependent on it. It was high profile. Controversial as well.’
He sipped. Utter silence from Difiore and Quindica, who watched him.
‘The militant group had taken over the city. It had killed several civilians. FADM, Mozambique Defense Armed Forces, was battling the insurgents. Our interest was in Alawa. He was suspected to be in a fancy hotel, the African Queen, near the docks. We were helo-ed to the edge of the city and drove in the night. Wore FADM uniforms. The military was fighting in the hotel too, where several civilians were sheltering.’
He straightened. ‘We were ambushed on the fourth floor. Bad intel. We believed Alawa to be on the fifth, but he was on the lower one and came from behind us. About twenty men with him and five of us. We ran out of ammo. FADM couldn’t come up either. They were pinned down by the terrorists. Alawa and I were fighting bare-handed. He had a knife to my throat. And then Sizwe and his team entered through a room. They had fast-roped from a heli, blew out the hotels’ windows and counter-attacked.’
‘Sizwe? Your friend?’ Quindica frowned.
‘Yeah. He was with South Africa’s Recce 5th Regiment. One of their Special Forces units. He saved my life that day. I saved his later that day when an insurgent attacked him. We became close friends. I visited his home several times in Cape Town and was there for Thabo’s first birthday. Zandile, his wife, was an army nurse. That’s how
they met. And now, he and his son are dead. I must go.’
‘Wait!’ Difiore stopped him when he straightened. ‘What happened? How was your friend there? You haven’t told us everything—’
‘Mozambique had requested South Africa’s assistance. That’s how he was there. Sizwe left the army a few years after the Palma operation. He and Zandile started a restaurant in Cape Town. She was killed in a home invasion. He broke down from that and never recovered. He cut off contact with me.’
He stuffed his passport in his jacket pocket, went to the wall safe behind a framed photograph, removed several wads of dollars and stowed them in his backpack.
‘Cutter.’ Quindica caught his sleeve and stopped at his cold, hard expression.
‘Sizwe became a street vendor. He got his son to work with him. Selling curios to tourists. I should have done more to help him. I didn’t. I should have gone to Cape Town and spent time with him. I didn’t. I was here.’ He waved at his office. ‘Making money. Thinking I was doing something valuable, while one of the best men I knew had broken down and was taking his son down the black hole he was in. And now they are dead. I need to be there.’
‘What are you going to do there?’ Difiore asked, shocked. ‘They’re dead. It’s a police matter.’
‘I’m going to start a war.’
Cutter got to the street. Not really taking it in, though he was dimly aware of the traffic and the usual hustle of the city.
He realized he had left the office without leading his guests out. He knew they would understand. Gina and Peyton will shut the door. It locks automatically.
Sizwe’s booming laugh and wide grin filled his mind as he went to the subway and got onto the train. Zandile’s gentle smile and the numerous dinners he’d had at their home. I saw Thabo just that once, at his first birthday. Why didn’t I visit more often? Why wasn’t I there when Sizwe broke down?
He took the D train at Broadway and got off at Columbus Circle. Walked a few blocks to Columbus Avenue and entered the mirrored building.
The lobby was empty other than an armed security guard at his desk. A familiar man.
Cutter nodded at him, went to the elevator car, and swiped it open with his card.
He knew various security systems had kicked in the moment he had neared the building’s entrance and had walked in.
Discreet cameras had captured his image and AI software had run facial recognition as well as gait analysis on him, and had identified him.
Further, the software had analyzed his clothing and had guessed the bulge on his jacket was his Glock in its shoulder holster.
The software could make such predictions based on the ginormous databases it had access to, ...
