Pretorius sat in the back of the police van on his way to Johannesburg Central police station. When the cops had arrived to arrest him soon after Anderson had called them, they’d shunted him into the van without sympathy, their fingers bruising his arms as they’d cuffed them behind his back.
The cops had told him they were going to take him straight down to the cells, and that he would be questioned later that day. They’d told him he could call a lawyer if he wanted to, but Pretorius had declined.
The back of a police van wasn’t a comfortable ride, but it wasn’t bad compared to the back of a cash-in-transit vehicle. Especially when it was involved in a side-on collision with another vehicle.
Pretorius had been anticipating the crash, but even so it had shaken him. His neck was sore and surprisingly stiff. Whiplash, he supposed. He winced as they ramped over a speed hump. He couldn’t rub his neck with his hands cuffed behind him. For now he would just have to put up with the pain.
Pretorius wasn’t used to such treatment. Unlike most of the other gang members, he had no record. This was the first time he’d been arrested, but he understood that it had to be done.
He was glad when the van finally pulled to a stop in the police station parking area. They dragged him out and escorted him to a glass-panelled side door that led into a small office. There was a perfunctory search by a harassed and sweating sergeant. The man signed him in and completed a blurred form to say that Pretorius would now, for a short time, be a guest of the state.
‘Captain’s busy now,’ the sergeant said. ‘Leave him here. I’ll take him down to the holding cells. The Captain’ll question him later.’
The officers who’d arrested him nodded before walking back out to their car and driving away.
The sergeant patted down Pretorius’s pockets once more. He was sweating more profusely now. Pretorius watched, fascinated, as rivulets of perspiration formed on his temples and dribbled down his cheeks.
His hands stopped at the pocket he’d touched earlier on, the one where Pretorius knew the man had felt a bulge and heard a rustle. He prodded it, then slid his pudgy fingers inside.
The sergeant removed a plastic bank bag. Inside were sixty 100-rand notes folded into a thick wedge.
For some reason, the handover of the bribe money was the part of the operation that had worried Pretorius the most, but it went so smoothly it was over before it had begun. The sergeant didn’t look at Pretorius, didn’t make eye contact with him at all. The bank bag vanished into his own pocket with a speed that would have impressed a magician.
‘Come on down,’ he said.
He pushed Pretorius ahead of him, gripping his handcuffs from behind. The policeman’s fingers felt hot and slippery. They walked two flights of stairs and turned right, then left.
‘In here,’ he said.
The holding cell was the first one in the row. It had only one other occupant, the black man in the ill-fitting suit who had crashed the stolen Mercedes into the cash-in-transit van.
Pretorius and the black man exchanged conspiratorial glances.
The sergeant removed his handcuffs and hustled him inside.
‘Five minutes,’ he muttered.
The cell door clanged shut behind Pretorius.
Shut, but not locked.
The sergeant removed a gun and a cellphone from another of his pockets and passed them through the bars. He still didn’t look Pretorius in the eye, only talked to his hand as he took the phone and the weapon.
‘Go back up the stairs and out the entrance where you came in. Walk, don’t run. No shooting in the building. Carry the weapon concealed.’
Then he turned away and Pretorius heard the slap of his shoes as he trudged back up the stairs.
The two men waited together, exchanged a few whispered words. They didn’t need to say much because they’d both been thoroughly briefed. The bribe money would facilitate their escape from the holding cells. Jonas would be waiting, parked a short distance from the police station gates. Most likely he would be driving the black Audi, but otherwise Pretorius knew he should look out for another luxury car with tinted windows. They would shoot when they reached the gates if the guards there tried to stop them. More likely, though, they would simply stroll out as if they were departing visitors.
Pretorius rubbed his neck, pressing his fingers into the tender muscles. He was looking forward to seeing Jonas again. Jonas had been laying low, communicating with them through Paul. He knew Jonas was their real leader. Jonas was the one who was going to sell the cargo that Paul grabbed from the helicopter.
The diamonds. What a haul that would be!
Pretorius didn’t know who Jonas was going to sell the stones to, but apparently he already had a buyer lined up. Jonas had worked on the mines; he had connections there.
Pretorius was proud of the part he’d played in this operation. He had aroused the boss’s suspicions, exactly as he had been briefed to do. He’d successfully stashed the extra toolbox on board the helicopter after the car crash had turned the usual procedures upside down for a small but sufficient window of time.
Then he’d revealed, at exactly the right moment, that there were explosives on board. It hadn’t been too difficult, not with the set-up they’d organised earlier that day, and with the fact that his boss man already suspected he was planning trouble.
Jonas would have a stash of weapons in his car. According to Paul, he’d got hold of three brand new SA80 rifles, famous for being the most accurate assault weapons in the world. Pretorius smiled at the thought. He’d never had the chance to fire one of those before. They might not need to use them today – then again, they might.
Paul Kenyon knew the helicopter’s route. He knew where it was going to land, or crash-land, or whatever it ended up doing. He would be waiting near the helicopter’s estimated landing site with the man whose name Pretorius could never remember, the one with the long, gangly limbs. Apparently, the two of them had another massive stash of weapons and ammo in their vehicle. By the time Pretorius arrived with Jonas, the action might well be over. All they’d have to do was make the getaway, sell the stones and divide the loot.
Pretorius glanced at the black man.
‘Five minutes?’ he whispered.
The man glanced at the time on the cellphone the sergeant had given them.
He nodded.
Pretorius checked the gun. With a full magazine, it felt heavy in his hand. He snapped off the safety, chambered a round, stuck the gun into his pocket and pulled his shirt out, draping it over his pants to conceal the weapon.
He curled his fingers round the cold metal bars of the door. So this was what it was like being in prison. Hopefully the first and the last time he’d experience it.
He gave a push and the door opened with a loud clang.
They stepped out of the holding cell. The inmates in the cells further down the corridor, immersed in their own miserable thoughts, didn’t notice they were leaving without a police escort.
They climbed the stairs as quietly as possible.
After the chill of the cells, the sunny room felt pleasantly warm. The sergeant was alone, sitting at a desk in the small office and reading a magazine. He didn’t look up as they moved past him.
Pretorius swung the glass entrance door open and walked outside. He could see the main gate, although he couldn’t see a car waiting anywhere. Perhaps Jonas had parked further down the road. In any case, they were as good as free now. He suppressed a grin. It had been so bloody easy.
When they were just a few paces away from the building, Pretorius heard a shout behind them.
‘Hey! Stop right there! Escaping prisoners!’
For a moment, Pretorius froze, immobilised by shock. This couldn’t be happening. What had gone wrong? Should they make a run for it?
Then he spun round in the direction of the voice, scrabbling under his shirt for the gun.
The sweaty sergeant stood outside the glass door, his own weapon aimed directly at Pretorius’s chest.
Christ, this was it. What could he do? Offer the man more money? He didn’t have more. Instinctively he started to raise his own weapon, knowing it was stupid, a futile gesture, but running from a firearm at such close range would be equally pointless.
He’d barely moved his gun hand when the sergeant shot him twice in the chest. The double impact of the bullets threw him backwards in a long, staggering arc. Then he was down. His head banged hard against the rough tarmac. He coughed, tasting blood in his mouth. So much blood. He was choking on it. As he struggled to draw breath, he heard the pounding of feet behind him. His anonymous accomplice was making a run for it.
‘Go, brother, go’, Pretorius whispered through lips that felt strangely cold and numb.
Before his consciousness faded completely he heard another two shots, closely followed by the sprawling thud of the black man’s body hitting the ground.