23. HOSTAGE

The pea-coloured Toyota entered town past a sprawling hospital and a used-car lot. Images flashed through Saul’s mind—the barrel of a gun, staring at his own blood, his flesh ripped and gouged. What did it feel like to get shot? Did the pain last very long, or did you go numb? He thought about Play-Station, bang-bang-bang sharpshooting on Medal of Honour. People died every day, all the time; people got killed, people who shouldn’t get killed. He remembered walking in Lithuania with his grandfather, their trip to Ponar. They’d trudged through thick trees and snow, then arrived at a clearing. A creepy place of hard cold ground and grey sky. Nothing there, just the absence of trees, an ominous hush, and a small stone monument, stark and forlorn. They’d walked around the circular patches of grass ringed by low walls. This was where the Jews were killed and left in huge pits. Henry’s uncles and aunts and cousins had died right there. So had thousands of others, one hundred thousand souls. The guide told them that once in a while, someone would survive, a child usually, missed by a bullet and breathing in a pit of warm corpses, and after lying there for a while, the child would go back to the ghetto and tell what had happened. The image came to him of a girl running through a snowy forest, blood-spattered and terrified, running away from hell. No one chooses death, he realised; it chooses you.

They pulled up at an outdoor market—stalls selling fruit and vegetables and discount beauty products. A row of painted clay guinea fowl, blue and shiny, stood beside some Chinese tin toys; the next stall sold gourds and kalimbas. And an ATM. Not Nedbank, but FNB, with an illuminated sign—an umbrella-shaped tree against a vivid orange sky. Saul knew then that he wasn’t going to make a run for it, wasn’t going to scream or try to overpower a man with a gun. His only choice was whether to take out a wad of cash at the ATM or go along with Vusi’s plan to get the Nelspruit pirates to the Nedbank. His mind was buzzy and jangled as Sipho stopped the engine and Fat Man told him to get out.

“Okay. Slowly. You don’t run, you don’t shout, you don’t look at anybody. Understand?”

He tasted reflux. “Yes.” The irritation in his voice surprised him.

An arm snaked around the seat back, dropped his ATM card in his lap.

Saul reached for the door handle, but the big guy put his hand on the door.

“I’m right behind you.”

“I understand.” He hated the guy. Fat bastard. Dickhead. He wanted him dead, expunged, removed from the planet. Preferably painfully. Wanted him to suffer.

“It’s First National Bank,” he said. His voice sounded tinny, distant. “FNB won’t work. Didn’t in Johannesburg.”

“What? Rubbish. Go.”

“I’m telling you.”

He unlocked his door, opened it slowly. He heard the back door open and close. He walked the few feet to the ATM machine on jelly legs, a whistling sound in his ears. Fat Man was so close that Saul could smell the onions on his breath. Stay calm, he told himself.

He inserted his card and keyed in the code, getting one number wrong. Beep-beep-beep-beep. 5221 instead of 5224. An alert message appeared. Please re-enter your password. Same wrong number, same error message.

Fat Jack was peering around his shoulder now, looking at the screen.

“I told you. It’s a Cirrus card. Bank of America. Only works with Nedbank machines in South Africa. There’s nothing I can do.”

“Back in the car.”

There was a hand on his shoulder, and he was prodded back inside the car.

As Sipho started the ignition, Saul felt Fat Man’s eyes on him. Maybe he was weighing up the situation; maybe he was deciding what to do with him after they robbed him. Kill him? Take him back to his hotel?

“Masihambe,” he said to Sipho, slapping his seat back. “Nedbank.”