34

Johan passed by the Cape Town South African history museum, entering the expanse of green known as the Company’s Garden. Once a plot of land that grew the food for the Dutch East India Company outpost, it had been preserved as a park that spanned hectares of terrain, running right next to the Houses of Parliament of South Africa. It was a crowded place with all manner of people, both rich and poor, black and white, and was a good location to conduct a meeting that wouldn’t draw attention. Especially since both he and the man he was meeting were wanted by South Africa for disobeying the ’98 Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.

Birthed because of the rampant mercenary activity in the nineties, with less-than-stellar men working for charlatan organizations that built their false pedigrees on the backs of the success of professionals like Johan, it was a law that caused him to tread lightly in his homeland.

He wandered through the gardens, watching the kids play with soccer balls, taking paths that would channelize anyone following him without appearing as if he was doing anything overt. The winding trails and thick vegetation provided a ready-made surveillance-detection route and were the reason he’d picked this garden to meet the colonel.

Walking on a path that wound through the trees all by itself, he approached a group of teenagers and saw one of them stand up. His skin coal black, wearing worn Nike sweats and shoes that were untied, he had the vacant stare of a person feeling no pain but looking to apply some.

Johan passed him by, and the group stood up, following. Shit. Exactly what he didn’t need. The entire point of choosing this location was to sniff out anyone following, not get a police response because of an altercation. The teens were searching for easy prey, and he was simply looking to remain invisible.

He turned abruptly, and they all stopped short. Five of them, all stoned. He looked the leader in the eyes and realized there was no reasoning with them. Nike Sweats was panting, sweat rolling off his face, pupils dilated. He didn’t care about the police or anything else. He cared about the kill. Strangely, Johan understood.

Johan said, “You want to make some money?”

Taken aback, Nike Sweats said, “Yeah . . . how? What you talking about?”

“You leave me alone, and I’ll pay you five hundred rand.”

Nike Sweats smiled and said, “You got five hundred, maybe you got more. Maybe I’ll take it.”

Johan took two steps toward him, closing into his personal space and pulling out a folding knife. He flicked it open and brought it blade-first into the man’s groin. He said, “You want to make the money, or lose your nuts?”

Nike Sweats was frozen in place. The others became agitated, not sure of what to do. They’d never been on the receiving end of a hunt.

Johan sawed the blade, splitting the cloth of the sweats. He looked at them and said, “He can’t speak. You guys want to make some money?”

One of them nodded, saying, “Yeah, yeah. We’ll take the rand. And you can have his balls.”

The others laughed, and Johan pulled the knife away. He withdrew his wallet, pulled out several notes, and threw them on the ground. He looked at Nike Sweats and said, “Not everyone is prey around here.”

He turned and walked away, hearing them scamper on the ground for the money.

Johan was incensed. He had a mission, and it was almost short-circuited by a bunch of random losers. Should have fucking gutted them. But he knew he wouldn’t even if he could. They were just a by-product of the poverty that abounded in Cape Town, and they would end up dying an early death by someone else’s hand. Not his.

Johan continued on the path until it reentered the main promenade, a statue of the famed politician Cecil Rhodes towering over the pavestones, the outside of the monument now cloaked in protest placards accusing him of all manner of evil. An indication of the new face of South Africa.

He went by it, threading through the woods until he saw a coffee shop with outdoor tables sprinkled along the garden path. He entered the patio and saw Colonel Lloyd Armstrong sitting under an umbrella, two steaming cups of coffee on the table. He was wearing chinos and a short-sleeve business shirt, his eyes hidden behind a pair of Ray-Ban aviator sunglasses. The attire did nothing to hide his prior profession.

A hulking man with his hair cut close to the scalp, he looked like a cartoon version of a lion tamer, right down to the cigar he was smoking. Nobody would mistake him for a banker, regardless of what he was wearing.

Johan slid into the seat next to him, hoping for a surprise. He was disappointed. Armstrong said, “Why didn’t you just kill those fucks?”

Taken aback, Johan said, “Good to see you too, sir. What fucks?”

Armstrong raised his coffee mug and pointed with it. Johan turned and saw the drug-addled group following along his path. Armstrong said, “What did you do, pay them to leave you alone?”

Johan smiled and said, “Yeah, I did. I’m going to claim it as an expense.”

Armstrong laughed and said, “Always the one to avoid conflict.” He turned serious, saying, “But that’s not what happened in Lesotho. I got the SITREP. What’s the true story?”

Johan told him everything that had occurred, giving an assessment that wasn’t included in his clinical report. He detailed the atmospherics of Maseru and the impact of the US Special Forces team’s arrival, ending with his assessment of General Mosebo’s troops.

“They aren’t that good. In fact, they’re shit. You told me earlier that they were some of the best on the continent, but that’s not what I saw. How is the training going? Am I wrong?”

“No. They aren’t as good as we were told, but they aren’t completely raw recruits. They can work an AK, and they understand basic fire and maneuver. We’re just honing some edges. The first two packages are already back home. We’re finishing up with the last one.”

“Did you break them out by ability, instead of by LDF assignments? Because some areas are going to need more skill than others.”

“Yes. They know they’ll get separated. They just don’t know how yet. I was waiting on you for that.”

Johan leaned back, making sure nobody was within earshot. He said, “I’ll have a complete report by tonight, but basically, we’ll have four stop-groups. The easy ones will be the parliament building itself and the television and radio station. The tough ones will be the police headquarters and the prime minister’s residence. The police will be a firefight, so we’ll need to go in hard. The prime minister’s residence will be the same. It’s hardened, gated, and he has a robust protective detail, but unlike the police headquarters, it’s a much more delicate mission. We can’t just kill everyone. We’ll have to make sure he remains alive.”

Armstrong said, “I’ll need specifics on force sizes, weapons, and contingencies.”

Johan took a sip of his coffee before answering, then said, “You’ll get it tonight, but basically, in order of skill, the best fighters go to the residence, second best to the headquarters, and the rest to the television and radio station. The least skilled simply take over the parliament building. It’ll be closed at night, with a skeleton security-guard force. It’s purely symbolic.”

Armstrong took a sip of his coffee, and Johan said, “One thing we can’t do is cause the Americans to interfere.”

“We won’t. We work this quickly and they won’t have a reason to.”

Johan said, “There’s something else that concerns me. The Israeli.”

“What about him?”

“We went after his partner, and we were eviscerated. She had a team working with her. And the team included Americans.”

Armstrong waved his hand in the air, washing away the worry. He said, “I got the report from Andy. I understand it was a mess, but I don’t assess it as having an impact on our operation. We went after her—a mistake, no doubt—but my contacts in Israel say there have been no repercussions. We stuck our hand into the flame and got burned. Nobody is looking into it beyond a police response. Nobody is looking for outside influences.”

Johan said, “Nobody but her.”

“What’s that matter? She’s a single slash. She can’t do anything.”

“She had help from someone. One of the team says it was the United States.”

Colonel Armstrong barked a laugh and said, “No, let’s be precise. He said he was choked out by an American. Big difference. I have Americans on this team. They’re everywhere, and they have the skill forged from combat. The continent hasn’t seen this level of American involvement since the end of the Vietnam War.”

Johan said, “So you’re not concerned? We’re dealing with a diamond merchant who’s also former Israeli intelligence, and when we try to cauterize a leak, we get annihilated. By the partner of the man we now hold. How much do you know about the background of the diamond dealer? Is he telling the truth?”

Armstrong took a sip of his coffee, then said, “He was a member of the LEKEM. It was an Israeli intelligence organization designed to ferret out nuclear secrets. Their whole purpose was industrial espionage in their quest for the bomb. And they were good at it.”

“Why does that matter? Some old gray dick from Israeli intelligence is supposed to be a guy I trust? Who do you know inside South African intelligence that you trust now? Nobody, that’s who.”

Armstrong said, “He isn’t South African. Israel is different. Because of his placement, and the sensitivity of the activities back in the day, he has plenty of contacts inside Israeli intelligence. They still call on him from time to time. Shit, he was the guy who helped us build our own bomb.”

Johan sat up. “What’s that mean?”

Armstrong put out his cigar and said, “You were young, but you remember when we gave up our nuclear weapons at the end of apartheid?”

Johan laughed and said, “Yeah. We were the great saviors. The first to voluntarily relinquish our nuclear weapons. You and I both know why that happened.”

Armstrong nodded and said, “Because we were afraid of who was going to take over after apartheid ended. Afraid of loose nukes. But that’s not the point. Getting the nukes is where our Israeli contact comes in. He—using LEKEM assets—is the one who gave us the technology. Project Circle.”