7.40 AM

Early the next morning we stood outside the Flying Tomato Farm, searching the dust road for the minibus that would take us to Johannesburg. My head buzzed with a headache and, despite the warm sunshine, I shivered in another fever chill. I had taken one of the vet’s pills, but it had made me nauseous and woozy. So much for her horse medicine, I thought, and threw the remaining pills away. We both knew I was not ready to travel, but Foreman Gerber’s orders and the late-night Mxit message I got from Grace left us no choice: Determine had bought their Joburg to Cape Town tickets; they were leaving on the three o’clock train this afternoon. If all went well, Boubacar thought that we could be at the train station by two o’clock, and still be in good time to intercept them before they boarded for Cape Town. There was no time for me to recover; we had to keep moving.

While we waited, I looked across field after field of tomato bushes stretched out toward the faraway mountains. Boubacar explained that the white plastic tents were protecting the young bushes, and I was amazed at the gleaming tractors, the cultivating machines, and the trucks coming and going with boxes all stamped with a red tomato with angel wings. I had never seen any Zimbabwean farm like this, and Boubacar remarked that here in South Africa, there were many farms that were even bigger than this one. How was it possible that across the Limpopo River, people were without work and starving, and yet here there was such wealth and opportunity? It was no wonder thousands of people were leaving Zimbabwe and risking their lives to get here.

In a nearby field, I saw Innocent’s lanky frame moving up and down the bushes, picking tomatoes. He spotted me and waved furiously. I waved back, sorry not to have said good-bye properly to him and Deo. I had never met anyone quite like Innocent, so accepting, so kind, and yet in a world of his own. He was so convinced that I would run again one day that it was hard not to believe him.

“Here he comes,” said Boubacar as a cloud of dust appeared over the horizon, but the vehicle that came into sight was a police van. As it approached the gate the van drove past us slowly, and a black policeman in the passenger seat glanced our way as they went by.

The brake lights flashed red; the van reversed and both doors flew open simultaneously. Two hefty officers got out and walked toward us. The white man was Sergeant Brandt, according to the brass badge pinned to the pocket above his huge stomach, which his belt could hardly contain. His partner, the owner of a pair of tree-trunk thighs, hitched up his trousers as he looked us up and down. Boubacar stepped in front of me, his hand slowly slipping into his backpack.

“ID,” demanded the white man.

“Good day, Sergeant Brandt,” said Boubacar pleasantly. “I’m afraid we do not have our passports with us at present. We were visiting friends here and—”

“You’re from the Congo, aren’t you, Frenchie?” Boubacar barely nodded. “And you, boy, you’re from Zimbabwe, right?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Get in the back of the van.”

“You’re both illegals. Let’s go,” shouted the black policeman, making a move toward me.

“Please, Corporal Mashau, there is no need to shout,” soothed Boubacar. “We’re all intelligent men. Perhaps we might come to some arrangement.”

“We’ve already made our arrangement,” said Mashau, chuckling.

Neither of them knew the danger they were in. Boubacar’s beguiling French accent had lulled them into believing he was harmless, but the tension in his muscles and the softness of his words told me that at any moment he might pull his knife, and these overweight policemen wouldn’t stand a chance.

“No, Boubacar,” I said, hobbling between them. “Please, sir, my sister has been kidnapped and we have to find her.” I attempted my most affecting voice, playing the cripple card as best I could, but, obviously hardened by the never-ending hard-luck stories of refugees, the policeman only shrugged.

“Yah, that’s at least a new one. Now get in,” ordered Brandt as he opened the back of the van. With only a slight hesitation, Boubacar freed his hand from his bag to help me into the van.

Mashau was laughing as he padlocked the rear door and walked back to the front. “Well, that was the easiest ten grand I ever made,” he said.

“All in a day’s work,” grunted Brandt, heaving himself into the van, which dipped under his weight. We heard the doors slam, and felt the vehicle maneuver a three-point turn and barrel down the dirt road back the way they had come. Boubacar took out his cell phone and spoke rapidly in French as I tried to hold on while the van hurtled along the road.

“Please, sir, my sister has been kidnapped,” I yelled through the hatch into the front seat. “We have to be at the train station in Johannesburg by two o’clock. Please. A bad man is taking her to Cape Town. She’s only nine years old.” The only thing I heard was Brandt talking on his cell phone, before Mashau slammed the dividing window shut.

I turned back to Boubacar, who stared grimly out the small window in the van’s rear door. “Once we get to the police station, we can explain everything. I can show them Grace’s Mxit messages—”

“Patson, they’re not taking us to any police station.”

9.30 AM

The drive to Musina took almost two hours. We passed several men on the sides of the road, most of them looking like refugees, but we sped by them in a cloud of dust. Outside the town, more people, burdened with luggage, plastic containers, pots, children on their backs, were trying to get through the front gates into a large area beneath the sign: MUSINA SHOWGROUND.

“There’s nowhere else to put the thousands of people coming over the border,” explained Boubacar, and in the fields beyond I saw hundreds of makeshift shelters packed tightly together. On the pavement outside the Showground, families were camped out in the open, their clothes, blankets, and bags piled around them and hanging from the Showground fence. Women were cooking food on the pavement, and small children were being washed in open buckets. Grace had seen all this too. No wonder she was afraid in Musina.

Farther along we were stopped at an intersection where an army troop carrier and two police vans were parked. Out our small window I could see a large billboard:

WE KNOW WHY YOU ARE IN SOUTH AFRICA:

LIFE IN ZIMBABWE IS MURDER

BUT PLEASE GO BACK TO VOTE. WE CAN ALL BE FREE.

Two men were on a ladder scraping off the sign. Across the street a small crowd was shouting at them to leave it alone. They held placards with slogans: FREE ZIMBABWE, ARREST WAR CRIMINAL MUGABE, and WE WANT FREE ELECTIONS. The South African soldiers stood silently watching, their rifles pointing casually to the ground.

Boubacar’s cell phone buzzed, and he answered in rapid French. Then he nudged me aside to peer out through the window. “Come on, come on,” he muttered.

“What is it?”

“My Congolese brothers,” he said as our van picked up speed and swung around a corner. I lost my balance, and fell hard to the floor. “Hey!” shouted Boubacar, smacking his fist into the side of the van. “Be careful. You have a sick boy here!”

His protest made no difference. Brandt switched on the siren and we raced down the main road and drove right past the Musina Police Station. Boubacar was right: Sergeant Brandt and Corporal Mashau had another destination in mind for us. On the way to Musina, Boubacar had described the network that existed between the Zimbabwean military and rogue members of the South African police open to bribery. Political refugees crossing the border were easily identified by spies in their midst, picked up by the South African police, and, for a substantial fee, were handed straight back into the arms of the officers of the Zimbabwean Central Intelligence Organisation.

“That’s why I did not want us to come anywhere near Musina,” he had said. “There are many spies working for Mugabe’s soldiers.”

Commander Jesus must have alerted his contacts on this side of the border, and we had been so easy to find. Now even the dangers of the fast-flowing river and the game reserve seemed preferable to being trapped in this hot metal box bulleting through Musina with its sirens blaring, to an unknown destination where Commander Jesus would surely be waiting for us. I could hardly think straight. I was sweating and thirsty and my head felt as if it would burst. Escape seemed impossible; our journey had ended in the back of a police van. All I wanted to do was to lie down and give over to my exhaustion. This time Commander Jesus would never let me go, and I would never know what happened to Grace.

“Ah, there they are,” said Boubacar. “Behind us.”

I dragged myself back to look through the small window but saw only traffic weaving across the road.

“Two cars back. That yellow Bolt Safeguard security van.”

“I see them, Boubacar, but how can they help us?”

“It’s our last chance, Patson, and we’re taking it.”

9.45 AM

Sergeant Brandt turned off the main road and pulled over just before the palm-lined drive into the Blue Flamingo Hotel. I saw the yellow security van pass us by and turn into the hotel grounds. Another car, a small red hatchback taxi, followed close behind it.

“Brandt and Mashau are discussing how to hand us over,” whispered Boubacar. “If the wrong people see them, they will be in big trouble.”

We moved close to the hatch to listen.

“Let’s just leave them here,” Mashau said. “The cripple kid can’t go far.”

“And how do you suggest we get our money?” asked Brandt.

“He can leave an envelope at reception. I’ll pick it up, and you turn them over to him here on the street.”

“It’s too open,” said Sergeant Brandt. “We should have taken them to the military base.”

“Too late now. Phone him.”

“No, you stay here,” decided Brandt. “Let me go to the hotel, find him, get the money, and arrange for a better place to hand them over. Then he can follow us, and once we’ve dropped them off, we leave and our hands are clean.”

The van bounced as Brandt got out, slammed the door, and walked through the shade of a palm tree toward the hotel while making the call. Meanwhile, Mashau came around to the back, lit a cigarette, and checked up and down the road.

Boubacar was texting furiously. “Talk to him,” he whispered.

I hiked myself up to the rear window and knocked on it. “Can you give me some water, Mr. Mashau? It’s very hot in here,” I said, smiling.

Mashau glanced up at me.

“It’s true what I told you. My sister’s name is Grace. A man took her from our home in Marange and now he’s taking her to Cape Town. I have to go to a hospital, my leg is very sore. Please help me.”

Corporal Mashau took another drag on his cigarette and threw the butt to the ground.

“I’m sorry for your trouble, boy, but there’s nothing I can do,” he said, turning at the sound of approaching footsteps.

“Corporal Mashau?” said a man in army fatigues coming around the side of the van.

“Yes,” answered Mashau, taken by surprise at this stranger addressing him so familiarly.

“Sergeant Brandt sent me for them. You have to wait five minutes and then pick him up outside the lobby. The commander will pay him and your business will be done.”

Mashau glanced inside at us, looked more closely at this man, and then up the winding road of the hotel grounds.

“Please, sir, do not give us to this man,” yelled Boubacar suddenly, beating on the van door. “He is CIO. He will torture and then kill us! Please, sir, I beg you. Don’t listen to him.”

“Shut up,” yelled Mashau as he quickly put the key into the padlock and opened the door. “Get out and shut up!”

Cool air swept inside the back of the van as Boubacar jumped out and turned back to help me out. “Act frightened,” he whispered.

I didn’t need to act; I was terrified. I shuffled through the door and climbed onto Boubacar’s back. I clung awkwardly to his neck, clutching my crutches and kitbag.

“Five minutes,” said the CIO officer. “Then you go to the hotel and pick up your sergeant. Understood?”

“I heard you the first time,” said Mashau, glancing anxiously up and down the road as the CIO man gripped Boubacar’s arm, dragging him forward.

“Get a move on, you two,” he ordered. “The commander has waited long enough.”

I gripped tightly to Boubacar’s neck as he walked around the bend in the hotel road to where the Bolt van was parked out of Mashau’s sight. Its driver was waiting for us and shouted, “I’ve got them now. Yes, sir. At once, sir.” He made even more noise slamming the empty van shut.

“Très bien, Regis,” Boubacar whispered, slapping the CIO man on his back as they ran toward the red hatchback parked behind a tall hedge. Regis tore off his fatigue jacket, threw it on the floor of the car, and jumped into the driver’s seat as Boubacar heaved me onto the backseat.

“Stay down,” he ordered, and wedged my crutches and his big body onto the floor before pulling the door shut. “What’s happening? What do you see, Regis?”

“Nothing yet,” came the answer from the front seat. “Here comes the sergeant. He’s almost back to Mashau. Stay down. He looks pleased with himself. And there goes Patrice in our van. So we only have to wait to see if they take the bait.”

I heard Brandt cursing Mashau, then the screech of their siren and the squeal of tires. Regis started the taxi and drove slowly back out onto the main road. The wailing of the police siren faded away in the opposite direction.

“It worked,” said Boubacar, looking out the back window. “They are following him. Bravo, Regis!”

Regis only chuckled. “It was a good plan, Boubacar. When they do catch up and stop Patrice they’ll find only an empty van, driven by a guard for Bolt Safeguard.”

I struggled to sit up. It was hard to believe that moments ago I had given up and now we were free. “And we’ll get out of Musina?” I asked, surprised at how quickly everything had changed.

“Yes, leaving Commander Jesus waiting for nothing at the Blue Flamingo,” Boubacar added.

“You are a lucky boy to be traveling with this man,” said Regis, grinning at me in his rearview mirror. “He is a hero among we Congolese—”

Boubacar cut him off. “We have wasted enough time already. We have to be at the Johannesburg train station no later than two thirty, Regis.”

“Ah, Boubacar, you know that is impossible. It will take us at least—”

“You will drive like the wind, Regis. We will be there before three o’clock.”

And I felt the engine surge.

12.02 PM

The landscape of South Africa flashed past my window: One-Stop petrol stations with jungle gyms and swings for children; gleaming fast-food shops alongside wide, double-lane pothole-free highways; cultivated fields dotted with tractors and crop sprayers with the wingspans of airplanes; luxury vehicles cruising past with white children staring out of closed-up windows; battered minibuses packed with people, pulling trailers piled high with furniture and luggage. Then came the walled suburbs with tall trees and fancy houses that offered only glimpses of their sapphire-blue swimming pools through iron gates. And on the faraway hills, smoke rose from shantytowns, their tin roofs glinting in the sun.

As fascinated as I was by this new country, I kept checking the time, willing the clock on my phone to go slower. In three hours the train would be pulling out of the station and heading for Cape Town. I sent Grace message after message about our progress along the N1 highway, through the towns of Mahoda, Louis Trichardt, and Polokwane, but she never responded. A sign flashed by—JOHANNESBURG 360 KM—and I leaned forward to check the speedometer. The needle hovered around the 130 mark.

“We’ll never make it, Boubacar. At this speed it will take us more than three hours,” I protested.

“Can’t you go any faster, Regis?” asked Boubacar.

But Regis only smiled and swore back at him in French. “As long as you have enough money for the speeding fines.”

Time collapsed into a feverish haze, punctuated by stabs from Stumpy. I checked my phone but the numbers on the screen no longer made any sense.

2.22 PM

I jerked awake. We had stopped. Traffic was rushing past. The front seats were empty. Disorientated, I opened the door.

“Don’t get out,” cursed Regis.

“What’s going on?”

“Flat tire,” said Boubacar. “Stay in the car. It’s almost finished.”

Boubacar rattled a string of French words to Regis, who responded angrily.

“I can only go as fast as I can go,” he said, tightening the lug nuts, one after the other.

“Forget the hubcap,” said Boubacar, tossing it through my open window.

My phone buzzed with a message from Grace:

Thurs 4/17/08 2.15pm

@ JHB Park Station. Platform 17. Where r u?? What must I do? xxx

“Tell her we are almost there—”

“No, we are not,” snapped Regis. “We have at least another thirty minutes—”

“And that she must not get on that train,” Boubacar added, moving quickly to the driving seat. “I’m driving, Regis. Get in!”

Boubacar pulled out onto the busy highway and swung across the fast lane to a chorus of hooting from angry drivers. I sat rigid, focused only on the screen of my phone and how rapidly the digits progressed.

2.52 PM

Boubacar pulled up to the front entrance of the train station, jumped out, and ran down the escalators two steps at a time.

“I’ll park the car,” shouted Regis as I stumbled out and hooked my crutches into my arms, looking around for an elevator. As I descended I gasped at the scale of the station: The Johannesburg Park train station was the size of two football fields, with huge metal rafters stretching out above forty-five platforms. The elevator doors opened on hundreds of people moving in every direction. I tried to decipher the signs that directed travelers to the different platforms but it was confusing and I had no idea where to go.

“Please, I have to go to Platform Seventeen. Which way?” I asked a woman passing by.

“You don’t look very well, boy—” she said, pointing off to the left.

I threaded my way through the crowds as quickly as I could, using my crutch to clear my passage. I was covered in sweat, and when I looked up I was only at Platform 9.

2.58 PM

I crutched past Platform 15, when I heard the announcement. “The three o’clock train for Cape Town. Departing on Platform Seventeen. Departing now for Cape Town. Platform Seventeen. All aboard.” There was still time. I swung the crutches forward, taking bigger and bigger strides, but the next platform had no train beside it. Platform 16. One more to go, and then there was the train, its engines already humming. Boubacar must have made it before me. He must be on board, I thought, as the train slid away from the platform, on its way out of the terminal.

3.01 PM

“No, no,” I yelled.

Then I saw Boubacar farther down the platform, running alongside the train as it picked up speed.

“Get on board,” I shouted, knowing deep down that he couldn’t hear me.

Boubacar glanced back toward me and stopped running. The three o’clock train had left on time and was moving farther and farther away from both of us.

3.03 PM

I fumbled for the phone buzzing in my pocket:

Thurs 4/17/08 3.02pm

I’m on train. I saw Boubacar!!!