Allegiance (14 page)

‘Well, we want to know whether we should be wasting money and resources looking at the
IAC
or not, and it’s a hard call to make looking at it from the outside. We need someone in there.’

‘I am that someone.’

Ruslan extended his hand and Shabalala shook hands for the first time in years. Sealing this deal was worth risking the contamination of a few million germs.

‘It’s a lovely apartment,’ Mariam said, and she meant it, but then again anything better than the dump she lived in with Arshad Tanveer would be lovely. Khalid’s apartment was on the eleventh floor of a secure residential block overlooking the sea at Umhlanga Rocks. Khalid had detected a little reluctance on her part to come to his apartment, a reluctance he interpreted as her eagerness to show him that she wasn’t
that
easy, but his charm had prevailed and the promise of a home-cooked meal and a quiet evening watching the waves strike the rocks below the red-and-white lighthouse had seemed innocuous enough.

‘You’re a sweet lady,’ Khalid said, motioning to her to take a seat at the granite-topped nook in the kitchen. ‘Please, my dear, make yourself at home, relax. I’ll cook.’

‘Thanks, I didn’t know you cooked.’

Khalid flipped on an apron with blue, white and red stripes, and it reminded her of an American flag. ‘Why do you look so . . . preoccupied?’ he asked.

‘I’m fine, Imraan, really.’ She wasn’t fine. The stress of the last few weeks was bringing stiffness to her muscles and she could feel her teeth clenching constantly. She was only doing this for Siraj. Arshad could go to hell. But she knew that without money, Siraj would be the biggest victim and she was willing to sell her soul to save her child from the life of misery she had had. And selling her soul she was. She knew it was wrong. But it had taken her only a few minutes to realise what type of man Khalid was. A user, a player, an egotist. Arshad had encouraged her, bastard that he was, to exploit him to the full and reap whatever financial rewards might be forthcoming. And they were forthcoming. She had already gotten enough cash from him to pay Amina for the first month’s crèche fees for Siraj. It was a short-term solution, with long-term benefits. She could take care of herself; she had to, Arshad wasn’t. Selling her soul was hard enough. She promised herself she would never sell her body.

Everyone had heard of
RICA
. The adverts encouraged all good citizens to take their identity document and proof of residence to service providers and register their cellphone
SIM
cards to comply with government regulations. It was becoming a buzzword – ‘Have you
RICA
’d your phone yet?’ Everybody was talking about it and Durant was reminded that he had to
RICA
his too. An annoyance for intelligence officers who wanted to remain anonymous. Cellphones could be used as a tool of clandestine communication only if they were untraceable. Equally, an annoyance to criminals who used cellphones to commit crimes. Yet most people weren’t sure what
RICA
even stood for. Durant did. He was using the very same Act – the Regulation of Interception of Communication and Provision of Communications-Related Information Act – to apply to a judge for the interception and monitoring of Nathi Khoza’s cellphone.
ATM
bombings weren’t really their thing, but they had got the slither of information from Khoza’s sister about his involvement, and perhaps there was a personal agenda too. Durant needed his wound to heal and perhaps a successful takedown of the
ATM
bombers would bring him closure. The interceptions would hopefully provide real-time intelligence about a planned
ATM
bombing which would give them a tactical advantage.
SAPS
would be tipped off and Nathi Khoza and his gang would be rounded up. And Kevin Durant could put that whole event behind him.

Durant would’ve liked the beach more if there had been less sand and more shade, but it was Saturday and Stephanie and Alexis wanted to swim in the sea and he’d relented. The beach had never been the same for him after the shooting because he felt people stared at the scars on his body when he stripped into his costume.

‘Come swim with me, Dad, pleeease. Come on, don’t be a baby!’ Alexis said, tugging on his baggies.

Durant laughed and scooped his daughter into his arms. ‘Did . . . did you call me a “baby”, you little monster?’ He ran into the breakers, with the sound of the little girl’s giggles bringing a smile to Stephanie’s lips.

They played in the shallow water for half an hour, then returned to where Stephanie was lying on a towel. Durant was out of breath, but they still soaked water on her, causing her to moan. She wasn’t very sympathetic to Durant’s toe, torn open on an undersea rock. Alexis dumped an armful of things she had found on the beach. She began digging in the sand and Durant collapsed next to Stephanie.

‘Not as fit as I used to be. Man, I’m tired.’

‘Your scars are fading, so I hope you’re not still so self-conscious about them.’ She gently ran a finger over the purple welts that ran from his right nipple, arcing around his back and returning to his navel.

‘I wasn’t until a guy in the surf there asked if I’d been attacked by a shark.’

‘What did you say?’ Stephanie smiled and shook her head.

Durant laughed. ‘I said it was a Blue Bull.’

Stephanie laughed.

‘I didn’t want to tell him I’d been shot in the back with a sub-machine gun. It might be a tourist.’

‘I’ve got some quotes, by the way.’

‘For?’

‘Moving our stuff overseas.’

Durant sat up. ‘A bit premature, isn’t it?’

Stephanie frowned. She didn’t want to upset him. ‘I just wanted some idea of the costs involved.’ She started building a crude sandcastle with a plastic cup.

‘The costs aren’t financial. The costs are more emotional. I don’t know if we’ve actually decided we’re emigrating yet.’

‘Come on, love, it’s a given. Don’t do it for me, do it for Lexi. Look at her. What if something happens to her?’

‘You know, nothing’s going to happen to her. Nothing’s going to happen to you. We’ll be fine.’

Stephanie lowered her voice. ‘I nearly lost you, Kevin, and it’s the worst feeling in the world. I’d rather be miserable and lonely in New Zealand than risk losing you or Alexis.’

Durant cast a glance at his daughter and shook his head. ‘If we emigrate, everything we’ve built here, every memory we have here, is gone. We’ll have to start again.’

‘What do we have? You have bits of metal in your organs, your skin’s ripped up, and look at your old colleague Mike Shezi, he’s gone. Amina left the job, maybe she was also scared. Most of my recent memories of this place are bad.’

Durant stared at the waves. This was a safe place, so distant from that dark and rainy night. He dug his hand into the coarse sand and watched it slip though his fingers. He wished he could climb into the hole it left behind.

‘Because you choose to focus on the bad stuff. It’s just a question of perspective. You’ve mentioned some bad things, but I can mention more good things. For me, the best thing is that every day I go to work I improve this country. Maybe only in some miniscule way, but it all adds up.’

‘That’s a bit idealistic, isn’t it?’ She didn’t mean it to sound nasty. But she was tired of her husband always saving the world. She needed saving. Alexis showed her a piece of glass the sand had smoothed to silk.

‘Maybe it is, but you know what, I’m holding on to that. If everyone who’s making a difference goes, then nothing is ever going to change.’

‘The very job you love so much nearly killed you. You want to be a martyr, that’s fine, but remember you have a wife and a child to think of too.’

‘Just give me a bit more time. I’m not saying I’ll never consider it, I will, I just need time. Keep working on me.’

Durant stood up. He felt caged, he needed to go for a walk, clear his head. Try to process the myriad thoughts that swirled in his mind. A year ago their lives were so uncomplicated, so neatly set out before them. Even the shooting: as bad as it was, he was over it. Well, almost. But to pack up your life and leave the country of your birth was incomprehensible. It was surrender, giving in to the forces that were selfishly waging war on peace and security. And he wasn’t prone to surrender; he was a fighter. And now, in the midst of the battle, a battle they could win, Stephanie wanted to run. It went against everything he believed in.

As far as safe houses went, the grubby office block in the squalid city centre had to rate as one of the worst Shabalala had ever seen. The lift was broken and he had to trundle up three flights of stairs before reaching a grimy corridor lined with doors bearing the names of businesses that were clearly at the bottom end of the performance scale. Plush hotel rooms were no longer considered good safe houses because of
CCTV
cameras which recorded everything. A safe house had to be anonymous, low key, easily accessible but difficult to identify. He stopped at a door bearing the legend ‘Sunshine Freight Services’ and pressed the key into the lock. After some manoeuvring, the door swung open. Shabalala kicked the bundle of unopened letters and pamphlets that had been pushed under the door to one side and looked around. A desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet and an upright fan. Shabalala made a mental note to stop at the doctor’s rooms on his way back to the office and get an anti-tetanus shot and twisted the knob on the fan to the on position. It made a crackling noise and a wisp of smoke curled out from the rear grill. Shabalala shook his head incredulously. He slipped out a handful of wet wipes from his pants pocket and began wiping the chairs and table. He had half-cleaned the table when there was a short knock at the door.

‘I apologise if I’m late,’ Ruslan said, his face remaining deadpan as he surveyed the office. ‘You work from here, Reno?’

‘No, not at all. It’s just an office for us to meet privately. I sincerely apologise for the state it’s in. Please take a seat. I’ve done my best to clean it.’

Ruslan sat down and the chair creaked. ‘I left the sheikh at the airport. He’ll be back on Thursday.’

‘I see. So you have two days off?’ Shabalala settled gingerly into the other chair, his face hiding the disgust of the experience well.

‘Not really. I am still expected to run errands for the centre.’

‘You shouldn’t be here too long then. Tell me, what made you come to us?’

‘Since I started work at the centre, driving the sheikh, rest hasn’t come easy to me. I say salat five times a day; I consider myself faithful to Allah.’

‘So what’s bothering you?’

‘I’m not from South Africa; I was born in Dagestan and studied in the
UK
. I came to South Africa a few years ago to study at the
IAC
. I thought it a great honour and service to be the sheikh’s driver.’

‘And it’s not?’

Ruslan’s chair creaked as he folded his legs. ‘He’s disappointed me. I believe he’s a disgrace to Islam. I know more about him than anybody because he can’t go anywhere unless I take him.’

Shabalala leaned forward. This was important. ‘His beliefs, would you consider them radical, extreme?’

‘Everything we do for Allah should be to the extreme, it’s our duty.’ Ruslan paused. ‘You mean, is he defined as jihadist who would use violence to pursue the goals of Islam? No, I don’t believe he is.’

Shabalala frowned. This was interesting. He had to go against his better judgement and draw more out of Ruslan. He had to mention the terrorist threat. ‘Are you sure? Because we believe there’s some radical element at the centre that’s possibly involved in plotting a terrorist attack.’

There was a loud creak as Ruslan’s chair protested under the weight. ‘The teachings on jihad are about self-sacrifice – laying down our lives for our beliefs. Isn’t this what your prophet Jesus preached?’

Shabalala used his hands to make the point. ‘But that language scares me, Ruslan. We could interpret that as meaning suicide attacks, surely?’

‘The Quran doesn’t define how we must sacrifice ourselves. The radical thinkers interpret it as meaning the faithful must lay their lives down – their physical bodies, but Allah means we must humble ourselves, put to death everything haram, and live our lives fully and surrendered to the Almighty.’ Ruslan spoke slowly, measuring the words as they came.

‘Is this the sheikh’s message? I mean, is this what the centre propagates?’

‘The sheikh
is
the centre. His words are true. No one would challenge him.’ Ruslan paused. ‘My argument is that privately he’s not living the life of a true disciple of Allah. I can’t judge him, Allah alone judges, but it strengthens my resolve to live a holy life and when I fall to my knees on my prayer rug, the Almighty will understand why I am willing to betray him.’

‘He’s Saudi, isn’t he?’ Shabalala hoped the mention of it would draw a reaction.

Ruslan’s chair screeched as he slid it backwards against the tiled floor. He walked to the window and turned his back on Shabalala. ‘There are so many who have sold their souls in Saudi Arabia. Idolaters, mouthing the words of purity and piety, but totally enslaved to the vices of Iblis. It’s a short path between Saudi and the infidels of America, and it’s a path lined with hundred-dollar bills.’

Shabalala felt unease. Here was a man who had fallen into their laps with good access to Islamic extremism and he was telling Shabalala the target’s a lamb, a compromised and disgraced sell-out. But Ruslan was bright and had great potential. The debriefing report would reflect that Ruslan had a good understanding of the complex nature of Islam and its different interpretations of extremism. He would register Ruslan as an agent, take a sample signature and reward him at the next meeting with an envelope full of R200 notes. But no, he clearly wasn’t motivated by avarice; it was the very thing which had driven him to the other side, the very vice he’d accused the sheikh of succumbing to.

‘What do you want from us then, Ruslan?’

There was a moment’s silence in the office and then Ruslan turned and looked Shabalala in the eye. ‘Twice a week, at night, I take the sheikh to a place in town. I fetch him a few minutes later.’