“Let me do it.” Isobel, whose hands were drier, took over and efficiently unrolled the tape over the plank, and through the gap in the wheel.
“Thanks,” Joey said. “Great job.”
“Hey, no worries. It’s great to feel useful. Makes a change.”
She smiled at him. She had dirt smudged across her cheek, and he wanted to touch her face, to wipe it gently away.
A change from what? he wondered, deciding not to ask.
Instead, he grinned back. “Well, now for the important part — let’s see if it works.” Squelching over to the trunk, he found an old towel to clean their hands with. Nothing short of a pressure hose was going to shift the stuff layered over their shoes and ankles.
When Joey, Isobel, and a fair amount of the mud were back in the car, he started it up again and eased forward. The wheels spun... and then the planks bit in. With a heavy lurch, the car jerked forward. When the planks left the ground, the wheels continued spinning, but when the wood came round again, they made another jump forward.
“Slowly does it,” he encouraged the SUV.
“I hope the tape holds.” Isobel leaned out of the window, anxiously surveying her handiwork.
“It should.”
Carefully, Joey inched the car through the most treacherous section. There was something deeply satisfying about feeling the wooden planks dig into the ground, defying the drag and suck of the mud and propelling the car forward, even if only a short distance at a time.
Gradually, the SUV’s wheels gained purchase, and its momentum increased, powering steadily up the hill. He drove for another minute before he risked stopping.
Then he breathed a sigh of relief, because they’d done it.
“Excellent work.” He and Isobel exchanged a grimy high-five before Joey climbed out and quickly removed the planks.
Checking his phone, he saw he had three bars of signal. More than enough to lead them to Isobel’s coordinates that, according to the map, were four minutes away. They should be in time.
He guessed that if her husband’s business was road freighting, the coordinates would lead to a depot, or rendezvous point of some kind near a highway. However, they were definitely more than four minutes away from any of the main roads.
“Carry on with what you were saying,” he encouraged Isobel. “The background. You need to brief me before we arrive at wherever we’re going.”
“After the bombshell of what Samantha told me, I became an investigator, together with her, as we tried to work out what was going on. It was a massive task. First, we had to gather all the puzzle pieces. Then we had to put them in order, analyzing the information we’d obtained. Vehicle numbers, times, load weights, drivers, routes. It felt like I was actually using my brain for the first time in years.” She laughed.
“And why did these coordinates come up?”
“Because we worked out that the truck driving this route always makes unscheduled stops at that point, for two or three hours at a time. Usually, the loads are lighter after the stop, when the truck is driving south. But occasionally, going north, they’re heavier again.”
Joey nodded, wondering what the reason was for this. Smuggling goods into Johannesburg? But then why the heavier loads going north?
“Also, we discovered there’s only one driver who does this route. All the other drivers get switched between routes and shifts so that the trucks run full time. But not this one. He drives his route back and forth, back and forth, doing trips every two weeks, and the rest of the time the truck stands idle. The route goes from Zambia in the north, down through Zimbabwe, through eastern Johannesburg and into the city center, before heading back again.”
“Any idea what the truck brings down?”
“Coffee loads are quite common. The beans come from a co-op in the north of Zambia, but the rest of the time the cargo varies. Wood, maize, tobacco. All from different suppliers. But no matter what goods are transported, there’s the same discrepancy in the weights every two or three trips.”
“And your husband didn’t pick this up?” Joey asked incredulously.
“The stats weren’t easy to interpret,” she said. “We had to do a lot of research.”
“Did you try showing him the evidence?”
Isobel made a face. “Yes, I tried, but he wouldn’t hear me out. He said I was wrong, and that my calculations were incorrect. He said the weight disparities were normal, and that Brogan had told him they were due to the truck’s fuel consumption because, on this route, they loaded several containers of diesel in Zambia and used it along the way.”
Joey kept quiet, deciding it wouldn’t be prudent to offer his opinion on Dave’s response. This told him something about their marriage, though. It was clear that Isobel didn’t have a voice. Not one that her husband listened to, anyway.
“And Dave didn’t explain why the business was bleeding profits, either,” Isobel added sadly. “So Samantha and I discussed it, and I decided I was going to travel out here to see for myself. I sent her the details of my flights and where I was staying, in case anything went wrong, but she promised me she wouldn’t say a word to anyone.”
“And you’re sure you trust Samantha?” Joey asked, thinking about the hitman who’d come so close to killing Isobel.
“Oh, yes, I trust her totally,” Isobel said.
“People can sometimes give information away innocently,” Joey warned her, keeping his voice gentle. “Especially if they have no reason to be distrustful.”
Now, looking at Isobel again, he saw the beginnings of doubt in her eyes.
Chapter 19
Five minutes to six, and Steyn’s tracking system, now back online, informed him that the truck was running twenty minutes late. Another truck had jackknifed in the storm, which in turn had caused heavy traffic delays north of Pretoria.
That meant his next job was a particularly ugly one, and something he had not been looking forward to, for a variety of reasons. Firstly, there was little skill involved in its execution; it was a task even a pig-ignorant muscle man could have done. And secondly, it involved going underground, which was not something Steyn would have willingly chosen.
However, he was a professional, and this was merely another chore to perform, part of an assignment for which he was receiving an extremely high payment.
He drove off the highway, along a tar road that turned to dirt a few kilometers later. At the end of the dirt road was a large “Road Closed” barrier, with faded yellow chevrons. However, somebody arriving at the barrier who took a closer look would see the signs of flattened grass where cars had driven around the sign, just as Steyn was doing now.
A little farther along the road, which was now little more than a bumpy track, was another weathered sign. “Egoli East Rand Gold Mine. Entrance Closed. Access Prohibited by Law.”
And, beyond that, Steyn noticed a third sign. This one was newer, but it had been pulled off its post and now lay, faceup, on the ground nearby.
“Premises Secured by Private Johannesburg.”
At that moment, Steyn’s phone beeped. He had an incoming message — information on the SUV’s license plate, which he had requested earlier.
He read the message.
Then he looked down again at the sign on the ground.
His thin lips hooked into another joyless smile. Coincidence sometimes worked in strange ways.
Steyn parked the BMW behind a row of bushes farther on, so it was not visible from the road.
He ducked under the chain-link fence outside the mine’s entrance, which displayed another “Closed — Warning — Danger” notice, rattling in the breeze.