Wells watched in silence as Duto considered the case he’d made.
“Starting to understand how you’ve lasted so long,” he finally said.
“Let’s just hope that Pieter in Roodepoort doesn’t prove me wrong by shooting us both.”
Pieter arranged to meet them in the parking lot of a Steers, a popular South African burger chain. Orange Honda, his text explained. He was there when they arrived, eating a messy-looking burger and leaning against a beat-up Accord. The car was more red than orange, but Wells wasn’t arguing.
“You’re the ones from Marion?” Pieter crammed down the last of his burger and stepped toward them. He was a wiry man with tattoos that curled up his neck like his chest was on fire. He wore a baggy T-shirt emblazoned with the South African rugby logo. Wells would have been shocked if the shirt didn’t hide a pistol.
“That’s us.”
“Wait in your car,” Pieter said to Duto. He led Wells to the back of the Honda and popped the trunk. Inside, an unzipped blue canvas bag held two Glock 19 pistols and a pump-action Mossberg shotgun, along with a box of 9-millimeter ammunition and a dozen or so 12-gauge shells loose in a plastic bag.
“Fifty thousand rand.” About five thousand dollars. Almost three times what these weapons would cost in a store. A black-market price for black-market guns.
“I take a look?”
Pieter nodded. Wells reached into the bag. The pistols were unloaded. Wells racked their slides, made sure their magazine releases were smooth, dry-fired them. He couldn’t be sure without actually shooting them, but they felt right. He didn’t care about the shotgun. The pistols were what mattered.
“Okay, then, chief?”
“Can we give it to you in dollars. Five thousand?”
“What bills?”
“Hundreds, mainly. New.” Guys like Pieter didn’t always like hundreds, the denomination most targeted by counterfeiters.
“Six, then. Your friend has it?” Pieter dumped out the fries from his Steers paper bag and handed it to Wells. “Put it in the sack. I’ll put the duffel on the ground. You toss me the sack and I drive off.”
Wells didn’t like the sequence. There was a tarp in the trunk behind the bag that could be hiding a second bag that looked identical to the first but was filled with junk instead of guns. Pieter could grab the second bag and throw it down while Wells got the money from Duto. By the time Wells looked inside it and realized the con, Pieter would be on his way out of the lot, the money in his pocket and the weapons still in his trunk. He’d be making a stupid move, since Wells and Duto were paying far more than the firearms were worth. But guys with neck tattoos were rarely strategic thinkers.
“Vinny. Bring over six thousand.”
“I told him to stay,” Pieter said. He stepped back from Wells, lifted his rugby shirt to reveal a black pistol tucked into his waistband. He made the move in a half-assed wannabe gangster way that told Wells he had no intention of using it.
“Good for you.” Wells nodded at Duto. “He has one, too. Take out the bag, put it on the ground.”
From the way Pieter looked at the trunk, Wells knew he’d tried to scam them.
“Seriously? After your buddy brought a tear to my eye with the white-solidarity speech?”
Pieter ignored him, tossed down the bag.
“We’re going to pay you anyway. Give him two thousand dollars, Vinny.”
“I said six.”
“Before you tried to rob us. Two thousand is what they’re worth.” Now Wells was the one acting stupid. Two thousand or six thousand made no difference. But Wells was all out of patience. He felt like a walking incarnation of that T-shirt favored by bratty five-year-olds: I only have one nerve left and you’re getting on it. The last month had been exhausting, and the longest night was still to come.
“He’ll put it under the wiper, I’ll grab the bag, and we’re done.”
Duto reached into his pocket, counted out the money, fanning the bills so Pieter could see them. He stuffed them under the wiper blade. Wells picked up the bag, backed away carefully. Pieter grabbed the money and made a show of counting it. “Good.”
“Everybody’s happy, then.”
Pieter offered Wells his twin middle fingers.
The Audi’s GPS led them southwest, toward the N1, the sun low in their eyes. “You think putting one over on that kid makes up for the way Duberman beat you in Tel Aviv?”
“Just drive, Vinny.”
“You want to talk about it?”
Wells didn’t want to talk about it. Not with Duto. Not now, not ever. He had let Duto bait him over a moral line he had sworn not to cross. Now the man wanted to — what, exactly? Absolve him? Condemn him for failing? Wells wasn’t sure which choice repulsed him more.
He closed his eyes and recited the Quran’s first Surah, Bis-millahi rahmani rahim / Al hamdu-lillah rabbi alamin… In the name of Allah, the merciful, the compassionate / All praise due to Allah, Lord of the Worlds…
“I know you’re just spouting that to piss me off, John—”
Wells filled himself with the prayer, and soon enough Duto had nothing to say.
When he opened his eyes, the sky outside was full dark. He must have slept. They were deep in the countryside, speeding down a two-lane road that curved through fields cut as tightly as a Marine’s first haircut and speckled with barrels of hay.
“You have a nice nap?”
Wells tilted back his head, rubbed his eyes. “We close?”
“We’re not far, Sleeping Beauty.”
“You must want me to start praying again.”
“Dear Jesus, no.” Duto’s idea of a joke. “Any ideas how we’re going to play this? Since I left the satellite shots at home.”
“Look for the weak spot, then come in hard. Guns drawn. Don’t waste time. Shoot first. Try not to kill anyone we shouldn’t. The usual.” Wells supposed the last two words were his idea of a joke.
“Sounds good.”
Ten minutes later, the GPS told them that they had arrived. A fence marked by lightning-bolt pictographs ran along the road, ending at the property’s main gate, eight feet of wrought iron set between brick posts. Witwans Manor, a bronze plaque announced.
“Classy,” Duto said. The house itself stood on a low hill a couple hundred feet from the gate. Wells expected it would be mostly dark. Instead, the entire first floor was lit like Witwans was having a cocktail party. Between the Audi’s high beams and the light coming out of the house, they could see up the driveway and the lawn around it. Empty, no guards visible.
Salome’s bodyguard could have set up in a sniper’s nest on the second floor of the mansion to pick off Wells as soon as he jumped the gate. But Wells didn’t see a way around the risk. Shorting out the fence so he could climb it would take longer and be even more conspicuous. Anyway, he had a sinking feeling that they had arrived too late, that Salome’s bodyguard had already left with Witwans.
“I’ll go over the gate, pop it for you from the inside,” Wells said.
“You think he’s gone, don’t you?”
Wells reached into the back seat for a Glock, jammed it into his waistband. He stepped out of the car and scaled the gate, ignoring the iron tines prodding his hands and feet. The gate’s motor was on the inside of the right brick post. Wells turned it on and the gate churned open. Easy enough.
A dog’s howl erased his satisfaction. Not one dog. Two, three, a pack. They tore down the driveway at him, three German shepherds and two Great Danes, their jaws wide open, galloping like they were thoroughbreds and Wells the finish line. Wells reached for his pistol and then realized that shooting them wasn’t an option. Even if he could take out two or three, the survivors would shred him.