Trackers by Deon Meyer Read Free Book Online Page A

we'll naturally monitor
from now on. The house belongs to one Abdullah Hendricks. Up till now he has
not been on our radar at all.' He clicked on a new electronic folder.
    'Hendricks.'
    Inkunzi's voice, deep and authoritarian: 'I have a message
for Inkabi.'
    'Inka ...? Yes, Inkabi. What is the message?'
    'Tell him he was right. Our friend in Zimbabwe is back in the
export business, but he has new partners, and he wants to export to South
Africa. Tell him this is ninety-nine per cent sure, but that is all we know. We
will try to get more.'
    'I will tell him.'
    'OK, my friend. That's all.'
    'Khuda hafiz. '
    'OK.'
    The electronic noise of a call being terminated. Quinn turned
away from the screen and looked at Mentz and Masilo. '"Inkabi" is the
Zulu word for "ox", "os" as in Osman, which of course, refers to the Supreme Committee member Shaheed
Latif Osman. Most likely that is the code Shabangu and Osman agreed on during
their meeting. Obviously, Shabangu has a sense of humour.'
    Only Masilo smiled.
    'Hendricks might be Supreme Committee too, or on the fringes.
He's new to us. You can also pick up that he was taken a little by surprise. He
didn't recognise the code immediately. We believe this is the first call from
Shabangu to this number, the first time that he has used the code to report to
Osman since they met in Johannesburg,' said Quinn.
    'What does " khuda hafiz "
mean?' Mentz asked.
    'It's a Muslim greeting. Something like "may God protect
you". As we could hear, Shabangu didn't know either.'
    'Have we no idea who Inkunzi Shabangu's contact in Harare
is?'
    'No, ma'am. But we do know quite a few other things. We know
why Osman went to see Shabangu.'
    'Share your insights,' said Janina Mentz.
    'It is still an incomplete picture ...'
    'That I know, Quinn. And it's quite a muddled picture to me.'
    'Take it from the top,' said Masilo. 'It is very important that
we all understand exactly what's going on here.'
    Quinn nodded, thought a moment before he came and sat down
opposite them.
    'Very well,' he said. 'Picture it as a drama, with two main
actors and two supporting roles. Main character number one is Johnson Chitepo.
He is Zimbabwe's Chief of Joint Operations Command, he was Mugabe's right-hand
man, the man who negotiated the deal to acquire the diamond mine concessions in
the Congo. He was also the one who sold the diamonds in the carefree years so
that he and Comrade Bob could put money aside. Huge amounts of money. But that
was then. Things are appreciably different now. Mugabe and Chitepo are slowly
but surely losing their grip on power in Zim. Their diamond sales are curtailed
by sanctions and international agreements, their bank accounts are frozen, for
all practical purposes that money is lost. Chitepo's burning desire right now
is to quickly build up a new nest egg. Before the end arrives, and the end will
arrive, it's only a matter of time. He's sitting with at least a hundred
million dollars' worth of diamonds. Multiply that by seven, it's a lot of rands
... And he can't sell them directly But now he seems to have found new
partners. Someone in nature conservation, someone who can smuggle them out via
the greater Kruger Park. Does that make sense?'
    Mentz nodded.
    'Our second lead actor is Sayyid Khalid bin Alawi Macki. He
was the one who formerly helped Chitepo with the diamond sales, he was the one
who converted the Congo diamonds into cash, laundered the money and deposited
it in the Swiss bank accounts of Mugabe and his cronies. But once his channels
were choked off, the big friendship between him and Chitepo soured. Before I go
on, there are a lot of things we must keep in mind when it comes to Macki. One:
his core business is money laundering, and he operates all over Africa. We know
he does it for the pirates in Somalia, for the fraud and drug networks in
Nigeria, and the car-theft syndicates in Mozambique. Two: the international
economic crisis hit him hard. He lost huge investments in Dubai, his