Code of the Eagle - For The Motherland Book 1

Chapter 5

Tlokweng

Garikai parked his rented Corolla under the large Morula tree about a hundred meters from the house and killed the engine. He looked around and grimaced. The area was too quiet and anything out of the ordinary was sure to be picked up by the area's neighbourhood watch. Although his sheer size made him conspicuous, he had learnt to blend in to whatever environment he found himself in. NISA training had done him a world of good, he thought sarcastically.

Lynnette had called him after he had returned the hazmat suit and left Broadhurst. How this woman always seemed to know where he was and what, often who, he was doing didn't sit well with him. He had learnt to deal with it, but he had to admit it pissed the hell out of him.

She had given him the directions to Bubi’s house and then warned him that she had to get back to Zimbabwe. This in essence meant he would be on his own going forward.

“If you can't do better than ‘the brown house next to the big Morula tree’ then I don't think I need your services anymore anyway, Agent Lynnette,” he mocked petulantly. It peeved him that the agent had called him into this and was now deserting him. Okay, deserting was a strong word but he knew he would need her invaluable services to make things easier for him. Then again, who was he kidding? Nothing about this was going to be easy from that point on. After having seen over half a dozen bodies in various stages of bio-weapon induced death, nothing was going to be a walk in the park going forward.

“Try not to miss me too much,” Lynnette had said to him and it had irked him no end that she had made no effort to mask the mirth in her voice.

“I received the vaccine,” he told her gruffly. “It’s been administered.”

“I know. And Garikai? Watch your back,” she had said just before she hung up.

Getting out of the car and locking it, he walked briskly up to the building that Lynnette had described to him. Although he kept his gaze focused on the house, nothing escaped him.

There were three kids, probably aged six, eight and nine, playing with a bicycle about a hundred metres from where he had parked his car. Two women in nightgowns, one with a towel wrapped around her waist and a doek, gossipped loudly in Setswana over the fence that separated their properties. A young man of about eighteen was polishing his shoes on the stoep of his house, white earphones plugged in as he nodded his head to whatever music he was listening to. A brown and white mutt lay panting in the shade of a boundary wall on the other side of the road. Other than that there was no activity in his immediate area.

He opened the unlocked gate and walked into the yard, immediately walking to the front door. He had been told that the place was unoccupied but one never knew. He quickly unlocked the door with his trusty lockpick and walked into the house, drawing his weapon as he did so. A quick look through the window confirmed that no-one thought his behaviour suspicious. The kids kept playing, the gossipers kept gossiping and the dog hadn't moved.

He looked around the house, noting that it was neat with everything in its place. To be honest he had expected the place to be messy and unkempt. This was good. It would make it easier for him to find something which would assist with his investigation. Moving quickly, he opened doors and pulled shelves, trying to find anything that would give him a clue with regard to what was going on. He huffed in frustration as he realised that the place was almost too sterile, as though someone had deliberately cleaned out the property to remove any evidence.

He headed towards the bedroom and smiled. Bingo!

The bedroom had not yet been touched. The bed was unmade and there were silver canisters in a box on the side table near the bed. This must be what they had used to smuggle the N.G. virus across the border in. Too bad Bubi hadn’t known he had signed his own death warrant by allying himself with his unscrupulous bosses. He had deserved what he got.

Garikai moved closer to the box of canisters and looked inside. There was a piece of paper within the box that he had not seen from his original position on the other side of the room. Taking a step forward to have a look, he reached into the box with his left hand, the gun still in his right. As he leaned forward to take a closer look, an arm quickly wrapped itself around his neck with another holding the back of his head.

Caught off-guard, Garikai jerked his head backwards and was satisfied when he heard a grunt from his attacker. He raised his right arm and jammed his elbow into the ribs of the person behind him. The arm around his neck tightened and he felt the breath get stuck in his throat. He put his foot on the side table and pushed back, hurtling himself and the assailant against the wall behind them. The man gave a cry and released Garikai.

Garikai turned around and looked at the man who had attacked him. He punched him in the face and then aimed the gun at his head before the man could recover.

“Where is your next target?” he asked the man.

Instead of answering, a sly smile appeared on the shorter man’s face and he sneered. Garikai cocked his gun and glared at him. “I hate repeating myself,” he said. The man laughed.

“The people I work for scare me more than you do, so do your worst,” he was told.

The man was not a Motswana nor a Zimbabwean. Garikai could not readily place his accent. A fleeting thought had him wondering just how far this network went. This was not good.

Pushing the silencer of his gun into the man’s mouth, Garikai’s lips twisted into a smile that made the man’s eyes widen for a second.

“I believe you remember my question,” he said as he leaned into the man in front of him, pushing the gun further into his mouth.

Without warning, the man raised his hand, pushed his index finger against Garikai’s trigger finger, inadvertently making the gun discharge into the back of his mouth and killing him instantly.

Garikai took a step back as the man slid lifelessly to the ground, the red of his blood smearing against the wall behind him like a horror movie Rorschach image as he went down. The agent sighed as he realised that he had just lost a potential lead. Quickly searching through the dead man’s jacket, he found a wallet and was about to rifle through it when he heard a car pull up outside.

“Dammit,” he mumbled, teeth gritted as he hurriedly stood up. He couldn’t go out the front door so he headed to the bedroom window. Grabbing the white piece of paper on his way he put his gun away and pulled open the window. He took a quick peek through the window and saw a black BMW parked outside. It had tinted windows but it looked empty. Hurrying out, he slipped his lanky figure out the window and moved to the front of the house.

He peeked around to see a tall woman with short hair, dressed in light blue jeans and a black shirt with white sneakers. She tried the door handle. The door opened and she slowly pushed it open before walking into the house, calling out, “Hello? Anyone here?”

He counted to three before walking around the house and quickly out the gate, noting that she had stopped in the middle of the living room and was looking around. Having no desire to be caught out, he hurried out the gate and moved quickly to his car, not looking around.

It would be just a matter of time before she saw the body and called the police. He definitely did not want to be around when that happened.