Murderous by David Hickson (best ereader for comics .txt) 📕

“That’s not really going to work for your closed-circuit cameras, is it? What kind of suicide bomber has someone else carry the explosives while they help them into the target zone?”

“He’ll shout,” said Roelof, as if we were running through all the permutations. “People will hear.”

“He’ll not shout.” I stood up and moved behind Fat-Boy. Roelof backed away, but held the Ruger up as if he was going to use it. I ignored it, untied the towel and pulled it clear of Fat-Boy’s mouth. He let out a sigh as if the air had been trapped in him. Then he drew a rasping breath. He didn’t shout.

I used the towel to wipe the blood off his stomach and found the entry wound. A neat hole that was filled with pulsing dark blood. It was a little off to the side, and difficult to tell at what angle the bullet had entered. It could have ruptured any number of organs, which could prove life threatening. The only thing I could do now was stop the blood loss. The worst case was probably that stomach acid or intestinal bacteria had leaked out, which could cause peritonitis, an infection that would kill him within about twelve hours. I’d seen that happen in Afghanistan. I ripped a piece of the towel and told Roelof to pass me the duct tape. I plugged the hole with the towel and Fat-Boy howled with the pain. Roelof struck him on the head with the butt of the Ruger. Fat-Boy swallowed the cry.

“For fuck’s sake,” said Roelof, and he held his head up to listen for trouble. I wrapped the duct tape several times around the belly and bound it tight. I looked up to find Fat-Boy’s eyes on me.

“That’s the last time,” said Fat-Boy with a weak voice. “The last time your lily-white fingers touch me, you hear me, white man?”

I felt a rush of relief.

“Stand the fuck up,” shouted Roelof. “Get away from him.” He was losing control now. His glasses had been knocked slightly skew when striking Fat-Boy, and his eyes were dancing with tension. I raised my hands and waited for him to calm down. He puffed out his cheeks and panted rapidly, like he was about to swim underwater.

“Let’s all calm down,” I suggested. “You don’t want to be firing that Ruger of yours just yet, Roelof. It will attract attention, so we’ll all just calm down a little.”

Roelof puffed a bit, then he lowered the gun and straightened his glasses. He beckoned me over to him and laid his gun on the shelf while he bound my hands behind my back.

“My father will kill you,” said Hendrik suddenly. Roelof paused in his knot tying, and he laughed. A forced laugh with no humour in it.

I was facing Hendrik and saw the way he slumped in his chair, his chin low and his gaze on the floor in front of him. There is a dangerous moment when the unwilling subject of an interrogation suffers from a loss of hope. The moment the subject loses the last thread of hope that there is a way out of the situation, something worth fighting for. When that happens, everything changes. And I suspected that Hendrik had lost that hope. Roelof was unaware of it. He had no training, and like most bullies thought that the harder he pushed, the better would be the results. But seeing Hendrik’s drooping head and hearing the dull, flat tone of his voice, I wondered whether he had been pushed too hard. And that was bad news for us.

Believing that we could survive was our only chance at survival.

Roelof had planned his day down to the smallest detail, but it was what Chandler would call a ‘dry’ plan. It hadn’t accounted for any of the ‘wet’ stuff. The other human beings that were involved. And Roelof was not good with other human beings.

His plan was a simple one. Fat-Boy and Hendrik would leave the storeroom shortly before the whistle blew for the main match of the day. The crowds would be mostly settled by then. Roelof would accompany them to the fire exit door into the main corridor. There he would leave them, to take his place in the box with Hendrik’s father, where he would monitor their progress towards the bar. Hendrik’s fellow activists would be anxiously awaiting his arrival, thanks to an urgent and intriguing message that Roelof had forced Hendrik to send to his second-in-command. Any deviation from the plan and Roelof would release the button.

In case we didn’t understand what releasing the button would mean, Roelof conducted his final checks in front of us. He placed a small receiver box on the floor and switched it on. Roelof’s nifty little joystick device was also switched on and he depressed the button. The receiver had a small LED light which glowed a menacing red. Roelof counted down for us all, and a little before zero he released the button. The red LED changed to green and a small spark jumped between the two wires that Roelof held close together for increased effect.

“You’ll not get away with this,” I said. “It’s not too late to call it off.”

Roelof made an effort to laugh at that, although it sounded like the yapping of a small dog.

“The police know Q’s brother was frozen,” I said. “They know the DNA was planted.”

Roelof’s eyes blinked quickly in surprise.

“How do you know what the police know?” he asked.

“Did you kill Q’s brother?”

Roelof shook his head. “Hennie did. When Nqobeni came to the lodge, shouting and screaming, I knew Hennie had gone too far. You did it, Hennie, didn’t you? You killed that priest.”

Hendrik stared at the floor and said nothing.

“He only told me after I’d calmed Nqobeni down and sent him back to the village. The stupid brother had chased Hennie all the way to the lodge.” Roelof turned to me. “Hennie said