In the Company of Killers, Bryan Christy [love story books to read .txt] 📗

rifle into the long grass, and Krieger’s father, a sometime client of Selby’s, had purchased it from him. A double rifle gave you a second opportunity—good for the animal, good for the hunter—but Krieger’s father believed that having only one shot intensified a man’s concentration. “Puts your heart inside the bullet, Terry,” his father used to say. Krieger found that to be true, and he applied his old man’s philosophy to other aspects of his life. He pursued one-of-a-kind business deals. Deals with genuine consequences. Deals that, if he missed, could turn and gore him.

He intended to use the rifle on a big buffalo in the morning. Zoeller claimed it was a legendary animal. “He’s called Minotaur, Tots. Very grumpy.” All the big animals had names now, apparently.

Krieger looked at the big male lion carcass hanging by its Achilles tendons from a skinning rack. Blaze would not be joining tomorrow’s hunt. In the end, he had been wrong about her.

THE PURGE

Pretoria, South Africa

The next morning, Hungry drove Klay and Tenchant to an industrial stretch on the outskirts of Pretoria, empty at this early hour of all vehicles but one. “Ncube’s spy,” Hungry said, pointing to a white Corsa van parked along the curb.

Klay saw the driver’s face in the van’s side-view mirror as they passed. He was asleep.

“Fortunately, they do not like to exert themselves.” She circled the block and parked in the back. “We’ll go in another way.” She led them to a brick building next door. A sign beside the entrance read, “WhiteOut Industro Laundry.”

Inside, Hungry nodded hello to a man holding a pad and pencil, recording stacks of folded bedsheets. “Abby. My radical friend,” Hungry said as they passed. “We grew up in Soweto together.”

She pushed a laundry cart out of their path, then opened a heavy door and ushered them into the building next door. “Welcome to the nest,” she said. “Sorry for the . . . everything. The building used to be a garage for diesel trucks. We’re up there.” Hungry pointed to a lighted doorway at the end of a catwalk that ran along the second floor’s back wall.

The garage was two stories of open space to accommodate trucks, illuminated from above by a row of filthy windows. A graveyard of greasy old truck parts and big jointed tools filled the floor. It stank of motor oil.

“Watch your step,” she said, taking hold of a metal pipe railing. As he climbed the bar grate stairs, Klay heard snippets of voices arguing.

A man’s voice said, “. . . for your own good, Miss Edna . . .”

A woman replied, “When I need another man telling me what’s good for me, it won’t be you . . .”

“Goodness,” Hungry said under her breath.

At the far end of the catwalk was a massive stainless steel door more than four inches thick, with recessed locking bolts along its edges, the kind of door found on a bank vault or, Klay reasoned, a safe room. Klay smiled. Someone had propped the impregnable door open using a floor mop and a couple of bricks. All the protections . . .

Inside, the argument continued: “. . . slipping around those clubs has brought sin home with you . . .”

Hungry grasped the mop and slid the bricks away with her toe. “Please,” she said, ushering Klay and Tenchant inside. Behind them, the steel door closed with a hush.

“It’s my kota he has, mum,” a large woman said. “He has taken it for himself. In his desk drawer.“

“Untrue,” the man said. “I do have it in my desk drawer, but I have it for your own good. You have your daughter’s wedding to think of . . .”

Three people were seated at desks in what resembled a mini squad room. Whiteboard. Steel filing cabinets. Computers. Each had their breakfast laid out in front of them, none appeared to have started eating yet.

Hungry cleared her throat. “Mr. Tom Klay and Mr. David Tenchant of The Sovereign magazine, this—I am rarely embarrassed to say—is my task force. They think we call them the Wild Dogs because they are three of our nation’s finest criminal prosecutors. But you will find, as with so many things in South Africa, the truth is much more straightforward.”

Hungry gestured toward a large, light-skinned woman in a bright dress and ornate headscarf. “This is Miss Edna Sebati, who,” she said sharply, “is in charge of this office when I am away.”

Miss Edna nodded.

“Miss Minenhle Mthembu—Minnie—my junior prosecutor,” Hungry said. Minnie smiled. She was slender, in her late twenties, wearing a dark business suit and white blouse.

“And last, Officer Julius Sehlalo, our investigator, formerly of the Hawks.”

Sehlalo was handsome and fit, and as dark-skinned as Tenchant was pale. He wore a tailored navy-blue jacket over a black T-shirt. A gold medallion on a gold chain hung around his neck.

Klay and Tenchant smiled hello, but that didn’t help much. They were outsiders, and tension in the room was thick. As he reached forward to shake Sehlalo’s hand, Klay noticed a holster under Sehlalo’s jacket, a reminder that this special prosecutor’s office came with special powers.

Hungry walked behind Sehlalo’s desk. She opened a drawer and removed a large sandwich wrapped in foil. “This kota is the property of the state now. I will dispose of it according to the rules of eminent domain, affording just compensation to its owner in the form of mineral water and raw vegetables of her choice.”

“State capture!” Miss Edna shouted.

“Back to work,” Hungry said, stifling a smile. “I believe you have some.”

Hungry led Klay and Tenchant through a doorway into her windowless private office. As she closed the door, Klay glimpsed Sehlalo offering a yogurt to his coworker. That was good. A team that stuck together was important.

Hungry indicated her office’s two wooden chairs, placed the sandwich on a bookshelf, and took a seat behind her desk. She withdrew some papers and a laptop from her briefcase. “We refer to Miss Edna’s weight problem as her daughter’s wedding,” she explained. “Her daughter Rosie’s been married four years now and lives with her husband and