‘When a beast is slaughtered, lamb, goat, pig, steer, about once a week, the fresh offal is thrown into the ocean. And the blood. That sea is alive with sharks. Blacktip, whitefin, tiger, giant hammerhead, they’re all there. Last month one of my men fell overboard. The boat swerved back to pick him up. They were there in thirty seconds. Too late.’
‘He didn’t come out of the water?’
‘Most of him did. But not his legs. He died two days later.’
‘Burial?’
‘Out there.’
‘So the sharks got him after all.’
‘No one makes mistakes around here. Not with Adriaan van Rensberg in charge.’
‘What about crossing the sierra, the way I came in yesterday?’
For answer van Rensberg handed McBride a pair of field glasses.
‘Have a look at it. You cannot climb round the edges of it. It’s sheer to the water. Come down the escarpment in daylight and you’ll be seen in seconds.’
‘But at night?’
‘So, you reach the bottom. Your man is outside the razor wire, over two miles from the mansion and outside the wall. He is not a peon, not a guard; he is quickly spotted and . . . taken care of.’
‘What about the stream I saw? Could one come in down the stream?’
‘Good thinking, Mr McBride. Let me show you the stream.’
Van Rensberg drove to the airfield, entered with his own bleeper for the chain-link gate and motored to where the stream from the hills ran under the runway. They dismounted. There was a long patch of water open to the sky between the runway and the fence. The clear water ran gently over grasses and weeds on the bottom.
‘See anything?’
‘Nope,’ said McBride.
‘They’re in the cool, in the shade, under the runway.’
It was clearly the South African’s party piece. He kept a small supply of beef jerky in the jeep. When he tossed a piece in, the water seethed. McBride saw the piranha sweep out of the shadow and the cigarette-pack-sized piece of beef was shredded by a myriad needle teeth.
‘Enough? I’ll show you how we husband the water supply here and never lose security. Come.’
Back in the farmland, van Rensberg followed the stream for most of its meandering course through the estate. At a dozen points, spurs had been taken off the main current to irrigate various crops or top up different storage ponds, but they were always blind alleys.
The main stream curved hither and yon, but eventually came back to the cliff edge near the runway but beyond the wire. There it increased in speed and rushed over the cliff into the sea.
‘Right near the edge I have a plate of spikes buried,’ said van Rensberg. ‘Anyone trying to swim through here will be taken by the current and swept along, out of control, between smooth walls of concrete, towards the sea. Passing over the spikes the helpless swimmer will enter the sea bleeding badly. Then what? Sharks, of course.’
‘But at night?’
‘Ah, you have not seen the dogs? A pack of twelve. Dobermanns and deadly. They are trained not to touch anyone in the uniform of the estate guards, and another dozen of the senior personnel no matter how dressed. It is a question of personal odour.
‘They are released at sundown. After that every peon and every stranger has to remain outside the wire or survive for a few minutes until the roaming dogs find him. After that there is no chance for him. So, this mercenary of yours. What is he going to do?’
‘I haven’t the faintest idea. If he’s got any sense, I gu
ess he’s gone by now.’
Van Rensberg laughed again.
‘Very sensible of him. You know, back in the old country, up in the Caprivi Strip, we had a camp for mundts who were causing a lot of trouble in the townships. I was in charge of it. And you know what, Mr CIA-man? I never lost a single kaffir. Not one. By which I mean, no escapers. Never.’