After my statement has been read, we break for lunch. I resent the hour I can’t see her face. Selfishly, I want to keep her on that hard bench for the eight long hours of the trial every day. It stokes my fantasies and sates my hunger to fill my mind up with images of her face, memories I can store for after.
Peters passes me a sandwich on a paper plate after the guard has checked between the layers and cut the bread in small cubes. A man like Peters will never slip me a blade, but protocol is protocol. While I eat and down a bottle of water with cuffed hands, he tells me he’s happy about the media attention. The polls his smartass firm run show my popularity has grown, not that I give a shit about any of that. It was never about that.
Peters wipes the crumbs from his lap and stands. “It’s time.”
He goes to the bathroom reserved for free people while the guards take me for a piss in the basement toilet. We resurface on the ground level next to an arched window. Protesters with posters are lining the street. They’re waving their self-made signs, shouting, “Free Ian.”
One of the guards tells me to get a move on. I shuffle in my shackles, eating up the distance to the courtroom. It feels a lot like the end, as in written with capital letters, those words you find at the end of a story, those words that are followed by a blank page.
Not even a clean slate.
Simply nothing, like dropping off the edge of the earth.
And they lived happily ever after.
I enter, immediately searching the crowd for her face. The tall guy in front of her hides her features, but I can make out the halo of her red hair in the sun that filters through the window. I don’t crane my neck to look at her when I sit down, but her presence ghosts over my skin. If I close my eyes and block out everything else, I’ll catch a whiff of orange blossoms in the air. It’s my mind playing tricks on me, but tricks are good enough for me. I sure as hell won’t be getting more.
I stand when the judge commands me. The public’s faces in the gallery are sympathetic, which is never a good sign. The judge, an old-school, University of Pretoria alumnus who’s sat on several human rights commissions, barely spares me a glance when he convicts me to life imprisonment without parole or pardon for one hundred years.
Peters’s face drops. He was bargaining on a double life sentence, at most triple.
The verdict doesn’t come as a shock. It’s a disappointment all the same, but I can’t say I didn’t expect it. A soft, female gasp comes from the back of the courtroom. I turn my head a fraction. The tall guy has shifted to the left. I catch Cas’s gaze as she sways a little in her seat, clutching the back of the bench in front of her. I smile, offering her the best comfort I can. I doted on these secret moments even if I didn’t want her to come. I pocketed them to take out and enjoy later when the longing gets too much.
All I can offer her is my heart. I leave it in her palm as I walk from the courtroom to the holding cell. I won’t go back to the cell at the local prison where they’ve kept me for the duration of the hearing. I’ll go back to Pretoria.
Now I face the real music. The hearing was for show, appeasing the media and spectators, giving them a false sense of justice. Like the prison guard told me this morning, accidents happen in jail. The government doesn’t intend for me to get out of this alive.
Chapter 22
Cas
When I strap the Colt Python Damian gave me to my ankle, I think about Ian. I can’t help it. I remember the night he took me to Oliver’s birthday party and how the sight of the pistol strapped to my thigh under my dress had turned him on. The memory lances into my heart, but I brush it aside. Now isn’t the time to get sentimental.
Focus, Cas.
I eat an energy bar and swallow my pills with a bottle of water, glancing at my watch every few minutes as if it will make the second-hand tick faster.
When it’s finally time, I pull the imitation Phantom ski mask over my head. Despite the air conditioning blowing full force in my room, a trickle of sweat runs between my shoulder blades. It’s a good plan, but even good plans have flaws.
I spare a glance through the window. The Phantom fan club did their work. A steady trickle of protestors flock toward the Nelson Mandela Bridge, waving their banners to appeal an irreversible decision. The march seems futile, at least for Ian, but opposition parties grabbed the opportunity to march against corruption. The fan club proved a worthy channel of communication. Within hours, news of the protest had gone viral. Already, a huge crowd dressed in orange jumpsuits and Phantom masks are toyi-toying in front of the courthouse.
At eight o’clock tonight, Ian will be transported from the holding cell at the courthouse to the Kgosi Mampuru II prison in Pretoria. We know this thanks to Damian’s contacts. The correctional service wants to wait until after peak hour and after dark. Their aim is moving Ian speedily, quietly, and without fuss, or I should say that was the aim. Now people are gathered on every street facing the High Court building. Television crews arrived to report on scene, which means the police will be extra careful. Already accused of corruption, they can’t afford to fire rubber bullets or injure peaceful protestors.
I fit the bag with my most essential belongings—a false passport, ammunition, pills, money, a change of clothes, and, of course, the diamonds—onto my back. The strap doesn’t bother the wounds on my shoulder any longer. The holes have closed on both sides, and the stitches have dissolved. The wig and the rest of my clothes are already in a waste disposal bin outside. I checked out of my room an hour earlier. All that’s left to do is to join the protestors and walk down to the courthouse.
I go downstairs and fall in line behind a small group. When they flag down a minivan taxi, I get in with the rest of them.
The sight that awaits at the corner of Pritchard and Kruis Streets makes me utter a silent gasp. There are more people than what I expected. They’re dancing and singing, the majority waiting at the underground parking exit for the armored police van that will transport Ian.
Getting lost in the crowd is easy. Surprisingly, the beat of my heart is steady. I’ve recovered after being shot. I’m stressed but well rested. This time, I’m not failing. I’m not allowing my body to give up.
Reporters are waving microphones in people’s faces, asking what the reason for the peaceful demonstration is. My focus is trained on the armed officers guarding the exit and creating a barrier to keep the protestors back.
The van appears earlier than planned. The move is supposed to take everyone by surprise, but not us.
I get into position. When the gates open, the motorcycles leave first, leading the convoy. The van follows after the bikes. That’s when my heart starts galloping. That’s when it gets real.
On the opposite side of the road, Leon releases the spikes as soon as the bikes have passed. At the same time, the men we’ve planted in the crowd shoot darts at people. When the first person tumbles to the ground, the front tires of the van explode.
Pandemonium breaks out. The line of cops aren’t strong enough to hold the mob. The protestors burst through the barrier, driving back the shielded cops. People run in all directions as darts fly at them from seemingly nowhere. The police watch on helplessly, aiming their guns but not knowing who to aim at in the chaos. The cops on the bikes turn around, but screaming people are running in the road.