Goldfinger

14 Dec, 2014 - 00:12 0 Views

The Sunday News

Short Story Cuthbert Mavheko
AROUND midnight an army truck transporting US$50 million to a secret military location left Zibandlela Barracks and hurtled along the highway at break-neck speed.
The truck driver shifted down to second gear as he negotiated a sharp corner, then he promptly stamped on the brakes when he spotted a car lying on its roof in the middle of the road. As he pulled up on the side of the road, a young woman with a blood-soaked dress crept out of the wrecked car moaning feebly: “Please…please help me, I…I am hurt.”

The truck driver and his armed escort scrambled out of the truck to help the woman. At that moment, all hell broke loose as four armed men suddenly sprang from the bushes and opened fire with their automatic weapons. The truck driver died instantly and his escort suffered serious head injuries. However, before he died he shot and wounded one of the robbers. The rest of the robbers jumped into the military truck and sped away, leaving their wounded accomplice behind.

The police arrived at the scene of the robbery shortly afterwards and the wounded robber was evacuated to a military hospital, where he was kept under a veil of tight security. During interrogation, he revealed that the robbery had been masterminded by a notorious criminal called Goldfinger and he consented to unmask him in court.

However, he was found dead in a bath-tub on the very day that he was supposed to appear in court. The search for the notorious criminal flopped and the Government approached me for help. My name is Cynthia Dambarawa, I am a former army intelligence officer and run Dambarawa Agency of Private Investigators.

My first port of call was Zibandlela Barracks, where I had an audience with Colonel Bayethe, the barracks’ commanding officer.” I am a private detective and the Government has hired me to find Goldfinger,” I said, showing him my I.D. He looked at me quizzically and examined my I.D. briefly, checking my face against the photo.

“The police and the army have failed to find Goldfinger. What makes you think you can find him, Miss Dambarawa? Goldfinger is a cunning bastard and you will never find him,” he said. A short while later I was directed to the hospital ward, where the wounded robber spent the last hours of his mortal sojourn. I yanked open drawers and emptied their contents on the floor, but found nothing of interest.

I shook the blankets and bed-sheets. I shook the pillow, lifted the mattress and searched under the bed, but I didn’t find anything of interest there either. I was like a person looking for hidden treasure, yet not knowing what the treasure looked like. Just then, my attention was attracted by an empty box of matches under the bed. I picked it up, turned it over in my hand and noticed that it was written on one side like this: ESUOH REBMUN YTNEVES THGIE ADNALABAWG EVIRD EVEVUL.

At first glance, all this meant nothing to me. But my experience as an intelligence officer had taught me that a small piece of evidence that might, on the surface, appear trivial and insignificant sometimes provides the missing link in the jigsaw puzzle of an otherwise complex and seemingly unsolvable case. I shoved the matchbox into my pocket and walked back to my car.

My mind was a hive of questions, queries and anxieties. The deceased robber had consented to unmask Goldfinger, and then he had been found dead on the very day that he was scheduled to appear in court. My hunches told me that he had been murdered to stop him from spilling the beans. But how did the killer get to him, considering that he had been kept under tight security?

I nipped into my car and examined the scrawl on the matchbox with the patience and absorbed concentration of an aviation expert examining the black box of a downed jetliner. It finally dawned on me that this was an address. The words had been written from the right to the left. I rewrote the words in the correct sequence and came up with this address: HOUSE NUMBER SEVENTY EIGHT GWABALANDA DRIVE LUVEVE. The address meant nothing to me. However, my cop instinct told me that it might have something to do with the robbery. Armed with a Tokarev pistol, I sent my ancient Jaguar streaking towards Luveve at break-neck speed.

House Number 78 stood on a steep incline on the northern periphery of Luveve suburb. It was a huge house with a precast wall around it. I drove slowly past the house and then stopped. I watched the house for close to an hour no one went in or out of the house. Satisfied that no-one was at home, I climbed the precast wall, dropped into an open courtyard and cat-footed to the back of the house. There was a huge wooden door, which was locked as fast as Pharaoh’s tomb. Near the door was a huge window .I fished a roll of masking tape out of my pocket and carefully pasted it on one of the dusty window panes. I put my shoulder against the glass and exerted pressure. The glass crumpled inwards without a sound. I knocked the shards of glass away, wriggled through the window and dropped into an eerily-deserted corridor.

There was a door at the far end of the corridor. I pulled my gun out of its shoulder holster and slid forward silently, my feet making no sound on the marble floor. I quietly opened the door, straining my ears for the slightest sound that might betray the presence of someone in the house, but the only sound that I heard was the thunderous booming of my heart.

I slid into the room and my attention was immediately attracted by a huge safe that stood in a corner. I slid my gun into its holster, fished a bunch of keys out of my pocket, inserted a key into the key-hole of the safe and turned it, but the safe remained solidly shut. The second key opened the safe, which contained bundles ofUS$50 and $100 bills. Just then, a voice from behind growled: “Move away from the safe, Miss Dambarawa and turn around slowly with your hands above your head.” I clambered to my feet and faced a masked man, armed with a machine-gun.

“I am the man you are looking for, Miss Dambarawa. You are a very competent private detective, I must say. However, I will have to kill you to keep the secret of my identity under lock and key.” As he spoke the phone began to ring, momentarily diverting his attention. That split-second distraction galvanised me into action. I dived behind a sofa, jerked out my gun with incredible rapidity and fired. The gunman let out a heart-rending cry of anguish and slumped to the floor. I bent over him and wrenched the mask off his face. I almost collapsed with shock when I realised that the gunman was Colonel Bayethe.

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