Allegiance Read Free Page A

Tanveer against the wall, a small table with files crashing over in the process. Mariam put her hand to her mouth as one slapped him hard on the side of the head.
    ‘Stop that,’ she said firmly, involuntarily taking a step towards Tanveer.
    The larger of the two policemen, not willing to entertain her interruption, put his finger in her face. ‘You shut up,’ he said.
    ‘Get your finger out of her face,’ Tanveer said, trying to shake himself loose from the other policeman. The policeman twisted Tanveer’s arm behind his back and the Pakistani groaned with pain.
    Mariam stepped forward, her slender body stiff. In an instant, she had a stapler in her hand which she hurled at the Indian policeman. The other cop, enraged, grabbed Mariam, turned her around and tried to put handcuffs on her. Tanveer broke free and, though smaller than the policeman, dived at him and pushed him off his feet. He fell awkwardly and cried out in pain or perhaps embarrassment. His hand went for his gun holster and hovered over it momentarily as the room fell silent.
    ‘You going to shoot me?’ Tanveer said in a firm voice that mercifully cut through the silence and made the cop gesture rudely at him. ‘Leave her alone,’ he said, snatching the envelope with the R3 000 cash off the table. ‘Here. It’s yours. Go away now.’
    The policeman indignantly pulled himself up, looked at his partner and then motioned for him to take the envelope. Without another word the policemen left the office and closed the door behind them. The whole incident had taken less than a minute.
    ‘Are you okay?’ Tanveer asked, placing an arm on Mariam’s shoulder.
    ‘I’m fine. Are you okay? You didn’t have to do that for me,’ she said shakily, trying to regain composure.
    ‘It was the only way to get rid of them. I’ll replace that money, don’t worry.’
    Mariam sat down, still perplexed at the whole event. This had never happened before. Fortunately Tanveer was there otherwise she didn’t know what would have happened. In some way, he was a hero. She looked at him, a handsome man, a trickle of blood coming from a crack on his lip. He looked more like her Bollywood hero than ever. She took a tissue and touched it to his mouth.
    ‘Thank you, Arshad, you’re a gentleman. I don’t see many in this place.’
    Tanveer smiled and the crack opened up, spilling blood onto his chin. The first blood had been spilt in the operation.
Christmas Eve 2008. Durban
    Kevin Durant kept telling himself Splinters was worth the thirty-minute drive down to the beachfront, even though it was close to midnight and a freak storm was lashing Durban. As he drove over the bridge that spanned the Warwick Road market, the city lights were barely visible through the torrent of rain. He didn’t mind the rain. It was better than the humidity they’d had over the past few days. His Land Rover didn’t mind the rain either, although the raindrops on the metal cab made it incredibly noisy inside. Durant twirled the volume knob. The radio was reporting some loss of life in the rural areas from lightning strikes and in Inchanga a roof had collapsed, killing a mother and two small children. His thoughts went to his wife and daughter. Alexis was asleep when he left, and Stephanie was not only awake, but had made her reservations known about his going out. She understood he was a field worker, he handled agents, but could anything possibly be happening on Christmas Eve at 11:30 p.m.? He couldn’t answer her because he didn’t know. He only knew that when Splinters contacted him and wanted a meeting, it was important. As far as informers went, Splinters was a benchmark lowgrade informer. Good access. Years of puzzling and using his twisted financial skills and contacts had built him a reputation which got him, and Durant, valuable information from the criminal underworld. That’s what intelligence was all about. And the best intelligence often came at inconvenient times. Durant