‘Call me Harry. Yes, I’ve written down the numbers. You approve of this?’
‘I’m sorry?’
‘All this cloak-and-dagger business. It’s your idea, is it?’
‘It’s actually your daughter’s idea.’
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound as if I was accusing you. It seems like quite a mess down there and, well, I’m not sure Lindi knows what she’s involved with.’
‘Listen, Harry. You and me, we’re in the same boat. It’s time we let go. Lindi is her own woman.’
Just before sunrise the next morning, Kagiso looked around the room, checking they’d left nothing. Lindi was in the bathroom. They had decided to keep moving, to work their way back towards Nelspruit where they’d arranged to meet Khethiwe Shabangu and her driver for the final leg of the journey to Johannesburg.
They’d hatched their plan – Lindi’s plan. By now Priscilla Motlantshe should have received a call from Harry Seaton. Kagiso knew it was a bigger gamble than he’d taken in all the years of his clandestine activities. Sabotage took careful planning, trustworthy accomplices, some cunning, plenty of courage but, most important, the option of bailing out if something wasn’t right. He was always in charge of events, not the other way round. This was different. This whole scheme depended on Mrs Motlantshe, a woman he’d met only once, reacting in a way Kagiso hoped she would. It was based on a hunch, not a calculation, an assumption that mother and son had shared a bond that transcended her duties as a wife. What if he was wrong, and right now, instead of thinking of a way to get to Francis Xavier Church, she was on the phone again, alerting Josiah, or Willemse?
Lindi came out of the bathroom and saw Kagiso staring out of the window.
‘Hey! What are you thinking?’
‘I was just thinking there is nothing more I can do. It’s down to you now, you and Ma Khethiwe.’
It had been Kagiso’s idea for Lindi to have Ma Khethiwe with her when she went to the church. He chuckled.
‘What?’
‘I was just thinking of you and Khethiwe together. That’s quite a scary combination.’
‘You bet.’
Lindi took one last, lingering look at the room and shut the door.