Free Wake Up Dead by Roger Smith

Strategic Solutions, had provided
bodyguards and security personal to trouble spots around the world. Iraq absorbed most of these men, often doing the work that the coalition forces couldn’t be seen to be doing. So Billy had been part of a deal brokered by SS, which hooked him and some other South Africans up with a U.S. company in Baghdad.
    Billy had wanted out of Cape Town. To get far away from the looming mountain and the sea and windswept sprawl of the Flats. Away from Piper caged in Pollsmoor Prison and the dust devils that danced on Clyde Adams’s fresh grave.
    Billy hadn’t cared where he was posted, as long as he was being paid in dollars. Sending the money home to Clyde’s wife and children. But all he’d done was leave them vulnerable to the vultures, made them prey by laying a boatload of cash on them. He had been a fucken idiot.
    Billy started the car and drove away, feeling the weight of the Glock in his waistband. Fighting the temptation to drive across to Manson’s house.
    He could tackle the gangster head-on, pull a High Noon on a dusty White City street. Maybe he’d get lucky and kill him. Maybe he’d die trying. Even if he took Manson out, it would solve nothing. Another tattooed punk with cloned MTV moves would pimp-roll his way up the food chain.
    And Clyde’s family would be even more vulnerable.
    Billy had to get Barbara and her kids out of Paradise Park, away from the gangs. Take them to one of the quiet fishing villages up the coast, where they could build new lives. That would cost money.
    Billy drove up Main toward the city. Cape Town was putting on one of its shows, the evening sun painting the distant mountain a pale pink.
    He reached for his cell phone and dialed his cop connection. Prayed he wouldn’t get voice mail again. The cop answered.
    Billy said, “You got that address for me yet, for Joe Palmer?”
    “I do, ja.” The man laughed. “Salt River morgue.”
    “The fuck you saying here?” Feeling his hands tighten on the wheel.
    The cop told Billy Afrika about the hijacking and the murder. Told him where he could find Joe Palmer’s widow. Up in Bantry Bay, where the sun was sagging behind Lion’s Head, sending up golden rays like the holy light itself.
     
     
     
    ROXY LAY ON her back, trapped between the front and rear seats, the ugly man on top of her, forcing the gun barrel into her mouth. He stank, and a drop of sweat fell from his forehead onto her cheek, where it rolled down like a tear.
    She couldn’t see the driver, from where she was wedged, but she had glimpsed his face as she was grabbed and thrown into the car. Mr. Handsome from the lineup. Meaning that the troll-like man had fired the first shot at Joe.
    The troll was speaking, too quickly for her to catch the words, like a rabid dog barking. When she didn’t react, he twisted the gun in her mouth and she tasted blood. “I say gimme the fucken keys.”
    She understood him this time and unclipped the keys from the cord around her neck. He grabbed them from her and held them up. A tattooed arm hooked over the front seat, and the driver took them. There was a panic button on the keychain that worked in a half-mile radius of her house. Not that she had thought of using it.
    She had no idea where they were going. Maybe they were taking her out to the Cape Flats, the sprawling ghetto she’d glimpsed from the air, and come to know from crime statistics on TV. All she could see was the darkening blue of the sky through the side window. She heard traffic around her: the hiss of airbrakes from a truck, the incessant horn tapping of a minibus taxi—the wail of the doorman: Caaaaaape Teeeuuuun —and the distant scream of a siren speeding toward somebody else’s emergency.
    They turned into a quieter street, and for a minute she heard only the rasping breath of the man above her, and the strain of the car’s engine as it fought an incline. When she saw Lion’s Head in the rear window, she knew they were taking her