Father Confessor - For the Motherland

Chapter 26

The drive back to the government house was done mostly in silence. When Tsholo turned her head slightly to the left, she could see Garikai's grim profile and it tore at her heart. She was used to seeing his cheeky, non-caring side. This somber part of him was unsettling. She did not like it at all. Turning back to the road, she continued driving, keeping her eyes on the sparse traffic. She had no illusions that the truck that had taken Johnson was long gone, however, a small part of her hoped that she would see it and she could go undo the wrong that had been done to her and Garikai. She heard him sigh next to her and she unconsciously reached out for his hand and squeezed it. She felt him squeeze back and her heart lightened just a little bit.

When they got to the government house, Garikai give her a quick hug and then excused himself.

"I have to talk to Lynette," he said to her. Tsholo nodded slowly, understanding that he needed to give the update to his team. Shit had hit the fan and was now blowing a less than appealing stench to everyone who was in the vicinity. With that unpleasant thought in her head, she reached for her own phone and made a quick call. When the voice on the other side answered it was as cold as she had expected it would be.

"What do you want?" Nariti asked.

"I wanted to let you know that Johnson got away. Furange took him away from us."

Nariti was so quiet that Tsholo thought she might have had hung up. She frowned into the receiver, wondering if the phone had lost connectivity. Then, when she was thinking about hanging up and redialling, Nariti spoke.

"I will see what I can do," she said before the phone went dead.

Tsholo sighed again, hating to have had to make that call. It had been necessary, however, and she was glad that she had made it. Moving to the window, she passed by a mirror and she automatically turned to look at herself in it. Her eyes widened as she realised how horrible she looked. Her short hair was unkempt and her lips were dry and slightly ashy. There were bags under her eyes and she swore she looked like the walking dead. With a drawn out groan, she headed towards the bathroom to try and make herself more presentable. Opening the bathroom door, she walked to the sink and turned the tap on, splashing some cold water on her face. When she was done, she reached for a paper towel and dried herself off. Reaching into her pocket, she pulled out some lip balm and traced it over her lips. She looked into the eyes looking back at her and felt a pain in her heart. Things were not supposed to have turned out this way.

The kids should both have been home by now. Johnson should've still been in police custody. All the bad guys should've been caught. When she had signed up as a police official, she had had the unshakeable faith that the bad guys always lost and that the good guys always came out on top. Being here now, with everything that was happening around her, that faith was being seriously tested. So much had gone wrong, most of which she had not anticipated. It had been like a comedy of errors where she had not foreseen any of the events that transpired.

Turning away from the mirror she threw the used paper towel into the trash can. She then put the lip balm back into her pocket and frowned when she felt an unfamiliar shape in there. She felt around with her fingers and her frown deepened as she pulled out a memory stick from her pocket. It definitely was not hers. She stared at it for a long minute not sure how it had ended up in there. Then, she turned and left the bathroom. She needed to find out what was on it. As she hurried back to the office, she could not help but wonder, firstly, how the stick had gotten into her pocket and, secondly, what information it contained.

Not wanting to pre-empt anything, she rushed to the desk where she had left her laptop. Turning it on quickly she pushed the memory stick into it and did a quick virus scan. It was clean. She double tapped on it and watched with bated breath as it opened. Slowly she went through the only folder that was on the stick, feeling her mouth open slowly as she read through the information that was contained within it.

"Oh my God," she whispered. She closed all the open documents after going through them and slammed the laptop shut. She gripped the stick tightly in her hand because the information contained within it was the link that had been missing. Everything now made sense. She needed to get to Garikai as a matter of urgency.

As she turned to head out of the room, she felt the cold mouth of a pistol at her temple. Her heart started to beat thunderously in her chest and she felt her adrenaline spike immediately.

"Give me the stick," a gruff voice said behind her.

Her fingers tightened instinctively around the little piece of plastic in her hand.

"Not a chance," she said. "You might as well kill me now. Good luck explaining all the blood on the furniture."

"Move," the voice said to her. "And don't think for a second that I won't shoot you."

Tsholo turned slowly to face the man who had dared to put a gun in her face. A small smile of disbelief came to her face. "Enock? Why?"

The Vice President's bodyguard said nothing as he pushed her towards the door. This did not stop Tsholo from wanting answers from him, however. "Why are you doing this?" she asked. When she got no response from him she tried something else. "You know they will find you," she said. "Garikai will not rest until he gets to the bottom of this."

"Open the door and be quiet," was the only response that came out of him.

"No. If you want to kill me do it now. I'm not going anywhere with you."

Tsholo put the stick back into her pocket and turned to face the man that had been in the background the whole time, watching over the vice president as he carried out his duties. How involved was he in all of this? How much was he aware of? Who was he trying to protect? Even in the face of certain death the questions would not stop coming to Tsholo's head. There was no way he was a key player. He was one of the pawns and undoubtedly dispensable. Who he worked for, however, was another matter. Whoever it was was a critical piece of the puzzle and it seemed he or she would do anything to get their way.

Tsholo knew she needed to make it out of here alive. She needed to get the information to someone who could help her resolve the mess that this had become. It seemed as though Enock had been sent here to kill her and she needed to think fast.

"Aw, what the hell," she said. "Why would I want to die for somebody who I don't even care about?" she said. She held out her hand which was fisted as though she held something within it. "Take the damn stick."

Just for a second, Enock's eyes went to her fisted hand and that was all the time she needed. Moving quickly she threw a punch at the face of the man who had been sent to kill her. Enock was a trained soldier, however, and quickly moved out of the way. She punched him in the stomach and it barely moved him. She took a step back and weighed her options as a vicious snarl tore from his throat and he aimed the gun at her again.

I'm in trouble, she thought.