Chapter 14

Dragon Peaks Airfield. North Hangar.

The evening was cool as I stepped out of my suite towards the restaurant. Not cold. Just cool—the sort of gentle mountain chill that reminded me I was in the Drakensberg without making me regret leaving the warmth of my room. The last of the daylight still lingered over the valley, turning the higher peaks into dark silhouettes against a fading blue sky. A faint breeze moved through the trees around the Lakeside Suites, carrying the dry, clean scent of winter grass and pine.

I zipped my jacket halfway and started along the covered walkway. Around me, Dragon Peaks was settling into its evening rhythm. Doors opened and closed as guests made their way towards dinner, and somewhere nearby a child laughed before being shushed by an amused parent. From the main building came the muted clatter of crockery and cutlery, punctuated every now and then by the deeper sound of a glass being placed on a wooden table. The smell of something cooking over an outdoor fire drifted across the resort—wood smoke mixed with grilled meat and spices.

I paused briefly at the end of the walkway and looked towards the mountains. The last sunlight was catching the upper ridges, while the valley below was already falling into shadow. A few lights had appeared around the resort, warm yellow pools against the growing darkness. Somewhere beyond the buildings, I could hear the faint rush of water and the occasional call of a night bird beginning its evening routine.

For the first time in several days, everything felt almost normal. No helicopters overhead. No frantic radio calls. No wreckage photographs, or people arguing over evidence. Just an ordinary evening in the mountains, with dinner waiting somewhere ahead of me and the promise of a quiet night.

I had no idea how long that illusion was going to last.

I was about to turn towards the restaurant entrance when something across the parking area caught my attention.

Four men were standing beside a dark-coloured SUV, unloading luggage from the rear. At first glance there was nothing particularly unusual about that. Dragon Peaks was a resort, after all. Guests arrived with bags, camera equipment, hiking gear and enough clothing to survive an expedition to the South Pole.

But something about the vehicle made me slow down. It was the antenna array mounted on the roof.

I had seen similar setups before, most notably on SAPS vehicles equipped with tracking and vehicle-identification systems used to locate stolen cars. The equipment wasn’t identical, but the general arrangement was familiar enough to make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

This one was different. The antennas were shorter and considerably more stubby than the SAPS units I was familiar with, and they were spaced farther apart along the roof rack in a quad-mounted array. There was also something about the mounting arrangement that didn’t look like a commercial communications package. It looked purpose-built.

I stopped for half a second, pretending to adjust my jacket while I studied the vehicle.

The four men were dressed casually enough—jeans, jackets and hiking shoes—but none of them seemed particularly interested in the scenery or the resort. They worked efficiently, almost mechanically, passing bags between them without much conversation. One man glanced around the parking area before closing the rear hatch. That caught my attention too.

Then I noticed the number plate. Ending in GP for Gauteng.

I stored the registration number in my memory, repeating it silently once to make sure I had it right. There was no reason for me to become suspicious merely because four men had arrived at a mountain resort in a Gauteng-registered SUV.

But the antenna array bothered me. I had learned a long time ago that unusual details were worth remembering. Most of them turned out to be nothing. Every now and then, one wasn’t.

I turned towards the restaurant and continued walking.

Through the glass doors, the warmth and noise of the dining room wrapped around me. The restaurant was considerably busier now than it had been earlier in the afternoon. Conversations blended into a steady background murmur, cutlery rattled against plates, and somewhere near the bar somebody laughed loudly enough to attract a few sideways glances.

I spotted Megan almost immediately. She, Linda and Amanda were seated at a table for four near the windows, with one empty chair waiting.

Linda spotted me at almost exactly the same moment. She raised a hand and waved me over with the unmistakable authority of someone who had already decided where I was going to spend the next two hours.

I smiled. Okay. Mystery solved. The girls wanted me to join them for supper.

I lifted a hand, indicating that I’d join them in a moment, then stepped slightly away from the entrance and pulled my phone from my pocket.

There was one thing I wanted checked first. I scrolled through my contacts and found Piet’s number.

He answered after three rings.

“Colonel! What’s up?”

“Sorry to bother you at this time, Piet, but can you run a check on a vehicle for me?”

There was a brief pause. “You found a stolen car?”

“No. Nothing like that. Just something odd.”

“Got the registration?”

“Yeah.”

I glanced back through the glass doors towards the parking area. The four men had disappeared inside, leaving the dark-blue SUV sitting beneath one of the lights. I read the registration number to him.

“Dark-blue Toyota RAV4,” I added. “Gauteng registration.”

Piet was quiet for a moment.

“Anything else?”

“There’s an antenna array on the roof. Doesn’t look like a standard communications setup. Reminds me of some of the SAPS tracking vehicles, but the configuration is different.”

“Interesting.”

“That was my thought.”

“Give me five minutes and I’ll call you back, Colonel.”

“Thanks, Piet. I await your call. Cheers.”

I ended the call and slipped the phone back into my pocket. For a moment I stood there, watching my reflection in the glass. It could be nothing. Probably was. But after the last few days, I’d learned not to dismiss the little things.

I turned and headed towards the table. Linda immediately pointed at the empty chair.

“There he is,” she announced. “Our missing Colonel.”

Amanda grinned. Megan simply smiled and moved her handbag off the spare chair next to her. Linda saw it and smiled

I pulled out the chair and sat down. “Sorry,” I said. “Had to make a quick call.”

Linda raised an eyebrow. “Trouble?”

I looked briefly towards the restaurant entrance. “Maybe.”

Megan followed my glance. “What did you see?”

I smiled faintly. “Nothing worth worrying about yet.”

That wasn’t entirely true. But until Piet called back, I wasn’t about to turn an odd antenna array and a Gauteng number plate into a conspiracy.

“What’s interesting on the menu?” I asked.

They have eisbein with either mash of chips...” Linda replied.

“Sounds like it can hit the spot,” Amanda replied.

“Well, count me in for eisbein and chips,” I said.

“Me too,” Megan confirmed. “But I’ll take mash with mine.”

“Can I suggest a Nederburg Gewürztraminer with the eisbein and for you, Linda, what about a Robertson Winery Shiraz,” I said and looked around the table.

“Someone around here knows his wine...” Amanda giggled.

“We only mentioned the wine and you are giggling already, Mandy!” Linda smirked. Then Linda turned to me and added: “Get a bottle of Gewürztraminer for the table and an orange juice for Mandy.”

“Linda!” Megan admonished. “Leave the child to giggle if she wants to giggle and feed her wine!”

General laughter ensued, and a few heads turned to the table with the one guy and three striking women that were making the noise.

As if on cue, a waitress appeared, notepad in hand, smiling broadly and our orders was taken.

My phone began to vibrate against the wood of the table. I glanced down at the screen. Piet’s caller ID was flashing.

“Excuse me for a second, ladies,” I said, lifting the phone. “Duty calls.”

“Or trouble,” Megan murmured softly, her smile fading into a look of quiet evaluation.

I slid my thumb across the screen, brought the phone to my ear, and leaned back slightly from the table noise. “Piet. That was fast.”

“Yeah, well, I have some news, Colonel,” Piet’s voice came through, stripped of its earlier casual tone. The background noise on his end was dead silent. “And I don’t think you’re going to like it.”

I kept my face entirely neutral, knowing three pairs of sharp eyes were watching my every reaction across the table. “Go ahead.”

“That dark-blue RAV4,” Piet said, the sound of a computer keyboard clicking faintly in his background. “The registration you gave me is a duplicate. A clone.”

“Registered to what?”

“A white Toyota Corolla belonging to a retired school teacher in Randburg. The old lady’s probably never driven south of Johannesburg in her life.”