Chapter 20: Death Comes to Saldanha

…continued from 29 May 2026...

Whitey’s convoy arrived on the outskirts of Saldanha at about 04:30 am. As they slowly proceeded into the sleepy town, Whitey ordered the other cars to fan out and take different routes to Jamal’s hide out. It wasn’t so much that it was a hide out because everyone knew where it was. It was just that it was situated in an informal settlement, which was the new name for the wood and iron shanty towns that used to be called squatter camps during the apartheid years. The government had failed miserably in eradicating the camps. But they were successful in providing some amenities to the camps like running water and electricity, although its delivery was never guaranteed.

The street lights around and in the settlement were very tall. This was because the inhabitants had a self-defeating habit of shooting out the lights or throwing rocks at them. The yellow glow of the lights was caught in the fine mist rolling in from the shore, a mere 7 kilometres away.

Whitey wanted to inflict real terror here tonight. He wanted to leave a message that was not open to misinterpretation. They were in for a busy morning.

The convoy rolled up silently to Jamal’s shack. It was a small structure with four partitions inside. An entrance hall of sorts led to three rooms, one of which was a bedroom. The remaining rooms were used to store and prep the merchandise. Jamal’s woman lived in the shack adjacent to his, from which she ran what was commonly referred to as a Spaza shop and a takeaway restaurant. The shop sold general household items and the food was surprisingly good traditional West African fare.

Jamal’s woman would join him in his bedroom after closing up the shop and restaurant around 22:30 each night.

The car Whitey was traveling in parked directly outside the front entrance to Jamal’s shack, the rest of the vehicles created a triangle around the place.

That there was nobody was on guard at the entrance to the camp, or even around Jamal’s shack was indicative of the complacency and false sense of bravado which Jamal and his crew had fallen into due to financial gains the Nigerian connection had brought.

Whitey only carried his knife, while the rest of his men were armed to the teeth with an assortment of weapons including AK 47 assault rifles and 9mm handguns.

Whitey walked into the shack quietly, it was not difficult to unlock the door, which was made from flimsy plywood and “locked” with a simple padlock. He was followed into the shack, equally quietly, by his second-in-command, Lucky. 

Lucky rose up the ranks of Whitey’s outfit in the usual way, having to prove himself through murder and other crimes to gain Whitey’s trust. He had no problem executing his duties, but deep down he was not an inherently evil man like Whitey was.

Lucky would have preferred to execute Jamal quietly and efficiently, but he knew from past experience that tonight was going to be messy and excruciatingly brutal for Jamal.

What also set Lucky apart is that he had a completely unassuming aura about him. He had no special features which stood out, he had no visible tattoos, he was of average height, not too short or too tall. He had medium brown skin and he wore his hair in a buzz cut, military style. His eyes were a very common shade of brown and nothing about them or the rest of his body gave away the intuitive intelligence hiding behind them.

He had learned the hard way not to give away that intuition, not to share it with just anyone, and instead, to use it to his advantage when situations called for it.

It was dark inside, and the smell of damp earth and human sweat filled the air. He switched on the small torch he had brought along for this part of the operation.

The thin narrow beam lit up the area ahead and the unmistakable rank odour of two sweaty bodies having had sexual intercourse earlier led him to Jamal’s bedroom.

Continued tomorrow 31 May 2026, before 12pm