He answered on the first ring. �Yes, Captain.� His voice was calm, but a thread of tension wound through it. �Everything okay..?�
A low chuckle slid down the line, humorless. �I wouldn�t call it that,� Kgole said. His tone carried weight�measured, deliberate.
�Our arrests this morning�� He let the words hang, heavy. �They stirred something up. I don�t know what yet. But the Lieutenant�s reaction�his push to shut this down�feels wrong, too wrong.�
�I need you to lose the kid,� Kgole said, voice flat but threaded with steel. �Don�t go home. Don�t show your face at the station. Stay in the CBD, keep moving until I call you.�
�Understood, Sir, I�ll handle it,� Mkhize replied, steady as ever.
He took the laptop and iPhone from Kagiso�s backpack, hands moving with quiet precision. Then he opened the door and let the young officer step out. Mkhize watched him cross the lot, watched him climb into his car and pull away, taillights fading into the traffic.
Only when the boy was gone did Mkhize turn the key, the engine humming to life. He swung the Hardbody onto Main Street, letting it roll past Gandhi Square toward Jeppestown�a long, gray stretch of asphalt running nearly six kilometers out of the CBD. The city unspooled around him, restless and watchful.
Jeppestown was home to the Maboneng Precinct�a district reborn from rust and ruin into a pulse of color and noise. Once a forgotten sprawl of warehouses and shuttered factories, it now thrummed with art, music, and the low hum of reinvention. Maboneng�Place of Light in Sotho�lived up to its name: caf�s spilling onto cobbled streets, murals climbing brick walls, and a tide of dreamers trading shadows for neon.
Mkhize knew these streets. Knew the angles where light broke against glass, the bars that whispered behind unmarked doors. He picked a quiet spot�an old club with a clear view of the curb where his Hardbody sat like a patient hound. Sliding into position, he eased the Nissan into a gap and killed the engine.
Before stepping out, he reached for the worn docket on the passenger seat and laid it across the dash, just above the wheel�a silent warning to casual thieves who might miss the government plates, the discreet �B� stamped at the end.