There was a long thirty minutes before the blaster would allow the men forward who would cut through the wire with their torches.
When they stood at the edge of the rubble Jack marvelled at what Hawkins had achieved.
"That was pretty professional, Mr Hawkins."
"Explosives'll get you through anything, Jack boy, if you know how to use them."
4
On Tuesday and Thursday mornings Frikkie de Kok dressed in the bungalow's living room.
His alarm warbled quietly at three on those mornings. He dressed in the living room so as not to disturb Hermione.
On those Tuesday and Thursday mornings he liked to dress well, to be at his best.
His wife knew why Frikkie rose early on those mornings, his sons did not. In a fashion she pretended that she did not know. Where he went and what he did as the dawn was rising on Pretoria, sometimes once a week, sometimes once a month, was never talked about between them. She knew, and in her own way she supported him. There were only small ways that she could help him at those times. She never troubled him with family difficulties or nagged at him to pay bills when she knew he had set the alarm for his early rising.
He was sure that the boys, aged seventeen and fifteen, knew nothing of their father's work. The boys were the apples of Frikkie de Kok's eyes, especially Dawie, the elder.
He dressed in a white shirt, a tie that was the darkest blue, shoulder holster, a grey, almost charcoal suit and black shoes. He brushed his teeth brutally to try to erase the taste of yesterday's cigarettes. He took a glass of orange juice from the fridge. His wife wanted a new fridge and he could see from the packed shelves that the present one was inade-quately small. Hermione had last mentioned the need for the new fridge on Sunday, she had not mentioned it on Monday. She'd be back again, he thought, tomorrow.