Mistress of the Game

"Happy birthd - oh. Can I help you?"

A huge black man loomed in front of her. In his late twenties, with an acne-scarred face and a blank, cold expression in his eyes, he made Tara feel instantly uneasy.

"Your husband home?"

It was half question, half sneer. Tara's unease turned to fear. Adrenaline surged through her body.

"Yes. He's upstairs," she lied. "I'm afraid he's busy at the moment. Come back another time." She started to close the door. Smiling, the man forced his way in. The next thing Tara knew, he was holding a screwdriver to her throat.

"Quiet, and I don't kill you, bitch." His breath smelled of marijuana. "Where's the safe?"

Mala appeared on the stairs. When she saw what was happening, she screamed.

"The children!" yelled Tara. "Get them out!"

The maid turned and ran. Tara felt a sharp pain. The man had slashed the screwdriver across her cheek, narrowly missing her left eye. Blood poured from the wound.

"I say QUIET!" he roared. Suddenly the entryway was filled with men - six, maybe seven of them. All were black and all were high. Tara scanned their faces, looking for one that she recognized. They were bound to come from one of the nearby townships. If she knew someone's family, if she could appeal to them as a person...

Upstairs, Collette was screaming. Tara felt her blood run cold.

"Don't hurt her! Please. Take what you want. But don't hurt my children."

Two of the men came downstairs, carrying Collette and Jamie under their arms. Collette was hysterical. Seven-year-old Jamie saw his mother's bloodied face and wriggled free. Hurling himself at Tara's captor, he bit him savagely on the leg.

"Leave her alone! You get away from my mummy."

The man yelped with pain. Pulling back his foot, he kicked the boy's head as if it were a football. Tara heard Jamie's skull crunch as he collapsed at the knees. Her son lay on the floor, motionless.

"Open the fucking safe, bitch. Open it NOW or we kill you all."

Gabe leaned on his horn. Sodding traffic. It wasn't even rush hour, but every road into Camps Bay was jammed solid.

On the passenger seat of his Bentley lay the card Jamie had given him that morning. It was a picture of the two of them fishing, two grinning stick figures beside a blue felt-tip-pen river. "I love you, Daddy" was written across the top in bright red glitter.

"I love you, too, buddy," Gabe murmured to himself.

If only the stupid roads would clear, he'd be home in ten minutes.

Tara was on her knees. She felt the cold metal of the screwdriver pressing against her temple, but tried not to think about it, or about her darling Jamie lying unconscious in the hallway.

She pressed the numbers on the keypad of the safe: Four...six...one...

"Type in some security code and I'll slit your kids' throats. The first siren we hear, they're dead. Got it?"

Tara hesitated, her finger hovering in midair. One set of numbers would open the safe. Another combination opened the safe while simultaneously alerting the police.

God help us.

She pressed the final number.

At last the roads were clearing. Cruising along the shore, Gabe swung left onto the winding road that led up to the house. He thought about Tara. She'd been in an unusually good mood this morning, bouncing out of bed like Tigger. Before he left for work, she gave him a long, lingering kiss in the driveway with the promise of a "birthday treat" this evening. Gabe grinned. So much for women losing their libido at forty. Tara was sexier in his eyes now than she had ever been.

When he thought about how close he'd come to losing her two years before on that insane safari with Lexi Templeton, Gabe felt sick. He regretted the way things had ended with Lexi. They hadn't spoken since that day, even though Gabe now considered Robbie Templeton a good friend. But it couldn't be helped. Whatever his feelings for Lexi, Tara was his life. Thinking about her now, he felt a familiar stirring of longing.

He put his foot down harder on the gas.

The man was stuffing a diamond necklace into his Nike backpack. Tara looked past him into the entryway. Jamie wasn't there. Where was he? Upstairs with the other men? The whole house had gone eerily silent. A dark puddle of blood stained the white oak floorboards from where that bastard had kicked Jamie's head. What sort of animal could do that to a little boy?

"Nice." The man's eyes gleamed with greed as he caressed the priceless stones. The necklace was an anniversary present from Gabe. Its centerpiece was a flawless six-carat stone from Klipdrift, the diamond-rush town where Jamie McGregor made his first fortune. It was stunning, but Tara had never worn it. There wasn't much call for six-carat diamond necklaces at the AIDS clinic.

Is that what my children might die for? A stupid necklace?

"Take it. Take everything." She wept. "Just please let me go to my son. I'm a doctor. He needs medical attention."

"Later." The man zipped up the bag. He looked at Tara as if seeing her for the first time. It was a look she'd seen thousands of times from young men at the clinic. Distrust. Hatred. Envy. Barely repressed rage. The curse of this beautiful country.

She knew what was going to happen.

"You people, you take everything from us." The man's hands were at her throat. "Our land. Our food. Our diamonds. White devils."

"I work with your people, every day." Tara tried not to show her terror, but she knew he could see it in her eyes. "I work at the AIDS clinic in Pinetown."

"AIDS? YOU gave us AIDS! You white doctors. You kill our children."

"Bullshit." Anger was Tara's last defense. "You kill your own children with your ignorance. We try to help you. My husband has given millions - "

One big black hand covered her mouth, forcing her to the floor. The other tore at her shirt, grabbing hungrily at her breasts. Tara knew better than to fight. The bastard would probably enjoy it. Instead she retreated from her body, barricading herself in her mind.

It's only my body. It isn't "me." He can't touch me.

She felt him on top of her, inside her, the stench and weight of him, the rage with which he forced his huge, grotesquely swollen cock inside her body.

Think about the children. If he gets what he wants from me, maybe he won't hurt them.

He wasn't fucking her. He was stabbing her, frenziedly pounding himself into her flesh, his entire body a weapon.

The police will come, or Gabe. Oh God, Gabe! She stifled a sob. The clock on the wall said ten after four. Where are you?

Gabe crouched by the side of the road, his hands black with oil.

Stupid Bentley. He'd had new tires put on only last month and already one of them had a flat. He was annoyed about being late again. Tara was always berating him about it, and for once he'd made a real effort to leave the office in good time. As he heaved the spare out of the trunk, it occurred to him that he hadn't changed a tire since he was a teenager back in Scotland. Bloody hell, I'm getting old.

Two police cars roared past him, sirens wailing.

Must be another break-in.

He got to work.

Tara heard the sirens. Hope welled up within her.

The man stopped raping her and pulled up his pants. Fear flickered in his eyes. He shouted to his companions: "Masihambe! Amaphoyisa!"

Tara understood the Zulu. "Let's go. Police." She started to shake with relief.

Thank God. Oh, thank God. It's over.

For the first time, she wondered if the rape would mean she'd lost her baby. There was blood on her thighs.

Five men charged down the stairs and leaped out of the ground-floor windows like gazelles. Weren't there six of them before? Had she miscounted? She tried to get a closer look at their faces, but it was impossible, they moved so fast.

Grabbing his backpack, the ringleader started after them. Then he stopped and turned around.

"Fucking bitch. You typed in the alarm code, didn't you?"

He moved toward the stairs. Tara's blood turned to ice. The children.

"No!" She lunged at him, but her legs collapsed beneath her like Jell-O.

He started to climb.

The electric gates were closed.

"No sign of forced entry. You sure this is the place, man?"

"Yah." The police sergeant nodded. "McGregor. It's the Phoenix guy. Maybe they got in around the back."

"You know how to open these things?"

The senior officer looked wearily at the Fort Knox-like gates. He was called out to break-ins almost every day. Nine times out of ten it was a false alarm. Kids playing around with the safe, or some dumb Bantu maid getting spooked and hitting the panic button.

"You can't. Not without the code. We'll have to climb over, boss."

The senior officer sighed. He was getting too old for this.

"Come on, then. Dax, Willoughby, you drive around the back. Wits about you lads, eh? You never know. This could be the real thing."

"Sure, boss." They all laughed.

Five o'clock. Forty minutes to change a stupid tire. You're pathetic, Gabe McGregor. Pathetic.

Turning the corner, Gabe saw two squad cars parked outside his gates.

"Sorry, sir. You can't go up there."

"What do you mean I can't go up there? This is my house. What's happened? Where's my wife?"

Blood drained from the young cop's face. "Just stay here, sir. I'll fetch DI Hamilton." He set off at a run up the drive.

Bugger this, thought Gabe. Grinding the Bentley's gears into first, he slammed his foot down on the gas pedal, sending his wheels spinning and throwing up a plume of dust like a sandstorm.

"Sir! Stop!" But it was too late. Gabe's car shot up the hill like a bat out of hell. Seconds later, he sprinted into the house. Cops swarmed the entryway like sand flies.

"Tara!" Gabe shouted into the rafters. He could hear the panic in his own voice. "Tara? Darling?"

A policeman approached him.

"Gabriel McGregor?"

Gabe nodded mutely. "Where's my wife? Where are the children?"

"If you'd just sit down a minute, sir..."

"I don't want to sit down. Where have you taken my children?"

A man appeared at the top of the stairs. In his arms was a gray canvas body bag.

It was only four feet long.