Heart of the Hunter

Heart of the Hunter

Deon Meyer

Copyright 2002 by Deon Meyer

English translation 2003 by K. L. Seegers

FOR ANITA

1984

He stood behind the American. Almost pressed against him by the crush of Le Metro. His soul was far away at a place on the Transkei coast where giant waves broke in thunder.

He thought of the rocky point where he could sit and watch the swells approaching in lines over the Indian Ocean, in awe at their journey over the long, lonely distance to hurl and break themselves against the rocks of the Dark Continent.

Between the sets of waves there is a time of perfect silence, seconds of absolute calm. So quiet he can hear the voices of his ancestors— Phalo and Rharhabe, Nquika and Maqoma, the great Xhosa chiefs, his bloodline, source, and refuge. He knew that is where he would go when his time came, when he felt the long blade and the life run out of him. He would return to those moments between the explosions of sound.

He came back to himself slowly, almost carefully. He saw they were only minutes from the St. Michel Metro station. He leaned down, only half a head, to the ear of the American. His lips were close like a lover.

“Do you know where you are going when you die?” he asked in a voice as deep as a cello, the English heavy with an accent of Africa.

The tendons in the back of the enemy’s neck pulled taut, big shoulders tilted forward.

He waited calmly for the man to turn in the overfilled crush of the train. He waited to see the eyes. This is the moment he thirsted for. Confrontation, throwing down the gauntlet. This was his calling, instinctive, fulfilling him. He was a warrior from the plains of Africa, every sinew and muscle knit and woven for this moment. His heart began to race, the sap of war coursed through his blood, he was possessed by the divine madness of battle.

The body turned first, unhurried, then the head, then the eyes. He saw a hawk there, a predator without fear, self-assured, amused even, the corners of the thin lips lifting. Centimeters apart, it was a strange intimacy.

“Do you know?”

Just the eyes staring back.

“Because soon you will be there, Dorffling.” He used the name contemptuously, the final declaration of war that said he knew his enemy, the assignment accepted, the dossier studied and committed to memory.

He saw no reaction in the lazy eyes. The train slowed and stopped at St. Michel. “This is our station,” he said. The American nodded and went, with him just a step behind, up the stairs into the summer night bustle of the Latin Quarter. Then Dorffling took off. Along the Boulevard San Michel toward the Sorbonne. He knew prey chooses familiar territory. Dorffling’s den was there, just around the corner from the Place du Pantheon, his arsenal of blades and garottes and firearms. But he hadn'’t expected flight, thought the ego would be too big. His respect deepened for the ex-Marine, now CIA assassin.

His body had reacted instinctively: the dammed-up adrenaline exploding, long legs powering the big body forward rhythmically, ten, twelve strides behind the fugitive. Parisian heads turned. White man pursued by black man. An atavistic fear flared in their eyes.

The American spun off into the Rue des Ecoles, right into the Rue St. Jaques, and now they were in the alleys of the University, barren in the August of student holidays, the age-old buildings somber onlookers, the night shadows deep. With long, sure strides he caught up with Dorffling, shouldered him. The American fell silently to the pavement, rolled forward, and stood up in one sinuous movement, ready.

He reached over his shoulder for the assegai in the scabbard that lay snug against his back. Short handle, long blade.

“Mayibuye,” he said softly.

“What fucking language is that, nigger?” Hoarse voice without inflection.

“Xhosa,” he said, the click of his tongue echoing sharply off the alley walls. Dorffling moved with confidence, a lifetime of practice in every shift of the feet. Watching, measuring, testing, round and round, the diminishing circles of a rhythmic death dance. Attack, immeasurably fast and before the knee could drive into his belly, his arm was around the American’s neck and the long thin blade through the breastbone. He held him close against his own body as the light blue eyes stared into his.

“Uhm-sing-gelli,” said the Marine.

“Umzingeli.”

He nodded, correcting the pronunciation softly, politely. With respect for the process, for the absence of pleading, for the quiet acceptance of death. He saw the life fade from the eyes, the heartbeat slowing, the breaths jerky, then still.

He lowered the body, felt the big, hard muscles of the back soften, laid him gently down.

“Where are you going? Do you know?”

He wiped the assegai on the man’s T-shirt. Slid it slowly back into the scabbard.

Then he turned away.

MARCH

I.

Transcript of interview with Ismail Mohammed by A. J. M. Williams, 17 March, 17:52, South African Police Services offices, Gardens, Cape Town

w: You wanted to talk to someone from Intelligence?

M: Are you?

w: I am, Mr. Mohammed.

M: How do I know that?

w: You take my word for it.

M: That’s not good enough.

w: What would be good enough for you, Mr. Mohammed?

M: Have you got identification?

w: You can check this out if you want to.

M: Department of Defence?

w: Mr. Mohammed, I represent the State Intelligence Service.

M: NIA?

w: No.

M: Secret Service?

w: No.

M: What then?

w: The one that matters.

M: Military Intelligence?

w: There seems to be some misunderstanding, Mr. Mohammed. The message I got was that you are in trouble and you want to improve your position by providing certain information. Is that correct?

[Inaudible]

w: Mr. Mohammed?

M: Yes?

w: Is that correct?

M: Yes.

w: You told the police you would give the information only to someone from the intelligence services?

M: Yes.

w: Well, this is your chance.

M: How do I know they are not listening to us?

w: According to the Criminal Procedures Act, the police must advise you before they may make a recording of an interview.

M: Ha!

w: Mr. Mohammed, do you have something to tell me?

M: I want immunity.

w: Oh?

M: And guaranteed confidentiality.

w: You don'’t want Pagad to know you’'ve been talking?

M: I am not a member of Pagad.

w: Are you a member of Muslims Against Illegitimate Leaders?

M: Illegal Leaders.

w: Are you a member of MAIL?

M: I want immunity.

w: Are you a member of Qibla?

[Inaudible]

w: I can try to negotiate on your behalf, Mr. Mohammed, but there can be no guarantees. I understand the case against you is airtight. If your information is worth anything, I can’t promise you more than that I do my best….

M: I want a guarantee.

w: Then we must say good-bye, Mr. Mohammed. Good luck in court.

M: Just give me—

w: I’m calling the detectives.

M: Wait

w: Good-bye, Mr. Mohammed.

M: Inkululeko.

w: Sorry?

M: Inkululeko.

w: Inkululeko?

M: He exists.

w: I don'’t know what you’re talking about.

M: Then why are you sitting down again?

OCTOBER

2.

A young man stuck his head out of a minibus taxi, wagging a mocking finger and laughing with wide white teeth at Thobela Mpayipheli.

He knew why. Often enough he had seen his reflection in the big shop windows— a great black man, tall and broad, on the tiny Honda Benly the 200 cc ineffectively but bravely putt-putting under his weight. His knees almost touching the handlebars, long arms at sharp angles, the full-face crash helmet incongruously top-heavy.

Something of a spectacle. A caricature.

He was self-conscious those first weeks when to add to it all he had to learn to ride the thing. Going to work or home, every morning and afternoon in the rush-hour traffic of the N2, he was awkward and unsure. But once he learned the skills, learned to dodge the vans and 4x4s and buses, learned to slip between the gaps in the cars, learned to turn the pitiful horsepower to his advantage, the pointing mocking fingers ceased to trouble him.

And later he began to revel in it: while they sat trapped and frustrated in the gridlocked traffic, he and his Benly buzzed between them, down the long valleys that opened up between the rows of cars.

On the road, from Cape Town, east to Guguletu. And Miriam Nzululwazi.

And Pakamile, who would wait for him on the street corner, then run alongside the last thirty meters to the driveway. Silent, seven-year-old solemnity on the wide-eyed face, serious like his mother, patiently waiting till Thobela took off the helmet and the tin work box, swept his big hand over the boy’s head, and said, “Good afternoon, Pakamile.” The child would overwhelm him with his smile and throw his arms around him, a magic moment in every day, and he would walk in to Miriam, who would be busy already with cooking or washing or cleaning. The tall, lean, strong and beautiful woman would kiss him and ask about his day.

The child would wait patiently for him to finish talking and change his clothes. Then the magic words: “Let’s go farm.”

He and Pakamile would stroll down the yard to inspect and discuss the growth of the past twenty-four hours. The sweet corn that was making cobs, the runner beans (“Lazy housewife, what are you hinting at?” asked Miriam), the carrots, the squashes and butternuts and watermelons trailing along the beds. They would pull an experimental carrot. “Too small.” Pakamile would rinse it off later to show his mother and then crunch the raw and glowing orange root. They would check for insects, study the leaves for fungus or disease. He would do the talking and Pakamile would nod seriously and absorb the knowledge with big eyes.

“The child is mad about you,” she had said on more than one occasion.

He knew. And he was mad about the child. About her. About them.

But first he had to navigate the obstacle course of the rush hour, the kamikaze taxis, the pushy 4x4s, the buses belching diesel exhaust, the darting Audis of the yuppies switching lanes without checking their rearview mirrors, the wounded rusty bakkies, pickup trucks of the townships.

First to Pick ’n’ Pay to buy the fungicide for the butternuts.

Then home.

The director smiled. Janina Mentz had never seen him without a smile.

“What kind of trouble?”

“Johnny Kleintjes, Mr. Director, but you need to hear this yourself.” She placed the laptop on the director’s desk.

“Sit, Janina.” Still he smiled his hearty, charming smile, eyes soft as if gazing on a favorite child. He is so small, she thought, small for a Zulu, small for such a great responsibility. But impeccably dressed, the white shirt a shout in contrast to the dark skin, the dark gray suit an expression of good taste, somehow just right. When he sat like that, the hump, the small deformity of back and neck, could barely be seen. Mentz maneuvered the cursor on the screen to activate the replay.

“Johnny Kleintjes,” said the director. “That old rogue.”

He tapped on the computer keyboard. The sound came tinnily through the small speakers.

“Is this Monica?”

Unaccented. Dark voice.

“Yes?”

“Johnny Kleintjes’s daughter?”

“Yes.”

“Then I need you to listen very carefully. Your daddy is in a bit of trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

Immediate worry.

“Let’s just say he promised, but he couldn'’t deliver.”

“Who are you?”

“That I am not going to tell you. But I do have a message for you. Are you listening?”

“Yes.”

“It is very important that you get this right, Monica. Are you calm?”

“Yes.”

Silence, for a moment. Mentz looked up at the director. His eyes were still soft, his body still relaxed behind the wide, tidy desk.

“Daddy says there is a hard drive in the safe in his study.”

Silence.

“Are you getting this, Monica?”

“Yes.”

“He says you know the combination?”

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Where is my father?”

“He is here. With me. And if you don'’t work with us, we will kill him.”

A catch of breath.

“I… please …”

“Stay calm, Monica. If you stay calm, you can save him.”

“Please… Who are you?”

“A businessman, Monica. Your daddy tried to trick me. Now you have to put things right.”

The director shook his head ruefully. “Ai, Johnny,” he said.

“You will kill him anyway.”

“Not if you cooperate.”

“How can I believe you?”

“Do you have a choice?”

“No.”

“Good. We are making progress. Now go to the safe and get the drive.”

“Please stay on the line.”

“I’ll be right here.”

The hiss of the electronics. Some static interference on the line.

“When did this conversation take place, Janina?”

“An hour ago, Mr. Director.”

“You were quick, Janina. That is good.”

“Thank you, sir, but it was the surveillance team. They’re on the ball.”

“The call was to Monica’s house?”

“Yes, sir.”

“What data do you think they are referring to here, Janina?”

“Sir, there are many possibilities.”

The director smiled sympathetically. There were wrinkles around his eyes, regular, dignified. “But we must assume the worst?”

“Yes, sir. We must assume the worst.” She saw no panic. Only calmness.

“I… I have the hard drive.”

“Wonderful. Now we have just one more problem, Monica.”

“What?”

“You are in Cape Town, and I am not.”

“I will bring it.”

“You will?”

A laugh, muffled.

“Yes. Just tell me where.”

“I will, my dear, but I want you to know, I cannot wait forever.”

“I understand.”

“I don'’t think so. You have seventy-two hours, Monica. And it is a long way.”

“Where must I take it?”

“Are you very sure about this?”

“Yes.”

Another pause: long, drawn out.

“Meet me in the Re-publican Hotel, Monica. In the foyer. In seventy-two hours.”

“The Re-publican Hotel?”

“In Lusaka, Monica. Lusaka in Zambia.”

They could hear the indrawn breath.

“Have you got that?”

“Yes.”

“don'’t be late, Monica. And don'’t be stupid. He is not a young man, you know. Old men die easily.”

The line went dead.

The director nodded. “That’s not all.” He knew.

“Yes, sir.”

She tapped again. The sound of dialing. It rang.

“Yes?”

“Could I talk to Tiny?”

“Who’s speaking?”

“Monica.”

“Hold on.”

Muffled, as though someone were holding a hand over the receiver.

“One of Tiny’s girlfriends looking for him.”

Then a new voice.

“Who’s this?”

“Monica.”

“Tiny doesn'’t work here anymore. Nearly two years now.”

“Where is he now?”

“Try Mother City Motorrad. In the city.”

“Thank you.”

“Tiny?” asked the director.

“Sir, we’re working on that one. There’s nothing on the priority list, sir. The number she phoned belongs to one Orlando Arendse. Also unknown. But we’re following it up.”

“There’s more.”

Mentz nodded. She set the program running again.

“Motorrad.”

“Could I speak to Tiny, please?”

“Tiny?”

“Yes.”

“I think you have the wrong number.”

“Tiny Mpayipheli?”

“Oh. Thobela. He’s gone home already.”

“I need to get hold of him urgently.”

“Hold on.”

Papers rustled, soft cursing.

“Here’s a number. Just try it. 555-7970.”

“Thank you so much.”

The line was already dead.

New call.

“Hullo.”

“Could I speak to Tiny Mpayipheli, please?”

“Tiny?”

“Thobela?”

“He is not home yet.”

“When do you expect him?”

“Who is calling?”

“My name is Monica Kleintjes. I…he knows my father.”

“Thobela is usually home by a quarter to six.”

“I must speak to him. It’s very urgent. Can you give me your address? I must see him.”

“We’re in Guguletu. Twenty-one Govan Mbeki.”

“Thank you.”

“There is a team following her and we’ve dispatched another team to Guguletu, sir. The house belongs to a Mrs. Miriam Nzu-lulwazi and I expect that was her on the phone. We will find out what her relationship with Mpayipheli is.”

“Thobela Mpayipheli, also known as Tiny. And what are you going to do, Janina?”

“The tail reports that she is traveling in the direction of the airport. She could be on her way to Guguletu. As soon as we’re sure, sir, we’ll bring her in.”

The director folded his delicate hands on the shiny desktop.

“I want you to hang back a bit.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Let’s see how this unfolds.”

She nodded.

“And I think you had better call Mazibuko.”

“Sir?”

“Get the RU on a plane, Mentz. A fast one.”

“But, sir … I’ve got this under control.”

“I know. I have absolute confidence in you, but when you buy a Rolls-Royce, sometime or other you must take it for a test drive. See if it is worth all the expense.”

“Sir, the Reaction Unit…”

He raised a small, fine-boned hand. “Even should they do nothing, I think Mazibuko needs to get out a bit. And you never know.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And we know where the data is going. The destination is known. This creates a safe test environment. A controllable environment.”

“Yes, sir.”

“They can be here in”— the director examined his stainless-steel watch—“a hundred and forty minutes.”

“I’ll do as you say, sir.”

And I assume the Ops Room will get up and running?”

“That was next on my agenda.”

“You’re in charge, Janina. And I want to be kept up-to-date, but I’m leaving it entirely in your hands.”

“Thank you, sir.” She was being put to the test. She and her team and Mazibuko and the RU. She had been waiting a long time for this.

3.

The boy was not waiting on the street corner, and unease crept over Thobela Mpayipheli. Then he saw the taxi in front of Miriam’s house. Not a minibus, a sedan, a Toyota Cressida with the yellow light on the roof— PENINSULA TAXIS— hopelessly out of place there. He turned up the dirt driveway and dismounted, more a case of careful extraction of his limbs from the motorbike, loosened the ties that held his tin box and the packet with the fungicide on the seat behind him, rolled the cords carefully in his hand, and walked in. The front door was standing open.

Miriam rose from the armchair as he entered; he kissed her cheek, but there was tension in her. He saw the other woman in the small room, still seated.

“Miss Kleintjes is here to see you,” said Miriam.

He put down his parcel, turned to her, put out his hand. “Monica Kleintjes,” she said.

“Pleased to meet you.” He could wait no longer, looked to Miriam. “Where is Pakamile?”

“In his room. I told him to wait there.”

“I’m sorry,” said Monica Kleintjes.

“What can I do for you?” He looked at her, slightly plump in her loose, expensive clothes: blouse, skirt, stockings, and low-heeled shoes. He struggled to keep the irritation out of his voice.

“I am Johnny Kleintjes’s daughter. I need to talk to you privately.”

His heart sank.

Johnny Kleintjes.

After all these years.

Miriam’s back straightened. “I will be in the kitchen.”

“No,” he said. “I have no secrets from Miriam.”

But she walked out anyway.

“I really am sorry,” said Monica again.

“What does Johnny Kleintjes want?”

“He’s in trouble.”

“Johnny Kleintjes,” he said mechanically as the memories returned. Johnny Kleintjes would choose him. It made sense.

“Please,” she said.

He jerked back to the present. “First, I must say hello to Pakamile,” he said. “Back in a minute.”

He went through to the kitchen. Miriam stood by the stove, her eyes outside. He touched her shoulder but got no reaction. He walked down the short passage, pushed open the child’s door. Pakamile lay on the little bed with a schoolbook, looked up. “aren'’t we going to farm today?”

“Afternoon, Pakamile.”

“Afternoon, Thobela.”

“We will go farming today. After I have talked to our visitor.”

The boy nodded solemnly.

“Have you had a nice day?”

“It was okay. At break we played soccer.”

“Did you score a goal?”

“No. Only the big boys kick goals.”

“But you are a big boy.”

Pakamile just smiled.

“I’m going to talk to our guest. Then we’ll go farm.” He rubbed his hand over the boy’s hair and went out, his unease now multiplying. Johnny Kleintjes— this meant trouble, and he had brought it to this house.

They strode in time across the parade ground of First Parachute Battalion, also known as the Parabats, or simply the Bats. Captain Tiger Mazibuko was one step ahead of Little Joe Moroka.

“Is it him?” asked Mazibuko, and pointed to the small group. Four Parabats sat in the shade under the wide umbrella of the thorn tree. A German shepherd lay at the feet of the stocky lieutenant, its tongue lolling, panting in the Bloemfontein heat. It was a big, confident animal.

“That’s him, Captain.”

Mazibuko nodded and picked up the pace. Red dust puffed up at each footfall. The Bats, three whites and one colored, were talking rugby, the lieutenant holding forth with authority. Mazibuko was there, stepped between them and kicked the dog hard on the side of the head with his steel-capped combat boot. It gave one yelp and staggered into the sergeant’s legs.

“Fuck,” said the Bat lieutenant, dumbfounded.

“Is this your dog?” asked Mazibuko. The faces of the soldiers expressed total disbelief.

“What the hell did you do that for?” A trickle of blood ran out of the dog’s nose. It leaned dazedly against the sergeant’s leg. Mazibuko lashed out again, this time in the side. The sound of breaking ribs was overlaid by the cries of all four Parabats.

“You fucker …,” screamed the lieutenant, and hit out, a wild swing that caught the back of Mazibuko’s neck. He took one step back. He smiled.

“You are all my witnesses. The lieutenant hit first.”

Then he moved in, free and easy, unhurried. A straight right to the face to draw attention upward. A kick surely and agonizingly to the kneecap. As the Parabat toppled forward, Mazibuko brought up his knee into the face. The white man flipped over backward, blood streaming from a broken nose.

Mazibuko stepped back, hands hanging relaxed at his sides. “This morning you messed with one of my men, Lieutenant.” He jabbed his thumb over his shoulder at Little Joe Moroka. “You set your fucking little dog on him.”

The man had a hand over his bloody nose, the other on the ground trying to prop himself up. Two Bats came closer, the sergeant kneeling by the dog, which lay still. “Uh …,” said the lieutenant, looking down at the blood on his hand.

“Nobody fucks with my people,” said Mazibuko.

“He wouldn'’t salute,” said the lieutenant reproachfully, and stood up, shaky on his feet, the brown shirt stained darkly with his blood.

“So you set the dog on him?” Mazibuko strode forward. The Parabat raised his hands reflexI'vely Mazibuko grabbed him by the collar, jerked him forward, and smashed his forehead into the broken nose. The man fell backward again. Red dust billowed in the midday sun.

The cell phone in Mazibuko’s breast pocket began to chirp.

“Jissis,” said the sergeant, “you’re gonna kill him,” and knelt beside his mate.

“Not today …”

The ringing got louder, a penetrating noise.

“Nobody fucks with my people.” He unbuttoned the pocket and activated the phone.

“Captain Mazibuko.”

It was the voice of Janina Mentz.

“Activation call, Captain. At eighteen-fifteen there will be a Falcon 900 from Twenty-first Squadron standing by at Bloemspruit. Please confirm.”

“Confirmed,” he said, his eyes on the two Parabats still standing, but there was no fight in them, only bewilderment.

“Eighteen-fifteen. Bloemspruit,” Mentz said.

“Confirmed,” he said once more.

The connection was cut. He folded the phone and returned it to his pocket. “Joe. Come,” he said. “We’ve got things to do.” He walked past the sergeant, treading on the hind leg of the German shepherd. There was no reaction.

“My father said … more than once … if anything ever happened to him, I should get you, because you are the only man that he trusts.”

Thobela Mpayipheli only nodded. She spoke hesitantly; he could see that she was extremely uncomfortable, deeply aware of her invasion of his life, of the atmosphere that she had created here.

And now he’s done a stupid thing. I… we …”

She searched for the right words. He recognized her tension but didn’'t want to know. Didn’'t want it to affect the life he had here.

“Did you know what he was involved with after ’ninety-two?”

“I last saw your father in ’eighty-six.”

“They … He had to … Everything was so mixed-up then, after the elections. They brought him back to help… . The integration of the intelligence services was difficult. We had two, three branches, and the apartheid regime had even more. The people wouldn'’t work together. They covered up and lied and competed with one another. It was costing a lot more money than they made provision for. They had to consolidate. Create some order. The only way was to split everything up into projects, to compartmentalize. So they put him in charge of the project to combine all the computer records. It was almost impossible, there was so much: the stuff at Infoplan in Pretoria alone would take years to process, not to mention the regime’s weapons manufacturers like Denel and the Security Police and the Secret Service, Military Intelligence, and the ANC’s systems in Lusaka and London, four hundred, five hundred gigabytes of information, anything from personal information on the public to weapons systems to informants and double agents. He had to handle it all, erase the stuff that could cause trouble and save the useful material, create a central, uniform, single platform database. He … I kept house for him during that time, my mother was sick. He said it upset him so much, the information on the systems. …”

She was quiet for a while, then opened her big black leather handbag and took out a tissue as if to prepare herself.

“He said there were some strange orders, things that Mandela and Defence Minister Nzo would not approve, and he was worried. He didn’'t know what to do, at first. Then he decided to make backups of some of the material. He was scared, Mr. Mpayipheli, those were such chaotic times, you understand. There was so much insecurity and people trying to block him and some trying to save their careers and others trying to make theirs. ANCs and whites, both sides of the fence. So he brought some stuff home, data, on hard drives. Sometimes he worked through the night on it. I kept out of it. I suspect he …”

She dabbed at her nose with the tissue.

“I don'’t know what was on the drives and I don'’t know what he meant to do with it. But it looks as if he never handed it in. It looks as if he is trying to sell the data. And then they phoned me and I lied because—”

“Selling it?”

“I …”

“To whom?”

“I don'’t know.” There was despair in her voice, whether for the deed or her father, he couldn'’t say.

“Why?”

“Why did he try to sell it? I don'’t know.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“They pushed him out. After the project. Said he should go on pension. I don'’t think he wanted that. He wasn'’t ready for that.”

He shook his head. There had to be more to it.

“Mr. Mpayipheli, I don'’t know why he did it. Since my mother died … I was living with him but I had my own life, I think he got lonely. I don'’t know what goes on in an old man’s head when he sits at home all day and reads the white men’s newspapers. This man who played such a major role in the Struggle, pushed aside now. This man who was once a player. He was respected, in Europe. He was somebody and now he is nothing. Maybe he wanted, just one more time, to be a player again. I was aware of his bitterness. And weariness. But I didn’'t think … Perhaps … to be noticed? I don'’t know. I just don'’t know.”

“The information. Did he say what was so upsetting?”

She shifted uneasily in the chair; her eyes slid away from his. “No. Just that there were terrible things… .”

“How terrible?”

She just looked at him.

“Now what?” he asked.

“They phoned. From Lusaka, I think. They have some hard drives, but that is not what they want. I had to get another drive from my father’s safe.”

He looked her in the eye. This was it.

“In seventy-two hours I must deliver another hard drive in Lusaka. That’s all the time they gave me.”

“Not a lot of time.”

“No.”

“Why are you wasting time sitting here?”

“I need your help. To deliver the data. To save my father because they will kill him anyway. And I”— she raised the hem of her long, wide skirt—“am a little slow.” He saw the wood and metal, the artificial legs. “And not very effective.”

Tiger Mazibuko stood under the wing of the Falcon 900 in his camouflage uniform and black beret, feet planted wide, hands behind his back, his eyes on the twelve men loading ammunition boxes.

He had waited thirty-eight months for this. More than three years since Janina Mentz, dossier in hand, had come to fetch him, a one-pip lieutenant, out of the Recces.

“You’re a hard man, Mazibuko. But are you hard enough?”

Fuck, it was hard to take her seriously. A chick. A white woman who marched into the Recces and sent everyone back and forth with that soft voice and way too much self-assurance. And a way of playing with his head. “Isn'’t it time to move out from your father’s shadow?” Mazibuko had been ready to go from the first question. The follow-up was just Mentz showing that she could read between the lines in those official files.

“Why me?” he had asked anyway, on the plane to Cape Town.

Mentz had looked at him with those piercing eyes and said, “Mazibuko, you know.”

He hadn'’t answered, but still he had wondered. Was it because of his … talents? Or because of his father? He found the answer progressively in the stack of files (forty-four of them) he had to go through to choose the twenty-four members of the Reaction Unit. He began to see what Mentz must have known from the start. When he read the reports and interviewed the guys, looked into their eyes and saw the ruthlessness. And the hunger.

The ties that bound them.

The self-hatred that was always there had found a form, become a

thing.

“We’re ready, Captain,” said Da Costa.

Mazibuko came out from under the wing. “Get up. Let’s go to work.”

Yes, they were ready. As ready as nearly three years of tempering could make them. Four months to put the team together, to handpick them one by one. Winnowing the chaff from the grain, over and over, till there were only twenty-four, two teams of a dozen each, the perfect number for “my RU,” as the director referred to them possessively, Aar-you, the hunchback’s English abbreviation for Reaction Unit. Only then did the real honing begin.

Now he pulled the door of the Falcon shut behind this half of the Dirty Double Dozen. The Twenty-Four Blackbirds, the Ama-killa-killa, and other names they had made up for themselves in the twenty-six months since the best instructors that money and diplomatic goodwill could buy had taken them in hand and remodeled them. driven them to extremes that they physically and psychologically were not supposed to withstand. Half of them, because of the two teams of twelve, were continuously on standby for two weeks as Team Alpha, while the other as Team Bravo worked on refining their skills. Then Team Alpha would become Team Bravo, the members shuffled around, but they were a unit. A un-it. The ties that bind. The blood and sweat, the intensity of physical hardship. And that extra dimension— a psychological itch, a communal psychosis, that shared curse.

They sat in the plane, watching him— their faces bright with expectation, absolute trust, and total admiration.

“Time to kick butt!” he said.

In unison, they roared.

4.

CIA

SITUATION BRIEF

FOR ATTENTION:

Assistant Deputy Director (Middle East and Africa) CIA HQ, Langley, Virginia

PREPARED BY:

Luke John Powell (Senior Agent in Charge— Southern Africa), Cape Town, South Africa

SUBJECT:

South Africa— ten years after

I. INTRODUCTION

It has been ten years since the then president of South Africa, F. W. de Klerk, made his famous February speech in which he unbanned the black resistance movement the African National Congress (ANC), released Nelson Mandela from jail, and negotiated a transition to black majority rule.

After a landslide victory at the polls in the country’s first-ever truly democratic elections eight years ago, the ANC, with Mandela as president, became the ruling party Mandela (or Madiba, as he is affectionately called) served a five-year term until 1999 and was succeeded by current president Thabo Mbeki, after another huge election victory for the ANC.

Despite the major problems of high unemployment and crime rates and a fluctuating local currency (the rand), South Africa is politically and economically stable— extremely so, if viewed in the African context. This, despite the eleven official languages and culture groups (including Xhosa, Zulu, Tswana, Sotho, Ndebele, and Afrikaners), the nine provinces and separate capitals for the judiciary, the legislatI've, and the executI've government.

2. INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES

After the 1994 elections, the ANC government faced the mammoth task of integrating three major military and intelligence forces:

•

Military structures:

The following military structures were forged into the new South African National Defence Force during a prolonged, often difficult, but ultimately reasonably successful process: the white regime’s South African Defence Force (SADF); the ANC’s own military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe (translated from Xhosa, it means “the spear of the nation”); and the military wing of the Pan-Africanist Congress (PAC— the other, more extreme black faction that opposed the apartheid regime), the Azanian People’s Liberation Army (APLA).

•

Intelligence structures:

The far less public and much speedier integration was between the former white government’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) and both the separate ANC and PAC intelligence arms into the new National Intelligence Agency (NIA)— often simply referred to as “the Agency” and responsible for homeland security.

The old Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), a.k.a. State Security Service, was transformed into the SA Secret Service and takes responsibility for foreign intelligence.

In addition, the former South African Police was transformed into the SA Police Service, integrating the old Security Police.

Internal bickering and old loyalties forced the ANC government to create a new service, the Presidential Intelligence Unit (PIU), in the late nineties. The main aim of the PIU is to keep an eye on other intelligence structures, in addition to both internal and external intelligence gathering.

Through the kitchen window they could see the child standing in the vegetable garden. “I never told him that men go away. Now he will learn for himself.”

“I am coming back,” Mpayipheli said.

She just shook her head.

“Miriam, I swear …”

“don'’t,” she said.

“I … it’s … I owe Johnny Kleintjes, Miriam… .”

Her voice was soft. It always was when she was angry. “Remember what you said?”

“I remember.”

“What did you say, Thobela?”

“I said I am not a deserter.”

“And now?”

“It’s only for one or two days. Then I’ll be back.”

She shook her head again, filled with foreboding.

“I have to do this.”

“You have to do this? You don'’t have to. Just say no. Let them sort out their own trouble. You owe them nothing.”

“I owe Johnny Kleintjes.”

“You told me you can’t live that life anymore. You said you had finished with it.”

He sighed deeply. He turned around in the kitchen, turned back to her, his hands and voice pleading. “It’s true. I did say that. And I meant it. Nothing has changed. You’re right— I can say no. It’s a choice, my choice. I have to choose the right way. I must do the right thing, Miriam, the thing that makes me an honorable man. Those are the difficult choices. They are always the most difficult choices.”

He saw she was listening and he hoped for understanding. “My debt to Johnny Kleintjes is a man’s debt; a debt of honor. Honor is not only caring for you and Pakamile, coming home every afternoon, doing a job that is within the law and nonviolent. Honor also means that I must pay my debts.”

She said nothing.

“Can you understand?”

“I don'’t want to lose you.” Almost too soft to hear. “And I don'’t think he can afford to lose you.” Her gaze indicated the boy outdoors.

“You won’t lose me. I promise you. I will come back. Sooner than you think.”

She turned to him, her arms around his waist, and held him with a fierce desperation.

“Sooner than you think,” he said.

3. “OLD LOYALTIES”

To understand the intelligence situation in South Africa today one has to keep in mind which alliances existed before the creation of the “New South Africa” in 1992-94:

• The white minority National Party government of the eighties was closely aligned with both the British MI5 and MI6 and American intelligence services, specifically the CIA.

The latter was involved in a number of joint anticommunist African operations with the former Military Intelligence forces of the SADF in Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, and Mozambique. The CIA also furnished Pretoria with intelligence during the white regime’s war against Cuba and USSR-sponsored communist forces in Angola in the late seventies.

• The ANC, as a banned and suppressed antigovernment movement in exile, had very close ties with, and received strong monetary and military support from, the former USSR, East Germany (specifically the KGB and Stasi), Cuba, Libya, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and, to a lesser extent, Iraq and other Muslim countries.

• The PAC has stronger ties with Muslim extremists (such as Iran) and the PLO.

4. MUSLIM EXTREMISTS IN SOUTH AFRICA

Khalfan Khamis Mohammed, the al Qaeda agent hunted by the FBI and CIA after the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Tanzania, was found hiding in plain sight in Cape Town, South Africa, in 1999.

South Africa is not a Muslim country by any means, but among the followers of Mohammed in the Western Cape province is a small minority of extremists, divided into several splinter groups, all sympathetic to al Qaeda:

• Muslims Against Illegal Leaders (MAIL).

• Qibla (the word means “the direction in which the believer orients himself or herself for salat, the prayer of Islam”), far left, aggressive, and secretive.

• People Against Drugs and Gangsterism (Pagad): a vigilante group known for violent action against drug lords on the Cape Flats, perhaps the most public of these groups and the least of a threat.

The biggest room on the sixth floor of Wale Street Chambers was known as the Ops Room and had been used only eight times in twenty-four months— for “readiness testing,” the term Mentz used for the quarterly trials to test the systems and the standard of her team. The bank of twelve television screens against the east wall was connected to digital and analog satellite TV closed-circuit TV, and videoconferencing equipment. The six desktop PCs against the north wall were connected by optic fiber to the local network and the Internet backbone. Next to the double doors on the west side were the digital tuner and receiver for the radio network and the cellular and landline exchange with eighteen secure lines and teleconferencing facilities. On the south wall was the big white screen for the video projector, which was suspended from the ceiling. The oval table with seating for twenty people occupied the center of the room.

The sixteen now seated around the table had a strong feeling that this late-afternoon call to the Ops Room was not a practice run. The atmosphere in the room was electric when Janina Mentz walked in; their eyes followed her with restrained anticipation. There would have been rumors already. The phone tappers would have hinted at superior knowledge, acceding with vague nods that something was developing, while their envious colleagues could only make guesses and use old favors as leverage to try and get information.

That is why the sixteen pairs of eyes rested on her. In the past there had been different kinds of unspoken questions. At first, when she was assembling the team for the director, they were gauging her skills, her ability to wield authority, because they were predominantly male and came from positions where their gender reigned supreme. They put her to the test and they learned that crude language and boorish behavior wouldn'’t put her off her stride; aggression left her calm and cold, thinly disguised anti-feminism would not provoke her. Piece by piece they reconstructed her history so they could know their new master: the rural upbringing, the brilliant academic career, the political activity, the slow climb through the party ranks, because she was white and Afrikaans and somewhere along the way married and divorced. Until the director had sought her out.

Really they respected her for what she had accomplished and the way in which she had done it.

That is why she could enter the room with muted confidence. She checked her watch before she said, “Evening, everyone.”

“Good evening, Mrs. Mentz.” It was a jovial chorus obedient to the director’s wishes for formal address. She was relaxed, unobtrusively in control.

She tucked the gray skirt under her with deft hands as she took the seat at the head of the long table, next to the laptop plugged into the port of the video projector. She switched it on.

“Let us begin with one sure thing: from this moment the Ops Room is officially operational. This is not a test.” There was a tingling in the room.

“Let there be no doubt that this is the real thing. We have worked hard to get here, and now our skills and abilities will be put to the test. I am depending on you.”

Heads nodded eagerly.

She turned on the laptop and opened Microsoft PowerPoint. “This photo was taken nineteen days ago at the entrance to the American embassy as part of our routine surveillance. The man exiting the door is Johnny Kleintjes, a former leader in the intelligence services of the Struggle. He studied mathematics and applied mathematics at the University of the Western Cape, but due to political activity, restrictions, and extreme pressure from the Security Police of the previous regime, he never obtained his degree. He was an exile from 1972, too late to be one of the trail-blazers, the mgwenya of the sixties. He quickly made a name for himself at the ANC and MK offices in London. Married in 1973. He was East German-trained at Odessa from 1976 and specialized in intelligence, where he earned the nickname Umthakathi, meaning ‘wizard,’ thanks to his skill with computers. Kleintjes was responsible for establishing the ANC’s computer systems in London, Lusaka, and Quibaxe in Angola in the eighties, and, more important, was the project leader for the integration of Struggle and regime computer systems and databases since 1995. He retired at age sixty-two in 1997, after his wife died of cancer, and shares a house with their only daughter, Monica.”

She looked up. She had their attention still.

“The question is: What was Johnny Kleintjes doing at the American embassy? And the answer is that we don'’t know. Telephone monitoring of the Kleintjes household was initiated the same evening.”

She clicked the mouse. Another photo, black-and-white, of a woman, slightly plump, at the open door of a car, the coarse grain of the photo indicating that it had been taken at a distance with a telephoto lens.

“This is Monica Kleintjes, daughter of Johnny Kleintjes. A typical child of exiles. Born in London 1974, went to school there, and stayed on to complete her studies in computer science in 1995. In 1980 she was the victim of a car accident outside Manchester that cost her both legs. She gets around with prosthetic limbs and refuses to use crutches or any other aids. She is any personnel manager’s affirmatI've action dream and currently works for the technology division of Sanlam as senior manager.”

Mentz manipulated the keys on the keyboard. “These are the major players that we have pictures of. The following conversations were recorded by our voice-monitoring team this afternoon.”

He sat with Pakamile at the kitchen table with the big blue atlas and the National Geographic, just as they did every evening. Miriam’s chair as always a little farther back, her needlework on her lap. Tonight they were reading about Chile, about an island on the west coast of South America where wind and rain had eroded fantastical shapes out of the rock, where unique plants had created a false paradise and animal life was almost nonexistent. He read in English as it was written, for the child would learn the language better, but translated paragraph by paragraph into Xhosa. Then they would open the atlas and look for Chile on the world map before turning the pages to a smaller-scale map of the country itself.

They never read more than two pages, because Pakamile’s attention faded quickly, unless the article dealt with a terrifying snake or other predator. But tonight it was more difficult than usual to keep his attention. The boy’s eyes kept darting to the blue sports bag resting by the door. Eventually Mpayipheli gave up.

“I’'ve got to go away for a day or two, Pakamile. I have some work to do. I have to help an old friend.”

“Where are you going?”

“First, you must promise to tell nobody.”

“Why?”

“Because I want to give my friend a surprise.”

“Is it his birthday?”

“Something like that.”

“Can’t I even tell Johnson?”

“Johnson might tell his father, and his father might phone my old friend. It must be a secret between us three.”

“I won’t tell anyone.”

“Do you know where Zambia is on the map?”

“Is it in … eee … Mpumalanga?”

Miriam would have smiled, under normal circumstances, at her son’s wild guess. Not tonight.

“Zambia is a country, Pakamile. Let me show you.” Mpayipheli paged to a map of southern Africa. “Here we are,” he said, pointing with his finger.

“Cape Town.”

“Yes. And up here is Zambia.”

“How are you going to get there, Thobela?”

“I am going to fly on an airplane to here, in Johannesburg. Then I will get on another plane that is going to fly here over Zimbabwe or maybe here over Botswana to this place. It’s called Lusaka. It’s a city, like Cape Town. That’s where my old friend is.”

“How far is that, Thobela?”

“Oh, about twenty-five hundred kilometers.”

“That is very far.”

“It is.”

“Will there be cake? And cool drink?”

“I hope so.”

“I want to come, too.”

He laughed and looked at Miriam. She just shook her head.

“One day, Pakamile, I will take you. I promise.” “Bedtime,” said Miriam. “When are you going to fly?” “Just now, when you are sleeping.” “And when are you coming back?”

“Only about two sleeps. Look after your mother, Pakamile. And the vegetable garden.”

“I will. Will you bring me back some cake?”

“The wild card is Thobela Mpayipheli,” said Janina Mentz. “We don'’t know why Monica Kleintjes went to him. You heard the conversations— he is also known as Tiny, works at Mother City Motorrad, a BMW motorbike dealership, lives with Miriam Nzu-lulwazi in Guguletu. We know she is the registered owner of the house, nothing else. Kleintjes went by taxi to the house, stayed just over forty minutes, and went straight home. Since then neither Mpayipheli nor Kleintjes has moved.

“There are two surveillance teams with her and one in Guguletu, with him. The Reaction Unit is on its way from Bloem-fontein and should land at Ysterplaat any minute now. They will stay there until we have more information. That, people, is how things stand.”

She turned off the video.

“Now we must jump to it. Radebe, we have only one man in Lusaka. I want four more. With experience. The Gauteng office is closest and they have enough of the right kind of people. Preferably two men and two women who can book into the Republican Hotel as couples. Discreetly and certainly not at the same time, but I’ll leave that to you. Get your phone systems running. Quinn, we need to intercept the calls to the Nzululwazi home in Guguletu. Urgently. Rajkumar, bring in your team. I want to know who Thobela Mpayipheli is. I don'’t care what database you fish in; this is absolute priority. Right, people, go, go, go. Twenty minutes, please, then we are rolling.”

Tiger Mazibuko was last one off the Falcon. He let the members of Team Alpha go first, watching them, white, black, brown, each with his own story. Da Costa, sinewy descendant of Angolan refugees with the knife scar on his cheek and a five o’clock shadow on his jaw. Weyers, the Afrikaner from Germiston with bodybuilder’s arms. Little Joe Moroka, a Tswana raised on a maize farm at Bothaville, spoke seven of the country’s eleven official languages. Cupido, the shortest, the most talkatI've, a colored town boy from Ashton with a Technikon diploma in electronic engineering. Even a “token Royal,” as Zwelitini, the tall, lean Zulu, liked to call himself, although he was not a member of the king’s family.

They stood in line on the runway. The Cape summer breeze blew softly against Mazibuko’s cheek as he dropped to the tar.

“Offload now. Hurry up and wait. You know the drill.”

At the front door he put his arms around her, pressed her thin body against him, smelled the woman smell, the faint remains of shampoo and scent after a long day, the aromas of the kitchen and that unique warmth that was special to her.

“I will have to stay over in Johannesburg,” he said softly in her ear. “I can only catch a plane to Lusaka tomorrow.”

“How much money did she give you?”

“Plenty.”

Miriam did not comment, just held him tight.

“I’ll phone as soon as I get to the hotel.”

Still she stood with her face in his neck and her hands around him. At last she stepped back and kissed him quickly on the mouth. “Come back, Thobela.”

Janina phoned home from the privacy of her office. Lien, the eldest, picked up. “Hello, Mamma.”

“I have to work late, sweetie.”

“Maaa … You promised to help me with biology.”

“Lien, you’re fifteen. You know when you know your work well enough.”

“I’ll wait up.”

“Let me talk to Suthu. She must sleep over, because I won’t get home tonight.”

“Ma-aa. My hair tomorrow morning.”

“I’m sorry, Lien. It’s an emergency. I need you to help out there. You’re my big girl. Did Lizette do her homework?”

“She was on the phone the whole afternoon, Ma, and you know how those grade sevens are. ‘Did Kosie say anything about me? Do you think Pietie likes me?’ It’s so childish. It’s

gross.”

She laughed. “You were also in grade seven.”

“I can’t bear to think of it. Was I ever like that?”

“You were. Let me talk to Lizette. You must get some sleep, sweetie. You need to be fresh for the exam. I’ll phone tomorrow, I promise.”

5.

The taxi dropped him off outside Departures; he paid, took his bag, and got out. How long since he had last flown? Things had changed; everything was new and shiny, to make a good impression on the overseas tourists.

At Comair he bought a ticket with the cash Monica Kleintjes had handed him in a stack of new hundred-rand notes. “That’s too much,” he had said. “You can bring me the change” was her response. Now he wondered where the money had come from. Did she have time to go and withdraw the cash? Or did the Kleintjeses keep that much in the house?

He sent the bag through the X-ray machine. Two pairs of trousers, two shirts, two pairs of socks, his black shoes, a jersey, his toilet bag, the remaining cash. And the hard drive, small and flat, technology that was beyond him. And somewhere in the electronic innards were unmentionable facts about this country’s past.

He didn’'t want to think about it, didn’'t want to be involved; he wanted to give the stuff to Johnny Kleintjes, see him safe, come home and get on with his life. So many plans for himself and Miriam and Pakamile, and then he became aware of the two gray suits behind him, the instinct a relic from another life, a muted warning in the back of his mind. He looked back, but it was just his imagination. He took his bag and checked his watch. Thirty-three minutes to boarding.

“What should we do?” asked Quinn, looking expectantly at Janina with his headphones pulled down.

“First I want to know where he’s headed.”

“They’re finding out. He bought a ticket with Comair.”

“Keep me informed.”

Quinn nodded, shifted the earphones back, and spoke quietly into the mike at his mouth.

“Rahjev, anything?” she asked the extremely fat Indian seated behind his computer.

“National Population Register lists nine Thobela Mpayiphelis. I’m checking birth dates. give me ten.”

She nodded.

Why had Monica Kleintjes chosen Mpayipheli? Who was he?

She stepped over to Radebe, who was on the phone talking to the Gauteng office. Someone had brought coffee and sandwiches. She didn’'t want coffee yet and she wasn'’t hungry. She went back to Quinn. He was just listening, glanced up at her, calm and competent.

An unbelievable team, she thought. This thing will be over before it has begun.

“He’s flying to Johannesburg,” said Quinn.

“He has only one bag with him?”

“Just the one.”

“And we are absolutely sure Monica Kleintjes is at her house?”

“She’s sitting in front of the TV in the sitting room. They can see her through the lace curtain.”

She considered the possibilities, ran through all the implications and scenarios. Mpayipheli must have the data. They could take it now and send their own team to Lusaka. Better control, with the RU as backup. Perhaps. Because it would be difficult to get Mazibuko and company into Zambia. Too many diplomatic favors. Too much exposure. The director might have to test his Reaction Unit some other time. The main issue: Keep it in the family. Keep it safe and under control.

“How good is the team at the airport?”

“Good enough. Experienced,” said Quinn.

She nodded. “I want them to bring Mpayipheli in, Quinn. Low-profile, I don'’t want a confrontation at the airport. Discreet and fast. Get him and his bag in a car and bring them here.”

He sat with his bag on his lap, and the awareness of isolation crept over him. He had been living with Miriam for more than a year now, more than a year of family evenings, and suddenly here he was alone again, as he had been in the old days.

He searched for a reaction in himself. Did he miss it? The answer surprised him, as he found no satisfaction in this privacy. After a lifetime of depending on himself, in twelve months they had changed his life. He wanted to be there, not here.

But he had to complete this task.

Johnny Kleintjes. The Johnny Kleintjes he knew would never have sold out. Something must have happened to change the old man. Who knew what was happening in the inner circles and walkways of the new government and the new intelligence services? It wasn'’t impossible, just improbable. Johnny Kleintjes was a man of integrity. And loyalty. A strong man with character. He would ask him when he saw him, when the data was handed over and Johnny got his money. If everything went off okay. It had to. He didn’'t feel like trouble, not anymore.

And then they were next to him, two gray suits. He hadn'’t seen them coming, and as they appeared beside him he started at the depth of his thoughts, the blunting of old skills.

“Mr. Mpayipheli,” said one.

“Yes.” Surprised they knew his name. They were right against him, preventing him from getting up.

“We want you to come with us.”

“What for?”

“We represent the state,” said the second, holding a plastic ID up to his eyes, photo and national coat of arms.

“I have to catch a plane,” he said. His head was clear now, his body reacting.

“Not tonight,” said Number One.

“I don'’t want to hurt anybody,” said Thobela Mpayipheli.

Two laughed, hee-hee, amused. “Is that so?”

“Please.”

“I am afraid you don'’t have a choice, Mr. Mpayipheli.” He tapped the blue bag. “The contents …”

What did they know? “Please listen,” he said. “I don'’t want trouble.”

The agent heard the note of pleading in the big Xhosa’s voice. He’s afraid, he thought. Use it. “We could give you more trouble than you would ever imagine, big fellow,” he said, and pushed back the tail of his jacket to display the pistol, steel butt in a black shoulder holster. He stretched out his hand for the sports bag. “Come,” he said.

“Ai, ai,” said Thobela Mpayipheli. In the time it took for the hand to reach the sports bag he had to make a decision. He had gleaned something from their behavior: They didn’'t want to cause a scene. They wanted to get him out of there quietly. He must use that. He saw One’s jacket gaping as his arm reached for the bag. He saw the pistol butt, reached up and took it, turned, stood up. One had the bag in his hand, his eyes wide with shock. Mpayipheli leaned into him with the pistol barrel at his heart. Two was behind Number One. Other passengers here and there had not seen anything amiss.

“I don'’t want trouble. Just give me my bag.”

“What are you doing?” asked Two.

“He’s got my pistol,” hissed One.

“You take the bag,” Mpayipheli told Two.

“What?”

“Take the bag from him and put your pistol in it.” He shoved the pistol in his own hand hard against One’s chest, keeping him between himself and Two.

“Do what he says,” said One softly.

Two was uncertain, eyes darting from them to the passengers waiting in the departure lounge, trying to decide. He made up his mind.

“No,” he said, drawing his pistol and keeping it under his jacket.

“Do what he says,” One whispered urgently, with authority.

“Fuck, Willem.”

Mpayipheli kept his voice reasonable, calm. “I just want my bag. I am not good with revolvers. There are lots of people here. Someone might get hurt.”

Stalemate. Mpayipheli and Willem intimately close, Two a meter away.

“Jissis, Alfred, do what the fucker says. Where can he go?”

At last: “You can explain to the boss.” He took the bag slowly from Willem’s grip, zipped it open and slipped his pistol inside, zipped it up and deposited it carefully on the floor as if the contents were breakable.

“Now both of you sit down.”

The agents moved slowly and sat.

Mpayipheli took the bag, pistol in his trouser pocket with his hand still on it, and walked, jogged, to the passenger exit, turning to check. One and Two, Willem and Alfred, one white, one brown, staring at him with unreadable faces.

“Sir, you can’t—,” said the woman at the exit, but he was past her, outside, onto the runway. A security man shouted something, waving, but he ran out of the ring of light from the building into the dark.

A bellow from the fat Indian—“I’ve got him”— and Mentz strode over to his computer monitor.

“Thobela Mpayipheli, born ten October 1962 in Alice in the Eastern Cape, father is Lawrence Mpayipheli, mother is Catherine Zongu, his ID number is 621010 5122 004. Registered address is 45 Seventeenth Avenue, Mitchell’s Plain.” Rajkumar leaned back tri-umphantly and took another sandwich off the tray.

Mentz stood behind his chair, reading off the screen.

“We know he was born, Rahjev. We need more than that.”

“Well, I had to start somewhere.” Wounded at the dearth of praise.

“I hope his birthday isn'’t an omen,” she said.

Rajkumar glanced from the screen to her. “I don'’t get it.”

“Heroes Day, Raj. In the old days the tenth of October was Heroes Day. When the Afrikaners celebrated their pioneers. That address is old. Find out who lived there. He’s forty years old. Too old to be Monica’s contemporary. Old enough to have been involved with Johnny Kleintjes—”

“Ma’am,” called Quinn, but she would not be interrupted.

“I want to know what that connection with Kleintjes is, Rahjev.

I want to know if he served and how. I need to know why Monica Kleintjes went to him with her little problem.”

“Ma’am,” called Quinn with great urgency. She looked up.

“We have a fugitive.”

He aimed for the darkest area of the airport and kept running. His ears expected sirens and shouts and shots. He was angry with Monica and Johnny Kleintjes and himself. How did the authorities suddenly know about Johnny Kleintjes’s little deal?

They had known his name, the two gray suits. Had tapped a finger on the blue bag. They knew what was in there. Were watching him since he walked into the airport, knew about him; must have followed Monica to his house, so they knew about her, about Johnny Kleintjes, bloody Johnny Kleintjes. They knew everything. He ran, looking over his shoulder. No one was behind him. He had sworn to himself: no more violence. Two years he had been true. Had not shot, beaten, or even threatened anyone. He had promised Miriam those days were gone, and within thirty seconds after the gray suits had reached him it was as if all the promises were in the water, and he knew how these things worked— they just got worse. Once the cycle began, it couldn'’t be stopped. What he should do now was take the bag back to the woman and tell her Johnny Kleintjes could sort out his own mess. Stop the cycle before it went any further. Stop it now.

He pulled up at the wire boundary fence. Beyond it was Borchards Quarry Road. He was breathing hard, his body no longer used to the exertion. Sweat ran down his cheek. He checked behind again; the building was too far to distinguish people, but all was quiet, no big fuss.

Which meant that it wasn'’t a police or customs operation. The place would have been crawling.

That meant

Spooks.

It made sense, if you took into account what was on the hard drive.

Fuck them. He was not afraid of spooks. He jumped for the fence.

“Put them on speaker,” said Janina Mentz, and Quinn pressed the button.

“… he was just lucky, Control, that’s all.”

“You’re on speaker, Willem.”

“Oh.”

“I want to know what happened,” said Janina Mentz.

“He got away, ma’am, but—”

“I know he got away. How did it happen?”

“We had everything under control, ma’am,” said the voice in awe. “We waited until he sat down in the departure lounge. We identified ourselves and asked the target to accompany us. Control said we must keep it low-profile. He’s only a motorbike mechanic; he sat there with the bag on his lap like a farm boy, he looked so shy and lonely. He said he didn’'t want any trouble. It was obvious he was scared. It’s my fault, ma’am. I wanted to take the bag and he got hold of my firearm—”

“He got hold of it?”

“Yes, ma’am. He grabbed it. I… um … his actions were … I didn’'t expect it.”

“And then?”

“Then he took the bag, with Alfred’s firearm in it, and ran away.”

Silence.

“So now he has two firearms?”

“I don'’t think he knows what to do with them, ma’am. He called my pistol a revolver.”

“Well, that'’s a relief.”

Willem did not respond.

Quinn sighed despondently and said in a quiet aside to Mentz: “I thought they could handle it.”

“Ma’am, he just got lucky. Judging by his reaction, we’ll get him easily,” said Willem over the ether.

She did not answer.

“He even said ‘please.’ ”

“Please?”

“Yes, ma’am. And we know he’s not on a plane.”

Mentz pondered the information. The room was very quiet.

“Ma’am?” said the voice on the radio.

“Yes.”

“What do we do now?”

6.

There comes a time to show anger, controlled but with purpose, rejection not of your people but of their actions.

Mentz turned off the speakerphone angrily and walked over to her computer. “We were in control of this thing. We knew where she was, where he was, where he was going, how he was going to get there. Absolute control.”

Her voice carried across the room, the anger barely submerged. Everyone was looking at her, but no one made eye contact.

“So why did we lose control? Lack of information. Lack of intelligence. Lack of judgment. Here and at the airport. Now we are at a disadvantage. We have no idea where he is. At least we know where he is going and we know the quickest way to get there. But that is not enough. I want to know who Thobela Mpayipheli is and I want to know now. I want to know why Monica Kleintjes went to him. And I want to know where he is. I want to know where the hard drive is. Everything. And I don'’t care what you must do to get that information.”

She looked for eyes, but they were looking at the floor.

And those two clowns, Quinn.”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Let them write a report. And when that’s done …”

“Yes, ma’am?”

“Let them go. They don'’t belong on this team.”

She walked out of the room, wishing there was a door to slam, down the passage, into her office— there was a door to slam— and dropped into her black leather chair.

Let the fools sweat.

Let them understand in the first place that if you can’t take the heat, Janina Mentz will remove you from the kitchen. Because, Lord knows, this was no place for failure. She would live up to her promises.

The director knew. He sat there in his office in his snow-white shirt and he knew because he was listening. He heard every word spoken in the Ops Room— and judged it: her actions and reactions, her leadership.

It seemed a lifetime ago that he had asked her at their first interview for the job: “Do you want it, Janina?”

And she had said yes, because as a white woman in a black administration, there were only so many opportunities, never mind that your IQ was 147 and your record one faultless minor success after another, with the emphasis on minor, because the big chance had not yet come. Until the director had taken her to lunch at Bukhara’s in the Church Street Mall and laid out his vision to her: “An intelligence service that is outstanding, Janina, that is what the vice president wants. A new intelligence service without a past. Next year he will be president and he knows he doesn'’t have the Madiba magic, the charisma of Nelson Mandela. He knows it will be hard work against every form of resistance and undermining that you can think of, nationally and internationally. I have carte blanche and I have a budget, Janina, and I believe I have the architect here before me this afternoon. You have the profile, the brainpower, you have no baggage, you have the loyalty, and you have the persistence. But the question is: Do you want it?”

Oh yes, she wanted it, more than he realized. Because it had been eleven months since her husband developed an itch for young things and told her, “The marriage is not working for me,” as if it was her fault, as if she and the children were not enough fulfillment for him anymore, whereas the only fulfillment in question was the space between Cindy’s legs. Cindy. The pseudo-artist with dirty feet who peddled her fabrics to German tourists from her stall at Greenmarket Square and fluttered her big brown eyes at married men until she caught one in the snare of her firm, free, braless breasts. And then the happy couple moved to Pilgrim’s Rest to “open a studio for Cindy.”

So, Mr. Director, she wanted it. She hungered for it. Because she was consumed by an anger that was fed by the rejection— oh yes, let there be no doubt. Fed by ambition, too, make no mistake; the only child of poor Afrikaners, she would pay any price to rise above the soul-destroying, pointless existence of her parents. Fed by frustration of a decade in the Struggle, and all she had to show for it despite her talents was a deputy directorship when she could do so much more; she could fly, she knew the landscape of her psyche, knew where the valleys were and where the peaks were, she was impartial in her self-awareness. She could fly— what did it matter where they came from, the winds that blew beneath her wings?

She did not say that. She had listened and spoken coolly and calmly at lunch and answered with quiet assurance, “Yes, I want it,” and then began the very next week to work out their vision: a First World intelligence unit in a country trying to drag itself up by its Third World bootstraps, a new independent unit with a clean slate.

And she still wanted it. No matter what price must be paid.

Her phone rang with the single ring of an internal call.

“Mentz.”

“Pop in for a moment, Janina, would you,” said the director.

He took a minibus to Bellville— the first opportunity that came up. He was driven to put distance between himself and the airport, regardless of the direction; ramifications were coming through to him one after another. He could not go back to Monica Kleintjes; they were surely watching her. He couldn'’t phone her. He could not go home. He could not go back to the airport— by now there would be swarms of them. And if they were at all awake, they would be watching the station— bus or train travel was also out of the question.

Which left him with the big question. How to get to Lusaka?

He sat in the dark between the other passengers, domestics and security guards and factory workers on their way home, talking about the rise in the price of bread and the soccer results and politics, and he longed to be one of them. He wanted to leave the hard drive on Monica’s lap and say, “There is one thing that you didn’'t take into account,” and then he would go to Miriam and Pakamile and tomorrow he would ride to work on his Honda Benly and during lunch he would walk up St. George’s to Im-manuel the shoeshine man and play a game of chess with him between his cell-phone-talking, wealth-chasing clients and all the while they would good-naturedly mock the whites in Xhosa.

But right now he had two Z88 pistols and a flat hard drive in a blue sports bag standing between him and that life.

“And what do you do for a living?” asked the woman next to him.

He sighed. “At the moment, I’m traveling,” he said.

How was he to get to Lusaka?

You wouldn'’t say that he was in the office by six every morning— here it was nearly half past eight in the evening and the director, in his early fifties, looked fresh, rested, and alert.

“I had an interesting call, Janina. This afternoon our Tiger assaulted a Parabat at Tempe.”

“Assaulted?”

“Landed him in the hospital, and the commanding officer started phoning higher up. He wants justice.”

“I am sure there was reason for the fight, sir.”

“I am, too, Janina. I just want to keep you informed.”

“I appreciate that, sir.”

“Ask him about it when you see him.”

“I will.”

“Is that all, Mr. Director?”

“That is all, Janina. I know you are busy.” And he smiled in a fatherly way. She hesitated a moment before turning away; she willed him to say something about the happenings in the Ops Room, he must bring it up so that she could assure him that everything was under control, but he just sat there with his smile.

She took the stairs, stopped halfway.

I know you are busy.

He was weighing her, testing her; she knew it as an absolute truth.

She laughed softly. If only he knew. She took a deep breath and took the last steps one by one, measuring, as if enumerating a strategic plan.

Radebe began reporting the minute she walked into the Ops Room, his voice softly apologetic, explaining the redeployment of the teams— six of the best at the airport, six at the Cape Town station, in two teams of three each to watch the trains and the bus terminal. His three teammates beside him were busy contacting every car-rental business in the city, with instructions to let them know if someone of Mpayipheli’s description tried to hire a vehicle. They would also contact every private plane charter service. Three more teams of two each were in their cars, awaiting instructions, down below on Wale Street. There was no activity at Monica Kleintjes’s or at Miriam Nzululwazi’s.

She nodded. Quinn confirmed monitoring of the Nzululwazi phone. There had been no calls yet.

Rajkumar, ever sensitive, had a bearing of injured pride as he gave his report: “No record of Thobela Mpayipheli in the Um-khonto we Sizwe files. Mpayipheli’s registered home address is Mitchell’s Plain— the property belongs to one Orlando Arendse. Probably the same Arendse that Monica phoned this afternoon, looking for Mpayipheli. But Arendse’s registered home address is in Milnerton Ridge.” The obese body shifted subtly, self-confidence returning. “The interesting thing is Arendse’s criminal record— twice served time for dealing in stolen goods, in 1975 and 1982 to 1984, once charged and found not guilty of dealing in unlicensed weapons in 1989, twice arrested for dealing in drugs, in 1992 and 1995, but the cases were never brought to trial. One thing is certain: Orlando Arendse is organized crime. Drugs. Big-time. Prostitution, gambling, stolen property. The usual protection racket. And if I read the signs correctly, the Scorpions are looking very closely at his dealings. That Mitchell’s Plain address could be a drug house, seems to me.” Rahjev Rajkumar leaned back in satisfaction.

“Good work,” she said. She paced up and down the wall behind the Indian, her arms folded.

Organized crime? She grasped at possibilities, but it wouldn'’t make sense.

“Organized crime?” she spoke aloud. “I don'’t see it.”

“Money makes strange bedfellows,” said Rajkumar. “And if it’s drugs, it’s money. Big money.”

“Mpayipheli could be a dealer,” said Quinn.

“He’s a motorbike mechanic,” said Radebe. “It doesn'’t fit.”

Mentz stopped her pacing, nodding. “Rahjev, find out who the owner of the bike shop is.”

“Company registrations are not up-to-date. I can poke around but…”

Radebe: “I’ll send a car over there. Sometimes there are emergency numbers on the door.”

“Do it.”

She tried to analyze the known facts, angles, and different points of perspective, stumbling on the crime bits of the jigsaw puzzle.

“No record of Mpayipheli with the ANC, MK, PAC, or APLA?” she asked.

“Nothing. But, of course, the ANC systems have had a few knocks. They are not complete. And the PAC and APLA never really had anything. All the PAC info came from the Boers. And there’s nothing on Mpayipheli.”

“There must be a connection between Mpayipheli and the Kleintjeses.”

“Hell,” said Quinn, “he could have been their gardener.”

Radebe, always careful with what he said, frowned deeply as if he had strong doubts. “She phoned the Arendse number to find Mpayipheli. Maybe Arendse is the connection.”

“Could be.” She was walking up and down again, digesting the input, weighing possibilities. Her thirst for information all-encompassing, they had to make a breakthrough, shine a bright light into the haze of ignorance. But how do you get a drug baron to talk?

Another cycle in her traverse of the wall.

“Okay,” she said. “This is what we are going to do.”

In the dirty toilets of Bellville Station, behind a closed door, he took the pistols out of the rolled-up magazines. Then he went out and placed the different pieces in separate trash cans. He began to walk toward Durban Road. He still had no idea where he was going. He was aware of minutes ticking by and was only ten kilometers closer to Lusaka than when he had been at the airport. The temptation to drop the whole mess and go home lay like yearning on him. But the question kept returning to him: Is that what Johnny Kleintjes did when Thobela needed him? And the answer was always no, no matter how many times he thought about it, no matter how little he wanted to be there, no matter how little he wanted the urgency and tension growing in his belly. He owed Johnny Kleintjes and he would have to move his butt. Turning the corner of Voortrekker and Durban Road, he saw the vehicles at the traffic lights and a light came on in his head, hurrying the tempo of his footsteps as he moved toward the office of the Revenue Services.

There was a taxi rank there. He must get back to the city. Quickly.

For the second time that day Captain Tiger Mazibuko cut his cellphone connection with Janina Mentz and began barking out orders to Team Alpha: “Let’s get these boxes open, there’s work to be done. Hecklers, handguns, smoke grenades, bulletproof vests, and night sights. And paint your faces.”

They sprang into action with a will, snapped open the equipment cases, flicking glances at him, curious at the type of order, but he gave nothing away while he reflected on his conversation with Mentz. Why had he assaulted an officer this afternoon? Because the fucker had set his German shepherd on Little Joe Moroka. What had Little Joe done? didn’'t salute the little lieutenant.

Why not? Because Little Joe is Little Joe. So busy inside his head sometimes that he doesn'’t know what’s going on around him. In-a-fog negligence was all that it was. And when the lieutenant confronted him with a stream of obscenities, the outcome was inevitable. Little Joe takes shit from only one person and that’s me. That’s why we fetched Little Joe out of the MP cells in the first place. Little Joe told him to go do an unmentionable deed with himself or his dog, and the lieutenant encouraged the dog to bite him. Which in any case, militarily speaking, is a contravention of the worst degree. Did the dog bite Little Joe? Yes, the dog bit him in the trousers. Was Little Joe hurt? No. The lieutenant and the dog embarrassed Little Joe. And that is as bad as a bite that draws blood. Worse, in his case. An injustice was perpetrated, however you look at it. Tiger Mazibuko chose not to work through channels to restore the balance because then others would start taking chances with the RU. A point had to be made. And now the Bats were crying.

“Yes, indeed they are crying. They want disciplinary action.”

“Then discipline me.” Challenging, because he knew the RU was untouchable before he beat up the Bat.

“Not before you’'ve earned your keep.” And she gave him the background, the task.

His team handed him his jacket and weapons, the night-sight headset and camouflage paint last. He prepared with deft, practiced movements till the RU stood in line before him and he walked down the row, plucking at a belt, straightening a piece of equipment.

“I have a new name for the Ama-killa-killa,” he said. “After tonight you will be known as the Gangsta Busters.”

7.

He asked the taxi driver to drop him off in front of the Media 24 building in the Heerengracht. He chose to go east through the Nico Malan, turning left onto Hert-zog. Traffic at this time of evening was thin. He deliberately walked without urgency, like a man going nowhere in particular, and turned left again onto Oswald Pirow. As he passed between the petrol pumps, greeting the petrol jockeys through the window of their night room, he saw the car in front of Mother City Motorrad. The lights were on, engine idling, and he saw the intelligence officers in the front seat and his heart sank.

Spooks. They were watching the place.

He opened the door of the petrol attendants’ room and went inside, knowing he would be spotted if he stayed outside.

The idling engine was a good sign. If they were keeping the place under surveillance, they would have parked in the cross street with lights and engine off. The attendants were glad to see him; any distraction at this time of night was welcome. What was he doing here, what was in the bag? He made up an answer, a client’s motorbike had not been returned after servicing and now he, Mpayipheli, had to sort out the whitey’s problems. He had an eye on the car outside, saw it pull away, and tried to keep track of it without raising the suspicions of the petrol jockeys.

Did he have to deliver the bike at this time of night?

Yes, the guy was angry, he needed the motorbike tomorrow morning and the whitey boss was too lazy to go out, so the Xhosa was called out, you know the story. What are you guys watching on TV a competition? Yes, see, every guy has to pick one of three girls, but he can’t see them, he can only ask them questions… .

The car had gone. He listened politely for a minute or two, then excused himself and left, looking up and down the street, but there was nothing. He crossed, went behind the building into the service alley. He took his wallet from the blue bag, sorting through the leather folds. The silver key to the wooden door lay flat and shiny where he always put it. He was the first one there every morning to sweep up half an hour before the mechanics arrived. He had to put on the kettle and the lights and make sure the display windows were clean. He unlocked the door and typed in the code on the alarm panel. He had to decide whether or not to switch on the lights. The guys at the garage would wonder if he didn’'t, but he decided against it— he mustn'’t attract attention.

Next decision: which bike? Lord, the things were big. Would he be able to manage with his Honda 200 experience? He had never been allowed to ride them, he had to push them outside, wash and polish, rub till they shone, push them back in again. Tonight he must get onto one and ride to Johannesburg; but which one?

He felt the weight of the bag dragging at his hand.

The 1200 RS was the fastest, but what about the bag? The LT has luggage space but it was gigantic. The GS demonstration model in the display room had fixed baggage cases on either side of the rear wheel. The machine stood there, chunky and crouched, orangey yellow. The key, he knew, hung in the spares room.

Lord, they were so big.

Despite the concrete walls topped with razor wire and the high gate, despite the early-warning system of human eyes all down the street, and despite the eight men with their collection of weapons inside, it took only seven minutes for Tiger Mazibuko and his Reaction Unit to take the house.

They came through the darkness in three teams of four, four, and five. The two unmarked cars dropped them one block south of the house, and they moved unerringly through gardens and over walls until they could scale the wall of the yard on three sides, quietly and easily cutting the rusty razor wire, their hand signals visible in the light from the street.

The windows were burglarproofed but the large panes were unprotected, and that is how they entered. With smooth, practiced movements of break, dive, and roll, in three separate places, within seconds of one another. When the people inside scrambled to react, panic-stricken, it was too late. Fearful figures with thick welts of camouflage paint, in combat fatigues, forced them adroitly to the floor, pressing chunky Heckler & Koch machine pistols to their temples. Moments of chaos and confusion suddenly turned to quiet, till only one man’s voice was heard, clear and in control.

Mazibuko had the captives brought into the front room and forced down on their bellies on the floor with their hands behind their heads.

“Weyers, Zongu, watch the street.” Then Mazibuko focused on the bundle of bodies on the floor. “Who’s in charge here?” he asked.

Facedown, one or two of the bodies trembled slightly. Seconds passed with no answer.

“Shoot one, Da Costa,” said Mazibuko.

“Which one, Captain?”

“Start there. Shoot him in the knee. Fuck up his leg.”

“Right, Captain.”

Da Costa loudly pulled back the slide of the HK and pressed the barrel against a leg.

“You can’t shoot,” said a voice in the bundle.

“Why not?”

“There are rules for the SAPS.”

Mazibuko laughed. “Shoot, Da Costa.”

The shot was a thunderbolt in the room; the man made a deep, curious noise. The smell of cordite filled the room.

“Here’s some bad news, assholes. We are not police,” said Mazibuko. “Let me ask you again: Who is the chief gangsta here?”

“I am,” said the man in the middle, anxiety creasing his face.

“Stand up.”

“Are you going to shoot me?”

“That depends, Gangsta. That depends.”

Janina Mentz developed her policy on transcripts systematically. The challenge was to secure information, which in this country leaked like water from an earth dam, through the cracks of old loyalties and new aspirations, filtering away through a sandy bottom of corruption and petty avarice. If something gave off the smell of money scavengers would emerge from the oddest holes.

From the beginning her method was to trust nobody too much, to lead no one into temptation, to dampen the smell of the money.

Rahjev Rajkumar had coached her in the vulnerabilities of electronic information. Easy to copy, easy to distribute: floppy disks, zip disks, CD-ROM, FTP, hard drives smaller than half a cigarette pack, e-mail, hacking— because if it was linked it was crackable. If they could get into others’ databases, sooner or later with some new ingenious programming, others would get into theirs.

There was only one way to secure information. One copy, on paper: fileable, controllable, limited.

That is why Rajkumar had an extra section to manage. The typists. Four women who played their old-fashioned electric IBM typewriters like virtuosas. Who fingered the keys at the speed of white light in a single video-monitored room on the sixth floor. Who would sign out each digital and magnetic tape, transcribe it, and sign it back in with the single copy on white paper. Paper that would not yellow or decay. So that Radebe and his team could analyze it and then file it away in the access- and temperature-controlled document library, together with the magnetic tapes. The digital tapes were deleted.

By the time the transcript of the interview with Orlando Arendse reached her, forty-seven minutes after it had taken place in Milnerton Ridge, Janina was already familiar with the crucial content.

Transcript of interview by A. J. M. Williams with Mr. Orlando Arendse, 23 October, 21:25,55 Milnerton Avenue, Milnerton Ridge

w: I represent the state, Mr. Arendse. I have a few questions about Mr. Thobela Mpayipheli and a Miss Monica Kleintjes… .

A: I don'’t work from home. Come and see me at my office in the morning.

w: I am afraid it can’t wait that long, Mr. Arendse.

A: Where are your credentials?

w: Here, Mr. Arendse.

A: Drop the “mister”; I can see you don'’t mean it. This card says nothing. Come see me in the morning, thank you.

w: Maybe you should—

A: Maybe nothing. It’s outside my office hours, and you don'’t have a warrant.

w: I do.

A: Then where is it?

w: Here.

A: That’s a cell phone.

w: Just take the call.

A: Good-bye, my brother.

w: It’s from a house in Mitchell’s Plain that belongs to you.

A: What?

w: Take the call.

A: Hello. Yes … Yes … The bastards … Yes … Williams, who the hell are you?

w: Is there somewhere we can talk in private, Mr. Arendse?

A: What do you want?

w: Just some information.

A: Said the spider to the fly. Come in, we will sit in the back.

w: Thank you.

A: You shot my man, Williams.

w: We wanted to get your attention.

A: You can'’t just shoot. There are rules of engagement.

w: I am sure most of the government departments would agree with you.

A: So who are you?

w: We need some information about a Mr. Thobela Mpayipheli and a Miss Monica Kleintjes.

A: I don'’t know the lady.

w: And Mr. Mpayipheli?

A: He no longer works for me. Not for two years

w: What sort of work did he do?

A: Now I must ask you to excuse me while I phone my lawyer.

w: I am afraid that will not be possible.

A: Do you imagine, my brown bro, that I will sit here and feed you incriminating evidence because you hold a barrel to my troops’ head? My men know the score; they know they can get hurt in our line of work.

w: Mr. Arendse, we know you are involved in organized crime, and the fact of the matter is that we don'’t care. That is the problem of the SAPS. Do you really think that our actions in Mitchell’s Plain, which are hardly in line with the laws of criminal procedure, are part of a plan to bring you to justice?

A: Why do you talk like a whitey? Where are your roots, my bro?

w: Mpayipheli. What did he do for you?

A: Go fuck yourself.

w: Mr. Arendse, my people at the Mitchell’s Plain house say there is two hundred kilograms of cocaine in various stages of processing. I am sure it’s worth something to you, even if your personnel are not.

[Inaudible]

w: Mr. Arendse?

A: What is your problem with Tiny?

w: Who?

A: Mpayipheli.

w: We just need some background.

A: Why?

w: Routine investigations, Mr. Arendse.

A: At ten o’clock at night? Pull the other one.

w: I am not in a position to discuss our interest in Mr. Mpayipheli with you.

A: Did he go into business for himself?

w: How do you mean?

A: He must have done something to attract your attention.

w: What did he do for you?

A: He was my enforcer.

w: Enforcer?

A: Yes.

w: Could you describe that more fully?

A: Jirre, you talk fancy. The government has taught you well.

w: Mr. Arendse

A: Okay okay but don'’t expect a saga, it’s more of a short story. Tiny was firepower and physical intimidation, that’s all. He rode shotgun. Sharpshooter like you wouldn'’t believe. And he was big and strong and he was a mean bastard. You could see it in his eyes— there was a hawk there, he would watch you and look for weakness.

w: How long did he work for you?

A: Six years? I think it was six years.

w: And before that?

A: You should know. He was a soldier in the Struggle.

w: Umkhonto we Sizwe?

A: Exactly

w: With respect, Mr. Arendse, there are few MK soldiers in Mitchell’s Plain.

A: Too true, my bro, they stick to their own. But I got lucky. There was a vacancy and you know how it is— word gets out and the next thing I know this huge Xhosa is standing at the door and he says the vacancy is now filled. Best appointment I ever made.

w: And he told you he was ex-MK.

A: Exactly I was a bit skeptical, so we drove down to Strandfontein for a proper job interview and we gave him an old AK-47 and a lot of Castle beer bottles at two hundred yards. It may not sound far to you, my brother, but those dumpies were small and he blew them apart with monotonous regularity till the other troops gave him a standing ovation, you understand me?

w: Did he ever use his talents in your service?

A: Speak plain, my bro. Do you want to know if he ever shot someone?

w: Yes.

A: It was never necessary. His hawk look was enough. His mother loved him, but everyone else was scared shitless of him.

w: Where did he serve with MK?

A: How would I know? He never talked about it.

w: Never?

A: Hardly a word. Six years and I never knew him. Kept to himself, always a bit apart like Colin Wilson’s Outsider, but who cares, he was a jewel in my crown.

w: Colin who?

A: Literary reference, my bro. You wouldn'’t understand.

w: And then he left your service?

A: Two years ago, he came in and said he was finished. I thought he was playing me for an increase, but he wasn'’t interested. Next thing we know, he was working in a motorbike shop, gofer and general cleaner, can you believe it? Works for peanuts; he earned a small fortune with me. But now it seems he was busy with something on the side.

w: So you have had no contact with him the last two years?

A: Sweet fuck all.

w: I won’t take up your time any longer, Mr. Arendse.

A: Now there’s a relief.

w: You can send medical backup to Mitchell’s Plain. We will withdraw from the property.

A: Mr. Williams, you know nothing about Tiny Mpayipheli, am I right?

w: Why do you say that, Mr. Arendse?

A: Just call it a sneaking suspicion. So let me give you some advice: Start ordering the body bags now.

8.

She went quickly to phone from her office. The maid said Lizette was asleep already. She thanked Suthu for the extra bother of sleeping over and asked to talk to Lien.

“I know my work now, Ma, even though you weren’t here to help me.”

“I knew you could handle it.”

“Can I watch Big Brother on DSTV, Ma? Till ten?”

Kids. Tried to manipulate every situation to maximum advantage. She wanted to be angry and laugh at the same time.

“You know the rules, Lien. The age restriction is sixteen.” And even as she said it she knew exactly what the response would be.

All my friends watch it, Ma. I’m nearly sixteen. I’m not a child anymore.” All three basic arguments in one breath.

“I know you’re not a child anymore. You are a wonderful, lovable fifteen-year-old who needs to wait only a couple more months. Then you can watch with your undisciplined friends. Get enough sleep, you need it for the exam.”

“Maa-aa …”

“And tell Lizette I was just too late to say good night. Tell her I love both of you very much— and I’m very proud of you, too.”

“don'’t work too hard, Ma.”

“I won’t.”

“We love you, too.”

“I know, kid. Sleep well.”

“Night, Ma.”

She hurried back to the Ops Room, impatience gnawing at her.

“Look again, Rahjev. If he was MK, there must be something,” she said as she entered.

“Yes, ma’am.” But the Indian’s body language said he knew what the result would be.

“You don'’t believe we will find anything?”

“Ma’am, the methodology we use to search the known data is very refined. There was nothing. I can run it again, but the result will be the same.”

“He could have lied to Arendse about his background,” said Quinn. “Work was very scarce in the early nineties; people were prepared to say anything.”

“Things don'’t change much,” said Radebe drily.

“And now we have a fugitive sharpshooter with two pistols,” said Janina.

Rajkumar’s brain was working overtime: “The ANC had a paper filing system, too: for Umkhonto we Sizwe. isn'’t it on Robben Island?”

“Pretoria,” said Radebe. “The MK files are at Voortrekker-hoogte.”

“What can you tell us about it?”

“It was never much of a system. With the big influx of recruits after ’seventy-six, there was too much paper and too few administrators. But it could be worth looking.”

“What about the old National Intelligence Service’s microfiche library. The Boers computerized the index, but it’s a secure unconnected system. It’s still active, in Pretoria. We can put in a request,” said Rajkumar.

It was Radebe who made a disparaging noise, and Janina knew why. Her colleagues at the new National Intelligence Service did not command much respect from her and her people. But she liked the idea.

“If the request comes from high enough up, they will jump to it,” she said. “I’m going to talk to the director.”

“Ma’am,” said Quinn, holding up his hand to stop her.

“What is it?”

“Listen to this.” He selected keys, and the electronic hissing of the speakerphone filled the room.

“Tell us again, Nathan.”

“We managed to track down the owner of Mother City Motor-rad. His name is Bodenstein and he lives in Welgelegen. He says Mpayipheli isn'’t a mechanic, just a gofer. Quiet man, hard worker, punctual and trustworthy. He knows nothing about a military background.”

“Tell us about the alarm again, Nathan.”

“While we were busy with the interview, the phone rang. Bo-denstein’s security company reported that the bike shop’s alarm was turned off more than an hour ago and hasn’t been reactivated. He said he must go immediately, and we are following him there.”

“And what did he say about the key, Nathan?”

“Oh, yes. He says Mpayipheli has a key to the place and he knows the alarm code, because Mpayipheli is the one who opens up in the morning.”

Mpayipheli almost fell before he was properly on his way. The power of the huge bike caught him totally unaware as he turned onto Oswald Pirow and opened the throttle. The reaction of this bike was so different from his little Honda Benly that he nearly lost it. And the size— the GS felt massive, heavy and high and unmanageable. He was shocked, adrenaline making his hands tremble, his breath misting the visor of his helmet. He wrestled the bike back in line and this time twisted the throttle with great care and progressed to the traffic lights at the N1. He pulled the front brakes and nearly tipped again, the ABS brakes kicking in hard and urgent. He stopped, breathing heavily, knees trembling, not willing to die on this German machine. The lights turned green, slowly he pulled away, turning slowly to the right with an over-wide arc and exaggerated care, keeping the revs low, through the gears— bloody hell, the thing had power, he was at ioo kilometers per hour before he was properly in third gear, that would be just about the Benly’s top speed.

The traffic on the freeway was light, but he was painfully aware of the cars around him. He was riding slower than the flow of traffic, cringing in the left lane, trying to get a feel for the GS; once you were going, the balance was easier, but the handlebars felt too wide, the tank in front of him impossibly big.

He checked again where the blinkers were, how the dims and brights worked, his eyes flicking between the switches and the road ahead, his following distance was long, his speed just under a hundred. He had made a mistake, he had thought this was the way to get a long way from Cape Town very fast; if he could still make Bloemfontein tonight, he would be away because he could catch a plane there, they wouldn'’t be watching the Bloemfontein airport. But this thing was practically unrideable; he had made a mistake, it would have been quicker to take a minibus taxi, and it was dark, too, the lights of Century City reflected off the helmet. Maybe he should ride to Worcester, or only as far as Paarl, and ditch the bloody bike, what could he have been thinking?

At the N 7 off-ramp he had to change lanes to let a lorry go past and he accelerated slowly, using the blinkers, changed lanes, swung back into the left one, relaxed a little. Through the long uphill turn at Parow, up the Tygerberg, he knew his body was leaning to the wrong side in the turn, but the bike was so unwieldy, the bend uncomfortable. If only there was less traffic; where were all these people going at this time of night? Down the hill to Bellville’s off-ramps and then the streetlights on the freeway became fewer, the traffic dropped off, he saw the signs at the one-stop petrol station beckoning and glanced at the fuel gauge. The tank was full. Thank God. How far could he go on one tank?

His eye caught the speedometer, no, and he throttled back, felt out of control again— this machine had a life of its own, a wild mustang. All his senses intensely engaged, he knew he must plan ahead. What to do? The tollgate was up ahead, thirty kilometers. What should he do? Avoid the tollgate, go to Paarl, abandon the bike, catch a taxi?

There must be taxis running to Worcester, but it was already very late. And if he stuck with the GS? Take on the Du Toits Kloof Pass with this monster?

The tollgate was a spoor that he would leave; people would remember a big black man on a motorbike, wouldn'’t they? Lord, he feared the pass in the dark on this thing. But beyond were more passes, more dark roads with sharp turns and oncoming freight trucks. What had possessed him?

What was he going to do?

A taxi was not going to work, not at this time of night.

Look at this positI'vely. He was on the move, on his way. Suppress the desire to get rid of the bike. Use the dark. Use the lead he had. Use the element of surprise. They had no idea, despite the two spooks in the car at the motorbike shop. It would be tomorrow morning before someone realized the GS was gone, he had—

He hadn'’t reset the alarm. That knowledge came out of the back of his head like a hammer blow. In his hurry and wrestling with the GS, he had forgotten to switch on the alarm.

Jissis, he had gotten sloppy.

By the time he passed the Stellenbosch turnoff, his anger at Johnny Kleintjes and the spooks and at his own stupidity had grown greater than his fear of the motorbike, and he cursed inside the helmet, in all the languages he knew.

“I don'’t believe it,” said Bodenstein. “I bloody don'’t believe it.” They were standing in the showroom of Mother City Motorrad, the two agents and the owner. Bodenstein held out the piece of paper. “Read what he’s written. Can you believe this?”

Nathan took the note.

Mr. Bodenstein:

I am borrowing the GS demonstration model for two or three days. I also took a suit and helmet and gloves; that is what the money is for that I left in your desk drawer. Unfortunately, I have to urgently help a friend and I had no other choice. Wear and tear and any damage to the motorbike will be paid in full.

Thobela Mpayipheli

“You think you know someone. You think you know who to trust,” said Bodenstein.

“Which one is the GS?” asked Johnny, one of the agents.

“It’s that fuckin’ huge thing, only yellow,” said Bodenstein, pointing to a silver motorbike on the showroom floor. “He’s going to fall. Fuckin’ hard. It’s not a toy. Can you believe it?”

“See reality the way things are, not as you want them to be” is one of the principles of Janina Mentz.

That’s why she accepted the developments calmly.

She thought through the happenings while the Ops Room buzzed around her. She stood still, at the end of the long table with her hand on her chin, her elbow propped on her arm, head bowed, a study in calm pensiveness. Aware that the director would hear every word, aware that the way she responded and what decisions she made, her tone of voice and attitude of body, would all create an impression on her team.

Vision: In her mind’s eye she saw the road that the evasive persona of Thobela Mpayipheli must travel. He was headed north, and the N 1 lay like a fat, twisted artery stretching out ahead to the heart of Africa. The reason for his single-mindedness, the source of his motivation, was unplumbed and now irrelevant. She focused on the route: the implications, the countermeasures, the preventative and limiting steps.

In a soft and even voice she had the big map of the country put up on the wall.

With red ink she drew in the likely route. She defined the role of the Reaction Unit: they would be her net, the welcoming party seventy-seven kilometers north of Beaufort West, where the route forked and the possibilities doubled— Kimberley to Johannesburg left, or Bloemfontein to Johannesburg right.

She asked Quinn’s and Radebe’s teams to alert the police stations and traffic authorities along the route, to warn them merely to gather intelligence and not to act, because their armed fugitive was still largely an unknown factor, but they knew he could shoot.

Their ignorance of this factor lay heavily on her, and the next round of instructions must set that right: investigatI've teams to Miriam Nzululwazi, to Monica Kleintjes. The gloves were off now. Track down the fugitive’s family. His parents. His friends.

Get information. Who? What? Where? Why? How? She needed to know him, this ghost with the elusive face.

She had the power. She would use it.

Extract from transcript of interview by J. Wilkinson with Mr. André Bodenstein, owner of Mother City Motorrad, 23 October, 21:55, Oswald Pirow Boulevard, Cape Town:

w: What do you know of Mr. Mpayipheli’s previous employment?

B: He was a gofer.

w: Gofer?

B: Yes. For a car dealer in Somerset West.

w: How do you know this?

B: He told me.

w: What kind of gofer?

B: A gofer is a gofer. It means you do all the shit jobs that nobody else will.

w: That’s all you know?

B: Listen, I don'’t need a man with a bloody degree to wash the motorbikes.

w: And you trusted him with a key?

B: Not the first day, I’m not a moron.

w: But later on.

B: Hell, he was here on the doorstep every morning when I arrived. Every bloody morning, never sick, never late, never cheeky. He worked— hell, that man can work. Last winter I told him he must open up, he can’t stand in the rain like that, he could sweep out and put the kettle on. By the time we arrive, the coffee is made— every fucking morning, the place shines like a new penny. You think you can trust someone. You think you know people….

Twice he was gofer at Killarney when the BMW Rider Academy was coaching well-off, middle-aged white men in the art of motorcycle riding, and now he regretted that he hadn'’t paid attention, that he hadn'’t absorbed all that knowledge.

He was riding through Du Toits Kloof Pass in the dark and he was aware that he was a caricature of how it should not be done. Riding jerkily, brakes and throttle and brakes and throttle and switching the light between bright and dim in a battle between good vision and the oncoming traffic, massive, snorting trucks avoiding the toll by using the long route and taking the sharp turns wide or chugging along at a snail’s pace ahead of him. He sweated inside the expensive, efficient biker suit, his body heat steaming up the shield with water vapor so that time and again he had to clip it open, always aware of the drop on the left side, the lights very far down below.

Brake, turn, brake, turn, ride, struggling and swearing to the highest point, and then the road swung abruptly east and the lights were gone. For the first time the darkness was complete and the road suddenly quiet, and he became aware of the tremendous tension in his torso, muscles like strung wires, and he pulled over to the side, stopped, yanked the helmet from his head, put the clutch in neutral, took his hands from the handlebars, and stretched, taking in a deep breath.

He must relax, he had to, he was tired already and there were hundreds of kilometers ahead. He had made progress. He had come this far, navigated half the pass in the dark. Despite his ham-fistedness, the monster bike was not impossible. It was being patient with him as though it were waiting for him to try a lighter touch.

Deep breaths, in and out, a certain satisfaction, he had reached this milestone, he was at the top. He had a story to tell Pakamile and Miriam. He wondered if she was asleep. The digital clock on the instrument panel said Miriam had laid out the boy’s school things, clothes, and lunch box. If he had been home, his lunch tin would have been packed, the house tidy, the sheets of their bed folded back, and she would have come and lay down with the wonderful smells of the oils and soaps of the bathroom, the alarm set for five o’clock, the light off and her breathing immediately deep and peaceful, the sleep of the innocent, the sleep of the worker.

Behind him he heard a lorry approaching the turn, and he stretched one last time, savoring the night air, clipped the shield down, and pulled away with the knowledge that he had at least mastered the throttle. He deliberately turned it open, felt the power beneath him, and then he was in the next turn and he concentrated on keeping his body relaxed, leaning into the turn as he did with the Benly carefully, unskilled, but a lot better, more comfortable, more natural, and he accelerated slowly out of the turn, aimed for the next, through the old tunnel, another curve and another, down, down to the valley of the Meulenaars river, down, fighting the urge to stiffen up, keeping himself loose and light, feeling the personality of the bike through his limbs, turn and straighten, over and over, joining up with the toll road, suddenly impossibly luxurious and three lanes wide, the curves wide— the relief was tremendous.

As he looked down at the speedo, it read 130. He smiled inside his helmet at the sensation and the amazing thing that he had accomplished.

9.

This is not what we were trained to do,” said Tiger Mazibuko over the cell phone. He was standing outside next to the runway. He could see his men through the window, they were still pumped after the action they had seen, they talked of nothing else, living it over in the finest detail on the way to the air force base, teasing one another, even him, begging their commander to let them all have a chance to shoot— why only Da Costa? Zwelitini said he was going to send a strongly worded letter to the Zulu king to complain that even in the country’s most elite unit there was racial discrimination— only the colonials were allowed to fire, the poor ol’ blacks could only watch— and the twelve roared with mirth, but Tiger Mazibuko did not.

“I know, Tiger, but it was very valuable.”

“We are not the SAPS. give us something proper to do. give us a challenge.”

“Does a man that can pick off beer bottles with an AK at two hundred meters sound like a challenge?”

“Only one man?”

“Unfortunately, just one, Tiger.”

“No, that doesn'’t sound like a challenge.”

“Well, that’s the best I can do. Stand by for an Oryx from Twenty-third Squadron. We are going to pursue the fugitive; you will go on ahead and wait for him.”

His quietness displayed his disgruntlement.

When she realized what he was up to, her voice was angry. “If the challenge is not big enough for you, you can always go back to Tempe. I am sure I can find another alternative.”

“What do we know about this great shooter of beer bottles?”

“Too little. He might or might not have been MK, he was a sort of bodyguard for organized crime, and nowadays he is a gofer at a motorbike dealer.”

“Was he MK, or wasn'’t he?”

“We are working on it, Tiger. We are working on it.”

Transcript of interview by A. J. M. Williams with Mrs. Miriam Nzululwazi, 23 October, 22:51,21 Govan Mbeki Avenue, Guguletu

w: I represent the state, Mrs. Nzululwazi. I have a few questions about Mr. Thobela Mpayipheli and a Miss Monica Kleintjes.

N: I don'’t know her.

w: But you do know Mr. Mpayipheli.

N: Yes. He is a good man.

w: How long have you known him?

N: Two years.

w: How did you meet?

N: At my work.

w: What work do you do, Mrs. Nzululwazi?

N: I am a tea lady at Absa.

w: Which branch of Absa?

N: The Heerengracht.

w: And how did you come to meet him?

N: He was a client.

w: Yes?

N: He came to see one of the consultants and I brought him tea. When he was finished he came to look for me.

w: And asked for a date?

N: Yes.

w: And you said yes.

N: No. Only later.

w: So he came back again, after the first time.

N: Yes.

w: Why did you refuse him at first?

N: I don'’t understand why you wake me up to ask me questions like this.

w: Mr. Mpayipheli is in trouble, Mrs. Nzululwazi, and you can help him by answering the questions.

N: What kind of trouble?

w: He unlawfully took an object that belongs to the state and—

N: He took nothing. That woman gave it to him.

w: Miss Kleintjes?

N: Yes.

w: Why did she give it to him?

N: So that he could take it to her father.

w: But why did she choose him to do this?

N: He owes her father a favor.

w: What kind of favor?

N: I don'’t know.

w: He didn’'t tell you?

N: I didn’'t ask.

w: Do you and Mr. Mpayipheli live together?

N: Yes.

w: As man and wife?

N: Yes.

w: And you didn’'t ask him why he was receiving stolen property and agreeing to take it to Lusaka?

N: How do you know he is going to Lusaka?

w: We know everything.

N: If you know everything, why are you sitting here asking me questions in the middle of the night?

w: Do you know what Mr. Mpayipheli was involved with before his present work?

N: I thought you knew everything?

w: Mrs. Nzululwazi, there are gaps in our knowledge. I have already apologized for disturbing you so late. As I have explained, it is an emergency and Mr. Mpayipheli is in big trouble. You can help us by filling in the gaps.

N: I don'’t know what he did.

w: Did you know he worked for organized crime?

N: I don'’t want to know. He said he had another life, he said he did things that he wants to forget. In this country it wasn'’t very hard. He would have told me if I had asked him. But I didn’'t. He is a good man. There is love in this house. He is good to me and to my son. That is all I need to know.

w: Do you know if he was a member of Umkhonto we Sizwe?

N: Yes.

w: Was he?

N: Yes.

w: Did he tell you that?

N: In a way.

w: Did you know where he served?

N: He was in Tanzania and Angola and in Europe and Russia.

w: Do you know when?

N: That is all that I know.

w: But he told you that as a member of MK he—

N: No. He never told stories. I worked it out myself.

w: What do you mean?

N: Like when he talked to Pakamile about other countries.

w: Pakamile is your son?

N: Yes.

w: And this is all you had to go on?

N: Yes.

w: He never actually said he was with MK?

N: No.

[Silence— eight seconds]

w: Mrs. Nzululwazi, the favor he owed Johnny Kleintjes

N: I have already told you I don'’t know.

w: You didn’'t find it strange that Miss Kleintjes came in here and Mr. Mpayipheli immediately agrees to undertake a long and dangerous journey on her behalf?

N: Why would it be dangerous to go to Lusaka?

w: You are not aware of the data on the hard drive?

N: What data?

w: The stolen data that he has with him.

N: Why should it be dangerous?

w: There are people that want to stop him. And there are—

N: People like you?

w: No, Mrs. Nzululwazi.

N: You want to stop him.

w: We want to help. We tried at the airport, but he ran away.

N: You wanted to help.

w: We did.

N: You must leave. Now.

w: Madam

N: Get out of my house.

There is a plaque at the entrance to the air force base at Bloem-spruit, just outside Bloemfontein. In military terms it is a new plaque, being scarcely three years old. On the plaque are the words 16 SQUADRON and below that, HLASELANI. Black inhabitants of Bloemfontein know what hlaselani means, but just to be sure that everyone understands, at the bottom of the plaque in brackets is the word ATTACK.

It is the pilots of the Sixteenth Squadron in particular who look at those words with satisfaction. It defines their purpose, separating them from the winged bus drivers and freight carriers of other squadrons, especially the other helicopter jockeys. They are an attack unit. For the first time in nearly sixty-five years of existence. Forget the quasi bombers like the Marylands, Beauforts, and Beaufighters of the Second World War. Forget the Alouette III helicopters of the bad 1980s.

Their satisfaction was due in large part to the content of the giant hangars: twelve almost brand new AH-2A Rooivalk attack helicopters, impressive air platforms with nose-mounted 20 mm cannon that could fire 740 rounds per minute and the capacity to carry up to sixteen air-to-ground missiles such as the ZT-35 laser-guided antitank missile. And on the wingtips were fittings for the Darter air-to-air missiles to lie snug. Add the Rooivalks electronic warfare capability, the fully integrated HEWSPS (Helicopter Electronic Warfare Self-Protection Suite) with radar warning, laser warning, and countermeasures system and the pilots felt they were the only ones in the South African Air Force with twenty-first century technology between their legs, which was their regular joke in the officers’ club over their Red Heart rum and Coke.

The call came at 21:59 from General Ben van Rooyen at air force headquarters for two Rooivalk helicopters with extra fuel tanks for an extended operating range of 1,260 kilometers, to take off for Beaufort West as part of a real-life operation (and not the simulated warfare of the past thirty-six months). The biggest dilemma of the Sixteenth Squadron’s commander was how to explain to the pilots and gunners who were not chosen how he had made his choice.

“How is it possible that MK has no record of him, Rahjev? If she is right and he was in Russia and Angola, how is that possible?”

“Ma’am, we don'’t know. We can only look at what is in the databases and analyze it, that’s all.”

“What is the probability that an MK member is not on record?”

Rajkumar pulled at his ponytail hanging over his shoulder with a plump hand. “Hell, ma’am … fifteen percent?”

“Fifteen percent.”

“Round about.”

“If there were ten thousand MK soldiers, as many as fifteen hundred are not on record?”

“Not on electronic record.”

“If there were fifty thousand, are seventy-five hundred just missing?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“But they might be in the files in Voortrekkerhoogte?”

Radebe answered: “I think the odds are greater that they will find him in the Voortrekkerhoogte files.”

“How long before we hear?”

“An hour or two. They have three people searching the archI'ves.”

“And the Boers’ microfiche library?”

Radebe pulled up his shoulders. “It depends how strongly the orders from above came through.”

She did a circuit of the room. To be dependent on others was a great frustration. She shook it off.

“What is a motorcycle gofer doing with a consultant at Absa?” Janina asked the Ops Room in general.

“Tell me I can scratch around in the Absa system, ma’am. Please?” Rajkumar stretched his interlaced plump fingers in front of him, cracking his joints in anticipation.

“How much time do you need?”

“give me an hour.”

“Go for it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah!”

“What is the situation on the road?” she asked Radebe.

“The tollgate says no big bikes have gone north tonight— a few came through south, but no black man. We are working through Police Head Office. They say the local law enforcement and petrol stations as far as Touws river have been alerted. They are phoning Laingsburg, Leeu-Gamka, and Beaufort West now. But if he doesn'’t take the N 1 ”

“He will.”

He nodded.

She looked at them. They were keen to please.

“Are we making progress with the people that helped Kleintjes with the computer integration?”

“There is a transcript coming, ma’am.”

“Thank you.”

This is the one, she thought. The one she was waiting for. She looked over the room. They didn’'t know everything. Only she held all the pieces to this particular jigsaw.

So much careful planning. So much exception management. Long, careful months of fitting the gears one by one into this clock. And now it must all change, thanks to one middle-aged motorbike gofer.

10.

Miriam Nzululwazi lay on the double bed in the dark room, hands folded on her chest, eyes turned to the ceiling. She did not hear the familiar sounds of Guguletu at night, the eternal barking of dogs, the shouts of groups going home from the shebeen, their last fling before the week began again, the revving of a car engine in a backyard repair shop, the insects, music somewhere only audible in bass, the sigh and creak of their house settling for the night.

Her thoughts sought out Thobela and came back every time to the same conclusion: he was a good man.

Why were they chasing him? He was doing nothing wrong.

This country. Would it never stop banging on your door in the middle of the night? Would the ledger of the past never be closed?

Was he doing a wrong thing?

Was Thobela someone else than the man she knew?

“I was different,” he had said one afternoon, when their relationship was young, when he had to fight to win her trust.

“I had another life. I am not ashamed. I did what I believed in. It is over. Here I am now. Just as you see me.”

That first day in the consultant’s office she had not even noticed him, just another client. She had transferred the tea from the trolley onto the tray and slid the tray onto the desk and nodded when the consultant and his client thanked her, and she had pulled the door closed behind her, little knowing that that mundane service would change her life. He had come right into the kitchen looking for her, apparently telling the consultant’s secretary he wanted to tell her how good the tea was, and had put out his hand to her and said, “My name is Thobela Mpayipheli.” She thought it was a nice name, an honest name—“Thobela” meant “with respect”— but she wondered what he wanted. “I saw you in Van der Linde’s office. I want to talk with you.”

“What about?”

“Anything.”

“Are you asking me out?”

“Yes, I am.”

“No.”

“Am I too ugly?” he asked, with his smile and broad shoulders.

“I have a child.”

“A boy or a girl?”

“I haven’t time to talk. I have work to do.”

“Just tell me your name, please.”

“Miriam.”

“Thank you.” He had not used any of the popular slang, none of the quasi-American

cool

of the township rakes; he had left and she had gone on with her work. Two days later there was a phone call for her; no one phoned her at work, so she feared someone had died. He had to remind her who he was, he asked her when she took lunch break, she answered evasively and asked him not to phone her at work— there was no outside line to the kitchen, and reception didn’'t like it if the staff kept the lines busy.

The next day he was waiting outside, not leaning against a wall somewhere but standing right in front of the entrance, his legs planted wide and his arms folded on his chest, and when she sought the sunshine in Thibault Square he was there. “May I walk with you?”

“What do you want?”

“I want to talk to you.”

“Why?”

“Because you are a lovely woman and I want to know you.”

“I know enough people, thank you.”

“You never told me if you have a son or a daughter.”

“That’s right.” He walked next to her, she sat down on a step and opened the waxed-paper wrapping of her sandwich.

“Can I sit here?”

“It’s a public place. You can sit where you like.”

“I am not a tsotsi.”

“I can see that.”

“I just want to talk.”

She let him talk. She was in a dilemma— fear on one hand, loneliness on the other. The experiences behind her argued with the possibilities that lay ahead. She had to shield her child and her heart from the big, handsome, gentle, proper man sitting in the spring sunshine alongside her. Her solution was to wait and see, to be passive. Let him talk, and he did, every other day he was outside, sometimes he brought something to eat, never luxuries: bunny rolls, hot chips with the irresistible flavor of salt and vinegar, sometimes a little bowl of curry and rice or his favorite, a chili bite from the Muslim takeout on Adderley Street, fresh and fragrant and sharp, and he let her taste it. He shared his lunch with her, and slowly she began to melt. Relaxing, she told him about Pakamile and her house for which she had worked so long, how hard it had been to pay it off, and one day he brought a gift for the boy, a jigsaw puzzle, and she said no, that’s it, she wouldn'’t see him anymore, she would not expose Pakamile, men always left. Men never stay, he was a good man, but she thought men couldn'’t help it. That is how life is: men are temporary. Unde-pendable. Unnecessary. Unnecessary for Pakamile.

Not all men, he had said, and it was on the tip of her tongue to say, “That is what you all say,” but there was something in his eyes, in his look, in the set of his mouth and the clenching of his teeth that stopped her, that touched her, and she let it go and then he said, “I had a wild life. I did things. …”

“What things?”

“Things in the name of the Struggle. I was different. I had another life. I am not ashamed. I did what I believed in. It is over. Here I am now. Just as you see me.”

“We all did things in the name of the Struggle.” She was relieved.

“Yes,” he said. “I was searching for myself. Now I have found myself. I know who I am and I know what I want. I am not a deserter.”

She had believed him. He looked into her eyes and she believed him.

“Rooivalk One, we have a weather situation,” said the tower at Bloemspruit. “Trough developing in the west, all the way from Verneukpan to Somerset East and a weak frontal system on the way. It could get wet.”

The pilot looked at his flight plan. “Can we get through?”

“AffirmatI've, Rooivalk One, but you had better shake ass,” said the tower, knowing the Rooivalks operational ceiling was just under twenty thousand feet.

“Rooivalk One ready for takeoff.”

“Rooivalk Two ready for takeoff.”

“Rooivalk One and Two cleared for takeoff. Make some thunder.”

The noise of the double Topaz turboshaft engines was deafening.

He mastered the R 1150 GS just before the Hex river valley. He knew it when he came out of a bend and opened the throttle and there was pleasure in the power. The exhaust pipe snorted softly behind him and he kicked back one gear, chose the line for the curve, tilted the bike, his shoulder dipping into the turn, and there was no discomfort, no fear of the angle between machine and road, just the tingling of pride for a small victory, skills acquired, satisfaction in control of power. He accelerated out of the turn, eyes focused on the next one, taking in the red lights a kilometer ahead, a lorry, aware, in control, bits and pieces, the instructor’s voice at the advanced riding school slowly making sense now. He could like this, a little adrenaline, a little more skill, lorry ahead, manipulate clutch and gears and accelerator, a whisper of the front brakes, shoot past, and then he looked up and the moon broke away from the mountain peaks, full and bright, and in that moment he knew it was going to work, the trouble lay behind him, just the twisty, open road ahead, and he opened the taps, and the valley opened ahead of him, a fairyland in the silvery light of the moon.

Monica Kleintjes sat hunched in the sitting-room chair in her father’s house, the lines of suppressed tears down her cheeks. Opposite her, Williams sat on the edge of his chair, as if he would reach out to her in empathy. “Miss Kleintjes, I would have done precisely the same if it were my father. It was a noble action,” he said softly. “We are here to support you.”

She nodded, biting her lower lip, hands clenched in her lap, her eyes large and teary behind the glasses.

“There are just two things we need to shed light on: your father’s relationship with Mr. Mpayipheli and the character of the data that he has with him.”

“I don'’t know what is on the hard drive.”

“No idea?”

“Names. Records. Numbers. Information. When I asked my father what it was all about, he said it was better if I didn’'t know. I think … names …” Her eyes wandered over the wall next to the mantelpiece. There were photos hanging, black-and-white, color. People.

“What names?” Williams followed her gaze, stood up.

“Well-known ones.”

“Which?” He looked over the photos. A colored family in Trafalgar Square, Johnny Kleintjes, Monica, perhaps five years old, her little legs stout and very present.

“ANC. The regime …”

“Can you remember any specific names?” There were photos of Kleintjes and people now in positions in the government. In Red Square, East Berlin, Checkpoint Charlie and the Wall in the background. Prague. The tourist spots of the Cold War.

“He didn’'t say.”

“Nothing at all?” Williams stared at Johnny Kleintjes’s wedding picture. Monica’s mother in white, not a beautiful woman but proud.

“Nothing.”

He looked away from the pictures, to her. “Miss Kleintjes, it is essential that we know what is in that data. This is in the interests of the country.”

Her hands sprang loose from her lap, the tears spilled over the dam wall. “I didn’'t want to know and my father didn’'t want to say. Please …”

“I understand, Miss Kleintjes.”

“Thanks.”

He allowed her a moment to calm down. She reached for her tissues and blew delicately.

“And Mr. Mpayipheli?”

“My father knew him in the Struggle.”

“Could you be more specific?”

Another tissue. She removed her glasses and wiped carefully under her eyes. “Three weeks … two or three weeks ago my father came to me at work. He had never done that before. He had a piece of paper with him. He said it was the name and contact number of someone he trusted completely. If anything should happen to him, I must phone Tiny Mpayipheli.”

“Tiny?”

“That is what was on the paper.”

“Were you surprised?”

“I was disturbed. I asked him why something should happen to him. He said nothing was going to happen, it was just insurance, like we work with at Sanlam. Then I asked him who Tiny Mpayipheli was, and he said, A phenomenon.’ ”

“A phenomenon?”

She nodded. “Then he said, A comrade.’ Tiny was a comrade, they served together. He saw Tiny grow up in the Struggle.”

“Your father was in Europe during the Struggle?”

“Yes.”

“And that is where he got to know Mpayipheli?”

“I assume so.”

“And?”

“And should anything go wrong, I should contact Tiny. Then I asked him again what would go wrong— I was worried— but he would say nothing, he wanted to talk about how nice my office was.”

“And then when you got the calls from Lusaka, you phoned Mpayipheli?”

“First I opened the safe to get the hard drive. On top of it was a note. Tiny Mpayipheli’s name and phone number. So I phoned him.”

“And then you took the hard drive to him in Guguletu?”

“Yes.”

“And you asked him to take it to Lusaka for you?”

“Yes.”

“And he agreed?”

“ ‘I owe your father,’ he said.”

“I owe your father.”

“Yes.”

“Is his photo here?”

She looked at the row of portraits as if seeing them for the first time. She pulled her crutches closer, stood up with difficulty. He wanted to stop her, sorry he had asked. “I don'’t think so.” She looked over the photos. The liquid welled up in her eyes again.

“Have you had any contact with Mr. Mpayipheli since then?”

“You listen to my phone. You know.”

“Miss Kleintjes, have you any idea where Mr. Mpayipheli is now?”

“No.”

Radebe called her to the Ops Room. “Yes?”

“The team searching the files in Pretoria, ma’am …” “Yes?” “There’s nothing. They can’t find Thobela Mpayipheli.”

11.

The agent was from the Eastern Cape Bureau in Bisho. She knew, operationally speaking, that it was the backwoods of South Africa, a professional quicksand where nothing ever happened to give you a chance to rise above, to propel yourself to headquarters. The longer you remained there, the more you suffocated in the sands of mediocrity.

When Radebe phoned from HQ to order you to interview a subject in Alice, you didn’'t moan about the lack of information, you put zeal in your voice and hid the gratitude and climbed into the grimy, juddering Volkswagen Golf Chico with 174,000 km on the odometer and you seized the day, because this could be your passport to higher honors.

Then you focused on the questions you were going to ask, the tone of voice to maintain; you prepared until your thoughts began to wander, when you began to daydream about the possibilities this could bring— you saw in your mind’s eye Mrs. Mentz reading the report (not knowing what her office looked like, you filled it with chrome and glass) and calling Radebe in to say, “This agent is brilliant, Radebe. What is she doing in Bisho? She belongs here with us.”

Before the fantasy could properly take shape, before she could furnish the dream apartment in Sea Point and picture the view, she had arrived. She parked in front of the house in Alice, just a kilometer or so from the lovely new buildings on the Fort Hare campus. There was a light still burning and she knocked politely, her tape recorder and notebook in her handbag, her weapon in the leather holster in the small of her back.

The man who opened the door was silver gray, the wrinkles on his face deep and multiple, the tall body bowed with age, but his “good evening” conveyed only patience.

“Reverend Lawrence Mpayipheli?”

“That is correct.”

“My name is Dalindyebo. I need some help.”

“You have come to the right place, sister.” A strong voice. The minister stepped back and held the door open. Two veined bare feet showed under the burgundy dressing gown.

The agent stepped inside, swept her eyes over the room, the bookshelves along two walls, hundreds of books, the other walls hung with black-and-white and color photos. The room had simplicity, no luxuries, an aura of restfulness and warmth.

“Please sit down. I just want to tell my wife she can go to sleep.”

“I apologize for the late hour, Reverend.”

“don'’t be sorry.” The minister disappeared down the passage, bare feet silent on the carpet. The agent attempted to see the photos from her chair. The minister and his wife in the middle, with bridal couples, at synod, with amorphous groups of people. At one side, a family photo, the minister young, tall, and straight. In front of him stood a boy of six or seven, a serious frown on his face, an overbite of new front teeth. The agent wondered if that was Thobela Mpayipheli.

The old man appeared from the passage again. “I have put the kettle on. What do you bring to my house, Miss Dalindyebo?”

For a moment she hesitated, suddenly doubting the prepared phrase on the tip of her tongue. There is something shining out of the old man, a love, compassion.

“Reverend, I work for the state. …”

He was about to sit down opposite her when he saw her hesitation. “Carry on, my child, don'’t be afraid.”

“Reverend, we need information about your son. Thobela Mpayipheli.”

Deep emotion moved over the old man’s face, across his mouth and eyes. He stood still for a long moment as if turned to stone, long enough for her to feel anxiety. Then slowly he sat, as if his legs were in pain, and the sigh was deep and heavy.

“My son?” One hand touched the gray temple, just the fingertips; the other gripped the arm of the chair, eyes unseeing. A reaction she had not expected. She must adjust her time scale and review her questions. But for now she must remain quiet.

“My son,” he said, this time not a question, the hand coming loose from the chair and floating to his mouth as if weightless, his gaze somewhere, but not in this room.

“Thobela,” he said, as if remembering the name.

It took nearly fifteen minutes for the old man to begin his story. He first asked after the welfare of his son, which she answered with vague lies to spare him anguish. He excused himself to make coffee, treading like a sleepwalker. He brought the tray, which he had arranged with a plate of rusks and biscuits; he dithered about where to begin the chronicle of Thobela Mpayipheli, and then it came out, at first haltingly, a struggle for the right words, the right expression, till it began to flow, to make a stream of words and emotions, as if he were confessing and seeking her absolution.

To understand, you need to go back to the previous generation. To his generation. To him and his brother. Lawrence and Senzeni. The dove and the falcon. Jacob and Esau, if you would forgive the comparison. Children of the Kat river, of poverty, yes, simplicity but pride, sons of a tribal chief who had to do herd duty with the cattle, who learned the Xhosa culture around the fire at night, who learned the history of the people at the feet of the gray-haired ones, who went through the Xhosa initiation before it became an exploitation of the poor. The difference between them was there from the early days. Lawrence the elder, the dreamer, the tall lean boy, the clever one who was always one step ahead of the others at the mission school with its single classroom, the peacemaker. Senzeni, shorter, muscular, a fighter, a born soldier, impatient, short-tempered, fiery his attention fully engaged only when the battles were retold, his eyes glittering with fighting spirit.

There was a defining moment, so many years ago when he, Lawrence, had to defend his honor in a senseless adolescent fist-fight with another boy, a troublemaker who was jealous of his status as chief’s offspring. He was baited with cutting ridicule and within the circle of screaming children had to defend his dignity with his fists. It was as if he were raised above the two boys facing each other in ever diminishing circles, as if he floated, as if he were not really there. And when the blows began to rain down, he could not lift his hand against the boy. He could not ball his hands into fists, could not find the hate or anger to break skin or draw blood. It was a divine moment, the knowledge that he could feel his opponent’s pain before it existed, the urge to assuage it, to heal.

Senzeni came to his aid, his little brother. He was staggering and bleeding in the ring of boys, head singing from the blows, blood in his eyes and his nose, and then Senzeni was there, a black tornado of rage ruthlessly thrashing the other boy with frightful purpose.

When it was over he turned to Lawrence with disdain, even a degree of hate, reluctant to accept this new responsibility and questioning without words how they could be brothers.

Lawrence found the Lord at the mission school. He found in Christ all the things he had felt within him that day. Senzeni said it was the white man’s religion.

Lawrence received a scholarship through the church, and their mother encouraged him. He studied and married and began the long eternal journey as disciple here among his own people in the Kat river valley. And his brother was always there, a counterweight, by default the next tribal chief, the warrior who fastened onto the rumors of a new movement from the north, who read every word on the Rivonia trials over and over, who became another kind of disciple— a disciple of freedom.

And then there was Thobela.

The Lord made the boy with a purpose. He looked at the ancestors and took a bit here and a little there and sent the child into the world with the presence of his grandfather Mpayipheli, the ability to lead, to make decisions, to see past the angles and sides of a matter and make a judgment. The Lord gave him the body of his father, tall, the same limbs that could run the Ciskei hills with characteristic rhythmic stride, the same facial features so that many, including Thobela’s own father, would mistakenly assume the same peacemaker inside.

But God created a predator in him, a Xhosa warrior, the Lord went far back in the bloodline, to Phalo, Rharhabe, Nquika en Maqoma, as he did with Senzeni, and gave Thobela Mpayipheli the heart of the hunter.

In early years his likeness fooled everyone. “His father’s son,” they said. But the son grew and the truth emerged. His father was the first to know, because he was brother to Senzeni. He knew the signs and he prayed for mercy, because he feared the consequences. He enveloped the boy with love, to create a cocoon to wrap him safely in, but that was not the Lord’s will. Too late he came to realize this was his test, this child, too late, because he failed, his wisdom and compassion failed him, his deep love for his son made him blind.

The strife began insignificantly domestic differences between father and son, and from there, as the years advanced, expanded like the ripples from a pebble dropped in a still pool.

And Senzeni came home to verify the rumors and their fierce hearts recognized each other, Thobela and his uncle, their mouths spoke the same language, their bodies thirsted for the same battlefields, their heads rejected the way of peace and love. And Lawrence Mpayipheli lost his only son.

“In 1976 with the Soweto riots, Thobela was fourteen years old. Senzeni came for him in the night. My brother was forbidden to enter the house because of his influence but he crept in like a thief and took the child and phoned later to say he would bring Thobela home when he had become a man. He had him initiated somewhere, and then took him to every place where Xhosa blood was shed. He filled his head with hate. They were away a long time, three months, and when they returned I did not know my son and he did not know me. Two years we lived like this in the rectory, strangers. He walked his own paths, quiet and secretive, as if tolerating me, waiting.

“In 1979 he was gone. The evening before, he said good night— a rare occurrence— and in the morning his room was empty.

The bed unslept in, some clothes missing from the wardrobe. Senzeni came and said my son had gone to the war. There was a terrible row that day. Hard words were spoken. I forgot myself. I was wounded because I could not be a father, because my brother had stolen my son. My words were to Senzeni, but I raged with God. The Lord had let my son leave me. He had drawn the dividing lines of this land and this family in strange places. He made me a man of peace and love, called me to be a shepherd, and then He placed a wolf in the fold so that I was ridiculed, so that the apostate could scorn Him, and that I could not understand.

“Only later did I see it was my test. It was the Lord’s way to humble me, to strip me of the illusion that I was more holy than others, to show me my feet of clay. But by then it was too late to save my son, too late to bring him home. Sometimes we had news, sometimes Senzeni would send a message about Thobela, how well he was, that he had been noticed, that the leaders of the Struggle recognized his character, that he had gone to foreign parts to learn to fight for his country.

“Then one evening the message came. The Security Police had taken Senzeni— to Grahamstown. For eight days they beat the life out of him and left his body as rubbish beside the road. And we never heard of our son again.”

Beyond Touws river the road shrugged off its bends, and for the first time Thobela’s thoughts drifted from the motorbike. He took stock of his position— the implications and what alternatives were available to him. The LCD stripes of the petrol gauge indicated he must refuel. At Laingsburg. After that it was 200 kilometers to Beaufort West, a deadly stretch of highway through the Great Karoo, wide and straight, oppressively hot in daytime, soul-destroying at night. Expected time of arrival: approximately midnight.

From Beaufort West it was another 500 or 550 to Bloemfontein— too far to reach before sunrise? Maybe not, if he pushed on, if he could manage the refueling stops quickly.

He would have to sleep in Bloemfontein, ride into the black township and rest somewhere while the sun shone.

The big question remained: Did they know yet he had taken the bike? Had his error of not turning off the alarm already resulted in consequences? If the answer was no, he had until eight, nine o’clock tomorrow morning before the message went out. And they would have to guess his route.

But if they already knew

He knew the game. He knew how fast the variables multiplied for the hunters and the prey. He knew how they would reason if they already knew. Put their money on the main route, the fastest, shortest road, use resources there because that is where the highest-percentage probability lay, even if it was no more than 50 percent. There were too many longer, lesser routes; the possibilities would drive you out of your mind.

If they knew, the Ni would be their candidate. That’s why he needed to use the darkness and the lead he had on them.

He switched the beam of the lights on high, the black ribbon strung out before him, opened the throttle, the needle crept past 140, up the long gradients, 150, his eyes measuring the lit course in front of him. How fast could he safely go at night?

Just over the crest of the next rise a valley opened up before him and the GS moved past the 160 mark. He saw the blue and red revolving lights of the law far ahead in the distance.

He grabbed the front brakes, kicked the back brake, and the ABS shuddered, intense pressure crushing his arms, but he kept the clutch in, for a moment he thought he would lose control, and then he had stopped, in the middle of the road, and there was something he still had to do— what was it? the lights, turn off the lights— searching for the switch in panic, got it, switched it off with his right thumb and suddenly he was night blind, all dark, just himself and the knowledge that they knew, that they were waiting for him, that everything had changed.

Again.

12.

The crime reporter of the Cape Times didn’'t know that the call would be a turning point in her life.

She would never know whether the loss of life would have been less and the outcome very different if she had taken her bag and left for home one minute earlier.

She was by nature a plump woman, cheerful, with wide soft curves and a broad quick smile and a hearty laugh, jolly dimples in her cheeks. If she had been more introspective, she might have wondered if she got on with people so easily because she presented no threat.

Her name was Allison Healy and when the phone rang on her desk late on a Sunday night, she answered with her usual cheery voice.

“Times,”

she said.

“Allison, this is Erasmus from Laingsburg.” Slightly muffled, as if he didn’'t want his colleagues to hear. “I don'’t know if you remember me.”

She remembered. The policeman had worked at the Sea Point office. They called him “Rassie.” Burned out at twenty-eight in the fight against a declining suburb, he had transferred to more restful pastures. She greeted him happily, asking how he was. As well, he replied, as you could be in a place where the sweet blow all grew a meter high. She laughed her throaty laugh. Then the voice on the line became serious.

“Do you know about the Xhosa on the BMW?”

“No,” she said.

“Then I’'ve got a story for you.”

CLASSIFIED GRADE ONE

MEMORANDUM

17 NOVEMBER 1984 19:32

STATUS:

Urgent

FROM:

Derek Lategan, legal attaché, Embassy, Washington

TO:

Quartus Naudé

Urgent request from CIA, Langley, Virginia: Any possible information and/or photographic material:

Thobela Mpayipheli, alias Tiny, alias Umzingeli. Suspected previously Umkhonto we Sizwe, probably current operator, Stasi/KGB. Probably operational in UK/Europe. Black male, 2.1 m, 100-120 kg. No further intelligence available.

End

Janina Mentz looked at the fax, the poor reproduction, the handwritten note in the upper right corner barely legible: “Our help with this matter could open doors. Regards, Derek.”

She checked the cover page. “Attachments: 1.”

“Is this all?” she asked.

“Yes, ma’am, that’s all,” said Radebe.

“Where’s the follow-up? Where’s the answer?”

“They say that’s the only reference on the microfiche, ma’am. Just that.”

“They’re lying. Send a request for the follow-up correspondence. And contact details for the sender and addressee of the memorandum: Lategan and Naudé.”

Why did they have to struggle for cooperation? Why the endless rivalry and politicking? She was angry and frustrated. She knew the real source was the new information, the caliber of their fugitive and their underestimation of him. This meant escalation. It meant trouble. For her and the project. And if the NIA wanted to play games, she had to get a bigger stick.

She reached for the phone and dialed an internal number. The director answered.

“Sir,” she said, “we need help with the NIA. They are not playing ball. Can you use NICoC influence?”

The director, together with the director-general of the National Intelligence Agency, the head of Military Intelligence, the head of the Police National Investigation Service, and the director-general of the Secret Service, was a member of the National Intelligence Coordinating Committee, under the chairmanship of the minister.

“Let me phone the DG direct,” said the director.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I am happy to help, Janina.”

She took up the fax again. In 1984 the CIA suspected that Mpayipheli was working for the KGB? In Europe?

The CIA?

Urgent request… Our help with this matter could open doors.

This man? This middle-aged gofer? The coward from the airport?

She pulled the transcript of the Orlando Arendse interview from the pile in front of her.

So let me give you some advice: Start ordering the body bags now.

She took a deep breath. No reason to worry. It meant Johnny Kleintjes knew what he was doing. He would not put his safety in amateur hands. They had underestimated Mpayipheli. She would not make that mistake again.

She used the new intelligence, ran through her strategy. More sure than ever that he would use the Ni. A cool cat, this one, self-assured: his display at the airport calculated to mislead, the smooth disarming of the agents explained, the choice of motorbike, in retrospect, very clever.

But still they had the upper hand. Mpayipheli did not know that they knew.

And if things went wrong, there was always the leverage of Miriam Nzululwazi. And the child.

He knew he had to get off the road. He couldn'’t stay where he was in the dark. Or he must turn back, find another route; but he was unwilling, his entire being rejected retreat; he must move on, to the north.

Gradually his eyes adjusted to the darkness. He switched the motorbike on, slowly rode to the side of the highway, looked at the moonlit veld, the wire fence straight as an arrow parallel with the Ni. He was looking for a farm gate or a wash under the wire, kept glancing back, unwilling to be caught in the glare of oncoming headlights. He wanted to get off and have a stretch and think.

How far ahead was that roadblock? Four or five kilometers. Closer. Three?

Thank God the GS’s exhaust noise was soft. He kept the revs low, scanning the fences, saw promise on the opposite side of the road, a gate and a two-track road into the veld. He rode over, tires crunching on the gravel, stopped, put the bike on the stand, pulled off his gloves, checked the fastening of the gate. No padlock. He pulled the gate open, rode the bike in, and closed the gate behind him.

He must get far off the road, but close enough to still see the lights.

He realized his good fortune: the GS was dual-purpose, made for blacktop and dirt road, the so-called adventure touring bike, spoke wheels, high and well sprung. He turned in the veld so the nose faced the highway, stopped, got off. He pulled the helmet off his head, stuffed the gloves inside, placed it on the saddle, stretched his arms and legs, felt the night breeze on his face, heard the noises of the Karoo in the night.

Blue and red and orange lights.

He heard an oncoming vehicle, from the Cape side, saw the lights, counted the seconds from when it flashed past, watching the red taillights, trying to estimate the distance to the roadblock, but it got lost in the distance, melting into the hazard lights.

He would have to turn back. Take another route.

He needed a road map. Where did his other choices lie? Somewhere there was a turnoff to Sutherland, but where? He did not know that region well. It was on the road to nowhere. A long detour? Tried to recall what lay behind him. A road sign on the left had called out “Ceres” before Touws river even, but it would take him almost back to Cape Town.

He breathed in deeply. If he must, he would go back, whether he wanted to or not. Rather a step backward than wasting his time here.

Stretched, bent his back, touched toes, stretched his long arms skyward, cracked his shoulder joints backward, and took up the helmet. Time to go.

Then he saw the orange flashing lights coming closer from the blockade. Stared rigidly at them. Yellow? That was not the Law. A possibility whispered; he watched, filling up with hope as the vehicle approached, the noise reaching him, and then it took shape, rumbled past sixty meters from where he stood, and he saw the trailer clearly, the wreck being towed, a car that had rolled, and he knew it was not a roadblock— they were not looking for him.

An accident. A temporary hurdle.

Relief.

He would just have to wait.

“The problem,” said Rahjev Rajkumar, “is that Absa keeps only the last two months’ statements immediately accessible for any account. The rest are backed up on an offline mainframe, and there is no way to get in there. The good news is that that is the only bad news. Our Thobela had a savings account and a bond on a property. This is where it gets interesting. The balance in the savings account is R52.341.89, which is quite a sum for a laborer. The only income the last two months was from Mother City Motorrad, a weekly payment of R572.72, or R2,290.88 per month— and the interest on the account, just over R440 per month. The debit order from the savings account for the bond repayment is Ri,181.59. There is another debit order, for R129 per month, but I can’t work out what that is for. That leaves him with Ri, 385.29 per month to live off. He draws R300 a week from an auto bank, usually the one at Thibault Square, and it seems like the remaining R189.29 is saved. A disciplined man, this Thobela.”

“The property?” Janina prodded.

“That’s the funny thing,” said Rajkumar. “It’s not a house. It’s a farm.” He raised his head, looking for a reaction from the audience.

“You have our attention, Rahjev.”

“Eighteen months ago Mpayipheli bought eight hundred hectares near Keiskammahoek. The farm’s name is Cala, after the river that runs there. The bond— listen to this— is just over R

_100,000

, but the original purchase price was nearly half a million.”

“Keiskammahoek?” said Quinn. “Where the hell is that?”

“Far away in the old Ciskei, not too far from King William’s Town. Seems he wants to go back to his

roots.”

“And the thing is, where did he get the other R

_400,000

?” said Janina Mentz.

“Precisely ma’am. Precisely.”

“Good work, Rahjev.”

“No, no,” said the fat Indian. “Brilliant work.”

Thobela Mpayipheli sat with back against a rock, watching the lights on the Ni.

The night had turned cool; the moon was high, a small round ball on its way, unmarked, to score the goal of the night in the west. His eyes wandered over the desolate ridges, followed the contours of the strange landscape. They said there were rain forests here long ago. Somewhere around here, he had read, they dug up bones of giant dinosaurs that lived between the ferns and short stubby trees, a green pleasure garden of silver waterfalls and thunderstorms that watered the reptilian world with fat drops. Weird sounds must have risen with the vapor from the proto-jungle: bellows, bugling, clamor. And the eternal battle of life and death, a frightful food chain, terrifying predators with rows of teeth and small, evil eyes hunting down the herbivores. Blood had flowed here, in the lakes and on the plains.

He shifted against the chilly stone. Blood had always flowed on this continent. Here where man at last had shrugged off the ape, where he left his first tracks on two feet in mud that later turned to stone. Not even the glaciers, those great ice rivers that transformed the landscape, that left heaps of unsuspecting rocks in grotesque formations, could staunch the flow of blood. The ground was drenched in it. Africa. Not the Dark Continent. The Red Continent. The Mother. That gave life in abundance. And death as counterweight, creating predators to keep the balance, predators in all their forms, through the millennia.

And then she created the perfect hunter, the predator that upset the balance, that could not be controlled by ice ages and droughts and disease, that kept on sowing destruction, rejecting her power and might. The two-legged predators carried out the great coup, the cosmic coup d’état, conquered all and then turned on one another, white against white, black against black, white against black.

He wondered if there was hope. For Africa. For this land.

Johnny Kleintjes. If steadfast Johnny Kleintjes could bow to temptation, led astray by the rotten stink of money, merely one of the lures of this continent, could there be hope?

He sighed deeply. More lights broke away from the cluster in the darkness; an ambulance siren wailed through the night, coming closer, gone along the road.

Not long now.

It became systematically still again. He heard a jackal howl, far over the ridges, a mockery of the ambulance.

Predators and scavengers and prey.

He was the former.

Was.

Maybe. Perhaps there was hope. If he had looked into the mirror of his life and found it abhorrent, he who lived his carnivore vocation so mercilessly, then there could be others like him. And perhaps that was all that was needed, one person, first only one. Then two, four, and a handful of people to shift the scales, just a fraction of a millimeter, to reclaim Mother Africa piece by piece, foot by foot, to rebuild, to give a glimmer of hope.

Maybe, if he and Miriam could take Pakamile Nzululwazi away to the Cala river, make a new beginning far from the city, in the landscape of his forefathers, away from the cycle of poverty and soulless travail, the crime, the corruption of empty foreign cultures.

Maybe.

Because nothing in this world could make him as he once was.

The Rooivalk helicopters chose their flight path through the tops of the cumulus nimbus, the white towers majestic in the moonlight, lightning striking silver tentacles kilometers far through the system, turbulence jerking and shaking them, the green, orange, and red flickering of the weather radar screens confirming the system.

“Another ten minutes, then we’re through,” said the pilot of Rooivalk One. “ETA, twenty-two minutes.”

“Roger, One,” answered the other.

Just over 160 kilometers east of the two attack helicopters the flight engineer of the Oryx clicked on the intercom.

“Better buckle up, Mazibuko.”

“What’s up?”

“Weather system. And it looks bad.”

“How long still?” asked Tiger Mazibuko.

“Just over an hour. I hope you brought raincoats in those crates.”

“We’re not scared of a little rain.”

Just wait,

thought the flight engineer.

Wait till the winds begin tossing us around.

13.

Allison Healy wrote the story immediately, because the official deadline was already past.

CAPE TOWN— A manhunt for an armed and dangerous fugitive is under way after an unknown government intelligence agency alerted local police and traffic authorities along the Ni to be on the lookout for a Xhosa man traveling on a big BMW motorcycle.

No,

she thought.

Too formal, too official, too crime-reporter. There’s a lighter element in this story, something unique.

CAPE TOWN— A big, bad Xhosa biker on a huge BMW motorcycle is the subject of a province-wide manhunt, after an undisclosed and top-secret government intelligence agency alerted police and traffic officials along the Ni to be on the lookout for what they called “an armed and dangerous fugitive.”

Reliable sources told the

Cape Times

the alert was posted around 22:00 last night, but the directive did not provide details about the reason Mr. Thobela Mpayipheli was sought so desperately by what is rumored to be the Presidential Intelligence Unit (PIU).

The fugitive is allegedly in possession of two firearms and one BMW R 1150 GS, all illegally obtained, “but apparently that’s not the reason they want to apprehend him,” the source said.

Now she had to spin another paragraph or two out of the meager details. That was all the front page would have room for.

The news editor stood impatiently in the doorway. “Almost done,” she said. “Almost done.” But she knew he would wait, because this was news, good front-page material. “With legs,” he had said in his cubicle when she had told him about it. “Nice little scoop, Alli, very nice.”

When she had scurried out to begin writing, he had called after her: “We’ve got a head start. When you’re done, go get us more.

Who

is this guy? Why do they want him? And what the hell is he doing on a BMW bike, for God’s sake?”

“The Rooivalks are in Beaufort West, ma’am,” said Quinn. “They are waiting for your instructions.”

“Tell them to get some sleep. If we haven’t heard anything by dawn, they can start patrolling the N1 southward. But they must talk with us before they take off. I don'’t want contact with the fugitive before we are ready.”

“Very well, ma’am.”

She gave him time to relay the message. She counted hours. He couldn'’t be close yet, too early. If he made good time on the BMW, he would be somewhere on the other side of Laingsburg. Another two hours to Beaufort West. Not a great deal of time.

“Is the roadblock ready at Three Sisters?”

“The police and traffic people are there already, ma’am. They are moaning. It’s raining in the Karoo.”

“They’ll grumble about anything, Quinn. They know they have to check all vehicles?”

“They know, ma’am.”

“How long before Mazibuko gets there?”

“Anytime now, ma’am. Ten minutes, no longer.”

Captain Tiger Mazibuko sat with folded hands, eyes closed in the yellow-lit vibrating interior of the Oryx, but he did not sleep.

It was the dawning realization that the Reaction Unit would never come into its own that kept him awake. His teammates were asleep. They were accustomed to the cramped, uncomfortable conditions, able to snatch a few minutes or occasional hour of sleep between events. Mazibuko, too. But rest eluded him; the germ of unease over their deployment had grown since his last exchange with Mentz. He had never thought about it this way before: they were somewhere between a counterterrorist instrument and a hostage rescue unit, cast in the mold of the FBI Hostage Rescue Team and the similar group of the British Special Air Services, the SAS. They had been operational for thirteen months and had done nothing more than simulated training exercises. Until now. Till they had to invade a drug den like fucking blue-trouser cops, and now they were to man a roadblock in this godforsaken desert to wait for a middle-aged fugitive who might once have been an MK soldier.

Maybe he should go see his father and ask him whether, before he sold out to the Boers, before he sang his cowardly song of treason, he had known someone called Thobela Mpayipheli.

His father. The great hero of many kitchen battles with his mother. His father, who beat his wife and who beat his children to the breaking point because he could not live with his humiliation. Because in a Security Police cell he had broken, and the names and places, the methods and the targets had bubbled out over the floor with the spit and the blood and the vomit. And then, deliberately released, the shame shackled to his ankles defined the shuffling course of his life.

His father.

isn'’t it time to move out from your father’s shadow?

Janina Mentz’s words could not be blocked out.

Did you know Mpayipheli, Father? Was he one of those you betrayed?

Since the beginning he had had visions, dreams at night and fantasies in his solitary moments. Fired up by the training and Mentz’s propaganda, prospects of microbattles, of lightning raids in dark passages, shots cracking, grenades exploding, smoke and cordite and life and death, bullets ripping through him, bursting his head, spattering his rage against the walls. He lived for that, lusted after it. It was the fuel of his zeal, his salvation, the ripping loose from the sins of his father, the destruction of the cells of his brain with the memories, and now he wondered if it would ever happen. Mentz telling him so seriously that the world had become an evil place, presidents and countries not knowing who was friend or foe, wars that would no longer be fought with armies but at the front of secret rooms, the mini-activities of abduction and occupation, suicide attacks and pipe bombs. September

II

was water to her mill, every statement of every radical group she held up as watertight evidence. And where did they find themselves now?

He heard a change in the note of the engines.

Nearly there.

Now they sat in a land the world had passed by. Even the terrorists were no longer interested in Africa.

The Reaction Unit, sent to man a roadblock. The world’s best-trained traffic officers.

A good thing the fucker had two pistols. A pity he was alone.

Just after two

A

.

M

. he swept easily around the last bend and saw Laingsburg brightly lit before him. Conscious that the dark blanket of night had lifted, he felt his heart beat beneath his ribs. The reserve tank light shone bright orange, leaving him no choice. He slowed down to the legal sixty, saw the big petrol station logo on the left— time to get it over with— turned in, and stopped at a pump, the only vehicle at that time of night.

The petrol jockey came slowly out of the night room, rubbing his eyes.

Thobela put the motorbike on the main stand, climbed off, and removed his gloves. He must get money out.

The jockey was at his side. He saw his eyes widen.

“Can you fill up? With unleaded?”

The man nodded too eagerly. Something was not right.

He unlocked the tank, lifted the valve.

“They are looking for you,” said the jockey, his head conspiratorially close, his voice a hoarse whisper as he placed the spout in the tank.

“Who?”

“Police.”

“How do you know?”

“They were here. Said we must look for a Xhosa on a motorbike. A bee-em-double-you.”

“So what are you supposed to do?”

“I have to phone them.”

“And will you?”

“They say you’re armed and dangerous.”

He looked at the man, into his eyes. “What are you going to do?”

The attendant shrugged his shoulders, staring into the tank.

Just the noise of the fuel running in, the sweet aroma of petrol.

Eventually: “It’s full.”

The digital figures on the pump read R77.32. Mpayipheli took out two hundred-rand notes. The attendant pulled one only from his fingers.

“I don'’t take bribes.” He took a last look at the man in the helmet, turned on his heel, and walked away.

“Masethla. NIA. I understand you need our assistance,” said the voice on the phone without friendliness or subservience.

You need our assistance.

“I appreciate your calling,” said Janina without appreciation. “We inquired about any references to a Thobela Mpayipheli in the microfiche library and you sent a fax with a 1984 memorandum from Washington.”

“That is correct.”

“I can’t believe that this is the only reference. There must have been a response.”

“Possibly. What is it about?”

“Mr. Masethla, I don'’t see the necessity to explain that. It was an urgent official request in the national interest. We are all working for the same interest. Why can’t we get the other documentation?”

“There isn'’t any.”

“What?”

“There isn'’t any other documentation.”

“You say this memorandum is all?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“You will have to.”

She pondered this for a moment. “Mr. Masethla, is your library complete?”

He was silent at the other end.

“Mr. Masethla?”

“It is not my library. It was the Boers’. In the old South Africa.”

“But is it complete?”

“We have reason to believe that some films were removed.”

“Which films?”

“Here and there.”

“By whom?”

“Whom do you think, Mrs. Mentz? Your people.”

“The PIU?”

He laughed at her. “No. The whites.”

Rage swept over her. She gripped the receiver with whitened knuckles, fighting it back, swallowing it, waiting till her voice would not betray her.

“The sender and receiver of the memorandum. I want their contact details.”

“They have left the agency.”

“I want their details.”

“I will see what I can do.”

Then she unleashed her rage. “No, Mr. Masethla. You will not see what you can do. You will have their details to me in sixty minutes. You will get rid of your attitude and you and your people will get to work if you don'’t want to become another unemployed statistic tomorrow. Do you understand?”

He took just long enough to answer that she thought she had won this round. “Fuck you, you white bitch,” he said. Then he put the phone down.

Captain Tiger Mazibuko was first out of the Oryx with a hand on his hat so the rotor blast would not blow it away.

In the pitch dark he saw one white van from the SAPS and one blue and white Toyota Corolla from the provincial traffic authority, blue lights revolving. They were parked beside the road, and a single traffic officer with a flashlight in hand stood on the N1 road surface. A few orange traffic cones indicated a parking area for vehicles. The officer was indicating an 18-wheeler truck to stop.

Mazibuko swore and strode over to the police van, saw one of the occupants opening the door. He stood directly in the opening, one hand on the roof and leaned in.

“What is going on here?” He had to shout, as the engines of the Oryx were still winding down.

There were two inside, a sergeant and a constable; each had a coffee mug. A thermos stood on the dashboard. Faces looked back at him guiltily.

“We are drinking coffee, what does it look like?” the sergeant shouted back.

“Is this your idea of a roadblock?”

The two policemen looked at each other. “We haven’t got a flashlight,” said the sergeant.

Mazibuko shook his head in disbelief. “You haven’t got a flashlight?”

“That’s right.”

The helicopter’s motors wound down gradually. He waited until he no longer needed to shout. And what are you going to do when an armed fugitive on a motorbike races through here? Throw the thermos at him?”

“There have been no motorbikes so far,” said the constable.

“Lord help us.” Mazibuko shook his head from side to side. Then he slammed the door and walked back to the helicopter. The men had disembarked and were standing, waiting, their faces glowing in the reflected blue lights. He barked orders about weapons and equipment and their deployment. Four men must take over for the traffic officer, four must walk a hundred meters up the road as backup, four must put up two tents next to the road as shelter from the rain.

The truck crawled past him. The officer had not even looked in the back. He walked to the dark figure with the flashlight. He saw that the two policemen were out of the van, standing around aimlessly.

“What is your name?” he asked the traffic officer.

“Wilson, sir.”

“Wilson, would a motorbike fit in the back of that truck?”

The traffic officer was tall and impossibly thin, a floppy fringe hung over his eyes. “Uh … er … possibly, but…”

“Wilson, I want you to pull your Corolla onto the road here. Block off this lane. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.” His eyes glanced from Mazibuko to the helicopter and back, deeply impressed by the importance of the arrivals.

“Then tell your friends to pull their van there, in the other lane, about ten meters farther on.”

“Right, sir.”

“And then you sit in your vehicles and start the engines every fifteen minutes to keep them warm, do you understand me?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Have you got a road map of this area?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Can I look at it?”

“Yes, sir.”

Pulsating white light suddenly lit up the night around them. Thunder grumbled above, a deep rolling from east to west. A few drops plopped on the blacktop.

“It’s getting closer, sir. It’s going to be a mother of a storm.”

Mazibuko sighed. “Wilson.”

“Yes, sir?”

“You don'’t have to ‘sir’ me. Call me ‘captain’ instead.”

“Right, Captain.” And he saluted him with the wrong hand.

Thobela Mpayipheli saw the far-off flashes of light on the northern horizon, but he didn’'t know it was the dance of lightning. Above him the starry heavens were clear, but he didn’'t see them, he rode at 150 km per hour, the headlights illuminating the road straight ahead of him, a bright cocoon in the night, but his gaze was on the rearview mirrors.

What had the petrol attendant done?

There was nothing behind him. They would have to drive to catch him. At 160 or 180, and even then the gap would not close quickly. Or they would radio ahead, to Leeu-Gamka or Beaufort West.

Probably both, a pincer with him in the middle.