The White Lioness

Chapter Twenty-one

Sikosi Tsiki came to Sweden on the evening of Wednesday, May 13.

That very same evening he was told by Konovalenko he would be staying in the southern part of the country. This was where his preparatory training would take place, and he would also leave the country from there. When Konovalenko heard from Jan Kleyn that the replacement was on his way, he had considered the possibility of setting up camp in the Stockholm area. There were lots of possibilities, especially around Arlanda, where the noise of airplanes landing and taking off would drown most other sounds. The necessary shooting practice could take place there. Furthermore there was the problem of Victor Mabasha and the Swedish policeman he hated. If they were still in Stockholm, he would have to stay there until they had been liquidated. Nor could he ignore the probability that the general level of vigilance throughout the country would be higher, now that he had killed the cop. To be on the safe side he decided to proceed on two fronts at the same time. He kept Tania with him in Stockholm, but sent Rykoff to the southern part of the country again with orders to find a suitable house in a remote area. Rykoff had then pointed out on a map an area to the north of Skane called Smaland, claiming it was much easier to find remotely situated houses there. But Konovalenko wanted to be near Ystad. If they did not catch Victor Mabasha and the policeman in Stockholm, they would turn up sooner or later in Wallander’s home town. He was as sure of that as he was that some kind of unexpected relationship had formed between the black man and Wallander. He had some difficulty in understanding what was going on. But nevertheless he was increasingly sure they would be not far away from each other. If he could find one of them, he would also find the other.

Through a travel agency in Ystad, Rykoff rented a house north east of Ystad, on the way to Tomelilla. The location could have been better, but adjacent to the site was an abandoned quarry that could be used for target practice. As Konovalenko had decreed that Tania could go with them if they did in fact decide to go ahead with this alternative, Rykoff did not need to fill the freezer with food. Instead and on Konovalenko’s orders, he spent his time finding out where Wallander lived, and then keeping his apartment under observation. But Wallander did not show up. The day before Sikosi Tsiki was due to arrive, Tuesday, May 12, Konovalenko decided to stay in Stockholm. Although none of those he sent out looking for Victor Mabasha had seen him, Konovalenko had the distinct feeling he was lying low somewhere in town. He also found it difficult to believe that a cop as careful and well organized as Wallander would return too quickly to his home, which he must expect to be watched.

Nevertheless that is where Rykoff finally found him, shortly after five o’clock on Tuesday afternoon. The door opened and Wallander stepped out onto the street. He was on his own, and Rykoff, who was sitting in his car, could see right away he was on guard. He left the building on foot, and Rykoff realized he would be spotted at once if he tried to follow him in his car. He was still there ten minutes later when the front door opened once again. Rykoff stiffened. This time two people left the building. The young girl had to be Wallander’s daughter, whom he had never seen before. Behind her was Victor Mabasha. They crossed the street, got into a car, and drove off. Rykoff did not bother following them this time either. Instead he stayed where he was and dialed the number of the apartment in Jarfalla where Konovalenko was staying with Tania. She answered. Rykoff greeted her briefly and asked to speak to Konovalenko. After hearing what Rykoff had to say, Konovalenko made up his mind right away. He and Tania would go to Skane early the next day. They would stay there until they had collected Sikosi Tsiki and killed Wallander and Victor Mabasha; the daughter as well, if necessary. Then they could make up their minds what to do next. But the flat in Jarfalla would be a possibility.

Konovalenko drove down to Skane with Tania overnight. Rykoff met them at a parking lot on the western edge of Ystad. They drove straight to the house he had rented. Later that afternoon Konovalenko also paid a visit to Mariagatan. He spent some time observing the block where Wallander lived. On the way back he also paused for a while on the hill outside the police station.

The situation seemed very simple to him. He could not afford to fail again. That would mean the end of his dreams about a future life in South Africa. He was already living dangerously, and knew it. He had not told Jan Kleyn the truth, not admitted that Victor Mabasha was still alive. There was a risk, albeit a small one, that Jan Kleyn had someone passing on information without Konovalenko knowing. He had occasionally sent out scouts to see if they could find anyone shadowing him. But nobody had come across any kind of surveillance that might have been organized by Jan Kleyn.

Konovalenko and Rykoff spent the day deciding how to proceed. Konovalenko made up his mind from the very first to act resolutely and ruthlessly. It would be a brutal, direct attack.

“What kind of weapons do we have?” he asked.

“Practically anything you like short of a rocket launcher,” Rykoff had told him. “We have explosives, long-distance detonators, grenades, automatic rifles, shotguns, pistols, radio equipment.”

Konovalenko drank a glass of vodka. He would really like most of all to capture Wallander alive. There were some questions he wanted answering before he killed him. But he banished the thought. He could not afford to take any risks.

Then he made up his mind what to do.

“Tomorrow morning when Wallander is out, Tania can enter the building and see what the staircase and apartment doors look like,” he said. “You can pretend to be distributing advertising brochures. We can pick up some leaflets from a supermarket. Then the building has to be kept under constant observation. If we’re certain they’re at home tomorrow evening, we’ll make our move then. We’ll blow up the door and rush in with guns blazing. If nothing unexpected happens we’ll kill the pair of them and make our escape.”

“There are three of them,” observed Rykoff.

“Two or three,” said Konovalenko. “We can’t let anybody survive.”

“This new African I’m going to pick up this evening, will he be in on it?” wondered Rykoff.

“No,” said Konovalenko. “He waits here with Tania.”

His expression was serious as he eyed Rykoff and Tania.

“The fact is, Victor Mabasha has been dead for several days,” he said. “At least, that’s what Sikosi Tsiki has to believe. Is that clear?”

They both nodded.

Konovalenko poured himself and Tania another glass of vodka. Rykoff refused, since he was going to prepare the explosives and did not want to be affected by the alcohol. Besides, he was going to drive to Limhamn later to collect Sikosi Tsiki.

“Let’s put on a welcoming dinner for the man from South Africa,” said Konovalenko. “None of us enjoys sitting at dinner with an African. But sometimes you have to do it for the sake of the job in hand.”

“Victor Mabasha didn’t like Russian food,” said Tania.

Konovalenko thought for a moment.

“Chicken,” he said eventually. “All Africans like chicken.”

At six o’clock Rykoff met Sikosi Tsiki at Limhamn. A few hours later they were all sitting around the table. Konovalenko raised his glass.

“You have a day off tomorrow,” he said. “We get started on Friday.”

Sikosi Tsiki nodded. The replacement was just as silent as his predecessor.

Quiet guys, thought Konovalenko. Ruthless when the chips are down. Just as ruthless as I am.

Wallander devoted most of the first few days after his return to Ystad to planning various forms of criminal activities. He paved the way for Victor Mabasha’s escape from Sweden with dogged persistence. After much soul-searching he had decided it was the only way to get the situation under control. He had severe pangs of guilt, and could not avoid being constantly reminded that what he was doing was downright reprehensible. Even if Victor Mabasha had not killed Louise Akerblom himself, he was present when the murder was committed. Moreover, he had stolen cars and robbed a store. As if that were not enough, he was an illegal immigrant in Sweden, and had been planning to commit a serious crime back home in South Africa. Wallander convinced himself that in spite of everything, this was a way of preventing the crime. In addition, Konovalenko could be prevented from killing Victor Mabasha. He would be punished for the murder of Louise Akerblom once he was caught. What he intended to do now was to send a message to his colleagues in South Africa via Interpol. But first he wanted to get Victor Mabasha out of the country. So as not to attract unnecessary attention, he contacted a travel agency in Malmo to find out how Victor Mabasha could get a flight to Lusaka in Zambia. Mabasha had told him he could not get into South Africa without a visa. But with a fake Swedish passport, he did not need a visa to enter Zambia. He still had enough money for both an airline ticket and the next stage of the journey from Zambia, via Zimbabwe and Botswana. Once he got to South Africa he would slip over the border at an unguarded point. The travel agent in Malmo explained the various choices. They decided in the end that Victor Mabasha would go to London and then take a Zambia Airways flight from there to Lusaka. It meant Wallander would have to get him a false passport. That caused him not only the severest practical problems, but also the worst pangs of conscience. Arranging a false passport at his own police station seemed to him a betrayal of his profession. It did not make things any better to know he had made Victor Mabasha promise to destroy the passport as soon as he had gone through the checks in Zambia.

“The very same day,” Wallander had insisted. “And it must be burned.”

Wallander bought a cheap camera and took passport photographs. The big problem that could not be resolved until the last minute was how Victor Mabasha would get through Swedish passport control. Even if he had a Swedish passport that was technically genuine and did not appear on the blacklist held by the border police, there was a big risk that something could go wrong. After a lot of thought Wallander decided to get Victor Mabasha out via the hovercraft terminal in Malmo. He would buy him a first-class ticket. He assumed the embarkation card might help to ensure that passport officials were not especially interested in him. Linda would play the role of his girlfriend. They would kiss goodbye right under the noses of the immigration officials, and Wallander would teach him a few phrases of perfect Swedish.

The connections and the confirmed tickets meant he would be leaving Sweden on the morning of May 15. Wallander would have to produce a false passport for him by then.

On Tuesday afternoon he completed a passport application form for his father, and took with him two photographs. The whole procedures for issuing passports had recently been revised. The document was now produced while the applicant waited. Wallander hung around until the woman dealing with passports had finished with the last of her customers and was about to close.

“Excuse me for being a little late,” said Wallander. “But my dad is going on a senior citizens trip to France. He managed to burn his passport when he was sorting some old papers.”

“These things happen,” said the woman, whose name was Irma. “Does he have to have it today?”

“If possible,” said Wallander. “Sorry I’m late.”

“You can’t solve the murder of that woman either,” she said, taking the photos and the application form.

Wallander watched closely as she created the passport. Afterwards, when he had the document in his hand, he was confident he could repeat exactly what she had done.

“Impressively simple,” he said.

“But boring,” said Irma. “Why is it that all jobs get more boring when they’re made easier?”

“Become a cop,” said Wallander. “What we do is never boring.”

“I am a cop,” she said. “Besides, I don’t think I’d want to change places with you. It must be awful, pulling a body out of a well. What does it feel like, in fact?”

“I don’t really know,” said Wallander. “I suppose it feels so awful you get numb and so you don’t feel anything at all. But you can bet your boots there’ll be some committee in the Ministry of Justice looking into what policemen feel when they pull dead women out of wells.”

He stayed chatting while she locked up. All the things you needed to make a passport were locked away in a cupboard. But he knew where the keys were kept.

They had decided Victor Mabasha would leave the country as the Swedish citizen Jan Berg. Wallander had tried out endless combinations of names to find out which ones Victor Mabasha found easiest to pronounce. They went for Jan Berg. Victor Mabasha asked what the name meant. He was satisfied with the translation he was given. Wallander had realized during their conversations these last few days that the man from South Africa lived in close contact with a spirit world that was completely alien to him. Nothing was coincidental, not even a chance change of name. Linda had been able to help him with some explanations of why Victor Mabasha thought as he did. Even so, he thought he was looking at a world he had absolutely no basis for understanding. Victor Mabasha talked about his ancestors as if they were alive. Wallander was sometimes unsure whether incidents had taken place a hundred years ago, or yesterday. He could not help but be fascinated by Victor Mabasha. It became more and more difficult to comprehend that this man was a criminal preparing to commit a serious crime in his home country.

Wallander stayed in his office until late that Tuesday evening. To help the time pass he began a letter to Baiba Liepa in Riga. But when he read through what he had written, he tore it up. One of these days he would write a letter and send it to her. But it would take some time, he realized that.

By about ten o’clock only those on night duty were still at the station. As he did not dare to switch the light on in the room where the passports were assembled, he had acquired a flashlight that produced a blue light. He walked along the corridor, wishing he was on his way to someplace quite different. He thought of Victor Mabasha’s spirit world, and wondered briefly if Swedish cops had a special patron saint who would watch over them when they were about to do something forbidden.

The key was hanging on its hook in the filing cabinet. He paused for a moment, staring at the machine that transformed the photographs and the application forms with all their completed answers and crosses into a passport.

Then he put on his rubber gloves and started work. At one point he thought he heard footsteps approaching. He ducked down behind the machine and turned off his flashlight. When the footsteps died away, he started once again. He could feel sweat streaming down under his shirt. In the end, though, he had a passport in his hand. He switched off the machine, returned the key to its rightful place in the cabinet, and locked the door. Sooner or later some check would show that a passport template had disappeared. Bearing the registration numbers in mind, it could even happen the very next day, he thought. That would cause Bjork some sleepless nights. But nothing could be traced to Wallander.

Not until he was back in his office and slumped down behind his desk did it occur to him that he had forgotten to stamp the passport. He cursed himself, and flung the document down on the desk in front of him.

Just then the door burst open and Martinson marched in. He gave a start when he saw Wallander in his chair.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said. “I didn’t think you were here. I was just going to see if I could find my cap.”

“Cap?” asked Wallander. “In the middle of May?”

“I can feel a cold coming on,” said Martinson. “I had it with me when we were sitting here yesterday.”

Wallander could not remember Martinson having a cap with him the previous day when he and Svedberg had been in Wallander’s office to go through the latest developments in the investigation and the hitherto fruitless search for Konovalenko.

“Look on the floor under the chair,” said Wallander.

When Martinson bent down Wallander hastily stuffed the passport into his pocket.

“Nothing,” said Martinson. “I’m always losing my caps.”

“Ask the cleaner,” Wallander suggested.

Martinson was about to leave when something struck him.

“Do you remember Peter Hanson?” he asked.

“How could I ever forget him?” wondered Wallander.

“Svedberg called him a few days ago and asked about a few details in the interrogation report. Then he told Peter Hanson about the break-in at your apartment. Thieves generally know what each other is up to. Svedberg thought it might be worth a try. Peter Hanson called in today and said maybe he knew who did it.”

“Well, I’ll be damned!” said Wallander. “If he can arrange for me to get back my records and tapes, I’ll forget about the hi-fi.”

“Have a word with Svedberg tomorrow,” said Martinson. “And don’t stay here all night.”

“I was just about to leave,” said Wallander, getting to his feet.

Martinson paused in the doorway.

“Do you think we’ll get him?” he asked.

“Sure,” said Wallander. “Of course we’ll get him. Konovalenko isn’t going to get away.”

“I wonder if he’s still in the country,” said Martinson.

“We have to assume that,” said Wallander.

“What about the African who’s missing a finger?”

“No doubt Konovalenko can explain that.”

Martinson nodded doubtfully.

“One other thing,” he added. “It’s Louise Akerblom’s funeral tomorrow.”

Wallander looked at him. But he said nothing.

The funeral was at two o‘clock on Wednesday afternoon. Wallander wondered whether or not he should go right to the last minute. He had no personal connections with the Akerblom family. The woman they were burying had been dead when he first came into contact with her. On the other hand, might it be misunderstood if somebody from the police was there? Not least in view of the fact that the killer had not yet been nailed. Wallander had trouble figuring out why he was thinking of going. Was it curiosity? Or a guilty conscience? All the same, at one o’clock he changed into a dark suit and spent some time looking for his white necktie. Victor Mabasha sat watching him tying the knot in front of the hall mirror.

“I’m going to a funeral,” said Wallander. “The woman Konovalenko killed.”

Victor Mabasha stared at him in astonishment.

“Only now?” he asked in surprise. “Back home we bury our dead as soon as possible. So they don’t walk.”

“We don’t believe in ghosts,” said Wallander.

“Spirits aren’t ghosts,” said Victor Mabasha. “I sometimes wonder how it’s possible for white folk to understand so little.”

“Maybe you’re right,” said Wallander. “Or maybe you’re wrong. It could be the other way around.”

Then he went out. He noticed that Victor Mabasha’s question had annoyed him.

Does that black bastard think he can come here and tell me what to think? he thought irreverently. Where would he be without me and the help I’ve given him?

He parked his car some way from the chapel at the crematorium and waited while the bells were ringing and the black-clad congregation entered. Only when a janitor started closing the doors did he go in himself and sit in the back. A man a couple of rows in front of him turned round and greeted him. He was a journalist from the Ystad Chronicle.

Then he listened to the organ music and felt a lump in his throat. Funerals were a great strain as far as he was concerned. He dreaded the day he would have to follow his father to the grave. His mother’s funeral eleven years ago could still conjure up unpleasant memories. He was supposed to make a short speech over the bier, but had broken down and rushed out of the church.

He tried to control his emotions by contemplating the rest of the congregation. Robert Akerblom was on the front row with his two daughters, both wearing white dresses. Next to them was Pastor Tureson, who would be in charge of the burial.

He suddenly started thinking about the handcuffs he found in a desk drawer at the Akerbloms’ house. It was over a week since he last thought about them.

He thought how policemen have a sort of curiosity that goes beyond the immediate investigative work. Maybe it’s a kind of occupational hazard brought on by having to spend so many years delving into the most private parts of peoples’ lives. I know those handcuffs can be excluded from the murder investigation. They have no significance. All the same I’m ready to spend time and effort trying to figure out why they were in that drawer. Trying to figure out what they meant to Louise Akerblom, and maybe also her husband.

He shuddered at the unpleasant implications of his train of thought, and concentrated on the funeral service. At one point during Pastor Tureson’s homily he caught the eye of Robert Akerblom. Despite the distance he could sense the depths of sorrow and forlornness. The lump came back into his throat, and tears started to flow. In order to regain control of his emotions he started thinking about Konovalenko. Like most of the other cops in Sweden, no doubt, Wallander was secretly pro death penalty. Quite apart from the scandal that it had been enforced against traitors during the war, it was not that he saw it as a knee-jerk reaction to a certain kind of crime. It was rather that certain murders, certain assaults, certain drug offenses were so appallingly immoral, so crass in their disregard of human dignity, that he could not help feeling the perpetrators had forfeited all right to life themselves. He could see that his thinking was riddled with contradictions, and that laws to introduce it would be impossible and unjust. It was just his raw experience speaking, unrefined yet painful. What he was forced to come up against because he was a cop. Things that caused reactions, irrational and excruciating.

After the interment he shook hands solemnly with Robert Akerblom and the other principal mourners. He avoided looking at the two daughters, afraid of bursting into tears.

Pastor Tureson took him to one side outside the chapel. “Your presence was very much appreciated,” he told Wallander. “Nobody had expected the police to send a representative to the funeral.”

“I’m representing nobody but myself,” said Wallander.

“So much the better that you came,” said Pastor Tureson. “Are you still looking for the man behind the tragedy?”

Wallander nodded.

“But you will catch him?”

Wallander nodded again.

“Yes,” he said. “Sooner or later. How’s Robert Akerblom taking it? And the daughters?”

“The support they’re getting from the church is all-important to them just now,” said Pastor Tureson. “And then, he has his God.”

“You mean he still believes?” wondered Wallander quietly.

Pastor Tureson frowned.

“Why should he abandon his God for something human beings have done to him and his family?”

“No,” said Wallander quietly. “Why should he do that?”

“There’ll be a meeting at the church in an hour,” said Pastor Tureson. “You’re welcome to come.”

“Thanks,” said Wallander. “But I’ve got to get back to work.”

They shook hands and Wallander returned to his car. It suddenly dawned on him that spring had really arrived.

Just wait till Victor Mabasha has left, he thought. Just wait till we’ve caught Konovalenko. Then I can devote myself to spring.

On Thursday morning Wallander drove his daughter out to his father’s house in Loderup. When they got there, she suddenly decided to stay overnight. She took one look at the overgrown yard and announced her intention to tidy it up before returning to Ystad. That would take her at least two days.

“If you change your mind, just give me a call,” said Wallander.

“You should thank me for cleaning up your apartment,” she said. “It looked awful.”

“I know,” he said. “Thanks.”

“How much longer do I have to stay?” she asked. “I’ve got lots to do in Stockholm, you know.”

“Not much longer,” said Wallander, aware that he did not sound very convincing. But to his surprise, she seemed satisfied with his reply.

Afterwards he had a long talk with the prosecutor, Akeson. When he got back, Wallander gathered together all the investigation material with the help of Martinson and Svedberg.

At about four in the afternoon he went shopping and bought some food before driving home. Outside the apartment door was an unusually big stack of leaflets from some store or other. Without looking to see what they were, he shoved them into the garbage sack. Then he made dinner and went through all the practical details of the journey with Victor Mabasha one more time. The lines he had memorized sounded better every time he pronounced them.

After dinner they went through the finer points. Victor Mabasha would have an overcoat over his left arm to hide the bandage he still had on his injured hand. He practiced taking his passport from his inside pocket while keeping the coat over his left arm. Wallander was satisfied. Nobody would be able to see the injury.

“You’ll be flying to London with a British airline,” he said. “SAS would be too risky. Swedish air hostesses will probably read the newspapers and see the TV news. They’d notice your hand and sound the alarm.”

Later that evening, when there were no more practical details to discuss, silence fell and neither seemed inclined to break it for a long time. In the end Victor Mabasha got up and stood in front of Wallander.

“Why have you been helping me?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” answered Wallander. “I often think I ought to slip the handcuffs on you. I can see I’m taking a big risk in letting you go. Maybe it was you who killed Louise Akerblom after all? You say yourself how good a liar everybody becomes back home in your country. Maybe I’m letting a murderer go?”

“But you’re doing it even so?”

“I’m doing it even so.”

Victor Mabasha took off his necklace and handed it to Wallander. He could see that it featured the tooth of a wild animal.

“The leopard is the solitary hunter,” said Victor Mabasha. “Unlike the lion, the leopard goes its own way and only crosses its own tracks. During the day when the heat is at its height, it rests in the trees alongside the eagles. At night it hunts alone. The leopard is a skillful hunter. But the leopard is also the biggest challenge for other hunters. This is a canine tooth from a leopard. I want you to have it.”

“I’m not sure I understood what you mean,” said Wallander, “but I’ll be glad to have the tooth.”

“Not everything is understandable,” said Victor Mabasha. “A story is a journey without an end.”

“That’s probably the difference between you and me,” said Wallander. “I’m used to stories having an end, and expect one. You say a good story doesn’t have one.”

“That may be so,” said Victor Mabasha. “It can be a good thing to know you’ll never meet a certain person again. That means that something will live on.”

“Perhaps,” said Wallander. “But I doubt it. I wonder if that’s the way things really are.”

Victor Mabasha did not answer.

An hour later he was asleep under a blanket on the sofa, while Wallander sat looking at the tooth he had been given.

Suddenly he felt uneasy. He went out into the dark kitchen and looked down at the street. All was quiet. Then he went out into the hall and checked that the door was securely locked. He sat down on a stool by the telephone, and thought maybe he was just tired. Another twelve hours and Victor Mabasha would be gone.

He examined the tooth once more.

Nobody would believe me, he thought. If for no other reason, I’d better keep quiet about the days and nights I spent with a black man who once had a finger cut off in a remote house in Skane.

That’s a secret I’d better take to the grave.

When Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan met at Hammanskraal in the morning of Friday, May 15, it did not take them long to establish that neither of them had found any significant weaknesses in the plan.

The assassination would take place in Cape Town on June 12. Nelson Mandela would be speaking in the stadium, and from the summit of Signal Hill Sikosi Tsiki would have an ideal position for his long-range rifle. Then he could disappear unnoticed.

But there were two things Jan Kleyn had not mentioned to Franz Malan, nor to the other committee members. In fact, they were matters he had no intention of mentioning to anybody at all. In order to ensure the continued dominance of white rule in South Africa, he was prepared to take certain selected secrets with him to the grave. Certain events and connections would never be revealed in the history of the country.

The first thing was that he was not prepared to take the risk of allowing Sikosi Tsiki to live with the knowledge of whom he had killed. He did not doubt for a moment that Sikosi Tsiki could keep his mouth shut. But just as the pharaohs of ancient times killed off those who had built the secret chambers in the pyramids, to ensure that any knowledge of their existence would be lost, he would sacrifice Sikosi Tsiki. He would kill him himself, and make sure the body would never be found.

The other secret Jan Kleyn would keep to himself was the fact that Victor Mabasha had been alive as recently as the previous afternoon. Now he was dead, no doubt about that. But it was a personal defeat for Jan Kleyn that Victor Mabasha had managed to survive as long as he had. He felt personally responsible for Konovalenko’s errors and repeated inability to bring the Victor Mabasha chapter to a close. The KGB man had displayed unexpected weaknesses. His attempt to cover up his shortcomings by lying was the biggest weakness of all. Jan Kleyn always regarded it as a personal slight when anybody doubted his ability to keep abreast of the information he needed. Once the assassination of Mandela was accomplished, he would decide whether or not he was ready to receive Konovalenko into South Africa. He did not doubt the man’s ability to take care of the necessary preliminary training of Sikosi Tsiki. On the other hand, he thought it could well be that the downfall of the Soviet empire had been ultimately due to the same kind of unreliable skills that Konovalenko had. He did not exclude the possibility that even Konovalenko might have to go up in smoke, together with his henchmen Vladimir and Tania. The whole operation needed a thorough spring cleaning. He had no intention of delegating that job to anyone else.

They were sitting at the table with the green felt cloth, going over the plan one more time. The previous week Franz Malan had been to Cape Town to examine the stadium where Nelson Mandela was due to speak. He also spent an afternoon at the spot where Sikosi Tsiki was to fire his rifle. He made a videotape, which they watched three times on the television set in the room. The only thing still missing was a report on Cape Town’s usual wind conditions. Pretending to represent a yacht club, Franz Malan had been in touch with the national weather center, which had promised to send him the information he had asked for. The name and address he gave would never be traced.

Jan Kleyn had not done any legwork. His contribution was of a different kind. His specialty was a theoretical dissection of the plan. He had considered unexpected developments, tried out a one-man role-play, and kept at it until he was convinced no undesirable problems could crop up.

After two hours their work was completed.

“There’s just one more thing,” said Jan Kleyn. “We have to establish before June 12 exactly how the Cape Town police will be deployed.”

“I can take care of that,” said Franz Malan. “We can send out a flyer to all the police districts in the country requesting copies of their security plans, to give us time to prepare all the political measures that need to be taken when big crowds are expected.”

They went out onto the veranda, waiting for the rest of the committee to arrive. They contemplated the view in silence. On the far horizon was a heavy blanket of smoke over a black shanty town.

“There’ll be a bloodbath,” said Franz Malan. “I still have trouble envisioning what will happen.”

“Regard it as a purification process,” said Jan Kleyn. “Those words sound rather better than bloodbath. Besides, that’s what we are hoping to achieve.”

“Nevertheless,” said Franz Malan. “I sometimes feel uneasy. Will we be able to control what happens?”

“The answer to that is simple,” said Jan Kleyn. “We have to.”

That fatalism again, thought Franz Malan. He glanced surreptitiously at the man standing a few meters away from him. Was Jan Kleyn crazy? A psychopath hiding the violent truth about himself behind a public mask that was always under control?

He did not like the thought. All he could do was suppress it.

The whole committee gathered at two o’clock. Franz Malan and Jan Kleyn showed the videotape and presented their summary. There were not many questions, and objections were easily fended off. The whole thing lasted less than an hour. They took a vote shortly before three. The decision was made.

Twenty-eight days later Nelson Mandela would be killed while speaking at a stadium near Cape Town.

The members of the committee left Hammanskraal at intervals of a few minutes. Jan Kleyn was the last to leave.

The countdown had started.