A song in the morning

**

He had waited until the bus load of tourists filled the hotel lobby with their stacks of suitcases.

He had taken the lift down twice before, holding the grip bag sagging close against his knee, and each time the lobby had been almost empty and he would have been noticed by the night porter and the bellboy and the luggage boys and the doorman. Twice he had gone back to his room to while away the minutes before trying again. Very tense, close in his thoughts. All his concentration was on the hulk that was John Vorster Square, and the fence around it, and the lights, and the armed police sentries, and on his father and on suppressing his fear. The plan called for him to expose himself to challenge and gunfire. He knew of no other way.

He stepped into the lobby. The lift doors shut behind him. The bellboys and the luggage boys were marshalling a huge pile of suitcases, the doorman was loudly supervising their distribution. The reception was lost in a half moon of argument because there was a double booking problem. The night porter was doling out keys to those who had been checked in and who had allocated rooms. They were Americans, fresh f r o m safari.

Jack crossed the lobby unnoticed. Unseen, he went out through the swing doors. Behind him rose a tumult of angry voices.

Dark streets. Streets given up by the Whites. The Whites were powering home to the suburbs in their BMWs and Jaguars. Jack walked with a brisk purpose. He stayed far out on the pavement, close to the kerb and the cars' lights, avoiding the shadowed shop entrances from which spurted the flash of a match, the glow of a drawn cigarette. There was no reason that he should have attracted attention. He was a young White who was late, hurrying with a bag that might contain his sports kit, whose weight he struggled to disguise.

He took the route that he knew, down Van Brandis, right onto Commissioner. Above him the lights were flickering out in the towers, the last workers leaving. The security guards with their polished staves patrolled the wide entrances.

Jack saw the lights in John Vorster Square, an oasis of work as the rest of the city shut down for the night. He took from the bag a rough stone, picked from a street building site on Commissioner. The stone gripped in his left hand, the size of a cricket ball. At school, in the team, they'd played him for his fielding. He could certainly throw. The stone was now his weapon and his protection.

There was a constable guarding the back gate.

A presentable young man, straight-backed, clean-shaven, and he wore his uniform and his Sam Browne well. He was often given the 6 pm to 10 pm shift on the rear entrance because his sergeant thought him the right sort of constable to open and close the gates on the comings and goings of the top brass. The constable sat in his box. His service revolver was holstered, the flap buttoned down because that was tidier. In the box was a loaded F.N. rifle, safety on, a gas mask, a telephone link to the operations room inside, and his personal radio.

He saw the car approach. He saw the lights flash and the indicator wink to him. He saw the uniform of the driver, and the uniforms of the passengers.

Behind him he heard the revving of an engine outside the gates, and he heard the shout for the gates to be opened.

The constable had a car to let in and a car to let out.

He went forward. He slipped the bolt that was accessible only from the inside. He swung the near gate back towards him, pushed away the further gate. He had to step back smartly to avoid the car coming from the outside, from Main Street.

There was a moment when he was back at the edge of the driveway, readying himself to salute, and the gates were fully opened, and the cars were jockeying to pass through.

There was a moment when he did not think to study the shadows across the road.

He only saw the blur of a man running. He saw the figure coming fast across the road. He saw the low-slung bag trailing from the figure's arm. He stepped forward, picking at the flap of his holster. He hesitated. He turned back for his rifle. Whichever way he looked he was dazzled by the headlights. The figure ran past him on the far side of the incoming car. The constable was rooted to the concrete floor of his sentry box. The figure charged to the main doorway, pushed it, swung the bag inside. The constable saw the bag sailing into the rectangle of light, and lost sight of it.

He was spinning, trying to get the lights from his eyes.

He saw the figure for a moment more, seeming to fill the doorway into the hallway area. He reached again for his holster, then for his rifle, then for his radio, then for his telephone link. The constable had never before confronted an emergency, and nothing had ever happened at the back gates of John Vorster Square. And the bastards in the car hadn't reacted.

He saw the shadowy shape of the figure turn and run back from the doorway. He hadn't the flap off his holster, nor the rifle in his hand, nor was he reaching for his radio, nor had he lifted his telephone.

Everything too fast for the constable. The figure running to get by the car that was coming out. The driver of the car that was entering seeing a figure, no longer in shadow, bright in the headlights, swung the wheel to block the figure, run the figure down. The figure stumbling to a stop, backing away, into the courtyard, trapped. An anorak hood over the figure's upper head and a handkerchief knotted over the figure's lower face, and a dark slash where the eyes would be. So fast, too fast. The arm of the figure swinging back, whipping forward. The crack of the windscreen, like a bullet snap. The constable saw the windscreen freeze, shatter to opaque. The incoming car swerving. The outgoing car turning away from collision.

He yelled, not into his radio, not into his telephone, out into the night air.

"BOMB!"

The presentable young constable ran from his box. The outgoing car careered from a side-on collision towards him.

He was blinded by the lights. He ran for his life, and behind him his sentry box was taken down by the impact of the outgoing car's radiator and engine weight, squashed away through the shrubs, flattened against the low wall and the high railings.

There was the thud of running feet. He saw the figure come down the driveway, skip past the incoming car.

He had the flap off his holster now. He had the pistol butt in his hand, lifting. The figure gone, out into the street. The pistol was in his hand, his thumb had taken across the safety.

He had the running figure, seen between the railings, over the end of his barrel. Steady, squeeze…

The constable was bowled over by the blast that erupted from behind the plate glass of the hallway area. And with the driven wind came the glass shards, and then the crimson and orange billowing of the flames. Before he lost conscious ness he was aware of the glass splinters fragmenting around him, and of the heat of the spreading fire.

Jack ran two hundred yards. He had pulled the handkerchief off his face, tugged the anorak hood down from his head. Up Main, cars overtaking him, up Market, into the narrow side street off Becker, no-one in sight, off with the anorak, dump it, a distant siren, along the lanes off Diagonal, two men sitting, their backs against the wall, neither moved, past the closed Stock Exchange, onto Bree. He was walking when he reached Bree. He controlled his speed, harder to control his breathing. He tried to window shop, to appear to be strolling away the evening.

Two police trucks racing, sirens wailing, and the whine in the streets around him of approaching fire engines.

From the far side of Bree he looked back towards John Vorster Square… a bloody lunatic plan… He saw the orange glow reaching for the night sky. He saw the dark climbing column of smoke. Can you see that, Mr Thiroko?

He walked along Bree towards the Landdrost Hotel. He straightened his tie in a window, he casually wiped the sweat off his forehead. He knelt to wipe the earth from the gardens of John Vorster Square off his shoes. The last hundred yards, forcing himself not to look back. He steadied himself, and went inside. He stood in the lift with his back to a cluster of tourists. He went down his corridor, into his room.

He went first to the cupboard. He saw that the packaged pile of explosives was undisturbed. Of the three slabs that had been delivered in the Checkers bags, two were still inside his suitcase. He might have failed. But now he thought he had enough dynamite still to blow his way into the hanging gaol.

Jack dived onto his bed. His face was buried in his pillow, his legs shook without control.

God, what had he done? For his father, what had he done?