The White Lioness

Chapter Ten

Victor Mabasha had been trying in vain to dismiss what happened as just a bad dream. The woman outside the house had never existed. Konovalenko, the man he was forced to hate, did not kill her. It was just a dream that a spirit, a songoma, had poisoned his mind with, to make him unsure, and possibly unable to carry out his assignment. It was the curse hanging over him because he was a black South African, he was aware of that. Not knowing who he was, or what he was allowed to be. A man who ruthlessly wallowed in violence one minute, and the next minute failed to understand how anybody could kill a fellow human being. He realized the spirits had set their singing hounds on him. They were watching over him, keeping tabs on him; they were his ultimate guardians, so vastly more watchful than Jan Kleyn could ever be…

Everything had gone wrong from the very start. He instinctively disliked and mistrusted the man who met him at the airport outside St. Petersburg. There was something devious about him.

To make things worse, Anatoli Konovalenko was clearly racist. On several occasions Victor had come close to throttling him and telling him that he knew what Konovalenko was thinking: that Victor was just a kaffir, an inferior being.

But he didn’t. He controlled himself. He had an assignment, and that had to come before anything else. The violence of his own reaction surprised him. He had been surrounded by racism his whole life. In his own way, he had learned to live with it. So why did he react like this to Konovalenko? Perhaps he could not accept being regarded as inferior by a white man who did not come from South Africa?

The journey from Johannesburg to London, and then on to St. Petersburg, had gone without a hitch. He sat awake on the night flight to London, looking out into the darkness. He occasionally thought he could see fires blazing away in the darkness far below. But he realized it was his imagination. It was not the first time he had left South Africa. He once liquidated an ANC representative in Lusaka, and on another occasion he had been in what was then Southern Rhodesia to take part in an assassination attempt on the revolutionary leader Joshua Nkomo. That was the only time he had failed. And that was when he decided he would only work alone in the future.

Yebo, yebo. Never again would he subordinate himself. As soon as he was ready to return to South Africa from this frozen Scandinavian land, Anatoli Konovalenko would be no more than an insignificant detail in the bad dream that his songoma had poisoned him with. Konovalenko was an insignificant puff of smoke that would be chased out of his body. The holy spirit hidden in the howls of the singing hounds would chase him away. His poisoned memory would never again need to worry about the arrogant Russian with gray, worn-down teeth.

Konovalenko was small and sturdy. He barely came up to Victor Mabasha’s shoulders. (But there was nothing wrong with his head, something Victor had established right away.) It was not surprising, of course. Jan Kleyn would never be satisfied with anything less than the best on the market.

On the other hand, Victor could never have imagined how brutal Konovalenko was. Of course, he realized that an ex-officer in the upper echelons of the KGB whose specialty was liquidating infiltrators and deserters would have few scruples about killing people. But as far as Victor was concerned, unnecessary brutality was the sign of an amateur. A liquidation should be carried out mningi checha, quickly and without unnecessary suffering for the victim.

They left St. Petersburg the day after Victor arrived. The ferry to Sweden was so cold he spent the whole voyage in his cabin, wrapped up in blankets. Before their arrival in Stockholm Konovalenko gave him his new passport and instructions. To his astonishment he discovered he was now a Swedish citizen named Shalid.

“You used to be a stateless Eritrean exile,” Konovalenko explained. “You came to Sweden at the end of the sixties, and were granted citizenship in 1978.”

“Shouldn’t I at least speak a few words of Swedish after more than twenty years?” Victor wondered.

“It’ll be enough to be able to say thank you, tack,” said Konovalenko. “No one will ask you anything.”

Konovalenko was right.

To Victor’s great surprise, the young Swedish passport officer had done no more than glance casually at his passport before returning it. Could it really be as simple as this to travel into and out of a country? He began to understand why the final preparations for his assignment were happening so far away from South Africa.

Even if he distrusted-no, positively disliked-the man who was to be his instructor, he could not help but be impressed by the invisible organization that seemed to cover everything that happened around him. A car was waiting for them at the docks in Stockholm. The keys were on the left rear wheel. As Konovalenko didn’t know his way out of Stockholm, another car led them out as far as the southbound highway before disappearing. It seemed to Victor the world was being run by secret organizations and people like his songoma. The world was shaped and changed in the underworld. People like Jan Kleyn were mere messengers. Just where Victor fitted into this secret organization, he had no idea. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to know.

They traveled through the Swedish countryside. Here and there Victor glimpsed patches of snow through the conifer trees. Konovalenko did not drive especially fast, and said practically nothing as he drove. That suited Victor, as he was tired after the long journey. He kept falling asleep in the back seat, and immediately his spirit would start talking to him. The singing hound howled away in the darkness of his dreams, and when he opened his eyes he was not at all sure where he was. It was raining non-stop. Everything seemed clean and orderly. When they stopped for a meal, Victor had the feeling that nothing could ever go wrong in this country.

But there was something missing. Victor tried in vain to put his finger on it. The countryside they were traveling through filled him with a nostalgic longing.

The journey took all day.

“Where are we headed?” asked Victor after they had been in the car for over three hours. Konovalenko waited several minutes to reply.

“We’re headed south,” he said. “You’ll see when we get there.”

The evil dream of his songoma was still some way off. The woman had not yet entered the yard, and her skull had not yet been shattered by the bullet from Konovalenko’s pistol. Victor Mabasha had no thoughts beyond doing what Jan Kleyn was paying him to do. Part of the assignment was to listen to what Konovalenko had to say to him. According to Victor Mabasha’s imagination the spirits, both good and bad, had been left behind in South Africa, in the mountain caves near Ntibane. The spirits never left the country, never crossed borders.

They arrived at the remote house shortly before eight in the evening. Even in St. Petersburg Victor had noted with surprise that dusk and night were not the same as in Africa. It was light when it should have been dark, and dusk did not drop down over the earth like the heavy fist of night; it wafted down slowly like a leaf floating on an invisible breath of air.

They carried a few bags into the house and installed themselves in their separate bedrooms. Victor noticed the house was comfortably warm. That too must have been thanks to the perfectionism of the discreet organization. They must have assumed a black man would freeze to death in polar regions like this. And a man who is cold, like a man who is hungry or thirsty, would be unable to do or learn anything.

The ceilings were low. Victor could barely fit under the exposed roof beams. He wandered around the house and noticed a strange smell of furniture, carpets and wax polish. But the smell he missed most of all was that of an open fire.

Africa was a long way away. It occurred to him that making him feel the distance might be intentional. This is where the plan was to be tested, retested, and perfected. Nothing should be allowed to interfere; nothing should arouse thoughts of what might be in store later.

Konovalenko produced frozen meals from a big freezer. Victor realized he should check this out later to see how many portions were stored there; then he could figure out how long he was expected to stay in the house.

Konovalenko opened his bags and took out a bottle of Russian vodka. He offered Victor a glass as they sat at the dining table, but he declined; he always cut down on the booze when he was preparing for an assignment; just one beer a day, two at the most. But Konovalenko drank heavily and was clearly drunk even the first evening. This presented Victor with an obvious advantage. If he needed to, he could exploit Konovalenko’s weakness for liquor.

The vodka loosened Konovalenko’s tongue. He started talking about paradise lost, the KGB during the 1960s and 70s, when they held undisputed sway over the Soviet empire and no individual politician could feel sure the KGB did not have extensive files on their innermost secrets. Victor thought the KGB might have replaced the songoma in this Russian empire, where no citizen was allowed to believe in holy spirits except in great secrecy. It seemed to him that a society that attempted to put the gods to flight would be doomed. The nkosis know that in my homeland, and hence our gods have not been threatened by apartheid. They can live freely and have never been subjected to the pass laws; they have always been able to move around without being humiliated. If our holy spirits had been banished to remote prison islands, and our singing hounds chased out into the Kalahari Desert, not a single white man, woman or child would have survived in South Africa. All of them, Afrikaners as well as Englishmen, would have been annihilated long ago and their miserable skeletons buried in the red soil. In the old days, when his ancestors were still fighting openly against the white intruders, the Zulu warriors used to cut off their fallen victims’ lower jaw. An impi returning from a victorious battle would bring with him these jawbones as trophies to adorn the temple entrances of their tribal chiefs. Now it was the gods who were on the front line against the whites, and they would never submit to defeat.

The first night in the strange house, Victor Mabasha enjoyed a dreamless sleep. He divested himself of the lingering aftereffects of his long journey, and when he woke at dawn he felt rested and restored. Somewhere in the background he could hear Konovalenko snoring. He got up, dressed, and gave the house a thorough search. He did not know what he was looking for. Yet Jan Kleyn was always present: his watchful eye was always somewhere to be found.

In the attic, which surprisingly enough smelled vaguely of corn, reminiscent of sorghum, he found a sophisticated radio transmitter. Victor Mabasha was no expert on sophisticated electronics, but he had no doubt this equipment was capable of both transmitting and receiving messages from South Africa. He continued his search, and eventually found what he was looking for-in the form of a locked door at one end of the house. Behind that door was the reason he had undertaken this long journey.

He went outside and urinated in the yard. He had the impression his urine had never been so yellow. It must be the food, he thought. This strange, unspiced food. The long journey. And the spirits struggling in my dreams. Wherever I go, I take Africa with me.

There was a mist lying motionless over the countryside. He went around the house, and came upon a neglected orchard where he could recognize only a few of the trees. It was all very silent, and it seemed to him he might have been somewhere else-possibly even somewhere in Natal one morning in June.

He felt cold, and went back in the house. Konovalenko had woken up. He was making coffee in the kitchen, dressed in a red track suit. When he turned his back on Victor, he saw it had KGB embroidered on it.

The work started after breakfast. Konovalenko unlocked the door to the secret room. It was empty, apart from a table and a very bright ceiling light. In the middle of the table were a rifle and a pistol. Victor could see immediately that they were makes with which he was completely unfamiliar. His first impression was that the rifle looked awkward.

“This is one of our prize products,” said Konovalenko. “Effective, but not exactly sleek. The starting point was a run-of-the-mill Remington 375 HH. But our KGB technicians refined the weapon until it reached a state of perfection. You can pick off whatever you like up to eight hundred meters. The only things to rival the laser sights are in the American army’s most guarded secret weapons. Unfortunately, we were never able to use this masterpiece in any of our assignments. In other words, you have the honor of introducing it to the world.”

Victor Mabasha approached the table and examined the rifle.

“Feel it,” said Konovalenko. “From this moment on, you will be inseparable.”

Victor Mabasha was surprised how light the rifle was. But when he raised it to his shoulder, it felt well balanced and stable.

“What type of ammunition?” he asked.

“Superplastic,” said Konovalenko. “A specially prepared variation of the classical Spitzer prototype. The bullet will travel fast over a long distance. The pointed version is better at overcoming air resistance.”

Victor Mabasha put the rifle on the table and picked up the pistol. It was a 9mm Glock Compact. He had read about this weapon in various magazines, but had never held one.

“I think standard ammunition will be OK in this case,” said Konovalenko. “No point in overdoing things.”

“I’ll have to get used to the rifle,” said Victor. “That’ll take time if the range is going to be nearly a kilometer. But where can you find an eight-hundred-meter-long training range that’s sufficiently private?”

“Here,” said Konovalenko. “This house has been carefully chosen.”

“By whom?”

“Those whose job it was,” said Konovalenko.

Victor could hear that questions not triggered directly by what Konovalenko said annoyed him.

“There are no neighbors around here,” Konovalenko went on. “And the wind blows all the time. Nobody will hear a thing. Let’s go back to the living room and sit down. Before we start working I want to review the situation with you.”

They sat opposite each other in two old, worn leather chairs.

“It’s very simple,” Konovalenko began. “First, and most important, this liquidation will be the most difficult of your career. Not only because there’s a technical complication, the distance, but primarily because failure is simply not an option. You will have only one opportunity. Second, the final plan will be decided on very short notice. You won’t have much time to get everything organized. There’ll be no time for hesitation or contemplating various alternatives. The fact that you have been chosen doesn’t only mean you are thought to be skillful and cold-blooded. You also work best on your own. In this case you’ll be more alone than you’ve ever been. Nobody can help you, nobody will acknowledge you, nobody will support you. Third, there is a psychological dimension to this assignment which shouldn’t be underestimated. You won’t discover who your victim is until the very last moment. You will need to be totally cold-blooded. You already know the person to be liquidated is exceptionally important. That means you’re devoting a lot of time to wondering who it can be. But you won’t know until you’ve almost got your finger on the trigger.”

Victor Mabasha was irritated by Konovalenko’s denigrating tone. For a fleeting moment he wanted to tell him he already knew who the victim was. But he said nothing.

“I can tell you we had you in the KGB archives,” said Konovalenko with a smile. “If my memory serves me right we had you down as a very useful lone wolf. Unfortunately we can no longer check that because all the archives have been destroyed or are in a state of chaos.”

Konovalenko fell silent and seemed to be deep in thought about the proud secret service organization that no longer existed. But the silence didn’t last long.

“We don’t have much time,” said Konovalenko. “That doesn’t need to be a negative factor. It will force you to concentrate. The days will be divided between practical target practice with the rifle, psychological exercises, and working out the various possible liquidation scenarios. Moreover, I gather you are not used to driving. I’ll be sending you out in a car for a few hours every day.”

“They drive on the right in this country,” said Victor Mabasha. “In South Africa we drive on the left.”

“Exactly,” said Konovalenko. “That should help sharpen your reflexes. Any questions?”

“Lots of questions,” said Victor Mabasha. “But I realize I’ll only get answers to a few of them.”

“Quite right,” said Konovalenko.

“How did Jan Kleyn get hold of you?” asked Victor Mabasha. “He hates communists. And as a KGB man, you were a communist. Maybe you still are, for all I know.”

“You don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” said Konovalenko. “Being a member of a secret security service is a question of loyalty to those whose hands happen to be attached to the arms of the people in power. Of course you could find a few ideologically convinced communists in the KGB at any given time. But the vast majority were professionals who carried out the assignments given them.”

“That doesn’t explain your contact with Jan Kleyn.”

“If you suddenly lose your job, you start looking for work,” said Konovalenko. “Unless you prefer to shoot yourself. South Africa has always seemed to me and many of my colleagues a well-organized and disciplined country. Never mind all the uncertainty there now. I simply offered my services through channels that already existed between our respective intelligence agencies. Evidently, I had the qualifications to interest Jan Kleyn. We made a deal. I agreed to take care of you for a few days-for a price.”

“How much?” wondered Victor Mabasha.

“No money,” said Konovalenko. “But I get the possibility of immigrating to South Africa and certain guarantees regarding the possibility of work in the future.”

Importing murderers, thought Victor Mabasha. But of course, that is a clever thing to do from Jan Kleyn’s point of view. I might well have done the same myself.

“Any more questions?” asked Konovalenko.

“Later,” Victor Mabasha replied. “I think it’s better to come back to that another time.”

Konovalenko jumped up from the leather chair surprisingly quickly.

“The mist has dispersed,” he said. “The wind is up. I suggest we start getting acquainted with the rifle.”

Victor Mabasha would recall the days that followed in the isolated house where the wind was always howling as a long-drawn-out wait for a catastrophe that was bound to happen. Yet when it actually came, it was not in the form he had expected. Everything ended up in complete chaos, and even when he was making his escape he still did not understand what had happened.

Superficially, the days appeared to be going according to plan. Victor Mabasha quickly mastered the rifle. He practiced shooting in prone, sitting, and standing positions in a field behind the house. There was a sandbank on the opposite side of the field on which Konovalenko had set up various targets. Victor Mabasha shot at footballs, cardboard faces, an old suitcase, a radio set, saucepans, coffee trays, and other objects he couldn’t even name. Every time he pulled the trigger, he was given a report on the outcome via a walkie-talkie, and made very slight, barely noticeable adjustments to the sights. Slowly, the rifle began to obey Victor’s commands.

The days were divided into three parts, separated by meals prepared by Konovalenko. Victor Mabasha kept thinking Konovalenko knew exactly what he was doing, and was very good at passing on what he knew. Jan Kleyn had chosen the right man.

The feeling of imminent catastrophe came from another direction altogether.

It was Konovalenko’s attitude towards him, the black contract killer. For as long as possible, Victor Mabasha tried to overlook the scornful tone of everything Konovalenko said, but in the end it was impossible. And when his Russian master drank far too much vodka at the end of the day, his contempt came out in the open. There were never any direct racial aspersions to give Victor Mabasha an excuse to react. But that only made things worse. Victor Mabasha felt he could not hold out much longer.

If things continued like this he would be forced to kill Konovalenko even though doing so would make the whole situation impossible.

When they were sitting in their leather armchairs for the psychological sessions, Victor Mabasha noticed Konovalenko assumed he was completely ignorant about the most basic human reactions. As a means of defusing his growing hatred, Victor decided to play the role he had been given. He pretended to be stupid, made the most irrelevant comments he could think of, and noted how delighted Konovalenko was to find his prejudices confirmed.

At night, the singing hounds howled in his ears. He sometimes woke up and imagined Konovalenko leaning over him with a gun in his hand. But there was never anybody there, in fact, and he would lie awake until dawn.

The only breathing space he had were the daily car rides. There were two cars in an outbuilding, one of which, a Mercedes, was meant for him. Konovalenko used the other car for trips, whose purpose he never alluded to.

Victor Mabasha drove around on minor roads, found his way to a town called Ystad and explored some roads along the coast. These trips helped him to hold out. One night he got out of bed and counted the portions of frozen food in the freezer: they would be spending another week in this isolated cottage.

I’ll have to put up with it, he thought. Jan Kleyn expects me to do whatever I have to do for my million rand.

He assumed Konovalenko was in constant touch with South Africa, and that the transmissions were made while he was out in the car. He was also confident Konovalenko would send only good reports to Jan Kleyn.

But the feeling of approaching catastrophe would not go away. Every hour that passed brought him closer to the breaking point, to the moment when his nature would require him to kill Konovalenko. He knew he would be forced to do it so as not to offend his ancestors, and not to lose his self-respect.

But nothing happened as he had expected.

They were sitting in the leather chairs at about four in the afternoon, and Konovalenko was talking about the problems and opportunities associated with carrying out a liquidation from various kinds of rooftops.

Suddenly, he stiffened. At the same time, Victor Mabasha heard what he was reacting to. A car was approaching, and came to a halt.

They sat motionless, listening. A car door opened, then shut.

Konovalenko, who always carried his pistol, a simple Luger, tucked into one of his track-suit pockets, rose quickly to his feet and slipped the safety catch.

“Move out of the way so you can’t be seen from the window,” he said.

Victor Mabasha did as he was told. He crouched down by the open fire, out of sight from the window. Konovalenko carefully opened a door leading out into the overgrown orchard, closed it behind him, and disappeared.

He did not know how long he had been crouching behind the fire.

But he was still there when the pistol shot rang out like the crack of a whip.

He straightened up cautiously and looked out a window at Konovalenko bending over something at the front of the house. He went out.

There was a woman lying on her back on the damp gravel. Konovalenko had shot her through the head.

“Who is she?” asked Victor Mabasha.

“How should I know?” answered Konovalenko. “But she was alone in the car.”

“What did she want?”

Konovalenko shrugged and replied as he closed the dead woman’s eyes with his foot. Mud from the sole of his shoe stuck to her face.

“She asked for directions,” he said. “She’d evidently taken a wrong turn.”

Victor Mabasha could never decide whether it was the bits of mud from Konovalenko’s shoe on the woman’s face, or the fact that she had been killed just for asking directions that made him finally decide to kill Konovalenko.

Now he had one more reason: the man’s unfettered brutality.

Killing a woman for asking the way was something he would never be able to do. Nor could he close somebody’s eyes by putting his foot into a dead person’s face.

“You’re crazy,” he said.

Konovalenko raised his eyebrows in surprise.

“What else could I have done?”

“You could have said you didn’t know where the road was that she was looking for.”

Konovalenko put his pistol back in his pocket.

“You still don’t understand,” he said. “We don’t exist. We’ll be disappearing from here in a few days, and everything must be as if we had never been here.”

“She was just asking directions,” said Victor Mabasha again, and he could feel he was starting to sweat with excitement. “There has to be a reason for killing a human being.”

“Get back in the house,” said Konovalenko. “I’ll take care of it.”

He watched from the window as Konovalenko backed the woman’s car up to the body and put it in the trunk before driving off.

He was back again in barely an hour. He came walking along the cart track, and there was no sign of her car.

“Where is she?” asked Victor Mabasha.

“Buried,” said Konovalenko.

“And the car?”

“Also buried.”

“That didn’t take long.”

Konovalenko put the coffeepot on the stove. He turned to Victor Mabasha with a smile.

“Something else for you to learn,” he said. “No matter how well organized you are, the unexpected is always liable to happen. But that’s precisely why such detailed planning is necessary. If you are well organized, you can improvise. If not, the unexpected merely causes chaos and confusion.”

Konovalenko turned back to the coffeepot.

I’ll kill him, thought Victor Mabasha. When all this is over, when we’re ready to go our separate ways, I’ll kill him. There’s no going back now.

That night he could not sleep. He could hear Konovalenko snoring through the wall. Jan Kleyn will understand, he thought.

He is like me. He likes everything to be clean-cut and well planned. He hates brutality, hates senseless violence.

By my killing President de Klerk he wants to put an end to all the pointless killing in South Africa today.

A monster like Konovalenko must never be granted asylum in our country. A monster must never be given permission to enter paradise on earth.

Three days later Konovalenko announced they were ready to move on.

“I’ve taught you all I can,” he said. “And you’ve mastered the rifle. You know how to think once you’re told who will soon be featuring in your sights. You know how to think when you’re planning the final details of the assassination. It’s time for you to go back home.”

“There’s one thing I’ve been wondering,” said Victor Mabasha. “How am I going to get the rifle to South Africa with me?”

“You won’t be traveling together, of course,” said Konovalenko, not bothering to disguise his contempt for what seemed to him such an idiotic question. “We’ll use another method of transport. You don’t need to know what.”

“I have another question,” Victor Mabasha went on. “The pistol. I haven’t even had a test shot, not a single one.”

“You don’t need one,” said Konovalenko. “That’s for you. If you fail. It’s a gun that can never be traced.”

Wrong, thought Victor Mabasha. I’m never going to point that gun at my own head.

I’m going to use it on you.

That same evening Konovalenko got drunker than Victor Mabasha had ever seen him. He sat opposite him at the table, staring at him with bloodshot eyes.

What is he thinking about, Victor Mabasha asked himself. Has that man ever experienced love? If I were a woman, what would it be like to share a bed with him?

The thought made him uneasy. He pictured the dead woman in the yard in front of him.

“You have many faults,” said Konovalenko, interrupting his train of thought, “but the biggest is that you are sentimental.”

“Sentimental?”

He knew what it meant. But he was not sure just what significance Konovalenko was attaching to the word.

“You didn’t like me shooting that woman,” said Konovalenko. “These last few days you’ve been absentminded and you’ve been shooting very badly. I’ll point out this weakness in my final report to Jan Kleyn. It worries me.”

“It worries me even more to think that a man can be as brutal as you are,” said Victor Mabasha.

Suddenly there was no turning back. He knew he was going to have to tell Konovalenko what he was thinking.

“You’re dumber than I thought,” said Konovalenko. “I guess that’s the way black men are.”

Victor Mabasha let the words sink into his consciousness. Then he rose slowly to his feet.

“I’m going to kill you,” he said.

Konovalenko shook his head with a smile.

“No you’re not,” he said.

Victor Mabasha drew the pistol and aimed at Konovalenko.

“You shouldn’t have killed her,” he said. “You degraded both me and yourself.”

He saw that Konovalenko was scared.

“You’re crazy,” he said. “You can’t kill me.”

“There’s nothing I’m better at than doing what needs to be done,” said Victor Mabasha. “Get up. Slowly. Hands up. Turn around.”

Konovalenko did as he was told.

Victor Mabasha had just enough time to register that something was wrong before Konovalenko flung himself to one side with enormous speed. Victor Mabasha pulled the trigger, but the bullet hit a bookcase.

Where the knife came from he had no idea. But Konovalenko had it in his hand when he hurled himself at him. Their combined weight crushed a table beneath them. Victor Mabasha was strong, but so was Konovalenko. Victor Mabasha could see the knife being forced closer and closer to his face. Only when he managed to kick Konovalenko in the back did he loosen his grip. He had dropped the pistol. He thumped Konovalenko with his fist, but there was no reaction. Before he broke loose he suddenly felt a stinging sensation in his left hand. His whole arm went numb. But he managed to grab Konovalenko’s half-empty bottle of vodka, turn around and smash it over his head. Konovalenko collapsed and stayed down.

At the same moment Victor Mabasha realized the index finger of his left hand had been sliced off and was hanging on to his hand by a thin piece of skin.

He staggered out of the house. He had no doubt he had smashed Konovalenko’s skull. He looked at the blood pouring out of his hand. Then he gritted his teeth and tore off the scrap of skin. The finger dropped onto the gravel. He went back into the house, wrapped a dishcloth round his bleeding hand, flung some clothes into his suitcase and then looked around for the pistol. He shut the door behind him, started the Mercedes, and hurtled off after a racing start. He was driving far too fast for the narrow dirt road. At one point he narrowly avoided a collision with an oncoming car. Then he found his way out onto a bigger road and forced himself to slow down.

My finger, he thought. It’s for you, songoma. Guide me home now. Jan Kleyn will understand. He is a clever nkosi. He knows he can trust me. I shall do what he wants me to do. Even if I don’t use a rifle that can shoot over eight hundred meters. I shall do what he wants me to do and he’ll give me a million rand. But I need your help now, songoma. That’s why I have sacrificed my finger.

Konovalenko sat motionless in one of the leather chairs. His head was throbbing. If the vodka bottle had hit his head in front rather than from the side, he would have been dead. But he was still alive. Now and then he pressed a handkerchief filled with ice cubes against one temple. He forced himself to think clearly despite the pain. This was not the first time Konovalenko had found himself in a crisis.

After about an hour he had considered all the alternatives and knew what he was going to do. He looked at his watch. He could call South Africa twice a day and get in direct touch with Jan Kleyn. There were twenty minutes to go before the next transmission. He went into the kitchen and refilled his handkerchief with ice cubes.

Twenty minutes later he was in the attic, calling South Africa via the advanced radio transmitter. It took a few minutes before Jan Kleyn answered. They used no names when they talked to each other.

Konovalenko reported what had happened. The cage was open and the bird has disappeared. It hasn’t managed to learn how to sing.

It was a while before Jan Kleyn realized what had happened. But once he had a clear picture of the situation, his response was unequivocal. The bird must be caught. Another bird will be sent as a substitute. More information about this later. For the time being, everything goes back to square one.

When the conversation was over, Konovalenko felt deeply satisfied. Jan Kleyn understood that Konovalenko had done what was expected of him.

“Try him out,” Jan Kleyn had said when they met in Nairobi to plan Victor Mabasha’s future. “Test his staying power, look for his weaknesses. We have to know if he really can hold out. There’s too much at stake for anything to be left to chance. If he’s not up to it, he’ll have to be replaced.”

Victor Mabasha was not up to it, thought Konovalenko. When the chips were down, behind that tough facade was no more than a confused, sentimental African.

Now it was Konovalenko’s job to find and kill him. Then he would train Jan Kleyn’s new candidate.

He realized that what he had to do next would not be all that easy. Victor Mabasha was wounded, and he would be acting irrationally. But Konovalenko had no doubt he would succeed. His staying power was legendary during his KGB days. He was a man who never gave up.

Konovalenko lay on the bed and slept for a few hours.

As dawn broke he packed his bag and carried it out to the BMW.

Before he locked the front door he primed the detonator to blow up the whole house. He set it for three hours. When the explosion came, he would be a long way away.

He drove off shortly after six. He would be in Stockholm by late afternoon.

There were two police cars by the junction of the E 14. For a brief moment he was afraid Victor Mabasha had revealed both his own and Konovalenko’s existence. But nobody in the cars reacted as he drove past.

Jan Kleyn called Franz Malan at home shortly before seven o’clock on Tuesday morning.

“We have to meet,” he said curtly. “The Committee will have to meet as soon as possible.”

“Has something happened?” asked Franz Malan.

“Yes,” replied Jan Kleyn. “The first bird wasn’t up to the job. We’ll have to find another.”