The White Lioness

Chapter Eight

You could hardly see the man squatting in the shadow of the wrecked car. He did not move a muscle, and his black face was indistinguishable from the dark bodywork.

He had chosen his hiding place carefully. He had been waiting since early afternoon, and now the sun was beginning to sink beyond the dusty silhouette of the suburban ghetto that was Soweto. The dry, red earth glowed in the setting sun. It was April 8, 1992.

He had traveled a long way to get to the meeting place on time. The white man who sought him out had said he would have to set off early. For security reasons they preferred not to give him a precise pickup time. All he as told was that it would be shortly after sunset.

Only twenty-six hours had passed since the man who introduced himself as Stewart stood outside his home in Ntibane. When he heard the knock at the door, he thought at first it was the police in Umtata. Seldom a month went by without a visit from them. As soon as a bank robbery or a murder took place, there would be an investigator from the Umtata homicide squad at his door. Sometimes they would take him in to town for questioning, but usually they accepted his alibi, even if it was no more than that he’d been drunk in one of the local bars.

When he emerged from the corrugated iron shack that was his home, he did not recognize the man standing in the bright sunlight claiming to be Stewart.

Victor Mabasha could see right away the man was lying. He could have been called anything at all, but not Stewart. Although he spoke English, Victor could hear from his pronunciation that he was of Afrikaner origin. And boere just weren’t called Stewart.

It was afternoon when the man showed up. Victor Mabasha was asleep in bed when the knock came. He made no attempt to hurry as he got up, put on a pair of pants, and opened the door. He was getting used to nobody wanting him for any thing important anymore. It was usually somebody he owed money to. Or somebody stupid enough to think he could borrow money from him. Unless it was the cops. But they didn’t knock. They hammered on the door. Or forced it open.

The man claiming to be Stewart was about fifty. He wore an ill-fitting suit and was sweating profusely. His car was parked under a baoba tree on the other side of the road. Victor noticed the plates were from Transvaal. He wondered briefly why he had come so far, all the way to Transkei province, in order to meet him.

The man did not ask to come in. He just handed over an envelope and said somebody wanted to see him on important business on the outskirts of Soweto the following day.

“All you need to know is in the letter,” he said.

A few half-naked children were playing with a buckled hubcap just outside the hut. Victor yelled at them to go away. They disappeared immediately.

“Who?” asked Victor.

He mistrusted all white men. But most of all he mistrusted white men who lied so badly, and made things worse by thinking he would be satisfied with an envelope.

“I can’t tell you that,” said Stewart.

“There’s always somebody wanting to see me,” said Victor. “Question is, do I want to see him?”

“It’s all in the envelope,” Stewart repeated.

Victor held out his hand and took the thick, brown envelope. He could feel right away there was a thick bundle of bills in there. That was both reassuring and worrisome. He needed money. But he did not know why he was being given it. That made him uneasy. He had no desire to get involved in something he knew too little about.

Stewart wiped his face and bald head with a soaking wet handkerchief.

“There’s a map,” he said. “The meeting place is marked. It’s close to Soweto. You haven’t forgotten the layout there?”

“Everything changes,” said Victor. “I know what Soweto looked like eight years ago, but I have no idea what it looks like today.”

“It’s not in Soweto itself,” said Stewart. “The pickup point is on a feeder road to the Johannesburg freeway. Nothing has changed out there. You’ll have to leave early tomorrow morning if you’re going to make it in time.”

“Who wants to see me?” Victor asked again.

“He prefers not to give his name,” said Stewart. “You’ll meet him tomorrow.”

Victor shook his head slowly and handed back the envelope.

“I want a name,” he repeated. “If I don’t get a name, I won’t be at the pickup point on time. I won’t ever be there.”

The man hesitated. Victor stared fixedly at him. After a long pause, Stewart seemed to realize that Victor meant what he said. He looked around. The kids had gone away. It was about fifty meters to Victor’s nearest neighbors, who lived in a corrugated iron shack just as dilapidated as his own. A woman was pounding corn in the swirling dust outside the front door. A few goats searched for blades of grass in the parched red earth.

“Jan Kleyn,” he said in a low voice. “Jan Kleyn wants to see you. Forget I ever said that. But you’ve got to be on time.”

Then he turned and went back to his car. Victor stood watching him disappear in a cloud of dust. He was driving far too fast. Victor thought that was typical of a white man who felt insecure and exposed when he entered a black township. For Stewart it was like entering enemy territory. And it was.

He grinned at the thought.

White men were scared men.

Then he wondered how Jan Kleyn could stoop so low as to use a messenger like that.

Or might it be another lie from Stewart? Maybe it wasn’t Jan Kleyn who sent him? Maybe it was somebody else?

The kids playing with the hubcap were back again. He went back into his hut, lit the kerosene lamp, sat down on the rickety bed, and slowly slit open the envelope.

From force of habit he opened it from the bottom up. Letterbombers nearly always placed their detonators at the top of the envelope. Few people expecting a bomb through the mail opened their letters the normal way.

The envelope contained a map, carefully drawn by hand in black India ink. A red cross marked the meeting place. He could see it in his mind’s eye. It would be impossible to go wrong. Apart from the map there was a bundle of red fifty-rand bills in the envelope. Without counting, Victor knew there were five thousand rand.

That was all. There was no message saying why Jan Kleyn wanted to see him.

Victor put the envelope on the mud floor and stretched out on the bed. The blanket smelled moldy. An invisible mosquito buzzed around his face. He turned his head and contemplated the kerosene lamp.

Jan Kleyn, he thought. Jan Kleyn wants to see me. It’s been two years since the last time. And he said then he never wanted anything to do with me again. But now he wants to see me. Why?

He sat up on the bed and looked at his wristwatch. If he was going to be in Soweto the next day, he’d have to take the bus from Umtata this evening. Stewart was wrong. He couldn’t wait until tomorrow morning. It was nearly nine hundred kilometers to Johannesburg.

He had no decisions to make. Having accepted the money, he would have to go. He had no desire to owe Jan Kleyn five thousand rand. That would be tantamount to signing his own death warrant. He knew Jan Kleyn well enough to be aware that nobody who crossed him ever got away with it.

He took out a bag tucked under the bed. As he did not know how long he was going to be away, or what Jan Kleyn wanted him to do, he just packed a few shirts, underpants and a pair of sturdy shoes. If the assignment was going to be a long one, he would have to buy whatever clothes he needed. Then he carefully detached the back of of the bed frame. His two knives were coated in grease and wrapped in plastic. He wiped away the grease and took off his shirt. He took down the specially made knife belt from a hook in the ceiling and buckled it around his waist, noting with satisfaction that he could still use the same hole. Although he had spent several months until his money ran out drinking beer, he had not put on weight. He was still in good shape, even though he would soon be thirty-one.

He put the two knives in their sheaths, after checking the edges with his finger tips. He needed only to press slightly to draw blood. Then he removed another part of the bed frame and produced his pistol: that, too, was greased with coconut fat and wrapped in plastic. He sat on the bed and cleaned the gun meticulously. It was a 9mm Parabellum. He loaded the magazine with special ammunition that could only be obtained from an unlicensed arms dealer in Ravenmore. He wrapped two spare magazines inside one of his shirts in the bag. Then he strapped on his shoulder holster and inserted the pistol. Now he was ready to meet Jan Kleyn.

Shortly afterwards he left the shack. He locked it with the rusty padlock, and started walking to the bus stop a few kilometers down the road to Umtata.

He screwed up his eyes and gazed at the red sun rapidly setting over Soweto, remembering the last time he was there eight years ago. A local businessman had given him five hundred rand to shoot a competitor. As usual, he took all conceivable precautions and drew up a detailed plan. But it all went wrong from the very start. A police patrol happened to be passing by, and he fled Soweto as fast as his feet could take him. He had not been back since.

The African dusk was short. Suddenly, he was surrounded by darkness. In the distance he could hear the roar of traffic on the freeway headed for Cape Town and, in the other direction, Port Elizabeth. A police siren was wailing in the far distance, and it occurred to him that Jan Kleyn must have a very special reason for contacting him of all people. There are lots of assassins ready to shoot anyone you like for a thousand rand. But Jan Kleyn had paid him five thousand rand in advance, and that could not be only because he was considered the best and most cold-blooded professional killer in all of South Africa.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of a car peeling off from the freeway. Soon afterwards, he could see headlights approaching. He moved further back into the shadows, and drew his pistol. He released the catch with a flourish.

The car came to a halt where the exit road petered out. The headlights lit up the dusty bushes and wrecked car. Victor Mabasha waited in the shadows. He was on tenterhooks now.

A man got out of the car. Victor could see right away that it was not Jan Kleyn. He had not really expected to see him anyway. Jan Kleyn sent others to summon the people he wanted to talk to.

Victor slipped cautiously around the wreck and worked his way in a circle behind the man. The car had stopped exactly where he thought it would, and he had practiced the flanking movement to be sure of doing it silently.

He stopped just behind the man, and pressed the pistol against his temple. The man started.

“Where’s Jan Kleyn?” asked Victor Mabasha.

The man turned his head carefully.

“I’ll take you to him,” the man replied. Victor Mabasha could hear he was scared.

“Where is he exactly?” asked Victor Mabasha.

“On a farm near Pretoria. In Hammanskraal.”

Victor knew right away this was not a setup. He had done business with Jan Kleyn once before in Hammanskraal. He put his pistol back into its holster.

“We’d better get going, then,” he said. “It’s a hundred kilometers to Hammanskraal.”

He sat in the back seat. The man at the wheel was silent. The lights of Johannesburg appeared as they drove past on the freeway to the north of the city.

Every time he found himself in the vicinity of Johannesburg he could feel the raging hatred he had always felt welling up inside him. It was like a wild animal constantly following him around, constantly appearing and reminding him of things he would rather forget.

Victor Mabasha had grown up in Johannesburg. His father was a miner, rarely at home. For many years he worked in the diamond mines at Kimberley, and later in the mines to the north-east of Johannesburg, in Verwoerdburg. At the age of forty-two, his lungs collapsed. Victor Mabasha could still remember the horrific rattling noise his father made as he struggled to breathe during the last year of his life, a look of terror in his eyes. During those years his mother tried to keep the house going and take care of the nine children. They lived in a slum, and Victor remembered his childhood as one long, drawn-out, and seemingly endless humiliation. He rebelled against it all from an early age, but his protest was misguided and confused. He joined a gang of young thieves, was arrested, and beaten up in a prison cell by white cops. That merely increased his bitterness, and he returned to the streets and a life of crime. Unlike many of his comrades, he went his own way when it came to surviving the humiliation. Instead of joining the black awareness movement that was slowly forming, he went the opposite way. Although it was white oppression that had ruined his life, he decided the only way to get by was to remain on good terms with the whites. He started off by thieving for white fences, in return for their protection. Then one day, shortly after his twentieth birthday, he was promised twelve hundred rand to kill a black politician who had insulted a white store owner. Victor never hesitated. This was final proof that he sided with the whites. His revenge would always be that they did not understand how deep his contempt for them was. They thought he was a simple kaffir who knew how blacks should behave in South Africa. But deep down, he hated the whites and that was why he ran their errands.

Sometimes he read in the newspapers how one of his former companions had been hanged or given a long prison sentence. He could feel sorry for what had happened to them, but he never doubted that he had chosen the right way to survive and maybe in the end start to build a life for himself outside the slums.

When he was twenty-two, he met Jan Kleyn for the first time. Although they were the same age, Kleyn treated him with superior contempt.

Jan Kleyn was a fanatic. Victor Mabasha knew he hated the blacks and thought they were animals to be controlled by the whites. Kleyn had joined the fascist Afrikaner Resistance Movement at an early age, and in just a few years reached a leading position. But he was no politician; he worked in the background, and did so from a post he held in BOSS, the South African intelligence service. His biggest asset was his ruthlessness. As far as he was concerned, there was no difference between shooting a black and killing a rat.

Victor Mabasha both hated and admired Jan Kleyn. Kleyn’s absolute conviction that the Afrikaners were a chosen people and his utter ruthlessness combined with a total disregard for death impressed him. He always seemed to have his thoughts and emotions under control. Victor Mabasha tried in vain to find a weakness in Jan Kleyn. There was no such thing.

On two occasions he carried out murders for Jan Kleyn. He performed satisfactorily. Jan Kleyn was pleased. But although they met regularly at that time, Jan Kleyn had never so much as shaken his hand.

The lights from Johannesburg faded slowly behind them. Traffic on the freeway to Pretoria thinned out. Victor Mabasha leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He would soon discover what had changed Jan Kleyn’s decision that they should never meet again. Against his will, he could feel his own excitement building. Jan Kleyn would never have sent for him unless it was a matter of great importance.

The house was on a hill about ten kilometers outside Hammanskraal. It was surrounded by high fences, and German shepherds roaming loose ensured that no unauthorized persons gained entry.

That evening two men were sitting in a room full of hunting trophies, waiting for Victor Mabasha. The drapes were drawn, and the servants had been sent home. The two men were sitting on either side of a table covered by a green felt cloth. They were drinking whiskey and talking in low voices, as if there might have been someone listening despite all the precautions.

One of the men was Jan Kleyn. He was extremely thin, as if recovering from a serious illness. His face was angular, resembling a bird on the lookout. He had gray eyes, thin blond hair, and was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and necktie. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, and his way of expressing himself restrained, almost slow.

The other man was his opposite. Franz Malan was tall and fat. His belly hung over his waistband, his face was red and blotchy, and he was sweating copiously. To all outward appearances they were an ill-matched couple, waiting for Victor Mabasha to arrive that evening in April, 1992.

Jan Kleyn glanced at his wristwatch.

“Another half hour and he’ll be here,” he said.

“I hope you’re right,” said Franz Malan.

Jan Kleyn started back, as if somebody had suddenly pointed a gun at him.

“Am I ever wrong?” he asked. He was still talking in a low voice. But his threatening tone was unmistakable.

Franz Malan looked at him thoughtfully.

“Not yet,” he said. “It was just a thought.”

“You’re thinking the wrong thoughts,” said Jan Kleyn. “You’re wasting your time worrying unnecessarily. Everything will go according to plan.”

“I hope so,” said Franz Malan. “My superiors would put a price on my head if anything went wrong.”

Jan Kleyn smiled at him.

“I would commit suicide,” he said. “But I have no intention of dying. When we have recovered all we have lost during the last few years, I will withdraw. But not until then.”

Jan Kleyn had enjoyed an astonishing career. His uncompromising hatred of everyone who wanted to put a stop to apartheid policies in South Africa was well known, or notorious, depending on one’s point of view. Many dismissed him as the biggest madman in the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. But those who knew him were well aware he was a cold, calculating man whose ruthlessness never pushed him into rash actions. He described himself as a “political surgeon,” whose job was to remove tumors constantly threatening the healthy body of South Afrikanerdom. Few people knew he was one of the BOSS’s most efficient employees.

Franz Malan had been working more than ten years for the South African army, which had its own intelligence section. He had previously been an officer in the field, and led secret operations in Southern Rhodesia and Mozambique. When he suffered a heart attack at the age of forty-four, his military career came to an end. But his views and his abilities led to his being redeployed immediately in the security service. His assignments were varied, ranging from planting car bombs in the vehicles of opponents of apartheid to the organization of terrorist attacks on ANC meetings and their delegates. He was also a member of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. But like Jan Kleyn, his role was behind the scenes. They had worked out a plan together, which was to be realized that very evening with the arrival of Victor Mabasha. They had been discussing what had to be done for many days and nights. Eventually, they reached an agreement. They put their plan before the secret society that was never known as anything other than the Committee.

It was the Committee that gave them their current assignment.

It all started when Nelson Mandela was released from the prison cell he had occupied on Robben Island for nearly thirty years. As far as Jan Kleyn, Franz Malan, and all other right-thinking boere ^ 1 were concerned, the act was a declaration of war. President de Klerk had betrayed his own people, the whites of South Africa. The apartheid system would collapse unless something drastic was done. A number of highly placed boere, among them Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan, realized that free elections would inevitably lead to black majority rule. That would be a catastrophe, doomsday for the right of the chosen people to rule South Africa as they saw fit. They discussed many different courses of action before finally deciding what needed to be done.

The decision had been made four months earlier. They met in this very house, which was owned by the South African army and used for conferences and meetings that required privacy. Officially neither BOSS nor the military had any links with secret societies. Their loyalty was formally bound to the sitting government and the South African constitution. But the reality was quite different. Just as when the Broederbond was at its peak, Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan had contacts throughout South African society. The operation they had planned on behalf of The Committee and were now ready to set in motion was based in the high command of the South African army, the Inkatha movement that opposed the ANC, and among well-placed businessmen and bank officials.

They had been sitting in the same room as they found themselves in now, at the table with the green cloth, when Jan Kleyn suddenly said:

“Who is the single most important person in South Africa today?”

It did not take Franz Malan long to realize to whom Jan Kleyn was referring.

“Try a little thought experiment,” Jan Kleyn went on. “Imagine him dead. Not from natural causes. That would only turn him into a martyr. No, imagine him assassinated.”

“There would be uproar in the black townships on a scale far beyond what we could have imagined so far. General strikes, chaos. The rest of the world would isolate us even more.”

“Think further. Let’s suppose it could be proved he was murdered by a black man.”

“That would increase the confusion. Inkatha and the ANC would go for each other in an all-out war. We could sit watching with our arms crossed while they annihilated each other with their machetes and axes and spears.”

“Right. But think one step further. That the man who murdered him was a member of the ANC.”

“The movement would collapse in chaos. The crown princes would slit each others’ throats.”

Jan Kleyn nodded enthusiastically.

“Right. Think further!”

Franz Malan pondered for a moment before responding.

“In the end no doubt the blacks would turn on the whites. And since the black political movement would be on the brink of total collapse and anarchy by this point, we’d be forced to send in the police and the army. The result would be a brief civil war. With a little careful planning we should be able to eliminate every black of significance. Whether the rest of the world liked it or not, it would be forced to accept that it was the blacks who started the war.”

Jan Kleyn nodded.

Franz Malan gazed expectantly at the man opposite him.

“Are you serious about this?” he asked slowly.

Jan Kleyn looked at him in surprise.

“Serious?”

“That we should actually kill him?”

“Of course I’m serious about it. The man will be liquidated before next summer. I’m thinking of calling it Operation Spriengboek.”

“Why?”

“Everything has to have a name. Have you ever shot an antelope? If you hit it in the right spot, it jumps into the air before it dies. That’s the jump I’m going to offer to the greatest enemy we have.”

They sat up until dawn. Franz Malan could not help admiring the meticulous way in which Jan Kleyn had thought the whole thing through. The plan was daring without taking unnecessary risks. When they walked out onto the veranda at dawn to stretch their legs, Franz Malan voiced one last objection.

“Your plan is excellent,” he said. “I can see only one possible snag. You are relying on Victor Mabasha not letting us down. You are forgetting he comes from the Zulu tribe. They are reminiscent of the boere in some respects. Their uttermost loyalty is given to themselves and the ancestors they worship. That means you are placing an enormous amount of faith in a black man. You know they can never feel the same loyalty we do. Presumably you are right. He will become a rich man. Richer than he could ever have dreamed of. But still, the plan means we are relying on a black man.”

“You can have my answer right away,” said Jan Kleyn. “I don’t trust anybody at all. Not completely, at least. I trust you. But I’m aware that everybody has a weak point somewhere or other. I replace this lack of trust by being extra cautious. That naturally applies to Victor Mabasha as well.”

“The only person you trust is yourself,” said Franz Malan.

“Yes,” said Jan Kleyn. “You’ll never find the weak point you’re speaking of in me. Of course Victor Mabasha will be under constant scrutiny. And I’ll make sure he knows that. He’ll get some special training by one of the world’s leading experts on assassination. If he lets us down, he will know he can look forward to a slow and painful death so awful, he’d wish he’d never been born. Victor Mabasha knows the meaning of torture. He will understand what we expect of him.”

A few hours later they separated and drove off in their different directions.

Four months later the plan was firmly established among a group of conspirators who had sworn a solemn oath of silence.

The plan was becoming a reality.

When the car came to a halt outside the house on the hill, Franz Malan tethered the dogs. Victor Mabasha, terrified of German shepherds, remained in the car until he was certain he would not be attacked. Jan Kleyn was on the veranda to receive him. Victor Mabasha could not resist the temptation to hold out his hand. But Jan Kleyn ignored it and asked instead how the journey had been.

“When you’re sitting in a bus all night, you have time to think up any number of questions,” Victor Mabasha replied.

“Excellent,” said Jan Kleyn. “You’ll get all the answers you need.”

“Who decides that?” asked Victor Mabasha. “What I need or don’t need to know?”

Before Jan Kleyn could reply, Franz Malan emerged from the shadows. He did not offer his hand either.

“Let’s go inside,” said Jan Kleyn. “We have a lot to talk about, and time is short.”

“I’m Franz,” said Franz Malan. “Put your hands up over your head.”

Victor did not protest. It was one of the unwritten rules that you gave up your weapons before negotiations could begin. Franz Malan took his pistol and then examined the knives.

“They were made by an African armorer,” said Victor Mabasha. “Excellent both for close combat and throwing.”

They went inside and sat down at the table with the green felt cloth. The driver went to make coffee in the kitchen.

Victor Mabasha waited. He hoped the two men would not notice how tense he was.

“A million rand,” said Jan Kleyn. “Let’s start at the end just this once. I want you to bear in mind the whole time how much we’re offering you for this job we want you to do for us.”

“A million can be a lot or very little,” said Victor Mabasha. “It depends on the circumstances. And who’s ‘we’?”

“Save your questions for later,” said Jan Kleyn. “You know me, you know you can trust me. You can regard Franz, sitting opposite you, as an extension of my arm. You can trust him just as much as you can trust me.”

Victor Mabasha nodded. He understood. The game had started. Everybody was assuring everybody else how reliable they were. In fact, nobody trusted anybody but themselves.

“We thought we’d ask you to do a little job for us,” repeated Jan Kleyn, making it sound to Victor Mabasha’s ears as though he was asking him to get a glass of water. “Who ‘we’ are in this context doesn’t matter as far as you’re concerned.”

“A million rand,” said Victor Mabasha. “Let’s assume that’s a lot of money. I take it you want me to kill somebody for you. A million is too much for such an assignment. So let’s assume it’s too little-what’s the explanation?”

“How the hell can a million be too little?” asked Franz Malan in annoyance.

Jan Kleyn made a deprecatory gesture.

“Let’s just say it’s good money for an intense but brief assignment,” he said.

“You want me to kill somebody,” Victor Mabasha repeated.

Jan Kleyn looked at him for a long time before replying. Victor Mabasha suddenly felt as if a cold wind was blowing through the room.

“That’s right,” said Jan Kleyn slowly. “We want you to kill somebody.”

“Who?”

“You’ll find out when the time is ripe,” said Jan Kleyn.

Victor Mabasha suddenly felt uneasy. It ought to be the obvious first move, giving him the most important piece of information. Who he would be aiming his gun at.

“This is a very special assignment,” Jan Kleyn went on. “It will involve travel, perhaps a month of preparations, rehearsals, and extreme caution. Let me just say it’s a man we want you to eliminate. An important man.”

“A South African?” asked Victor Mabasha.

Jan Kleyn hesitated for a moment before replying.

“Yes,” he said. “A South African.”

Victor Mabasha tried to work out quickly who it could be. But there was a lot he did not know. And who was this fat, sweaty man sitting silently and hunched up in the shadows on the other side of the table? Victor Mabasha had a vague feeling he recognized him. Had he met him before? If so, in what connection? Had he seen his photograph in a newspaper? He searched his memory frantically, but in vain.

The driver put out some cups and saucers, and placed the coffeepot in the middle of the green cloth. Nobody said a word until he left the room and closed the door behind him.

“In about ten days we want you to leave South Africa,” said Jan Kleyn. “You’ll go straight back to Ntibane. Tell everybody you know there you’re going to Botswana to work for an uncle who has an ironmonger’s store in Gaborone. You’ll be receiving a letter postmarked in Botswana, offering you a job. Show people this letter as often as you can. On April 15, in a week, you’ll take the bus to Johannesburg. You’ll be picked up at the bus station and spend the night in an apartment, where you’ll meet me in order to receive your final instructions. The next day you’ll fly to Europe, and then on to St. Petersburg. Your passport will say you’re from Zimbabwe, and you’ll have a new name. You can choose one yourself. When you get to St. Petersburg you’ll be met at the airport. You’ll take the train to Finland, and go from there to Sweden by boat. You’ll stay in Sweden for a few weeks. You’ll meet somebody there who’ll give you your most important instructions. On a date as yet unfixed you’ll return to South Africa. Once you’re back here, I’ll take over responsibility for the final phase. It’ll be all over by the end of June at the latest. You can collect your money wherever you like in the world. You’ll be paid an advance of 100,000 rand as soon as you’ve agreed to carry out this little assignment we have lined up for you.”

Jan Kleyn stared intently at him in silence. Victor Mabasha wondered if his ears had deceived him. St. Petersburg? Finland? Sweden? He tried to conjure up a map of Europe in his mind’s eye, but failed.

“I have just one question,” he said after a while. “What’s this all about?”

“It shows we are cautious and meticulous,” said Jan Kleyn. “You ought to appreciate that, because it’s a guarantee for your own safety.”

“I can look after myself,” said Victor Mabasha dismissively. “But let’s start from the beginning. Who’ll be meeting me in St. Petersburg?”

“As you may know, the Soviet Union has undergone big changes these last few years,” said Jan Kleyn. “Changes we’re all very pleased about. But on the other hand, it has meant that a lot of very efficient people are out of a job. Including officers in the secret police, the KGB. We get a constant stream of inquiries from these people, wondering if we’re interested in their skills and experience. In many cases there’s no limit to what they’ll do in order to get a residence permit in our country.”

“I’m not working with the KGB,” said Victor Mabasha. “I don’t work with anybody. I’ll do whatever I have to do, and I’ll do it alone.”

“Quite right, too,” said Jan Kleyn. “You’ll be working on your own. But you’ll get some very useful tips from our friends who’ll be picking you up in St. Petersburg. They’re very good.”

“Why Sweden?”

Jan Kleyn took a sip of coffee.

“A good question, and a natural one to ask,” he began. “In the first place, it’s a diversionary measure. Even if nobody in this country who’s not involved has any idea what’s going on, it’s a good idea to put out a few smoke screens. Sweden is a neutral, insignificant little country, and has always been very aggressively opposed to our social system. It would never occur to anybody that the lamb would hide away in the wolf’s lair. Second, our friends in St. Petersburg have some good contacts in Sweden. It’s very easy to get into the country because the border controls are pretty casual, if indeed there are any at all. Many of our Russian friends have already established themselves in Sweden, with false names and false papers. Third, we have some reliable friends who can arrange appropriate living quarters for us in Sweden. But most important of all, perhaps, is that you keep well away from South Africa. There are far too many people interested in knowing what a fellow like me is up to. A plan can be exposed.”

Victor Mabasha shook his head.

“I have to know who it is I’m going to kill,” he said.

“When the time is ripe,” said Jan Kleyn. “Not before. Let me conclude by reminding you of a conversation we had nearly eight years ago. You said then that it’s possible to kill anybody at all, provided you plan it properly. The bottom line is that nobody can get away. And now I’m waiting for your answer.”

That was the moment it dawned on Victor Mabasha whom he was going to kill.

The thought sent him reeling. But it all fit. Jan Kleyn’s irrational hatred of blacks, the increasing liberalization of South Africa.

An important man. They wanted him to shoot President de Klerk.

His first reaction was to say no. It would be taking too big a risk. How could he possibly get past all the bodyguards surrounding the president night and day? How could he possibly escape afterward? President de Klerk was a target for an assassin who was prepared to die in a suicide attack.

At the same time he could not deny he still believed what he had said to Jan Kleyn eight years ago. Nobody in the world was immune from a skilled assassin.

And a million rand. Mind-boggling. He couldn’t refuse.

“Three hundred thousand in advance,” he said. “I want it in a London bank by the day after tomorrow at the latest. I want the right to refuse to go along with the final plan if I consider it to be too risky. In that case you would have the right to require me to work out an alternative. In those circumstances I’ll take it on.”

Jan Kleyn smiled.

“Excellent,” he said. “I knew you would.”

“I want my passport made out in the name of Ben Travis.”

“Of course. A good name. Easy to remember.”

There was a plastic file on the floor next to Jan Kleyn’s chair. He took out a letter postmarked in Botswana and handed it over to Victor Mabasha.

“There’s a bus to Johannesburg from Umtata at six in the morning on April 15. That’s the one we want you to take.”

Jan Kleyn and the man who said his name was Franz got to their feet.

“We’ll take you back home by car,” said Jan Kleyn. “As time is short, you’d better go tonight. You can sleep in the back seat.”

Victor Mabasha nodded. He was in a hurry to get home. A week was not long for him to sort out all the things he needed to do. Such as finding out who this Franz really was.

Now his own safety was on the line. It needed all his concentration.

They parted on the veranda. This time Victor Mabasha did not hold out his hand. His weapons were returned, and he got into the back seat of the car.

President de Klerk, he thought. Nobody can escape. Not even you.

Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan remained on the veranda, watching the car lights disappear.

“I think you’re right,” said Franz Malan. “I think he’ll do it.”

“Of course he’ll do it,” Jan Kleyn replied. “Why do you think I chose the best?”

Franz Malan stared thoughtfully up at the stars.

“Do you think he realized who the target was?”

“I think he guessed it was de Klerk,” said Jan Kleyn. “That would be the obvious person.”

Franz Malan turned away from the stars and looked straight at Jan Kleyn.

“That was what you wanted him to do, wasn’t it? Guess?”

“Of course,” Jan Kleyn replied. “I never do anything by chance. And now I think we’d better go our separate ways. I have an important meeting in Bloemfontein tomorrow.”

On April 17 Victor Mabasha flew to London under the name of Ben Travis. By then he knew who Franz Malan was. That had also convinced him the target was President de Klerk. In his suitcase he had a few books about de Klerk. He knew he would have to find out as much about him as possible.

The next day he flew to St. Petersburg. He was met there by a man called Konovalenko.

Two days later a ferry pulled into the docks at Stockholm. After a long car journey southwards, he came to a remote cottage late in the evening. The man driving the car spoke excellent English, even though he did have a Russian accent.

On Monday April 20 Victor Mabasha woke up at dawn. He went out into the yard to relieve himself. A mist lay motionless over the fields. He shivered in the chilly air.

Sweden, he thought. You are welcoming Ben Travis with fog, cold, and silence.