Vortex

CHAPTER 6 Eariq Warning

JULY 22-SWARTKOP MILITARY AIRFIELD, NEAR PRETORIA

The single-engined Kudu light utility aircraft rolled to a gentle, shuddering stop near the end of the oil-stained concrete taxiway. Even before the propeller had stopped spinning, ground crewmen were on their way, moving to tie down the Kudu’s wings against sudden gusts of wind.

Commandant Henrik Kruger clambered awkwardly out of the plane’s cramped cockpit, stretched, and then leaned in to shake the pilot’s hand.

“Thanks,

Pieter. A good fast flight, that. I may even have an appetite for lunch.”

He checked his watch. He had nearly an hour left before his scheduled meeting with the chief of staff for operations.

“Look, I should be back from the Ministry in three or four hours. Can you stand by to run me back to Upington then?”

The plane’s pilot, wi Air Force captain, grinned back.

“No sweat,

Kommandant. Take your time. They’ve got a blery good officers’ mess here.

Once I get some food in my belly and put some petrol in the tanks, I’ll be ready to go whenever you say the word.”

“Magtig!” Kruger pulled his worn, leather briefcase out from under the seat and stepped back, touching his cap to make sure it was still on straight over his short-cropped, brown hair. Satisfied, he picked his way around the outstretched landing gear. A few meters away, a soldier waiting by a flag-decked car stiffened to attention. His transport to the Ministry of

Defense, no doubt.

“Hey, Kommandant!”

He glanced over his shoulder at the cockpit’s open side window.

The Kudu’s pilot flashed a thumbs-up signal.

“Give them hell, sir!”

Kruger stifled a smile, nodded briskly instead, and moved on toward the waiting staff car. As he’d suspected, the whole base must know why he’d been summoned to Pretoria at such short notice. Secrets were almost impossible to keep in close knit active-duty combat units such as his 20th

Rifles.

It certainly hadn’t taken long for his latest situation report to generate results. Though that certainly wasn’t particularly surprising. Battalion commanders-even highly decorated battalion commanders-didn’t often send such scathing indictments of current policy to the Defense Staff Council, but Kruger had grown weary of asking his men to do the impossible. Too many of the Permanent Force’s best battalions were being used to suppress disorder in the black townships instead of being stationed on the border where they were so desperately needed.

And desperate wasn’t too strong a word, he thought grimly. Given the current military and political situation, the frontier with Namibia simply could not be adequately defended. There were too few troops trying to cover too much territory.

Some staff officers at the Ministry of Defense had done their best to help out. They’d made sure that units such as the 20th had first call on replacements and the latest weapons and hardware.

More important, requisitions for food, fuel, and ammo

were processed with almost unmilitary speed and efficiency. In the final analysis, though, those were simply half measures-interim steps that relieved some of the day-to-day burden on Kruger and his fellow commanders without in any way solving the strategic dilemma they faced. Pretoria must either provide more men and equipment to guard the border or find other ways to end the ANC’s renewed guerrilla campaign Kruger shook his head, aware that the new men in charge weren’t likely to make the right decisions. Like a sizable number of South African Defense

Force officers, he’d privately applauded the Haymans government’s moves toward some reasonable accommodation with the nation’s black majority. The key word was reasonable. No one he knew supported the absurd notion of an eventual one-man, one-vote system for South Africa. The failing array of dictatorships scattered across black Africa showed the dangers of such a course. But few officers could hide from the knowledge that continued white efforts to hold all political power inevitably meant an ongoing and probably endless guerrilla war-a war marked by minor, strategically meaningless victories and a steady stream of maimed or dead men.

Kruger shook his head again, mentally cursing both Karl Vorster’s callous determination to win this unwinnable war and die ANC bastards who’d put the new president in place by murdering Frederick Haymans.

“The Ministry, sir?” The corporal waiting by his car saluted and held the rear door open for him.

“Yes. ” Kruger returned the man’s salute and climbed into the staff car.

He sat up straight against the seat as they pulled away from the plane and turned onto an asphalt-paved access road. Half his mind busied itself by reviewing the arguments he intended to make to the chief of staff. One corner of his mouth flickered upward briefly in a wry smile. He was probably being too optimistic. He wasn’t likely to have the chance to get a single word in edgewise over the tongue-lashing he fully expected to receive.

Headquarters staffs, even in an army as flexible and in-3

formal as the SADF, always had their own rigid notions about such things as the chain of command and proper channels.

Something strange about the passing scenery tugged Kruger’s attention away from his upcoming ordeal. He looked more carefully out the windows to either side. They were paralleling Swartkop’s main runway and flight line.

Both looked nearly deserted. And that was odd. Very odd.

The airfield was ordinarily a hive of frenzied activity. With two squadrons of transport aircraft based here, Swartkop often seemed a practical demonstration of perpetual motion as small, single-engined Kudus and larger

C-47s landed, refueled, and took off again-ferrying men and equipment to the SADF’s far-flung military districts.

But not today. The Kudu that had carried him here sat all by itself, parked in isolation on a vast, empty expanse of concrete. There were no planes on the taxiway taking off or landing. Kruger stroked his freshly shaved chin.

Where were all the aircraft?

The staff car turned onto a wider road running past Swartkop’s huge, aluminum-sided hangars and repair shops. And there they were. Row after row of camouflaged transport planes either parked in the hangars or on the flight line close by. Tiny figures in grease-stained, orange coveralls swarmed over each aircraft, opening a panel here or tightening something down there. Repair and maintenance crews, all working at top speed.

Kruger stared out the window as they drove past, taken completely by surprise. Even under normal operating conditions, perhaps one in five of a squadron’s aircraft could be expected to need routine maintenance at any given time. But nothing about the frantic bustle around the forty or so parked planes struck Kruger as being routine. Had there been some unprecedented and completely unannounced act of ANC sabotage? It seemed unlikely. Even the Vorster government’s stringent new censorship laws couldn’t have prevented word of such a disaster from leaking out.

He sat up even straighter as a more plausible, but equally disturbing explanation presented itself. The Air Force must be preparing its planes for a prolonged surge in flight

operations-round-the-clock sorties that would make it impossible to provide normal maintenance.

Kruger’s mouth tightened. These were cargo aircraft and troop carriers, so whatever Pretoria had planned involved the Army. Were they finally going to reinforce the Namibian border? Maybe. He hoped so. It would certainly save him a lot of grief in his meeting with the chief of staff. He could take a scolding more easily if he knew in advance that the hierarchy agreed with his diagnosis of the situation.

The car rounded another corner, cutting off his view of the parked planes, and Kruger faced forward again. His eyes continued to sweep the surrounding terrain-automatically noting the six Cactus missile launchers of the base’s

SAM battery off to one side and the swarm of harried-looking Air Force officers emerging from Swartkop’s Administration Center on the other. But the logical part of his mind remained fully engaged, raising and as quickly dismissing new explanations for all the activity he saw.

His first hope that the planes were slated to carry reinforcements to the

Namibian frontier seemed farfetched when viewed dispassionately. No one would send large numbers of troops and equipment by air when road convoys or rail transport could serve the same end more efficiently. No, he thought grimly, these planes were being prepared for the kind of high-stakes operation where speed mattered more than cost. A major airborne assault somewhere outside South Africa’s borders, for example. But where? Zimbabwe again? Or Mozambique? He’d heard that support for the Renamo guerrillas had been upped once more. Were these planes intended for one of their murderous operations?

Kruger’s frown tightened further still into a thin-lipped scowl. If whatever Pretoria had in mind wouldn’t help take the pressure off his men, the ears of the SADF’s chief of operations were going to burn with swear words the man probably hadn’t heard since his own days in the bush. And,

Kruger vowed silently, to hell with his career. The lives of his soldiers were more important than his own chances of ever wearing a colonel’s insignia.

Wrapped in increasingly bleak thoughts about his likely personal and professional future, he scarcely noticed as the staff car passed through Swartkop’s heavily guarded main gate and sped toward

Pretoria.

SADF HEADQUARTERS, THE MINISTRY OF DEFENSE,

PRETORIA

The lieutenant commanding the Defense Ministry guard post looked from

Kruger’s ID card to his face and back down again. Apparently satisfied by what he saw, the young officer’s pen made a tick mark on a surprisingly crowded list of approved visitors.

Then he handed the ID card back and nodded at the burly noncom waiting patiently off to one side of the wood-paneled guard room.

“Thank you,

Kommandant. Sergeant Meinart there will show you to the briefing.”

Kruger pocketed his card with an abrupt nod and followed the sergeant out into the Ministry’s busy main hallway. The noncom walked right by a bank of elevators leading to the building’s upper floors and continued straight on down the hall toward the massive double doors of the Main Staff Auditorium.

Kruger kept pace easily, exchanging salutes with passing senior officers without much conscious thought. He had more interesting things than simple military courtesies to occupy his mind. It was becoming increasingly clear that he hadn’t been summoned to Pretoria for a personal harangue by the higher brass.

He shook his head slightly, irritated with himself for ever holding such a simpleminded, egotistical belief. Only an idiot could miss the signs of intense activity all around. First the frantic maintenance work at

Swartkop, and now this unannounced briefing being held in the Ministry’s largest meeting room. Something big was in the wind. Something very big.

His first glance around the crowded staff auditorium confirmed that impression.

More than a hundred field-grade officers packed the room-some swapping news and professional gossip in the

aisles, others sitting quietly among the rows of theater-style folding chairs. Steel-blue Air Force and dark blue Navy uniforms mingled with the sober brown jackets and ties of the Army. A sea of red-and-blue berets down front signaled the presence of representatives from each of the three

Permanent Force parachute battalions.

Kruger didn’t bother concealing his astonishment. He hadn’t seen this many of his fellow unit commanders together in one place for years. He scanned the room again, counting stars. My God, the auditorium held at least two-thirds of the Army’s Permanent and Citizen Force battalion commanders, six brigadiers, and the two complete division-level staffs.

He stiffened. No one in his right mind would assemble the kind of force these men represented for anything less than a massive, combined-arms operation. He grew even more uneasy at that thought. What was Vorster planning? Some sort of massive exercise? A real military operation?

Kruger’s uneasiness about the government’s intentions had nothing to do with any kind of misplaced pacifism. He loathed the ANC’s sneak attacks and terrorist bombings as much as any other serving South African officer.

Twenty years of cross-border warfare had taught him that the guerrillas were his enemies. And as enemies, they were legitimate targets for South

Africa’s military forces-no matter where they sought sanctuary. But quick, in-and-out commando raids were one thing. This implied something much bigger.

Military operations were always expensive. They consumed both lives and money at a breakneck pace. And the Republic’s economy was already under tremendous strain. Unemployment among the blacks, inflation, and interest rates were all rising. He’d seen the evidence on infrequent visits to his hometown in the northern Transvaal. In emptier shelves in the little country stores. In the growing numbers of able bodied black men slouching aimlessly by the roadsides or fields. In sky-high petrol prices that increasingly kept people at home unless travel was absolutely necessary.

Kruger shook his head. This wasn’t the right time for seeking high-priced military glory. He only hoped somebody on the Defense Staff Council had the balls to explain that to the new cabinet.

“Hey, Henrik, man! What’re you doing here, you blery foot slogger I thought this meeting was for officers and gentlemen only. “

Kruger wheeled round, a grin spreading across his face despite his inner worries. Though he hadn’t seen Deneys Coetzee in person for more than two years, no one who’d met him could ever forget the cocky little man’s rough, gravelly voice and bluff, open face. Fifteen years before, they’d served together in Namibia as green-as-grass junior officers. Months of hard campaigning in the desolate, and Namibian bush had left both a complete trust in each other’s professional competence and a lasting friendship.

Kruger whistled out loud at the three stars and pentagon on Coetzee’s shoulder tabs.

“They made you a brigadier? Now I know the world is a crazy place.”

Coetzee waggled a finger in his face.

“Ag, man. You ought to show more blery respect for a superior officer. Besides, I’m not just a brigadier, you know. I’m on the Ministry staff now. “

Kruger mimicked a slight bow.

“So you’ve finally escaped from the field, eh?”

“That’s right. ” Coetzee made a show of brushing invisible dust off his immaculately tailored jacket.

“No more mud, flies, or snakes for me, man.

I’m a happy desk warrior for the foreseeable future and glad of it.”

Kruger took a closer took at his friend. Coetzee hated paperwork and red tape more than anything in the world, so he must be lying. But staff assignments were the price one paid for professional advancement. Nobody who wanted to make general someday could avoid them forever. And like

Coetzee, Kruger knew he’d have to give up his own field command for a staff slot in the next couple of years. It wasn’t something to look forward to, but it was inevitable.

“Attention!” The shouted command silenced all conversation in the crowded auditorium and brought every officer in the room to his feet.

The tall, lanky, whitehaired figure of Gen. Adriaan de Wet, the SADF’s commander, strode onto the stage. Kruger grimaced. He’d served two tours under de Wet-the first as a company commander in a brigade commanded by the older man, and the second as a deputy operations officer at the divisional level. Neither assignment had taught him much respect for de Wet’s abilities as a combat commander or administrator. Army gossip said the general held on to his post by kissing up to whichever political faction held power at the moment-and Kruger believed the gossip.

De Wet crossed to a podium and stood silently for a moment, eyeing the assembled commanders and their staffs standing at attention. Then he waved them down.

“At ease, gentlemen. Find a seat if you haven’t already. We have much to do here today.”

Kruger and Coetzee settled themselves in two seats near the back.

At an impatient nod from de Wet, teams of junior officers began moving up and down the auditorium’s aisles, handing out red-tagged black binders.

Astonished gasps and muttered exclamations followed them through the room.

Kruger took one of the binders from a pile given him by a somber-faced lieutenant and passed the rest on down the row. He scanned the first page and felt the blood draining from his face.

OPERATION NIMROD-MOST SECRET

SADF Order of Battle for Nimrod

44th Parachute Brigade -Brigade HQ -2nd Parachute Battalion -3rd Parachute Battalion -4the Parachute Battalion

8th Armored Division -Division HQ -81st Armored Brigade

-82nd Mechanized Brigade -83rd Motorized Infantry Brigade -84th Field Artillery Regiment

Elements of the 7th Infantry Division -Division HQ -71st Motorized Infantry Brigade -72nd Motorized Infantry Brigade

Elements of the Air Force Transport Command -No. 44 Squadron (C-47s) -No. 28 Squadron (C-130s and C-160s) -No. 18 Squadron (SA.330 Super Puma helicopters) -No. 30 Squadron (SA.330 Super Pumas)

Elements of the Air Force Strike Command -No. 2 Squadron (Mirage IIICZs) -No. 7 Squadron (MB 326 Impalas) -No. 4 Squadron (MB 326 Impalas)

Objectives for Nimrod

1) Reoccupation of the SouthWest Africa Territory (aka Namibia) as far north as the line running from Grootfontein through Karnanjab.

2) Restoration of complete military, political, and economic control over the reoccupied zones of the SWA.

3) Destruction of Swapo’s armed forces and political structure.

4) Destruction of all ANC base camps and command centres inside the

SWA.

General Concept of Operations

Nimrod is designed around a series of swift, powerful thrusts into Namibia by powerful mechanized, motorized, and airborne elements of the SADF. These attacks will be aimed at key communications hubs and other geographic points of operational value.

By bringing overwhelming force to bear against Swapo’s poorly trained and ill-prepared troops, the units participating in Nimrod will be able to seize their initial objectives rapidly and at minimal cost. Once these have been achieved, the assault forces will regroup and redeploy for advances against their secondary targets.

Throughout the operation, force sizes must be carefully balanced against our limited ability to move supplies over Namibia’s sparse road and rail network. Nevertheless, it is believed that the use of larger, more powerful units will give the speed so vital to the success of this campaign.

On D-1, advance elements of the 82nd Mechanized Brigade…

Kruger stopped reading. My God, he thought, this is madness. Absolute madness. But he couldn’t ignore the excitement bubbling up within his dismay. No professional soldier could have remained unmoved. The briefing binder he held in his hand described the single largest South African military operation planned since the end of World War II. More men, more vehicles, and more firepower than he had ever imagined would be assembled for a single purpose. In a way it was bloody ironic. For months he’d been complaining about the ANC sanctuaries inside Namibia. But he’d certainly never dreamed anyone would seriously propose trying to solve the guerrilla threat with a full-scale conventional invasion.

Drums and bugles echoed in the innermost recesses of his mind-accompanying visions of long columns of tanks and APCs rolling forward through dust and smoke. He looked up from the operations plan.

The faces of the officers around him showed the same odd mix of disbelief and pride.

Kruger shook his head. Real war was never glorious. Bugles could never be heard over the screams of the wounded or the roar of the guns. And yet He felt Coetzee touch his arm.

“Well, Henrik? What do you think of our leader’s little scheme, eh?”

Kruger looked at his friend.

“Tell me true, Deneys… has the

President lost his reason? We’ll. have to mobilize a large part of the

Citizen Force to assemble all the units for this thing. What’s going to happen to the factories and mines while half the skilled laborers and middle managers are off being soldiers? What idiot has convinced him that we can carry this out without paying a horrible price?”

“Hsst! Lower your voice, Henrik.” Coetzee somehow looked suddenly older.

He glanced quickly to either side, making sure that no other officers were in earshot.

“Do you remember Duncan Grant, Andries van Rensburg, or

Jan Kriel?”

Kruger nodded slowly, taken aback by Coetzee’s sudden fear. He knew all three of them well. An image of big, black bearded van Rensburg leading his men in a madcap charge against a Cuban machinegun position inside

Angola popped into his mind. Now there was a soldier with guts. And the other two were equally brave and equally competent officers.

Kruger scanned the auditorium again, checking faces more carefully.

“I’m surprised they’re not here today.”

Coetzee looked grim.

“They’re gone, Henrik. Forced out of the Army. Along with several others.”

“Good God!”

Heads turned to look in their direction and Kruger spoke more softly.

“What the hell for? Those three were some of the best men we had. And with this craziness coming up”he shook the black binder outlining

Operation Nimrod’we’re going to need every experienced combat leader we can find.”

“True.” Coetzee’s voice was flat, apparently drained of all feeling. Only the closest of his friends could possibly have recognized the contempt dripping from every word.

“But it seems that Grant, van Rensburg, and

Kriel each made the mistake of voicing their concerns about this plan concocted by the President and General de Wet.”

“So?” Kruger was puzzled. The SADF’s officer corps

prided itself on its professionalism and honesty. It had never been known as a haven for boot lickers-despite the occasional fool such as de Wet.

Now it was Coetzee’s turn to look surprised.

“My God, Henrik. You have been out in the field for too long a time, man. Things have changed since

Haymans’s death… and not for the better, either. Anybody who doesn’t click his heels and mouth the right slogans gets labeled a ‘defeatist malcontent’ and shoved into early retirement.

“So if you want to keep your battalion, you’d best keep your head down, your mouth shut, soldier on, and hope the voters throw this gang out soon. After all, we still have our duty, right? They can’t take that away from you unless you let them. Kloar?”

Kruger nodded, not sure that he could easily follow Coetzee’s well-intended advice. Keeping quiet had never been one of his strong points. How long could an honorable man serve a government that treated brave men such as van Rensburg and the others so shabbily? Or carry out national security policies so unlikely to serve the long-term interests of the nation?

General de Wet’s precise, perfectly modulated voice broke into his internal debate.

“I hope all of you have taken the time to page through this operations order.”

Heads nodded around the crowded auditorium.

“Good. Then we can move on to the details.” De Wet flipped to the next page of his prepared text and looked up at his assembled officers.

“I

shall not bother to bore you with the higher strategy behind this decision. I believe that Nimrod’s basic outline is as clear as it is bold.”

The general smiled thinly.

“Indeed, gentlemen, we are fortunate to serve a president and cabinet so versed in military matters and so dedicated to the survival of our nation. “

Kruger noticed with some interest that fewer heads nodded this time.

Evidently, some of the other officers hadn’t been swept up by the prevailing determination to “get along by going along—no matter what the cost and no matter how idiotic the policy. Perhaps there was some hope left for the Army.

Despite his doubts, Kruger paid close attention as de Wet began outlining specific assignments, objectives, and timetables. Coetzee was right.

Whatever he might think of the direction being taken by Vorster’s government, he was still a soldier with a sworn duty to obey legitimate orders issued by South Africa’s legitimate rulers. There would be time enough later to debate the rights or wrongs of this Operation Nimrod. For the next several weeks he and his fellow commanders would have their hands full just trying to make sure their men were ready for battle.

He only hoped that Pretoria’s shortsighted desire for vengeance against little Namibia wouldn’t cost too many of them their lives.

JULY 30-IN THE NORTHERN TRANSVAAL, NEAR

PIETERSBURG

The stars were out in force-shining cold and sharp through the high veld’s dry, thin air.

Torches guttered from metal stands scattered around the brick-lined patio, creating a curiously medieval atmosphere. Acrid tobacco smoke rose from half a dozen burning cigarettes and mingled with the aroma of slowly roasting meat. Small groups of casually dressed middle-aged men clustered around the central barbecue pit. Their low, guttural voices and occasional hard-edged laughter carried far through the still, silent night.

Emily van der Heijden frowned as she leaned over the tiled kitchen countertop, filling glasses with soft drinks and lemon flavored mineral water. Even as a child, she’d thought her father’s friends were a rather dull, coarse, and unthinking bunch. Nothing in the snatches of conversation she heard drifting up from the patio changed that impression.

She’d already heard enough to make her ill. These men, most of them now high-ranking government officials, seemed callous almost beyond belief.

Contemptible words such as kaffir rolled too easily off their tongues as they casually discussed the desirability of “shooting a few thousand more of

the most troublesome black-assed bastards to cow the rest.” All had nodded sagely at the idea. One had even gone so far as to claim that “there’s nothing the black man respects more than a firm hand and a touch of the whip.”

Emily paled with anger and slammed the glass she’d just filled down hard on a circular serving tray. Liquid slopped over the edge and stained her sleeve and white, full-length apron.

“Here now, mevrou. You’d better calm down and wipe that ugly sneer off your face before you embarrass your poor father. You wouldn’t want to do that, would you?” Malice edged every word.

Angrier still, Emily turned her head to look at the dour old woman standing beside her at the counter. Tall and stick-thin beneath her shapeless black dress, Beatfix Viljoen had been her father’s devoted housekeeper for as long as Emily could remember. And the two women had been enemies for every hour of every day of that time.

Emily despised the domineering older woman’s ceaseless efforts to make her into a “proper” Afrikaner woman-a woman concerned only with the wishes of her husband, the health of her children, and the written, inflexible word of God. In turn, the housekeeper resented Emily’s ability to go her own way, unbound by convention or propriety.

Their dealings over the years had been a series of cold, calculating, and venomous confrontations-exchanges wholly unmarked by any warmth or friendly feeling. As her widowed father’s only child, Emily had generally come out ahead in these skirmishes.

All that had changed since her frantic phone call to get Ian out of jail and her enforced return home. Marius van der Heijden had been bitterly angry about his daughter’s “sinful” liaison with the American reporter-someone he referred to only as “that godless and immoral

Uitlander.” Emily still wasn’t sure which angered him more: her involvement with Ian, or the possibility that it could be used against him by one of his political rivals. It scarcely mattered. The hard fact was that his anger had put Beatfix Viljoen in the catbird seat.

It wasn’t something the housekeeper ever let her forget.

“Well, mevrou? Am I not right?”

Emily saw the eager look in the other woman’s eyes and bit down the ill-tempered reply she’d been about to make. Quarreling with Beatrix wouldn’t help her escape this trap she’d put herself in to save Ian.

Instead, she quietly picked up her loaded tray, turned, and walked out onto the dim, torchlit patio.

Silently fuming, she orbited through the separate groups of men-stopping only to allow them to pluck drinks off the tray she held in both hands.

As always, their ability to ignore her was infuriating. Oh, they were courteous enough in a ponderous, patronizing way. But none of them bothered to hide their view of her as nothing more than a woman-as a member of the sex ordained by God for marriage, child rearing housework, and nothing more.

She stopped circling and stood beneath the fragrant, sweeping branches of an acacia tree planted long ago by her grandfather. Her tray held more empty than full glasses, but she was reluctant to leave the patio’s relative quiet. Going back to the kitchen meant enduring another verbal slashing from Beaxtrix’s knife-sharp tongue.

Emily took a deep breath of the fresh, cool night air, seeking refuge in the peaceful vista spreading outward from the torchlit patio. It was the one part of the Transvaal that she had missed in Cape Town. Her father’s farmhouse sat on the brow of a low hill overlooking a shallow, open valley. Gentle, grassy slopes rolled down to a meandering, treelined stream-brimming during the summer rains, but dry now. Happier memories of her carefree childhood rose in Emily’s mind, washing away some of the frustrations and tension of the present.

“I tell you, man, the leader is a genius. Practically a prophet touched by God himself.”

“You speak true, Piet.”

Emily stiffened. The voices were coming from the other side of the tree.

Damn them! Was there nowhere she could go to find a moment’s peace? She stayed still, hidden from

view by the acacia’s low, overhanging branches-hoping the two men, whoever they were, would wander off as quickly as they’d apparently come.

Cigarette smoke curled around the tree.

“You remember the bra ai at his home last month? Two weeks before those kaffir swine killed Haymans and his own pack of traitors?”

The other man laughed.

“Of course, I do. I tell you, Piet, at first I thought the leader had been smoking some of his field hands’ dagga.

Telling us to be ready for great change, for our days of power, and all that. But now I see that he was inspired, given the gift of foretelling like our own modern-day Solomon.”

Emily’s stomach churned. Karl Vorster … a prophet? The very thought seemed blasphemous. But could there be a horrifying truth behind the two men’s sanctimonious ranting? Just as the symptoms of a deadly illness could be cloaked by those of another, less serious disease? Until now, she’d viewed Vorster’s rise to power as simply the grotesque side effect of the ANC’s triggerhappy attack on the Blue Train. But perhaps that was too simple a view. Had Vorster known of the ambush in advance?

My God, Emily thought, dazed. If that was true … the events of the past several weeks flickered through her mind -each taking on a newer, more sinister significance. The swift retribution for the train attack.

Vorster’s meteoric assumption of power. The immediate proclamation of various emergency decrees and punitive measures against South Africa’s blacks-measures that could only have been drafted days or weeks before news of the Blue Train ambush reached Pretoria. It all fit. She tasted something salty in her mouth and realized suddenly that she’d bitten her own lip without being aware of it.

The first man spoke again, quieter this time so that Emily had to strain to make out his words.

“Only one thing troubles me, Hennie. I cannot bring myself to trust all of those our leader allows around himself.

Especially… “

“That pretty boy Muller?” the other finished for him.

“Va. That one will be trouble for us all, you mark my words, Hennie.”

Light flared around the tree trunk for a split second as the other man struck a match and touched it to a new cigarette.

“Also true, Piet. And van der Heijden agrees with us. But what can we do about it? So long as

Muller does the dirty work, he’ll have the leader’s ear and confidence.

After all, no man throws away an ax that’s still sharp.”

“Then we must sharpen our own axes, my friend. And I know just the neck

I’d like to use them on….”

Their voices faded as the two men sidled away from the tree, returning to the larger group standing around the open air barbecue pit.

After they’d gone, Emily stayed motionless for several minutes, lost in thought. Muller … the name was familiar. She’d heard it pronounced contemptuously by her father. And also by Ian. But who was this Muller?

Clearly some kind of official in Vorster’s old Ministry of Law and Order.

An official disliked by his peers and apparently heavily involved in

Vorster’s “dirty work.” Just the kind of man who would know whether or not Vorster had had advance warning of the ANC’s plans to attack the Blue

Train.

Her hands closed tighter around the tray. She had to find some way to get word of what she suspected to Ian. He would know how to turn the fragments she’d gathered into a coherent, supportable news report. Her heart pounded with excitement. Why, this could turn out to be the big break Ian had been searching for so desperately. If it could be proved, such a story was bound to create the biggest news flash in South Africa’s recent history.

Her excitement grew as she realized that it could have even more far-reaching consequences-political consequences. Few things were more abhorrent to Afrikaners than treachery. So how would her fellow countrymen react to the discovery that their new president was nothing more than a black hearted back stabber

Emily scarcely noticed when Beatrix Viljoen tracked her down under the acacia tree and dragged her back to the kitchen.