Vortex

CHAPTER 16 Full Exposure

OCTOBER 12-WOMEN’S STAFF CANTEEN, MINISTRY OF LAW AND ORDER, PRETORIA

In a desperate attempt to ward off utter boredom, Emily van der Heijden risked another glance away from the young woman chattering amiably at her from across the table. Unfortunately, her surroundings did nothing to dispel the growing feeling that she was trapped in a place where boredom reigned supreme and idle gossip passed for thoughtful conversation.

Certainly, the architects and interior decorators who’d crafted the

Ministry’s women’s dining area had created a masterpiece of drab institutionalism. Fading off-white walls matched the canteen’s fading black-and-white checkerboard pattern tile floor. Narrow, unwashed windows opened out onto a small interior courtyard long since converted into a parking lot. The dresses worn by the forty or so women still eating lunch provided the only touch of color-and little enough of that. Most of the secretaries, typists, and other

clerical workers clustered around identical, government-issue aluminum tables seemed content with plain white blouses and black or gray knee-length skirts. It was like staring at the bureaucratic soul made flesh.

“Really, Miss van der Heijden, I’m so glad you asked me to sit with you.

It’s such an honor. I mean, imagine me Irene Roussouw-taking lunch with the deputy minister’s own daughter. It’s fantastic!”

Emily forced her wavering attention back on track. She smiled sweetly at the young, red-haired woman in front of her.

“Come now, Irene. None of that “Miss van der Heijden’ nonsense. You’ll make me feel old! My name’s

Emily, remember?” She hoped her real feelings weren’t showing. Flattery was bad enough, but to be flattered and fawned over simply because she was her father’s daughter was infinitely worse!

“Oh, yes, certainly… Emily.” Roussouw still sounded breathless, exactly like one of those giddy, vacant-minded schoolgirls she’d always avoided whenever possible.

But it wasn’t always possible, Emily reminded herself. She, Ian, and Sam

Knowles were playing for high stakes now-stakes that made pretty but petty idiots such as this Roussouw woman worth tolerating.

She nodded.

“That’s the way, Irene. After all, we should be friends, right? Since we may wind up working together here?”

Roussouw looked puzzled.

“But I don’t understand Emily. Why should you need to work at all?”

Emily gritted her teeth and hid her irritation by taking a sip of the iced mineral water in front of her. Her smile was back when she looked up again.

“Oh, I don’t need to work. But it’s… well, it’s a sacrifice I feel I should make.”

Roussouw nodded, her bright blue eyes openly admiring.

Now for the hard part, Emily thought. She leaned forward and lowered her voice conspiratorily.

“And besides, I didn’t think it was fair for the rest of you girls to have all these eligible young men all to yourselves.”

“The other woman leaned forward herself, lowering her own voice to match

Emily’s soft, secretive tone.

“Ah, if only it were true, Emily. There aren’t too many prize catches left here. Most of the best have gone off to war. Off to risk their lives for us, and for the fatherland, of course.” She sighed theatrically.

Emily winced inwardly. She suspected that Irene Roussouw’s ideas of patriotism came straight out of trashy romance novels. She arched an eyebrow.

“Come now. They can’t all have gone. There must be a few handsome young fellows left to fight over, true?” She tapped a finger gently on the table’s plastic surface.

“What about this Major Karlsen I hear so much about? Isn’t he the one you work for?”

“Oh, no, Emily!” Roussouw shook her head, laughing.

“Major Karlsen is a nice man, I’m sure… but I don’t work for him. I’m the personal secretary for the director. ” She looked quickly to either side before continuing proudly, “For Erik Muller. Have you heard of him? He’s in charge of special operations.” The way she said it made it clear that she had very little idea of exactly what Muller’s “special operations” entailed.

Emily pretended to be surprised.

“Erik Muller? You work for him?” She wagged a finger in Roussouw’s face.

“So now I know you were holding out on me! Why, I’ve heard that he’s very handsome … and very much a bachelor.”

The other young woman blushed.

“Well, he is quite good-looking.” She seemed strangely uncertain.

“But I think he must be one of those men who are married to their work, you know? He never seems interested… “

Her voice faded away as she blushed further, embarrassed at having admitted her evident failure to attract her superior.

Emily changed her tack.

“Well, I’m sure it’s simply that he’s so busy.

Believe me, I know what these government officials are like-my father, for instance. Work, work, and more work. That’s all they care about!”

“Yes, exactly!” Emboldened by Emily’s evident sympathy, Roussouw had recovered her equilibrium. She leaned closer still.

“Why if it weren’t for his little trips, I’d think Meneer Muller was a completely cold fish.

Like a priest, eh?”

Some instinct warned Emily to conceal her curiosity.

“Trips? Oh, hunting and hiking jaunts, I suppose. ” She waved them away as unimportant.

“No, no. Not hiking!” Roussouw shook her head impatiently. Her voice dropped even further until she was speaking just above a whisper.

“The director goes to Sun City from time to time! I should know-I’m the one who makes all his arrangements and reservations!”

Sun City? This time Emily didn’t have to pretend to be surprised. Sun City was a resort town about a two-hour drive away from Johannesburg and

Pretoria-inside the nominally independent tribal homeland of

Bophuthatswana. The homeland’s black rulers had outlawed apartheid and rescinded many of the blue laws that still marked South Africa. As a result, Sun City was famous, or infamous, for its mixed-race casinos, hotels, and pornographic entertainments.

Certainly, it seemed the last place on earth that a high ranking official in

Karl Vorster’s regime would want to visit. Unless…

My God! It was the perfect place for a covert rendezvous -assuming that their theory about a double agent inside the ANC was correct. Blacks could mingle freely with whites without arousing suspicion. Crowds were constant.

And there were few police or security agents to elude. Muller and his agent could meet there in absolute safety.

She shook her head decisively.

“Sun City? No, I can’t believe it. No one in his position would risk such a sinful thing. “

Irene Roussouw wrinkled her face up, obviously irritated at not being believed.

“I tell you it’s true! He’s going again in less than a fortnight.

I’ve made the hotel reservations to prove it! A Saturday night at the

Cascades no less!”

A Saturday less than a fortnight away? That meant the weekend of the twenty-second. They had ten days to prepare. The twenty-second. Something about that date rang a bell in the back of her mind. What was it? Emily suppressed the thought for the moment. She had more important matters to pursue.

“Perhaps he’s going there on some kind of government business?”

Roussouw chewed her lower lip. Clearly, she’d never considered that possibility before. Finally, she shook her head -tossing her thick mane of red hair back over her shoulder.

“Hah! That’s just his excuse. He’s really going there for the cards and the liquor… and maybe even those filthy movies people say they show there.” She sat back primly, folding her arms. “it is a good thing that I am loyal to him. I tell you, if I weren’t, I could get him in some kind of trouble and that’s for sure.”

Emily coughed, choking back a strained laugh. Irene Roussouw couldn’t possibly have the faintest idea of the kind of man she was working for.

Muller was a murderer and a traitor. He’d sooner kill the pretty young woman than try to explain away any imaginary peccadilloes.

She’d better pull the conversation away from Erik Muller and onto safer ground. What Irene Roussouw needed was the chance to fill her head with catty gossip. She shrugged.

“Well, if Meneer Muller is out of consideration, what about Jan du To it? He’s unmarried, isn’t he?”

The other young woman laughed softly and shook her own finger back and forth.

“Oh, no, Emily. Jan du Toit isn’t suitable at all. You see, I’ve heard… “

Emily leaned closer, a bright, interested expression plastered across her face as she prepared to exercise the twin virtues of patience and politeness. Inwardly, she exulted. She had it! She had the information

Ian needed. She had the clue that could lead them to the truth-the truth about the Blue Train massacre and Karl Vorster’s treachery. His exposure would mean at least his downfall, and maybe that of the entire government. No Afrikaner would be able to accept his authority.

OCTOBER 13-JOHANNESBURG

Johannesburg’s towering steel-and-glass skyscrapers stood outlined in the pale glow of a new-risen moon. No lights gleamed behind any of their several thousand windows. Power cuts and nightly curfews were fast becoming a fact of life under the Vorster regime.

fan Sheffield turned away from the window and looked carefully at Emily van der Heijden and Sam Knowles as they sat uncomfortably at opposite ends of his sofa. The three of them probably seemed a most unlikely group of conspirators, he thought. One would-be journalist who hadn’t managed to get a single meaningful story on the air for months. One cameraman and technician shorter than his own gear if it were piled end on end. And a single, beautiful woman who probably had far more to lose than either

Knowles or him if things went wrong.

He moved to a chair across from the sofa. They waited for him to speak.

He paused, trying to find the right words.

“I think we’d better take stock of exactly where we stand with this thing. To decide whether we should press on, or whether we should drop the whole damned business right here before we get in too deep.”

Knowles looked puzzled.

“Whattya mean, boyo? Why even think about giving up? Hell, we know what we’re looking for now and we know who’s got it.

I say we go ahead and nail the bastard. Nothing could be simpler.”

“It’s not quite that simple.” Emily shook her head slowly, her eyes fixed on Ian’s somber face.

“What he is saying is that up till now we’ve simply been engaged in a kind of academic game-a paper chase, I think you would call it? But the moment we step closer to Erik Muller, we step across the line into reality. “

“So?” Knowles shrugged.

“So someone could get plenty pissed off at what we’re trying to do-somebody who just might decide we’re better off dead,” Ian said, irritated. Sam Knowles wasn’t usually so willfully stupid.

Knowles smiled broadly, letting Ian know that he’d walked into one of the shorter man’s traps.

“No shit, Sherlock. ” He turned serious.

“Look, Ian, we’re tracking big game here . I . maybe a whole gang of murdering creeps, from this Vorster guy on down. Stands to reason that’s kind of a dangerous proposition. But it comes with the turf.”

The cameraman shrugged again.

“Sure, if we screw up, we could wind up dead or in jail. If I’d wanted to play life perfectly safe I’d have listened to my dear old mom and become an accountant.”

Knowles ran out of breath and sat back, coloring a little under their astonished gaze. Neither Emily or Ian had ever heard him say so much at a single sitting.

“Anyway, I’ve blabbered enough. I say we go.”

Ian nodded and turned to Emily. She was his main concern. He and Knowles could look after themselves. And as the shorter man had said, this was the kind of job they’d signed on to do. But Emily was different. She wasn’t getting paid to risk her neck for the news. Besides, she meant too much to him to risk losing in some damn fool race for a scoop.

Emily must have seen the thought on his face because she frowned.

“I say we go, too. And I will go with you.”

He shook his head.

“Sam and I can take it from here, Em. You’ve put us on the right track, and now…”

“Now, what? Now you leave me behind like some sort of porcelain doll-too pretty and fragile for real work? Is that what you mean, Ian Sheffield?”

Her eyes flashed dangerously.

Ian winced. Emily had always warned him that she had a sharp temper, but he’d never seen it aimed at him until now. The trouble was that she was pretty much on target.

“This is my country. These are my people, the people of my blood. One of them is my father.” Emily’s anger faded into sadness.

“I must be a part of this, Ian. Do you understand? Please?”

She smiled crookedly-a smile that contrasted strangely with the tears brimming in her eyes.

“Besides, I know where you’re going. So even if you refuse to let me come with you, I will still follow. “

“She’s got a point,” Knowles interrupted.

“I’d say Miss van der Heijden’s in on this little jaunt no matter what you say.” He grinned. Emily appeared to have gone up several notches in his estimation.

Ian shook his head helplessly.

“All right already, I give up. We’re all in. And God help us all, because nobody else will!”

Knowles and Emily exchanged knowing looks that made

him wonder just how long they’d rehearsed their little speeches. They must have known that he’d try to give them an out. Was he really that predictable?

Maybe it was better not to know. Ian pulled his chair closer to the coffee table.

“So have either of you two geniuses given any thought to how we go about catching Muller and our hypothetical ANC traitor in the act?”

Both of them looked blank. Good. At least he was ahead in something for a change.

Emily chewed at her lower lip.

“I thought we’d follow Muller to Sun City and see whom he meets . Her voice trailed off as she saw Ian shaking his head.

“Wouldn’t work, I’m afraid. Muller’s a professional intelligence guy. He’d be sure to spot us following him.” Ian drummed his fingers lightly on the glass coffee tabletop.

“Besides, we’d never get a camera close enough to them to shoot some usable footage. And that’s the whole point of this exercise. “

“What are you saying, then? That we cannot succeed?” Emily sounded frustrated. Sam Knowles looked thoughtful.

“Nope.” Ian laced his fingers behind his neck and spoke with elaborate casualness.

“I’m saying we don’t need to follow Meneer Muller at all. We already know exactly where he’s going. All we’ve got to do is be there well ahead of him. Get it?”

Understanding dawned on Knowles’s face.

“Yeah. Sound and Sight R Us. No problem.”

“Well, I don’t get it!” Emily stared from one to the other.

Ian explained.

Emily sat silently for a moment, clearly mulling over concepts and technologies she’d never before contemplated. Finally, she looked up.

“If you say this is possible, then it must be so. But what of all the equipment you’ll need? Do you have such things here in South Africa?”

Knowles glanced up from a piece of scrap paper he’d filled with hastily scribbled notes.

“Not all of it. But I know where I can lay my hands on the stuff we don’t have.” He turned to Ian.

“I’ll have to have a few items

FedExed over from the States through London. It’s gonna cost an arm and a leg… “

Ian shrugged.

“So we expense it! If this works, nobody’ll begrudge a penny. If it doesn’t, the network can bill our respective estates, right?”

Knowles showed his teeth.

“I like the way you think, boss man.” Then he frowned.

“That still leaves us with one pretty big problem.”

Ian nodded.

“Sibena.”

He’d been giving the problem posed by their full-time driver and part-time police informant a lot of thought. Even if the young black man was cooperating with the South African security services against his will, they still had to find a way to shock him into working with them-and not against them.

“Uh-huh. How are we gonna make a move on this Muller goon with Matt still on our tail?” The cameraman’s frown grew deeper.

“Shit, all he’s gotta do is make one lousy phone call to the bad guys and we’re toast!”

“Too true. But I’ve got a couple of ideas about how to get a handle on our friend, Matthew Sibena.” Ian bent forward over the coffee table and added two more pieces of electronic gear to Knowles’s scribbled list.

Then he drew a quick sketch.

The cameraman pursed his lips in a soundless whistle.

“You sure you’ve never thought about working for the CIA, boyo? You’re just the kind of devious son of a bitch I hear they’re looking for.”

Ian looked back and forth from Knowles to Emily and then laughed.

“Maybe

I am. But I guess that makes us a matched threesome, right?”

At least they had the grace to blush.

OCTOBER 18-NEAR THE HILL BROW HOSPITAL FOR BLACKS, JOHANNESBURG

Johannesburg lay smothered in a dull yellow-brown pall of auto exhaust

and industrial fumes. The smog had been building up for days, trapped by a ridge of high pressure that shoved any wind to the north or south.

Ian Sheffield sat staring out the backseat window as Matthew Siberia drove down Edith Cavell Street, careful to stay, as always, well within the posted speed limit. The young black man had insisted on locking all the Ford Escort’s doors before venturing into the Hillbrow district, and it was easy to see the reasons for his caution.

Though officially a white residential area, Hillbrow had long been a bustling multiracial neighbor hoW-full of trendy cafes, inexpensive apartment buildings, and late-night jazz clubs. But time and the Vorster regime’s return to strict apartheid had not been kind to the area. Now the district’s cracked sidewalks, trash-filled alleys, and boarded-up windows stood in stark contrast to the walled mansions, swimming pools, and flowering gardens of the rich white suburbs north of Johannesburg.

Though it was broad daylight, few people were on the streets. Most were at work, in the government’s crowded detention camps, or staying close to their illegally occupied flats. And some of those who dared to venture out shook angry fists or spat contemptuously at the sight of white faces inside the Escort.

Siberia shook his head nervously.

“I’m telling you, Meneer Ian, this is a bad place, a dangerous place. Surely you and Sam could find another area to take your pictures today?”

Ian leaned forward.

“Don’t sweat it, Matt. We’ll be okay. But we got the word through the grapevine that there might be some kind of illegal demonstration at the hospital here. That’s too good to pass up, right,

Sam?”

Knowles winked back and then nudged him, pointing out a graffiti-smeared phone booth a few yards ahead,

Ian nodded. It was time to activate their plan. He could feet his heart starting to race. A lot depended on what happened in the next few minutes. If they couldn’t turn Siberia against his masters, they’d have to abandon all hope of nailing Erik Muller.

Ian tapped Siberia on the shoulder.

“Pull in right here, Matt. Sam and

I can walk the rest of the way. We’ll take a few back alleys to avoid the cops.”

They popped the doors open as the Escort coasted into the curb and stopped.

Ian shrugged into his favorite on-camera blazer as Knowles pulled his gear off the backseat and out of the trunk. Then he waited while Knowles bent low one final time, fiddled with something out of sight inside the trunk, and slammed the lid shut.

The little cameraman nodded once. They were ready.

Ian leaned in through the driver’s side window.

“Just take it easy while we’re gone, Matt. We’ll be back in a jiff .

“

He ignored the stricken look on the man’s face and headed toward the phone booth, fingering his pockets as though looking for change. Knowles followed him with the Minicam and sound gear slung over his shoulder,

Once inside the phone booth, Ian waited until Sam stopped behind him—blocking most of Sibena’s view. Then he picked up the receiver and hurriedly unscrewed the mouthpiece. A small metal disk lay nestled loosely inside-the microphone disk that ordinarily transformed sound waves into electrical impulses for transmission over the phone lines. He tapped it out into his cupped palm and slipped it into one of his jacket pockets.

“C’mon, boyo. I can’t stand here looking like a barn door all day.”

Knowles’s mutter showed that he was just as nervous.

“Almost done.” Ian cradled the receiver between his ear and shoulder, pretending to make a call. He reached into another pocket and pulled out a microphone disk that looked very much like the one he’d just removed. But this disk had another, very special function built into its wafer-thin circuits. Over short distances, it worked like a miniature wireless transmitter. And any conversation over this telephone could now be picked up by the radio receiver and tape recorder hidden inside the Escort’s trunk.

Ian fitted the new disk into place and screwed the mouthpiece shut. Sweat trickled into his eyes and he wiped it off on his pants leg. Done.

He backed out of the phone booth and waved toward the car where Matthew

Sibena sat peering anxiously at them through the front windshield. Then Ian and Knowles moved

away down a nearby alley, skirting heaped piles of rotting garbage-walking fast until they were out of sight.

The alley opened up onto Klein Street beside a small, shabby Dutch Reformed

Church. Somebody had scrawled anti-Vorster slogans in white paint across its brown brick walls.

“This way.” Knowles pointed off to the right.

“There’s another alley leading back a few yards up.”

A minute later, Ian and his cameraman crouched near the side of a nightclub that had been raided and padlocked shut by the police. From their vantage point behind an overflowing Dumpster, they could just see the phone booth.

Matthew Siberia was in the booth, talking on the telephone and gesturing frantically while turning from side to side to see if they were on their way back.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Your cockeyed plan worked!” Knowles shook his head.

“He actually fell for it. Son, you’re a frigging cloak-and-dagger genius!”

“Yeah, sure.”

“There he goes!”

Ian risked another look. The phone booth was empty. Their driver was probably already back inside the car, waiting nervously for their return with that same helpful, friendly expression he always wore. Ian was staking a lot on the belief that much of Matthew Sibena’s desire to help was quite genuine.

Ian glanced down at Knowles.

“Okay, we’ll let him stew for another couple of minutes and then head back acting disgusted… like the whole trip was just one more wasted afternoon. Then I’ll pretend to make another call and switch the mike disks again. Right?”

The cameraman nodded.

“Cool.” He squatted down on his haunches behind the

Dumpster.

“So when are we going to spring our little tape on our pal over there?”

Ian squatted beside him, his forehead creased in thought.

“Later today. At the studio. I’ve got a few pieces of file footage I want to show Matt first-to put him in the right frame of mind, if you know what I mean.”

Knowles grinned suddenly and muttered something under his breath. Ian didn’t catch all of it-just the words “one devious son of a bitch.”

Matthew Siberia sat awkwardly on a folding metal chair, intently watching the images flickering across a video monitor. Scenes of carnage shot at peaceful demonstrations turned into riots. Scenes of whip-wielding South

African police and foam-flecked attack dogs. Clips of hate-filled passages from Karl Vorster’s speeches. Pictures of black-on-red swastika banners and chanting, roaring brownshirts. All flashing by at a lightning-quick tempo.

The videotape ended with a simple shot of a teenaged black girl running in panic from the police, blood streaming from a cut on her forehead. The camera zoomed in and focused on her anguished face and froze-locking the image in place until Ian got up and turned the VCR off.

He swung round and studied Sibena’s tear-streaked face carefully.

“Pretty horrible stuff, huh, Matt?”

The young black man coughed, wiped the tears off his face, and looked away.

“it is terrible, meneer. I wish it were not so.”

“You do?” Ian sounded surprised. He hit the VCR’s rewind button and pretended to watch the tape counter rolling back. His eyes, though, were really focused on Sibena’s reflection in the darkened TV monitor.

“Say,

Matt, did you ever join the ANC or any of the other antigovernment groups?”

The young man shook his head slowly from side to side without looking up from the floor.

“I was never political.” Emotion choked his voice.

“You must understand, meneer. Life in the townships is hard, impossibly hard.

It’s very difficult to find work to put food on the table.”

He looked down at his hands.

“I’ve never had time to work for freedom. And

I am ashamed of that.”

For an instant, Ian was tempted to drop the matter right there. Pushing

Sibena to the wall felt uncomfortably like bullying a handicapped child. As a white, middle-class American, Ian knew he’d never been subjected to even a tenth of

the subtle pressures and outright suffering inflicted on nonwhite South

Africans.

A glance at the tape recorder lying beside the VCR hardened his resolve.

Certain virtues had to be expected: honesty and loyalty to one’s friends, to name two. It was time to remind Matthew Sibena of that.

He cleared his throat.

“Matt?”

Sibena looked up.

“I’ve got one other thing I’d like you to listen to. Maybe you can explain it for me. Okay?”

The young black man nodded slowly, evidently unsure of just what the

American had in mind.

Ian pressed the playback switch on the tape recorder and stepped back, watching Siberia’s puzzled face as the first few seconds of static crackled faintly out of the recorder’s speakers.

Suddenly, a series of high-pitched beeps cut through the static-the sound of a six-digit number being punched in on a touch-tone phone.

The phone rang twice before it was answered. A harsh, grating voice came on the line.

“Monitoring station. Who is this?”

Ian actually saw the blood drain from Sibena’s face as the young black man heard his own voice answering, “Sibena. Four eight five.”

“Make your report, kaffir.”

“The American reporters are near Hillbrow Hospital, at the corner of

Cavell and Kapteijn. They’re here to see if the rumors of an illegal demonstration are true.”

A pause. Then the voice on the other end came back.

“We have no word of such a thing. Report back if such a protest is planned or if the

Americans take any interesting pictures. And do not fail us! You remember what is at stake, kaffir?”

Siberia’s recorded voice dropped to a strained whisper.

“I remember, baas. “

“See that you do.” The connection ended in a low buzzing hum.

Ian reached out and snapped the tape recorder off. Then he turned to look at Matthew Siberia.

The young black man sat crumpled in his chair, his face buried in his hands. Low moans and sobs emerged in time with his shaking shoulders. Ian felt sick.

He knelt beside Sibena.

“Why, Matt? Tell me why you’re working for these people. I know you hate them. So what hold do they have over you?”

Slowly, very slowly, Ian coaxed the whole story out between the young man’s tear-choked coughs.

Like the parents of most black children growing up in Soweto’s slums during the 1970s, Sibena’s father and mother hadn’t been able to keep paying the fees for his schooling. As a result, he’d gone to work just after turning fourteen taking mostly odd jobs whenever and wherever he could find them. Few lasted long or paid a living wage.

Then, as South Africa’s economy continued its long, slow slide toward collapse, Sibena found it increasingly difficult to get work of any sort.

He had few salable skills-the ability to drive a car, to read and write, and to run a cash register, nothing much more. And he was too small and too weak to be seriously considered for any job in the Witwatersrand gold mines outside Johannesburg.

Finally, out of money and down on his luck, he’d drifted into petty thievery. Nothing serious and certainly nothing violent. Just small burglaries of untenanted rooms in white run hotels or the glove compartments of parked cars. Sibena had existed that way for months—operating in the narrow fringe between legality and Soweto’s organized criminal gangs.

And then he’d been caught breaking into a locked car. But the Afrikaner officers who’d arrested him hadn’t taken him before a magistrate.

Instead, he’d been hauled into a police barracks, savagely beaten, and told to choose one of two unpalatable alternatives-either work for the security services as a paid informer, or be sent to the rock-breaking, man killing prison on Robben Island off South Africa’s coast.

To his eternal shame, Matthew Sibena had chosen the role of police spy.

Monitoring Ian and Knowles’s activities while serving as their driver had been his first and only assignment.

Ian rocked back on his heels, considering his next move.

Sibena’s story was an ugly one, but it was pretty much what he’d expected to hear. South Africa’s police forces weren’t famed for either their subtlety or their sensitivity.

“What will you do to me now that you know what I have done?” Sibena’s voice quavered.

Ian felt a sudden surge of anger toward the bastards who’d turned Sibena into the weak and fearful young man cowering before him. He shook his head impatiently, fighting to conceal his anger. The kid would only think it was aimed at him.

He looked Siberia squarely in the eyes.

“Nothing, Matt. We won’t do a thing to you.”

I “Truly?” I

Ian nodded.

“Truly.”

He paused, casting about for the best way to make his offer. Finally, he got up off his knees and pulled another folding chair over so that he could sit on the same level as Sibena.

“But I would like you to make a decision,

Matt, a difficult decision. The young man flinched. He’d heard white men offering him tough choices before.

Ian saw the panic in the other man’s eyes and shook his head.

“No, Matt.

This isn’t like what those goddamned cops put you through. Jesus, I hope that’s true, he thought.

Ian took a deep breath, unable to escape the feeling that he was about to bet his life savings on a single roll of the dice.

“All I want to do,

Matthew Sibena, is ask for your help-as one man to another.

“If you don’t want to do what I’m asking, just say so. Sam and I will drop what we’re planning and carry on as before-and you’re welcome to keep making your reports to the police.” He sat forward, keeping his eyes fixed on Sibena’s face.

“But I’ll tell you this much for now. I think we’re on the edge of a damn big story-a story that could blow the lid off this whole blasted country and tear the guts out of the Vorster government. Sibena stared at him without saying anything.

Ian lowered his voice until it was just above a whisper.

“We need your help, Matt. We need you to keep the security services off our backs while we ferret out the truth. ” He looked down at the floor and then back up.

“I won’t lie to you. I can’t promise you that we’ll succeed. I can’t promise you that even if we do it’ll really help make life better here in South Africa. And I sure as hell can’t promise you that we’ll be able to protect you from the police if things go wrong-or even if they go right.”

Silence. A silence that dragged on for what seemed like hours but couldn’t possibly have been more than seconds.

At last, Sibena sat up straight on his metal chair. His eyes were red rimmed, but they carried a new look of determination and of purpose.

“I

will try, meneer. God help me, for I am a weak man, but I will try.”

Ian held out his hand and waited until Sibena shook it tentatively at first and then with vigor. They were committed.

OCTOBER 22-THE CASCADES HOTEL, SUN CITY, BOPHUTHATSWANA

Sun City was surrounded by a vast expanse of the high veld -a barren plain of brown, withered grasslands, isolated groves of stunted scrub trees, and small, ramshackle villages. Bophuthatswana’s poverty made the sight of the resort town even more startling. It was an oasis of wealth, privilege, and pleasure in the midst of an arid, sun-baked wilderness.

The resort area’s hotel and casino complex rose around the paved shoreline of a sparkling, sky-blue artificial lake. Hundreds of picture windows gleamed in the summer sunlight-opening onto wide terraces full of greenery and purple-blossomed jacaranda trees. Outside the hotel, sprinkler systems swiveled to and fro, spraying a fine mist of fresh water over manicured lawns, towering palm trees, and an eighteen-hole golf course.

On the inside, though, the Cascades Hotel and Casino was abnormally quiet, almost lifeless. Most of the young South African men who normally frequented its slot machines, blackjack tables, and roulette wheels were off fighting in

Namibia, the Natal, or the country’s black townships. And there were few foreign tourists arriving to replace them during these troubled times.

Ian and Emily sat restlessly in a small bar adjacent to the hotel’s main lobby. Two untouched glasses of white wine warmed to room temperature on the table between them. With difficulty, Ian stopped himself from checking his watch for what seemed the thousandth time. Muller was already much later than they’d expected him to be. Had something gone wrong? Had the

South African security chief canceled or postponed his meeting?

Ian felt cold sweat beading on his forehead. They’d only have one opportunity to pull off a stunt like this, and if the Afrikaner intelligence man didn’t show tonight, they’d have to rethink everything from square one. He twisted around again to check the lobby. Nothing. No sign of the damned man.

In a brief puff of warm air, the automatic doors leading outside slid open and then closed behind a single lean, waspwaisted man carrying a tan overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Ian started suddenly. He’d studied the few available file photos long enough to recognize the narrow, arrogant face and pale blue eyes of South Africa’s director of military intelligence. Erik Muller had arrived.

The South African strode confidently across the lobby and stood waiting in front of the Cascades’ teak registration desk. Seconds later, the hotel’s main door slid open again and Sam Knowles ambled in and got in line behind

Muller-acting like any other travel-weary tourist eager for his chance at the swimming pool and gaming tables. The cameraman rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, shifted impatiently, looked at his watch, and then started whistling.

Ian held his breath as Muller turned round to look for the source of the disagreeable, off-key noise. Shut up, Sam, for God’s sake, shut up, Ian thought desperately. But the South African simply ran his cold, hard eyes over the shorter man, taking in Knowles’s open-collared green sports shirt, pleated plaid trousers, and white shoes. Then he scowled and turned back to the desk clerk to finish checking in-having evidently dismissed the American as nothing more than the annoying buffoon he appeared to be.

With a curt nod, Muller took his room key from the clerk, waved away the offer of a bellman’s services, and vanished in the direction of the elevators without looking back. Ian heaved a sigh of relief and waited while his cameraman finished registering and sauntered across the lobby into the bar.

Knowles plopped onto a chair next to Emily and across from Ian.

“The bugger signed in as Hans Meinert and they put him in Room three thirty-five.” Then he grinned, dangling an oversize room key from his hand.

“And we’re in three thirty-seven-right next door.”

Ian matched his grin.

“And just how the hell did you manage that?”

Knowles shrugged.

“The same way you get anything special in one of these swanky hotels-a kind word and a hundred-rand gratuity tucked in your registration card.”

Ian chuckled and took the room key out of Knowles’s outstretched hand.

Then he stood up to go. They were as ready as they could ever be.

Room 337 overlooked Sun City’s central artificial lake and swimming pool.

A handful of elderly couples strolled along the treelined edge of the lake, enjoying the cool early-evening air. Lights were coming on all over the quiet compound, triggered into action by the gathering darkness. It all seemed too peaceful to be part of the South Africa Ian had seen so much of over the past few months.

He turned and looked at the two very different men waiting inside the room with him. Matthew Sibena sat bolt upright in a chair facing a small writing desk, his face a rigid mask of nervousness and underlying fear.

Sam Knowles, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease-lounging carelessly on the room’s queen-size bed beside a closed soft-sided suitcase.

Knowles looked up from his paperback.

“You realize we’re gonna look mighty stupid if this ANC mole you’re expecting comes straight to

Muller’s room?”

Ian nodded without saying anything. That was a risk they’d

just have to take. Not that he believed there was much chance it would happen. Muller was too professional to bring a field agent to his hotel room without first making sure that the man hadn’t been followed. No, the odds were that the South African would leave his room to make the initial rendezvous returning only when he was certain it was safe. But Ian was betting that Muller’s main business with his mole would be transacted inside the hotel room itself. The casinos were too noisy and too public.

And the landscaped grounds outside were too quiet and too open for a clandestine meeting.

The sound of the door next to theirs opening and shutting brought them all to their feet. Muller was on his way. Ian moved to the phone and stood waiting, annoyed to find that his palms were damp. Seconds passed one by one, turning into minutes with agonizing slowness. Come on.

The phone rang. He grabbed it in mid ring

“Yes.”

“He’s outside. Walking toward the Entertainment Centre.” Emily sounded breathless-frightened and excited all at the same time.

“Great. You know what to do if you see him coming back?”

“Yes.” Emily’s voice fell to a low, husky whisper.

“Be careful. Please be very careful.”

Ian swallowed past a throat grown suddenly tight.

“We will, believe me.

And stay out of sight yourself… got it?”

He waited until he heard her murmured acknowledgment and then hung up.

Knowles and Siberia were already lined up by the door. Ian edged past them and opened it just a crack-just far enough to glance down the long, carpeted hallway in either direction. It was empty.

Four quick strides put him opposite the door to Room 335, with Siberia tagging along right behind. Suitcase in hand, Knowles followed more slowly, pausing to pull their own door shut.

Ian knocked once and listened carefully, hearing his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. Nothing from inside the room. He stepped back and let Sibena past. The young black man slipped a thick plastic card through the narrow gap between the door and the doodamb and worked it back and forth trying to force the lock. As he worked, his lips moved silently, either in prayer or in stifled curses.

Ian checked the corridor again, mentally willing Sibena to get the damned door open before somebody saw them. He wasn’t sure what the penalties were in Bophuthatswana for breaking and entering, and he didn’t want to find out the hard way.

Click. The sudden noise seemed horribly loud over the soft, hushed hum of the hotel’s air-conditioning. Siberia stuck the plastic card back in his pocket with a trembling hand and pushed in on the door, It moved, and they were in. Thank God.

Ian led the way into a room identical to their own. A large bed, writing table, lamps, a chest of drawers, television, telephone, and a private bath. All the comforts of modern civilization. Muller had closed his drapes, shutting out the view of the lake and landscaped grounds.

Naturally. The paranoid bastard was probably afraid that he might be seen and recognized.

Knowles moved immediately to the wall shared by their adjoining room. He stopped near the drape-cloaked window and started tapping along the wall, listening intently for the hollow sounds of an area free of supporting beams. Satisfied, he swung round and started panning around the room with his arms outstretched and hands held apart-mimicking the field of view available to a video camera.

“This’ll do.”

Ian handed him a small portable power drill from the suitcase.

Knowles thumbed the drill onto its highest setting and pressed the whining, spinning drill bit firmly against the wall. Fiberboard particles, sawdust, and fragments of insulation puffed out into the air and settled slowly onto the thick carpet. In seconds, the drill bored a tiny hole through the wall between their two rooms. A hole scarcely large enough to be seen, but just large enough to take a thin, flexible light tube hooked up to a VCR.

Ian glanced down at his watch. They’d been in the room for three minutes.

It hardly seemed possible. It felt more like three years.

Knowles backed the power drill out of the hole and moved along the wall, tapping again, this time closer to the door.

Ian raised an eyebrow.

“We need another lead into here?”

His cameraman nodded, still tapping away.

“Uh-huh. One thing you can always count on: if you’ve only got one camera angle, some dumb bastard’s sure to be facing the wrong damned way. Ah. There we go. ” He pulled his ear away and thumbed the drill on for a second time.

“This’ll give us coverage over the whole room. No blind spots except for the h .”

More shredded fiberboard and sawdust drifted onto the carpet. Ian tried to calm his nerves by concentrating on catching every bit of the debris with a small portable vacuum cleaner.

Five and a half minutes down. Sibena stood fidgeting near the bathroom, afraid to move and too nervous to stand completely still.

Ian squinted at the wall, trying to judge just how obvious their spy holes were. Not very, he decided. Even knowing exactly where they were, he had a hard time spotting them.

Finally, Knowles finished and stepped away from his handiwork.

“All set, boss man. ” He dropped the drill back inside his suitcase and zipped it shut.

“Terrific. ” Ian climbed to his feet, brushed a few stray particles of fiberboard off his knees, and headed for the door. Whoops. Idiot. He stopped so suddenly that both Knowles and Sibena cannoned into him.

“What the fu-” The little cameraman bit back the rest.

“Forgot to do something. ” Ian brushed past them and went straight to the queen-size bed. Working rapidly, he pulled the covers off the pillows on one side and tucked them back neatly. Then he scooped two foil-wrapped mint chocolates out of his shirt pocket and set them carefully on the top pillow.

It was Sam Knowles’s turn to look surprised.

“Emily’s idea.” Ian gestured toward the door.

“In case Muller had any telltales rigged to see if somebody came snooping when he was out. You know, hairs stuck in the door and that kind of stuff.”

Knowles smiled.

“So now all he’ll know is that the maid came in and turned down his bed for him. Cute. Real cute.” The smile grew into a full-fledged grin.

“It’s no wonder that you and this Miss van der Heijden make such a perfect couple, boyo. You’re both as sneaky as they come under those goody two-shoes exteriors. By God, it makes me proud to know you both.

“

Ian laughed softly and pushed him out the door.

“Save the bullshit for later, Sam. We’ve still got a lot of work to do before Muller gets back here with his little friend from the ANC. “

Half an hour later they were completely ready. Two video monitors flickered in opposite corners of their room-each showing a different view of Muller’s empty hotel room. And though the pictures coming back through the light tubes were grainy and dim, they were acceptable. Digital enhancement on the studio’s computer-imaging system could remove any blurring and brighten anything too dark to be clearly seen.

Without breaking back into Muller’s room, Knowles couldn’t do a sound check, but he was confident that they’d be able to pick up enough audio.

And if need be, the computer could be used to enhance voices, too.

Ian paced back and forth, glancing at the monitors from time to time.

They were set. Now where was Muller? Had he decided to hold his secret meeting somewhere else in Sun City after all?

The phone rang. He jumped over a tangle of cabling and picked it up on the second ting.

“Hello?”

Emily’s soft voice caressed his ear.

“He’s back. And he’s not alone.

There is a black man with him.”

Yes! Ian couldn’t hold back a small whoop of triumph. He’d guessed right.

“Wait until they’re in the elevator and then come on up. You won’t want to miss this.”

“I certainly don’t.” A faint trace of doubt warred with the joy in

Emily’s voice.

“But the other man seems awfully young to be someone of high rank in the ANC, Ian. “

He shrugged and then remembered she couldn’t see him.

“I’ve heard that some of their guerrillas start training as young as fourteen. And some of those kids throwing rocks in Soweto are even younger.

“Perhaps…” She paused and then came back on the line.

“They’re in the lift. I’m on my way.”

The phone went dead.

Ian turned to his companions.

“It’s showtime, guys.”

Knowles squatted by his equipment, hastily making one last check through slitted eyes. Siberia sat carefully in a chair facing the monitors, much calmer and obviously fascinated by the ease and assurance with which the

American handled his hightech gear.

Motion on one of the monitors caught Ian’s attention and he saw the door to

Muller’s room swing open. Muller himself entered, followed by a very short, very skinny black youth. Despite his earlier words to Emily, Ian was puzzled. Though it was tough to tell for sure from the flickering, grainy picture, Muller’s companion didn’t look as though he could possibly be more than sixteen or seventeen years old.

A light, hesitant tap on the door to their room brought him to his feet.

Emily came in through the half-opened door, gave him a quick kiss, and sat on the bed-all the while staring at the scene unfolding in the next room.

Ian joined her.

Muller could be seen standing near the chest of drawers, apparently counting out pieces of paper into the young black man’s outstretched hand.

Ian squinted at the wavering picture, trying to make out the details. Were those pieces of paper money? Probably. The Afrikaner must be paying for more information on the ANC’s operations.

But he didn’t like the expression on Muller’s narrow face-an odd mixture of contempt, self-loathing, and something even stranger. Something very strange indeed. Was it anticipation?

Apparently satisfied, the other man abruptly nodded and fumbled the thick wad of rand notes into his pants pockets. He muttered something indistinct.

Muller spoke for the first time.

“No words, kaffir!”

Shit. Ian leaned forward, suddenly anxious. Could the South African intelligence officer have spotted one of their camera leads after all?

He started to turn toward Knowles to ask … And Muller erupted into action, viciously smashing a clenched fist into the young black man’s stomach. As the kid doubled over in agony, the

Afrikaner followed up with a short, stabbing jab to the face. Other blows landed in rapid succession, driving the young man down onto the carpet in a crumpled, groaning heap. Blood spattered from his broken nose and cut lower lip.

For a second, Ian sat still, shocked into immobility. Then he was on his feet and moving toward the door. This wasn’t what he’d thought to see, and he’d be damned if they’d sit idly by and watch this murdering bastard

Muller beat some poor kid half to death. To hell with the reporter’s role as impartial observer! Sam Knowles was right behind him.

But Emily got there first and stood blocking the door. Her face was deathly pale but determined.

“Let me past, Em. ” Ian could feel the adrenaline roaring through his bloodstream.

“No.” She shook her head firmly.

“We’ve come too far to throw this chance away on a gallant whim. Trying to help that poor boy in there will only result in our deaths or imprisonment. You know that Muller is far more than a simple thug. We must follow your original plan.”

“And besides, the kid’s just a black anyway, is that it?” For the first time, Ian found himself wondering how much of the Afrikaner racial beliefs Emily had unconsciously absorbed.

She colored angrily.

“That is not fair, Ian Sheffield, and you know it!”

Knowles cleared his throat.

“I think she’s right, boyo. We’re playing for big stakes here. Bigger than what happens to any one person.”

Ian glowered from one to the other. Knowing that they were both right didn’t make it any easier to contemplate doing nothing as they watched

Muller indulge his private sadism.

“Oh, my God .” Matthew Siberia’s horrified whisper yanked their attention back to the scene still being played out on the video monitors.

The beating had stopped as suddenly as it had started. Now the young black man lay curled in a fetal position on the floor, moaning pitiably through a bruised throat. One eye was already swelling shut. And Muller, so full of rage a moment before, now knelt beside him, softly caressing his battered face!

Ian felt his stomach heave as the Afrikaner bent down and kissed the young black’s torn lips, smearing the other man’s blood over his own face. He felt cold. This couldn’t be happening!

Through ears that seemed stuffed full of cotton, he heard Emily muttering to herself.

“Of course, now I see it. The defrocked minister. Poor dead

Gabriel Tswane. October twenty-second. It all fits. This is like a ritual for him…. Oh, how ~tupid of me!”

Ian couldn’t look away from the monitors long enough to ask her what she meant. His image captured by both hidden cameras, Muller lifted the black teenager in his arms and carried him over to the bed. Then the Afrikaner stepped back and started unbuttoning his shirt.

God… Ian looked away, feeling sick. They’d failed. All their hard work and all their hopeful planning-all for nothing. No ANC mole. No truth about the Blue Train massacre. Nothing. Just a sordid, anonymous homosexual encounter. Just another (lead end.

He turned back to the monitors. Muller had all his clothes off now. He grimaced.

“Shut it down, Sam. We don’t need to see any more.”

“No. Leave the cameras on.”

Ian looked at Emily, astounded by the stern, grim note in her voice.

“C’mon,

Em. Why waste more time here? We can’t use this—he gestured toward the bodies writhing on the twin screens—this pornography.”

She shook her head stubbornly.

“Yes, we can. We must.

His face must have shown his confusion because she went on, “That man and his master, Vorster, knew of the ANC’s plans in advance. They must have! Nothing else could explain what has happened to my nation.”

“Agreed. ” Ian spread his hands.

“But how did they know? And how do we prove it?”

Emily stared off into space for a moment and then snapped her fingers.

“The attack on Gawamba!”

Gawamba? Of course! Ian felt his excitement returning, along with a healthy dose of humility. The truth had been sitting right there in front of him all the time. He’d known that the ANC base inside Zimbabwe had been an important command center-a place where guerrilla operations inside South Africa were planned and supervised. Precisely the kind of place where you’d expect to find documents describing upcoming missions-missions such as the scheduled attack on South Africa’s president and his cabinet.

And the South African paratroops who’d blown the shit out of Gawamba must have found those plans. Plans that had gone straight back to Erik Muller without passing through any of the normal SADF intelligence channels.

He frowned. The paratroops had to have removed the information without leaving a trace or else the ANC would simply have canceled the whole operation. Was that possible? He shook his head irritably. It must have been possible. Nothing else fit the facts.

But again, how could they prove it? Nobody in the world would believe the story without seeing some kind of evidence. And nobody connected with such treachery would ever dare admit it. He said as much to Emily.

She nodded toward the monitors.

“Erik Muller will prove it for us. I’m sure he has copies of those documents still. As insurance should Vorster find a new favorite. ” Contempt sharpened her words.

“So it is simple.

We will use these videotapes to force him to give us those documents.”

Blackmail. An ugly word and an uglier idea. He hadn’t become a journalist to twist people’s hidden weaknesses and vices against them. Catching Erik

Muller conferring with a South African spy inside the ANC leadership was one thing. Using the man’s strange sexual preferences against him was quite another. Ian stared at her.

Emily was implacable.

“I loathe the idea as much as you do, Ian. But it is what we must do. We have no choice.” For an instant, her selfcontrol slipped and her voice wavered.

“Please… my whole nation is being destroyed before my eyes. Thousands are already dead and thousands more will die. And all because of monsters like that!” She pointed a shaking finger toward the closest screen.

Her voice sank, failing to a soft, sad whisper.

“What choice do we truly have, Ian? We have been given a tool that could help put an end to all this madness. How can we refuse to use it?” Tears rolled down her cheeks.

“How can we? No matter how it taints our own souls with its evil.”

Without thinking, he reached out and took her in his arms, stroking her soft, sweet-smelling hair as she sobbed quietly. Over her shoulder, he saw the twinned images of Muller and his catamite writhing on the hotel bed.

She was right. They didn’t have any choice.

He stared grimly into the video monitors. Very well. They’d find out just how this bastard Erik Muller would react to the threat of having his secret sins laid out for all to see -to the threat of full exposure.