Vortex

CHAPTER 21 Flight

NOVEMBER 11 -- HEADQUARTERS, 20TH CAPE RIFLES, VOORTREKKER HEIGHTS MILITARY CAMP, NEAR PRETORIA

Furnace-white arc lights burned all along the perimeter of the Voortrekker

Heights Military Camp-stripping the night away from barren brown hillsides. No trees, clumps of brush, or even patches of tall grass remained either to soften the outlines of those rugged slopes or to conceal an approaching enemy. Together, the perimeter lights and the empty kill zones they fit made it impossible for anyone to mount a successful surprise attack on South Africa’s major military headquarters. But the dazzling glare also washed out any glimpse of cold, clear stars speckled across a pitch-black sky or the warm, golden glow of Pretoria’s streetlamps and cozy homes.

Commandant Henrik Kruger regretted that. Any reminder of life outside this sterile military encampment would have been welcome.

Since leaving the Namibian front more than a month be4”

fore, his battered battalion had been penned up among Voortrekker Heights’ drab, look-alike barracks, parade grounds, maintenance sheds, and vehicle parks. Some high-ranking nitwit in the Ministry of Defense had ordered all enlisted personnel and noncommissioned officers restricted to base.

He and his officers had stayed with them, determined not to let a piece of bureaucratic idiocy endanger bonds of trust and loyalty forged in combat. Still, he had to admit to himself that he also had other, more personal reasons for avoiding Pretoria or nearby Johannesburg.

He was afraid that even the sight of their bustling streets, shops, and restaurants might awaken painful memories of his brief, happy time with

Emily van der Heijden-memories that were three years old now. True, he’d known that their engagement was mostly her father’s idea, but he’d hoped that he could reconcile her to the thought of their marriage. In retrospect, it had been a foolish hope. The gaps between their ages, their politics, and their interests were simply too wide to be easily bridged.

Kruger smiled crookedly. He’d been alone and aloof for most of his adult life-content in the masculine, monastic world of the professional military. Given that, it was strange that he should have found the one woman of his heart, only to learn that she had no room in hers for him.

He gripped the wood railing of his veranda until his knuckles stood out white against the surrounding blackness. With an effort, he forced his mind away from lasting personal grief to professional concerns.

Such as this absurd decision to keep his battalion confined to

Voortrekker Heights. Vorster and his minions must fear that exposure to the political dissent and economic hardship sweeping the country might tempt their soldiers to commit treason or desert. So they’d denied his troops and the other weary combat veterans returning from Namibia promised home leaves, weekend passes, and any other opportunity to escape the rigid confines of a military life for even a short while.

Kruger relaxed his grip and flexed his aching fingers. Anybody brighter than a brain-dead Defense Ministry bureaucrat could have predicted the result. Weeks of bloody fighting followed by more weeks of mind-numbing routine-drill, calisthenics, drill, spit-and-polish inspections, and still more drill-had produced a battalion practically boiling over with resentment and barely suppressed rage.

More than a dozen of the 20this veterans were in punishment cells right now-locked up on charges ranging from simple insubordination to being drunk while on duty. Kruger shook his head angrily. He’d rather chance the desertion of a few men than watch this slow, steady disintegration of what had been a proud fighting unit.

As matters stood, the 20th Cape Rifles was now effectively a weaker battalion than it had been in Namibia. Citizen Force replacements were filtering in slowly, fleshing out skeletal companies and platoons to something near their authorized strength. Unfortunately, most of the reservists were short on needed training, experience, and esprit de corps.

Kruger frowned. His companies were also short of heavy weapons and vehicles. They’d left what remained of their old gear in Namibia to equip the battalion replacing them on the line. In return, his troops had been promised first pick of the new armored personnel carriers, mortars, and heavy machine guns that were supposed to be rolling off the ARMSCOR production lines. So far, at least, they’d had little to pick from. Strikes and skilled-labor shortages had cut production well below required levels.

And as a result, he had barely enough APCs to mount one of his three infantry companies. The other two could move only by truck or on foot.

The sound of guttural laughter emanating from the nearby bachelor officers’ quarters turned his worried frown into a scowl. Tanks, artillery, APCs, and antitank weapons might be in short supply-but not, it seemed, junior staff officers with strong political ties to the Vorster government. They’d arrived in eager, interfering droves.

So though the 20th was short of trained troops and weapons, it had a battalion staff bloated to a size more suitable to a brigade. Kruger didn’t have any illusions about why the Defense Ministry had seen fit to dump so many fanatics in his lap. They were there to keep tabs on him-to make sure

that he and the other officers didn’t lead their men into rebellion.

His scowl grew deeper. He didn’t mind their prying and spying so much.

He could cope with that. But the overabundance of inexperienced, inept, and arrogant Afrikaner officers was yet another source of friction in a battalion already rubbed raw.

“Vorster’s pets,” as they were known, tended to treat the 20this enlisted men-most born and raised in the Cape

Province-as nothing more than would-be traitors and renegades.

Well, perhaps that wasn’t too far off the mark, he thought wryly, remembering the news passed on by his friends inside the Ministry. It was incredible. Cape Town in flames and armed conflict spreading across the whole province like wildfire. Natal torn by guerrilla war, atrocity, and revenge. And antigovernment commandos roaming vast stretches of the

Transvaal and the Orange Free State virtually at will. Karl Vorster’s criminal stupidity and his illfated Namibian invasion had combined to tear South Africa to pieces in the space of a few short months.

He raised his eyes again, scanning the night sky above the low hills rising to the north for some sign of the city just beyond them. Nothing.

Only the glaring lights and the elongated, ugly shadows cast by armored cars patrolling the perimeter. But even at this distance, he could tell that several of the armored cars had their weapons turrets pointing inward-toward the base’s barracks and armories. He smiled sourly.

Vorster’s loyalists were taking few chances. And rightly so.

Kruger started to pace slowly up and down the darkened veranda. Many of his friends and fellow soldiers had already joined those rebelling against Pretoria’s authority. Soon it would be his turn. Very soon.

JOHANNESBURG

The unmarked police minivan sat on a narrow side street, wedged between a silver Astra and a dark blue Toyota pickup.

Two uniformed officers slouched in the front seat with their ties hanging loose and collar buttons unfastened. One, a big, beefy man with thinning, straw-colored hair, sipped moodily at a styrofoam cup half-full of lukewarm coffee. His partner, smaller and darker-haired, sighed briefly and stubbed his cigarette out in the door ashtray. Both men were silently cursing the trick of fate that had saddled them with such a worthless assignment.

“I tell you, man, this just proves that the captain’s got it in for you and me.” The big man gestured with his cup and frowned as a few drops sloshed out over the steering wheel.

“Some big deal, eh? We drive here.

We drive there. And then we sit like this for fucking hours. And all for what?”

He answered his own question.

“So some smart-ass lieutenant can come up and tell us to go drive somewhere else. That’s what for.”

The smaller policeman sat up sharply.

“Man, speak of the devil! There’s

Baumann now.” He unrolled his window as the much-younger police lieutenant, trim and self-assured in his blue-gray jacket, gray trousers, and peaked cap, appeared on the sidewalk beside them.

The lieutenant leaned in through the open window.

“This is the right place, boys. I’m sure of it. ” He tapped the list of addresses taped to a clipboard. More than half had already been crossed off.

“I spoke to several of the neighbors and there’s definitely somebody living there now. Lights on from time to time. Cooking smells. Trash dumped. All the signs of occupancy. “

The larger policeman frowned. He bent forward and checked the name written next to the address.

“Couldn’t it just be this Pakenharn bastard Lieutenant?”

For an instant the younger man flushed angrily. Then he controlled it and smiled silkily.

“Not possible, Kowie. The rooinek’s been on combat duty in Namibia for weeks. I checked this morning.”

The smaller policeman nudged his partner into silence with a bony elbow.

“That’s great, sir. Just great. ” He straightened up and checked his holstered pistol.

“Shall we pick him up right away?”

“I think so.” The lieutenant stepped back from the van and watched as they climbed out onto the pavement, moving awkwardly on legs cramped from sitting still for so long.

“From what I hear, Pretoria wants this fellow pretty badly.”

The bigger policeman rubbed thick fingers through his thinning yellow hair and shoved his uniform cap back into place.

“Right, Lieutenant, you can leave it to us, eh? We’ll winkle the pig out without any trouble at all. Isn’t that so, Arrie?”

His smaller partner nodded confidently while making sure his baton hung loose in its own holster. The man they were after wasn’t supposed to be anything special, but it never hurt to be prepared.

Inside Brian Pakenham’s borrowed apartment, the single lit table lamp cast a small circle of light over the man and woman entwined on a tattered sofa.

Ian Sheffield sat with one arm draped around Emily’s shoulders, reading the same mystery novel for what must be the seventh or eighth time in as many days. She murmured something unintelligible and squirmed deeper into his grasp -dozing lightly. He kissed the top of her head and turned the page with a practiced thumb, stifling a yawn. Damn it. As always, the main character had just walked straight past the story’s most crucial clue without noticing it.

He set the paperback down and tilted his head back against the sofa. It had been damned decent of Emily’s friend and former classmate to volunteer the use of his apartment, but he wished the guy had been a little more widely read. Five so-so mysteries, a travel guide, and three college-level political-science textbooks weren’t much of a library with which to while away the passing hours and days.

Emily was the lucky one. She could make occasional, lightning-fast trips outside to pick up supplies. He and Matthew Sibena were trapped in this tiny apartment-unable to so much as show their faces in public lest they be recognized and arrested. Every scrap of news Emily could pick up on her trips to the neighborhood market seemed to indicate that they were still at the top of South Africa’s Most Wanted list.

Soft snores drifting through the open door into the apartment only bedroom showed that Sibena had again taken refuge in deep, uninterrupted sleep. Ian felt the trace of a smile flicker across his face. Over the last two weeks, the young black man had astounded them by being able to sleep through anything and at any time. He could sleep through the noise of the morning rush hour, in the sweltering heat of a sun-lit afternoon, or even on a night that seemed far too quiet. It was a talent Ian often envied.

“Oh! ” Emily sat up suddenly, looking pale and frightened.

“Bad dream?” He gently stroked her shoulder.

She shook her head, puzzled.

“No, I do not think so.” She sat listening for a moment.

“I thought I heard something just now. Soft footsteps right outside the door.”

Ian cocked his head, listening for himself.

“I don’t know, Em, I don’t hear any th-“

A savage kick smashed the front door open and left it dangling from one set of bent hinges. For one terrifying second, Ian felt his heart stop beating. He sat frozen in shock.

“Police! Police! Nobody move! Nobody move!”

Men in blue-gray uniforms poured into the apartment from the outside hallway. Two charged past the sofa, splitting up and spreading out to search the other rooms. A third policeman slid to a stop in front of them, aiming a Browning Hi Power pistol very precisely at an imaginary point right between Ian’s eyes.

The barrel looked ten feet across.

“Do not even think to move, man, or I will blow your blery brains across the girl there.” The pistol didn’t waver.

“You are the American reporter,

Ian Sheffield?”

Still in shock, Ian nodded.

“Then I arrest you on charges of espionage and violation of the National

Emergency decrees.” The smug note of triumph in the man’s voice was unmistakable.

Ian flushed bright red, ashamed to have been caught so quickly and apparently so easily.

“Lieutenant!” One of the other policemen emerged from the bedroom, dragging Matthew Sibena along in an iron-fisted grip. The young black man looked dazed, frightened, and completely disoriented.

“Look what else

I’ve found!”

The officer arched a single finely sculpted eyebrow.

“A black?” He sneered at Ian and Emily.

“ANC, eh? Your controller, perhaps?”

Sibena twisted helplessly in the larger South African policeman’s locked arms.

“No! That’s not so! I’m not ANC, I swear it, baas. “

“Shut up, kaffir!” The police lieutenant still hadn’t lowered his gun.

“Well, American?”

Ian looked back and forth from Emily to Siberia to the pistol, thinking fast. Right now, the three of them didn’t have the slightest chance to wriggle out of this nightmarish situation. The police were too alert, too ready for trouble. The odds and ends of martial arts training he’d picked up for physical and mental exercise wouldn’t be of any use if they thought he might be dangerous. He needed to divert their attention away from him-to convince these policemen that they had him thoroughly cowed and under control.

He let his face crumple in abject terror and allowed a whining note to creep into his voice.

“That’s right. He’s an ANC guerrilla. The ANC was supposed to get us out of the country before any of this happened.”

Emily breathed in sharply suddenly, but stayed silent. Good girl, he thought. She knows me too well to think I’ve suddenly cracked.

He glared accusingly at Siberia’s stunned face.

“Your people failed us, comrade! And I’ll be damned if I’ll take the fall for them!” Watch it,

Ian, he told himself. No need to lay it on too thick.

“That’s enough. ” The lieutenant smiled in satisfaction.

“You can make a full confession later. In the meantime, just stay still and keep your mouth shut. “

Another policeman, smaller than the one holding Sibena, wandered back into the living room.

“All clear, Lieutenant. There’s nobody else here.”

“Good. ” The lieutenant waved Ian and Emily up from the sofa with his pistol.

They rose cautiously, with Ian’s right arm still wrapped around Emily’s shoulders. He could feel her shaking uncontrollably and squeezed gently with his right hand, trying to offer some assurance that all was not lost.

“Take these three to headquarters. I’ll stay here and look for documents.” The lieutenant holstered his pistol and stepped aside as the larger policeman hauled Sibena toward the door.

“And keep an eye on that kaffir! He’s probably had some kind of combat training.”

Ian hid a thin-lipped, humorless smile as he followed Emily out into the hallway with his hands up in the air. They had a small chance after all.

Maybe these two South African policemen weren’t going to be looking the right way at the right time.

MARKET STREET, NEAR JOHN VORSTER SQUARE, JOHANNESBURG

The police minivan wasn’t designed for comfort-just efficiency. The smaller of the two policeman sat behind the wheel, separated from his companion and their three prisoners by the front seat itself. His four passengers perched on fold down plastic benches that ran the length of each side of the vehicle.

Matthew Sibena sat on the right, immediately behind the driver, swaying uncomfortably from side to side as the minivan turned or changed lanes.

Steel handcuffs pinioned his wrists behind his back. The beefy policeman with thinning hair sat next to him, his gaze shifting periodically from

Sibena to Emily to Ian and back again. He cradled a pump-action shotgun in his lap.

Ian sat directly across from the guard, with Emily to his left. Like

Sibena, he was handcuffed, but the policemen had left her hands free. He wasn’t sure if that was because they viewed Emily as just a “helpless” woman or because of her father’s importance in the government. Whatever the reason, he didn’t plan to complain. Only the fact that she could still use her hands made any escape attempt even remotely feasible.

But so far no opportunity had presented itself. Traffic on Johannesburg’s streets was light at this time of night, and their driver was proving dangerously efficient. He’d managed to time every light perfectly-only having to slow gradually without ever coming to a complete stop.

Ian could feel ice-cold sweat beading on his forehead and soaking the shirt under his arms. He shivered. Time was running out.

In five or six minutes at the most, they’d be trapped inside Johannesburg’s heavily fortified police headquarters. And he didn’t have any illusions about the kind of treatment they’d receive at the government’s hands. Men who’d allowed their own countrymen and colleagues to be gunned down by terrorists wouldn’t show any mercy to a foreigner, a member of a despised race, and a woman accused of high treason. Under the circumstances, even

Emily’s father wouldn’t be able to save her. He was sure that their lives inside a South African interrogation center would, at best, be “nasty, brutish, and short.”

Christ. The very thought of Emily under torture was unbearable. He tensed, ready to spring even while the minivan was moving. Maybe it would be better to die fighting than to be meekly led to a protracted slaughter.

The van braked sharply to a complete stop. Unable to use his hands, Sibena slammed into the front seat and rocked back. The rest of them had to hold on tightly to avoid following suit.

” Ho, man, we’ve got some trouble up here.” The driver sounded suddenly tense.

“A verdomde riot starting, maybe. “

Rhythmic, shouted chants filtered in from the outside, building slowly in volume as they were repeated over and over again. Ian craned his neck out into the middle of the van’s passenger compartment, trying to see through the front windshield.

Traffic along Market Street was at a standstill. The cars and trucks in front of them were jammed in bumper to bumper-unable to go forward and unable to reverse. Farther ahead, thousands of angry demonstrators milled around in front of the police station. Dozens of colorful banners and posters waved over the crowd, rising and falling in time with their chanting.

“Shit.” Still holding the shotgun, the big policeman heaved himself to his feet and stood hunched over, staring through the windshield.

“We’ll never get through that blery mess. We’ll have to try the back-“

Ian saw his chance and took it.

He rocketed off the bench, trying to ram the top of his head under the policeman’s out thrust chin and up. He wanted to slam the Afrikaner’s own head squarely into the van’s metal ceiling. It was just the kind of crazy stunt he’d seen work in films. The only trouble was, making such a move work in real life would take perfect positioning and even more perfect timing. Too late, Ian realized that he didn’t have either.

The adrenaline pouring into his bloodstream seemed to slow time itself.

The policeman saw him lunging upward and yanked his head backward, twisting right and away from him. At the same time, he swung his shotgun around through a narrow arc. Not far. Just far enough so that Ian’s head grazed the shotgun’s steel barrel instead of his vulnerable chin.

Red-hot pain blossomed. Jesus. He stumbled back against the bench.

The guard kept spinning to his right, trying to slam the butt of his shotgun into Ian’s exposed stomach.

React! Counter! Trained reflexes took over when conscious thought seemed to crawl. Everything around him blurred to a halt-an image held frozen in time between the blink of an eye.

The big policeman’s left leg was now straight, bearing all his considerable weight as he pivoted right with the shotgun poised for a crippling blow.

Perfect.

In one strangely calm corner of his mind, Ian remembered a dry academic voice saying, “The human knee, Mr. Sheffield, is a marvelously fragile mechanism. Momentum and the proper application of mass can maim any man-no matter how big or strong he might be.”

Without thinking, he rocked back on his own left foot,

spinning sideways to the left. His right foot came up as though he were pedaling a bike. Now! He kicked out and down with vicious speed and force.

His right foot smashed home two finger widths’ above the policeman’s left knee and kept going. With a sickening, audible crack, the policeman’s leg snapped like a dried stick. The big man flopped forward against the bench and screamed in sudden agony.

Ian stumbled against the van’s rear door, thrown off-balance by his kick and by a painful, glancing blow from the shotgun butt. He could see the smaller, darker-haired policeman clawing for his pistol. No, damn it!

He tried to turn, already knowing he wouldn’t make it.

Emily exploded into action. She scooped up the injured policeman’s fallen shotgun, snapped the safety off, and had it aimed squarely at the driver’s face before he had his own weapon more than halfway out of the holster.

Time accelerated back to its normal speed.

“Don’t tempt me, meneer. ” Emily’s voice was calm, even cold.

“I will not hesitate.”

The driver paled, and he dropped the pistol as though it were scalding hot.

Ian winced at the pain pounding through his head and turned to the other guard. No problem there. The beefy South African lay where he’d first fallen, cradling his broken leg in both hands. And Matthew Sibena had his feet planted firmly on the man’s throat-ready to step down hard at the slightest sign of trouble.

Ian could feel his pulse starting to slow to something near normal. He grinned at Emily and took a shaky breath.

“Jeez. Remind me not to ever piss you off on a date!”

She glanced down at the shotgun gripped tightly in both her hands and looked up with a somewhat shamefaced grin of her own.

“My father insisted

I learn about firearms when I was a small girl. But I must admit that I never thought such knowledge would be useful.”

Ian started to laugh. He had the strangest feeling that Marius van der

Heijden wouldn’t be at all happy to learn how well his daughter had learned her lessons.

TOP STAR DRIVE-IN, JOHANNESBURG

The minivan was as isolated as any vehicle could possibly be in the middle of a vast, modern metropolis. More than one hundred meters of empty, oil-stained gravel stretched in all directions-empty except for row after row of splintered wooden posts holding detachable speakers. Giant, off-white movie screens and a high fence blocked any view from the houses and small office buildings around. Even more important, trains roaring along a railroad line to the south and trucks grinding their way along a motorway to the north should muffle any noises made by the two handcuffed policemen locked away in the van.

Ian slammed the van’s windowless rear door shut, pointedly ignoring the smaller policeman’s hate-filled glare. The other cop lay still, driven into unconsciousness by the pain from his broken leg.

“Got everything?”

Matthew Sibena nodded eagerly and held out the assortment of paper money, coins, and identification cards they’d filched from the two policemen.

Ian noticed that the young man’s hands were still shaking. Well, he thought wryly, so are mine.

“And their weapons?”

Sibena answered by silently pointing toward the rusting trash Dumpster backed against the drive-in theater’s small cinder-block concession stand.

“Good.” Ian had vetoed the idea of taking the pistols or shotgun along when it became clear that neither of the two police uniforms would fit him. They were going to be conspicuous enough as it was without walking around in civilian clothes while armed to the teeth.

“Ian! Come take a look at this!”

He followed Emily’s voice around to the front of the minivan. She stood motionless by the open passenger-side door, pointing to a piece of paper taped to the dashboard.

She shook her head in disbelief.

“My God! So that’s how they found us!”

“Huh?” Ian looked over her shoulder at the typewritten list crammed full of names and addresses.

“My father must have given this to them. It’s a compilation of all my closest friends.” She sounded troubled.

“Are they in trouble now?”

He shut the door and led her away from the van.

“More to the point, how do we avoid getting nabbed by your dad’s goons a second time?” He squinted, trying to see the numbers on his watch against the orange glow of the

Johannesburg skyline.

“They’re going to start looking for this van any minute now, and they’ll find it in a matter of hours … even if we’re lucky.”

Sibena joined them.

“All set. The doors are locked and—he grinned and dangled a set of keys from one finger” they stay that way for a time.”

Ian thumped him on the shoulder.

“Good going, Matt.” He paused and looked seriously at his two companions.

“So where to now, folks?”

Sibena smiled shyly.

“How about America?”

A joke. The young black man was telling jokes now! Ian shook his head in wonder. After only three months around people who treated him as a man instead of two-legged livestock, Siberia was turning into a someone who could make light of danger-instead of cowering in fear. He wished Sam

Knowles were here to see it.

He smiled back.

“Maybe we should shoot for somewhere a little closer. Just for the time being, of course.”

Emily pulled nervously at separate strands of her long auburn hair.

“I

think perhaps there is one person who may be able to help us. ” She glanced quickly at Ian and then looked away.

“But it maybe risky.”

“Hold on there.” Ian shook his head.

“Remember your dad’s little list? We can’t count on any more of your friends. It’d be too dangerous for them as well as being suicidal for

US. I I

She shook her head, her expression unreadable in the darkness.

“Oh, no,

Ian. This one whose help I must beg wouldn’t be on my father’s list of my friends. ” Her voice fell to a whisper.

“Nor am I at all sure that he will come again when I call.”

And with that, Ian had to be content. She would say nothing more for the moment.

NOVEMBER 12-BRAAMFONTEIN CEMETERY,

JOHANNESBURG

The sun was coming again to South Africa, warming the air and earth below, and coloring the once pitch-black eastern sky a faint shade of mingled gray and pink. Inside the Braamfontein Cemetery, tall trees, headstones, and squat marble mausoleums that had for so long been nothing more than darker shadows among a lesser darkness took on line and form and hue as night faded slowly into day.

Ian yawned uncontrollably, rose, and stretched aching muscles. He looked warily around for signs of movement where there should be none. Both

Emily and Sibena had protested his choice of temporary sanctuary. But superstition worked both ways. Who would hunt for the living in a land of the dead?

He turned in a complete circle, studying every piece of ground in view.

And froze. A car, headlights on, moving slowly along the wide avenue running beside the cemetery. He sank back to the grass, listening now instead of looking. An engine growing louder—definitely coming closer.

Emily leaned closer and whispered, “I think it has to be the man we are waiting for. Who else would come here so early?”

“The police? A caretaker?” Ian shrugged. Emily’s reluctance to name this mystery man both irked and worried him.

He risked another glance at the oncoming car. It was close enough to make out details now. A Land Rover painted a uniformly drab green. That was odd.

The Land Rover stopped just outside the graveyard’s wrought-iron gate and sat idling.

Emily rose unsteadily to her feet.

“It’s him. It can’t be anyone else.”

Ian and Siberia started to get to their feet, but

she waved them back down.

“Come when I say … not before. Right?”

They both nodded their understanding and watched her make her way carefully downhill to the gate. Ian felt cold and damp and knew he was sweating again. What if they’d been betrayed? He studied the Land Rover through slitted eyes, ready to make a mad dash downhill if his worst fears were realized.

The driver’s door popped open and a tall, slender man stepped out onto the pavement. A man wearing an Army uniform.

Ian forced himself to breath. Emily wasn’t running away in panic-at least not yet.

She came to the waist-high stone wall separating the cemetery from the street and stood waiting. The soldier stepped closer, until he stood just across the wall. His shoulders seemed curiously rigid, almost as if he were holding himself at attention-or in check.

Emily said something too quietly to be heard at this distance, and the soldier leaned closer still before abruptly straightening up. Ian frowned.

For an instant this other man had seemed ready to embrace her. What the hell was going on here? Who was this guy anyway?

Part of his mind laughed at his own ridiculous pride. It was absurd to be jealous when half of South Africa’s police force must be busy hunting high and low for them. But a deeper, more primitive side wanted to go down there and beat the hell out of that damed soldier. Yeah, right. Me Ian, you

Emily-you my woman. Somehow he didn’t think she’d appreciate the caveman approach to love and commitment.

“There’s the signal!” Sibena tugged at his arm.

Ian glanced toward the gate. Emily was waving them down with short, sharp, urgent gestures.

Despite the jealous mutterings of his subconscious, his first impressions of this South African soldier were favorable. The man had a firm-jawed, weather-beaten face and open, intelligent gray eyes.

Ian lengthened his stride, aware that he’d also squared his shoulders. He stopped just across the wall from the soldier.

“Ian and Matthew, this is Kommandant Henrik Kruger.” Emily’s voice faltered, almost as though she’d been about to add something and then couldn’t think of the right way to say it. She recovered.

“And Henrik, these are my two friends, Ian Sheffield and Matthew Siberia. “

Friends? Ian nodded toward the South African, his face kept carefully blank. Kruger inclined his own head, acknowledging the introduction.

Neither man offered to shake hands.

“You are the American reporter the police are hunting?” Kruger’s voice was deep, almost melodic despite a clipped Afrikaans accent. An easy voice to hear amid the noise and confusion of a battle, Ian judged.

““That’s right.”

The South African soldier frowned.

“Then perhaps you can tell me why I should risk my career and my life to help you? Miss van der Heijden is a woman of my people reason enough for my aid to her … even if there were no other. “

Kruger glanced at Sibena.

“But this man is an enemy of my blood… and you are nothing more than an interfering Uitlander. Why then should I lift a finger to save you?”

Ian felt Emily stir and laid a gentle hand on her shoulder, cautioning her to stay out of it. This was his fight.

He looked steadily into Kruger’s eyes.

“There’s no reason you should,

Kommandant. No reason at all. ” He heard Emily gasp softly in surprise and distress.

“Matt and I will take our chances on our own. But you’ve got to promise me that you’ll keep Emily safe or get her out of the country.”

He pressed on, anger making his voice harsher, rougher.

“And if I ever hear that you’ve broken your word or hurt her, I’ll come after you myself. Is that clear enough, Kommandant?” He stopped talking, afraid that he might have gone too far and endangered even Emily.

But then slowly, almost imperceptibly, a tight, thin smile appeared on

Kruger’s sun-browned face-spreading from his firm mouth to the crow’s-feet around his steel-gray eyes.

“You make yourself very clear,

Meneer Sheffield.

The South African officer offered his hand.

“And you can all count on my help.” He shook his head, amused at some

private joke.

“God help me, but I must have a weakness for romantic idiots.

“

Ian shook his outstretched hand-an action imitated, after a brief hesitation, by Matthew Sibena.

“Now what?”

Kruger helped Emily climb over the wall and stepped back, allowing them to cross as well. He laid a hand on the Land Rover’s open door and smiled again.

“Now, meneer, we make arrangements for the three of you to hide someplace where Vorster’s police and spies will never think to look.”

“And just where would that happen to be, sir?”

Kruger’s smile blossomed into a full-fledged grin.

“Why, inside South

Africa’s largest military base, my friend. Where else?”