Vortex

CHAPTER 3 Broken Covenant

JUNE 14-NEAR PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA

Karl Vorster’s modest country home lay at the center of a sprawling estate containing cattle pens, grazing lands, and furrowed, already-harvested wheat fields. His field hands and servants lived in rows of tiny bungalows and larger, concrete block barracks dotting a hillside below the main house. The house itself was small and plain, with thick plaster walls and narrow windows that kept it cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

Twenty men crowded Vorster’s study. Most were dressed casually, though a few who’d come straight from their offices wore dark-colored suits and ties. Two were in military uniform. A few held drinks, but none showed any signs that they’d taken more than an occasional, cautious sip. All twenty stood quietly waiting, their serious, sober faces turned toward their leader.

Despite the soft country-western music playing in the background and the smells wafting in from a barbecue pit just outside, no one there

could possibly have mistaken the gathering for any kind of social event. An air of grim purpose filled the room, emanating from the tall, flint-eyed man standing near the fireplace.

Vorster studied the men clustered around him with some satisfaction. Each man was a member of his secret inner circle. Each man could claim a “pure” and unblemished Afrikaner heritage. Each shared his determination to save South Africa from failing into a nightmare era of black rule and endless tribal warfare. And each held an important post in the Republic’s government.

Vorster held his silence for a moment longer, watching as the tension built. It served his purpose to have these men on edge. Their own inner alarm would lend extra importance to his words. Then he glanced at

Muller, who stood rigidly waiting for his signal. The younger man nodded back and pulled the study door shut with an audible click. They were ready to begin.

“I’ll come straight to the point, my friends.” Vorster kept his words clipped, signaling both his anger and his determination.

“Our beloved land stands on the very brink of disaster.”

Heads bobbed around the room in agreement.

“Haymans and his pack of traitorous curs have shown themselves ready to sell out to the communists, to the blacks, and to the Uitlanders. We have all seen their rush to surrender. No one can deny it. No one can doubt that the talks they propose with the ANC would be the first step toward oblivion for our people.”

More heads nodded, Muller’s among them-though he hid a cynical smile as he heard Vorster’s rhetoric ride roughshod over reality. He doubted that

Haymans had ever seriously contemplated the complete abdication of all white authority. Still, the exaggeration had its uses. Even the faint chance of a total surrender had already roused a fire storm of anger and hatred among South Africa’s militant right-a fire storm that Vorster would use to cleanse the Republic when the time came. And Muller knew that time was coming soon. Very soon. He turned his attention back to his leader’s impassioned diatribe.

“We must be ready to save our people when they cry out for our aid. As they will! True Afrikaners will not long be deceived by the web of false promises of peace Haymans and his cronies are spinning. Soon the bestial nature of our enemies shall stand revealed in the clear light of day.”

Vorster clenched his right fist and raised it high, toward the ceiling.

“God will not allow his chosen people to fall into the Devil’s clutches.

He will save us. And He will punish all who sin against the Afrikaner way-against God’s way!”

For a split second Muller was lost in the illusion that he’d somehow stumbled into a church meeting. It was an impression reinforced by the muttered “Amen” ‘s that swept through the room.

Vorster’s next words shattered the illusion.

“Therefore, gentlemen, we must be prepared for immediate action. When the people turn to us for salvation, we must move quickly to seize all reins of power-the ministries, the military, and the information services alike. You will be our vanguard in this effort. Do you understand me?”

One of the men still wearing a suit and tie stepped forward a pace.

Muller recognized the sober, jowly face of the Transvaal’s Security

Branch chief, Marius van der Heijden.

“Not quite, Minister. Are we to plan for direct action against Haymans’s faction?”

“A good question, Marius. ” Vorster slowly shook his head and lifted his eyes to meet those of the others around the room. ” I am not planning a coup d’etat. I propose no treason against the State.”

He looked steadily at Muller.

“No, that is not what I foresee.”

Muller felt a chill run down his spine, Was the minister going to blow the Broken Covenant secret? Even one of these trusted few could inadvertently reveal the knowledge he held to the wrong people. And such a leak would prove disastrous. He opened his mouth to interrupt.

But Vorster spoke first, calming his fears.

“I believe that our enemies themselves will give us the opportunity we seek. The timing will be their own. That is why you must be ready to move quickly. When God’s day of reckoning comes, only

those who act swiftly will emerge victorious. So be prepared. That is all

I ask of you now.”

Again, the men filling the room nodded their agreement, though few bothered to hide their puzzlement. No matter, Muller thought, they’d been given all the advance warning they should need. And if the ANC’s plan worked, South Africa would soon find it had new masters.

Satisfied, Vorster allowed himself to relax, momentarily concealing his naked ambition beneath a mask of benign good fellowship.

“But come now, my friends. No more business tonight, eh?”

He sniffed the air appreciatively.

“It seems that my ‘boys’ have done a good job with the beef tonight. And a fine thing, too. After all, this politicking is hard work, and we must keep up our strength, right?”

Appreciative chuckles greeted his attempt at humor, and the other men began drifting toward the door-ready for the barbecue that provided a cover for the evening’s meeting.

As Muller started to follow, he felt a strong hand close on his sleeve.

It was Vorster.

The minister tugged him back toward the fireplace, away from the others.

“Well, how goes it? Are those black bastards still on schedule? Has there been any reaction to Haymans’s offer of talks?”

Muller stared impassively at him, carefully weighing the pros and cons of telling Vorster about the ANC’s failed attempt to abort Broken

Covenant. Until now, the minister’s role in this conspiracy had been largely passive-more a matter of withholding information from others in the government than of acting on it. If he retroactively approved Muller’s secret efforts to push the ANC attack forward, Vorster would be playing a more active part in betraying his erstwhile colleagues. But would he go that far?

“What is it? Has something gone wrong?” The grip on Muller’s wrist tightened.

He made no effort to pull away. Vorster sounded disappointed, not panicked. Excellent. Muller made a snap judgment. The older man’s craving for power must be overcoming the inhibitions normaHy imposed by custom and loyalty.

He must really believe that only he could stop Haymans’s sellout.

“Everything is moving forward as planned, Minister.” Muller leaned forward, closer to his leader’s rugged face.

“Though I have been forced to take certain measures .. …. “What measures?” Vorster kept his voice low, but his words had a steel-hard edge to them.

Without hesitating further, Muller told him everything. Vorster stayed silent as he spoke, save for an appreciative grunt when the younger man described Mbeki’s fatal “accident. “

He released Muller’s wrist.

“You’ve done well.”

Muller felt a wave of relief. The minister was fully committed.

Vorster clasped his hands behind his back and stared into the fire.

“Some of the things we are called upon to do would be distasteful, even reprehensible, in ordinary times. But these are not ordinary times.

“

He sighed and laid a hand on Muller’s shoulder.

“We are the servants of the Lord, Erik. And the Lord’s work is a heavy burden.” He straightened.

“But we should rejoice in that burden. It is an honor given to few men in any age.”

With difficulty, Muller hid his distaste. Why bring God into it? Power was justification enough for any deed. He forced a murmur of assent to satisfy Vorster’s sensibilities.

The two men turned away from the fire, two very different men driven toward the same means and the same end absolute control over the Republic of South Africa.

JUNE 18-IN THE HEX RIVER MOUNTAINS

Riaan Oost was aware first of the silence. An eerie, all encompassing silence spreading outward from the jagged, broken cliff face. No shrill animal cries or lyrical, lilting bird songs broke the odd stillness, and even the insects’ endless buzzing, whirring, and clicking seemed muffled and far away. The dust spun up by his pickup hung in the air, a hazy, golden cloud drifting north along the rutted trail.

He slid out from behind the truck’s steering wheel, careful to keep his hands in plain view. There were hidden watchers all around, armed men who feared treachery more than anything else. Oost moved slowly along the side of his pickup. His survival depended on his own caution and their continued trust. It had been that way ever since the guerrillas assigned to Broken

Covenant had begun arriving at his cottage.

He leaned into the back of the truck and hoisted a large wooden crate onto his shoulder. Beer and soda bottles clinked together, cushioned by loaves of his wife’s fresh-baked bread, packages of dried meat, and rounds of cheese. Supplies to keep men alive so they could kill other men.

Sweating under his load, Oost scrambled upslope toward the cliff face.

Broken shards of rock and soft, loose soil made it hard going, but no one came out of hiding to help him.

The cave entrances were almost completely invisible in the fading afternoon light, covered by fast-growing brush and lengthening shadows. Oost paused about ten feet away from the largest opening and stood waiting, panting and trying to catch his breath. The instructions he’d been given were clear.

The men inside the caves would initiate all contact. Any departure from normal procedure would be taken as a sign that he’d fallen into the hands of South Africa’s security forces. And that would mean death.

The bush in front of him rustled and then parted as a tall, gaunt black man cradling an AK-47 stepped out into the open. Oost’s eyes focused on the automatic rifle’s enormous muzzle as it swung slowly toward him.

“You are late, comrade.” The words were spoken in a soft, dry, almost academic tone, but Oost found them more frightening than an angry shout.

He stammered out a reply.

“I’m sorry, Comrade Kotane. The Boer who owns my vineyards made an unexpected visit this morning. I couldn’t leave earlier without arousing suspicion. “

The other man stared hard at him for what seemed an eternity and then nodded his acceptance of Oost’s excuse. He lowered the AK-47. “Is there any news?”

Oost felt the excitement he’d suppressed earlier bubbling up again.

“Yes! They’ve announced it on the radio. Parliament will definitely adjourn on the twenty-seventh as planned! “

A humorless smile surfaced and then vanished on the thin man’s face.

“So we are in business. Good. We’ve been waiting too long already. Are there any signs of increased police or Army activity?”

“Nothing out of the ordinary. Just the standard patrols.” Oost pulled a sheaf of paper out of his pocket.

“Marta and I have put together this list of their schedules and routes. You shouldn’t have any trouble avoiding them when the time comes. “

The other man took the papers, stung his rifle over one shoulder, and bent down to pick up the crate filled with food. Then he turned and looked back at Oost.

“You’ve done well so far, Riaan. Keep it up and one day your grandchildren will hail your memory as a hero of the liberation.”

Oost said nothing as the man pushed back through the tangle of brush and vanished. Then he turned and stumbled back down the slope, eager to get back to his wife. A hero of the liberation. The praise would please her as it had him.

Broken Covenant had ten days left to run.

JUNE 25-UMKHONTO WE SIZWE HEADQUARTERS,

LUSAKA, ZAMBIA

Col. Sese Luthuli was a deeply worried man.

Long silences from his agents inside South Africa weren’t unusual. Even the most urgent messages had to travel circuitously—through intricate networks of cutouts, drop points, and infrequently used special couriers. The ANC’s networks were deliberately designed that way to make life hard for South

Africa’s internal security apparatus. Convoluted, multi link message chains meant fewer suspicious longdistance calls for the police to trace.

Luthuli had always considered the necessary time lag a price well worth paying. Now he wasn’t so sure.

He halfheartedly scanned the newspaper clipping on his

desk again, already knowing that it didn’t contain the information he needed. Only the Sowetan had considered Dr. Nthato Mbeki’s death newsworthy, and then only as another example of the township’s urgent need for stricter traffic control and better street lighting. Even worse, the article hadn’t appeared until four days after Mbeki died. More days had gone by as copies of the paper made their way out of South Africa to

Zambia. And still more time had passed before Unikhonto’s Intelligence

Section cross-referenced Mbeki’s name with its list of active agents.

“

“Tragic Road Accident Takes Teacher’s Life,”

” Luthuli muttered, reading the headline aloud. Had it been a genuine accident? Probably. The

Sowetan said so, and its editors were usually quick to point the finger at suspected government dirty work.

More important was a question the article didn’t answer. When exactly had

Mbeki been killed? Had he passed the abort signal on down the line or not? So far, all efforts to check with the schoolteacher’s contact had proved fruitless. Shortly after Mbeki’s death, the man, a team leader for a highway construction firm, had been sent south into the Natal on an unexpected job. He was still gone, out of touch and effectively as far away as if he’d been sent to the moon.

Luthuli felt cold. What if Mbeki hadn’t passed the abort signal on? What if Broken Covenant was still operational?

He stabbed the intercom button on his desk.

“Tell Major Xuma that I want to see him here right away.”

Xuma, his chief of intelligence, arrived five minutes later.

Luthuli tapped the neatly cut newspaper article with a single finger.

“You’ve seen this?”

The major nodded, his eyes expressionless behind thick, wire-frame glasses.

“Then you realize the disaster we could be facing?”

Again Xuma simply nodded, knowing that his superior’s explosive temper could be triggered by too many meaningless words.

Luthuli’s lips thinned in anger.

“Well, then, what can we do about it?”

The intelligence chief swore silently to himself. He’d al-7

ways loathed being placed in impossible positions. And this was certainly one of the worst he’d ever been in. There simply wasn’t any right way to answer the colonel’s question.

He folded his hands in his lap, unaware that the gesture made him look as though he were praying.

“I’m very much afraid, Colonel, that there isn’t anything we can do-not at this stage.”

Luthuli’s voice was cold and precise.

“You had better explain what you mean by that, Major. I’m not accustomed to my officers openly admitting complete incompetence.” :

Xuma hurriedly shook his head.

“That’s not what I’m saying, sir.

“If—he stressed the word, emphasizing his uncertainty” if our abort signal didn’t get through, there just isn’t time now to send another. Not with the contact routines laid out in the Broken Covenant plan.”

Luthuli knew the younger man was right, though he hated to admit it.

Martin Cosate had been more interested in making sure that his master stroke succeeded than in making sure it could be called off. And Cosate had been especially concerned by the need for secure communications with his chosen strike group. As a result, the fifteen guerrillas who might now be assembled deep in the mountains would respond only to messages sent by specific and tortuously long routes. Any attempts at direct contact from Lusaka would undoubtedly fall on willfully deaf ears.

“Colonel?” The intelligence chief’s cultured voice interrupted Luthuli’s increasingly bleak thoughts. He looked up.

“Personally, sir, I believe it more likely that Mbeki passed our message on before his death. Our records show that he was a dedicated man. I don’t think he would have left his home that night without first completing his mission.”

Luthuli nodded slowly. Xurna’s reading of the situation was optimistic, but not outrageously so. The odds favored the major’s belief that Broken

Covenant had been aborted as ordered. He sat up straighter.

“I hope you’re right. But ask for confirmation anyway. And I want an answer back by the twenty-eighth. “

Xuma eyed his superior carefully. Luthuli must know that

what he wanted done was impossible. That meant the colonel was already thinking about covering his tracks should something go wildly, incalculably wrong in South Africa’s Hex River Mountains over the next several days. If the abort signal hadn’t gone through, the colonel could truthfully say he’d given his chief of intelligence a direct order to send another message. The blame for any disaster would fall squarely on Xuma’s shoulders.

So be it.

The major saluted sharply, spun round, and left Luthuli’s office at a fast walk. The colonel was a clever bastard, but two could play the blame-shifting game. Xuma had never especially liked the captain in charge of Umkhonto’s clandestine-communications section anyway. The man would make an excellent scapegoat.

Besides, he told himself, the odds really were against anything going seriously wrong. Even if Mbeki hadn’t passed the signal on, South Africa’s security forces were still incredibly efficient and deadly. The men assigned to Broken Covenant weren’t likely to get within twenty kilometers of their target before being caught and killed.

He was wrong.

JUNE 27-CAPE TOWN CENTRAL RAILWAY STATION

The seventeen-car Blue Train sat motionless at a special platform, surrounded by a cordon of fully armed paratroops and watchful plainclothes policemen. Within the security cordon, white-coated waiters, immaculately uniformed porters, and grease-stained railway workers scurried from task to task each engrossed in readying the train for its most important trip of the year.

One hundred yards away, Sam Knowles squinted through the lens of his

Minicam, panning slowly from the electric locomotive in front to the baggage car in back. He pursed his lips.

Ian Sheffield saw the worried look on his cameraman’s face.

“Something wrong?”

Knowles shook his head.

“Nothing I can’t fix on the Monster. “

The Monster was Knowles’s nickname for their in-studio computerized videotape editing machine. It worked by digitizing the images contained on any videotape fed into it. With every blade of grass, face, or brick on the tape reduced to a series of numbers stored in the system’s memory banks, a skilled technician could literally alter the way things looked to a viewer simply by changing the numbers. These hightech imaging systems were ordinarily used for routine editing or to enhance existing pictures by eliminating blurring or distortion. But they could also be used to twist a recorded event beyond recognition. People who weren’t there when a scene was taped could be inserted after the fact. And people who had been there could be neatly removed, erased without a trace. Buildings, mountains, and trees could all be transformed and shifted about at the touch of a single set of computer keys.

Put simply, computer-imaging systems made the old truism that a picture was worth a thousand words as dead as the dinosaurs. Now only the honesty of each individual cameraman, reporter, and technician guaranteed that what people saw on their TV screens bore any resemblance to the truth.

Knowles lowered his camera.

“I’m getting the damnedest kind of yellowish glare off those sleeping-car windows.”

Ian tapped the South African Railways tourist brochure he held in his right hand.

“According to this, that’s the gleam of pure gold you’re getting,

Sam. Pure, unadulterated gold.

“I hope you’re pulling my leg.”

Ian shook his head.

“Not at all. Every one of those windows has a thin layer of gold tacked on to reduce heat and glare inside the train.”

“Jesus Christ.” Knowles didn’t bother hiding his half envious contempt.

“Is there anything they haven’t thrown into that track-traveling luxury liner?”

Ian ran a finger through the list of amenities that were standard items on

South Africa’s Blue Train. Air-conditioned cars. Elegant private baths and showers. Five-star gourmet meals. Ultramodern air springs and extra insulation to ensure

a quiet, smooth fide. Even free champagne before every departure. He smiled cynically. Whoever wrote the brochure must have been running out of superlatives near the end.

He folded the brochure and stuffed it into his jacket’s inside pocket.

“Cheer up, Sam. It gives us a good hook for tomorrow’s otherwise boring story.”

“Such as?”

Ian thought quickly.

“Okay, how’s this for a lead-in?

“With Parliament out of session, South Africa’s president and his top cabinet leaders left Cape

Town today aboard the famous Blue Train-taking their traditional fide back to Pretoria in comfort through a country still filled with millions of impoverished and disenfranchised blacks. “

Knowles grinned.

“Not bad. Probably a little too rabble rousing to suit New

York, but not bad at all.”

“It doesn’t really fit the facts, though, so I can’t use it. I’ve got to admit that Haymans and his people seem genuinely willing to change the way things work in this country.”

“Maybe so.” Knowles sounded unconvinced.

“You gonna let a little thing like that stand in the way of a good intro line?”

“I know guys who wouldn’t.” Ian smiled ruefully.

“But I probably couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I started pulling stuff like that.”

Ian heard the sanctimonious tone he’d just used and secretly wondered just how well his scruples would stand up to another few months of virtual exile in South Africa. Damn it! He needed a big story to break back onto the charts in the States. And he needed it soon.

Knowles slung the Minicam carrying case over his shoulder and checked his watch.

“Well, you’d better sleep on it and get good and creative.

“Cause you’ve only got until eleven o’clock tomorrow morning to come up with an opening spiel. “

The little cameraman easily dodged Ian’s mock, slow-motion punch and headed for the station exit.

Behind them, the paratroop major commanding the Blue Train’s security force shook his head in disgust. Americans. You could spot them half a mile away.

They were so ridiculously frivolous. He turned and barked an order at the nearest soldiers.

They snapped to rigid attention.

The major took his job seriously. He and his men were sworn to defend

South Africa’s top officials with their very lives. But few of them ever truly expected it to be necessary.

THE MINISTRY OF LAW AND ORDER, PRETORIA

From where he stood, Erik Muller could only hear Vorster’s part of the phone conversation. He didn’t need to hear more.

“No, Mr. President, I won’t be taking the train with you and the others tomorrow. I’m afraid I simply have too much work to do here.” Vorster’s fingers drummed slowly on his desk, unconsciously mimicking the rhythm of a funeral march.

“What’s that, Mr. President? It’s a great pity? Oh, yes. Very definitely.” Vorster’s thick, graying eyebrows rose sardonically.

“Yes,

I’ve always enjoyed the food immensely. And the magnificent views as well. Especially those in the mountains. “

Muller fought the urge to laugh. Instead he watched Vorster pick up a pencil and draw a quick, decisive circle on the Cape Province map spread across his desk. The circle outlined a stretch of railroad track deep inside the Hex River Mountains.

“No, Mr. President. I’m sorry, but I really can’t afford to go this time.

Perhaps in January when Parliament comes back into session…. Thank you, Frederick. That’s most kind of you. And give my best wishes to your wife…. Yes. I’ll see you soon…. Yes. God be with you, too.

“

Vorster hung up.

He scowled across the desk at Muller.

“That damned buffoon. Can you believe it? Haymans still has the gall to try his smooth false phrases on me. He thinks he can win my friendship even now. With the stink of his treachery all around! “

Muller shrugged. Events would soon make Haymans’s words and actions irrelevant. Why worry about them?

Vorster tapped the map with his pencil.

“Are your people ready?”

“Yes, Minister.”

“And the terrorists?” Vorster’s pencil came down again, making another black mark in the middle of his hand-drawn circle.

“They seem prepared.” Muller leaned closer.

“I must admit that I dislike trusting their competence in these matters, Minister. The blacks have always been sloppy. Perhaps our own people could’ No Vorster waved him into silence.

“It’s too risky. Someone would talk or get cold feet.”

Muller nodded. The minister was probably right. He straightened.

“Then we can only wait and watch matters unfold. “

I “True.

Vorster rose from behind his desk and leaned over the map, his eyes scanning the railway route from Cape Town to Pretoria for the hundredth time. Apparently satisfied by what he saw, he carefully folded the map and slid it into a drawer.

When he looked up, the grim, determined expression on his face seemed carved in stone.

“God’s will be done, Muller. God’s will be done.”

Privately Muller hoped that God’s appointed agents could shoot straight.

JUNE 28-NEAR OSPLAAS, IN THE HEX RIVER

MOUNTAINS

The sun stood directly overhead in a blue, cloudless sky, bathing the narrow valley in a clear, pitiless light. Isolated patches of brush and olive-green scrub trees dotted the rugged slopes falling away from the razor-backed ridges on either side. Everything was quiet. Nothing cast a shadow and nothing moved. The valley seemed lifeless, abandoned.

But there were men there-waiting.

Andrew Sebe crouched low amid a tangle of dry brush and scattered, broken rock. He licked his bone-dry lips and tried to ignore his trembling hands.

They were trembling in anticipation he told himself, not in fear. He and his comrades were nearing the climax of long days and nights of planning, preparation, and reconnaissance.

Sebe gripped the rocket-propel led grenade launcher he held tighter, careful to keep his fingers away from the trigger. He wanted to model himself after the tall, stick-thin man squatting motionless next to him.

Kotane always exuded an air of absolute confidence. The guerrilla leader seemed able to suppress every emotion save a fierce determination to succeed, no matter what the cost. If only he could be as brave.

David Kotane glanced briefly at the young man beside him, noting the beads of sweat rolling slowly down his forehead. Then he looked away, searching the slopes for signs that would give his team’s other positions away to wary Afrikaner eyes. There, weren’t any. Good. His men were following orders perfectly so far, staying well hidden among the clumps of tall grass, dead brush, and low, stunted trees.

Kotane transferred his gaze to their target-the railroad tracks barely one hundred meters away. Viewed from above, the railway looked very much like a long, whip-thin, black snake as it wound to and fro high above the valley floor. Power lines paralleled the railroad, hanging motionless in the still, calm air.

Five minutes to go. Kotane idly caressed the small white box in his hand.

Two red lights glowed faintly above two metal switches.

A faint clattering sound growing slowly louder reached his ears. Rotors.

Kotane looked west, his eyes flicking back and forth across the horizon.

There! He spotted the camouflaged Puma helicopter weaving back and forth above the railroad tracks-flying steadily east.

Kotane motioned Sebe to the ground and flattened himself as the helicopter came nearer. The Afrikaners were making a routine last-minute aerial sweep down the rail line. No surprise there. They weren’t taking any chances-not when

a train filled with the white government’s top officials was on its way down the tracks.

Whup-whup-whup-whup. The Puma was closer now, much closer-skimming low above the power lines. Kotane shut his eyes tight as it roared directly overhead, trailing a choking, rotor-blown hail of dead grass and dust.

He stayed still, listening intently as the helicopter’s engine noise faded.

Going. Going. Gone. He spat out a mouthful of weeds and dirt and risked opening a single eye. The Puma’s rotor blades flashed silver in the sunlight as it rounded a bend and vanished.

Kotane sat up, elated. They’d done it! They’d evaded the last Afrikaner security patrol. Nothing could stop them now. He tapped Sebe on the shoulder.

“Get ready, Andrew. And remember, make your shots count. Just like we practiced, right?”

The younger man nodded and rose to his knees, cradling the grenade launcher in both arms.

Kotane risked a quick glance at his watch and turned to stare down the track. Any moment now…

“The Blue Train came into view from down the valley, gliding almost noiselessly along the track at thirty miles an hour. Orange-, white-, and blue-striped South African flags fluttered from the front fender of the electric locomotive. The rest of the train-twelve gold-windowed sleeping cars, a saloon car, a dining car and kitchen, generator wagon, and baggage car-stretched in a long, undulating chain behind the engine.

Kotane felt his pulse starting to race as he flicked the first switch on the little white box in his hand. One of the lights flashed green. The box was transmitting.

His world narrowed to a single point on the tracks. Ten seconds. Five.

Four. Three … The front of the Blue Train’s engine flashed into view at the edge of his peripheral vision. Now!

Kotane flicked the second switch.

One hundred kilos of plastic explosive layered along the railroad tracks detonated directly under the engine-tipping it off the tracks in a ragged, billowing cloud of orange-red flame and coal-black smoke. Pieces of torn and twisted rail spun end over end high through the air before crashing back to earth.

Shocked by the power of the explosion he’d unleashed, Kotane sat unmoving as the blast-mangled locomotive slammed into the ground at an angle and cartwheeled downhill, smashing every tree and rock in its path.

The rest of the Blue Train went with it-blown and pulled off the track in a deadly, grinding tangle of torn metal, shattered glass, and flying debris. Car after car went rolling, tumbling, and sliding down toward the valley floor.

A rising curtain of dust cloaked the wreckage as Kotane’s hearing returned.

He scrambled to his feet and ran toward the railroad tracks with Sebe close behind. The younger man still held his unfired RPG-7. Thirteen more ANC guerrillas rose from their own hiding places and followed them, seven armed with AK-47s, two more carrying grenade launchers, and four men lugging a pair of bipod-mounted light machine guns.

Kotane skidded to a stop just short of the tracks and stared down at a scene that might have leaped out of hell itself. The Blue Train’s cars were heaped one on top of the other-some ripped wide open and others crushed almost beyond recognition. Bodies and pieces of bodies were strewn across the hillside, intermingled with smashed suitcases, bloodstained tablecloths and bedding, and fragments of fine china. Greasy black smoke eddied from half a dozen small fires scattered throughout the wreckage.

It seemed impossible that anyone could still be alive down there.

Kotane’s eyes narrowed. Better to make sure of that while they still had the chance. The Afrikaner security forces would soon be on their way here.

He turned to the men bunched around him and yelled, “Don’t just stand there! Fire! Use your damned weapons!”

Sebe was the first to react. His rocket-propelled grenade ripped a new hole in one of the mangled sleeping cars and

exploded in a brief shower of flame. Then the other guerrillas opened up, flaying the ruined train with a hail of bullets and fragmentation grenades.

David Kotane watched in morbid satisfaction as his men systematically walked their fire down the length of what had once been South Africa’s

Blue Train.

There were no survivors.