Evil Eye

by Michael Slade

  White, black, meant nothing to the Gray.

  Only can you pay.

  The end of this war in 1980 turned white Southern Rhodesia into black Zimbabwe. ZANU candidates swept the election. Far to the west, however, another black/white war raged.

  A leftist coup in Lisbon in 1974 resulted in withdrawal from the Portuguese African colonies of Angola and Mozambique. White South Africa found itself flanked by Marxist black republics chaotic from civil war, with South-West Africa (now Namibia) as a buffer zone on the Atlantic side. Three black factions—the FNLA, UNITA, and MPLA—fought for control of Angola. Aided by Cuban and Soviet troops, the MPLA won. Communist-supplied and based in Angola, South-West African People's Organization terrorists (SWAPO) raided the buffer zone, intent on freeing it from South African rule. In July 1975, South African Defence Forces (SADF) entered Angola to destroy SWAPO bases. Such counterinsurgent sweeps continued for more than a decade.

  The most secret and controversial unit in the SADF was 32 Battalion. Trained for reconnaissance and search and destroy missions, 32 saw more action in Angola than any other unit. When the MPLA routed the FNLA and UNITA, a joke was the FNLA acronym didn't mean National Front for the Liberation of Angola in Portuguese, but Fuck Now we Leave Angola, ha ha. Then someone in SADF Special Forces got an idea. From the losers he fashioned a vicious boomerang.

  Drilled by Recce Commandos and titled Bravo Group, black FNLA troops were taught guerrilla tactics refined from those U.S. Special Forces used in Vietnam. Wearing uniforms camouflaged in Portuguese pattern, armed with Russian AK-47 assault rifles and RPK/RPD light machine guns, Bravo Group was returned to Angola for

  Operation Savannah. There, teamed with Alpha Group recruited from Bushmen, this "Zulu Force" was turned loose for revenge on MPLA and SWAPO bases. Under white SADF command, which turned a blind eye, patrols were led from the front in Angola by contract NCOs.

  By mercenaries.

  Like the Black & White.

  The White blacking-up in the bush with "black is beautiful" skin paint.

  Operations in Angola lasted up to six weeks. Dropped by helicopter or trekking in on foot, 32 Battalion tracked SWAPO spoor to water holes where enemy troops converged to replenish supplies. After a fast, furious, bloody firefight, they tortured survivors to pinpoint SWAPO bases. With orders given in Portuguese, 32 was isolated from the SADF, so it had its own Reconnaissance (Recce) Wing. The Wing was how the Black & White earned their reputation. SWAPO and MPLA troops called them "The Terrible Ones."

  Village to village and hut to hut, the Gray squeezed information. Men staked spread-eagled on the ground with toxic thorn wood fires lit on their bellies were left to scream long after they'd spilled what they knew. Lips cut from mothers were fried in a pan, then force-fed to their children if a village wouldn't talk. The Black & White vied to see who'd collect the most SWAPO ears, just the left ones, slung from their belts. Troops captured close to pickup time were hauled 2,000 feet up in a chopper, then kicked out one by one till someone fingered their base. For sweeps, the Gray drove Ratel-90s. SWAPO wounded were buried up to their necks in sand, then leveled with a bulldozer blade. Tongues ratted freely as heads lopped off. Driving home from a bush operation, the Terrible Ones lashed naked dead to the bull bars of the Ratels, shredding flesh and baring bones as they crashed through thorn thickets, the flayed horrors warning others "Don't fuck with us."

  Bag after bag hung on the garbage line.

  When UN Resolution 435 stopped the Angolan Border War in 1989, 32 Battalion was withdrawn from South-West Africa. In 1990, it was sent to Natal to quell clashes between the Zulu Inkatha and Mandela's ANC. There 32 fostered so much ANC hatred that it was or-

  dered broken up and disbanded for the period leading to this April's election. The Black & White were looking for work. . . .

  The Money Man approached Danger Point with trepidation, the sweat of fear mixing with sweat trickled by heat and humidity. He was an accountant. They were cold killers.

  Victoria Falls results from a geological fault, into which tumbles the mile-wide river, churning as the Boiling Pot around Danger Point. No rail fenced the wet promontory, for Africa doesn't worry about liability. Spray obscured the depths of the abyss on both sides, lifting now and then to expose the dizzying drop. The Falls roared like a lion heard for miles. The Black & White sat on the rocks tipping Danger Point.

  In their late fifties, both men were turning gray. Khaki bush shirts and shorts clung to muscled frames, sweat darkening their armpits and blotching their black hearts. The White wore a safari hat shading his tanned face, hard eyes glinting from the shadow like a leopard at night. A soggy cigarette smoldered in one corner of his mouth. Two or three days' stubble prickled his jaw. The hatless Black wore spattered shades, lenses so dark he could be blind. His kinky hair resembled steel wool, parted by a pink knife scar. One hand squeezed a rubber ball, clenching and loosening rhythmically. Fresh from the bush, both men stank.

  "The money?" said the Black.

  "In the bank."

  "Zurich?" asked the White.

  "Like you said."

  "Two million?" asked the Black.

  "U.S.?" the White added.

  "Yes, not to be released till the job is done."

  "Released how?" asked the Black, tossing the ball to his other hand. The Money Man saw what looked Hke a skull tattooed on his palm.

  "Don't worry. You'll be paid. I'll see to that."

  "The worry will be yours, mate, if we're not." The White pulled a Polaroid from his shirt pocket. "Fuck us over and this will be you."

  Too early for tourists, the three had the Point to them-

  selves. Whitewater rafts would soon dot the rapids below, and Flight of the Angels flights would circle above, but now the Falls were how they were before man evolved.

  Gawking wide-eyed at the Polaroid, the Money Man shivered. "You'll be paid." he repeated, voice breaking as he spoke.

  "Good," said the White. His lips eked a smile. The smile had all the warmth of a crocodile's.

  The man in the photo was crucified to the ground. wooden tent pegs hammered through both hands and feet. Piercing his ears were barbed hooks used for tiger-fish, cinched to tight lines tied around his toes. Tension in the wires raised and bent his head, angling it to stare the length of his naked body. Eyelids removed to ensure he'd see, his abdomen was slit and peeled, exposing his insides. The sea of blood around him said he bled to death.

  Ready to retire on the money they had cached, the mercenaries had hired a London investment broker. Within a year the crucified man had lost their savings in a Docklands scam, so that's why the Gray was back on the garbage line.

  For one last hit.

  Who funded the Money Man was irrelevant. Were they Afrikaner whites? The "third force" in the government? The ANC? Rival Zulus? Or foreign meddlers? The color of their money was all that mattered to the Gray.

  Though neither man liked women, the two had gorged on sex. They'd gang-raped the wife or daughter of every Angolan chief, joking they were "egg satchets'* on the garbage line. Known as "Slim," Africa is home to AIDS. Twenty percent of the populace harbors the virus. HIV positive, the Black & White were living on borrowed time.

  Two million dollars.

  The good life.

  Precious days.

  So they would kill the Zulu king.

  And anyone in their way.

  BLUDGEON

  New Westminster

  Pursuant to Hatchett's edict, Staff Sergeant Bill Tipple was dressed in Red Serge. As second last witness for the Crown, he was called to blow a reverse wind on the sails of the defense. The head of Coquitlam GIS and Kidd's boss, it was to him Knight had sent the photo of the trophy box. So, before calling Colin Wood to the stand, Wilde used Tipple to prove the picture of the Zulu club so the jury would have it as evidence of the means by which Nick killed his mom. That was the theory of the Crown in opening statement, and that would be the Crown's theory in Wilde's address.


  His testimony over, Tipple spent this afternoon in the gallery of the court, watching Knight cross-examine Wood. Seated around him were other witnesses called by Wilde: Nosy Parker, Rachel Kidd, Gill Macbeth, Der-mott Toop, and Ident techs. The jury had motive: the Mother letter. The jury had means: the Zulu club. The jury had opportunity: the birthday party at Mom's. If Wood stood fast under questioning by Knight, the jury would have Dora's blood on Nick's cuff, and the Crown would have a strong circumstantial case.

  Strong enough to force Nick into the witness box.

  One-on-one with Wilde.

  Broompole v. Craven.

  The problem Knight faced was the visual impact of five autorads. Here was graphic evidence going into the jury room by which the jury could see Dora's blood on Nick's tunic. Had there been faults in the matches—such as band shifts or faint bands—Knight would have attacked the autorads directly. Here, where the matches were clear, that would only solidify the Crown's case, so he was forced to go behind the visual evidence in an attempt to refute it by exposing the testing procedures

  as scientifically invalid or the tests as not properly performed.

  "Concerning the control genomic DNA present on the gels and the phenotype for each locus, were they all in agreement with expected values derived from previous experiments . . . ?"

  "You agree that without the use of a monomorphic marker of known size, the accuracy of the results would be suspect. . . ."

  'The way in which VNTR alleles are classified and the approach to genotype interpretation of VNTR phe-notypes is complex. . . ."

  Here Knight's strategy was to overwhelm the jurors with complexities of DNA chemistry and biology, methods of analysis, population genetics, and statistics. His goal was to portray DNA matching as a new and un-proven jeopardy prone to false inclusions and exaggerated statistics. The most impressive attribute of DNA evidence was the strength of statistical association. The sheer magnitude of the chances of a false inclusion— here one in one hundred billion—made it hard to avoid the conclusion "positive identification."

  "How can you arrive at figures of one in one hundred billion when there are only five billion people on Earth and you have tested just seven hundred?"

  But Vic Knight was tangling with the RCMP Forensic Lab, a national facility with rigid standards, not some local affair on a frolic of its own. And Colin Wood was a tough geneticist.

  In the end, smoke swirled and mirrors confused the jury.

  But the autorads remained true.

  "Mr. Wood," Hatchett said, "you may step down. Mr. Wilde?"

  Wilde flipped open his pocket watch, confirmed the time, and snapped it shut. "That, My Lady, is the case for the Crown."

  "Mr. Knight, will you be calling evidence?"

  "Yes, and given the hour perhaps—"

  "Let's get on with it," Hatchett pressed. "Open to the jury."

  The gallery was filling quickly as word spread out through the courts, but crime waits for no man and Bill

  Tipple had other crimes to solve, so though the defense was about to answer their case, he had an FBI Agent to meet in Coquitlam at four. Inching against the tide of lawyers and laymen surging in, the staff sergeant made for the exit as Knight began.

  The lawyer plucked a book from the counsel table and approached the jury.

  "The year is 1935. In the House of Lords. The case is Woolmington versus The Director of Public Prosecutions. The Law Lord about to speak is Viscount Sankey. What he is about to say"—Knight opened the book—"has yet to be said better."

  Tipple left the Heritage Court as Knight began to read, "Throughout the web of the English Criminal Law one golden thread is always to be seen/' eloquent words following him along the hall toward the largest picture of the Queen in the Commonwealth, "that it is the duty of the prosecution to prove the prisoner's guilt/' down the stairs to the Great Hall beamed with sunshine, "If at the end of and on the whole of the case, there is a reasonable doubt, created by the evidence given by either the prosecution or the prisoner," words dying as he gazed out over Begbie Square, "the prosecution has not made out the case and the prisoner is entitled to an acquittal. . . ."

  Pushing the door so heavy it could cause a hernia, Tipple stepped out into the square, guarded by the statue of the Hanging Judge, then turned right to face the Fraser River. Down steps to Carnarvon Street, he turned right again, maple trees budding leaves along the walk, then right again to reach the door to the Law Courts' underground lot. Mounted on the wall above was a statue of Themis, but unlike the Goddess of Justice in Vancouver with her silly scroll, this woman wielded the sword of power. Engraved below in Latin: fiat justitia, ruat coelum. "Let Justice Be Done, Though the Heavens Should Fall." Across which, some malcontent had scrawled blow me, bitch.

  The sign on the door read parking.

  Through this, and down steps, then through a metal door, Tipple entered a lot that barely cleared his hat, forcing him to remove it as he walked ahead to his van, parked deep in the side of the hill in the last spot on

  the right. Down here, the bowels of the courts rumbled. The ceiling was blasted with what looked like asbestos, but in this home of lawsuits was cellulose insulation. To the left where cars in or out passed the attendant's booth, a ventilator noisily sucked air. The pipes above gurgled. By row upon row of parked cars hidden from the booth by a concrete central support, Tipple approached his van. The single fluorescent tubes turned dark into murk, but the one by stall 40 was burnt out. He fumbled with his keys by the glow of a red exit sign, as unseen eyes peered through a tiny window in the door that led up to an out-only exit into Begbie Square. The concrete angle beside the van throbbed from the elevator mechanism within.

  Tipple unlocked and pulled open the rear doors of the van.

  Evil Eye opened the stairwell door and skulked up behind.

  The Mountie stored his briefcase in back.

  The ceiling too low for a downward smash, Evil Eye whirled the club from the side.

  The bludgeoning caved in Tipple's skull and hurled him half into the van.

  Crawling in to haul the convulsing man inside, the killer pulled the doors shut from within.

  Isiko.

  WITCH DOCTOR

  Harare, Zimbabwe Friday, March 4, 1994

  Chief Neharawa: The One Who Doesn't Sleep. Ancient ruler of the site where this city grew.

  Fort Salisbury: named for Britain's Prime Minister (the Marquis of Salisbury) by businessman Cecil Rhodes, when his private army, the Pioneer Column, marched in and took over in 1890.

  "My bones will rise!" the Spirit Medium of Nehanda prophesied on the scaffold as she was hanged after the First Chimurenga ("liberation war") of 1896 was crushed by whites.

  Harare: named for Chief Neharawa in 1980 when the Second Chimurenga gave control of Rhodesia's Salisbury to blacks.

  The wheel goes around.

  The African heart of Harare is Mbare Market. Last century when whites usurped Kopje Hill, blacks were relocated south, first to an area white supervised with a nine o'clock curfew, then to prime real estate near the abattoir, cemetery, and sewage drop. Today Mbare is the lively part of the city, with crowds of people walking the roads, cramming run-down blocks of flats, bartering in the musika. When Harare was Salisbury, this was Harare Township. Mbare was a chief who once held court on Kopje Hill.

  The wheel goes around.

  Yesterday, to kill time, Zinc had strolled through the musika. Except for the faces being black instead of Asian, it was Canton's Qingping Market in the Cutthroat case. A huge, sprawling complex with hundreds of small stalls, this decades-old trading center at the hub of converging roads is where Africans bring their produce in from the country to sell. Zinc's preconceptions of Zimbabwe were wrong. He expected bloat-bellied kids and litter everywhere. Poverty there was, but not the desperate kind. Shoeless children grinned, and didn't beg. Zimbabwe is litter-free because everything is recycled. The secondhand section of the maze was piled high with old clothes, plastic bottles, pac
ked-paper fuel, footwear cut from worn tires, and other cobbled inventions. Lose something in Harare today and you'll find it here tomorrow. Teens sat on the ground pounding jit jive and marimba from pail drums. Perfectly stacked pyramids of oranges, greens, and bananas stocked produce wagons. Throngs sipped chibuku at rowdy beer stalls as porters with wheelbarrows followed the laden for a tip. Poultry cackled.

  The night of the L.A. riots, Zinc was in New York, the only diner in a restaurant usually packed, the chet glaring at him from the kitchen door: Beat it, fool, so I

  can run home and be safe, while gangs in the sub chanted "Riot patrol.** Here he was in "Rhode which should be rife with hate, the only white face adrift in a maze of blacks, just fourteen years between now and a bloody race war. yet no squints of ang

  How did that make

  N'angas —witch doctors—worked throughout Mbare. Government sanctioned, their stalls were hodgepo. of skins and pods, dried plants and cowrie shells, gems-bok tails and horrid things in bottles. Snake >r strung above acted as charms. The stall that stopped Zinc dead in his tracks had two nangas. The male cured ills of the flesh with bush drugs. The female spirit medium—blind, with open milky ized on the realm of the shades.

  Pollock and the Porroh Man. Lukundoo, he thought.

  Now. like yesterday morning after he arrived. Zinc sat in a cab passing the High Courts, with their stern black judges in red robes and white wigs, to head north on Fourth Street. Traffic drove on the left. The cabbie thrummed the wheel to the jit jive of the Bhundu E on the radio as they zipped around red-and-white drums marking road construction. The car was an oven. The cabbie was cool. And Zinc would soon be a puddle on the sweaty seat. Past Livingstone Avenue, they turned right on Josiah Chinamano Avenue.