by Mark Graham
THE HARBINGER
A Novel
by
Mark Graham
Copyright 2011 Mark Graham
This story is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places and incidents are invented by the author or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any similarity to actual persons or events is purely coincidental.
All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in form or by any means without the prior written consent of the author.
ISBN 978-0-9847118-6-4
Published by Graham Publishing Group, Denver, Colorado
For Nobuko
My thanks to Susan Manchester for help generously given, to Arnold Goodman for setting me on the right track, and to Judith Shafran, whose editorial advice and good humor have proved invaluable.
Prologue
The exiled black man stood, erect and somber, at the river’s edge and stared back at his homeland to the south. Luminescent black water snaked beneath the ancient pier, lapped and curled at the feet of rotting timbers. Here, the Limpopo River cut a ragged border between South Africa and its northern neighbor, the landlocked Botswana.
For three years he had prepared for this night. There, to the south, beyond the solitary acacia of the bushland, caught in the shroud of this moonless night, lay his redemption: the richest gold fields in the world, the Achilles’ heel of his accusers.
On the far shore, the South African border patrol watched the man’s every move through high-powered binoculars. Christopher Zuma was an unimposing sight in his ill-fitting, tattered suit, but the choice of clothes, he realized, served both purpose and memory; he had worn the same suit on the day of his expatriation. But it was a memory, Zuma told himself, too strong for this occasion, and the good fortune of rain broke through the reverie.
He turned his attention instead to the woman at his side, his steady companion on these “visits” to Gaborone. Nonchalant and sultry beneath their umbrella, she laid her head upon his shoulder. It was a calculated scene played many times over for the benefit of their audiences on both sides of the river. They were silent now. There were no more words to be spoken.
A small dory drew up to the pier. The oarsman arose, and a steady hand escorted the couple on board. A canopy had been erected at the rear of the craft, protection, ostensibly, against the intensifying storm. The couple was not to be deterred; the rain was their ally tonight.
Together they settled back beneath the canopy’s flimsy walls. The oarsman launched the craft into the middle of the river’s lazy current. In his excitement, he felt the wasted energy of adrenaline, and knowing better, calmed himself in the melody of the rain.
The border patrol on the distant shore was accompanied this night by a member of South Africa’s National Intelligence Service, the NIS; Christopher Zuma was their special charge. The officer followed the course of the dory with stark blue eyes and a condescending grin. Zuma’s predictable behavior left him amused, disappointed. For two years, the black leader had been elusive, active, a challenge to his keepers. But since then, they’d watched the steady erosion of his involvement. He was left with this, his romps in Gaborone. They joked about his woman. Always the same. Painted, overdressed, cheap.
Thunder cracked, rumbled like wild horses stampeding from the east. Shafts of lightning ripped away at the delicate skin of the horizon, illuminating ebony thunderheads. The river swelled beneath the onslaught of their harvest.
The riverboat was unnecessary tonight, the NIS officer told the border guards. There would be no romance on the Limpopo in this weather. The guards found amusement in this proclamation, and a gust of wind drove them, laughing, back to the shelter of their guardhouse.
On the water, the oarsman fought the wind and the current with powerful, exhausting strokes. He surveyed banks both north and south, and when the river narrowed, he broke away from the main channel.
The dory swept around a wooded bend. The dim lights of Gaborone were consumed by heavy branches. Here the river took them momentarily from the preying eyes of the South Africans, now a half kilometer downriver. This was the moment.
On the north shore, soldiers laden with automatic weapons and binoculars moved deliberately from the protection of their own guardhouse. Swearing and grumbling, they trudged the length of a narrow jetty to the river.
Thirty seconds later, they caught sight of the boat, a vacillating intrusion on the Limpopo’s impervious concourse. The canopy flapped violently in the breeze as the oarsman allowed the dory to drift toward the bank. The expression on his female passenger’s face sent waves of remorse through his tired limbs; what she faced once they reached shore, he would not wish on anyone.
The senior officer, a sergeant in rank, half drunk on sweet-potato rum, raised his binoculars. Lightning flashed, closer now. The river fluoresced, rising and falling in the blinding glare. He pressed forward suddenly, cleared his eyes of rain, and focused again. It couldn’t be, he thought, frantic at what he knew to be impossible. Zuma. He was gone. The binoculars dropped to his side. He gripped his rifle.
The oarsman steered the dory into the shallows along the jetty. He tied his boat off. Then, silently, he took the woman’s hand and she stepped, very much alone, ashore.
Chapter 1
Ian Elgin treaded through fog toward the brooding arches of Port Elizabeth’s King George train station.
At this late hour, the archaic building was bathed in a sullen glow, oozing melancholy and loneliness. Elgin hunched his shoulders and buried his hands into the deep pockets of his silk suit; the last thing he wanted to do now was draw attention to himself.
Behind him, he heard the car door slam, the kind of resentful explosion that says far more than angry words ever can. But he didn’t look back. Delaney would still be watching, and it was best, he told himself, to ignore her when she was in this state. So maybe it was his own fault, but admitting it wouldn’t change a thing.
Off to his left, the clash of steel wheels resounded from the train yard. A foghorn split the night, a rush of sound so stark and full it sent a chill down Elgin’s spine. With an effort, he picked up his pace—sluggish steps that belied his anticipation of the rendezvous which lay ahead.
The meeting with Delaney hadn’t gone well. The restaurant and the wine had only provided a public forum for arguing. Delaney knew something was wrong, but even drunk he couldn’t bring himself to tell her. Who would believe it?
Darkness opened a gateway to the past, and Elgin realized he could hardly recall the beginning himself anymore. . . .
It was seven years now since he had gotten himself into this goddamn mess with Cecil Leistner, the minister of justice, and those bloody gold mines. Seven years that had passed in a flurry of illegal arms shipments and surreptitious labor deals. Seven years. Elgin shook his head as if the passing of those years was more fantasy than fact.
He couldn’t help but wonder how the whole thing had gotten this far. It had seemed incredible at the time, still did, but not impossible, not the way the third member of their triad, Jan Koster, had explained it.
Even now, Elgin wasn’t certain whether to call Koster a bloody genius or a raving lunatic. The Deputy Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy Affairs; it was an absurd title. Yet, between the three of them, they were on the verge of sending the country into a tailspin. . . .
Purposely, Elgin trudged past the concourse that led to the main terminal. A sudden gust swept fallen leaves across the pavement. He glanced over his shoulder. Delaney’s car was still in the lot, but swirls of fog blocked his view of her. No, lady, I’m not that smashed. He never used the main entrance. Instead, he turned south on a narrow walk that fronted the depot. At the side entrance, he paused, found himself hesitating.
/> An image assaulted him, the object of this late-night tryst, and it left him weak and excited. He could imagine the sight of her, the fragrance and the taste, hear her cries. It was all so foreign to the lovemaking he and his wife shared, or had shared way back when, that he found himself craving it like an addict craves his next fix.
Moreover, he was honest enough to admit that the shoddiness of the station itself and the vulgarity of its transients lent an earthy element to their rendezvous, an element that was now essential for him. It’s this thing with the mines, he told himself. As the day drew nearer, their escapades grew more lurid. The motel room in Summerstrand had given way to the restricted beaches up north. Then it was the balcony overlooking the speakeasy and its drunken crowd. And for the past three months now, here at the station. . .
The sound of approaching footsteps, growing louder in the fog and closing in on him, pushed Elgin inside.
The shoeshine stand outside the Men’s Club was deserted, and he was grateful. He heard laughter coming from the information booth along the west wall. As usual, the creep from the ticket counter watched his every move.
Hesitation surrendered fully now to the burden of discretion, and he moved on. The lady at the newsstand smiled hopefully, but he would forgo the paper this time. He had cigars enough, and idle chitchat did not appeal to him tonight.
At last, the one-dimensional cutout of a black female stared down at him from above the lounge door. NET SWARTES. BLACKS ONLY. He paused at the water fountain, buying time and watching for the perfect moment. This was always the hardest part, the most uncomfortable part. But it was always the picture of her legs spread wide across the mattress that spurred him past this temporal barrier, and tonight the image was especially vivid. He pushed aside the curtain.
The sitting room beyond was dim and deserted, and he pressed against the wall like a common criminal catching his breath. He saw the chiffon scarf hanging on the coat rack, limp and forlorn, and a surge of unexpected wrath swept over him. She’d left it. How could she leave it in this place, for God’s sake? Here, among the riffraff and rabble. Why it hadn’t been stolen was beyond him.
Then he glanced at his watch and found to his dismay that he was late. Damn late. Had she come and gone already? That would explain the scarf.
He hurried past the door into the locker room.
“Sylvia.” There was no answer. He felt a draft, chilly and damp, and noticed the broken window above the last bank of lockers. He paused, conscious of the tapping of his own heart and the warning shout of the foghorn as it rode the wind into the corners of the room and deeper yet into the recesses of his own brain. “Sylvia?”
Why was he sweating? He struggled out of his suit coat and walked unsteadily into the sleep room behind the last lockers. He didn’t bother with the light; he knew the room now like his own bedroom. Perfume hung in the air, a thin veil that caused him to inhale greedily. It wasn’t her perfume, but the stirring he felt didn’t bother with distinction.
Suddenly, he paused again, alert to a sound that he couldn’t identify. The muffled clang of a locker closing? Or the muted streak of a shower-stall door? He wasn’t certain, wasn’t certain his dulled faculties weren’t playing tricks on him. Slowly, as a hunter might stalk a buck at the edge of a clearing, he hung his coat across a chair and crept back to the doorway.
“Sylvia?” He nudged into the faint light, wiping a bead of moisture from his forehead. “Hey, lady, quit screwing around, will you?”
He heard the rustle of the wind outside, a branch slapping at a wall nearby. But there was another sound, one closer, and he peered through the gloom toward the showers. He stepped back out of the light, straining to hear. Then the water pipes overhead rumbled, and air filled his lungs with relief.
He hastened back into the sitting room.
There he bought a can of pop from the Coke machine and absently flipped through the pages of a yellowing magazine. Finally, he returned, almost unwilling, to the lockers. Then, pacing, drinking in the air, and sipping the pop, Elgin started to best the effects of alcohol. With near sobriety came a distorted renewal of confidence. Laughter. She’d never leave, he told himself. She would wait all damn night if she had to. He was her ticket out of the shantytown jungle that waited, like a bad dream, outside these dingy walls. No, something must have delayed her. There could be no other explanation.
Meandering led to the washbasins and showers adjacent to the lockers. Elgin flipped the light switch. Fluorescent tubes sputtered and buzzed. And then he heard it again, the same tinny noise as before. He stared down the long line of shower stalls. Opaque glass doors hid all but one stall.
“Is that you, kiddo?”
The pop can collapsed in Elgin’s clammy grip.
He forced himself to move; halting steps led him reluctantly toward the showers. With quick stabs, he opened each door one at a time. Each stall was empty. Relieved, he moved quickly back to the washbasins. He splashed cold water on his face, ran his fingers roughly -through his hair. Discarding the pop can, he returned to the main room and checked his watch again.
His nerve ends tingled. He swiped aggressively at an opened locker door.
Pacing, he crossed behind the second bank of lockers. And there, in the grimy reflection of a broken mirror, he saw the man, a stocking cap covering his head and tan gloves hiding his hands, standing less than a meter behind him.
The first blow caught Elgin just below the neck, a fierce strike that spun him around in a daze. In that moment, a singular thought flashed through his mind. The letter. I should never have sent that bloody letter.
The second blow sent Elgin sprawling across the floor. Stunned, he watched helplessly as his attacker lunged toward him, curious that the man now held an umbrella in his hands, like a sword.
There was an instant of pain, and the last thing Ian Elgin heard was the bellow of the foghorn, a faint cry in the distance.
****
At the intersection of Castle Hill and Main, Chief Homicide Inspector Nigel Mansell brought his unmarked GM sedan to a halt. Along the eastern horizon, a translucent wedge of light crept between the shoulders of low-lying hills. The fog was lifting now, though its dissipating veil still clung to the roofs of the sleeping city.
Before Mansell, a fleet of minibuses rumbled down the deserted thoroughfare on their way to outlying black townships. There, he knew, the city’s proletarian work force would be awaiting their arrival; like the ball of fire inching its way into the sky, another certainty of dawn.
The light changed. The convoy, along with its indictment, disappeared in a wake of dust and dried leaves, and Mansell returned his attention to the road. He eased the car beneath a six-lane overpass known, anachronistically, as Settler’s Way—a tribute to the ambitious English immigrants who first landed on the shores of Algoa Bay a century and a half ago.
An access road led past the towering, red brick Campanile, a town crier of sorts, and the clock below the belfry read 5:17. Mansell filled his lungs with the smoke of his second cigarette.
The waterfront lay before him now. The railroad station stretched out along the face of the bay to his left, and kilometer after kilometer of steel rail traversed the shore here. Mansell circled the depot to the terminal parking lot. He found an empty space up front labeled FOR WHITES ONLY, and the telling assemblage of police vans and patrol cars stirred the reluctant well of nervous energy.
Mansell unfolded from the front seat, a tall, lean figure, whose thirty-seven years he was certain could be counted in full this morning. Long fingers pushed lank golden hair off his forehead. He faced the ocean for a moment. Pale eyes focused on a lone sailboat. He massaged the outcropping of a day-old beard. The bay sparkled in the dawn, turquoise swells and purple caps.
Normally an instantaneous elixir, the sea itself seemed to share his dilatory mood.
The telephone on Mansell’s nightstand had rung at 4:58. The body of a white male, presumed dead, had been discovered at the train station jammed i
nside a locker in the ladies’ lounge. The Blacks Only ladies’ lounge. The dispatcher had, Mansell remembered, emphasized the difference in pigmentation with a certain vigor, but there was something else. Something in his voice. The tone or perhaps the visual image portrayed by the tone. Mansell wasn’t certain, but it, whatever it was, had left him with a sense of urgency. And yet he had delayed, actually debated over which tie to wear. And then procrastinated over whether to shave or not. It was only a matter of seconds, this he knew, but it was enough nonetheless. Dread was not the right word, he told himself that, and yet . . .
Another cigarette materialized in ritualistic preparation.
Long strides carried him toward the terminal entrance. The main building was four stories of granite, marble, and wood, flanked to the north by 150 meters of warehousing and backed by loading platforms and storage sheds. Overlooking the arched entryway was a circular marble-faced clock. Embossed lettering above the face read “King George Station—1905.”
Barricades and solemn-faced policemen formed a cordon across revolving doors, and Mansell was met inside by Detective Joshua Brungle. It never failed, Mansell thought, hopeless in his attempt to suppress a grin. Joshua’s suit was, as always, immaculately pressed. His tanned face was shaved and alert, and waves of curly black hair somehow managed to appear both styled and windblown at the same time.
Mansell took him by the arm as they entered the terminal. He said, “Do you think, Detective Brungle, it would be possible for you to look a little less presentable at this hour of the morning?”
Joshua glanced at Mansell’s unshaven face. “And come to work looking like you? Do me a favor.”
Mansell tipped his head forward just slightly. “On the theory that the youthful upstart is doing whatever it takes to impress his aging mentor, I’ll let the matter lie.”
“Aging mentor?” Joshua remarked. “An inspiring lesson in diplomacy. Thank you.”