by Mark Graham
****
An hour and twenty-five minutes after his arrival at the donut shop, Nigel Mansell stood on a narrow footbridge staring down into the gray waters of the Apies River. Absently, he thumbed through the pages of the completed file. And then he saw those same pages drifting, like falling leaves, into the waiting arms of the river. He saw them riding the rapids. And at the very moment when he saw them disappearing beneath the water forever, a passing patrol car’s siren wiped the image from his brain, and he locked the file back inside his briefcase.
Finally, he marched down Edmund Avenue to the vast esplanade fronting the Union Building. He spent five minutes reconnoitering but found nothing out of the ordinary. Still, he felt the warning signs, the wetness along his lower back and the angry fist inside his gut; but there was nothing to justify it.
Inside, he presented his credentials at the reception desk and explained his desire for an audience with General Alexander Becker, the head of the National Intelligence Service.
The receptionist studied her daily log and then peered back at him. “I’m sorry, Inspector, but my log doesn’t show that you have an appointment.”
Mansell shook his head. “It wouldn’t, no. The telephone. You’ll have to use it, I think.”
The receptionist did as Mansell suggested, and five minutes later, two uniformed officers materialized. Without preamble, they escorted Mansell to the top floor of the west wing. Corridors adorned in civil service brown-and-cream motif meandered to the furthest reaches of the third floor.
Glass cubicles occupied by curious staff officers and busy secretaries flanked a narrow hall leading to the general’s office. The escorts knocked. A brief grunt came from the other side of the door, and they led Mansell inside. Too easy, he thought, anxiety having by now given way to a state of flimsy resolve.
General Becker unfolded from behind a sparse, neatly arranged desk. He was a heavyset man with large flanks and an impervious, sunburnt face.
“I appreciate you seeing me unannounced, General,” Mansell said. “I think it’s important, sir. Very important.”
Becker snorted. He dismissed the escorts with a brief toss of his head, and they were alone.
“ ‘Unannounced’ is not a particularly accurate description, Inspector Mansell.” The general held up an official CIB file from Port Elizabeth with Joshua’s broken seal, and a handwritten letter, which Mansell stared at but did not recognize. “Your benefactors, it seems, believe it fitting that I know of your existence. An unsigned letter, very convincing, vouching for your good intent and suggesting that in all fantasy there exist elements of truth. Very noble. And a homicide investigation report from a junior detective in P.E. Most impressive. I asked myself, ‘Why am I being deluged by junk mail?’ When lo and behold, the advertised product shows up at my front door.
“Out of curiosity, I have one of my loyal assistants check into this mysterious entity, and guess what my boy finds out in his travels via the computer circuit? He finds out that our unexpected guest is wanted under a federal warrant for murder.” Becker spread his arms, palms up, shoulders hunched. “A mark of excellence? An indisputable recommendation? Well, at the very least, a curious footnote.
“And what else do we know about our cryptic inspector, I ask?
“We know your record is without peer. Not a single failure since being elevated to chief inspector. We know you were in charge of the Elgin murder case. We know you thumbed your nose at the incompetents in Security Branch and went out and found the real killer. Except that he’d had an unfortunate encounter with a .45-caliber bullet.” The general gestured again, eyebrows raised in mock amazement. “People dropping like flies and the chief inspector is canned from the case? One might say . . . interesting.
“And just a pinch of spice to an already tangy stew. This morning our distinguished minister of justice issues a second complaint against our uninvited guest. Gun running? You, Inspector Nigel Mansell, are certainly a puzzle with many pieces.”
Mansell drew a deep breath. “Tip of the iceberg, I’m afraid, General.”
An icy chuckle indicated the uselessness of Mansell’s statement, and Becker said, “Some tiny bird told me I might expect that, Inspector.”
“General. Those men out front,” said Mansell, gesturing toward the door. “Would they be from Security Branch, sir?”
Brow furrowed with annoyance, General Becker punched his intercom button. Mansell tugged at the knot of his tie.
“Yes, sir?” answered a secretary.
“Miss Miller, bring in some tea, if you would.” Becker punched at the button again, and the two men gazed at one another. “NIS functions of its own accord, Inspector Mansell. If I want your head broken, I’ll use my own head breakers. Call it egocentric, if you will, but Security Branch is not the first name in our directory. Understood?”
“An eloquent explanation. Thank you,” said Mansell, hoisting his briefcase onto the desk top.
“But understand this,” Becker said, after Miss Miller had delivered a tray filled with hot tea, honey cakes, and ice water. “This office is not in the habit of harboring suspected criminals of any kind. You’re fortunate indeed to have a sharp detective and an even sharper forensic scientist for friends. They’ve stuck their necks out for you, Inspector. Now maybe you’d better tell me why.”
Mansell ran a hand through his hair. “It is my belief, General, that Minister of Justice Cecil Leistner is somehow involved in a plot to . . . jeopardize the current structure of our government here in South Africa. Perhaps . . . overthrow it, sir.”
Thirty-two years of intelligence work prepared a man for a great many shocks, but this statement nearly unraveled Alexander Becker. He scurried for a prop and found a half-smoked cigar in his top drawer. He considered the man seated before him—his record, his possible motives. He considered the minister—what he knew about Leistner, what he didn’t.
“A little restructuring might be in order,” he said. “But I doubt our esteemed minister is the man for the job. Present your case, Inspector.”
“For the last six and a half years, Minister Leistner has had a working lease agreement for an inactive gold mine called East Fields, located on the East Rand. Over the course of the last five years, East Fields has been the recipient of six large shipments of American weapons, all smuggled into the country on a Liberian freighter called ARVA II. Ian Elgin was the link between the freighter and safe passage through customs in Port Elizabeth.”
Mansell passed Becker the written statement concerning the mine and the cassette tape from his meeting with Cyprian Jurgen. Becker ordered his secretary to bring in a tape player and read the statement aloud. When the tape player arrived, Becker listened soberly to the Jurgen conversation.
“The last shipment of guns arrived on the fourteenth. Elgin wasn’t there, but I was.” Mansell used Delaney’s photos and his own from East Fields to supplement the account of the shipment’s transferral.
Becker held two of these aside, the first showing Andrew Van der Merve standing next to a Hino tractor trailer in front of the East Fields entrance and the other of an unidentified man standing on a flatcar inside East Fields. “These two. Who would they be?”
Mansell explained to the fullness of his knowledge, and Becker used his intercom again. A staff officer entered the office ten seconds later. “Find me these faces,” Becker snapped. “Priority one. Handle it yourself, Sean. They could be nationals, but chances are they’re not. No assumptions.”
Sean departed. Mansell passed the transcript of Merry’s taped message across the desk. “A friend sacrificed his life to find out what was going on in that mine.” He gestured sullenly at the transcript. “Not a very fitting epitaph, is it?”
Becker ignored the remark. “Zuma? You’re sure of that?” “It’s him.”
Becker tugged at his ear. “Zuma and Leistner. It’s a bad fit, Inspector. Not logical.” The general drew a deep breath and slapped the desk top. “And you say that D-day is the twenty-seco
nd. Tomorrow. Why?”
“Because a million and a half black workers will walk off their jobs tomorrow night, at midnight,” Mansell replied, elaborating. “Infiltration will occur simultaneously. Not a half-bad plan, is it?”
“Truly? Quite a revelation considering the number of yo-yos Security Branch has lurking around inside every union in the country, don’t you think? One might question your source.”
“Affiliated Union President Daniel Masi Hunter.”
“Indeed? And how did you pry this information out of our ebullient fat man, Inspector?”
“A woman in a position of power hears things, General.” Reluctantly, Mansell brought Delaney into the picture again.
“A resourceful lady, your Mrs. Blackford,” mused Becker, “but hardly reliable considering her current status, don’t you agree?”
“No I don’t agree, General, considering the current position our minister of justice finds himself in.”
“And the minister is behind all of this?”
At last, Mansell fell victim to the need for a cigarette. He brushed aside slack hair again and sighed. “General, it is my . . . suspicion, sir, that Cecil Leistner is not the man he claims to be. I have reason to believe that the minister is not the same person who grew up in Pampoenpoort during the thirties and forties, nor the same person who went to Korea in 1950 as a navigator and who was shot down and taken captive in Communist-held North Korea.”
Without hesitating, Mansell laid two photographs of Cecil Leistner on the desk in front of the general. The first, from the current Who’s Who in South Africa, showed the minister seated behind his desk, glaring soberly at the camera, poised, with a pen in his right hand, to sign a document. The second, from the schoolmistress in Pampoenpoort, showed a smiling youth behind a drooping tennis net. He was swinging an old wooden racquet, with his left hand.
“They’re not the same man, General.” Mansell gestured at the signature at the bottom of the high school photo. “According to Miss Goosen, young Cecil did everything left-handed. In her words, he couldn’t eat an apple with his right hand if he was starving to death.”
During the next hour, the general rarely spoke. He borrowed cigarettes from Mansell and ordered more tea. Mansell related what he had learned from his visit with Lloyd Chesney and his Uncle Jason—the death of Leistner’s parents a week before his return from Korea, the fire that destroyed family and school records, the funeral, the son who never returned—and his visit with Doc Bailey, and the dental file that had left the dentist so nonplussed.
Becker sent out the dental file and the photograph of the tennis player for handwriting analysis at Central Forensic, and Mansell explained about Sheena Goosen and Jaap Schwedler, about Korea and the prisoner who never returned.
“The real Cecil Leistner was killed in Russian-occupied North Korea shortly after his capture in May of 1950. His mother and father were murdered the week before his apparent release, on December 31, 1950, and the better part of his history perished in a fire the following day. His replacement entered South Africa, unencumbered, days later, and he now resides in an office in this same building.”
“It occurs to me, Inspector,” Becker implored, pulling absently at his ear, “that you’re, no doubt, quite pleased not to be presenting this fascinating account in a court of law.”
“In all honesty, there’s not another person in the country I could have presented this case to, General. I’m not seeking indictment. Simply action. Investigation. Someone who can read between the lines.”
Becker’s head bounced rhythmically in response, and his eyes fell upon a photograph on the far wall. A tall man, older, with a bushy moustache, dressed in the uniform of a brigadier. “Remember the Muldergate scandal, Inspector?”
“Of course,” Mansell said, curbing his impatience. “Prime Minister Vorster’s feeble attempt to buy support for his party’s racial policies.”
“Feeble? Not really. The Department of Information had a secret slush fund worth about two hundred million rand. They were planting stories in every major newspaper in the world. Bribing journalists, blackmailing unsympathetic politicians, murdering uncooperative businessmen. They were a day away from buying the Washington Star newspaper for eighty million dollars when my papa got wind of the whole affair. Papa was with Military Intelligence at the time. He blew the whistle. And died a week later in a car accident. An `apparent’ heart attack, they said. Except I couldn’t get them to do an autopsy. . . . No, they had him killed, all right, but I couldn’t prove it. I got promoted instead.”
Mansell glanced now at the photograph, and he was taken by a certain . . . vitality in the elder Becker’s eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“Papa was a fool. He thought we could work this race thing out in peace. You know, like intelligent human beings.” Becker tapped an unlit cigarette against the desk top and then tossed it aside. “No, Inspector. We stood face-to-face with the harbinger, heard the foretelling of our own dim future, and then proceeded to ignore every word.”
What Mansell wanted to say was that it sounded like something Jennifer would have said five years ago, but he didn’t.
“General, we don’t have much time.”
“Accusing a cabinet minister of treason requires time, I dare say.”
A last report, the timetable underscoring the connections between Leistner and Ian Elgin, passed into Becker’s hands. He read it slowly, grunting twice and chuckling once.
“It fits,” Mansell said. “Within six months of Elgin’s appointment to the Wiehahn Commission, they presented strong recommendations in favor of black unions.”
“True. But it was long overdue. It proves nothing except that a scared white ruling minority moves damn slow.” A knock echoed from the office door, and Becker growled, “Enter.”
The staff officer named Sean tossed the photo of the man standing on the flatcar at East Fields onto the desk. “We’re still working on this one. No criminal record here or outside the country. We’re running it through the photo bank now.”
Sean scratched his nose. He set Delaney’s photo of Andrew Van der Merve and a ream of computer paper on the desk. Becker ignored both. “And the other? Am I supposed to read your mind?”
“They slipped one past us, sir,” Sean said, finally. “The man’s name is Alexis Chervanak. We list him as a major with Soviet GRU, Military Intelligence. Interpol confirms. Last seen in 1984 at an embassy function in West Berlin in honor of our own Foreign Minister Botha. Chervanak was born in Leningrad in . . .”
Languidly, Becker raised a hand. “Thank you, Sean. That’s sufficient. Stay in the office. I’ll need you later.”
Ten minutes later, the dental files from Doc Bailey and the tennis photo returned. This officer was younger than Sean—upright, serious, confident. A crew cut, narrow print tie, wing-tipped shoes, and, Mansell thought, a definite future in the spy business.
“Most significant,” the officer explained, “is the screw implant. A new tooth is actually connected to the end. . . .”
He saw the general shaking his head. “Thank you, Mr. Whittner. The handwriting?”
“On the dental chart in question, a masterful forgery. Dressler down in Forensic says it’s as good as you’ll ever see. Slight distortions in pen pressure and on the terminal strokes were the only flaws. As for the signature at the bottom of the tennis photo, well, Dressler said the person was obviously left-handed, and was that all you wanted to know.”
Becker nodded briskly, crushing out a cigarette. Mr. Whittner recognized the dismissal and departed.
They sat in silence. Mansell closed his eyes. A stillness near sleep filled his brain. He listened to his heart beat, an old stakeout trick. He returned to the room moments later and a wall clock that read 4:12. Had they been at it that long? he wondered. Less drained than he had been in days, Mansell smoked for pleasure. He glanced at Becker, lost in thought, his fingers drumming the desk top. Suddenly, the fingers stopped, the hand froze in midair. A moment later, the meaty
paw slapped the desk and then punched the intercom.
“Miss Miller, send in Sean and Mr. Whittner, please.”
“What now, General?” asked Mansell.
“You’ll stay with us for a time, I believe, Inspector.”
Alarm slashed through short-lived relief. “In what capacity?”
“Inspector Mansell, you are in the dubious position of being a wanted man. Wanted, no less, in connection with two felonies.” Becker arose. He patted his stomach and straightened his tie. “Your presence on the street would be a dereliction of my duty, would it not?”
“You’re detaining me.”
“Such a stringent term, ‘detention.’ But, yes, for a time.”
“So it seems,” Mansell said as the door opened behind them, “that the split between Security Branch and Intelligence isn’t so complete after all. Maybe you’ll have the minister pop over for a visit. Later, after tea, of course.”
“Ah, yes. The South African Conflict, Inspector. Never forget it. It rules our lives like the absence of water rules the desert. Unto thine own self be forever partial. Unto thy neighbor, whatever his color, be forever suspicious.
“You see, Inspector, he who says that a saint is a saint until he proves himself a rogue has not lived in South Africa. Gentlemen,” Becker said to his assistants, “please escort our guest to chamber 320.”
****
In an interrogation room on the tenth floor of the Hall of Justice, Major Hymie Wolffe stripped off a gray shirt yellowed by perspiration. He stirred sugar into chifir. A bead of sweat rolled down the bridge of his nose, lingering at the tip.
He approached the suspect, who was seated beneath incandescent spotlights, a cedar walking stick clutched between her legs.
“Where did Chief Inspector Mansell go after he so ungraciously dumped you in that motel room in Jansenville, Mrs. Blackford?”
“He said something about fly fishing for anchovies off the coast of Cape Town. I wasn’t interested.”
Wolffe rushed forward. Hot tea spilled on Delaney’s thigh, causing her to cry out. He wrenched the walking stick out of her grasp.