by Mark Graham
“It’s just me and you, Inspector,” Becker continued. He glanced at the briefcase. Then he held out the arrest order. “I can’t order you about this. Bloody hell, I look at you and I can just imagine your answer if the P.M. himself tried to order you. I need help, Mansell. There’s a plane leaving in one hour for Nelspruit, a town right outside of Kruger National. I’d like you to be on it. Find Leistner. The rest is my responsibility.”
Mansell glanced outside. Vertical shafts of lightning exploded on the horizon.
“A law officer under federal warrant is automatically stripped of all authority,” he said.
“Ah, but I have been remiss, haven’t I?” Becker drew the other telex from his breast pocket. “This might interest you.”
Mansell read the executive order overriding all federal warrants against Delaney and himself. “Given under my hand,” it read. Sure, the hand that slipped the ring on Leistner’s finger all those years ago and brought him into the brotherhood, thought Mansell. One good deed deserves a loophole. One misdeed, several.
“At this moment, General, Mrs. Blackford is sitting in a jail cell in Port Elizabeth. A Security Branch jail cell known for more than a few indiscretions.” Mansell’s fingers curled around the yellow telex. He held it up. “Do they know about this?”
“I’ll see to it, Inspector. Count on it.”
Mansell tipped his head. He folded both orders and filed them in the breast pocket of his jacket. The general mentioned a military carrier at Jan Smuts Airport and the helicopter waiting downstairs. Becker bummed a last cigarette, and Mansell walked out into the rain.
****
The evensong of the swallow belied the feverish buildup pervasive throughout East Fields.
Uniformed soldiers lay wide-eyed on bunks smoking cigarettes, sat hunchbacked in the cafeteria drinking coffee, paced with shortened breath and the tangy hue of fever on their cheeks, awaiting orders.
Three hundred meters belowground, six thousand men, soldiers of the initial strike teams, took up their positions in the Weapons Supply Center. M16 rifles and American-made .45-caliber pistols were distributed in an orderly fashion.
In a small office attached to the command center sat Jan Koster. He wore civilian clothes. A small suitcase lay at his feet. Opposite him sat Colonel Rolf Lamouline, in full-dress combat fatigues; a nattily attired Christopher Zuma; and Andrew Van der Merve, a travel bag at his side.
According to their plan, Van der Merve would disappear and Koster would return to Cape Town. He would resume his normal functions with the Ministry of Mineral Resources and Energy Affairs. They would not be in touch again.
Koster hoisted his travel bag. He tossed a set of keys to Van der Merve. “You take the Land Rover. The red-and-blue one parked outside. I’ll take the jeep.”
“Thanks,” said Van der Merve. They all shook hands.
Without fanfare, Koster slipped behind the wheel of the jeep. He watched for a moment as four yellow buses filed out of the compound with the last of the East German engineers and two groups of Cuban advisers.
When the buses were out of sight, Van der Merve pointed the Land Rover for the gate and turned west on R555. Koster followed at a distance. Once past Welgedacht, he saw the flatbed truck ease onto the highway ahead of him.
It wasn’t a pretty sight. The flatbed bore down on the Land Rover with such a fury that there would have been no time to react. An instant later, Koster saw the Land Rover crash through the guardrail into a deep ravine, where it exploded into a towering fountain of orange flame.
The flatbed hurried on, and Koster pulled off to the side of the road. He leaned out the window until the nausea passed. Then he made a U-turn and pushed the jeep east until he reached R42. Forty kilometers later he found himself on the freeway, and Witbank was only eight minutes away.
The crackerbox waiting room at the Witbank Municipal Airport was bleak in the last fragments of evening and nearly deserted. The ticket counter had been abandoned an hour ago. A bored clerk sat in the Budget Master rent-a-car booth reading Rooi Rose magazine. An out-of-order candy machine and a partially illuminated Coke machine stood watch from the far corner.
His wife and children sat in fiberglass chairs watching the airfield. Koster called out their names. The girls raced into his arms, and he lifted them into the air. He kissed the warm lips of his wife. She touched his face. Survival, he thought wearily, at the price of a last deed.
The Cessna lifted off twenty minutes later. Rain battered the twin engines until it reached altitude above the clouds. Koster checked his flight plan. With a last glance at the East Rand, he explained to his family that the trip to Zimbabwe included a single refueling stop.
****
Alexander Becker entered the lobby of the Broadstreet International Hotel in Johannesburg at 5:29 P.M. The Federation of Mineworkers Union meeting of local union heads was not scheduled to begin for an hour yet. The convention room on the second floor bustled with last-minute anticipation; sound checks, early arrivals, gossip, a wet bar. Red velvet carpet and crystal chandeliers led him to the platform, where he accosted the general secretary of the union with a single inquiry.
He returned to the corridor. An elevator, glass-enclosed and over-looking lobby fountains lit with gold and white spots and a formally attired woman playing Chopin on a grand piano, carried him to the thirteenth floor.
Gray-suited sentinels flanked each door leading to suites 1301 and 1302. The general flashed his plastic I.D. card, and they stepped mutely aside.
As a matter of courtesy, he knocked, but didn’t wait for an answer. Lucas Ravele, the Federation president, sat at a round tea table drinking champagne cocktails with two other FMU officials and a barefooted secretary showing more cleavage than necessary. The sound of laughter and busy glasses ceased as the stranger approached the table.
Becker displayed his magical card again. The three men arose. “Becker!” exclaimed Ravele.
“General Becker,” he replied coolly. “I’ll need five minutes of your time, Ravele. You and your associates here. In private. It seems there will be an addition to your agenda tonight.”
Ravele’s eyes widened. Hurriedly, he dismissed the secretary. A bedroom with peach-colored walls and a round bed provided them with privacy.
When the door closed, Ravele said, “General? You said something about our agenda for the night?”
“Well, then you haven’t shared the information with your friends.” Becker borrowed a cigarette from one of Ravele’s comrades and then passed the FMU president a knowing glance. “You’ll be looking for a new president tonight, gentlemen. Lucas has tired of union work. He’ll be tendering his resignation tonight. Either that or spending a considerable amount of time in Modder Bee Prison. I like to offer a man a choice.”
“Meaning what?” blurted out one of the associates.
Becker showered the man with a look of seasoned annoyance. Then he focused again on Ravele. Ravele removed his glasses. With a monogrammed handkerchief he dabbed at the drops forming on his upper lip. He sank forlornly into a nearby chair.
“I was meaning to announce it tonight,” Ravele said. He glanced from Becker to his associates. “I’ll be accompanying the general when he leaves.”
“But the strike,” his associate protested. “Lucas, the strike.” Ravele looked in Becker’s direction.
“It’s a free country, gentlemen,” the general said, shrugging. “A union’s got the right to strike, doesn’t it?”
****
A fuel leak delayed the departure of the Jetstream TMK for twenty minutes.
The pilot, a grizzly air force veteran named Arthur, barked orders at a frenzied mechanical crew and paced fitfully. Thunder shook rain from black clouds, and night absorbed it like a sponge.
Nigel Mansell borrowed a copy of The Citizen from a magazine rack in the hangar. He took an opened can of Coke on board and waited. Nerve ends tingled as each minute passed. He pictured Cecil Leistner getting into the back of a Mercedes limou
sine and driving to the Indian Ocean. He pictured the fishing trawler off Kosi Bay, rusted and laden with tackle, whisking the minister out to sea. There, off Cape Sainte Marie on the tip of Madagascar, they would rendezvous with a waiting U-boat, and he would disappear along the ocean’s vast floor. . . .
The image burst like an iridescent soap bubble as the pilot’s menacing growl penetrated the cabin. Mansell stooped to cigarette smoking. New images assaulted him.
He pictured Delaney in an interrogation room with Hymie Wolfe, he in a sweat-soaked undershirt with wide suspenders hoisting baggy pants, his thick jowls pulsating red under her resistance, his bamboo stave cutting through the air. . .
He saw the squashed remains of Anthony Mabasu in a puddle of red, the lacerated soles of his feet, the twitch of his hand as he died, the shattered window ten stories above. . . .
He saw two bottles of beer, bedewed and green like wild grass on a cool dawn in the fall. Two bottles greeting him on the back porch that day. He heard Merry’s voice, chiding him, calling out from the kitchen, Hey, it’s the back-door man. Then his hand involuntarily sought out the cassette in his coat pocket, the taped replay of Merry’s death, bullets tearing away at the image of his face, and the beer bottles exploding in his brain. . . .
Mansell’s eyes snapped open. Coke spilled from the overturned can onto his pants, cold and sticky on his thigh. A thick ash broke away from his cigarette, tumbling onto the seat cover. Impatiently, Mansell swept it aside. He glanced through the rain-scarred window and his own reflection peered back.
You see things that others don’t, he heard Becker saying. Definitely a cut above, thought Mansell, cursing himself. An investigator’s investigator. Indeed. Dead bodies strewn like broken matches along his inglorious path, the chief inspector stumbles from one enlightened clue to the next, pasting them together like a child’s collage to be displayed, after a little parental praise, for a day on the refrigerator. Thrilled, the inspector bungles on until, at last, he finds his place in a leaky craft without wings. A marvel of modern police science.
Maybe, he thought, looking for grains of conciliation, if the General can
He felt a hand on his shoulder. The hiss of jet engines filled his brain. The copilot’s voice called out, saying, “We’re out of here, Inspector. Buckle up and stash that pop can.”
The Jetstream taxied momentarily. A touch of the throttle sent ripples of G-force against Mansell’s chest, and relief washed over him. They lifted into the air at an abnormally steep angle. Clouds smothered the craft briefly, and then he saw stars.
****
“Read this.”
The Durban headquarters of the Affiliated Union of Dockers, Stevedores, and Rail Workers on Point Street reeked of cigar smoke, expensive whiskey, and fat wallets. The National Intelligence Service officer, a captain in rank named Sean, shoved a piece of foolscap in front of Daniel Masi Hunter’s massive face.
Sean raised his voice. “You do read Afrikaans?”
The clamor in the room paused on a precipice between shock and indignation.
Hunter glared back at the smiling face. The Harbour Association, he thought undaunted, had indeed played a weak hand, sending a hatchet man into his arena. Were they seeking to enrage or simply embarrass?
“It may be wise, sir,” the fat man interjected, “for you to identify yourself, lest you find yourself being removed from the premises like a common criminal. But then, the choice is yours, I suppose.”
Feigning embarrassment, Sean said, “How rude of me. Of course. I do apologize.” A smile, this time briefly displayed, fell away like breaking glass. The NIS card materialized from inside his wallet. He tapped the paper dangling from Daniel Hunter’s hand. “Read it.”
While the Affiliated Union president read through the short communiqué, Sean poured whiskey into a shot glass. He surveyed the room without apprehension. The general had told him to do it alone. Sideline work, he called it. Which meant The Company didn’t know. Which meant the general was out on a limb and asking for a good measure of trust. He only needed to ask once. Sean swallowed the shot in one neat motion.
“Plans change, Hunter,” he said. “You’re a resourceful SOB, you’ll find another line of work.”
Calmly, Hunter passed the paper to an associate. “I was hoping to choose my own successor.”
“Well, there’s always the strike,” Sean said. He watched the message take effect. Hunter offered a brief nod.
“My legacy. I see.” Hunter saw the paper moving among his retinue. Quickly, he shook a half dozen hands and whispered in a half dozen ears. Then he finished his drink and followed the NIS officer to the door. “Shall we go?”
****
By nine o’clock, Blue Strike Team was armed and in position in the vast hull that was Supply Central. By 10:30, the connection tunnel leading to Target Three was filling with sweat-soaked men wearing combat helmets and camouflage fatigues.
At the tunnel’s entrance, a lonely man, appointed to a lonely task, took up his station at the detonator box attached to the explosives in the access shaft, completely unaware of the fact that the detonator had been defused days before.
Inside the tunnel, long strands of incandescent bulbs illuminated craggy stone walls. Generators toiled endlessly, pumping cool air throughout the system.
Ten minutes later, like their counterparts lying in wait beneath three other targets, the first soldiers started up the iron ladders that hung from the walls of the dead access shaft. In the work station forty meters below the Homestake Mining complex, they would await the final signal.
****
By day, Nelspruit was a flourishing farm community. Fertile plains and temperate weather combined to produce citrus groves laden with oranges and lemons and subtropical farms rich in papaya and guava.
By night, most of Nelspruit’s twelve thousand inhabitants slept a contented sleep. The comings and goings of a military turboprop concerned them not, nor the blustery crosscurrent that shook the plane as it made its approach. When the tires finally touched ground, Mansell relinquished his grip on the armrests. He searched his pockets for a cigarette. A single runway led to a terminal built as low to the ground as the countryside it served.
Mansell descended the ramp to the runway, where a military car awaited him. He dismissed the driver and slid behind the wheel. Having spent the last half hour of the flight absorbing a road map of the eastern Transvaal, he pointed the car north on a meager two-lane road called R37.
Almost at once, the Drakensberg consumed him. The road narrowed, climbed, and meandered. A black sky exploded with starlight. Steep slopes laden with blue gum trees and capped by Black Reef quartzite surrounded him. Lush valleys opened up at the base of the mountains to wide floors strewn with beehive huts and rondavels. Small fires were visible here and about, smoke rising from thatch-roofed huts. Mansell glimpsed the checkerboard outline of mealie gardens and herds of cattle dozing within their pens.
Night deepened. The mountains grew in ruggedness and mystery. Traffic, heavy with tourists during spring and summer, dwindled. Beyond Sabie, Mansell passed a tractor, a semi, and a half dozen cars. At a diner outside of Mac Mac, he saw a highway patrol car, two campers, and a pickup filled with migrants. Slowly, adrenaline seeped into his system.
Like a circular staircase, hairpin turns led Mansell to the verge of a great divide eighty kilometers from Nelspruit. A narrow tunnel brought him to the other side high above a wooden glen. He parked in an alcove overlooking the valley. He climbed out of the car, fished for a cigarette, and hopped onto the hood. Below, antique lamps twinkled softly. Smoke rose from an occasional stone chimney.
Pilgrim’s Rest, like much of South Africa, was a product of gold. The first discovery there was made in 1873. Easy gold diminished twenty-five years later, and the village was declared a national monument. Still, prospectors continued to mine the hills, and trout and perch continued to inhabit the red waters of the Blyde River. In time, the wealthy discovered the town. Now man
ors hid in the hills, estates blossomed on the valley floor.
Mansell studied the view for five minutes, seeking a logical plan for the arrest of the country’s highest legal authority. The flimsy yellow telex containing the arrest order didn’t feel very substantial in this wilderness. He was, quite suddenly, aware of the vague tentacle creeping through his system, the moisture gathering, despite the chill in the air, at the base of his spine, and it was almost a relief identifying its source. Fear, Mansell knew, was a tonic. Dreaded or not, it still served its purpose. His one ally, he decided, would be the minister’s desire for anonymity. The veil of secrecy. Or would it? Would subterfuge take a backseat to security? He prepared himself for the obvious—armed guards, electrified fences, dobermans, a helicopter pad—and hoped his experience would seek out the less obvious, the trapdoors. He was drawn to the nine-millimeter Browning sagging uncomfortably beneath his arm. He tightened the harness. It was still uncomfortable, still of very little comfort. He jumped down from the hood and climbed behind the wheel again.
****
As he stood in the dark beneath a leafless tree somewhere in the heart of the East Rand, his hair matted from the rain, alone, cigarette butts collecting at his feet, General Alexander Becker felt about as lonely as he ever expected to feel. What in the name of God had he done? There was no one to put the question to. It would stay within him, a condemned prisoner gnawing at hardened steel bars, for the rest of his life.
There was nothing to do but wait, and think. . . . A memory took him momentarily back to the dirty streets of Soweto, in ‘76, when the Zulu clashed with Security Branch. Homemade spears were no match for the bullets and the tear gas. A baby died in his arms that day. He saw a black woman with a diesel-filled tire around her neck, burning to death. He tried dousing the flames as black smoke ate away at her lungs. He tried pulling away the molten rubber as it ate away at her skin. Twenty minutes it took. And her screams. . . . Such memories were unforgettable, but today Becker was grateful; today they served their purpose.