‘But you and your famous wife never quarrelled about this?’
‘No.’
‘So when did you settle in America?’
Harker said tensely: ‘In 1986 I was wounded, and invalided out of the army. First I went to England and became involved in publishing. I came to America in 1987 and took over Harvest House. In 1988 I met Josephine and later started publishing her books. And we’ve lived happily ever after. Okay?’ He closed his eyes. ‘And now I want to go back to my boat and sleep.’
Humphrey said, ‘No, we’ve impounded your boat, Major, while the forensic scientist examines it, takes photographs and so on. You’ll have to sleep in a hotel tonight. So please tell us again what happened that night Josephine disappeared.’
Harker opened his eyes. ‘Jesus. I’ve told you twice.’
‘Again, please.’
‘Look, evidently you suspect me. So I want a lawyer.’
Smith smiled. ‘Why do you want a lawyer if you’re innocent, Major? Why are you scared of just telling us again what happened, if you’re telling the truth?’
Harker took a deep, tense breath. ‘You can’t put me to the expense of a hotel when I have my own boat.’
‘Okay,’ Humphrey smiled, ‘so I offer you a bed in the cells instead. It’s up to you. But I would be grateful if you came back here at noon tomorrow to resume our discussion. And I would be grateful for your passport, please …’
Harker had left his boat at anchor in the bay: now, on emerging from the police station, he found it chained to the government jetty, under guard. Policemen were aboard. He collected some things and checked into the Ambrosia boarding house.
At ten o’clock the next morning Jack Harker was arrested at the aerodrome attempting to board a flight to the French island of Guadeloupe. In his baggage was a .25 Browning pistol. His South African passport had been surrendered to Humphrey: he was using an expired passport which the police had not known he possessed. On his return to the police station he was further interrogated; finally he was formally charged with the murder of Josephine Valentine Harker.
A week later he was extradited to Florida to face trial.
PART I
The Back-story
1
In those days of apartheid many accidental deaths occurred in police custody – black suspects fell down stairs and cracked their skulls, or slipped on soap in the showers, or sometimes even threw themselves out of upper windows in a reckless attempt to escape. There was always an official inquest, as the law required, but the magistrate very seldom found anything suspicious, anything indicating reprehensible interrogation techniques by the police. The inquest into the death of Steve Biko, for example, evoked no judicial censure even though Biko was driven naked through the night, a thousand miles, in the back of an open truck, to a police hospital after he had sustained a fractured skull when he fell against a wall whilst irrationally attacking his police interrogators. In those days these accidental deaths were attributed by most of the white public to a few ‘bad apples’ in the police, though the frequency suggested that there must be a lot of them, but not too many questions were asked and there were no hard facts to gainsay police explanations.
Then deaths began to befall the apartheid government’s enemies outside the country, which were clearly not accidental: Professor Ruth First, wife of the leader of the South African Communist Party, was killed by a parcel bomb in Mozambique; Jeanette Schoon, wife of an anti-apartheid activist, was blown to bits, together with her little daughter, by another parcel bomb in Angola; Dulcie September died in a hail of bullets in Paris as she opened the offices of the African National Congress; Dr Albie Sachs, anti-apartheid activist, had his arm blown off by a car-bomb in Mozambique; Advocate Anton Lubowski, another anti-apartheid politician, was gunned down outside his home in Namibia on the eve of his country’s independence from South Africa. The press, particularly the international press, argued that the pattern of these murders suggested they were the work of the South African government, but this was hotly denied. But then there were a number of explosions: at the London headquarters of the African National Congress, and at Cosatu House in Johannesburg, headquarters of the Congress of South African Trade Unions. Khotso House, also in Johannesburg, the headquarters of the South African Council of Churches, was bombed; Khanya House, headquarters of the South African Bishops’ Conference in Pretoria, was set on fire. Who were the people committing all these crimes? The government blamed it all on black political rivalry and ‘Godless communists’; others blamed it on those bad apples in the police; only a few believed it was government policy to murder and destroy its enemies and their property, and they largely kept their mouths shut because of the security police. For those were the days of the Brezhnev Doctrine, the Cold War in which Africa was the major battleground, most of Africa being communist-sponsored one-party dictatorships, the era of the Total Onslaught Total Strategy, the total strategy to combat the total onslaught of the ungodly communist forces of darkness bent on overthrowing Western democracy and the Godly principles of apartheid. The security police could detain anyone for 180 days without trial, and then another 180 days immediately afterwards, and then another, and so on until, in the words of the Minister of Justice, ‘the far side of eternity’. There was freedom of speech in parliament but precious little outside; radio and television were government-controlled, the press had to watch its step and foreign journalists who wrote unkindly about apartheid were unceremoniously deported.
And one of those deported was the beautiful Josephine Valentine.
Major Jack Harker had heard of her for years – the legendary heart-throb Josephine Valentine, the long-legged American blonde with the dazzling smile who collected wars and war heroes, the beautiful busty photo-journalist in sweat-stained khaki who always managed to wangle a helicopter ride into battle-zones denied to others by using charms pressmen don’t possess. She had a formidable and exotic reputation which lost nothing in the telling: while it was not true that she had been a high-priced hooker in New York, as alleged by certain members of the press, it was probably true that she always managed to be in the right place at the right time to get her spectacular pictures by screwing the right officer. It was said of her that she collected war heroes – but ‘warriors’ would have been a better word. She never had a lengthy relationship with her conquests: she used them, thanked them and left them with a broken heart.
Her war photographs made her famous: Harker had seen her name in many magazines over the years, read many a piece by her, seen many of her hair-raising pictures. Ms Valentine had shown up in Rhodesia during the long bush war, leaping out of helicopters with her cameras into operational zones, ‘screwing her way into the front lines’ to get her photographs; then she had been seen on the other side of the Zambezi amongst the black terrorists; and she was always popping up in the Middle East in the Arab–Israeli conflict. It seemed that wherever there was a war Josephine Valentine was there, charming her way into more stories; she was big buddies with the heavyweights of both sides. Military men all over the world knew about her, particularly in Africa; many had seen her, met her, entertained her, fantasized about her. Jack Harker was intrigued by what he knew of her and not a little frustrated that he seemed to be one of the few military men who had never set eyes on her. A dozen times she had left the bar, mess, bunker, trench, helicopter moments before he arrived.
And then, in 1986, when he finally encountered her in the Battle of Bassinga she was covered in blood, half naked, her teeth bared as she furiously tried to fire an AK47 automatic rifle at him.
The Battle of Bassinga in Angola was Jack Harker’s ‘century’, the hundredth battle of his military career, the hundredth time he had leapt into action, heart pounding, to do or die. It was also one of the worst battles: a parachute jump at a dangerously low level, at night, right over the target area, which was a camp holding thousands of terrorists and their Cuban advisors, all armed with billions of dollars worth of the latest Russian mil
itary hardware with which to liberate southern Africa from the capitalist yoke. The aircraft came in low in the hopes of avoiding the terrorists’ radar but the groundfire started up before they were over the drop-zone. Harker led from the front and he was first out of the aircraft, plummeting through thin air with his heart in his mouth, and he was the first casualty of the operation – a bullet got him through the shoulder as he pulled his parachute’s rip-cord: he was covered in blood by the time he crash-landed in a tree on the wrong side of the river. He extricated himself with great difficulty and strong language, stuffed a wad of emergency dressing deep into the wound and forded the river with more strong language.
All battles are bad but this seemed Jack Harker’s worst ever. He was awarded a medal for it, but he did not have coherent memories of it. He remembered the cacophony, the screams and the gunfire, the flames leaping, the shadows racing, remembered stumbling, lurching, the bullets whistling about him, blood flooding down his chest into his trousers no matter how deep into the wound he rammed the wad of cotton wool with his finger; he remembered storming the water tower, staggering up the ladder to destroy the machine-gun nest that was causing so much havoc, storming a Russian tank and throwing a hand-grenade down the hatch, he remembered the sun coming up on the cacophony of gunfire and smoke and flames and the stink of blood and cordite; he remembered being pinned down for a long time by a barrage of automatic fire coming from a concrete building on the edge of the parade ground, two of his men being mowed down as they tried to storm the building; he remembered scrambling up and running at the doorway.
The battle had been going on for an hour, the sun was up now, the camp strewn with bodies, the earth muddy with blood. Harker lurched across the parade ground, doubled up, rasping, trying to run flat out but finding he could only stagger, and he crashed against the wall beside the door. He leant there a moment, gasping, trying to get his breath, to clear his head, and he was about to burst through the doorway, gun blazing, when he heard a woman cry in English, ‘You bastards …’ Harker lurched into the room, his rifle at his hip – and stared.
Josephine Valentine was clad only in white panties; she had her back to him, her blonde hair in a ponytail, crouched at the window, wrestling with the jammed mechanism of an AK47, sobbing, ‘You bastards …’ On the floor behind her sprawled the half naked body of a Cuban officer, blood flooding from his back. Beside him crouched a black soldier, holding a rifle in one hand, shaking the body with the other; then he saw Harker, his eyes widened in terror, he raised his gun and Harker shot him. The soldier crashed against the wall, dead, and Josephine turned wildly and saw Harker. Her beautiful face was creased in anguish, her wild blue eyes widened in terror at seeing him; she flung the useless rifle aside, collapsed on to her knees beside the dead black soldier and screamed: ‘He’s only a boy!’ She snatched up his weapon, ‘Only a toy gun, he carved it!’ She flung it at Harker, then she scrambled frantically to the dead Cuban and grabbed at his pistol holster.
‘Leave that gun!’ Harker shouted.
‘You killed my man!’ she shrieked and swung the big pistol on Harker and pulled the trigger. There was a deafening bang and the force of the bullet knocked him backwards across the room, his thigh shattered. He crashed into the wall, shocked, and then saw her turn the pistol on herself. In a wild dramatic movement she thrust the muzzle against her naked left breast, her mouth contorted in anguish as she howled, ‘You killed him …’ She pulled the trigger and the blow of it knocked her off her knees, on to her back.
2
‘Publishing,’ said General Tanner, head of Military Intelligence, when he visited Harker in hospital on the South West African border, ‘is excellent cover for an espionage agent.’
Harker frowned. ‘Are you saying she was a spy?’
The general smiled. ‘I’ve changed the subject, I’m talking about you now. But yes, Josephine Valentine is a spy of a kind, fraternizing with the enemy. All photo-journalists are spies because they sneak up on you, take their forbidden pictures and flog them to the highest bidder.’
‘You’re talking about me? Sorry, General, you’ll have to explain – we were talking about Josephine Valentine. The bullet missed her heart, then?’
‘Made a bit of a mess of some ribs but the doc says it’ll hardly leave a scar. Pity, she’s been a pain in the arse for years. Like her to have a nice scar to remind her to stay out of our business, goddam drama queen. Pity we didn’t catch her boyfriend alive, he could have given us some useful information.’
‘She didn’t talk at all?’
‘Wouldn’t tell us a damn thing, just demanded to see the American consul. But we developed eighteen rolls of her film and we got some good intelligence on enemy hardware – and saw a few familiar faces. She’s threatened to sue us, of course.’ He smiled.
‘Where is she now?’
‘In Pretoria; we’re getting rid of her next week when she’s fit enough to travel. Daddy is coming out to take care of his darling wayward daughter. Anyway …’ the general plucked a grape off the bunch he had brought Harker, ‘… as I was saying: publishing is ideal cover for an espionage agent.’ He looked solemn.
Harker smiled. ‘As you were saying. But I’m afraid you’re going to have to explain that too.’
Tanner smiled. ‘Or there’s the import-export business – but it’s rather dull. Running a restaurant or a small hotel might be okay but it can be hard work – and putting you in charge of a bar would be like putting a rabbit in charge of a lettuce patch, aha-ha-ha!’ The general popped the grape into his mouth. ‘Whereas publishing,’ he chewed, ‘would be fun, particularly in an exciting place like New York. Respectability, lots of long lunches and cocktail parties, plenty of intellectual people to stimulate you.’ He shrugged. ‘However, if you don’t fancy that, I can offer you a whole range of jobs. Running a clothing store in Brussels, for example.’
Harker grinned. ‘I’m afraid you’ll still have to explain.’
The general picked another grape off the bunch. ‘You’re finished, Jack. You’ll never fight another battle. Half of one lung gone, one thigh-bone fucked. It’s HQ for you now, old man, fighting a desk. Or you can work for me in Military Intelligence. So I’m offering you a job as a publisher.’
‘You own a publishing house, General? In New York?’
The general smiled. ‘The only house I own is in Pretoria where my wife and children live. And that’s mortgaged.’ He looked at Harker. ‘But I control businesses all over the world, Jack.’ He smiled. ‘Ever heard of the CCB? The Civil Cooperation Bureau?’
Harker was mystified. ‘No.’
‘Good. And if you repeat this conversation to anybody you’ll be in breach of the Defence Act, the Official Secrets Act, and Christ knows what else. You’ll be court-martialled.’ He smiled again. ‘Got that, Jack?’
Jesus. ‘Yes.’
The general sat back. ‘Well, the CCB is the new covert arm of Military Intelligence. The new civilian espionage arm of our army. Very new. In short, the top brass has made a study of the CIA, the KGB, Mossad and MI6, and the Civil Cooperation Bureau is the result. Emphasis on the civil. Our civilian agents operate all over the world, in particular in those countries where South Africa is not allowed to have embassies or consulates or trade offices because of apartheid. As you know, every embassy of every country has an intelligence officer who works in the guise of “cultural attaché” or something like that. Well, because we have so few embassies, we have created the CCB instead. Our CCB agent is set up in a suitable business to make him look kosher. He recruits suitable local sub-agents, spies, to gather information about our enemies – just like every government does. Our agent sends the information back to me. I then do whatever is necessary to spike our enemies’ guns – just like I do when I get information from our attachés in our official embassies.’ He paused. ‘I must add that our CCB businesses are usually profitable. Our agents make good money.’ He smiled. ‘Much better than a major’s pay.’ He paused again. �
�I’m offering you a job in the CCB, Jack. I suggest publishing because of your English name, and accent – and you’re an intellectual sort of chap. You will draw a good salary – and, of course, you will be pensionable when you eventually retire. You’ll have a share of the publishing profits. We’ll provide you with an apartment in New York, as well as the actual offices – and a cost-of-living allowance, a car and an entertainment allowance. And we’ll pay your membership fees of all the necessary clubs – the yacht club; and so forth.’ General Tanner looked at him. ‘Sounds pretty good to me, Jack. Bit of a sinecure. Much better than selling life insurance, which is about all an ex-soldier can do.’
It sounded pretty good to Harker, too. ‘But what do I know about publishing?’
‘You’re smart. You’re one of the few intellectuals this army’s got – apart from me, of course.’ He grinned. ‘We’ve got another small publishing house in London. We’ll send you there for a few months for some high-density, high-tech literary training. But it really doesn’t matter because the editors you hire will know the ropes and you’ll learn on the job.’
‘But espionage? What do I know about that? And how do I recruit my agents?’
‘All will be explained. You’ll recruit men yourself when necessary, but your immediate boss, the guy you’ll report to, is stationed in Washington and he has already set up the network which you will inherit. He ran the whole show from Washington but it’s too much work now, so you’ll be responsible for New York and Florida via your publishing house.’
Harker was bemused. ‘It’s just information you want?’
General Tanner said: ‘New York is an important listening post. The United Nations is there – all those black communist countries shouting about us, plotting mayhem, harbouring ANC and SWAPO terrorists. And down in Florida there are all those Cuban exiles with all kinds of information about Castro’s army. You’ll be responsible for all that intelligence.’
Unofficial and Deniable Page 2