Unofficial and Deniable

by John Gordon Davis

  ‘Josie, you’re on a wild-goose chase; come home.’

  ‘No way, I’m going to get to the bottom of this even if the commission of enquiry fails …’

  Those words filled Harker with dread.

  At four a.m. Monday morning Harker sat in Madam Velvet’s dungeon watching the television footage of the crowds outside the commission of enquiry in Pretoria: in South Africa it was ten a.m. The CNN reporter stood in front of her camera.

  ‘This is a very important event. Today evidence about the apartheid government’s alleged death-squads is about to emerge which, if true, is going to shock the nation, and the world. The consequences will be enormous, for the government, for the police, for the army – and for the individual officers who carried out the dirty tricks alleged. If the allegations prove to be true the government could fall, heads will roll, many could be prosecuted – and the guilt could stretch right the way to the very top of the chain of command. This is what the lawyers representing the ANC and other black political parties are going to try to prove. Many people say that this enquiry is going to be a cover-up because the government has ordered that only crimes committed inside South Africa may be investigated. The ANC will protest loudly about this, claiming that many of its representatives were murdered abroad, and it will try to widen the enquiry.’

  The reporter glanced at her wristwatch and continued: ‘There is high feeling in the crowd you see behind me – derision, glee, indignation, animosity, depending on which side of the political fence individuals are. Alas, I cannot take the camera inside but the numerous lawyers for all parties are lined up at their long tables with their piles of files awaiting the entrance of the Honourable Mr Justice le Roux to commence the enquiry …’

  At dawn Harker was at his desk at Harvest House, trying to work, but he could not concentrate. At noon he bought the midday newspapers, but there was still no news beyond what CNN had told him. Nor was there any fresh news in the evening papers. That night he telephoned Dupont. ‘What’s happening?’ he demanded.

  Dupont sounded drunk. ‘What’s happening about fucking what? You’ve got the wrong fuckin’ number, buddie!’ He banged down the telephone.

  Harker dialled again furiously. ‘What the hell’re you playing at, Colonel?!’

  ‘Please,’ Dupont said wearily, ‘consult directory enquiries. You’ve got the wrong number.’ He hung up.

  Jesus! The rats deserting the sinking ship! He was on the point of punching out Dupont’s number again when the other telephone rang. ‘Hullo?’

  ‘Hullo, darling,’ Josephine shouted from Pretoria.

  Harker closed his eyes. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine. But what isn’t fine is this goddam enquiry! We’re never going to get to the truth!’

  Harker closed his eyes in relief.

  An absolute farce!’ she said. ‘Everybody’s furious. There’re these guys from ‘Military Intelligence sitting in the gallery with false beards and dark glasses glaring at their colleagues in the witness box – who’re also wearing disguises! And these witnesses are simply refusing to answer questions on the grounds that they may incriminate themselves! The lawyers for the ANC and Human Rights are hopping mad. Jack, it’s a circus! When the lawyers – or even the judge – demand to see their files these guys simply shrug and say they’ve disappeared, that they don’t know where they are!’

  Thank God. ‘And?’

  ‘And the judge is powerless – he hasn’t got the practical power to do the job F.W. de Klerk gave him! It’s all a massive cover-up!’

  Thank God. ‘So the judge isn’t finding out anything about the CCB?’

  Josephine snorted in disgust. ‘We’re just glimpsing the tip of the iceberg. We’ve learnt that there’s a total of sixty-four CCB offices across the globe, pretending to be businesses. But really they’re spies – and hit-men no doubt, though nobody’s admitting to that little detail. Sixty-four. Did you know that, when you were in the army?’

  Harker had his eyes closed again. ‘No.’

  ‘And these so-called CCB businesses employ hundreds of spies. And hitmen. Christ, they’ve doubtless got an “office” right under our noses in New York.’

  ‘Amazing.’

  She said, ‘Remember that assassination in Long Island, killing those Cubans and Africans in 1988? That was probably the work of those CCB bastards.’

  Panic lurched through the sickness in his guts. He managed to say, ‘No, surely that was a Cuban exile job?’

  Josephine snorted. ‘Yeah? Anyway, all that these heavily disguised army officers are giving us is snippets while the ANC lawyers and the judge get more and more furious, while outside in the street the right-wing Afrikaner mobs are staging rallies in protest at the nation’s heroes being persecuted for their “services to South Africa”. God, what a circus!’

  ‘So as it’s a farce why don’t you come home now? If the judge can’t get to the bottom of this, how can you?’

  ‘By talking to the right people. Like Lawyers for Human Rights, the ANC’s lawyers, the press. Paying information money to the right people in the military, the police – my hands aren’t tied like the judge’s.’

  Oh Jesus Jesus. ‘Don’t,’ he said, ‘go anywhere near the military.’

  ‘Where else am I going to get the information for my book?’

  The next day the story was covered by all the New York newspapers: all the reports damned the enquiry as a whitewashing of the security forces. There was television footage of the right-wing demonstrations in the streets.

  The CNN reporter said,’ … while evidence of police and military skulduggery must come to a dead stop the moment the story crosses South Africa’s borders, lawyers for the police have been allowed to lead evidence attributing five thousand political murders to the ANC – without specifying where they took place, whether they’re attributable to actual hit-squads or the random tribal violence which is racking the country …’

  That night Josephine telephoned him, seething with righteous indignation, giving him the same report.

  ‘The ANC lawyers are up in arms. They’ve told the press they’re going to retaliate by demanding permission to lead evidence about all the high-profile murders of anti-apartheid people that’ve happened overseas – by hook or by crook they’re going to squeeze in those hideous crimes to put the record straight!’

  Harker felt his guts contract. ‘Which crimes?’

  ‘You know.’ He heard the rustle of her notebook. She read, ‘Anton Lubowski in Namibia, Albie Sachs getting his arm blown off by a car bomb in Mozambique, Dulcie September gunned down in Paris, David Webster, and that godalmighty assassination on Long Island where those Cubans and ANC people were killed. It was officially blamed on the Cuban exiles, right? Well, it now turns out the job was done by Military Intelligence, by this CCB we’ve just learned about!’

  Harker heard ringing in his ears. ‘Nonsense – who said that?’

  ‘The ANC! One of their men survived the blast, remember? His name’s Looksmart Kumalo. I’ve spoken to him, he’s a very bright guy. He lost a hand in the shooting. Anyway, he says he can prove that it was the CCB who did it, not the Cuban exiles.’

  Harker felt himself whiten. ‘How can he prove it?’

  ‘Oh, it’s common knowledge now that the CIA were hand-in-glove with the South African military over the Angolan war – the CIA told the FBI to blame it on the Cubans. He’s got informers in the Cuban exile community who say it definitely wasn’t their work, they had no idea those two Cuban officers were in America or they would have kidnapped them to squeeze information from them.’

  ‘Of course the Cuban exiles would deny it.’

  ‘Well, Looksmart Kumalo is hiring private detectives and he’s going to sue the South African government – and see that the perpetrators are prosecuted for murder.’

  Oh Jesus, Jesus …

  Harker could not report this conversation to Dupont because he didn’t want the bastard to know that Josephine was in So
uth Africa. He telephoned his CCB man, Ricardo, in Miami.

  ‘You may have a double-agent amongst the exiled top brass,’ Harker told him. ‘Somebody who’s talked to the ANC about Operation Marigold. Make some enquiries.’

  Josephine did not telephone the next day but she faxed some newspaper cuttings. There were also reports in most of New York’s papers. One newspaper editorialized: ‘… The South African government’s underground network is said to be in panic. We have learned that there have been over ten murders of potential witnesses since the enquiry began. Today evidence emerged that even the Johannesburg City Council has its own spy-network, a fully fledged department spying on left-wing ratepayers and carrying out skulduggery against them. South Africa is rotten with apartheid’s paranoia, the nation has developed a whole covert culture under her “Total Onslaught” mentality

  Ten witnesses murdered? Jesus, Harker had had no idea of the depth of the depravity he was involved in.

  The next night Josephine telephoned: ‘Did you read about the witnesses who’ve been murdered?’

  ‘Yes.’

  She sighed angrily. ‘God, I’m so glad you’re out of all that – imagine if you were still in the army, you’d be so tainted!’ Then: ‘Jack? When you were in the army you didn’t know about any of this, did you?’

  Harker closed his eyes. ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Okay. So, what’s happening in sunny New York?’

  He said shakily: ‘I’m missing you, that’s what’s happening.’

  ‘Oh, I miss you too – but I’m going to write a very good book.’

  A very good book. Oh God.

  Those were long days waiting for Josephine to telephone, waiting for the news on the radio, waiting for the newspapers. And then, a week after the enquiry started, Josephine telephoned at dawn.

  ‘Have you heard the news? President de Klerk has just announced in parliament that he has officially disbanded this so-called CCB!’

  Harker stared across the room. Incredulous. Then relief flooded through him. Then joy. Oh thank God. He groped for words. ‘About time …’

  ‘Do you believe it?’ Josephine cried indignantly. ‘I certainly don’t! Nor do any of the journalists or lawyers I’ve spoken to! It’s all part of the great big cover-up! First de Klerk denied the CCB existed, like he denied he knew anything about police hit-squads, now he piously announces that the CCB exists – though not the police hit-squads. And, says he, with a wave of his hand, he’s now disbanded them!’ She snorted. ‘Christ, you can’t believe it, can you?’

  Harker’s eyes were closed. ‘He wouldn’t dare make such a public statement if it wasn’t true.’

  ‘I believe you but thousands wouldn’t!’ Josie cried. ‘Look, South Africa was a police state – still is – and her army were her shock-troops – and nothing’s changed. And I don’t believe for a moment that the CCB is disbanded – de Klerk’s holding the organization together for the final battles so that he’s got all his big battalions intact in case the Great Indaba doesn’t go the way he wants it.’

  Oh, Harker desperately wanted to be disbanded. He heard himself say, ‘Well, the ANC hasn’t disbanded its army either.’

  ‘Of course not! Every army keeps its powder dry during peace negotiations. So why should we believe de Klerk has disbanded the CCB? He’s keeping them in reserve, the whole CCB organization is untamed worldwide. Disbanded? All those thousands of CCB agents have suddenly vaporized, all their files, all their secret bank accounts? Bullshit! It’ll leap into action as soon as the government doesn’t get its own way – and it’ll remain a terrible right-wing threat for years, with masses of money at its disposal to overthrow democracy and restore apartheid!’ Josephine snorted, then went on: ‘This proves the ANC are right when they say that there’s a Third Force provoking the political warfare in South Africa – it’s the bloody army who’s stirring up the bloodshed to give the world the impression that blacks are incapable of democracy!’ She added: ‘And I bet it was those CCB bastards who raided the Anti-Apartheid League’s premises.’

  Harker’s heard himself say: ‘I can’t imagine the army going to all that trouble over a minor –’

  ‘Minor?’ Josephine echoed dangerously.

  ‘I mean over a civilian, peaceable organization like the Anti-Apartheid League when they were fighting a major war.’

  ‘Who else would it be – the Ku Klux Klan?’

  Harker sighed. ‘When are you coming home?’ he said quietly. I’m missing you like hell.’

  ‘Oh, I miss you too,’ she said. ‘But this is too big a story, I’ve got to see it through.’

  ‘But that could take months …’

  Immediately afterwards, Harker telephoned Dupont. His heart was tingling with tentative joy that the bastard would soon no longer be his boss. ‘So what’s the procedure for disbandment and demobilization, sir?’ he said.

  There was a pause during which Dupont breathed drunkenly. Then the man rasped: ‘Until it’s official you’ll remain at your fucking post.’

  Harker had half expected the sonofabitch to deny he knew him. ‘Look, De Klerk’s announced our disbanding in parliament – what could be more official than that?’

  More drunken breathing. ‘We take our orders,’ Dupont said, ‘from the Chairman, not from President de Klerk. The Chairman takes his orders from the Minister of Defence. That’s the fucking truth of the matter whether you like it or not – it doesn’t matter a damn what De Klerk may or may not say in fucking parliament.’

  ‘That,’ Harker smiled, ‘may be the de facto position, but it is certainly not the law. The law is that parliament is supreme and De Klerk has announced in parliament, as president and commander-in-chief, that the CCB is disbanded – and that’s good enough for me. Sir.’

  Harker heard his Regional Director take a slurp of something. ‘Well, it is not good enough for the fucking army! Until we see it in black and white from the Chairman you will remain at your fucking post or face fucking court-martial. Not to mention your fucking pension. I do not believe for one second that we are disbanded. The fucking trouble is only about to begin.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  ‘Jesus. Do I have to spoon-feed it to you?’ Pause. Slurp. ‘Now the Zulus are really going to get stuck into the ANC – and we want the Zulus to win, don’t we? Maybe they’re going to need a little helping hand now’n again.’

  Harker stared across the basement. He said slowly, ‘It’s the army’s job to quell violence, sir, not to promote it. The army’s job is to fight the nation’s enemies, not to murder its legitimate citizens.’

  Dupont snorted. ‘The ANC are legitimate citizens?’

  ‘They’ve been unbanned, they’ve got the same rights now as everybody else.’

  ‘They’re still the fucking enemy. What about Operation Vula, smuggling all their fucking armaments into Natal the moment they were unbanned – call that fucking legitimate?’

  ‘But that’s over now – it’s us who aren’t legitimate – what about these police death-squads, what about the illegitimate things we’ve done? So dry your eyes about Operation Vula!’

  Dupont was silent for a moment, as if digesting this. Then he sounded very puzzled: ‘What illegitimate things have “we” done, dear fellow?’ Harker could almost see his round face shaking in bemusement. ‘I always considered the gathering of military intelligence a perfectly legitimate thing for an army to do. All the textbooks say so.’

  ‘Cut the crap!’ Harker rasped. ‘I’m referring to the Long Island job. And Operation Heartbeat, when we burgled the Anti-Apartheid League’s offices.’

  Dupont breathed. ‘The Long Island job?’ He sounded very puzzled. ‘Never heard of it, old boy.’

  Harker took a furious breath. ‘So you’re denying you gave me the orders?’

  Dupont slurred airily, ‘You must be dreaming, old man. Never heard of any Long Island job. Or Operation Heartbeat. Good heavens, what would Military Intelligence care about a bunch of anti-apartheid ble
eding hearts? Got any document with my signal on it to refresh my memory, old man?’ He shook his head. ‘Goodness gracious, all MI is interested in is military intelligence. If you acted on your own initiative, don’t try to pass the buck to me.’ He paused: ‘Do I make myself clear?’

  Harker’s blood was up. Jesus he hated the bastard. He said softly, ‘Perfectly. That you’re passing the buck to me, just like the police are trying to do to Badenhorst.’ He paused, full of controlled fury. ‘And I understand perfectly that you’re the full-time shit I’ve always thought you were. And now I’m going to make myself perfectly clear.’ He paused, breathing angrily. ‘And the first point is this: if you ever try to drop me in the shit over the Long Island job – or any other operation – I will blow the whistle on you. I will not only tell the South African press, I’ll shout it from the rooftops of Manhattan. I’m a publisher, remember.’ He paused again. ‘And the second point is that, because I’m not a shit like you, I will keep my mouth shut, as standing orders and the Defence Force Act require – provided you keep your fucking mouth shut. Got that, Felix? However, I have two conditions for my silence. The first is that I quit, that my resignation from the CCB is accepted at once. In fact I regard myself as disbanded as of now, demobilized by President de Klerk’s statement in parliament, and I shall conduct myself accordingly. I shall destroy all files in accordance with Standing Instruction 127. And my second condition is that my pension entitlements and my contractual rights to buy the shares of Harvest House be fulfilled immediately.’

  There was a long pause. Then: ‘Your resignation,’ Dupont slurred, ‘is hereby rejected. You are subject to my orders, or you’re a deserter.’

  Harker said maliciously: ‘Your orders are no longer valid because the CCB has been disbanded by President de Klerk, our commander-in-chief!’ He slammed down the telephone.

  He slumped back in his chair and held his face. His fingers were trembling, but an elation was simmering through him.