Unofficial and Deniable

by John Gordon Davis

He was free! Thank God President de Klerk had freed him!

  He dragged his hands down his face, and took a deep breath. So what was the next step?

  It was no good trying to contact the Chairman to tell him what he was doing – if he managed to contact the bastard at all he would disown him …

  That only left standing instructions.

  Standing Instruction 127: In the event of emergency destroy all files.

  Harker looked at the shredding machine standing in the corner of his basement office. Then he decided to give the Chairman a call before he burnt his boats. He sat down at his computer.

  Dear Sir, In view of President De Klerk’s announcement in Parliament this morning I regard myself as disbanded and it is my intention, within the next three hours …

  He scrambled the text and transmitted it.

  He held his face. Was this too good to be true?

  Now what?

  No way could he concentrate on any work whilst he waited for a response. He jumped up, mounted the staircase up to his office, and left Harvest House to walk the streets of New York for the next hour.

  When he returned to the basement his computer screen announced incoming e-mail. He hastily typed in his unscrambling code.

  It was a terse message from Dupont.

  Instructions from Head Office: your branch is to be shut down with immediate effect, all documentation treated in terms of 127. You may exercise your right to buy all shares at prices yet to be determined based on goodwill, fixed assets and other details. You will retain your pension entitlements on condition you observe strictest, repeat, strictest confidentiality, in default of which there will be extreme prejudice. Acknowledge. Message ends.

  Harker stared at the screen, a joyful smile spreading all over his gaunt face, a song rising in his heart. Then he threw back his head. ‘Yahoo!’

  He jumped up and thrust his fist aloft. Then he threw himself down at the computer, drummed his heels and acknowledged receipt of the instructions.

  Then he telephoned his bank manager and made an immediate appointment.

  He set put again into the New York morning with a spring in his step and a song in his heart, to borrow big money. He did not yet know how much but he knew it was going to be a lot.

  As a soldier, fear had been part of Jack Harker’s stock-in-trade, an occupational hazard. But now he was terrified, as he emerged from the portals of the First National City Bank – actually terrified. Because he had just arranged a loan facility of up to three million dollars.

  Absolutely terrifying – but it also felt marvellous! Jack Harker was his own boss at last! Jack Harker was a real publisher at last! And an honest lover at last! The daily deceptions were over!

  And, oh he loved his girl …

  It was noon when he got back to Harvest House, six p.m. in Pretoria. He wanted to tell Josephine what he had done but he could not because she believed he had always been the majority shareholder, always thought he was a real publisher. He dialled her cellphone number.

  ‘I just called …’ he crooned, ‘to say … I love you … And to ask … when the hell … you’re coming home …’

  PART III

  24

  Harker got an excellent deal when he bought Harvest House from the CCB: because of the panic in Pretoria following President de Klerk’s announcement of the disbandment, and because he had placed Harvest into substantial debt buying the publishing rights to Josephine’s book, Harker managed to buy both the shares he held as nominee for the Defence Force plus Westminster’s residual shareholding for much less than their real value: it was a bargain, a case of luck and right timing. True, it was nonetheless a lot of money and for months while Outrage was in production both Harker and Harvest were technically bankrupt – but when Outrage was finally released it went straight on to the New York Times bestseller list and made Harker more than enough to pay off his personal debt to the bank plus Harvest’s revolving overdraft. It was hailed as ‘the definitive African novel’, ‘the Gone With the Wind of South Africa’, ‘a rampantly successful dramatization of heartbreaking history’. Both Time and Newsweek reviewed it enthusiastically. Josephine was bursting with pride and excitement. Harker had arranged saturation publicity, the effort and expense paid off handsomely and Josephine handled the exhausting schedule with charm and panache: for several weeks she jetted around America appearing on television chat-shows, at book-launch parties; immediately she became a household name and face, and her background as an intrepid war photo-journalist added a swashbuckling, derring-do mystique to her talent – and being beautiful helped. Harker was immensely proud of her.

  And he was very relieved that her intended sequel, Wages of Sin, was never written because the commission of enquiry into police hit-squads and the CCB was, as both she and Felix Dupont had anticipated, a whitewash which totally exonerated the police: Judge le Roux declared Daniel Sipholo and Erik Badenhorst craven liars trying to save their necks from the hangman, while finding that the CCB did commit certain minor acts of sabotage inside South Africa. Josephine was furious and declared she was going to write the book nonetheless, but Harker took Priscilla Fischer to lunch and persuaded her to talk Josephine out of it.

  Priscilla looked at him with her big green cat’s eyes. ‘And that’s the only point of this expensive lunch? Okay, I must say I agree, so I’ll advise her to cool it.’ Then she stroked her long red fingernail down the back of his wrist. ‘So where, I ask myself, is this meeting of minds likely to end?’

  Harker poured more wine. Before he could respond Priscilla went on with a mock sigh. ‘Well, one can always hope. So, reverting to business, what would you like to see Josephine write next?’

  ‘A love story. Preferably set here in America.’

  ‘But she’s all steamed up about Africa, you know how politically minded she is.’

  ‘Okay, let her set her story against Africa’s political background but you should tell her to steer away from skulduggery, hit-squads and so forth.’

  ‘Very well, but assuming I can persuade Josephine, what contract will you offer her on the type of book you want?’

  Harker sighed. He had known it was coming sooner or later – he had hoped it would be later. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘what do you suggest?’

  Priscilla Fischer twiddled her wine glass, her eyes alight.

  ‘A three-book contract,’ she said. ‘Five million dollars. One million on signature of contract, one million on delivery of the first book, one million on delivery of the second book, one million on delivery of the third book, one million on publication of that third book.’ She sat back.

  ‘Jesus Christ …’ Harker said.

  ‘I can take her to any of the big guns. Random, Doubleday, Little Brown, Knopf, they’ll give me six million, easy. Seven. She’s probably the most popular writer in America right now and the most popular face. And beautiful. Half of America is jerking off over her. In fact …’ Priscilla opened her file and pulled out a document. ‘Playboy want to do a piece on her.’

  Harker ran his eye over it. Playboy offered ‘half a million dollars for an exclusive frank interview with Josephine Valentine in her home, together with her publisher Mr Jonathan Harker; we will also need a minimum of a dozen published photographs of her in a state of “modest semi-nudity”’.

  ‘No way,’ Harker said. ‘Josie would never agree.’

  Priscilla smiled and took a sip of wine. ‘With all due respect, dwarling, it’s not up to you to say yea or nay – it’s up to Josephine, and me, as her advisor. And I will point out to her – and you – that Playboy has a circulation of many millions which represents a wonderful amount of free publicity plus the half-million bucks they’re offering on top.’

  ‘Less your ten per cent.’

  ‘Less my ten per cent – a mere fifty thousand.’

  Harker smiled. ‘No way.’

  ‘Playboy will settle for her in a bikini. And perhaps a bit of bum as she descends into the swimming pool. No pubic hair necessar
y.’

  ‘We haven’t got a swimming pool.’

  ‘You’ve got Madam Velvet’s Jacuzzi. Very sexy. Put in a few more artificial flowers. Ferns, that sort of thing.’

  Harker grinned. ‘How do you know about Madam Velvet’s?’

  ‘Josie told me. And I remembered the story in Screw magazine.’ She added, with a twinkle in her eye, ‘I read Screw occasionally, you see. I enjoy a bit of hard-core sometimes. When I’m feeling lonely.’ She added, ‘Know what I mean?’

  Harker grinned, then said, ‘I’ve only just got Harvest out of debt with Outrage. No way can I afford five million for Josie’s next three books.’

  Priscilla smiled. ‘I can do simple arithmetic, buddy. You’re more than out of debt, Harvest is about two million in the black thanks to Outrage.’

  ‘So, isn’t a publisher entitled to a little profit? We took the risk.’

  ‘What risk? A blind man could see that book was a winner. And you call two million a “little profit”? Come on. Any dumb-ass publisher can see that if you invest five million spread over the next three books you’ll turn the investment into ten big ones. Ten million for five? Nice work if you can get it.’

  Harker shook his head. ‘Five million is too rich for Harvest’s blood.’

  ‘Shall I try elsewhere?’ Piranha leered. ‘I bet Doubleday won’t object to Playboy’s little offer. That’s got to be worth – oh? – a million or two of free publicity by itself.’

  ‘Josie will refuse to do it, unless she is fully clothed in all photographs. Maybe a few shots in a bikini, on a beach.’

  ‘So what’s your best offer on a three-book contract?’

  Harker sighed. ‘I’ll have to discuss it with my editorial board,’ he said. ‘But my feeling is –’

  ‘Don’t bullshit me, Jack – you’ve already discussed it with your editorial board.’

  ‘And my feeling is,’ Harker said, ‘that we’ll settle for two million payable over the four stages you’ve mentioned, provided –’

  ‘Don’t make me laugh.’

  ‘– provided none of the books is about South African hit-squads …’

  25

  Jack Harker ended up signing a contract for four million dollars for Josephine Valentine’s next three unwritten books.

  ‘This contract is lopsided,’ Alan Moore, editor-in-chief, warned Harker. ‘We’re paying too much, and without even the guarantees about subject-matter. Okay, she’s a bravura talent but I’m very worried about all this.’

  Harker was worried too. He had only just got out of debt and now he had plunged straight back into it. It was for this reason that he took out two policies of ‘key-man’ insurance on Josephine’s life, totalling four million dollars. Both were term insurance policies, the first of three million, payable to Harvest House, the premiums paid by Harvest; the second policy of one million was payable to himself, the premiums paid by him. The reasons for the first policy were sound enough: Harvest had to make a massive investment in Josephine Valentine and her premature death would cause a huge financial loss. He did not have to explain the second policy as nobody knew about it. And years later, he denied ever insuring her. ‘But,’ his police interrogator said disbelievingly, ‘a man has a legitimate insurable interest in the woman he intends to marry, especially if that woman is also the source of his income.’

  ‘Harvest House was the source of my income!’

  ‘Indeed, and Josephine was a large source of income for Harvest. But then something happened. Her second book didn’t sell very well, did it – it was an anticlimax after the success of Outrage – Harvest only just broke even. And her third book didn’t sell well either, did it? In fact Harvest didn’t even break even. And now she was writing her fourth book – the third in terms of her contract … So tell me what happened during those intervening years, from the time Josephine’s first book was published till the time you eventually married her …’

  Only the broad details of what happened during those intervening years matter.

  While the delegates thrashed it out at the Great Indaba there erupted violence such as the turbulent land had never known as black political parties slugged it out for domination in the new South Africa, as the Boers of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement fought the government, as the government battled with everybody, sometimes more to divide and rule than to keep the peace. While the delegates at the Great Indaba argued and harangued, the land resounded with the clatter of machine guns and rifles and bomb explosions, flames crackling, smoke barrelling, blood flowing, as Zulu impis sallied forth with assegais and iron clubs and AK47s to butcher ANC impis and vice versa, as the ANC marched on the independent homelands to liberate them from their upstart dictators. Drive-by black gunmen opened up with machine guns on black bus queues in downtown Johannesburg, as black butchers wielding machetes burst on to trains carrying black commuters back to the townships, slashing, chopping, slaughtering indiscriminately.

  ‘Now do you believe in this Third Force?’ Josephine cried. ‘What sense is there in this madness otherwise …?’

  What matters is that President F.W. de Klerk was forced by international opinion to appoint the Goldstone Commission of Enquiry regarding the Prevention of Public Violence and Intimidation. And what is really important is that in the midst of this mayhem, at the end of 1992, a year after Josephine’s first book was published to great acclaim, Judge Richard Goldstone and his commission raided a building called Momentum Mews in suburban Pretoria and found it to be the secret headquarters of the Department of Covert Collection, the secret successor to the Civil Cooperation Bureau.

  Josephine was cock-a-hoop when the news broke. Harker was amazed that the CCB was still functioning under another name – had President de Klerk lost control of his security forces? He was aghast at what the files seized might reveal about him, about Harvest House, about the Long Island assassination …

  There was public outcry but at first nothing much seemed to happen, except that President de Klerk fired twenty-three senior security force officers. The violence continued unabated, but amidst it all, the Great Indaba announced that the various parties had cobbled together agreement on an interim constitution, an election date was announced – the political violence redoubled, and the Afrikaner Resistance Movement smashed down the huge glass windows of the Great Indaba building with a vehicle and seized control of the premises. All this was shocking but it seemed to Harker in faraway New York that the importance of the Goldstone Commission had receded. But then, three weeks before the first democratic elections in South Africa’s history, Judge Goldstone made his dramatic findings public.

  It became known as his ‘Third Force Report’. Judge Goldstone shocked the country by announcing that there was a ‘horrible network of criminal activity’ – gun-running, death squads, smear campaigns, exploitation and orchestration of public violence – operating within the military and police, aimed at destabilizing South Africa’s democratization in general and the ANC in particular.

  Harker was astonished, shocked that the military he had served had degenerated to this level – and he was very relieved that he was well clear of all that. And, once he’d thought about it, he was even relieved that the truth was out: now surely to God with the present government’s guilt undeniable and the first democratic elections coming up, the ANC assured of victory, surely all these recriminations must be relegated to the garbage can of history as the ANC got on with the business of rehabilitating South Africa?

  But Harker was very wrong. Soon after the Goldstone Commission’s bombshell South Africa’s first democratic elections were held; to the world’s euphoria they were peaceable, as the ANC swept to power on a wave of international goodwill. But one of the first pieces of legislation the new government introduced was the Promotion of National Unity and Reconciliation Act which created a commission of enquiry to uncover the wounds of apartheid.

  It was called the Truth and Reconciliation Commission.

  PART IV

  26


  The noble purpose of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission – the TRC – was to heal the deep wounds of apartheid by providing a forum for victims wherein they could testify about their suffering, ‘Speak out their pain’, so that anger could be appeased by sympathy, so that mothers could find out what happened to husbands and children who had disappeared, so that everybody could tell of their humiliation, economic degradation from translocation and every other kind of racial discrimination. The Truth Commission was empowered to grant financial compensation to these victims of apartheid – and to grant amnesty to those perpetrators who fully and truthfully owned up to politically motivated crimes.

  There was great opposition to the creation of the Truth Commission. There was consternation among security force members, past and present, great fear that the Commission would turn into a witch-hunt, great distrust, fear that amnesty would be refused despite confession, fear that even assuming amnesty was granted there would be terrible vengeance by the victims or from colleagues whom the applicant had to inculpate in order to secure amnesty. And then there was esprit de corps, the reluctance to drop friends in the shit.

  Jack Harker was desperately worried, Josephine Valentine was angry.

  ‘My God – how can bastards like that be granted amnesty? Murderers! Multiple murderers! Torturers! They should be sent to the gallows! Sent to prison for life!’ She snorted. ‘But maybe this commission will give us the truth at last about this Civil Cooperation Bureau we’ve heard about.’

  ‘Judge Goldstone hasn’t got any proof of what they did.’

  ‘Well,’ Josephine said with satisfaction, ‘maybe now we’re going to get some proof! And this TRC, my darling, reopens the subject of that book you persuaded me to drop, Wages of Sin. I’m going to blow the dust off it.’

  ‘Josie, you must concentrate on some other subject.’

  ‘Oh no, lover, you talked me out of this one before – this Truth Commission is going to be a big story, all the apartheid skeletons crashing out of the cupboards. Except, of course, we should be having Nuremberg-type trials, not reconciliation!’