The White Lioness

by Henning Mankell

  Superficially, the days appeared to be going according to plan. Victor Mabasha quickly mastered the rifle. He practiced shooting in prone, sitting, and standing positions in a field behind the house. There was a sandbank on the opposite side of the field on which Konovalenko had set up various targets. Victor Mabasha shot at footballs, cardboard faces, an old suitcase, a radio set, saucepans, coffee trays, and other objects he couldn’t even name. Every time he pulled the trigger, he was given a report on the outcome via a walkie-talkie, and made very slight, barely noticeable adjustments to the sights. Slowly, the rifle began to obey Victor’s commands.

  The days were divided into three parts, separated by meals prepared by Konovalenko. Victor Mabasha kept thinking Konovalenko knew exactly what he was doing, and was very good at passing on what he knew. Jan Kleyn had chosen the right man.

  The feeling of imminent catastrophe came from another direction altogether.

  It was Konovalenko’s attitude towards him, the black contract killer. For as long as possible, Victor Mabasha tried to overlook the scornful tone of everything Konovalenko said, but in the end it was impossible. And when his Russian master drank far too much vodka at the end of the day, his contempt came out in the open. There were never any direct racial aspersions to give Victor Mabasha an excuse to react. But that only made things worse. Victor Mabasha felt he could not hold out much longer.

  If things continued like this he would be forced to kill Konovalenko even though doing so would make the whole situation impossible.

  When they were sitting in their leather armchairs for the psychological sessions, Victor Mabasha noticed Konovalenko assumed he was completely ignorant about the most basic human reactions. As a means of defusing his growing hatred, Victor decided to play the role he had been given. He pretended to be stupid, made the most irrelevant comments he could think of, and noted how delighted Konovalenko was to find his prejudices confirmed.

  At night, the singing hounds howled in his ears. He sometimes woke up and imagined Konovalenko leaning over him with a gun in his hand. But there was never anybody there, in fact, and he would lie awake until dawn.

  The only breathing space he had were the daily car rides. There were two cars in an outbuilding, one of which, a Mercedes, was meant for him. Konovalenko used the other car for trips, whose purpose he never alluded to.

  Victor Mabasha drove around on minor roads, found his way to a town called Ystad and explored some roads along the coast. These trips helped him to hold out. One night he got out of bed and counted the portions of frozen food in the freezer: they would be spending another week in this isolated cottage.

  I’ll have to put up with it, he thought. Jan Kleyn expects me to do whatever I have to do for my million rand.

  He assumed Konovalenko was in constant touch with South Africa, and that the transmissions were made while he was out in the car. He was also confident Konovalenko would send only good reports to Jan Kleyn.

  But the feeling of approaching catastrophe would not go away. Every hour that passed brought him closer to the breaking point, to the moment when his nature would require him to kill Konovalenko. He knew he would be forced to do it so as not to offend his ancestors, and not to lose his self-respect.

  But nothing happened as he had expected.

  They were sitting in the leather chairs at about four in the afternoon, and Konovalenko was talking about the problems and opportunities associated with carrying out a liquidation from various kinds of rooftops.

  Suddenly, he stiffened. At the same time, Victor Mabasha heard what he was reacting to. A car was approaching, and came to a halt.

  They sat motionless, listening. A car door opened, then shut.

  Konovalenko, who always carried his pistol, a simple Luger, tucked into one of his track-suit pockets, rose quickly to his feet and slipped the safety catch.

  “Move out of the way so you can’t be seen from the window,” he said.

  Victor Mabasha did as he was told. He crouched down by the open fire, out of sight from the window. Konovalenko carefully opened a door leading out into the overgrown orchard, closed it behind him, and disappeared.

  He did not know how long he had been crouching behind the fire.

  But he was still there when the pistol shot rang out like the crack of a whip.

  He straightened up cautiously and looked out a window at Konovalenko bending over something at the front of the house. He went out.

  There was a woman lying on her back on the damp gravel. Konovalenko had shot her through the head.

  “Who is she?” asked Victor Mabasha.

  “How should I know?” answered Konovalenko. “But she was alone in the car.”

  “What did she want?”

  Konovalenko shrugged and replied as he closed the dead woman’s eyes with his foot. Mud from the sole of his shoe stuck to her face.

  “She asked for directions,” he said. “She’d evidently taken a wrong turn.”

  Victor Mabasha could never decide whether it was the bits of mud from Konovalenko’s shoe on the woman’s face, or the fact that she had been killed just for asking directions that made him finally decide to kill Konovalenko.

  Now he had one more reason: the man’s unfettered brutality.

  Killing a woman for asking the way was something he would never be able to do. Nor could he close somebody’s eyes by putting his foot into a dead person’s face.

  “You’re crazy,” he said.

  Konovalenko raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  “What else could I have done?”

  “You could have said you didn’t know where the road was that she was looking for.”

  Konovalenko put his pistol back in his pocket.

  “You still don’t understand,” he said. “We don’t exist. We’ll be disappearing from here in a few days, and everything must be as if we had never been here.”

  “She was just asking directions,” said Victor Mabasha again, and he could feel he was starting to sweat with excitement. “There has to be a reason for killing a human being.”

  “Get back in the house,” said Konovalenko. “I’ll take care of it.”

  He watched from the window as Konovalenko backed the woman’s car up to the body and put it in the trunk before driving off.

  He was back again in barely an hour. He came walking along the cart track, and there was no sign of her car.

  “Where is she?” asked Victor Mabasha.

  “Buried,” said Konovalenko.

  “And the car?”

  “Also buried.”

  “That didn’t take long.”

  Konovalenko put the coffeepot on the stove. He turned to Victor Mabasha with a smile.

  “Something else for you to learn,” he said. “No matter how well organized you are, the unexpected is always liable to happen. But that’s precisely why such detailed planning is necessary. If you are well organized, you can improvise. If not, the unexpected merely causes chaos and confusion.”

  Konovalenko turned back to the coffeepot.

  I’ll kill him, thought Victor Mabasha. When all this is over, when we’re ready to go our separate ways, I’ll kill him. There’s no going back now.

  That night he could not sleep. He could hear Konovalenko snoring through the wall. Jan Kleyn will understand, he thought.

  He is like me. He likes everything to be clean-cut and well planned. He hates brutality, hates senseless violence.

  By my killing President de Klerk he wants to put an end to all the pointless killing in South Africa today.

  A monster like Konovalenko must never be granted asylum in our country. A monster must never be given permission to enter paradise on earth.

  Three days later Konovalenko announced they were ready to move on.

  “I’ve taught you all I can,” he said. “And you’ve mastered the rifle. You know how to think once you’re told who will soon be featuring in your sights. You know how to think when you’re planning the final details of the assas
sination. It’s time for you to go back home.”

  “There’s one thing I’ve been wondering,” said Victor Mabasha. “How am I going to get the rifle to South Africa with me?”

  “You won’t be traveling together, of course,” said Konovalenko, not bothering to disguise his contempt for what seemed to him such an idiotic question. “We’ll use another method of transport. You don’t need to know what.”

  “I have another question,” Victor Mabasha went on. “The pistol. I haven’t even had a test shot, not a single one.”

  “You don’t need one,” said Konovalenko. “That’s for you. If you fail. It’s a gun that can never be traced.”

  Wrong, thought Victor Mabasha. I’m never going to point that gun at my own head.

  I’m going to use it on you.

  That same evening Konovalenko got drunker than Victor Mabasha had ever seen him. He sat opposite him at the table, staring at him with bloodshot eyes.

  What is he thinking about, Victor Mabasha asked himself. Has that man ever experienced love? If I were a woman, what would it be like to share a bed with him?

  The thought made him uneasy. He pictured the dead woman in the yard in front of him.

  “You have many faults,” said Konovalenko, interrupting his train of thought, “but the biggest is that you are sentimental.”

  “Sentimental?”

  He knew what it meant. But he was not sure just what significance Konovalenko was attaching to the word.

  “You didn’t like me shooting that woman,” said Konovalenko. “These last few days you’ve been absentminded and you’ve been shooting very badly. I’ll point out this weakness in my final report to Jan Kleyn. It worries me.”

  “It worries me even more to think that a man can be as brutal as you are,” said Victor Mabasha.

  Suddenly there was no turning back. He knew he was going to have to tell Konovalenko what he was thinking.

  “You’re dumber than I thought,” said Konovalenko. “I guess that’s the way black men are.”

  Victor Mabasha let the words sink into his consciousness. Then he rose slowly to his feet.

  “I’m going to kill you,” he said.

  Konovalenko shook his head with a smile.

  “No you’re not,” he said.

  Victor Mabasha drew the pistol and aimed at Konovalenko.

  “You shouldn’t have killed her,” he said. “You degraded both me and yourself.”

  He saw that Konovalenko was scared.

  “You’re crazy,” he said. “You can’t kill me.”

  “There’s nothing I’m better at than doing what needs to be done,” said Victor Mabasha. “Get up. Slowly. Hands up. Turn around.”

  Konovalenko did as he was told.

  Victor Mabasha had just enough time to register that something was wrong before Konovalenko flung himself to one side with enormous speed. Victor Mabasha pulled the trigger, but the bullet hit a bookcase.

  Where the knife came from he had no idea. But Konovalenko had it in his hand when he hurled himself at him. Their combined weight crushed a table beneath them. Victor Mabasha was strong, but so was Konovalenko. Victor Mabasha could see the knife being forced closer and closer to his face. Only when he managed to kick Konovalenko in the back did he loosen his grip. He had dropped the pistol. He thumped Konovalenko with his fist, but there was no reaction. Before he broke loose he suddenly felt a stinging sensation in his left hand. His whole arm went numb. But he managed to grab Konovalenko’s half-empty bottle of vodka, turn around and smash it over his head. Konovalenko collapsed and stayed down.

  At the same moment Victor Mabasha realized the index finger of his left hand had been sliced off and was hanging on to his hand by a thin piece of skin.

  He staggered out of the house. He had no doubt he had smashed Konovalenko’s skull. He looked at the blood pouring out of his hand. Then he gritted his teeth and tore off the scrap of skin. The finger dropped onto the gravel. He went back into the house, wrapped a dishcloth round his bleeding hand, flung some clothes into his suitcase and then looked around for the pistol. He shut the door behind him, started the Mercedes, and hurtled off after a racing start. He was driving far too fast for the narrow dirt road. At one point he narrowly avoided a collision with an oncoming car. Then he found his way out onto a bigger road and forced himself to slow down.

  My finger, he thought. It’s for you, songoma. Guide me home now. Jan Kleyn will understand. He is a clever nkosi. He knows he can trust me. I shall do what he wants me to do. Even if I don’t use a rifle that can shoot over eight hundred meters. I shall do what he wants me to do and he’ll give me a million rand. But I need your help now, songoma. That’s why I have sacrificed my finger.

  Konovalenko sat motionless in one of the leather chairs. His head was throbbing. If the vodka bottle had hit his head in front rather than from the side, he would have been dead. But he was still alive. Now and then he pressed a handkerchief filled with ice cubes against one temple. He forced himself to think clearly despite the pain. This was not the first time Konovalenko had found himself in a crisis.

  After about an hour he had considered all the alternatives and knew what he was going to do. He looked at his watch. He could call South Africa twice a day and get in direct touch with Jan Kleyn. There were twenty minutes to go before the next transmission. He went into the kitchen and refilled his handkerchief with ice cubes.

  Twenty minutes later he was in the attic, calling South Africa via the advanced radio transmitter. It took a few minutes before Jan Kleyn answered. They used no names when they talked to each other.

  Konovalenko reported what had happened. The cage was open and the bird has disappeared. It hasn’t managed to learn how to sing.

  It was a while before Jan Kleyn realized what had happened. But once he had a clear picture of the situation, his response was unequivocal. The bird must be caught. Another bird will be sent as a substitute. More information about this later. For the time being, everything goes back to square one.

  When the conversation was over, Konovalenko felt deeply satisfied. Jan Kleyn understood that Konovalenko had done what was expected of him.

  “Try him out,” Jan Kleyn had said when they met in Nairobi to plan Victor Mabasha’s future. “Test his staying power, look for his weaknesses. We have to know if he really can hold out. There’s too much at stake for anything to be left to chance. If he’s not up to it, he’ll have to be replaced.”

  Victor Mabasha was not up to it, thought Konovalenko. When the chips were down, behind that tough facade was no more than a confused, sentimental African.

  Now it was Konovalenko’s job to find and kill him. Then he would train Jan Kleyn’s new candidate.

  He realized that what he had to do next would not be all that easy. Victor Mabasha was wounded, and he would be acting irrationally. But Konovalenko had no doubt he would succeed. His staying power was legendary during his KGB days. He was a man who never gave up.

  Konovalenko lay on the bed and slept for a few hours.

  As dawn broke he packed his bag and carried it out to the BMW.

  Before he locked the front door he primed the detonator to blow up the whole house. He set it for three hours. When the explosion came, he would be a long way away.

  He drove off shortly after six. He would be in Stockholm by late afternoon.

  There were two police cars by the junction of the E14. For a brief moment he was afraid Victor Mabasha had revealed both his own and Konovalenko’s existence. But nobody in the cars reacted as he drove past.

  Jan Kleyn called Franz Malan at home shortly before seven o’clock on Tuesday morning.

  “We have to meet,” he said curtly. “The Committee will have to meet as soon as possible.”

  “Has something happened?” asked Franz Malan.

  “Yes,” replied Jan Kleyn. “The first bird wasn’t up to the job. We’ll have to find another.”

  Chapter Eleven

  The apartment was in a high-rise
complex in Hallunda.

  Konovalenko parked outside late in the evening of Tuesday, April 28. He took his time on the journey up from Skane. Even though he liked driving fast and the powerful BMW invited high speeds, he was careful to stay within the speed limits. Just outside Jönköping he observed grimly how a number of motorists had been waved down at the side of the road by the cops. As several of them had overtaken him, he assumed they had been caught in a radar speed trap.

  Konovalenko had no confidence at all in the Swedish police. He assumed the basic reason for this was his contempt for the open, democratic Swedish society. Konovalenko not only mistrusted democracy, he hated it. It had robbed him of a large part of his life. Even if it would take a very long time to introduce it—perhaps it would never be a reality—he left Leningrad the moment he realized the old, closed Soviet society was past saving. The final straw was the failed coup in the fall of 1991, when a number of leading military officers and Politburo members of the old school tried to restore the former hierarchical system. But when the failure was plain for all to see, Konovalenko immediately started planning his escape. He would never be able to live in a democracy, no matter what form it took. The uniform he had worn ever since he joined the KGB as a recruit in his twenties had become an outer skin as far as he was concerned. And he just could not shed his skin. What would be left if he did?

  He was not the only one to think like that. In those last years, when the KGB was subjected to severe reforms and the Berlin wall collapsed, he and his colleagues were always discussing what the future would look like. It was one of the unwritten rules of the intelligence service that somebody would have to be held responsible when a totalitarian society started to crumble. Far too many citizens had been subjected to treatment by the KGB, far too many relatives were eager to extract vengeance for their missing or dead kin. Konovalenko had no desire to be hauled before the courts and treated like his former Stasi colleagues in the new Germany. He hung a map of the world on his office wall and studied it for hours. He was forced to grit his teeth and accept that he was not cut out for life in the late twentieth century. He found it hard to imagine himself living in one of the brutal but highly unstable dictatorships in South America. Nor did he have any confidence in the home-rule leaders who were still in power in some African states. On the other hand, he thought seriously about building a future in some fundamentalist Arab country. In some ways he was indifferent to the Islamic religion, and in other ways he hated it. But he knew the governments ran both open and secret police forces with farreaching powers. In the end, though, he rejected this alternative as well. He thought he would never be able to handle the transformation to such a foreign culture, no matter which Islamic state he selected. Besides, he did not want to give up drinking vodka.