They left St. Petersburg the day after Victor arrived. The ferry to Sweden was so cold he spent the whole voyage in his cabin, wrapped up in blankets. Before their arrival in Stockholm Konovalenko gave him his new passport and instructions. To his astonishment he discovered he was now a Swedish citizen named Shalid.
“You used to be a stateless Eritrean exile,” Konovalenko explained. “You came to Sweden at the end of the sixties, and were granted citizenship in 1978.”
“Shouldn’t I at least speak a few words of Swedish after more than twenty years?” Victor wondered.
“It’ll be enough to be able to say thank you, tack,” said Konovalenko. “No one will ask you anything.”
Konovalenko was right.
To Victor’s great surprise, the young Swedish passport officer had done no more than glance casually at his passport before returning it. Could it really be as simple as this to travel into and out of a country? He began to understand why the final preparations for his assignment were happening so far away from South Africa.
Even if he distrusted-no, positively disliked-the man who was to be his instructor, he could not help but be impressed by the invisible organization that seemed to cover everything that happened around him. A car was waiting for them at the docks in Stockholm. The keys were on the left rear wheel. As Konovalenko didn’t know his way out of Stockholm, another car led them out as far as the southbound highway before disappearing. It seemed to Victor the world was being run by secret organizations and people like his songoma. The world was shaped and changed in the underworld. People like Jan Kleyn were mere messengers. Just where Victor fitted into this secret organization, he had no idea. He wasn’t even sure if he wanted to know.
They traveled through the Swedish countryside. Here and there Victor glimpsed patches of snow through the conifer trees. Konovalenko did not drive especially fast, and said practically nothing as he drove. That suited Victor, as he was tired after the long journey. He kept falling asleep in the back seat, and immediately his spirit would start talking to him. The singing hound howled away in the darkness of his dreams, and when he opened his eyes he was not at all sure where he was. It was raining non-stop. Everything seemed clean and orderly. When they stopped for a meal, Victor had the feeling that nothing could ever go wrong in this country.
But there was something missing. Victor tried in vain to put his finger on it. The countryside they were traveling through filled him with a nostalgic longing.
The journey took all day.
“Where are we headed?” asked Victor after they had been in the car for over three hours. Konovalenko waited several minutes to reply.
“We’re headed south,” he said. “You’ll see when we get there.”
The evil dream of his songoma was still some way off. The woman had not yet entered the yard, and her skull had not yet been shattered by the bullet from Konovalenko’s pistol. Victor Mabasha had no thoughts beyond doing what Jan Kleyn was paying him to do. Part of the assignment was to listen to what Konovalenko had to say to him. According to Victor Mabasha’s imagination the spirits, both good and bad, had been left behind in South Africa, in the mountain caves near Ntibane. The spirits never left the country, never crossed borders.
They arrived at the remote house shortly before eight in the evening. Even in St. Petersburg Victor had noted with surprise that dusk and night were not the same as in Africa. It was light when it should have been dark, and dusk did not drop down over the earth like the heavy fist of night; it wafted down slowly like a leaf floating on an invisible breath of air.
They carried a few bags into the house and installed themselves in their separate bedrooms. Victor noticed the house was comfortably warm. That too must have been thanks to the perfectionism of the discreet organization. They must have assumed a black man would freeze to death in polar regions like this. And a man who is cold, like a man who is hungry or thirsty, would be unable to do or learn anything.
The ceilings were low. Victor could barely fit under the exposed roof beams. He wandered around the house and noticed a strange smell of furniture, carpets and wax polish. But the smell he missed most of all was that of an open fire.
Africa was a long way away. It occurred to him that making him feel the distance might be intentional. This is where the plan was to be tested, retested, and perfected. Nothing should be allowed to interfere; nothing should arouse thoughts of what might be in store later.
Konovalenko produced frozen meals from a big freezer. Victor realized he should check this out later to see how many portions were stored there; then he could figure out how long he was expected to stay in the house.
Konovalenko opened his bags and took out a bottle of Russian vodka. He offered Victor a glass as they sat at the dining table, but he declined; he always cut down on the booze when he was preparing for an assignment; just one beer a day, two at the most. But Konovalenko drank heavily and was clearly drunk even the first evening. This presented Victor with an obvious advantage. If he needed to, he could exploit Konovalenko’s weakness for liquor.
The vodka loosened Konovalenko’s tongue. He started talking about paradise lost, the KGB during the 1960s and 70s, when they held undisputed sway over the Soviet empire and no individual politician could feel sure the KGB did not have extensive files on their innermost secrets. Victor thought the KGB might have replaced the songoma in this Russian empire, where no citizen was allowed to believe in holy spirits except in great secrecy. It seemed to him that a society that attempted to put the gods to flight would be doomed. The nkosis know that in my homeland, and hence our gods have not been threatened by apartheid. They can live freely and have never been subjected to the pass laws; they have always been able to move around without being humiliated. If our holy spirits had been banished to remote prison islands, and our singing hounds chased out into the Kalahari Desert, not a single white man, woman or child would have survived in South Africa. All of them, Afrikaners as well as Englishmen, would have been annihilated long ago and their miserable skeletons buried in the red soil. In the old days, when his ancestors were still fighting openly against the white intruders, the Zulu warriors used to cut off their fallen victims’ lower jaw. An impi returning from a victorious battle would bring with him these jawbones as trophies to adorn the temple entrances of their tribal chiefs. Now it was the gods who were on the front line against the whites, and they would never submit to defeat.
The first night in the strange house, Victor Mabasha enjoyed a dreamless sleep. He divested himself of the lingering aftereffects of his long journey, and when he woke at dawn he felt rested and restored. Somewhere in the background he could hear Konovalenko snoring. He got up, dressed, and gave the house a thorough search. He did not know what he was looking for. Yet Jan Kleyn was always present: his watchful eye was always somewhere to be found.
In the attic, which surprisingly enough smelled vaguely of corn, reminiscent of sorghum, he found a sophisticated radio transmitter. Victor Mabasha was no expert on sophisticated electronics, but he had no doubt this equipment was capable of both transmitting and receiving messages from South Africa. He continued his search, and eventually found what he was looking for-in the form of a locked door at one end of the house. Behind that door was the reason he had undertaken this long journey.
He went outside and urinated in the yard. He had the impression his urine had never been so yellow. It must be the food, he thought. This strange, unspiced food. The long journey. And the spirits struggling in my dreams. Wherever I go, I take Africa with me.
There was a mist lying motionless over the countryside. He went around the house, and came upon a neglected orchard where he could recognize only a few of the trees. It was all very silent, and it seemed to him he might have been somewhere else-possibly even somewhere in Natal one morning in June.
He felt cold, and went back in the house. Konovalenko had woken up. He was making coffee in the kitchen, dressed in a red track suit. When he turned his back on Victor, h
e saw it had KGB embroidered on it.
The work started after breakfast. Konovalenko unlocked the door to the secret room. It was empty, apart from a table and a very bright ceiling light. In the middle of the table were a rifle and a pistol. Victor could see immediately that they were makes with which he was completely unfamiliar. His first impression was that the rifle looked awkward.
“This is one of our prize products,” said Konovalenko. “Effective, but not exactly sleek. The starting point was a run-of-the-mill Remington 375 HH. But our KGB technicians refined the weapon until it reached a state of perfection. You can pick off whatever you like up to eight hundred meters. The only things to rival the laser sights are in the American army’s most guarded secret weapons. Unfortunately, we were never able to use this masterpiece in any of our assignments. In other words, you have the honor of introducing it to the world.”
Victor Mabasha approached the table and examined the rifle.
“Feel it,” said Konovalenko. “From this moment on, you will be inseparable.”
Victor Mabasha was surprised how light the rifle was. But when he raised it to his shoulder, it felt well balanced and stable.
“What type of ammunition?” he asked.
“Superplastic,” said Konovalenko. “A specially prepared variation of the classical Spitzer prototype. The bullet will travel fast over a long distance. The pointed version is better at overcoming air resistance.”
Victor Mabasha put the rifle on the table and picked up the pistol. It was a 9mm Glock Compact. He had read about this weapon in various magazines, but had never held one.
“I think standard ammunition will be OK in this case,” said Konovalenko. “No point in overdoing things.”
“I’ll have to get used to the rifle,” said Victor. “That’ll take time if the range is going to be nearly a kilometer. But where can you find an eight-hundred-meter-long training range that’s sufficiently private?”
“Here,” said Konovalenko. “This house has been carefully chosen.”
“By whom?”
“Those whose job it was,” said Konovalenko.
Victor could hear that questions not triggered directly by what Konovalenko said annoyed him.
“There are no neighbors around here,” Konovalenko went on. “And the wind blows all the time. Nobody will hear a thing. Let’s go back to the living room and sit down. Before we start working I want to review the situation with you.”
They sat opposite each other in two old, worn leather chairs.
“It’s very simple,” Konovalenko began. “First, and most important, this liquidation will be the most difficult of your career. Not only because there’s a technical complication, the distance, but primarily because failure is simply not an option. You will have only one opportunity. Second, the final plan will be decided on very short notice. You won’t have much time to get everything organized. There’ll be no time for hesitation or contemplating various alternatives. The fact that you have been chosen doesn’t only mean you are thought to be skillful and cold-blooded. You also work best on your own. In this case you’ll be more alone than you’ve ever been. Nobody can help you, nobody will acknowledge you, nobody will support you. Third, there is a psychological dimension to this assignment which shouldn’t be underestimated. You won’t discover who your victim is until the very last moment. You will need to be totally cold-blooded. You already know the person to be liquidated is exceptionally important. That means you’re devoting a lot of time to wondering who it can be. But you won’t know until you’ve almost got your finger on the trigger.”
Victor Mabasha was irritated by Konovalenko’s denigrating tone. For a fleeting moment he wanted to tell him he already knew who the victim was. But he said nothing.
“I can tell you we had you in the KGB archives,” said Konovalenko with a smile. “If my memory serves me right we had you down as a very useful lone wolf. Unfortunately we can no longer check that because all the archives have been destroyed or are in a state of chaos.”
Konovalenko fell silent and seemed to be deep in thought about the proud secret service organization that no longer existed. But the silence didn’t last long.
“We don’t have much time,” said Konovalenko. “That doesn’t need to be a negative factor. It will force you to concentrate. The days will be divided between practical target practice with the rifle, psychological exercises, and working out the various possible liquidation scenarios. Moreover, I gather you are not used to driving. I’ll be sending you out in a car for a few hours every day.”
“They drive on the right in this country,” said Victor Mabasha. “In South Africa we drive on the left.”
“Exactly,” said Konovalenko. “That should help sharpen your reflexes. Any questions?”
“Lots of questions,” said Victor Mabasha. “But I realize I’ll only get answers to a few of them.”
“Quite right,” said Konovalenko.
“How did Jan Kleyn get hold of you?” asked Victor Mabasha. “He hates communists. And as a KGB man, you were a communist. Maybe you still are, for all I know.”
“You don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” said Konovalenko. “Being a member of a secret security service is a question of loyalty to those whose hands happen to be attached to the arms of the people in power. Of course you could find a few ideologically convinced communists in the KGB at any given time. But the vast majority were professionals who carried out the assignments given them.”
“That doesn’t explain your contact with Jan Kleyn.”
“If you suddenly lose your job, you start looking for work,” said Konovalenko. “Unless you prefer to shoot yourself. South Africa has always seemed to me and many of my colleagues a well-organized and disciplined country. Never mind all the uncertainty there now. I simply offered my services through channels that already existed between our respective intelligence agencies. Evidently, I had the qualifications to interest Jan Kleyn. We made a deal. I agreed to take care of you for a few days-for a price.”
“How much?” wondered Victor Mabasha.
“No money,” said Konovalenko. “But I get the possibility of immigrating to South Africa and certain guarantees regarding the possibility of work in the future.”
Importing murderers, thought Victor Mabasha. But of course, that is a clever thing to do from Jan Kleyn’s point of view. I might well have done the same myself.
“Any more questions?” asked Konovalenko.
“Later,” Victor Mabasha replied. “I think it’s better to come back to that another time.”
Konovalenko jumped up from the leather chair surprisingly quickly.
“The mist has dispersed,” he said. “The wind is up. I suggest we start getting acquainted with the rifle.”
Victor Mabasha would recall the days that followed in the isolated house where the wind was always howling as a long-drawn-out wait for a catastrophe that was bound to happen. Yet when it actually came, it was not in the form he had expected. Everything ended up in complete chaos, and even when he was making his escape he still did not understand what had happened.
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 an
other 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.
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