Windfall ms-2

by Desmond Bagley

  He did not go back to Rhodesia but, instead, was posted to England. 'Go to the Embassy once,' he was told. "You'd be expected to do that. But don't go near it again. They'll give you instructions on cut-outs and so on."

  So Hendriks went to London where his main task was to keep track of the movements of those exiled members of the African National Congress then living in England, and to record whom they met and talked with. He also kept a check on certain members of the staffs of other Embassies in London as and when he was told.

  Intelligence outfits have their own way of doing things. The governments of two countries may be publicly cold towards each other while their respective intelligence agencies can be quite fraternal. So it was with South Africa and the United States – BOSS and the CIA. One day Hendriks passed a message through his cut-out; Could someone, as a favour, find out what happened to Jan-Willem Hendrykxx who had arrived in San Francisco in 1922? A personal matter, so no hurry.

  Two months later he had an answer which surprised him. Apparently his grandfather could out-grandfather the Mafia. He had been deported from the United States in 1940. Hendriks, out of curiosity, took a week's holiday which he spent in Brussels. Discreet enquiries found his grandfather hale and well. Hendriks went nowhere near the old man, but he did go to the South African Embassy in Brussels where he had a chat with a man. Three months later he wrote a very detailed report which he sent to Pretoria and was promptly pulled back to South Africa.

  Hendriks's immediate superior was a Colonel Malan, a heavily built Afrikaner with a square face and cold eyes. He opened a file on his desk and took out Hendriks's report. 'This is an odd suggestion you've come up with.' The report plopped on the desk. 'How good is your evidence on this Belgian, Hendrykxx?'

  'Solid. He's the head of a heroin-smuggling ring operating from Antwerp, and we have enough on him to send him to jail for the rest of his life. On the other hand, if he comes in with us he lives the rest of his life in luxury.' Hendriks smiled. 'What would you do, sir?'

  'I'm not your grandfather,' growled Malan. He leafed through the report. 'You come from an interesting family. Now, you want us to give the old man a hell of a lot of money tied up in a way he can't touch it, and he makes out a will so that the money goes where we want it when he dies. Is that it?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Where would you send the money?'

  'Kenya,' said Hendriks unhesitatingly. 'We need strengthening in East Africa.'

  'Yes,' said Malan reflectively. 'Kenyatta has been crucifying us in the United Nations lately.' He leaned back in his chair. 'And we have an interesting proposition put to us by Frans Potgeiter but we're running into trouble on the funding. Do you- know Potgeiter?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  'Could you work with him?'

  'Yes, sir.'

  Malan leaned forward and tapped the report. 'Your grandfather is old, but not dead old. He could live another twenty years and we can't have that."

  'I doubt if he will.' Hendriks took an envelope from his breast pocket and pushed it across the desk. 'Hendrykxx's medical report. I got hold of it the day before I left London. He has a bad heart.'

  'And how did you get hold of it?'

  Hendriks smiled. 'It seems that someone burgled the offices of Hendrykxx's doctor. Looking for drugs, the Belgian police say. They did a lot of vandalism; you know how burglars are when they're hopped up, sir.'

  Malan grunted, his head down as he scanned the medical documents. He tossed them aside. 'Looks all right, but I'll have a doctor go over them. The Brussels Embassy wasn't involved, I hope.'

  'No, sir.'

  'This will have to be gone into carefully, Hendriks. The Department of Finance will have to come into it, of course. And the will – that must be carefully drawn. We have a barrister in London who can help us there. I rather think I'd like to move Hendrykxx out of reach of his friends and where we can keep an eye on him. That is, if this goes through. I can't authorize it, so it will have to go upstairs.' He smiled genially. 'You're a slim kerel, Hendriks,' he said approvingly.

  'Thank you, sir.' Hendriks hesitated. 'If Hendrykxx doesn't die in time he could always… er… be helped.'

  Malan's eyes went flinty. 'What kind of a man are you?' he whispered. 'What kind of man would suggest the killing of his own grandfather? We'll have no more of that kind of talk.'

  The operation was approved at top level and that was in the days when the South African intelligence and propaganda agencies were riding high. There was money available, and more if needed. Hendrykxx had his arm duly twisted and caved in when offered the choice. He was removed from Belgium and installed in a house in Jersey under the supervision of Mr and Mrs Adams, his warders in a most luxurious jail. Jersey had been chosen because of its lack of death duties and the general low tax rate; not that much tax was paid -when a government goes into the tax avoidance business it takes the advice of the real experts. 15M was injected into the scheme which, at the time of Hendrykxx's death, had magically turned into 40M. It is surprising what compound interest can do to a sum which has proper management and is left to increase and multiply.

  Frans Potgeiter went under cover and surfaced as Brice, the liberal Rhodesian, the real Brice having conveniently been killed in a motor accident while trying to do the Johannesburg-Durban run in under five hours. He went to England to establish a reputation, and then moved to Kenya to manage the Ol Njorowa Foundation. Hendriks returned to his undercover post in London.

  All was going well when came the debacle of Muldergate in 1978 and gone were the days of unlimited funds. One by one the stories leaked out; the setting up of the newspaper, The Citizen, with government funds, the attempted purchase of an American newspaper, the bribery of American politicians, the activities of the Group of Ten. All the peccadilloes were revealed.

  In 1979 Connie Mulder, the Minister of Information, was forced to resign from the Cabinet, then from Parliament, then from the party itself. Dr Eschel Rhoodie, the Information Secretary, took refuge in Switzerland, and appeared on television threatening to blow the gaff. Mulder did blow the gaff – he named Vorster, once Prime Minister and then President of the Republic of South Africa, as being privy to the illegal shenanigans. Vorster denied it.

  The Erasmus Judicial Commission of Enquiry sat, considered the evidence, and issued its report. It condemned Vorster as 'having full knowledge of the irregularities.' John Balthazar Vorster resigned from the State Presidency. It was a mess.

  Hendriks, in London, read the daily newspaper reports with horrified eyes, expecting any day that the Hendrykxx affair and the Ol Njorowa Foundation would be blown. But someone in Pretoria must have done some fast and fancy footwork, scurrying to seal the leaks. It was not Colonel Malan because he was swept away in the general torrent of accusations and resigned his commission.

  Hendriks had worried about his uncle Adriaan whom, of course, he had never met, and his particular worry revolved about the possibility of Adriaan fathering legitimate offspring. An inquiry was put in motion and thus he discovered Henry Hendrix, then in his last year in high school. Hendriks wanted, as he put it, 'to do something about it,' a euphemism which Malan burked at. 'No,' Malan had argued. 'I won't have it. We'll do it some other way when the need arises.'

  But after Muldergate, when Malan was gone and Hendriks wanted to 'do something', Henry Hendrix had dropped out of sight, an indistinguishable speck of dross in the melting pot of 220 million Americans. From London Hendriks had tried to rouse Pretoria to action but the recent brouhaha of Muldergate had had a chilling effect on the feet and nothing was done.

  It was only when Alix became pregnant and it was necessary that Hendrykxx should go that Pretoria took action, half-heartedly and too late. Hendrykxx had left 20,000 in his will to his jailers, Mr and Mrs Adams. Mandeville had insisted upon that, saying that the will had to look good. They responded by killing him, a not too difficult task considering he was senile and expected to die any moment, even though he was inconsiderately hanging on t
o life tenaciously.

  Pretoria bungled in Los Angeles and Hendrix got away. He had survived the car crash in Cornwall, too, by something of a miracle, but now Potgeiter had finally solved the problem in a somewhat clumsy way. Or had he?

  Hendriks was roused from his reverie by the ringing of the telephone next to his bed. It was Potgeiter. 'Get down here. Gunnarsson has gone on the run. I've sent Patterson after him.'

  Chapter 28

  Stafford thought the lake flies constituted the worst hazard of Crescent Island until he nearly broke his neck.

  Chip, Nair and the Hunts had departed; the Hunts back to Ol Njorowa, Chip to Nairobi, and Nair to Naivasha to round up supplies. Nair came back in the late afternoon in a boat loaded with provisions and camping gear. They helped him get it ashore, then he said, 'We'll camp on the other side of the island where lights can't be seen from the mainland.'

  'Are you staying with us?' asked Stafford in surprise.

  Nair nodded without saying anything and Hardin snorted. I guess Chip thinks we want our hands held.'

  Stafford had a different notion; he thought Nair was there to keep an eye on them. The mystery of Ol Njorowa had almost been solved and all that remained was to bust up the South African operation. But Chip, and possibly others, did not want premature activity and Nair was there to see that Stafford's party stayed put.

  They lugged the supplies to the other side of the island, a matter of half a mile, and then made camp. Nair was meticulous about the setting up of the mosquito nets which were hung on wire frames over the sleeping bags, and fiddled for a long time in a finicky manner until he was sure he had got it right. 'Get much malaria around here?' asked Hardin.

  'Not here.' Nair looked up. 'Lot of lake flies, though.' He did not elaborate.

  Curtis put a burner op to a small cylinder of propane and began to open cans. In a very short while he had prepared a meal, and they began to eat just as the sun was setting over the Mau Escarpment. Over coffee Nair said, 'It's time for bed.'

  'So early?' queried Hardin. 'It's just after six.'

  'Please yourself,' said Nair. -But the wind changes at night fall and brings the lake flies. You'll be glad to be under coyer.'

  Stafford found what he meant five minutes later when he began to swat at himself viciously. By the time he had got into the sleeping bag and under the safety of the mosquito netting he felt the skin of his arms and ankles coming out in bumps which itched ferociously. Also he found that he had admitted several undesirable residents to share his bed and it was some time before he was sure he had killed the last of them.

  Curtis was silent as usual, but from Hardin's direction came a continual muffled cursing. 'Goddammit, Nair!' he yelled. 'You sure these things aren't mosquitoes?'

  'Just flies,' said Nair soothingly. 'They won't hurt you; they don't transmit disease.'

  'Maybe not; but they're eating me alive. I'll be a picked-over skeleton tomorrow.'

  'They're an aviation hazard,' said Nair in a conversational voice. 'Especially over Lake Victoria. They block air niters and Pilot tubes. There have been a few crashes because of them, but they've never been known to eat anybody.'

  Stafford lit a cigarette and stared at the sky through the diaphanous and almost invisible netting. There were no clouds and the sky was full of the diamond brilliance of stars, growing brighter as the light ebbed in the west. 'Nair?'

  'Yes, Max?'

  'Did Chip say anything before he went to Nairobi?'

  'About what?'

  'You bloody well know about what,' said Stafford without heat.

  There was a brief silence. 'I'm not a high ranking officer,' said Nair, almost apologetically. 'I don't get to know everything.'

  'They can't stop you thinking. You're no fool, Nair; what do you think will happen?'

  Again there was silence from Nair. Presently he said, 'This is a big thing, Max. There'll be a lot of talk among the people at the top; they'll argue about the best thing to do. You know how it is in intelligence work.'

  Stafford knew. There were a number of options open to the Kenyans which he ticked off in his mind. They could go for a propaganda victory – smash into Ol Njorowa with full publicity, including TV cameras on hand and hard words in the United Nations. Or they could snap up Brice and Hendriks unobtrusively and close down their illicit operation without fanfare. The South Africans would know about it, of course, but there would not be a damned thing they could do. That would give the Kenyans a diplomatic ace up the sleeve, a quid pro quo for any concession they might want to wring out of the South Africans – do this for us or we blow the gaff publicly on your illegalities. Stafford doubted if the South Africans would respond to that kind of blackmail.

  There was a third option – to do nothing. To put a fine meshed net around Ol Njorowa, to keep Brice, Hendriks and the animal migration team under surveillance and, possibly, feed them false information. That would be the more subtle approach he himself would favour, but he did not give the average politician many marks for subtlety. The average politician's time-horizon was limited and most would go for the short term solution. Had not Harold Wilson said that a week in politics was a long time?

  And so there would be a lot of talk in Nairobi that night as factions in the government pushed their points of view. He hoped that Chip and Mr Anonymous had the sense to restrict their new found knowledge of Ol Njorowa to a select few.

  He stirred. 'Nair – the men who kidnapped the tour group – do you think they were Tanzanians?' – 'In the circumstances I doubt it.'

  Stafford leaned up on one elbow. 'Kenyans?'

  'Perhaps.'

  'But how would Brice recruit them?'

  'Some men will do much for money.'

  'Even kill, as they were going to kill Corliss?'

  'Even that.' Nair paused. 'They could, of course, have been South African blacks.'

  Stafford had not thought of that. 'Could a South African black pass himself off as a Kenyan? Could he get away with it?'

  Nair said dryly, 'Just as easily as a Russian called Konon Molody could pass himself as a Canadian called Gordon Lonsdale. All it needs is training.'

  Stafford mulled it over in his mind. 'But I can't understand why blacks would work for the white South Africans in the first place. Why should they defend white supremacy?"

  'The South African army is full of blacks,' said Nair. 'Didn't you know? A lot are in the army for the pay. Some have other reasons – learning to use modern weaponry, for instance. But in the end it all comes down to the simple fact that if a man has a set of views it's always possible to find another man with the opposite set of views.'

  'I suppose so,' said Stafford, but he was not convinced.

  'The white man finds it difficult to understand how the mind of the black man works,' said Nair. There was a smile in his voice as he added, 'Not to mention the mind of the Indian. Even the white South Africans, who ought to know better, make mistakes about that."

  'Such as?'

  'To begin with, the countries of Africa are artificial creations of the white man. The black does not really understand the nation state; his loyalties are to the tribe.'

  'Yes,' said Stafford thoughtfully. 'Chip was saying something about that.'

  'All right,' said Nair. 'Take Zimbabwe, which used to be Southern Rhodesia, an artificial entity. They had an election to see who'd come out on top, Nkomo, Mugabe or Bishop Muzorewa who ran the caretaker government. No one gave much chance to Muzorewa. The odds-on favourite was Nkomo and Mugabe was expected to come a bad second. Even the South Africans, who ought to have known better, laid their bets that way.'

  'Why ought they to have known better?'

  'They've been in Africa long enough. You see, there are two main tribes in Zimbabwe, the Ndebele and the Mashona. Nkomo is an Ndebele and Mugabe a Mashona. The Mashona outnumber the Ndebele four to one and Mugabe won the election by four to one. Simple, really.'

  'They voted along tribal lines?'

  'Largely.' Nair p
aused, then said, 'If the South Africans could set up a well-financed secret base here they could stir up a lot of trouble among the tribes."

  Stafford extinguished his cigarette carefully and lay back to think. Because of its position in Africa Kenya was a hodgepodge of ethnic and religious differences, all of which could be exploited by a determined and cynical enemy. Nair was probably right.

  He was still thinking of this when he fell asleep.

  He awoke in the grey light of dawn and looked uncomprehendingly at something which moved. He lay on his side and watched the buck daintily picking its way across his line of vision. It was incredibly small, about the size of a small dog, say, a fox terrier," and its legs were about as thick as a ball point pen and terminated in miniature hooves. Its rump was rounded and its horns were two small daggers. He had never seen anything so exquisite.

  A twig snapped and the buck scampered away into the safety of the trees. Stafford rolled over and saw Nair approaching from the lake. 'That was a dik-dik,' said Nair.

  'Have the flies gone?'

  'No flies now.'

  'Good.' Stafford threw back the netting and emerged from the sleeping bag. He put on his trousers, then his shoes, and took a towel. 'Is it safe to wash in the lake?'

  'Safe enough; just keep your eyes open for snakes. Not that you're likely to see any.'' As Stafford turned away Nair called, 'There are some fish eagles nesting in the trees over there.'

  As Stafford walked to the water's edge he shook his head in amusement. Nair's cover as a courier for tourist groups seemed to have stuck. A herd of Thomson's gazelle drifted out of his way, not hurrying but keeping a safe distance from him. At the shore he sluiced down and was towelling himself dry when Hardin joined him. 'Peaceful place,' Hardin remarked.