Vortex

by Larry Bond

  Luthuli nodded.

  “A week ago. The orders are being passed south through our courier chain right now.”

  Collins shook his head.

  “Then you’ll have to abort. Pull our people back into cover while you still can.”

  “It will be difficult. Some have already left for the rendezvous point. “

  “Sese, I don’t care how difficult it is. Broken Covenant must be called off.” The ANC strategist sounded faintly exasperated now.

  “At a time when the Afrikaners seem outwardly reasonable, carrying out such an operation would be a diplomatic disaster we can’t afford! Do you understand that?”

  Luthuli nodded sharply, angry at being talked to as if he were a wayward child.

  “Good.” Collins softened his tone.

  “So we’ll sit quietly for now. And in six months, you’ll get another chance to make those slave-owning bastards pay, right?”

  “As you say.” Luthuli felt his anger draining away as he reached for the phone. Cosate’s revenge would be postponed, not abandoned.

  JUNE I O-GAZANKULU PRIMARY SCHOOL, SOWETO

  TOWNSHIP, SOUTH AFRICA

  Nearly fifty small children crammed the classroom. A few sat in rickety wooden desks, but most squatted on the cracked linoleum floor or jostled for space against the school’s cement-block walls. Despite the crowding, they listened quietly to their teacher as he ran through the alphabet again. Most of the children knew that they were getting the only education they’d ever be allowed by government policy and economic necessity. And they were determined to learn as much as possible before venturing out into the streets in a futile search for work.

  Nthato Mbeki turned from the blackboard and wiped his hands on a rag. He avoided the eager eyes of his students. They wanted far more than he could give them in this tumbledown wreck of a school. He didn’t have the resources to teach them even the most basic skills-reading, writing, and a little arithmetic-let alone anything more complicated. And that was exactly what South Africa’s rulers desired. From Pretoria’s perspective, continued white rule depended largely on keeping the nation’s black majority unskilled, ignorant, and properly servile.

  Mbeki’s hands tightened around the chalk-smeared rag, crushing out a fine white powder before he dropped it onto his desk. He swallowed hard, trying not to let the children see his anger. It would only frighten them.

  His hatred of apartheid and its creators grew fiercer with every passing day. Only his secret work as an ANC courier let him fight the monstrous injustices he saw all around. Lately even that had begun to seem too passive. After all, what was he really to the ANC? Nothing more than a link in a long, thin chain, a single neuron in a network stretching back to

  Lusaka. No one of consequence. He thought again of asking his controller for permission to play a more active part in the struggle.

  Mbeki’s Japanese wristwatch beeped, signaling the end of another sc hot-.)l day. He looked at the sea of eager, innocent faces around him and nodded.

  “Class dismissed. But don’t forget to review your primers before tomorrow. I shall expect you to have completed pages four through six for our next lesson. “

  He sat down at his desk as the children filed out, all quiet broken by their high-pitched, excited voices.

  “Dr. Mbeki?”

  He glanced up at the school secretary, glad to have his increasingly bleak thoughts interrupted.

  “Yes?”

  “You have a phone call, Doctor. From your aunt.”

  Mbeki felt his depression lifting. He had work to do.

  DIRECTORATE OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE, PRETORIA

  Erik Muller stared at the watercolor landscape on his office wall without seeing it, his mind fixed on the surveillance van parked near Soweto’s

  Gazankulu Primary School. He gently stroked his chin, frowning as his fingers rasped across whiskers that had grown since his morning shave.

  “Repeat the message Mbeki just received.”

  Field Agent Paul Reynders had been locked away inside the windowless, almost airless van for nearly eight hours. Eight hours spent in what was essentially an unheated metal box jammed full of sophisticated electronic gear-voice-activated recorders hooked into phone taps and bugs, and video monitors connected to hidden cameras trained on the school and its surroundings. His fatigue could plainly be heard in the leaden, listless voice that poured out of the speakerphone.

  “They told him that his aunt in Ciskei was sick, but that it was only a minor cold.”

  Muller ran a finger down the list of code phrases captured at Gawarnba.

  Ah, there. His finger stopped moving and he swore under his breath. Damn it. The ANC was aborting its operation! Why?

  His mind raced through a series of possibilities, evaluating and then dismissing them at lightning speed. Had the guerrillas at last realized that their Gawamba document cache had

  been compromised? Unlikely. They’d never have gone this far with Broken

  Covenant if they’d had the slightest reason to suspect that. Had his surveillance teams been spotted? Again doubtful. None of the men they’d been tracking had shown any signs of realizing that they’d been tagged.

  Muller shook his head angrily. It had to be those damned upcoming talks.

  With the world hoping for progress toward a peaceful solution in South

  Africa, the ANC’s politicians must be just as gutless as Haymans and his cronies. They were trying to muzzle Umkhonto’s boldest stroke ever, probably fearing that even its success would backfire on them. They were right of course. Clever swine.

  He almost smiled, thinking of how his ANC counterpart must have taken the news of Broken Covenant’s postponement. Sese Luthuli couldn’t be very happy with his own masters at this moment.

  Muller raised his eyes from the captured code list to the grainy, black-and-white photo tacked up beside his favorite watercolor. Taken secretly by one of South Africa’s deep cover agents, it showed Luthuli striding arrogantly down a Lusaka street, surrounded by his ever-present bodyguards. Muller kept it pinned in constant view in the belief that seeing his enemy’s face helped him anticipate his enemy’s moves.

  Besides, Luthuli was quite a handsome man, for a black. High cheekbones. A proud, almost aquiline nose. Fierce, predatory eyes. A worthy adversary.

  Muller forced such thoughts out of his mind. He had more urgent business at hand. He could hear Reynders; breathing heavily over the phone, waiting patiently for further instructions.

  What could be done? If he did nothing, it would be six more months before the ANC could even hope to launch Broken Covenant again. And who could see that far into the future? Six months was an eternity in the present political climate. In six months, Karl Vorster might no longer be minister of law and order. The negotiations might still be under way. News of the documents captured at Gawamba might leak, despite all his precautions.

  Anything could happen.

  Muller shook his head. He didn’t have any real choice. If the ANC operation was aborted now, the golden opportunity it represented to the

  AWB, to Vorster, and to Muller himself, would vanish. That could not be allowed. He cleared his throat.

  “Has this man Mbeki passed his message on?”

  “No, sir.” Reynders sounded confident.

  “His contact works evenings. He probably won’t even try to place a call until later tonight.”

  “Excellent.” Muller didn’t bother hiding his relief. He still had time to break the ANC communications chain.

  “Listen carefully, Paul. I want you to cut off all phone service to Mbeki’s immediate neighborhood. By five tonight, I want every telephone for six blocks around his house as dead as Joseph Stalin. Is that clear?”

  Reynders answered immediately, “Yes, Director.”

  “Good. And have two of your best Soweto ‘pets’ call me within the hour.

  I have something I want taken care of.”

  BILA ST REEl SOWETO TO%NSHIP


  Nthato Mbeki pressed the receiver to his ear for what seemed the hundredth time. Nothing. He couldn’t hear a sound. Not even the normal, buzzing dial tone.

  He slammed the phone down in frustration. The message he’d been given had to get through tonight. He couldn’t afford to wait any longer. He’d have to make the call from somewhere else. Maybe the school or one of the other teachers had a working line.

  Mbeki pulled on a jacket for protection against the cold night air and stepped out his front door. With the sun down, Soweto lay wrapped in darkness. Only a few feeble streetlamps lit the pitch-black sky, and even those were cloaked by smoke from the coal fires used to heat Soweto’s homes.

  He pulled his collar closer and started walking toward the primary school, picking his way carefully through piles of trash left lying in the street.

  A hundred yards down the road, two young black men sat

  impatiently in a small, battered Fiat. They’d been waiting for more than an hour, fidgeting in the growing cold.

  The two men were “pets,” a term used by South Africa’s security services to describe the petty thieves, collaborators, and outright thugs used for dirty work inside the all-black townships. They were convenient, obedient, and best of all, virtually untraceable. Crimes they committed could easily be blamed on the violent gangs who already roamed township streets.

  The driver turned to his younger, shorter companion.

  “Well? Is that the bastard?”

  The other man slowly lowered the starlight scope he’d been using to scan

  Mbeki’s house.

  “That’s the schoolteacher. No doubt about it.”

  “About time .” The driver started the car and pulled smoothly away from the curb. His foot shoved down hard on the accelerator. Within seconds, the

  Fiat was moving at sixty miles an hour, racing down the darkened street without headlights.

  Mbeki didn’t even have time to turn before the car slammed into him and crushed his skull beneath its spinning tires. By the time his neighbors poured out of their houses, Dr. Nthato Mbeki, one of Soweto’s most promising teachers, lay sprawled on Bila Street’s dirt surface, bloody and unmoving.

  Without any eyewitnesses to question, Soweto’s harried police force could only list his death as another unsolved hit and-run accident.

  The signal to abort Broken Covenant died with him.

  CHAPTER

  Broken Covenant

  JUNE 14-NEAR PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA

  Karl Vorster’s modest country home lay at the center of a sprawling estate containing cattle pens, grazing lands, and furrowed, already-harvested wheat fields. His field hands and servants lived in rows of tiny bungalows and larger, concrete block barracks dotting a hillside below the main house. The house itself was small and plain, with thick plaster walls and narrow windows that kept it cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

  Twenty men crowded Vorster’s study. Most were dressed casually, though a few who’d come straight from their offices wore dark-colored suits and ties. Two were in military uniform. A few held drinks, but none showed any signs that they’d taken more than an occasional, cautious sip. All twenty stood quietly waiting, their serious, sober faces turned toward their leader.

  Despite the soft country-western music playing in the background and the smells wafting in from a barbecue pit just outside, no one there

  could possibly have mistaken the gathering for any kind of social event. An air of grim purpose filled the room, emanating from the tall, flint-eyed man standing near the fireplace.

  Vorster studied the men clustered around him with some satisfaction. Each man was a member of his secret inner circle. Each man could claim a “pure” and unblemished Afrikaner heritage. Each shared his determination to save South Africa from failing into a nightmare era of black rule and endless tribal warfare. And each held an important post in the Republic’s government.

  Vorster held his silence for a moment longer, watching as the tension built. It served his purpose to have these men on edge. Their own inner alarm would lend extra importance to his words. Then he glanced at

  Muller, who stood rigidly waiting for his signal. The younger man nodded back and pulled the study door shut with an audible click. They were ready to begin.

  “I’ll come straight to the point, my friends.” Vorster kept his words clipped, signaling both his anger and his determination.

  “Our beloved land stands on the very brink of disaster.”

  Heads bobbed around the room in agreement.

  “Haymans and his pack of traitorous curs have shown themselves ready to sell out to the communists, to the blacks, and to the Uitlanders. We have all seen their rush to surrender. No one can deny it. No one can doubt that the talks they propose with the ANC would be the first step toward oblivion for our people.”

  More heads nodded, Muller’s among them-though he hid a cynical smile as he heard Vorster’s rhetoric ride roughshod over reality. He doubted that

  Haymans had ever seriously contemplated the complete abdication of all white authority. Still, the exaggeration had its uses. Even the faint chance of a total surrender had already roused a fire storm of anger and hatred among South Africa’s militant right-a fire storm that Vorster would use to cleanse the Republic when the time came. And Muller knew that time was coming soon. Very soon. He turned his attention back to his leader’s impassioned diatribe.

  “We must be ready to save our people when they cry out for our aid. As they will! True Afrikaners will not long be deceived by the web of false promises of peace Haymans and his cronies are spinning. Soon the bestial nature of our enemies shall stand revealed in the clear light of day.”

  Vorster clenched his right fist and raised it high, toward the ceiling.

  “God will not allow his chosen people to fall into the Devil’s clutches.

  He will save us. And He will punish all who sin against the Afrikaner way-against God’s way!”

  For a split second Muller was lost in the illusion that he’d somehow stumbled into a church meeting. It was an impression reinforced by the muttered “Amen” ‘s that swept through the room.

  Vorster’s next words shattered the illusion.

  “Therefore, gentlemen, we must be prepared for immediate action. When the people turn to us for salvation, we must move quickly to seize all reins of power-the ministries, the military, and the information services alike. You will be our vanguard in this effort. Do you understand me?”

  One of the men still wearing a suit and tie stepped forward a pace.

  Muller recognized the sober, jowly face of the Transvaal’s Security

  Branch chief, Marius van der Heijden.

  “Not quite, Minister. Are we to plan for direct action against Haymans’s faction?”

  “A good question, Marius. ” Vorster slowly shook his head and lifted his eyes to meet those of the others around the room. ” I am not planning a coup d’etat. I propose no treason against the State.”

  He looked steadily at Muller.

  “No, that is not what I foresee.”

  Muller felt a chill run down his spine, Was the minister going to blow the Broken Covenant secret? Even one of these trusted few could inadvertently reveal the knowledge he held to the wrong people. And such a leak would prove disastrous. He opened his mouth to interrupt.

  But Vorster spoke first, calming his fears.

  “I believe that our enemies themselves will give us the opportunity we seek. The timing will be their own. That is why you must be ready to move quickly. When God’s day of reckoning comes, only

  those who act swiftly will emerge victorious. So be prepared. That is all

  I ask of you now.”

  Again, the men filling the room nodded their agreement, though few bothered to hide their puzzlement. No matter, Muller thought, they’d been given all the advance warning they should need. And if the ANC’s plan worked, South Africa would soon find it had new masters.

  Satisfied
, Vorster allowed himself to relax, momentarily concealing his naked ambition beneath a mask of benign good fellowship.

  “But come now, my friends. No more business tonight, eh?”

  He sniffed the air appreciatively.

  “It seems that my ‘boys’ have done a good job with the beef tonight. And a fine thing, too. After all, this politicking is hard work, and we must keep up our strength, right?”

  Appreciative chuckles greeted his attempt at humor, and the other men began drifting toward the door-ready for the barbecue that provided a cover for the evening’s meeting.

  As Muller started to follow, he felt a strong hand close on his sleeve.

  It was Vorster.

  The minister tugged him back toward the fireplace, away from the others.

  “Well, how goes it? Are those black bastards still on schedule? Has there been any reaction to Haymans’s offer of talks?”

  Muller stared impassively at him, carefully weighing the pros and cons of telling Vorster about the ANC’s failed attempt to abort Broken

  Covenant. Until now, the minister’s role in this conspiracy had been largely passive-more a matter of withholding information from others in the government than of acting on it. If he retroactively approved Muller’s secret efforts to push the ANC attack forward, Vorster would be playing a more active part in betraying his erstwhile colleagues. But would he go that far?

  “What is it? Has something gone wrong?” The grip on Muller’s wrist tightened.

  He made no effort to pull away. Vorster sounded disappointed, not panicked. Excellent. Muller made a snap judgment. The older man’s craving for power must be overcoming the inhibitions normaHy imposed by custom and loyalty.

  He must really believe that only he could stop Haymans’s sellout.

  “Everything is moving forward as planned, Minister.” Muller leaned forward, closer to his leader’s rugged face.

  “Though I have been forced to take certain measures .. …. “What measures?” Vorster kept his voice low, but his words had a steel-hard edge to them.

  Without hesitating further, Muller told him everything. Vorster stayed silent as he spoke, save for an appreciative grunt when the younger man described Mbeki’s fatal “accident. “