Vortex

  So far she’d come up with nothing of any real use. The date of Erik

  Muller’s birth, for instance. Something readily obtainable from public records. The fact that he was an only child. Unusual in an Afrikaner farm family, but not unheard of. Or the discovery that Muller’s father had died in a car wreck when Erik was seven. Again, nothing strange there.

  Back in the early fifties the northern Transvaal’s roads had been rudimentary at best and accidents were common. At least the military expansion of recent decades had changed that. Now a web of multi lane superhighways crisscrossed the high veld, more superhighways than the rural towns and villages in the region needed. Some cynics suggested they were intended as alternate airstrips for jet fighters in case of war.

  Some cynics were probably right.

  Emily shook her head in exasperation. Her brain was wandering too far afield. Muller. Erik Muller. He was her target, her mission. She pushed the last yellowing scrap of newspaper aside and leaned backward, straining against the uncomfortable, straight-backed wooden chair.

  “Miss van der Heijden?”

  She opened her eyes.

  Miss Cooke stood in front of her worktable, another pile of clippings clutched in eager hands. The librarian had proved an avid, enthusiastic helper. And one who seemed to possess an infallible, inexhaustible memory.

  “I thought you might want to have a look through these. As background material for your project. ” Miss Cooke spread the handful of articles out across the table.

  “None of them mentions the Muller boy by name. But they all deal with events in the same town and from around the time he and his mother were still living there. ” Her thin lips pursed in disapproval.

  “There seem to have been some most unusual goings-on in that little place.”

  Intrigued, Emily sat forward.

  “Unusual, Miss Cooke? In what way?”

  “See for yourself, Miss van der Heijden.” The librarian tapped the first clipping with a delicate, wrinkled finger.

  Emily scanned the story quickly, reading only for the essentials. The details could come later. The minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in

  Muller’s hometown had been defrocked for a series of what were referred to only as “shocking misbehaviors.” No specifics were provided.

  And that meant the minister’s “misbehaviors” must have involved some kind of sexual misconduct. She felt the beginnings of a smile. Nothing made an old-style Afrikaner retreat into embarrassed silence and sanctimonious circumlocution faster than the barest hint of sex. Especially when it was a member of the clergy who’d gotten tangled up between the sheets.

  She checked the month and year. Muller would have been about eleven.. Not much connection there. Still, the experience of seeing his family’s minister, the dominie, drummed out of the church must have made some impression on him.

  She jotted a rough note to herself and moved on to the next item.

  A murder! Now that was more interesting. A young black boy, Gabriel

  Tswane, had been found dead in a field just outside Muller’s hometown.

  Again, the details were sketchy, but Emily’s reading between the lines left her fairly convinced that the young man had been beaten to death.

  The unbylined reporter hadn’t bothered to hide his own belief that Tswane had been murdered by “black bandits and cattle thieves,” but had also been forced to admit that the “police still had the case under investigation.”

  Emily noticed the date. October 22. Less than two weeks after the dominie’s downfall. Was there a connection? If so, what kind of a connection?

  She felt her temples pounding again and slid the article on top of her burgeoning pile for further study. Thirty-year-old mysteries and clerical misdeeds might make interesting reading, but they weren’t moving her any closer to uncovering information about Muller’s role-if any-in the Blue

  Train massacre.

  “Were the articles of any use, Miss van der Heijden?”

  Emily looked up into the librarian’s anxious eyes and smiled.

  “They were very helpful, Miss Cooke. Very much so.” She glanced at her watch.

  “But perhaps we’d best move on to Meneer Muller’s early days in the security services. Have you been able to-” She stopped suddenly.

  The thick stack of file folders the librarian plopped onto her desk answered her still-unasked question. Emily stifled a groan, converting it with tremendous difficulty into a simple, quiet sigh.

  Who’d ever said a journalist’s life was glamorous?

  SEPTEMBER 24-JOHANNESBURG

  Shelby’s Olde English Pub wasn’t very old and it certainly wasn’t very

  English. Its chrome fittings and hard plastic tables reminded Ian more of a slapdash, drink-on-the-run airport bar back in the States. But at least

  Shelby’s had all the elements so essential to a private, conspiratorial meeting: it was dimly lit, smoke filled, noisy, and crowded.

  The government’s new limits on the hours during which liquor could be served hadn’t cut South Africa’s alcohol consumption. They’d just forced people to drink their booze faster. A classic example of the law of unintended consequences, Ian thought sourly as he sipped the warm pint of beer in front of him.

  He’d come here to play a hunch-a hunch backed by tidbits he’d picked up in an earlier, off-the-record conversation with the U.S. embassy’s CIA station chief.

  “Political Counselor” Frank Price hadn’t confirmed his belief that South Africa’s security services had a high-ranking mole inside the ANC, but he had drawn Ian’s attention to an operation that seemed to indicate it just might: the surgically precise SADF commando raid into Zimbabwe back in May.

  Although Price hadn’t been willing to say more than that, the mention of the attack on Gawamba had been enough to put Ian on what he hoped was the right track. He’d spent the several days since then arranging this meeting with a man he hoped could take him even further toward the truth.

  The bar’s front door swung open, briefly admitting a swirl of fresh, cool evening air along with a new customer. Ian watched through narrowed eyes as the man, self-conscious in an unfamiliar civilian suit, made his way through the tangle of portly businessmen and loud, off-duty soldiers. The newcomer was looking for someone.

  Ian waited until the man’s eyes focused on him and then tapped the empty place across the table.

  Capt. Michael Henshaw, SADF, slid gingerly into the booth, sweat gleaming on his brow.

  “Are we safe here? Were you followed?”

  Ian shook his head impatiently. He’d taken a lot of precautions to dodge any kind of a tail-feeling spectacularly silly all the while.

  First, Sam Knowles had bundled their driver and suspected informer,

  Matthew Sibena, off on an all-day wild-goose chase across Johannesburg.

  The two were supposed to be filming a whole new slew of background shots for use as filler in

  news broadcasts. Ian only hoped Siberia didn’t know that the network’s files already held more footage of Johannesburg street scenes than could possibly be used in a dozen years.

  Once they were gone, Ian had slipped quietly out of the studio and followed a long, roundabout path to the pub one designed to shake loose anybody dogging his footsteps. Sudden changes in direction. Rapid taxi switches.

  Even a quick stroll through a department store teeming with lateafternoon shoppers. Hell, he’d used every trick he’d ever read about in espionage thrillers. And all without seeing any sign of anyone trying to follow him.

  He signaled toward the bar.

  “A beer for my friend here, please. “

  Henshaw watched in silence as the white-jacketed barman deposited a tall glass in front of him. Once the man was safely out of earshot, he pushed the glass aside and leaned across the table.

  “Well, did you bring it?”

  “Yeah.” Ian risked a quick glance around the haze-filled room. Nobody seemed to be watching. He slid an
envelope across into Henshaw’s hands and looked away as the South African tore it open and riffled through the stack of crisp bank notes inside. Five hundred pounds’ worth of tax-free British currency. Henshaw was one of those people who wanted to do the right thing, but only at a profit.

  Ian frowned. He hated paying for information. Bribing somebody, even to tell the truth, always left him feeling soiled. He forced himself to smile.

  “Satisfied?”

  The South African officer nodded abruptly and slid the envelope inside his suit coat.

  “You may ask your questions, Mr. Sheffield. I will do my best to answer them.”

  “Did you get a chance to check the records I mentioned earlier?”

  “About the raid on the ANC’s command center in Zimbabwe? Yes.” Henshaw took a cautious sip of his beer.

  “It was a classic hit-and-kill op. Very well handled. “

  Ian grimaced.

  “I didn’t ask you here to grade the damned thing for me. ” He lowered his voice.

  “What I want to know is, was there anything out of the ordinary about the raid? Anything that struck you as unusual?”

  Henshaw hesitated and took another look around the crowded bar. Then he turned back to Ian.

  “There were three things, okay?”

  He traced numbers on the table while he talked.

  “One, the par as who went in on the assault had a complete readout on the target before they went in.

  Enemy strength. Building plans. Everything. It was like they’d been talking to somebody who’d worked there. Right?”

  Ian nodded his understanding.

  “Okay, two. There weren’t just par as on the op.” Henshaw’s voice dropped even lower.

  “I saw the orders for the mission. It listed a special intelligence-gathering unit besides the parachute company. “

  Curiouser and curiouser.

  “Who’d they work for?”

  Henshaw looked even more nervous. He took another pull at his beer, this time a sizable gulp. Then he leaned forward.

  “For a man named Erik Muller.

  You’ve heard of him? The director of military intelligence?”

  Jackpot. Ian nodded again, casually, as though the information were of little importance.

  “All right. What else?”

  “Something very odd. The brass said this raid was an outstanding success.

  Medals galore for the par as involved. A unit citation. The whole works, right?”

  I “SoT I

  Henshaw shook his head.

  “So where were all the captured documents? Nothing came through my section. Not one scrap of paper! “

  Ian shrugged.

  “Maybe your troops didn’t find anything worth bringing back.”

  The South African officer looked annoyed.

  “No . no, you don’t understand!

  We don’t mount these kinds of commando assaults just to kill guerrillas.

  There are easier ways to do that! With bombs, for example.” He shoved his beer aside again.

  “The reason you put troops in on the ground is to seize and hold buildings so you can search them for useful intelligence-for documents!”

  Ian sat back, beginning to understand Henshaw’s puzzlement. The commando raid on Gawamba had been intended to capture ANC documents. South Africa’s high command

  viewed the attack as a stunning success. But nothing Muller’s intelligence boys had found had come back through regular military channels. So what kind of information had they uncovered? And where was it?

  He sat motionless for a long while after the South African left the pub.

  Muller had played some part in the Blue Train massacre. He was sure of that. Every piece of evidence pointed in the secret-service man’s direction.

  So far, so good. But all he had right now was a collection of what could be passed off as pure supposition, malicious rumor, and drunken barroom gossip. Turning any of that hodgepodge into solid, substantial proof was going to be tough-damned tough. Unfortunately, Ian didn’t have the faintest idea of how he was going to go about doing that.

  CHAPTER

  _~ 15

  Spreading Flames

  OCTOBER 1STATE SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER,

  THE UNION BUILDINGS, PRETORIA

  Clusters of red pins dotting the topographic map of the Natal told their own story. The Zulu rebellion was growing, gathering strength day by day, despite the ever harsher measures adopted by Franz Diederichs and his security troops. It was a story matched in smaller scale across the length and breadth of Natal’s neighbor to the west, the Cape Province. Student riots flared in Cape Town on a daily basis. Growing numbers of young men of draft age refused to report for induction. There were reports of increasing opposition to the war in Namibia among the province’s business and labor leaders. There were even disquieting rumors that some of the police and soldiers stationed in and around Cape Town were increasingly reluctant to enforce the government’s security decrees.

  Karl Vorster’s angry voice thundered through the room.

  “This situation is intolerable, Marius! You swore to me these nests of traitors and malcontents would be rooted out and

  utterly destroyed by now! And instead you come here to tell us that matters are worse than they once were?”

  Erik Muller hid a satisfied smile as he watched Marius van der Heijden squirm under Vorster’s tongue-lashing. His closest, most dangerous rival on the cabinet had finally bitten off more than he could easily chew.

  Muller shook his head, remembering van der Heijden’s proud recitation of kraals burned and Zulus shot down in fields or on rocky slopes. The man and his oafish subordinates really had no idea of how the game should be played-no sense of subtlety at all. Mass executions, indeed. Ridiculous!

  Much better results could have been achieved by a series of carefully planned assassinations and kidnappings.

  Vorster whirled from his contemplation of the damning situation map.

  “Well,

  Marius? What do you suggest now?”

  Van der Heijden cleared his throat.

  “Brigadier Diederichs and his men have fought well, Mr. President. But they are too few to adequately patrol the province. These Zulus have proven more stubborn than expected.” He looked toward the tall, whitehaired general sitting at one end of the table.

  “But we could subdue them if General de Wet could just spare three more battalions of motorized infantry. Diederichs assures me the extra manpower would let him form enough pursuit forces to track these guerrillas to their lairs and smash them there.”

  De Wet sniffed.

  “Impossible. The Permanent Force and those Citizen Force units already in Namibia are vital to our campaign there. We cannot spare units for what should be simple police work.”

  Better and better. Muller found it increasingly difficult not to laugh out loud. The two cabinet factions he disliked the most were now going for each other’s throat.

  “Then mobilize more troops! You still have Citizen Force battalions held out of the front lines. Let us make use of them where they are needed!”

  Vorster held up a hand for silence, interrupting de Wet’s retort.

  “Enough.

  ” He turned his grim, dark-ringed eyes on the general.

  “What of these men

  Marius speaks of, General? Are they all needed for Namibia? Truthfully, now.”

  De Wet hesitated for a moment before answering.

  “We need many of the

  Citizen Force troops as replacements for our regulars, Mr. President.

  Some of our best battalions have suffered serious losses that must be made good.”

  “But do you need them all?” Vorster’s tone dropped toward a growl. He didn’t like having to repeat himself.

  The general lowered his eyes.

  “No, Mr. President. Not as yet.” He nodded toward the map of Namibia now hung permanently on one of the room’s windowless walls. />
  “Our supply services are stretched to the breaking point as they are.”

  “I see.” Vorster thumped a heavy hand onto the table and turned toward van der Heijden.

  “Very well, Marius. You’ll have your three battalions.

  The Ministry of Defense will select which reserve units will be called up.”

  He glowered at the shorter man.

  “But I warn you, meneer. Do not fail me again. I expect you to crush this treacherous rebellion within the month.

  Is that quite clear, Marius?”

  Van der Heijden nodded slowly, his normally plump red face now pate-almost ashen.

  Muller was disappointed. He’d hoped for more fireworks, more angry shouting. He glanced covertly toward the man seated immediately to his right. Helmoed Malherbe, the minister of industries and commerce, sat rigidly in frozen silence. Too bad. He’d expected Malherbe to object again to the increasing drain on South Africa’s civilian economy. Every battalion of reservists called to the colors meant one thousand fewer skilled white workers and managers in the nation’s factories and mines.

  But Malherbe seemed to have learned his lesson. Contradicting Vorster’s cherished notions was one of the fastest ways known to end a promising government career, so the man stayed quiet.

  Muller’s lip curled upward in a tightly controlled sneer. Another toady in a cabinet of toadies. At times, the company his ambitions forced him to keep sickened him beyond all measure. But power brought its own rewards-rewards that made the bootlicking and petty infighting worthwhile.

  Power. The very word stirred long-suppressed desires and appetites, sending them racing through Muller’s mind and

  body. He shifted uncomfortably. It was October. He would need to make another secret journey-a pilgrimage of sorts -soon. Very soon.

  OCTOBER 5-20TH CAPE RIFLES, REHOBOTH, NAMIBIA

  Commandant Henrik Kruger had never been prouder of his men. Despite coming out of the line less than twenty-four hours before, they’d gone to great lengths to prepare for the brigade commander’s last inspection. Somewhere they’d found enough water to wash and shave. Uniforms tattered, torn, and stained by weeks of trench warfare had been cleaned, pressed, and re sewn