Vortex

  On the inside, though, the Cascades Hotel and Casino was abnormally quiet, almost lifeless. Most of the young South African men who normally frequented its slot machines, blackjack tables, and roulette wheels were off fighting in

  Namibia, the Natal, or the country’s black townships. And there were few foreign tourists arriving to replace them during these troubled times.

  Ian and Emily sat restlessly in a small bar adjacent to the hotel’s main lobby. Two untouched glasses of white wine warmed to room temperature on the table between them. With difficulty, Ian stopped himself from checking his watch for what seemed the thousandth time. Muller was already much later than they’d expected him to be. Had something gone wrong? Had the

  South African security chief canceled or postponed his meeting?

  Ian felt cold sweat beading on his forehead. They’d only have one opportunity to pull off a stunt like this, and if the Afrikaner intelligence man didn’t show tonight, they’d have to rethink everything from square one. He twisted around again to check the lobby. Nothing. No sign of the damned man.

  In a brief puff of warm air, the automatic doors leading outside slid open and then closed behind a single lean, waspwaisted man carrying a tan overnight bag slung over his shoulder. Ian started suddenly. He’d studied the few available file photos long enough to recognize the narrow, arrogant face and pale blue eyes of South Africa’s director of military intelligence. Erik Muller had arrived.

  The South African strode confidently across the lobby and stood waiting in front of the Cascades’ teak registration desk. Seconds later, the hotel’s main door slid open again and Sam Knowles ambled in and got in line behind

  Muller-acting like any other travel-weary tourist eager for his chance at the swimming pool and gaming tables. The cameraman rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet, shifted impatiently, looked at his watch, and then started whistling.

  Ian held his breath as Muller turned round to look for the source of the disagreeable, off-key noise. Shut up, Sam, for God’s sake, shut up, Ian thought desperately. But the South African simply ran his cold, hard eyes over the shorter man, taking in Knowles’s open-collared green sports shirt, pleated plaid trousers, and white shoes. Then he scowled and turned back to the desk clerk to finish checking in-having evidently dismissed the American as nothing more than the annoying buffoon he appeared to be.

  With a curt nod, Muller took his room key from the clerk, waved away the offer of a bellman’s services, and vanished in the direction of the elevators without looking back. Ian heaved a sigh of relief and waited while his cameraman finished registering and sauntered across the lobby into the bar.

  Knowles plopped onto a chair next to Emily and across from Ian.

  “The bugger signed in as Hans Meinert and they put him in Room three thirty-five.” Then he grinned, dangling an oversize room key from his hand.

  “And we’re in three thirty-seven-right next door.”

  Ian matched his grin.

  “And just how the hell did you manage that?”

  Knowles shrugged.

  “The same way you get anything special in one of these swanky hotels-a kind word and a hundred-rand gratuity tucked in your registration card.”

  Ian chuckled and took the room key out of Knowles’s outstretched hand.

  Then he stood up to go. They were as ready as they could ever be.

  Room 337 overlooked Sun City’s central artificial lake and swimming pool.

  A handful of elderly couples strolled along the treelined edge of the lake, enjoying the cool early-evening air. Lights were coming on all over the quiet compound, triggered into action by the gathering darkness. It all seemed too peaceful to be part of the South Africa Ian had seen so much of over the past few months.

  He turned and looked at the two very different men waiting inside the room with him. Matthew Sibena sat bolt upright in a chair facing a small writing desk, his face a rigid mask of nervousness and underlying fear.

  Sam Knowles, on the other hand, seemed completely at ease-lounging carelessly on the room’s queen-size bed beside a closed soft-sided suitcase.

  Knowles looked up from his paperback.

  “You realize we’re gonna look mighty stupid if this ANC mole you’re expecting comes straight to

  Muller’s room?”

  Ian nodded without saying anything. That was a risk they’d

  just have to take. Not that he believed there was much chance it would happen. Muller was too professional to bring a field agent to his hotel room without first making sure that the man hadn’t been followed. No, the odds were that the South African would leave his room to make the initial rendezvous returning only when he was certain it was safe. But Ian was betting that Muller’s main business with his mole would be transacted inside the hotel room itself. The casinos were too noisy and too public.

  And the landscaped grounds outside were too quiet and too open for a clandestine meeting.

  The sound of the door next to theirs opening and shutting brought them all to their feet. Muller was on his way. Ian moved to the phone and stood waiting, annoyed to find that his palms were damp. Seconds passed one by one, turning into minutes with agonizing slowness. Come on.

  The phone rang. He grabbed it in mid ring

  “Yes.”

  “He’s outside. Walking toward the Entertainment Centre.” Emily sounded breathless-frightened and excited all at the same time.

  “Great. You know what to do if you see him coming back?”

  “Yes.” Emily’s voice fell to a low, husky whisper.

  “Be careful. Please be very careful.”

  Ian swallowed past a throat grown suddenly tight.

  “We will, believe me.

  And stay out of sight yourself… got it?”

  He waited until he heard her murmured acknowledgment and then hung up.

  Knowles and Siberia were already lined up by the door. Ian edged past them and opened it just a crack-just far enough to glance down the long, carpeted hallway in either direction. It was empty.

  Four quick strides put him opposite the door to Room 335, with Siberia tagging along right behind. Suitcase in hand, Knowles followed more slowly, pausing to pull their own door shut.

  Ian knocked once and listened carefully, hearing his own heartbeat pounding in his ears. Nothing from inside the room. He stepped back and let Sibena past. The young black man slipped a thick plastic card through the narrow gap between the door and the doodamb and worked it back and forth trying to force the lock. As he worked, his lips moved silently, either in prayer or in stifled curses.

  Ian checked the corridor again, mentally willing Sibena to get the damned door open before somebody saw them. He wasn’t sure what the penalties were in Bophuthatswana for breaking and entering, and he didn’t want to find out the hard way.

  Click. The sudden noise seemed horribly loud over the soft, hushed hum of the hotel’s air-conditioning. Siberia stuck the plastic card back in his pocket with a trembling hand and pushed in on the door, It moved, and they were in. Thank God.

  Ian led the way into a room identical to their own. A large bed, writing table, lamps, a chest of drawers, television, telephone, and a private bath. All the comforts of modern civilization. Muller had closed his drapes, shutting out the view of the lake and landscaped grounds.

  Naturally. The paranoid bastard was probably afraid that he might be seen and recognized.

  Knowles moved immediately to the wall shared by their adjoining room. He stopped near the drape-cloaked window and started tapping along the wall, listening intently for the hollow sounds of an area free of supporting beams. Satisfied, he swung round and started panning around the room with his arms outstretched and hands held apart-mimicking the field of view available to a video camera.

  “This’ll do.”

  Ian handed him a small portable power drill from the suitcase.

  Knowles thumbed the drill onto its highest setting and pressed the whining, spinning drill
bit firmly against the wall. Fiberboard particles, sawdust, and fragments of insulation puffed out into the air and settled slowly onto the thick carpet. In seconds, the drill bored a tiny hole through the wall between their two rooms. A hole scarcely large enough to be seen, but just large enough to take a thin, flexible light tube hooked up to a VCR.

  Ian glanced down at his watch. They’d been in the room for three minutes.

  It hardly seemed possible. It felt more like three years.

  Knowles backed the power drill out of the hole and moved along the wall, tapping again, this time closer to the door.

  Ian raised an eyebrow.

  “We need another lead into here?”

  His cameraman nodded, still tapping away.

  “Uh-huh. One thing you can always count on: if you’ve only got one camera angle, some dumb bastard’s sure to be facing the wrong damned way. Ah. There we go. ” He pulled his ear away and thumbed the drill on for a second time.

  “This’ll give us coverage over the whole room. No blind spots except for the h .”

  More shredded fiberboard and sawdust drifted onto the carpet. Ian tried to calm his nerves by concentrating on catching every bit of the debris with a small portable vacuum cleaner.

  Five and a half minutes down. Sibena stood fidgeting near the bathroom, afraid to move and too nervous to stand completely still.

  Ian squinted at the wall, trying to judge just how obvious their spy holes were. Not very, he decided. Even knowing exactly where they were, he had a hard time spotting them.

  Finally, Knowles finished and stepped away from his handiwork.

  “All set, boss man. ” He dropped the drill back inside his suitcase and zipped it shut.

  “Terrific. ” Ian climbed to his feet, brushed a few stray particles of fiberboard off his knees, and headed for the door. Whoops. Idiot. He stopped so suddenly that both Knowles and Sibena cannoned into him.

  “What the fu-” The little cameraman bit back the rest.

  “Forgot to do something. ” Ian brushed past them and went straight to the queen-size bed. Working rapidly, he pulled the covers off the pillows on one side and tucked them back neatly. Then he scooped two foil-wrapped mint chocolates out of his shirt pocket and set them carefully on the top pillow.

  It was Sam Knowles’s turn to look surprised.

  “Emily’s idea.” Ian gestured toward the door.

  “In case Muller had any telltales rigged to see if somebody came snooping when he was out. You know, hairs stuck in the door and that kind of stuff.”

  Knowles smiled.

  “So now all he’ll know is that the maid came in and turned down his bed for him. Cute. Real cute.” The smile grew into a full-fledged grin.

  “It’s no wonder that you and this Miss van der Heijden make such a perfect couple, boyo. You’re both as sneaky as they come under those goody two-shoes exteriors. By God, it makes me proud to know you both.

  “

  Ian laughed softly and pushed him out the door.

  “Save the bullshit for later, Sam. We’ve still got a lot of work to do before Muller gets back here with his little friend from the ANC. “

  Half an hour later they were completely ready. Two video monitors flickered in opposite corners of their room-each showing a different view of Muller’s empty hotel room. And though the pictures coming back through the light tubes were grainy and dim, they were acceptable. Digital enhancement on the studio’s computer-imaging system could remove any blurring and brighten anything too dark to be clearly seen.

  Without breaking back into Muller’s room, Knowles couldn’t do a sound check, but he was confident that they’d be able to pick up enough audio.

  And if need be, the computer could be used to enhance voices, too.

  Ian paced back and forth, glancing at the monitors from time to time.

  They were set. Now where was Muller? Had he decided to hold his secret meeting somewhere else in Sun City after all?

  The phone rang. He jumped over a tangle of cabling and picked it up on the second ting.

  “Hello?”

  Emily’s soft voice caressed his ear.

  “He’s back. And he’s not alone.

  There is a black man with him.”

  Yes! Ian couldn’t hold back a small whoop of triumph. He’d guessed right.

  “Wait until they’re in the elevator and then come on up. You won’t want to miss this.”

  “I certainly don’t.” A faint trace of doubt warred with the joy in

  Emily’s voice.

  “But the other man seems awfully young to be someone of high rank in the ANC, Ian. “

  He shrugged and then remembered she couldn’t see him.

  “I’ve heard that some of their guerrillas start training as young as fourteen. And some of those kids throwing rocks in Soweto are even younger.

  “Perhaps…” She paused and then came back on the line.

  “They’re in the lift. I’m on my way.”

  The phone went dead.

  Ian turned to his companions.

  “It’s showtime, guys.”

  Knowles squatted by his equipment, hastily making one last check through slitted eyes. Siberia sat carefully in a chair facing the monitors, much calmer and obviously fascinated by the ease and assurance with which the

  American handled his hightech gear.

  Motion on one of the monitors caught Ian’s attention and he saw the door to

  Muller’s room swing open. Muller himself entered, followed by a very short, very skinny black youth. Despite his earlier words to Emily, Ian was puzzled. Though it was tough to tell for sure from the flickering, grainy picture, Muller’s companion didn’t look as though he could possibly be more than sixteen or seventeen years old.

  A light, hesitant tap on the door to their room brought him to his feet.

  Emily came in through the half-opened door, gave him a quick kiss, and sat on the bed-all the while staring at the scene unfolding in the next room.

  Ian joined her.

  Muller could be seen standing near the chest of drawers, apparently counting out pieces of paper into the young black man’s outstretched hand.

  Ian squinted at the wavering picture, trying to make out the details. Were those pieces of paper money? Probably. The Afrikaner must be paying for more information on the ANC’s operations.

  But he didn’t like the expression on Muller’s narrow face-an odd mixture of contempt, self-loathing, and something even stranger. Something very strange indeed. Was it anticipation?

  Apparently satisfied, the other man abruptly nodded and fumbled the thick wad of rand notes into his pants pockets. He muttered something indistinct.

  Muller spoke for the first time.

  “No words, kaffir!”

  Shit. Ian leaned forward, suddenly anxious. Could the South African intelligence officer have spotted one of their camera leads after all?

  He started to turn toward Knowles to ask … And Muller erupted into action, viciously smashing a clenched fist into the young black man’s stomach. As the kid doubled over in agony, the

  Afrikaner followed up with a short, stabbing jab to the face. Other blows landed in rapid succession, driving the young man down onto the carpet in a crumpled, groaning heap. Blood spattered from his broken nose and cut lower lip.

  For a second, Ian sat still, shocked into immobility. Then he was on his feet and moving toward the door. This wasn’t what he’d thought to see, and he’d be damned if they’d sit idly by and watch this murdering bastard

  Muller beat some poor kid half to death. To hell with the reporter’s role as impartial observer! Sam Knowles was right behind him.

  But Emily got there first and stood blocking the door. Her face was deathly pale but determined.

  “Let me past, Em. ” Ian could feel the adrenaline roaring through his bloodstream.

  “No.” She shook her head firmly.

  “We’ve come too far to throw this chance away on a gallant wh
im. Trying to help that poor boy in there will only result in our deaths or imprisonment. You know that Muller is far more than a simple thug. We must follow your original plan.”

  “And besides, the kid’s just a black anyway, is that it?” For the first time, Ian found himself wondering how much of the Afrikaner racial beliefs Emily had unconsciously absorbed.

  She colored angrily.

  “That is not fair, Ian Sheffield, and you know it!”

  Knowles cleared his throat.

  “I think she’s right, boyo. We’re playing for big stakes here. Bigger than what happens to any one person.”

  Ian glowered from one to the other. Knowing that they were both right didn’t make it any easier to contemplate doing nothing as they watched

  Muller indulge his private sadism.

  “Oh, my God .” Matthew Siberia’s horrified whisper yanked their attention back to the scene still being played out on the video monitors.

  The beating had stopped as suddenly as it had started. Now the young black man lay curled in a fetal position on the floor, moaning pitiably through a bruised throat. One eye was already swelling shut. And Muller, so full of rage a moment before, now knelt beside him, softly caressing his battered face!

  Ian felt his stomach heave as the Afrikaner bent down and kissed the young black’s torn lips, smearing the other man’s blood over his own face. He felt cold. This couldn’t be happening!

  Through ears that seemed stuffed full of cotton, he heard Emily muttering to herself.

  “Of course, now I see it. The defrocked minister. Poor dead

  Gabriel Tswane. October twenty-second. It all fits. This is like a ritual for him…. Oh, how ~tupid of me!”

  Ian couldn’t look away from the monitors long enough to ask her what she meant. His image captured by both hidden cameras, Muller lifted the black teenager in his arms and carried him over to the bed. Then the Afrikaner stepped back and started unbuttoning his shirt.

  God… Ian looked away, feeling sick. They’d failed. All their hard work and all their hopeful planning-all for nothing. No ANC mole. No truth about the Blue Train massacre. Nothing. Just a sordid, anonymous homosexual encounter. Just another (lead end.