Vortex

  He was afraid that even the sight of their bustling streets, shops, and restaurants might awaken painful memories of his brief, happy time with

  Emily van der Heijden-memories that were three years old now. True, he’d known that their engagement was mostly her father’s idea, but he’d hoped that he could reconcile her to the thought of their marriage. In retrospect, it had been a foolish hope. The gaps between their ages, their politics, and their interests were simply too wide to be easily bridged.

  Kruger smiled crookedly. He’d been alone and aloof for most of his adult life-content in the masculine, monastic world of the professional military. Given that, it was strange that he should have found the one woman of his heart, only to learn that she had no room in hers for him.

  He gripped the wood railing of his veranda until his knuckles stood out white against the surrounding blackness. With an effort, he forced his mind away from lasting personal grief to professional concerns.

  Such as this absurd decision to keep his battalion confined to

  Voortrekker Heights. Vorster and his minions must fear that exposure to the political dissent and economic hardship sweeping the country might tempt their soldiers to commit treason or desert. So they’d denied his troops and the other weary combat veterans returning from Namibia promised home leaves, weekend passes, and any other opportunity to escape the rigid confines of a military life for even a short while.

  Kruger relaxed his grip and flexed his aching fingers. Anybody brighter than a brain-dead Defense Ministry bureaucrat could have predicted the result. Weeks of bloody fighting followed by more weeks of mind-numbing routine-drill, calisthenics, drill, spit-and-polish inspections, and still more drill-had produced a battalion practically boiling over with resentment and barely suppressed rage.

  More than a dozen of the 20this veterans were in punishment cells right now-locked up on charges ranging from simple insubordination to being drunk while on duty. Kruger shook his head angrily. He’d rather chance the desertion of a few men than watch this slow, steady disintegration of what had been a proud fighting unit.

  As matters stood, the 20th Cape Rifles was now effectively a weaker battalion than it had been in Namibia. Citizen Force replacements were filtering in slowly, fleshing out skeletal companies and platoons to something near their authorized strength. Unfortunately, most of the reservists were short on needed training, experience, and esprit de corps.

  Kruger frowned. His companies were also short of heavy weapons and vehicles. They’d left what remained of their old gear in Namibia to equip the battalion replacing them on the line. In return, his troops had been promised first pick of the new armored personnel carriers, mortars, and heavy machine guns that were supposed to be rolling off the ARMSCOR production lines. So far, at least, they’d had little to pick from. Strikes and skilled-labor shortages had cut production well below required levels.

  And as a result, he had barely enough APCs to mount one of his three infantry companies. The other two could move only by truck or on foot.

  The sound of guttural laughter emanating from the nearby bachelor officers’ quarters turned his worried frown into a scowl. Tanks, artillery, APCs, and antitank weapons might be in short supply-but not, it seemed, junior staff officers with strong political ties to the Vorster government. They’d arrived in eager, interfering droves.

  So though the 20th was short of trained troops and weapons, it had a battalion staff bloated to a size more suitable to a brigade. Kruger didn’t have any illusions about why the Defense Ministry had seen fit to dump so many fanatics in his lap. They were there to keep tabs on him-to make sure

  that he and the other officers didn’t lead their men into rebellion.

  His scowl grew deeper. He didn’t mind their prying and spying so much.

  He could cope with that. But the overabundance of inexperienced, inept, and arrogant Afrikaner officers was yet another source of friction in a battalion already rubbed raw.

  “Vorster’s pets,” as they were known, tended to treat the 20this enlisted men-most born and raised in the Cape

  Province-as nothing more than would-be traitors and renegades.

  Well, perhaps that wasn’t too far off the mark, he thought wryly, remembering the news passed on by his friends inside the Ministry. It was incredible. Cape Town in flames and armed conflict spreading across the whole province like wildfire. Natal torn by guerrilla war, atrocity, and revenge. And antigovernment commandos roaming vast stretches of the

  Transvaal and the Orange Free State virtually at will. Karl Vorster’s criminal stupidity and his illfated Namibian invasion had combined to tear South Africa to pieces in the space of a few short months.

  He raised his eyes again, scanning the night sky above the low hills rising to the north for some sign of the city just beyond them. Nothing.

  Only the glaring lights and the elongated, ugly shadows cast by armored cars patrolling the perimeter. But even at this distance, he could tell that several of the armored cars had their weapons turrets pointing inward-toward the base’s barracks and armories. He smiled sourly.

  Vorster’s loyalists were taking few chances. And rightly so.

  Kruger started to pace slowly up and down the darkened veranda. Many of his friends and fellow soldiers had already joined those rebelling against Pretoria’s authority. Soon it would be his turn. Very soon.

  JOHANNESBURG

  The unmarked police minivan sat on a narrow side street, wedged between a silver Astra and a dark blue Toyota pickup.

  Two uniformed officers slouched in the front seat with their ties hanging loose and collar buttons unfastened. One, a big, beefy man with thinning, straw-colored hair, sipped moodily at a styrofoam cup half-full of lukewarm coffee. His partner, smaller and darker-haired, sighed briefly and stubbed his cigarette out in the door ashtray. Both men were silently cursing the trick of fate that had saddled them with such a worthless assignment.

  “I tell you, man, this just proves that the captain’s got it in for you and me.” The big man gestured with his cup and frowned as a few drops sloshed out over the steering wheel.

  “Some big deal, eh? We drive here.

  We drive there. And then we sit like this for fucking hours. And all for what?”

  He answered his own question.

  “So some smart-ass lieutenant can come up and tell us to go drive somewhere else. That’s what for.”

  The smaller policeman sat up sharply.

  “Man, speak of the devil! There’s

  Baumann now.” He unrolled his window as the much-younger police lieutenant, trim and self-assured in his blue-gray jacket, gray trousers, and peaked cap, appeared on the sidewalk beside them.

  The lieutenant leaned in through the open window.

  “This is the right place, boys. I’m sure of it. ” He tapped the list of addresses taped to a clipboard. More than half had already been crossed off.

  “I spoke to several of the neighbors and there’s definitely somebody living there now. Lights on from time to time. Cooking smells. Trash dumped. All the signs of occupancy. “

  The larger policeman frowned. He bent forward and checked the name written next to the address.

  “Couldn’t it just be this Pakenharn bastard Lieutenant?”

  For an instant the younger man flushed angrily. Then he controlled it and smiled silkily.

  “Not possible, Kowie. The rooinek’s been on combat duty in Namibia for weeks. I checked this morning.”

  The smaller policeman nudged his partner into silence with a bony elbow.

  “That’s great, sir. Just great. ” He straightened up and checked his holstered pistol.

  “Shall we pick him up right away?”

  “I think so.” The lieutenant stepped back from the van and watched as they climbed out onto the pavement, moving awkwardly on legs cramped from sitting still for so long.

  “From what I hear, Pretoria wants this fellow pretty badly.”

  The bigger policeman r
ubbed thick fingers through his thinning yellow hair and shoved his uniform cap back into place.

  “Right, Lieutenant, you can leave it to us, eh? We’ll winkle the pig out without any trouble at all. Isn’t that so, Arrie?”

  His smaller partner nodded confidently while making sure his baton hung loose in its own holster. The man they were after wasn’t supposed to be anything special, but it never hurt to be prepared.

  Inside Brian Pakenham’s borrowed apartment, the single lit table lamp cast a small circle of light over the man and woman entwined on a tattered sofa.

  Ian Sheffield sat with one arm draped around Emily’s shoulders, reading the same mystery novel for what must be the seventh or eighth time in as many days. She murmured something unintelligible and squirmed deeper into his grasp -dozing lightly. He kissed the top of her head and turned the page with a practiced thumb, stifling a yawn. Damn it. As always, the main character had just walked straight past the story’s most crucial clue without noticing it.

  He set the paperback down and tilted his head back against the sofa. It had been damned decent of Emily’s friend and former classmate to volunteer the use of his apartment, but he wished the guy had been a little more widely read. Five so-so mysteries, a travel guide, and three college-level political-science textbooks weren’t much of a library with which to while away the passing hours and days.

  Emily was the lucky one. She could make occasional, lightning-fast trips outside to pick up supplies. He and Matthew Sibena were trapped in this tiny apartment-unable to so much as show their faces in public lest they be recognized and arrested. Every scrap of news Emily could pick up on her trips to the neighborhood market seemed to indicate that they were still at the top of South Africa’s Most Wanted list.

  Soft snores drifting through the open door into the apartment only bedroom showed that Sibena had again taken refuge in deep, uninterrupted sleep. Ian felt the trace of a smile flicker across his face. Over the last two weeks, the young black man had astounded them by being able to sleep through anything and at any time. He could sleep through the noise of the morning rush hour, in the sweltering heat of a sun-lit afternoon, or even on a night that seemed far too quiet. It was a talent Ian often envied.

  “Oh! ” Emily sat up suddenly, looking pale and frightened.

  “Bad dream?” He gently stroked her shoulder.

  She shook her head, puzzled.

  “No, I do not think so.” She sat listening for a moment.

  “I thought I heard something just now. Soft footsteps right outside the door.”

  Ian cocked his head, listening for himself.

  “I don’t know, Em, I don’t hear any th-“

  A savage kick smashed the front door open and left it dangling from one set of bent hinges. For one terrifying second, Ian felt his heart stop beating. He sat frozen in shock.

  “Police! Police! Nobody move! Nobody move!”

  Men in blue-gray uniforms poured into the apartment from the outside hallway. Two charged past the sofa, splitting up and spreading out to search the other rooms. A third policeman slid to a stop in front of them, aiming a Browning Hi Power pistol very precisely at an imaginary point right between Ian’s eyes.

  The barrel looked ten feet across.

  “Do not even think to move, man, or I will blow your blery brains across the girl there.” The pistol didn’t waver.

  “You are the American reporter,

  Ian Sheffield?”

  Still in shock, Ian nodded.

  “Then I arrest you on charges of espionage and violation of the National

  Emergency decrees.” The smug note of triumph in the man’s voice was unmistakable.

  Ian flushed bright red, ashamed to have been caught so quickly and apparently so easily.

  “Lieutenant!” One of the other policemen emerged from the bedroom, dragging Matthew Sibena along in an iron-fisted grip. The young black man looked dazed, frightened, and completely disoriented.

  “Look what else

  I’ve found!”

  The officer arched a single finely sculpted eyebrow.

  “A black?” He sneered at Ian and Emily.

  “ANC, eh? Your controller, perhaps?”

  Sibena twisted helplessly in the larger South African policeman’s locked arms.

  “No! That’s not so! I’m not ANC, I swear it, baas. “

  “Shut up, kaffir!” The police lieutenant still hadn’t lowered his gun.

  “Well, American?”

  Ian looked back and forth from Emily to Siberia to the pistol, thinking fast. Right now, the three of them didn’t have the slightest chance to wriggle out of this nightmarish situation. The police were too alert, too ready for trouble. The odds and ends of martial arts training he’d picked up for physical and mental exercise wouldn’t be of any use if they thought he might be dangerous. He needed to divert their attention away from him-to convince these policemen that they had him thoroughly cowed and under control.

  He let his face crumple in abject terror and allowed a whining note to creep into his voice.

  “That’s right. He’s an ANC guerrilla. The ANC was supposed to get us out of the country before any of this happened.”

  Emily breathed in sharply suddenly, but stayed silent. Good girl, he thought. She knows me too well to think I’ve suddenly cracked.

  He glared accusingly at Siberia’s stunned face.

  “Your people failed us, comrade! And I’ll be damned if I’ll take the fall for them!” Watch it,

  Ian, he told himself. No need to lay it on too thick.

  “That’s enough. ” The lieutenant smiled in satisfaction.

  “You can make a full confession later. In the meantime, just stay still and keep your mouth shut. “

  Another policeman, smaller than the one holding Sibena, wandered back into the living room.

  “All clear, Lieutenant. There’s nobody else here.”

  “Good. ” The lieutenant waved Ian and Emily up from the sofa with his pistol.

  They rose cautiously, with Ian’s right arm still wrapped around Emily’s shoulders. He could feel her shaking uncontrollably and squeezed gently with his right hand, trying to offer some assurance that all was not lost.

  “Take these three to headquarters. I’ll stay here and look for documents.” The lieutenant holstered his pistol and stepped aside as the larger policeman hauled Sibena toward the door.

  “And keep an eye on that kaffir! He’s probably had some kind of combat training.”

  Ian hid a thin-lipped, humorless smile as he followed Emily out into the hallway with his hands up in the air. They had a small chance after all.

  Maybe these two South African policemen weren’t going to be looking the right way at the right time.

  MARKET STREET, NEAR JOHN VORSTER SQUARE, JOHANNESBURG

  The police minivan wasn’t designed for comfort-just efficiency. The smaller of the two policeman sat behind the wheel, separated from his companion and their three prisoners by the front seat itself. His four passengers perched on fold down plastic benches that ran the length of each side of the vehicle.

  Matthew Sibena sat on the right, immediately behind the driver, swaying uncomfortably from side to side as the minivan turned or changed lanes.

  Steel handcuffs pinioned his wrists behind his back. The beefy policeman with thinning hair sat next to him, his gaze shifting periodically from

  Sibena to Emily to Ian and back again. He cradled a pump-action shotgun in his lap.

  Ian sat directly across from the guard, with Emily to his left. Like

  Sibena, he was handcuffed, but the policemen had left her hands free. He wasn’t sure if that was because they viewed Emily as just a “helpless” woman or because of her father’s importance in the government. Whatever the reason, he didn’t plan to complain. Only the fact that she could still use her hands made any escape attempt even remotely feasible.

  But so far no opportunity had presented itself. Traffic on Johannesburg’s
streets was light at this time of night, and their driver was proving dangerously efficient. He’d managed to time every light perfectly-only having to slow gradually without ever coming to a complete stop.

  Ian could feel ice-cold sweat beading on his forehead and soaking the shirt under his arms. He shivered. Time was running out.

  In five or six minutes at the most, they’d be trapped inside Johannesburg’s heavily fortified police headquarters. And he didn’t have any illusions about the kind of treatment they’d receive at the government’s hands. Men who’d allowed their own countrymen and colleagues to be gunned down by terrorists wouldn’t show any mercy to a foreigner, a member of a despised race, and a woman accused of high treason. Under the circumstances, even

  Emily’s father wouldn’t be able to save her. He was sure that their lives inside a South African interrogation center would, at best, be “nasty, brutish, and short.”

  Christ. The very thought of Emily under torture was unbearable. He tensed, ready to spring even while the minivan was moving. Maybe it would be better to die fighting than to be meekly led to a protracted slaughter.

  The van braked sharply to a complete stop. Unable to use his hands, Sibena slammed into the front seat and rocked back. The rest of them had to hold on tightly to avoid following suit.

  ” Ho, man, we’ve got some trouble up here.” The driver sounded suddenly tense.

  “A verdomde riot starting, maybe. “

  Rhythmic, shouted chants filtered in from the outside, building slowly in volume as they were repeated over and over again. Ian craned his neck out into the middle of the van’s passenger compartment, trying to see through the front windshield.

  Traffic along Market Street was at a standstill. The cars and trucks in front of them were jammed in bumper to bumper-unable to go forward and unable to reverse. Farther ahead, thousands of angry demonstrators milled around in front of the police station. Dozens of colorful banners and posters waved over the crowd, rising and falling in time with their chanting.

  “Shit.” Still holding the shotgun, the big policeman heaved himself to his feet and stood hunched over, staring through the windshield.