Iron Gate

by Richard Herman

  ‘That’s not a problem,’ the driver assured him.

  ‘Please follow the signs to the security compound,’ the private said. ‘Welcome to Iron Gate.’

  The driver drove south, past well-tended houses and rows of neat cottages and manicured lawns. Finally, he reached the main base and stopped in front of the security compound behind the headquarters building. A guard held his door open and escorted him into the guard shack. Inside, he was strip searched and his anal cavity was examined by a female nurse who seemed to linger longer than necessary over her job.

  An adjudant offisier klas 1, a warrant officer, was waiting for the man as he came out of the examination room. The warrant officer was short, dumpy, and had a bull neck. His close-set eyes seldom blinked and missed little.

  ‘Good morning, Chief,’ the man said. ‘I’m here to see the Generaal.’

  Adjudant Offisier Marius Kreiner carefully evaluated the newcomer — a typical Afrikaner with a fair complexion, blue eyes and a heavy, but well-conditioned physique. ‘Is he expecting you?’ Kreiner asked.

  ‘No, but tell him his brother is here.’

  Kreiner blinked twice and escorted him into the headquarters building. He led the way down a hall and into a waiting room. ‘The Generaal will be here shortly.’ He stood silently by the door, never taking his eyes off the man who roamed the room, studying the maps on the wall. It was a professional interest and he lingered over the maps of the base, calculating what it would take to penetrate the perimeter defenses.

  ‘Don’t even think about it, Erik,’ a familiar voice said.

  He turned to see his brother, Hans, standing in the doorway. Kreiner looked from one to the other. He had heard the rumors the general had a twin and up close, he could see the family resemblance of fraternal twins.

  ‘I got this far,’ Erik said. Neither smiled. They just looked at each other.

  ‘How?’ Hans asked. Erik handed him his identification card. ‘Is this a fake?’ Erik nodded. ‘It is very good,’ Hans told him. ‘Kreiner, take this and find out how my brother managed to get past your security guards with a false ID.’

  Kreiner took the card and left. Outside, he cursed fluently but silently to himself. One Beckmann was bad enough, but two?

  Hans Beckmann slapped his brother on the shoulder and gently pushed his head sideways. It was an old gesture from their youth and the only physical expression of affection that ever passed between them. ‘What was the job this time?’ Hans asked.

  ‘A priest.’

  ‘Genuine?’

  ‘Genuine,’ Erik answered. ‘He was causing trouble with the Ovambos in northern Namibia.’

  ‘Who made the contract?’ Hans asked as he poured his brother a beer.

  Erik snorted in contempt. ‘SWAPO ... who else?’ SWAPO, South West Africa People’s Organization, had wrestled control of Namibia away from South Africa in the late 1980s. But like so many revolutionary governments, SWAPO had found it much more difficult to rule than to win a revolution.

  ‘Was the priest organizing a political movement?’

  Erik took a long pull at the beer as his brother stretched out in an easy chair. ‘Worse. He was helping the Ovambos with basic sanitation, irrigation pumps, electricity, that type of thing. Soon they would be questioning why they needed a government that does nothing but collect taxes.’

  Hans put his hands together and made a steeple with his forefingers. He was reaching a decision. ‘The kaffirs know how to treat their own people.’ He smiled and bounced to his feet, suddenly animated. ‘Once conditions become too bad, they will ask us to save them from themselves. They will gladly give up their precious freedom for peace and security.’

  Erik shook his head. He knew how his brother worked. ‘The world has changed. The United Nations with its kaffir-loving ideas will stop you.’

  ‘We don’t make the situation bad,’ Hans said. ‘We let the kaffirs make it bad.’

  ‘And,’ Erik added, ‘you accelerate the process with gifts of money and guns from their friends. Sorry, not for me. I miss Europe and the IRA is looking for help.’ Erik liked his brother but he never stayed long. There was always the matter of Hans’s voices.

  Hans became very serious. ‘Erik, I am worried. The Europeans know who you are. It would be dangerous for you to leave the country now.’

  ‘It’s dangerous no matter where I go.’

  ‘You can help here. OPEC is backing the Azanians and is hiring mercenaries to train their army.’

  ‘My German passport is still good,’ Erik told him. The two brothers smiled, understanding each other perfectly. Erik would pose as a German mercenary and help the Azanian People’s Organization ferment another black revolution in South Africa.

  The intercom buzzed. It was Kreiner calling in his report. ‘We know Meneer Beckmann’s identification card is a forgery,’ he said, ‘but we cannot detect it. Even the hologram and magnetic strip are encoded properly.’ They could hear a tremor in Kreiner’s voice.

  Hans Beckmann lay back in his chair feeling expansive. He was having a good day. ‘Solve the problem, Chief. And under the circumstances, no discipline is called for.’ He broke the connection. ‘Kreiner is a lifer, a good adjudant offisier, but very unimaginative. By the way, where did you get your ID card?’

  ‘Cape Town,’ Erik answered.

  *

  Adjudant Offisier Klas 1 Marius Kreiner shifted his weight from one foot to the other as he waited for Beckmann to acknowledge him. Come on, you bastard, he told himself, you know I’m here. Frustrated, he cleared his throat.

  ‘Ah, Kreiner,’ Beckmann said, looking up from his desk, ‘What is it?’

  ‘We found a spy ...

  ‘Where?’ Beckmann interrupted. The cold fury in his voice caused Kreiner to gulp before he could continue.

  ‘In computer operations ... a man ... he came in with the contract workers. He had one of those false IDs like Meneer Beckmann.’

  Beckmann came to his feet and grabbed his beret. ‘How long was he inside before he was discovered?’

  ‘Eighteen days,’ Kreiner answered.

  ‘Where is he?’

  ‘In Interrogation,’ Kreiner replied as he hurried to match Beckmann’s pace. ‘Because of Meneer Beckmann’s false identification card, we are re-encoding the magnetic strip on every ID card as a precaution. He turned up when we fed the data on his strip into the computer for validation.’

  Beckmann was impressed. ‘Very good, Kreiner.’

  He beamed and almost pranced as they descended the steps into the basement of the security compound. He held the door open and they entered what looked like an over-large hospital examination room. Kreiner handed Beckmann a file and nodded at the young man sitting on the edge of an examination table. ‘His name is Masahisa Tanaka, a Japanese civilian.’

  Beckmann studied the man for a moment. He was thin and muscular and sitting absolutely still, held by an inner will and not the handcuffs and shackles binding his wrists and ankles. ‘Good morning, Mr Tanaka,’ Beckmann said. Tanaka did not respond and looked straight ahead. ‘Please don’t be difficult,’ he continued. ‘May I ask why you are here?’ Still no response. ‘Perhaps I asked the wrong question. What were you looking for?’ The man continued to stare at the wall.

  ‘Strip him,’ Beckmann said. He read Tanaka’s file while a guard cut his clothes away. ‘You are very young and ... well, let’s not discuss that. I do hope you will cooperate.’ The man’s feet flashed straight out and he drove his toes into the abdomen of the sergeant who had cut off his clothes. The guard curled up in pain and couldn’t move.

  A smile spread across Beckmann’s face but his eyes were icy cold. ‘I want him talking. Twenty-four hours. Kreiner, we can expect more penetration attempts. Because of our limited resources and the political situation, we are constrained in what we can do. So you must tighten up our internal security. Perhaps some foreign consultants?’

  Kreiner flinched at the suggestion. Beckmann gave him an encoura
ging look and dropped the file on the desk as he left. He made a mental note to increase the pressure on his counterintelligence agents. They had to ferret out the spies and foreign operatives before they reached Bloemfontein and penetrated Iron Gate. An inner voice told him to speak to Erik about the ID cards.

  *

  Adjudant Offisier Kreiner was sweating. It was a natural reaction born out of fear and a deep concern for his own longevity. But he was a soldier and his stubborn pride demanded that he face the danger in front of him. Hans Beckmann took a quarter turn in the chair behind his desk and looked out the window. He intertwined his fingers and made a steeple. Slowly, he tapped the tips of his forefingers together. ‘So you have learned nothing.’

  ‘I need more time,’ Kreiner answered. The back of his shirt was dark, stained with perspiration.

  ‘How interesting,’ Beckmann replied. He turned back to face Kreiner and drilled him with a cold and dispassionate stare. ‘You are used to dealing with kaffirs, Kreiner. These people, the Japanese, have no sense of inferiority to play on, to exploit. In fact, they believe they are superior.’

  Kreiner snorted. It was part of the old Afrikaner creed that other races were ordained by God to be inferior and Kreiner held to that belief like a drowning man clinging to a rotten tree branch in a swirling current. Only the firm resolve that he was superior to those he interrogated saved him from drowning in the same humiliation he so willingly heaped on others. ‘He will talk,’ Kreiner announced.

  ‘Today?’ Beckmann asked. He enjoyed watching Kreiner squirm. ‘Come, demonstrate your superiority to me.’ The two men walked out of the headquarters building and entered the security compound. Beckmann’s leather heels echoed down the hall, a harbinger of his presence.

  The interrogation room smelled of antiseptic when they entered and the young man was sitting exactly where Beckmann had last seen him. But now small burns on his nipples and genitals marked where he had been wired for ‘the telephone’ and subjected to repeated shocks. He was not handcuffed or shackled because his ankles and fingers had been broken.

  ‘What has he said?’ Beckmann demanded.

  ‘Nothing,’ came the answer.

  ‘Not even under drugs?’

  ‘We gave him the full course,’ Kreiner said. ‘Any more and we will fry his brain. He only babbled incoherently in Japanese. But I did learn his real name — Hiroshi Saito. He has been conditioned to resist interrogation.’

  A voice whispered to Beckmann. ‘No!’ he roared, turning on Kreiner. ‘He has not been conditioned. He resists because he believes he is superior!’ He whirled around to face the young man. The rage drained from his face and his voice returned to normal. ‘And for that, you are going to die. Today.’

  Saito’s head turned slowly toward Beckmann and he blinked, focusing on Beckmann’s face. Saito’s lips moved but nothing came out. They moved again and a word in Afrikaans formed. ‘Asseblief.’ Please.

  Beckmann grabbed a chair and sat down. He crossed his legs and leaned back. ‘The submarine, Kreiner.’ He cocked his head and took a professional interest in the way Kreiner did it. A large stainless steel tub was filled with water and pushed to the center of the room while the man’s hands were handcuffed behind his back. A nylon rope was passed through a pulley in the ceiling and one end tied to his ankles. On Kreiner’s command a guard pulled on the rope and swung him to the ceiling, head down over the tub.

  Beckmann smiled. ‘Proceed.’

  Kreiner grabbed the rope and lowered the man’s head into the water, holding him under as he jerked and fought for air. Then Kreiner pulled him up as he coughed and gasped. But it was not a reprieve. Kreiner repeated it again and again, dragging it out for almost an hour. He was disappointed when the man finally drowned and he had learned nothing about the Japanese operation. But he could intensify precautions in Johannesburg.

  ‘Very good, Kreiner,’ Beckmann said as he stood up.

  ‘What shall we do with the body?’ Kreiner said, pleased with Beckmann’s approval.

  ‘A missing agent creates more questions than a dead one,’ Beckmann told him. ‘Take it to Cape Town and make it look like he drowned in the ocean. I want the body found.’ Maybe the Japanese would get the message indirectly. He headed for the stairs but stopped on the first step. ‘And Kreiner,’ he said, ‘that’s one.’

  Kreiner forced a laugh. ‘Ha, ha. I get it. Very good, Generaal.’ It was the old Afrikaner joke about the Boer who shot his ox for stumbling the third time. When his wife protested, the Boer had said, ‘That’s one.’

  Beckmann’s heels beat a quick tattoo as he trotted up the stairs. But if it was a joke, why was Kreiner in a dead sweat?

  *

  Beckmann ate a leisurely lunch that day and lingered longer than normal over each dish. He grew expansive as he examined the wine and savored the memory of the morning. He thought about the afternoon which promised to be equally rewarding and when the time was right, he returned to his headquarters. His staff was assembled and waiting in the conference room, eager with anticipation.

  ‘Time,’ Beckmann began, ‘and only time, is our enemy if we are to save our civilization from the black hordes that threaten to engulf us. We must act now, while we can still shape the correlation of events. True, we are few in number but we will prevail!’ It was the old battle cry and like all true believers, they responded to Beckmann’s words.

  ‘But words mean little without action,’ he continued. ‘The next phase of the battle has started. We will feed the fires of black unrest until the kaffirs are sick of the very violence they have created. Then they will turn to anyone who offers them security and the world will see that tribal politics is just another form of racism — the crime they accuse us of.

  ‘But we will not make the same mistakes as before. Instead, we will show the world an island of peace in a sea of chaos. We will welcome our black brothers who wish to live under our rule in prosperity. Of course, the kaffir government will resist and they will ask the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force to our land. Let them come. We will keep them busy. Very busy.’ His staff laughed, enjoying the promise.

  Beckmann grew serious and swept his hand in a grand gesture at the wall behind him as the lights dimmed. The wall blazed in light and a map of South Africa appeared. The old province boundaries had disappeared and contracted into a large oval that encompassed the central part of the country from Pretoria and Johannesburg in the north to Bloemfontein in the south. ‘This will be our nation,’ Beckmann said, his words full of triumph and resolve. ‘This will be the Boerstaat!’

  Beckmann raised his fist in a clenched salute. ‘Blut und Boden!’ Blood and soil, he shouted. As one, the men and women came to their feet and echoed his war cry. They would make it happen.

  *

  Friday, November 21

  The White House, Washington, D.C.

  *

  ‘I think you should go for a one-on-one with Carroll,’ Sam Darnell insisted. ‘It’s a hot tip.’

  Elizabeth Gordon looked around the deserted press room and sat down in her cubicle, a worried look on her face. Most of the White House Press corps was on the road, following the President on a cross-country junket as he beat the political bushes in a Thanksgiving extravaganza for his party. She shook her head. The story on Carroll’s illness fizzled a week ago. That so-called “hot tip” is nothing but a wild-assed rumor and nothing is going to rekindle the network’s interest. So why beat a dead horse?’

  ‘There might be some life there yet,’ Sam replied. ‘Liz, you haven’t ... and ... ah ... you might find something else.’ She almost reminded Gordon that she hadn’t been included in the press corps accompanying the President on his last two trips. Supposedly, the seats on the press aircraft were allotted to White House reporters in rotation and her exclusion twice in a row from the press gang tagging along was ample warning she was out of favor. The damage was compounded because her own network was no longer springing for her and Sam to travel independently
, like so many of her colleagues.

  She looked at Sam. ‘I’m on the way out, aren’t I?’ It wasn’t really a question so much as a simple statement of fact. Sam nodded. ‘Damn,’ Gordon muttered. ‘What do I do?’

  ‘Start looking. Find an issue before it’s hot and work it,’ Sam counseled. ‘Be the first to see it coming. Be there before anyone else. You want to be in the hotel when the bombs start dropping.’ She was referring to the success of the CNN crew who were on-scene and transmitting when the first bombs hit Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War.

  ‘Even if it means leaving the White House?’ Gordon asked.

  ‘Even if it means leaving the White House,’ Sam repeated. ‘Better to leave on your terms than be kicked out the back door.’

  ‘But what’s going to be hot?’

  ‘That’s why you need to interview Carroll,’ Sam said. ‘It’s his job to peek into the future.’

  *

  Carroll agreed to an informal interview in his office after lunch. His coat was off, his collar open, and his desk piled with documents. Sam moved around the office, her camera on, setting the scene and getting the best angle while Carroll and Gordon settled in for the interview. She panned his desk going for an establishing shot, then focused on Carroll’s face.

  With the preliminaries over, Liz Gordon consulted her prepared list of questions and started the interview. At first, he glossed over the answers, sticking to generalities. But Gordon pursued him for specifics with an unusual relentlessness that impressed the National Security Advisor. Near the end, she moved on to shaky ground. ‘Mr Carroll, since your collapse while running, many of your colleagues have expressed worry about ...’

  He cut her off. ‘About my health,’ he said, ending the question. ‘I would rather not discuss it since it is a private matter.’