‘I’m General Van der Walt. You’ve been brought here because you have a piece of information that we need. We don’t believe you understand what this information is that you have, but you have the ability to retrieve it. You’ll do that for us and then you’ll be released.’
Christian listened, his heart racing. He wondered whether this was the same Andre van der Walt who was supposed to have died in a car crash, and who Galela had said had killed his father. He thought it probably was. His whole demeanour, as well as the chiselled jaw and piercing eyes all gave the impression of someone whose conscience would not be troubled by unconscionable acts. Christian feared that Van der Walt would not hesitate to kill them either. It did not matter what they did or what information they gave them, they would be killed to preserve the secrecy of the white supremacist movement.
‘You heard me, I take it; you will get the formula for us.’
Christian looked back at him and felt, for the first time, the fear the proximity of death brings. Looking directly at Van der Walt, he nodded, aware that as soon as they had their information both he and Isabella would be expendable. He needed to think of an alternative if they were to survive.
‘Your fax was intercepted. We’ve been following you since you arrived in South Africa knowing your father had possibly hidden material and research that could help our cause. We’re conscious that your mother will only fax you back to a number that she recognises. It’s also obvious that she would send it only if she knew you were safe. Therefore we’re in the final stages of constructing a room above ground that’s identical to the kitchen you were using in Cape Town, from which you can Skype her. We have the ability to secure the fax and email server of Dr Mike McMahon, the anaesthetist that you’re staying with, and you will tell her to fax the code to his number.
‘Your coloured sister will stay here to guarantee your cooperation. After we receive what we want, you’ll stay with us until our mission has been completed. Your intelligence will then be of little relevance and you’ll be freed.’
The others on the panel nodded their agreement unconvincingly. Van der Walt then stood up. Without waiting for any reply, he looked at them menacingly and left the room. Then there was a brief conversation amongst those remaining before they left through a separate entrance. Christian and Isabella were escorted by the two guards back to the golf buggy and then to their cell.
As they were locked in the small cell, Isabella looked at Christian. ‘They’re going to kill us when they have what they want, aren’t they?’
‘Probably, but all is not lost yet,’ he whispered into her ear.
She wondered whether he did have a plan or whether this was just to comfort her. His eyes indicated that maybe there was hope.
Dispensing with the whispering, he said more loudly, ‘You’ll be OK here tomorrow when I go above ground, won’t you?’
‘Yes,’ she managed, and then added, ‘but why do you have to go above ground? Why can’t they do it from here?’
‘Probably because we’re too far underground. Any room that they’ve recreated would need natural light to be convincing, and if we’re as deep as you say, there may be interference in the transmission of data.’
Isabella grabbed Christian and pulled him towards her. Putting her mouth next to his ear she whispered, ‘You’re not going to try to escape are you?’
‘No, Issy, I’m not, but I’m hoping that my mother knows me so well she’ll realise there is something wrong and maybe alert Mike McMahon,’ he whispered.
The next morning, or so it seemed as it was difficult to distinguish time underground with artificial light, the guards arrived, opened the door and gestured for Christian to take his place on the golf buggy. They drove back to the gates of the lift that they had descended the day before. The guards followed Christian into the lift. It took about six or seven minutes to reach the top of the mine shaft.
Waiting was Van der Walt, this time dressed casually. The gates of the lift opened, and they walked out into a large barn, presumably used to disguise the entrance to the mine shaft. A van with no rear windows was parked in a corner of the barn. There were three large casually dressed white men, who Christian assumed must be guards. Van der Walt simply nodded in their direction and the back door of the van was opened. Christian was told to sit on the floor.
They rode in silence for approximately ten minutes before the van came to a stop. The doors of the van were opened and Christian could see that they had stopped inside a garage. A connecting door took them through into a room full of electronic equipment. Through a window, he could see a replica of Mike’s kitchen. The detail, even at first glance, astounded him.
Van der Walt looked at him. ‘I don’t have to explain that for you to walk out of here alive you need to secure the formula for us. That means convincing your mother that nothing is wrong. You’ll need to improvise if she has unusual requests.’
Christian realised that Van der Walt did not finish his sentences with ‘Do you understand?’ He expected that you understood and would obey; there was no place to question.
Christian decided to question. ‘What is the formula for?—I’ve wondered for years.’
Van der Walt glared at him. There was not a sound. No explanation was forthcoming. He was not going to give Christian anything that was superfluous to his needs.
Christian was next directed by one of the guards to a computer with a web cam. As he looked at the screen, he wondered whether he could do it. Trying to look unaffected in front of his mother was almost always impossible. She had that maternal intuition for detecting deception. While he considered how he might also convince her that he was in trouble without Van der Walt knowing, the screen burst into life as the computer was turned on. His mother’s image appeared.
‘Hi, Mum, how are you?’
‘I’m fine, honey, but you look like you haven’t slept for a few days. Not too much partying over there I hope.’
‘No, Mum, just haven’t shaved for a few days,’ Christian said, knowing that his stubble would annoy her, as she always liked short hair and clean-shaven types. ‘We’ve been camping at Kynsna for a few days,’ he added, to try to give credibility to his outdoors appearance. ‘Mum, did you get my fax about that old photo?’
‘Yes, Christian, I took it out of the frame.’
‘Could you fax it to me now?’
‘I can do that, but why do you want it? You didn’t really explain with your previous fax.’
‘Well, you know how I’d always wondered what it meant; Mike thinks he might know if he sees it. He thinks it’s related to when Dad used to try various anti-rejection drugs for liver transplants.’
‘I have Mike’s fax number and I’ll do that when we sign off. Is Mike there? I’d just like to thank him for having you.’
Christian could feel Van der Walt looking at him.
‘No, Mum. They’re out shopping with Isabella.’
‘Well, give them my regards and call again soon. When do you plan to come back?’
‘Soon, Mum, I hope.’
‘OK, well, be careful. By the way, Christian, I hope you haven’t lost your birthday present.’
He sat, momentarily stunned. Van der Walt looked at him.
‘I hope it’s still working, Christian.’
Christian held up his arm so that the web cam could see the watch his mother had given him. She knows, he thought.
As he put it down she smiled and said, ‘Good and I can see that it’s working; I’ll send the fax now. Take care, honey. See you soon.’
Van der Walt said nothing, but all stood and looked at the fax machine.
Christian thought about his mother’s last words and how cool she was. The watch she had given him as a going away present allowed him to be tracked anywhere in the world as long as he was above ground. Once the outer ring of the face was rotated one hundred and eighty degrees three times within ten seconds, it activated a transmission that was then tracked by twenty-four satellites and com
municated to a number that she could dial. It was accurate to within three metres. As he had come up from the mine, he had activated it. He was sure that her comment indicated a message had been received and they now had a GPS fix on where he was. A few minutes later, the fax machine indicated an incoming message. Van der Walt and the guards watched as two pages were printed. The first, with greetings from his mother to all, the second the formula they were so interested in.
Van der Walt picked up the second sheet and spoke in Afrikaans to one of the guards, who took it and put it into a file before disappearing through another door. The remaining guards indicated to Christian that they were now leaving.
Sitting in the van for the return trip, Christian loosened his watchstrap. As they opened the door of the van and made for the lift, Christian stumbled and fell to the floor, releasing the watch and in one motion pushing it deep under the hay. The guards helped him to his feet, pushing him roughly into the lift, but had not noticed that he had left the watch in the barn.
When Isabella saw him, her relief was obvious. ‘Did your mother send the fax?’ she asked.
‘Yes, it all went smoothly.’
‘What else happened?’ she said, aware that with others possibly listening, he may not tell her everything.
Christian sketched her an outline and then whispered that he no longer had the watch. Isabella looked at him, wondering what had happened to ‘The plan’. Something must have happened, she resolved, that he could not tell her about.
Christian lay awake thinking it was now possibly two days since he had been to the surface. Their only contact had been with the guards who brought food and water. It was difficult to tell so far underground, with no change in light, whether it was two or three days. They were brought meals three times a day, and this was the only indicator that twenty-four-hour periods were passing. They had blankets and rattan mats to sleep on, but their sleep was at best fitful. Christian was in one of those periods of half-awake, half-asleep, when he heard movement outside the cell door. As he struggled to waken, the lock turned and the door opened slightly. The usual flood of artificial light initially overwhelmed his dark-adapted eyes. The silhouette of the guard’s legs and boots were, though, unmistakable.
‘Christian, hurry up. We need you.’ The voice came from outside the door.
It was not so much the English which startled him; it was the familiarity of the voice. His brain scrambled to working speed. Seeking to overcome his sleep deprivation to process efficiently, he heard a familiar sound that should not be familiar in these surrounds.
‘Mike, is that you?’ Christian called back incredulous, his mind now fully functional, shaking Isabella vigorously.
‘Wake up, Issy. I think Mike’s here.’
They tumbled out of their cell, their eyes still adjusting to the light. He could make out Mike in a guard’s uniform and the golf buggy taken over. Christian also could see another guard sitting, unmoving, in the front seat.
‘Are you one of them, Mike?’ Christian said, unable to withhold both the question and the contempt it was edged with.
‘No, I’m not, Christian, but you’re going to have to trust me on that. We’re here to get you out and do a few other things, which I’ll explain later, but right now we’re hoping you can help us.’
Christian and Isabella looked at each other and nodded.
‘Good. Get in the buggy. We need to hurry. I’ll explain on the way.’
As they climbed into the buggy Christian noticed that the other passenger, their real guard, was the most lifeless he had seen him. Christian glanced at Mike, who shrugged his shoulders and said, ‘Must have been hit too hard. We were going to pick you up once we had completed extracting and neutralising. However, we have a problem that we didn’t anticipate. They have a computer-controlled system preventing access to the main laboratory. It’s some kind of video recognition that we can’t work out. The only thing we found was a kangaroo printed on it and a stamp which said ‘made in Australia’. I remembered that you’d said you’d worked on a computer programme for iris recognition in your summer holidays. I know it’s a long shot but there it is.’
‘It’s called Smart gate,’ said Christian.
‘That’s my boy,’ said Mike.
‘What’s Smart gate?’ said Isabella.
‘It’s an advanced biometric security system. We were working on iris recognition but found that if we scanned in features of people’s faces, the chin and nose in particular, the speed of computer matching was faster and recognition accuracy was ninety-nine per cent.’
‘But it also needs a smartcard,’ said Mike, waving the security guard’s card in the air as he drove.
‘That information gives you the final security check, as it matches the details on the card against its video eye.’
The buggy came to a stop as Christian finished explaining. Christian recognised it as the same building that he had been interrogated in.
Mike nodded to the guard inside the door. He, too, was dressed like Mike, but Christian noted he was far more militarily equipped.
‘We have bypassed their security system, which gives us one hour before there is a natural override to a backup system,’ Mike explained as they walked.
‘Wait,’ said Christian, as he stepped over the lifeless form of one of the security guards. ‘Are there any more guards who you’ve taken out closer to Smart gate?’
‘No, he’s the last. Why?’
‘We’ll need to drag him there,’ said Christian.
Together they dragged the guard a further four hundred metres.
‘There it is,’ said Mike.
Mike spoke to the guard helping him. ‘Willem, give us a hand. If Christian is right about this electronic gate, we have to hold him up in front of the camera while it matches his smartcard to his face.’
Christian looked at him and gave a wry smile; this was something he knew lots about and he knew would work. As he helped Mike lift the guard off the ground and hold his eyes open, Isabella fed his card into the machine. While they struggled to hold him in front of the security camera Christian noticed the blood running down on to the floor. This one, Christian realised, had also been hit too hard. His face was too distorted and his file picture would not match.
‘The gate’s not opening,’ said Willem. They all looked at Christian, who let go of the guard to look at his face.
‘You broke his nose when you killed him, and so the machine won’t recognise him.’
Willem dropped the body and spoke in Afrikaans into a small collar microphone. Before they could ask, Christian turned to look down the corridor from which they had come. The sound of the golf buggy was heard before they saw it. As it stopped in front of them, Willem stepped over and lifted out the guard, their cell guard. They quickly checked his face. It was well preserved. They held him up and inserted the smartcard. Slowly the electronic doors opened.
Before them was an array of computer screens, and beyond that was a series of laboratories and animals.
‘The other reason that I’m here, other than to get you back,’ said Mike turning to Christian, ‘is the combination of my interests in medicine and computers that the National Intelligence Service has found useful on occasions when I’m not giving anaesthetics.’
‘That’s why you weren’t as shocked as I thought you should be when those two men broke into your house in Cape Town; you were expecting something like that?’
‘Well, not exactly like that. We knew you’d been followed since you arrived in Cape Town and we knew the two businessmen that you met in Stellenbosch fronted companies which had ties to a white supremacist organisation. It was they who saw you with the folder that day you came out of your father’s house in Wynberg. It was thought that if they were listening to our conversations, which we knew they were, they would have tried to get the folder from me in Hermanus. They must have thought that was a ruse and would try the safe at home first.’
‘So all that Taekwondo that you do is
because of this?’
‘Partly, and I enjoy being fit … but more explanation when we get you out of here.’
Christian watched as Mike reached inside his jacket and took out a flash card that he fed into the first computer. It quickly ran a set of scrambled numbers and then stopped. The other computers then switched on.
‘A programme that overwhelms encryption and provides passwords,’ said Mike, holding up the flashcard.
Christian watched as Mike ran through a series of files, some of the names of which he recognised from his father’s folder.
‘What are you looking for?’ Isabella asked, her concern obvious.
‘Files on nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and whether they’ve made any progress with decoding your father’s genetic research. We need to know whether they’ve stockpiled weapons and arms here or whether they’ve been distributed and stored elsewhere. If they’re all here, we can destroy this place knowing that it’s the end of the threat.’
As Mike sought his information from the computer screen in front of him, Christian glanced along the bank of computers. They all had different types of information. One caught his eye.
‘Issy, come here. What does this mean in English?’ he asked, pointing to the screen.
‘Genetic mapping investigative trials and laboratory experiments.’
‘Mike, can I have your password card?’ he said as he sat in front of the screen.
Mike tossed him the flashcard, which Christian plugged into the computer. Immediately in front of him, there appeared his father’s coded research. He quickly scrolled through and saw that they had obviously been able to decipher some of it. From what he could see, they had taken various chromosomes and mapped the gene sequences. None appeared particularly relevant. Then he saw something significant. The experiment was one of the few in English. It was titled ‘Gene racial control and stability’. He read as quickly as he could. It told him how his father had experimented with mice and found that when a particular gene sequence was excessively stimulated, it produced premature ageing. The mice had aged so rapidly that their life span was reduced to six months. Underneath that was a subheading on DNA and race ageing. Indications were that he had discovered a genetic sequence that was peculiar to peoples of different colour. Christian thought that the sequence would allow people of different racial groups to be targeted with a whole range of things. From what he could see that discovery was in a different code.
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