by Tony Park
The reporter said: ‘A company spokesman said the men were taking part in an environmental monitoring audit of a disused working. The men killed have been identified as Themba Tshabalala, aged twenty-two, a trainee environmental officer, and mine security guard Paulo Barrica, forty-one. The company said both men were valued employees who would be missed. The name of the third man, who is still reported as missing, has not been released.’
Tertia took a breath and held it. She reached for the phone again and dialled the cellphone number she knew by heart.
The phone went straight to voicemail. ‘Hi, this is Chris, leave a message.’
*
Outside, the sun was on the horizon. Chris has been missing for nine hours and there was still no word. Cameron hit the hands-free button on his phone and dialled the extension of his secretary, Hannelie. ‘Hann, please can you get me Themba Tshabalala’s home address?’
He heard her sniff. ‘Ja, boss. You want me to read it to you or email?’
‘Neither. I’m going out.’ He ended the call and got up from behind his desk. The Australians from Global Resources thought they could micromanage a mine in South Africa from the other side of the Indian Ocean, but he preferred not to work by memo or email.
Cameron left his office and walked into Hannelie’s smaller space, next door. She dabbed her eyes with a tissue and looked up at him. ‘I’ve written the address here. Themba and his wife were renting a small house in town. Paulo’s wife and children are in Angola, in Luanda. I’ve tried the cellphone but there’s no answer, just a voicemail message in Portuguese. I’ve got some more correspondence for you to sign.’
Cameron took the piece of paper from her. ‘I’ll get one of the Mozambicans to come see you and leave a message in Portuguese.’
Cameron had called his head of human resources, Nandi Radebe, from underground when Themba’s death had been confirmed. The gunfire from the ambush had been heard by some passing miners who’d called security. Nandi had notified Beauty Tshabalala of her husband’s death by telephone, but Cameron had told Nandi that he would visit the widow in person.
Hannelie retrieved some letters from the printer. She was a matronly woman of fifty, old-school and very formal, but when she came over to him her body shuddered and tears rolled down her cheeks.
Cameron took the papers and put an arm around her shoulders. ‘We’ll get through this, Hann. We must be strong for Chris.’
Hannelie dried her eyes. ‘I know we’ve lost men before, but to have them murdered in this way, and young Chris kidnapped. That poor Themba – he and his wife have a little one. I saw her at the gate on his first day.’
Cameron laid the letters on Hannelie’s desk and signed them. He checked the address of Themba’s widow and put the paper in his pocket. ‘I’m going to see her now.’
‘Roelf and Casper want to see you.’
On cue, his engineering manager and senior geologist appeared at Hannelie’s door. ‘I called head office again, but no news,’ Cameron said. ‘The Aussies say we can’t organise a rescue mission to go get Chris.’
‘Fokken wimps,’ Casper spat.
Roelf shook his head. ‘What are we going to do, boss?’
All three were looking at him, waiting for his decision. He had dealt with death and serious injury in the past, too often, although Eureka mine’s safety record was enviable by South African standards. But Hannelie was right, this situation was different. These were his people and they had been ambushed. This was not a workplace accident; it was a declaration of war.
‘I say we round up some Angolans, get us a couple of R5s and go flatten these bastards,’ Casper said.
‘We do no such thing.’ Cameron held up a hand to silence Casper’s objection before he could voice it. ‘I’ve already told Hein to start posting the other Angolan security guards, the ones we can trust, in observation posts on level fourteen and at the points of entry above ground that we know the zama zamas have used in the past. We’re going to bottle them up and deny them freedom of movement underground.’ Hein Coetzee was Cameron’s deputy mine manager and, like Cameron, Casper, Roelf and most other South African middle-aged men, he’d seen military service during the border war.
Casper shook his head. ‘So we do nothing.’
Cameron understood the geologist’s frustration but did not read his comment as an insult. He was saying what everyone above ground was thinking. He pointed at Casper. ‘You stay here and man my office. You, too, Roelf, in shifts with Casper and Hein. This is our crisis centre now and we don’t stand down until Chris is rescued and whoever killed Themba and Paulo is dead. You call me if you hear anything from the zama zamas or if anything else happens underground. Understood?’
The two men nodded. Roelf said, ‘But we feel helpless, and we all know the police won’t do anything.’
Cameron moved his gaze from the two men to Hannelie and back again. ‘The safety of Chris and the control of this mine are my responsibility, and no one else’s. Understood?’ They all nodded. ‘The buck stops with me, and I am going to get him out. In the meantime, we watch, we wait, and we listen.’
Cameron left them and went outside to his mine bakkie. He started the engine and gripped the steering wheel so hard he fancied he could almost snap it. He exhaled and rolled his shoulders, forcing himself to think coolly and not let the emotion rule him.
It was a short drive from the mine to Barberton and he parked outside the facebrick house. It was larger than he expected, but when he walked up the stone-flagged path and knocked on the door a white woman, perhaps in her sixties, with her hair in curlers, answered. ‘Ja?’
‘Excuse me, mevrou. I must have the wrong address. I’m looking for Beauty Tshabalala.’
‘Ag she’s in the flatlet, out the back. Up the driveway.’ She looked at the logo above his breast pocket. ‘You’re from the mine. Is there trouble? I was having second thoughts about letting the flatlet to them. But money’s short, so what can a widow do with the cost of things these days and –’
‘I need to see Mrs Tshabalala. Her husband has been killed.’
The woman put her hand over her mouth. ‘My lord!’
‘Please.’
She drew her housecoat closed and came out onto the stoep in her slippers. ‘I’ll take you to her.’
Cameron followed the woman to the backyard and the modest, tired-looking flat. He wondered from its meagre size if it had been built as a domestic’s quarters. The woman knocked on the door. ‘Beauty?’
A child screamed inside. The door opened and a slight woman, with red-rimmed eyes and an infant in her arms, opened the door. Her lip started to tremble when she saw Cameron.
‘Mrs Tshabalala, I’m Cameron McMurtrie, the general manager of Eureka Mine. I am so sorry for your loss.’
Beauty opened her mouth to say something, but seemed unable to form the words. At the same time she staggered. Cameron took one of her arms and the landlady stepped past Cameron and gently took the child from her arms. Beauty felt listless in Cameron’s grasp. ‘Can I come in? You should sit down.’
‘There, there, my girl,’ said the woman, cooing to the child.
Cameron took in the simplicity of the shack: a wooden table with two ageing aluminium-framed kitchen chairs, their upholstery cracked and oozing foam, and a double bed in the corner, neatly made. Cameron sat Beauty on the bed and took one of the chairs.
‘I’ll go to the house and make some rooibos, OK?’ the landlady said.
‘Thank you.’
Beauty watched the woman walk out with her child, but said nothing at first. She turned her big eyes on Cameron and blinked. ‘He is truly dead?’
‘Yes.’
Her bottom lip started to tremble, and she took a deep, rasping breath. ‘We have been married less than a year. You know, this was his first job. He was so excited.’
Cameron nodded. ‘I interviewed your husband and I was very impressed by his attitude and his skills. He was with us for such a short time, but he
was one of us.’
She looked out the small window of the flatlet. ‘He was with all of us for a short time. We both just graduated from university.’
‘Do you have family? Is there someone who can care for you and the baby, Mrs Tshabalala?’
She looked back at him and blinked. ‘Themba was an orphan. His parents died when he was in high school, yet he fended for himself and worked at nights and weekends to put himself through university. My mother is alive, but I am from Zambia. She lives in Ndola. She has nothing.’
The enormity of her situation seemed to poleaxe the young woman and Cameron had to reach out to her and again take her arm as she slumped sideways. ‘How am I going to care for my baby?’ She started to sob. ‘My love is gone.’
Cameron took out his handkerchief and passed it to her. ‘What did you study at university?’
She dabbed her eyes and sniffed. ‘Marketing.’
‘You’ll be able to get a job, I’m sure.’
She blew her nose and looked up at him, her limpid eyes now cold. ‘You know how bad the economy is. I have a baby and no family to take care of her and I am a Zambian. Who would hire me? If I take her home to Zambia it will be worse.’
Cameron thought about her situation and knew she was probably right. With no experience and no family to back her up, her prospects were not good. Around her neck Beauty wore a simple silver cross on a thin chain; it gave him an idea. ‘There is a project here in Barberton the mine supports, a jewellery-making collective. They train women and unemployed people in basic metalwork skills.’
Beauty sniffed. ‘I am not good with my hands. I can’t even sew. I worked as a part-time maid to get through university. I will have to go back to that, I suppose, although I can’t afford child care.’
‘No, that’s not what I was suggesting. The Imvoti Jewellers, that’s the name of the project, do good work, but their products could be better marketed to tourists coming to Barberton, and further afield, in Nelspruit and even Johannesburg. They don’t even have a website.’
Beauty wiped her eyes. ‘I studied website design. And I love jewellery.’
‘What would you say to, say, six months’ work on contract, writing a marketing plan for Imvoti Jewellery and designing a website for them? If things work out and you can improve their sales I can put a case to our new head of environment and community to make the position permanent.’
‘My baby?’
‘We have a créche at the mine. You must still consider yourself as part of our family, Mrs Tshabalala.’
There was the rattle of china behind him and Cameron turned to see the lady of the house standing in the doorway, carrying a tray with a teapot and three cups. Beauty’s eyes widened in alarm. ‘Don’t worry, girl, your little one is asleep on my bed for now. I put pillows either side of her so she won’t roll out.’
‘I don’t know,’ Beauty said.
‘Yes, you do,’ said the woman as she set down the tray and started to pour. ‘I couldn’t help but overhear what Meneer McMurtrie is offering you. You must stay here in Barberton if you have nowhere else to go. I can look after your little one if you have to go to Nelspruit or Joburg or whatever outside of the crèche’s opening hours.’
‘You would, Mrs Van der Post?’
The older woman nodded. ‘My Frikkie was killed down the mine twenty years ago and my boys are all grown up and living in Australia now. What else is an old woman going to do with herself? Like Mr McMurtrie says, you are part of the Eureka family.’
Beauty stood and took her hand. ‘Thank you, Mrs Van der Post.’ She turned to Cameron and started to thank him, but she dissolved into tears, her narrow shoulders shaking.
Cameron put his arms around her and she pressed her face to his chest, her tears soaking his shirt. After a while she looked up, eased herself from him and wiped her eyes. ‘Thank you, Mr McMurtrie. I will not disappoint you. But I just need to ask one more thing of you, please.’
‘Child,’ the woman interrupted.
‘No, Mrs Van der Post. Just one more thing.’
‘What is it?’ Cameron asked.
‘The men who did this to Themba, to the father of my baby – you will kill them?’
There had been armed raids against the zama zamas in the past and lives had been lost in underground combat, and this had drawn the ire of the board of Global Resources over in safe, law-abiding Australia. He had been ordered not to take matters into his own hands and send in armed security to rescue Chris and avenge Themba and Paulo. Cameron himself had not fired a weapon at anyone since he left the army more than twenty years ago.
‘Yes, I will.’
*
Chris Loubser wanted to scream into the hessian bag that covered his head, but he knew if he did so his mind would unravel like a ball of string. It was bad enough being underground, stripped of his headlamp and his rescue pack – which contained an emergency oxygen supply – but the weave of the hessian made the claustrophobia almost unbearable.
The man who was leading him through the darkness pushed him in the back with the barrel of his rifle and Chris stumbled and fell yet again. His knees were wet with blood and his ankle throbbed in pain. ‘I can’t fokken see, you poes,’ he yelled into the hood.
The man obviously spoke Afrikaans because calling him a cunt earned Chris a rifle butt in his kidneys as he tried to stand. He groaned and staggered to his feet. His hands were unbound, but there was no point trying to disarm the man, as he would need to remove his head covering first and he doubted the man would have any hesitation about pulling the trigger, given that he’d just killed Paulo Barrica and Themba Tshabalala. Chris felt nauseous when he remembered the gore oozing from the back of Themba’s head. Why had he agreed to come underground again?
He tried to picture where they were heading. He knew the madala side in this part of the mine stretched for a kilometre before it ended at the disused face. The zama zamas could be working the old face or they could be using this tunnel as a base.
Chris had read hundreds of reports about the shady activities of the zama zamas in this mine and others. Sometimes they reopened old workings, blasting with their own explosives when they could get them, but more often than not they piggybacked on a mine’s legitimate operations.
During a shift in the legal mine the miners would drill holes in the stope face, where the gold was found, and charge them with up to two hundred kilograms of explosives. At the end of the shift, a fuse was lit and it burned slow enough to allow the workers time to return safely to the surface. The next shift would not start work to retrieve the dislodged ore until the workplace was clear of deadly gases, such as carbon monoxide, nitrous oxide, ammonia and methane.
The zama zamas, who cared nothing for safety, would either leave their underground hideouts to cut the fuses and steal the explosives for their own use, or wait for the blast and then go to the stope and steal chunks of ore with high-grade visible gold. As well as disregarding their own wellbeing, the zama zamas would also blast away pillars of rock that the legal miners would leave in place to stop the roof caving in, thus making the workings too dangerous ever to mine again.
Chris heard noises ahead of them, voices and the clang of tools striking ore. He smelled excrement and urine as he passed a hole in the rock the illegal miners used as a latrine. He gagged on the stench of it. The man behind him laughed and prodded him again. Chris could only imagine the litany of environmental health and safety breaches he would uncover in ten minutes, if he could see, and if he could stop his hands from shaking.
‘Move,’ the man said, and jabbed him again.
There were voices around him now and he heard shuffling feet. The language was a mix of Portuguese and Fanagolo, the lingua franca of the mines. Most of the legal miners at Eureka were South African Swazis from the local area, which bordered the Kingdom of Swaziland, an independent country bordering South Africa and Mozambique. The ranks of the zama zamas were filled with illegal immigrants from the poorer neighbouring cou
ntries of Zimbabwe and Mozambique, as well as local criminals.
‘Boss?’ the man behind Chris said.
‘Lapa,’ said a voice in front of him.
He was being taken to a boss of some kind. Chris knew the zama zamas operated an organisational structure similar to that of the legal mining world. There would be shift bosses and miners, and working crews, but no environmental safety people like himself. The risks were high for these pirate miners, but the rewards were great.
The hessian in front of his mouth was getting moist from his breath and he felt sweat running down his face in rivulets. His breathing was rapid and shallow and his legs started to feel like jelly. ‘I need to sit down,’ he said into the hood.
The man prodded him in the back again.
‘I. Need. To. Sit. Down.’
The man loosed a stream of invective and turned the rifle broadside and pushed it into his back. Chris fell again. An order was barked in front of him and Chris heard his guard take a step back. Words were exchanged in Portuguese.
‘Here, let me help you.’
Chris flinched as he felt fingers at his neck. The man who had just spoken English was untying the string that bound the hood to his neck. Chris forced himself to kneel still as the hessian was drawn up, the coarse weave scratching his nose so that he wanted to sneeze. He looked up, blinking. It was almost totally dark, but a candle was set in a carved-out alcove on the side wall. The man who had freed him from the bag was silhouetted, his face hidden in the darkness.
‘Welcome to my mine.’ The man laughed, then slapped Chris on the shoulder with a big hand and enough force to almost knock him sideways.
‘The others, you …’
The man held up a hand. ‘You were stupid to come into our mine with an armed guard who chose to shoot first and ask questions later. The body of Fernando should have been enough of a warning to you to come no further.’
Chris spat fibres from his mouth. ‘You should have left him out by the shaft or somewhere where we could have found him.’