The Mandela Plot

by Kenneth Bonert

  21

  My cheek is on the ground and I’m inhaling a burnt smell. Feels like the whole world just got pounded by a meteor the size of Joburg, like all the rocks of the earth are still ringing. But it’s just my ears, even with the plugs, and I’m looking at the yellow eye of the torch beam on the wall, a shaking eye because the torch is still rocking on the ground. A shadow on the far side unfolds upward. It’s Marcus. He picks up the torch and shines it on the submachine gun that he threw out before and he snaps up the gun and run-hops up the tunnel. I see that evil flickering in two yellow bursts. I get up and walk down, Marcus is limping back towards me. He pushes me to turn me back but he has the light in his hand and it flashes up the tunnel and I see what he’s come from. Superintendent Joseph Lukhele, aka Comrade Shaolin, the man with no country, is slumped oddly against the wall with chin on chest and his head all opened so you can see inside. The other guy, Jannie, is on the ground and looks simply butchered. Well—grenades do that. I’m helping Marcus hop towards the wall now and he shines the beam on the other grenade, the one he wrapped with tape to a chunk of concrete. There were two fat round grenades like that and what he did, he batted one of them into Lukhele’s face, fired it across the gap with enough power and precision to nail him like a hard punch and neutralise him for those seconds as it bounced at Jan and blew up. That’s what Marcus just did. I saw it happen. This other stone-taped grenade he throws now, spinning up into the torch beam and the tape wraps around the steel bar and the grenade dangles there as we rush to cover. I press my fingertips against the earplugs. My eyes are closed but I still catch a flash of orange through the lids, braced better for the stomping of the earth this time.

  The pipe is ripped open, moonlight pouring in like floodwater. I help Marcus climb, boosting him up onto my shoulders. He hammers the bent tin flat with the butt of the gun so he won’t cut himself and then clambers in and reaches down and I use his help to pull myself up into the pipe also. We pause there, hunkered in the narrow space, both breathing hard. Past Marcus, the pipe goes down into the earth. All we have to do is start crawling and we’ll be out in Brandwag Park in ten minutes. Less, probably. But I look the other way. Whoever last came through here left the grate wide open and I can see the sky and the stars, even the tops of the wild grass. All-a-sudden I realise what’s out there—what I’ve forgotten and re-remembered. I start climbing up. Marcus grabs my calf. “There’s something I buried there,” I tell him. “Years ago.”

  “Leave it.”

  “Cash,” I say, remembering. “My passport, a green card for America.”

  “Hey?” Like I’ve lost my mind.

  “I’m serious, Marcus. A green card for you also.”

  “You’re in shock. You’re babbling. Let’s go.”

  I kick his hand loose. “For America,” I say. “Hugo arranged. Can’t explain now, I’ve just got to fetch it.”

  Marcus catches me as I reach the top, flattening me to the sand just outside. “Dumb schmock,” he hisses. “Oberholzer.”

  I freeze. “Where?”

  “He wasn’t in the tunnel. Means he stayed up. Checking for exits, to cut us off. He woulda heard the grenades. He’s coming here. We go now.”

  I shake my head. I can’t—I won’t—forget packing that rucksack with everything I would need, in the icy calculating mood that came over me after Patrick Cohen was murdered. How I buried it under stones, along with the overalls, to make my escape to Botswana after the blast.

  Marcus has fished a Motorola radio from his thigh pocket. “Pienaar’s,” he whispers. He presses the send button and listens and presses the button again and listens some more. But there’s only static. He murmurs some Afrikaans into it. Still nothing. He pockets it and finds a stick and hangs an empty grenade pouch and then pokes it up over the top of the grass, bobbing it there like a balloon. Nothing. “He’s not there,” I whisper.

  “He’s sly,” says Marcus.

  “I’m going, Marcus,” I say. “Take me a minute.”

  I start crawling but he grips me so I struggle to pull free. Finally he says, “Oright, calm. How far izit?”

  “See the tennis courts, it’s like halfway to them.” I point. “Straight on in this direction.”

  “I’ll take point. No talking. If I’m going off, you tap me and signal.” He goes ahead without waiting for me to answer. He moves very slowly, inching along, so that it takes forever and my arms are shaking when I finally see the pyramid shape of the mound of stones. Still there, thank God. But there’s a stretch of open ground we have to cross. Marcus keeps shaking his head but I get up in a crouch and start running and Marcus gets up too and I remember his limp so I go back and grab him and we both reach the stones together. Marcus slumps down with his back to them. I start turning over heavy ones, digging under. Only dirt. I start to get scared that I’m wrong, that my mind is tricking me again, or else someone found it over the years. But I make myself calm down and go back to the edge and find that I’ve missed a big one and when I lift it I catch a scent of wet and there’re worms and mould on the underside. Digging down, excited, I feel plastic, then a strap. I wrench it clear—the rucksack. The fabric on the straps is rotten but the plastic body of the thing is quite whole. I swing it around to Marcus and open it. Inside I find an envelope and in that is everything I remember: the page with the accounts, the letter from Hugo that I was supposed to burn, the wads of cash and the passport and the American green cards. My back is cramping and I straighten up without thinking about it, the envelope in hand. It gives a funny shudder and there’s a soft zoop of something in the grass behind and Marcus is pulling me down hard against the stones. There’s a hole in the envelope now, right under my thumb. Marcus has rolled over onto his elbows, the submachine gun aimed. The Motorola squawks in his thigh pocket. He digs it out and we listen to soft crackling and then a voice breaks through. That voice. “Helger boys,” says Oberholzer. “What you got there, Helger boys? What’s in that big letter and that bag, Martin?” Something bad is happening to my brother. He’s shut his eyes really tight and he’s shaking like we’re in the Arctic Circle, I can hear his teeth chattering. Oberholzer says, “Claudine and me could have potted you two anytime but we let you take your little crawl. See what you up to. What did you dig up? What’s in that bag, Mighty Mart? Is it guns? More bombs? Is it cash? What’s the letter say?”

  Marcus mutters something. He passes the radio to me and then he slowly climbs up the mound of stones. “Let me educate what is what,” Oberholzer is saying, “since we here at school. What we have is one helluva crime scene. We got five members of the Leopards murdered in cold blood plus one superintendent of the South African Police Service, who is a former ANC war hero on top of it. We got a bomb that was trying to be set to assassinate a certain ex–state president by the name of Nelson Mandela. You might have heard of him. Ja. Now with one push on my button I can have half the blerry Flying Squad down here inside five minutes flat. And you know what they ganna find? They ganna find the Helger boys was trying to put a bomb to blow Saint Mandela to a million sticky pieces. Two Jewboys on top of it. One of which used to work for the security police. Oh ja, Marcus Helger, let’s not forget all the dirty stories we know you were a part of—but the Leopards, tonight we were investigating and we moved in. That is how I will explain this all. And I know the detectives who’ll be investigating and they know me so who do you reckon they’ll believe? I’ll explain them exactly how things went bad when you opened fire on us, the two of you caught in the act. We lost our men in the line of duty, who were trying to arrest you and stop the assassination plot. Bladdy heroes the lot of them. You killed heroes, you scum. You’re assassins, you’re bombers. We were just doing our jobs trying to protect Nelson Mandela. You will be the ones going to prison for life.”

  I stare at the radio. Marcus is peering carefully around the rocks up there. “You hear me boys?” says the voice. “Better come out hands up with that bag and let’s work a deal.” Looking at the radio in
my hand I get a sudden urge and press the transmit button and say, “We’ll see who they believe when we tell the real side.”

  There’s a pause. I hear my brother shushing me from up there, climbing carefully back down. “Hello, Martin,” says Oberholzer. “I don’t know what story you mean. There’s only the truth. We Leopards are national heroes and your brother jiz shot four of them down in cold blood. Grenaded another one and a superintendent with him. It was you, Marcus. Marcus, hear me? Marcus Machine—you the only murderer here tonight. You a coldblood killer, Machine. It’s your nature. It’s the only thing you good at. And you and me know the truth of what you’ve done. Wait until everyone else finds that out too. You might as well put your own gun in your mouth, Marcus, and pull the trigger right now—” Marcus has reached me and grabbed the radio back, his fingers hitting the transmit button by accident, and Oberholzer goes quiet.

  Marcus says to me, “Don’t talk to that devil. He’s playing mind games.”

  “Did you see him?”

  He shakes his head. “Hate snipers. Sitting with his night eye on us.” Marcus looks at the hole in the envelope. “He meant to miss. Believe it.”

  The radio crackles. “Helger boys. Listen to me. I have the camera with me. I am a master editor, you know. What I ganna do, I’m ganna sit here and keep you detained while I make some editing on this camera. You try to move from there, Claudine’s ganna have a chat to your backs. Meanwhile I will record over certain parts and leave the parts in where you say Mandela must die and then tell all about the bomb and how you put it here. Which is the truth. You put that bomb, Martin Helger. You sneaked in the tunnel like a sewerage rat and put a bomb because that’s what your kind does. When the force shows up, I will be the hero who saved Mandela. This vidyo is my evidence. So sit tight while I get to work.”

  It goes quiet. Marcus’s face is all squeezed up again and he’s shaking in a scary way. “Marcus,” I say. “Marcus.” But he doesn’t respond. I’m seeing him clearly in the full of the moon for the first time, able to observe his face frankly now that his eyes are closed. Truly my brother, here and now. The freshness is all gone and life has written its lines deep instead, replaced the soft hair with its bony cap. But he came back.

  I wipe my face and look around at our reality. We’re completely pinned down here behind this hill, but I think of the security guards at the front gate—maybe they’ll investigate and save us. They’re all the way over on the far side of the school and locked in their concrete pillbox, would the rumble of underground grenades have been enough? Probably not. I look at the radio resting on Marcus’s chest. Is there some way to change the digital frequency and reach someone, anyone? Then it crackles. Oberholzer’s tinny voice says, “Tell you what. I will give you clowns a chance, cos I am such a merciful man. Maybe what you got in that bag you dug up is worth my while. Hey? Answer please.”

  I look at Marcus but he’s still locked up, so I carefully prise the radio from him and press transmit. “What are you saying?”

  “Hello, Martin,” says the voice right away. “I can let you go. I’ll be honest, not your brother, but you. Your brother is a traitor and murderer. Hell, he killed six good men tonight alone. You—I say ukay. I’ll take fifty per cent loss if I have to. Tell him I mean it, Machine. You know I do.” Marcus seems to come back from whatever bad place he’s disappeared to, reaching up and taking the radio back and shaking his head at me. Oberholzer’s saying, “Just tell me what’s in that bag. What’s in that letter, documents?”

  Marcus says, “Bag is bugging him. A loose end. Such a careful bastard.”

  The radio crisps. “Martin. Martin. Let’s make a deal, hey.”

  I ask Marcus about using the radio to call for help and he shakes his head and says they’re code-locked. Then he shinnies back up the mound. He’s cupping his eyes, staring through a little gap in the stones. “Hey. Does this grass go all the way to those courts or is there a road behind?”

  “There never was a road,” I say. “Was grass all the way to the courts.”

  “Nice,” he says, and slithers back down, breathing hard. He sucks his finger, holds it up.

  “What is it?”

  “Wind,” he says, “but too soft.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  He leans over and pulls out the third grenade, the long cylindrical one. “Burns at five thousand degrees. And it’s a helluva dry season.”

  I look at the tall grass around us. “I see what you mean.”

  22

  Marcus stays at the top position, watching. Now we are waiting for the wind to pick up—that’s all there is for us. For a while the radio crackles and Oberholzer’s voice drones on, but then it’s just silence and I think of him observing us through a green night scope and working on his tape and sitting up there with a giggle in his heart. I look up and say, “Did you know I was in that institute all this time? You never visited.”

  “A vegetable, I thought. No point.”

  “You went missing in action.”

  “No.”

  “We got the letter.”

  “A trick.”

  “We all thought you were dead. You weren’t at Ma and Da’s funerals.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  “What happened to you?”

  “A lot,” he says.

  “Oberholzer called you Machine. Said you worked for security police, the SB.”

  Marcus says nothing. I ask how he found me here, how he managed to appear like he did. He goes on ignoring me. “Hey,” I say, “you can’t just—hey. You owe me something, Marcus.”

  Slowly he looks down.

  “I want to know what happened to you.”

  “Not now.”

  “I deserve it,” I say. “And now might be all there is.”

  He touches the dressing on the side of his head, nods slowly. He eases down quietly and then his hoarse soft voice takes me to the start in hesitant bursts. Telling me how in 1988 Oberholzer had had him flown in on special request, from Ondangwa air base where he was serving on the Border. Marcus went gladly, sick of war. In Joburg, Oberholzer offered him a role in an undercover unit—liaison man with a bouncer gang, the notorious Dynamite boys. To use them for political work, dirty ops against anti-apartheid groups. Deniable civilian muscle off the books with no official connection to the state. But he needed a liaison because they wouldn’t trust cops.

  “That was you?”

  “Said no for a long time.”

  Suddenly I remember Mike’s Kitchen, what Oberholzer asked me there, and I understand it better. Oberholzer had been looking for a lever, to make Marcus change his mind. “But you said yes eventually. Because.”

  “You know why, Martin.”

  “Do I?”

  “You the only one who can. After Ma and Da.”

  The radio crackles. Oberholzer says, “You fallen asleep, Helgers? Don’t sleep yet. Best is still to come, hey. I’ve nelly erased the bad parts. You look fantastic, Martin. Camera loves you. You a hunnerd per cent believable.” He laughs.

  “Utter lunatic,” says Marcus, shaking his head. I want to ask what he meant about me knowing why, but he’s going on already, his eyes half closed, telling me about the last apartheid years, the chaos behind the scenes after Mandela was let out but before the first elections. One world imploding, the new one uncertain. People burning documents and disappearing, others running black ops to try kill the new order before it could be born. Then the elections and disbandment. Oberholzer landing on his feet as so many apartheid enforcers did. And Marcus switching to private sector, the work the same. “You fall in a way of life. It takes you over,” he says. Operating in that world, he heard my name from a contact. He followed it up and ended up tracking one of the Leopards. “It led me here.”

  “If you hadn’t,” I say. “I’d be dead now, hey.”

  “Might still happen, brother.”

  “I know it,” I say.

  “They’d wait till after the bomb, kill confirmed. Then
bury you deep with Jeyes drain fluid poured on top. Release the video.”

  I nod, feeling exhausted. “Are you married, Marcus? Children?”

  “I was. But hard to live with someone who screams all night. No kids.” Then he says, “The problem with letting the beast out, Martin, it doesn’t go back in. That’s something worth knowing, brother. You have to live through a lot to learn it.”

  “I see,” I say.

  “It’s not a thing you can see from the outside.”

  “Why’d you do it, Marcus?” I ask. “I mean the whole thing. The bouncing and then the army. Whyn’t you just stay in varsity?”

  He looks around, sniffs. “You know, it prolly started here.”

  “You had the Name here,” I say. And I tell him about the time at the Emmarentia Dam, bullies running from just those two words Marcus Helger.

  He sniffs again—a weak and cynical noise. “Ja. Well. Violence works. S’why they cane you from the start. I got here, they called me grease monkey cos of Da. Hey grease monkey. I wrapped a bike chain on my fist and gave someone twenny-two stitches. No more grease monkey. I was what, thirteen. But I found out I liked it. Gave me that taste. Started looking for it, that feeling. Rugby. Then boxing. That took me to Dynamite Gym. Then bouncing. Then the army.” He stiffened. “Hear that?”

  “What?”

  “Wind’s coming.”

  23

  By the time Marcus has the phosphorus grenade out, there’s a wide gathering hiss in the grass, the sound of our good luck. I start feeling it on the back of my neck like a cool blessing as Marcus shows all his teeth under the moon in a hard and savage grimace. “Cook his damn arse,” he says. “Tries to climb that fence, my turn to pot him. Fuck do I hate snipers.”