Power of the Sword
Page 85
‘It’s a sign,’ Shasa muttered. ‘If Smuts goes, we all go with him.’
Ten minutes later the news was telephoned through. Colonel Blaine Malcomess had lost the Gardens by almost a thousand votes.
‘A thousand votes—’ Shasa tried to accept it, ‘but that’s a swing of almost ten per cent. What happens now?’
The electoral officer climbed onto the stage at the end of the hall. He had the results in his hand, and the crowd fell silent but edged forward eagerly.
‘Ladies and gentlemen, the results of the election for the constituency of Hottentots Holland,’ he intoned. ‘Manfred De La Rey, Nationalist Party: 3,126 votes. Shasa Courtney, United Party: 2,012 votes. Claude Sampson, Independent: 196 votes.’
Tara took Shasa’s hand and they went out to where the Packard was parked. They sat side by side on the front seat, but Tara did not start the engine immediately. They were both shaken and confused.
‘I just cannot believe it,’ Tara whispered.
‘I feel as though I am on a runaway train,’ Shasa said. ‘Heading into a long dark tunnel, no means of escape, no way of stopping it.’ He sighed softly. ‘Poor old South Africa,’ he murmured. ‘God alone knows what the future holds for you.’
Moses Gama was surrounded by men. The small room with walls of galvanized corrugated iron was packed with them. They were his praetorian guard, and Swart Hendrick was chief amongst them.
The room was lit only by a smoky paraffin lamp, and the yellow flame highlighted Moses Gama’s features.
‘He is a lion among men,’ Hendrick thought, reminded again of one of the old kings – of Chaka or Mzilikazi, those great black elephants. Thus must they have called the war chiefs to council, thus they must have ordered the battle.
‘Even now the hard Boers vaunt their victory across the land,’ Moses Gama said. ‘But I tell you, my children, and I tell you true that below the leaping flames of their pride and avarice lie the ashes of their own destruction. It will not be easy and it may be long. There will be hard work, bitter hard work and even bloody work – but tomorrow belongs to us.’
The new Deputy Minister of Justice left his office and went down the long corridor in the Union Buildings, that massive fortresslike complex designed and built by Sir Herbert Baker on a low kopje overlooking the city of Pretoria. It was the administrative headquarters of the South African Government.
Outside it was dark, but there were lights burning in most of the offices. All of them were working late. Taking over the reins of power was an onerous business, but Manfred De La Rey revelled in every tedious detail of the task he had been given. He was sensible of the honour for which he had been selected. He was young, some said too young, for the post of a deputy minister, but he would prove them wrong.
He knocked on the minister’s door and opened it to the command, ‘Kom binne – enter!’
Charles Robberts ‘Blackie’ Swart was tall almost to the point of deformity with huge hands that now lay on the desk top in front of him.
‘Manfred.’ He smiled like a crack appearing in a granite slab. ‘Here is the little present I promised you.’ He picked up an envelope embossed with the crest of the Union of South Africa and handed it across the desk.
‘I will never be able to express my gratitude, Minister.’ Manfred took the envelope. ‘I hope only to demonstrate it to you by my loyalty and hard work in the years ahead.’
Back in his own office Manfred opened the envelope and unfolded the document it contained. Slowly savouring each word of it, he read through the free pardon granted to one Lothar De La Rey, convicted of various crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Manfred folded the document and slipped it back into its envelope. Tomorrow he would deliver the pardon to the prison governor in person, and he would be there to take his father’s hand and lead him out into the sunshine again.
He stood up and went to his safe, tumbled the combination and swung open the heavy steel door. There were three files lying on the top shelf, and he took them down and laid them on his desk. One file was from military intelligence, the second from CID headquarters, the third from his own Department of Justice. It had taken time and careful planning to have all three on his desk and all record of their existence removed from the archive registers. They were the only existing files on ‘White Sword’.
He took his time and read each one through carefully. It was long after midnight when he finished, but now he knew that nowhere in those files had any person made the connection between ‘White Sword’ and Manfred De La Rey, Olympic gold medallist and now Deputy Minister of Justice.
He picked up the three files and carried them through to the outer office where he switched on the shredding machine. As he fed each separate page into the shredder and watched the thin strips of paper come curling out the far side like spaghetti, he considered what he had learned from them.
‘So there was a traitoress,’ he murmured. ‘I was betrayed. A woman, a young woman, speaking in Afrikaans. She knew everything, from the guns in Pretoria to the ambush on the mountain. There is only one young woman who knew all that.’ There would be retribution in time, but Manfred was in no hurry – there were many scores to settle, many debts to pay.
When the last page of the reports was reduced to minute slivers, Manfred locked his office and went down to where the new black Ford sedan that went with his rank was parked.
He drove back to his sumptuous official residence in the elegant suburb of Waterkloof. As he went upstairs to the bedroom he was careful not to wake Heidi. She was pregnant again, and her sleep was precious.
He lay in the darkness unable to sleep himself. There was too much to think about, too much planning to do, and he smiled and thought, ‘So at last the sword of power is in our hands — and we will see, with a vengeance, who are the underdogs now.’
OUT NOW
VICIOUS CIRCLE
THE LATEST HECTOR CROSS NOVEL BY WILBUR SMITH
On the far side of the boggy hollow, Hazel’s Ferrari was just topping the crest of the hill. Hector realized that they had been neatly cut off from each other by the van and bike.
‘Hazel!’ Hector shouted her name as all his feral instincts kicked in at full force. ‘They are after Hazel!’ He grabbed his mobile phone and punched in her number.
A disembodied voice answered the call: ‘The person you have called is presently unavailable. Please try again later.’
When Hector Cross’s new life is overturned, he immediately recognizes the ruthless hand of an enemy he has faced many times before. A terrorist group has re-emerged – like a deadly scorpion from beneath its rock.
Determined to fight back, Hector draws together a team of his most loyal friends from his former life in Cross Bow Security, a company originally contracted to protect his beloved wife, Hazel Bannock, and her company, the Bannock Oil Corp. Together they travel to the remotest parts of the Middle East, to hunt down those who pursue him and his loved ones.
For Hazel and Hector have a child, a precious daughter, who he will go to the ends of the earth to protect. And brutal figures from the Bannock family’s past – thought long gone – are returning, with an agenda so sinister that Hector realizes he is facing a new breed of enemy. One whose shifting attack and dark secrets take Hector to the heart of Africa and to a series of crimes so shocking they demand revenge.
LOVE. LOSS. REVENGE.
PRAISE FOR WILBUR SMITH
‘Wilbur Smith rarely misses a trick’
Sunday Times
‘The world’s leading adventure writer’
Daily Express
‘Action is the name of Wilbur Smith’s game and he’s a master’
Washington Post
‘The pace would do credit to a Porsche, and the invention is as bright and explosive as a fireworks display’
Sunday Telegraph
‘A violent saga . . . told with vigour and enthusiasm . . . Wilbur Smith spins a fine tale’
Evening Standard
‘A bonanza of excitement’
New York Times
‘A natural storyteller who moves confidently and often splendidly in his period and sustains a flow of convincing incident’
Scotsman
‘Raw experience, grim realism, history and romance welded with mystery and the bewilderment of life itself’
Library Journal
‘Extrovert and vigorous . . . constantly changing incidents and memorable portraits’
Liverpool Daily Post
‘An immensely powerful book, disturbing and compulsive, harsh yet compassionate’
She
‘An epic novel . . . it would be hard to think of a theme that was more appropriate today . . . Smith writes with a great passion for the soul of Africa’
Today
‘I read on to the last page, hooked by its frenzied inventiveness piling up incident upon incident . . . mighty entertainment’
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‘There is a streak of genuine poetry, all the more attractive for being unfeigned’
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‘Action follows action . . . mystery is piled on mystery . . . tales to delight the millions of addicts of the gutsy adventure story’
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‘Action-crammed’
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‘Rattling good adventure’
Evening Standard
POWER OF THE SWORD
WILBUR SMITH was born in Central Africa in 1933. He was educated at Michaelhouse and Rhodes University. He became a full-time writer in 1964 after the successful publication of When the Lion Feeds, and has since written over thirty novels, all meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide. His books are now translated into twenty-six languages.
Find out more about Wilbur Smith
by visiting his author website,
www.wilbursmithbooks.com
THE NOVELS OF WILBUR SMITH
THE COURTNEYS
When the Lion Feeds
The Sound of Thunder
A Sparrow Falls
Birds of Prey
Monsoon
Blue Horizon
The Triumph of the Sun
THE COURTNEYS OF AFRICA
The Burning Shore
Power of the Sword
Rage
A Time to the Die
Golden Fox
Assegai
THE BALLANTYNE NOVELS
A Falcon Flies
Men of Men
The Angels Weep
The Leopard Hunts in Darkness
THE EGYPTIAN NOVELS
River God
The Seventh Scroll
Warlock
The Quest
Also
The Dark of the Sun
Shout at the Devil
Gold Mine
The Diamond Hunters
The Sunbird
Eagle in the Sky
The Eye of the Tiger
Cry Wolf
Hungry as the Sea
Wild Justice
Elephant Song
Those in Peril
Vicious Circle
First published in the UK 1986 by William Heinemann Ltd
This electronic edition published 2014 by Pan Books
an imprint of Pan Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
Pan Macmillan, 20 New Wharf Road, London N1 9RR
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www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-0-330-47298-2
Copyright © Wilbur Smith 1986
The right of Wilbur Smith to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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