I am putting the TDATS on infrared, said the pilot over the radio, and Mazibuko had no idea what he was talking about. That means we will see him even if his lights are off.
29.
M
iriam Nzululwazi stood up suddenly and opened the door and went out, closing it quietly behind her. The passage was empty. Gray cold tiled floor stretched left and right. She had come from the left; there were offices and people that way. She turned right, the flat heels of her shoes audible, tip-tap, tip-tap. She walked with purpose until she saw another door at the end of the passage.
She could just make out the letters, in faded peeling red paint: FIRE ESCAPE.
* * *
How well was he trained as a soldier? asked Allison.
Soldier? He was never a soldier.
But he was in Umkhonto.
He looked at her in surprise. You dont know?
Dont know what?
He was an assassin. For the KGB.
She knew her face betrayed her shock and dismay.
And now you are going to judge him. You think that changes everything?
Its just
Less honorable?
She searched for the right words. No, no, I
, but he did not give her time.
You formed a picture in your head of a foot soldier of the Struggle, a relatively simple man, maybe something of a rebel who broke out now and again, but nothing more than that. Just an ordinary soldier.
Well, yes. No. I didnt think him ordinary
.
I dont know the whole story. The Russians discovered him. Shooting competition in Kazakhstan, some base in the mountains where the ANC men were trained. Probably he shot the hell out of the commies and they saw possibilities. He had two years of training in East Germany at some special spy school.
How many people did he
I dont remember precisely. Ten, fifteen
My God. She blew out a breath. Are we still off the record here?
Yes, Allison Healy we are.
My God. She would not be able to write this.
* * *
He had given the lens a quick wipe with the soft cloth and lined up his eye behind it again. Not too close, just the right focus length, checked his adjustments again, and waited for the door. Beads of sweat ran down his forehead he would have to get a sweatband, it was going to sting his eyes. The door, dark wood, was shut again, his palms were wet and the temperature inside the warm clothes still rising. He became aware of a distaste for what he was doing. This was not the way to wage war, it was not right; this was not the way of his people.
* * *
There was a bar on the door, white letters on a green background that read PUSH/DRUK, and Miriam obeyed. There was a snap as the lock disconnected and the door creaked and groaned as the unused hinges protested, and she saw she was outside, she saw the night and she heard the city sounds and stepped forward and closed the door behind her. She looked down, and far below there was an alley but right here in front of her was a metal rail and the rusty wounds of a sawed-off metal stairway. She realized she was in a dead end. The door had clicked shut behind her and there was no handle on the outside.
* * *
The light flashed on the access control panel and the official picked up the internal phone and called the Ops Room. It was Quinn who answered.
Fire door on the seventh floor. The alarm has been activated, said the official.
Quinn raised his voice. Who is on the seventh floor? The fire door has been activated.
Six meters from him Vincent Radebe sat listening to the crackle of the Rooivalk radios more than a thousand kilometers north, and he only half registered what Quinn had said, but the hair rose on his neck.
What? he said.
Someone has opened the fire door on seven. Quinn and Radebe looked at each other and understood, and Radebe felt an icy hand knot his innards.
* * *
You are a journalist. You should know that concepts of good and bad are relative, said Zatopek van Heerden. He was up and moving to the edge of the veranda, looking out at the night sky. No, not relative. Clumsy. Insufficient. You want to take sides. You want to be for him or against him. You need someone to be right, on the side of justice.
You sound like Orlando Arendse, she said.
Orlando is not a fool.
How many people did he murder?
Listen to yourself.
Murder.
He murdered no one. He fought a war. And I dont know how many of the enemy died at his hand, but it must have been many, because he was good. He never actually said, but I saw him in action and his ability was impressive.
And then he became a gofer at a motorbike dealership?
Van Heerden moved again, this time closer to her, and for Allison it was equally stimulating and threatening. He passed close by her and leaned back on the white plastic garden table and sat on it. She smelled him; she swore she could smell him.
I wondered when you would get to the crux of the matter.
What do you mean?
The question that you and the spooks must ask is why Tho-bela left Orlando. What changed? What happened?
And the answer is?
That is his Achilles heel. You see, his loyalty was always complete. First, it was the Business. The ANC. The Fight. And when it was all over and they left him high and dry, he took his talents and found someone who could use them. He served Orlando with an irreproachable work ethic. And then something happened, something inside him. I dont know what it was I have my suspicions, but I dont know precisely. We were in the hospital, he and I, beaten and shot up, and one day just before six he came to my bed and said hes finished with violence and fighting. I still wanted to chat, to pull his leg, the way we did, but he was serious, emotional, I could see it was something to him. Something big.
And that is his Achilles heel?
Van Heerden leaned forward and she wanted to retreat from him.
He thinks he can change. He thinks he has changed.
She heard the words, registered the meaning, overwhelmingly aware, too, of the subtext between them, and in that moment she understood the attraction, the invisible bond: he was like her, somewhere inside there was something missing, something out of place, not quite at home in this world, just like her, as if they didnt belong here.
* * *
And then the door opened and the bald man appeared, eyes blinking in the bright light of the street outside, and Thobelas finger caressed the trigger and the long black weapon jerked in his hands and coughed in his ears, and a heartbeat later the blood made a pretty pattern on the wood. In the forty-seven seconds it took to dismantle the weapon and pack it away in the bag, he knew he could not wage war like this. There was no honor in it.
The enemy must see him. The enemy must be able to fight back.
* * *
Miriam Nzululwazi knew there was only one way out. She had to climb, she had to get over the railing and hang from the lowest bar and then let herself drop the extra meter to the lower-story fire escape and then repeat the process till she was there where the sawed-off stairs resumed and zigzagged down to the ground.
She pulled herself up over the rail. She did not look down but swung her leg over, then her body, seven floors above the dirty, smelly alley.
* * *
Ma, youre never home anymore, said Lien, outside by the car.
Ai, my child, its not because I
want
to be at work. You know I sometimes have to work extra hours.
Is it the motorbike man, Mamma? asked Lizette.
You watch too much television. Stern.
But is it, Mamma?
She started the car and said softly: You know I cant talk about it.
Some people say hes a hero, Mamma.
Suthu says she battles to get you to go to bed. You must listen to her. You hear?
When will we see you again, Ma?
Tomorrow, I promise. She put the car in reverse and released the clutch. Sleep tight.
Is he, Mamma? Is he a hero? But she backed out, in a hurry and did not answer.
* * *
Quinn and Radebe ran, the black man ahead up the stairs, their footfalls loud in the quiet passage. How was it possible, how could she have escaped? It could not be her. They ran past the door of the interview room; he saw it was shut, which gave him courage. She must be there, but his priority was the fire-escape door. He bumped it open and at first saw nothing, and relief flooded over him. Quinns breath was at his neck, and they both stepped out onto the small steel platform.
Thank God, he heard Quinn say behind him.
* * *
As long as he believes it, said Zatopek van Heerden, things shouldnt get out of hand. They even have a chance to persuade him to turn back. If they approach him correctly.
You sound skeptical, said Allison.
Have you heard of chaos theory?
She shook her head. The moon lay in the east, a big round light shining down on them. She saw his hand lift from the table and hang in the air; for a moment she thought he was going to touch her and she wanted it, but the hand hung there, an aid in the search for an explanation. Basically, it says that a minute change in a small local system can expand to upset the balance in another larger system, far removed from it. It is a mathematical model; they replicate it with computers.
Youve lost me.
His hand dropped back and supported his position on the table. Its difficult. First, you have to understand who he is. What his nature is. Some people, most people, are passive bending reeds in the winds of life. Resignedly accepting changes in their environment. Oh, yes, they will moan and complain and threaten, but eventually they will adjust and be sucked along by the stream. Thobela belongs to the other group, the minority, the doers, the activators and the catalysts. When apartheid threatened his genetic fitness index, he resolved to change that environment. The apparent impossibility of the challenge was irrelevant. You follow?
I think so.
Now, at this moment he is suppressing that natural behavior. He thinks he can be a bending reed. And as long as the equilibrium of his own system is undisturbed, he can do it. So far it has been easy. Just his job and Miriam and Pakamile. A safe, closed system. He wants to keep it like that. The problem is life is never like that. The real world is not in balance. Chaos theory says in the balance of probability, something should happen somewhere to ultimately change that environment.
* * *
Vincent Radebe looked down just before he was about to go back through the fire door, and thats when he saw her. She was suspended between heaven and earth below him. Their eyes met and hers were full of fear. Her legs were a pendulum swinging out over the drop and back over the lower platform.
Miriam, he cried with utter despair, and bent to grab her arms, to save her.
* * *
And then what? asked Allison. If this theoretical thing happens and he comes back to what he is?
Then all hell will break loose, said Dr. Zatopek van Heerden pensively.
* * *
Her reaction was to let go, to open her cramping fingers.
The pendulum of her body took her past the platform of the sixth floor. She fell. She made no sound.
Vincent Radebe saw it all, saw the twist of her body as it slowly revolved to the bottom. He thought he heard the soft noise when she hit the dirty stone pavement of the alley far below.
He cried once, in his mother tongue, desperately to heaven.
* * *
Thobela Mpayipheli absorbed the world around him, the moon big and beautiful in the black heaven, the Free State plains, grass veld stretching in the lovely light as far as the eye could see, here and there dark patches of thorn trees, the path that the headlights threw out before him. He felt the machine and he felt his own body and he felt his place on this continent and he saw himself and he felt life coursing through him, a full, flooding river; it swept him along and he knew that he must cherish this moment, store it somewhere secure because it was fleeting and rare, this intense and perfect unity with the universe.
30.
J
anina Mentzs cell phone rang twice as she drove back to Wale Street Chambers. The first caller was the director. I know you are enjoying a well-earned rest, Janina, but I have some interesting news for you. But not over the phone.
Im on my way back now, sir. They were both aware of the insecurity of the cellular network. There are other things happening, too.
