Vortex (7 page)

The
ANC
had recruited Riaan Oost more than ten years before. At the time, he’d been a student studying agronomy at the University of Cape Town.

He’d been unusual even then-one of the few hundred mixed-race youths permitted an education beside their white superiors. He’d also displayed a quiet, unwavering determination to learn, a determination that masked his fierce resentment of apartheid and the whole

Afrikaner-dominated system.

The
ANC
cell leader who’d spotted Oost had insisted that he spurn any contact with the student-run anti apartheid movement. And he’d obeyed, heeding the cell leader’s promise of a larger, more important role in later years.

Untainted by a public connection with dissidents and unsuspected by the security forces, Oost graduated with distinction. He’d married and moved to the western Cape, trapped in the only job open to a colored man of his talents and education~-tenant farmer for a loudmouthed, boorish

Afrikaner.

Oost smiled grimly to himself as he unlocked the shed door. Yes, it had been a long, painful wait. But now the waiting was almost over.

He pulled a rack of tools away from the shed’s back wall and knelt to examine the crates and boxes he’d uncovered. All of them seemed intact.

Just as they had on delivery six months before.

With a muffled groan, he heaved the first crate into his arms and staggered outside toward his battered old pickup. Grenade launchers, automatic rifles, and explosives weighed more than wooden vine stakes and baskets of fresh-picked grapes.

Half an hour later, Riaan Oost backed his overloaded truck carefully out onto the dirt track winding down his valley. He saw his wife standing sadly at the window, waved, and drove off into the surrounding darkness.

Broken Covenant’s first phase was under way.

JUNE I -THE HOUSES OF PARLIAMENT, CAPE TOWN,

SOUTH
AFRICA

When the last camera light winked out, the temperature in the packed briefing room began falling-dropping slowly from an almost unbearable level of heat and humidity normally found only in Turkish steam baths. Around the room, reporters from across the globe swapped rumors, gossip, and friendly insults, fighting to be heard above a hive like buzz of frenzied conversation. It was the usual end to a very unusual South African government press conference.

Ian Sheffield smiled in satisfaction as he closed his notebook and watched

Knowles pack away their gear. He’d finally been given a story bound to play on the air back in the States. Haymans’s willingness to accept the possibility of majority rule and an in-depth, independent investigation of the security services was news all right, big news-no matter how genuine the offer was, or whether anything of substance ever came of it.

Knowing the Afrikaner mentality, Ian doubted that anything really would.

Even the most moderate National Party member could never contemplate surrendering all vestiges of white domination over South Africa. And even the most reasonable
ANC
leader would never settle for anything less. It was a ready-made formula for failure. A failure that would generate more violence and more corpses strewn across the country’s streets.

The thought erased his smile.

South Africa’s story had all the elements of a grand tragedy-missed opportunities, misunderstandings, hatred, arrogance, greed, and fear. The worst part was that it seemed a never-ending tragedy, a problem completely beyond human solution.

Ian sighed, reminding himself that whatever happened would make news for him to report. He’d learned early on not to get too involved in the events he covered. It was the first lesson drummed into every would-be journalist’s skull. Staying detached was the only way to stay objective and sane. Once your personal opinions and attitudes started governing the way you reported a story, you were well on the way to becoming just an unpaid propagandist for one side or the other.

Knowles tapped his shoulder.

“Hadn’t you better get going? I thought you had lunch plans today.”

Yikes. Ian glanced at his watch. Somewhere in the middle of Haymans’s press conference he’d completely lost track of the time.

“I did… I mean, I do.”

But now he and Knowles had too much work to finish before their daily transmission window opened on the network communications satellite. He’d have to call Emily and cancel. And she wouldn’t be very happy about that.

They’d been planning this afternoon’s excursion for more than a week.

Well, she’d understand, wouldn’t she? After all, this was the biggest story to come his way since he’d gotten to Cape Town. Knowles wouldn’t really need his help until later, but it still seemed wrong to simply vanish on one of South Africa’s rare “hot” news days. Damn. Talk about getting caught in a cross fire between your profession and your personal life. Emily

van der Heijden was the one good thing that had happened to him in South

Africa.

Knowles saw the look on his face and laughed.

“Look, boyo. You cut along to lunch. And by the time you’ve finished stuffing your face, I’ll have the whole tape edited, prepped, and ready to go. ”

“Thanks, Sam-I owe you one.” Ian paused, calculating how much time he’d need.

“Listen, the window opens at six, right’? Well, I probably won’t be back until four or so to do the voice-over, wrap-up, and sign-off. Is that still okay by you?”

Knowles’s fight eyebrow rose.

“Oh… it’s one of those kind of lunch dates.”

Ian was surprised to find himself embarrassed. If any other woman but Emily were involved, he’d simply have grinned and let Knowles’s lurid imagination run wild. Hell, if he were still back in the States, Knowles wouldn’t have been that far off base. But something about Emily was different. Something about tier summoned up all the old-fashioned protective instincts so scorned by ardent feminists.

Ian shook his head irritably.

“Sony to disappoint you, Sam. We don’t have anything really sordid on tap for today. Just lunch and a quick jaunt up the Table Mountain cableway for the view. ”

“Sounds great.” Knowles must have heard the bite in his voice because he changed the subject fast.

“You still want me to keep that slow pan across the cabinet while Haymans’s making his statement?”

“Yeah.” Ian nodded toward the dais behind the speaker’s podium. Technicians were still swarming around the podium itself, jostling each other as they unclipped microphones and coiled lengths of tangled wiring.

“I want that shot in because one of his cabinet ministers was missing. Somebody important, too. Somebody who obviously isn’t much interested in showing a united front on this talks thing.”

Knowles smiled broadly.

“Let me guess. That well-known friend of the international press and all-around humanitarian, the minister of law and order. Am I right?”

“You get an A for today, Sam.” Ian matched his smile.

“Can you dig up some good, juicy file footage of Vorster for me? Something suitably ominous. You know, shots of him glowering in the back of a long black limousine. Or surrounded by armed security troops. That kind of stuff.”

He waited while Knowles jotted down a quick note and went on, “Then we can weave those pictures in at the wrapupKnowles finished the sentence for him.

“Thus leaving our viewers with the unpleasant, but real, impression that these talks aren’t necessarily going to lead straight to the promised land of peace. ”

“Right again.” Ian clapped his cameraman on the, shoulder.

“Keep this up and I’ll think you’re after my job.”

Knowles made a face.

“No thanks. You’re the on-air ‘talent.” I prefer being an unknown gofer. You can keep all the headaches of dealing with the network brass for yourself. All I ask is the chance to shoot some interesting film without too much interference. ”

Ian shrugged and turned to leave.

“You may get your wish. I’ve got a feeling that this country’s finally coming out of hibernation. ”

KEPPEL
HOUSE
,
CAPE
TOWN

Every table in the small dining room was occupied-each fit by a single, flickering candle. Voices rose and fell around the darkened room, the harsh, clipped accents of Afrikaans mingling with half a dozen variants of English. White-coated, dark-skinned waiters bustled through the crowd, hands full of trays loaded down with steaming platters of fresh seafood or beef. Mouth-watering aromas rose from every platter, making it easy to understand why Keppel House never lacked customers.

But Ian Sheffield had scarcely tasted the food he’d eaten or the wine he’d sipped. He didn’t even notice the other diners filling the room.

Instead, his eyes were firmly fixed on the

woman seated directly across the table. He was sure that he’d never seen anyone so beautiful.

Emily van der Heijden looked up from her wineglass and smiled at him-a smile that stretched all the way from her wide, generous mouth to her bright blue eyes. She set her glass down and delicately brushed a strand of shoulder-length, sun-brightened auburn hair back from her face.

“You are staring again, Ian. Are my table manners really so horrible?”

Her eyes twinkled mischievously, taking the sting out of her words.

He laughed.

“You know they’re perfect. You ought to emigrate to the UK.

I bet you’d have no trouble finding a teaching job at some private school for wealthy young ladies. ”

“How ghastly!” Emily wrinkled her nose in mock disgust. It was just barely too long for her face, adding the touch of imperfection needed to make her beauty human.

“How could I think of abandoning my fine career here in order to teach spoiled young English girls which fork to use?”

Ian sensed the faint trace of bitterness in her voice and mentally kicked himself. He should have known better than to let the conversation wander anywhere near the working world. It wasn’t something she enjoyed talking or thinking about.

Emily was rare among Afrikaner women. Born into an old line established

Transvaal family, she should have grown up ready to take her place as a dutiful, compliant housewife. That hadn’t happened, Even as a little girl, Emily had known that she would rather write than cook, and that she preferred politics to sewing. Her police official father, widowed at an early age, had found it impossible to instill more “womanly” interests.

So, instead of marrying as her father wished, she’d stayed in school and earned a journalism degree. And four years of -life on the University of

Witwatersrand’s freethinking campus had pulled her even further away from her father’s hard-core pro-apartheid views. Politics became something else for them to fight about.

Degree in hand, she’d gone looking for a job. But once outside the sheltered confines of the academic world, she’d learned the hard way that most South African employers still felt women should work only at home or in the typing pool.

Unable to find a newspaper that would hire her and unwilling to admit defeat to her father, she’d been forced to sign on with one of Cape

Town’s English-speaking law firms-as a secretary. The job paid her rent and gave her a chance to practice her English, and she hated every minute of it.

Emily saw Ian’s face fall and reached out, gently stroking his hand.

“You mustn’t mind my moods, Ian. I warned you about them, didn’t P They are my curse.”

She smiled again.

“There! You see! I am happy again. As I always am when you are near.”

Ian fought to hide a smile of his own. Somehow Emily could get away with romantic cliche ds that would have made any other woman he’d ever known burst out laughing.

“I thought for sure that you would not come today when I heard the news of the PI-esident’s press conference. How could you stand to leave such an exciting story as this?” Emily’s eyes were alight with excitement. She tended to look at his career with an odd mix of idealistic innocence and muted envy.

“Easily. I wouldn’t dream of abandoning lunch with a beautiful, intoxicating woman like yourself.”

She slapped his hand lightly.

“What nonsense! You are such a liar.

“Really, Ian, don’t you think the news is wonderful? Haymans and the others may finally be coming to their senses. Surely even the verkramptes can see the need for reform?” Emily used the Afrikaans word meaning “reactionaries.”

Ian shrugged.

“Maybe. I’ll believe the millennium’s arrived when I see people like that guy Vorster or those
AWB
fanatics shedding real tears over Steve Biko’s grave. Until then it’s all just PR ”

Emily nodded somberly.

“I suppose you are right. Words must be backed by deeds to become real.” She shook her

head impatiently.

“And meanwhile what are we doing? Sitting here wasting a beautiful day with all this talk of politicians. Surely that is foolishness!”

Ian smiled at her, turned, and signaled for the check.

Emily’s tiny, two-room flat occupied half the top floor of a whitewashed brick building just around the corner. In the year she’d lived there, she’d already made the flat distinctively her own. Bright wildflowers in scattered vases matched framed prints showing the rolling, open grasslands near her ancestral home in the northern Transvaal. An inexpensive personal computer occupied one corner of a handcrafted teak desk made for her great-grandfather more than a century before.

Ian sat restlessly on a small sofa, waiting as Emily rummaged through her closets looking for a coat to wear. He checked his watch and wondered again if this trip up the cableway was such a good idea. He was due back in the studio by four, and time was running out fast.

He resisted the temptation to get up and pace. Sam Knowles was going to be plenty pissed off if he missed his self-appointed deadline…. “Could you come here for a moment? I want your opinion on how I look in this.” Emily’s clear, happy voice broke in on his thoughts.

Ian swallowed a mild curse and rose awkwardly to his feet. God, they were already running late. Was she going to Put on a fashion show before going out in public?