Vortex (8 page)

He walked to the open bedroom doorway and stopped dead.

Emily hadn’t been putting a coat on-she’d been taking clothes off. She stood near the bed, clad only in a delicate lace bra and panties. Slowly, provocatively, she swiveled to face him, her arms held out.

“Well, what do you think?”

Ian felt a slow, lazy grin spread across his face as he stepped forward and took her in his arms. Her soft, full breasts pressed against his chest.

“I think that we aren’t going to make it to the mountain today.

”

She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.

“Oh, good. I hoped you would say that.”

He sank back, pulling her gently onto the bed.

“You know,” he said teasingly, “for a good Afrikaner girl, you’re becoming incredibly forward. I must be corrupting you. ”

Emily shook her head slightly and Ian felt his skin tingle as her hair brushed against his face.

“That isn’t true, my darling. I am what I have really always been. Here in Cape Town I can be free, more my true self.”

He heard the small sadness in her words as she continued, “It is only when I am at home that I must act as nothing more than my father’s daughter.”

Ian rolled over, carrying her with him, still locked in his arms. He looked down into her shining, deep blue eyes.

“Then I’m very glad that you’re here with me instead.”

She arched her back and kissed him again, more fiercely this time.

Neither felt any further need to speak.

JUNE
3-
NYANGA
BLACK
TOWNSHIP
,
NEAR
CAPE
TOWN
,
SOUTH
AFRICA

Andrew Sebe stood quietly in line among his restless, uneasy neighbors, waiting for his turn to pass through the roadblock ahead. He felt his legs starting to tremble and fought for control. He couldn’t afford to show fear. Policemen could smell fear.

The line inched forward as a few more people were waved past the pair of open-topped Hippo armored personnel carriers blocking the road. Squads of policemen lounged to either side of the Hippos, eyes watchful beneath peaked caps. Some carried tear gas guns, others fondled long-handled whips, and several cradled shotguns. Helmeted crewmen stood ready behind water cannon mounted on the wheeled APCs.

Hundreds of men and women, a few in wrinkled suits or dresses, others in faded and stained coveralls, jammed the narrow streets running between

Nyanga Township’s ramshackle houses. All had missed their morning buses to Cape Town while policemen at the roadblock painstakingly checked identity cards and work permits. Now they were late for work and many would find their meager pay docked by

inconvenienced and irate employers. But they were all careful to conceal their anger. No matter which way the winds of reform blew in Pretoria and

Cape Town, the police still dealt harshly with suspected troublemakers.

The line inched forward again.

“You! Come here. ” One of the officers checking papers waved Andrew Sebe over.

Heart thudding, Sebe shuffled forward and handed the man his well-thumbed passbook and the forged work authorization he’d kept hidden for just this occasion.

He heard pages turning as the policeman flicked through his documents.

“You’re going to the du Plessis winery? Up in the Hex Rivierberge?”

“Yes, baas.” Sebe kept his eyes fixed on the ground and forced himself to speak in the respectful, almost worshipful tone he’d always despised.

“It’s past the harvest season. Why do they want you?”

Despite the cold early-morning air, Sebe felt sweat starting to soak his shirt. Oh, God. Could they know what he really was? He risked a quick glance at his interrogator and began to relax. The man didn’t seem suspicious, just curious.

“I don’t know for sure, baas. The Labour Exchange people just said they wanted a digger, that’s all.”

The policeman nodded abruptly and tossed his papers back.

“Right. Then you’d better get on your way, hadn’t you?”

Sebe folded his documents carefully and walked on, his mumbled thanks unheard as a South African Airways jumbo jet thundered low overhead on final approach to the airport barely a mile away.

The policeman watched through narrowed eyes as the young black man he’d questioned joined the other workers waiting at the bus stop. He left the roadblock and leaned in through the window of his unmarked car, reaching for the cellular phone hooked to its dashboard. With his eyes still fixed on Sebe, he dialed the special number he’d been given at a briefing the night before.

It was answered on the first ring.

“Yes?”

Something about the soft, urbane voice on the other end made the policeman uneasy. These cloak-and-dagger boys managed to make even the simplest words sound menacing. He raced through his report, eager to get off the line.

“This is Kriel front the Cape Town office. We’ve spotted one of those people on your list. Andrew Sebe, number fifteen. He’s just gone through our roadblock.”

“Did you give him any trouble?”

“No, Director. Your instructions were quite clear.”

“Good. Keep it that way. We’ll deal with this man ourselves, understood?”

“Yes, sir. ”

In Pretoria one thousand miles to the north and east, Erik Muller hung up and sat slowly back in his chair, an ugly, thin-lipped smile on his handsome face. The first
ANC
operatives earmarked for Broken Covenant were on the move.

JUNE
8-
UMKHONTO
WT
SIZWE
HEADQUARTERS
,
LUSAKA
,
ZAMBIA

Col. Sese Luthuli stared out his office window, looking down at the busy streets of Lusaka. Minibuses, taxis, and bicycles competed for road space with thousands of milling pedestrians-street vendors, midday shoppers, and petty bureaucrats sauntering slowly back to work. All gave a wide berth to the patrols of camouflage-clad soldiers stationed along the length of

Independence Avenue, center of Zambia’s government offices and foreign embassies.

Umkhonto we Sizwe’s central headquarters also occupied one of the weathered concrete buildings lining Independence Avenue. Strong detachments of Zambian troops and armed
ANC
guerrillas guarded all entrances to the building, determined to prevent any repetition of the

Gawamba fiasco.

Luthuli scowled at the view. Though more than six hundred miles from

South Africa’s nearest border, Zambia was the closest black African nation willing to openly house the ANC’s ten-thousand-man-strong guerrilla force. Despite the ANC’s

reappearance as a legal force inside South Africa and the temporary cease-fire, the other front line states were still too cowed by Pretoria’s paratroops, artillery, and Mirage jet fighters to offer meaningful help. And without their aid, every
ANC
operation aimed at South Africa faced crippling logistical obstacles.

He heard a throat being cleared behind his back. His guest must be growing impatient.

“You know why I’m here, Comrade Luthuli, don’t you?”

Luthuli turned away from the window to face the squat, balding white man seated on the other side of his desk, Taffy Collins, a fellow Party member and one of the ANC’s chief military strategists, had been his mentor for years. Whoever had picked him as the bearer of bad tidings had made a brilliant tactical move.

Luthuli pulled his chair back and sat down.

“We’ve known each other too long to play guessing games, Taffy. Say what you’ve been ordered to say. ”

“All right.” Collins nodded abruptly.

“The Executive Council has decided to accept Haymans’s offers at face value. The negotiations will continue.”

Luthuh gritted his teeth.

“Have our leaders gone mad? These socalled talks are nothing more than a sham, a facade to hide Pretoria’s crimes. ”

Collins held up a single plump hand.

“I agree, Sese. And so do many of the

Council members.”

“Then why agree to this… ”

“Idiocy?” Collins smiled thinly.

“Because we have no other realistic choice. For once those fat Boer bastards have behaved very cleverly indeed.

If we spurn this renewed overture, many around the world will blame us for the continuing violence.

“Just as important, our ‘steadfast’ hosts here in Lusaka have made it clear that they want these peace talks to go ahead. If we disappoint them, they’ll disappoint us-by blocking arms shipments, food, medicine, and all the other supplies we desperately need.”

“I see,” Luthuli said flatly.

“So we’re being blackmailed into throwing away our years of armed struggle. The Boers can continue to kill us while whispering sweet nothings to our negotiators.”

“Not a bit of it, comrade.” Collins spread his hands wide.

“What do you really think will come of all this jabbering over a fancy round table?”

Collins laughed harshly, answering his own question.

“Nothing! The hard-line Afrikaners will never willingly agree to meet our fundamental demands: open voting, redistribution of South Africa’s wealth, and guarantees that the people will own all the means of production.”

Collins leaned forward and tapped Luthuli’s desk with a finger.

“Mark my words, Sese. In three months’ time these ridiculous talks won’t even be a bad memory. The weak kneed cowards in our own ranks will be discredited, and we can get back to the business of bringing Pretoria to its knees. ”

Luthuli sat rigid for a moment, thinking over what Collins had said. The man was right, as always, but “What about Broken Covenant?”

“You’ve set it in motion, am I right?”

Luthuli nodded.

“A week ago. The orders are being passed south through our courier chain right now.”

Collins shook his head.

“Then you’ll have to abort. Pull our people back into cover while you still can.”

“It will be difficult. Some have already left for the rendezvous point. ”

“Sese, I don’t care how difficult it is. Broken Covenant must be called off.” The
ANC
strategist sounded faintly exasperated now.

“At a time when the Afrikaners seem outwardly reasonable, carrying out such an operation would be a diplomatic disaster we can’t afford! Do you understand that?”

Luthuli nodded sharply, angry at being talked to as if he were a wayward child.

“Good.” Collins softened his tone.

“So we’ll sit quietly for now. And in six months, you’ll get another chance to make those slave-owning bastards pay, right?”

“As you say.” Luthuli felt his anger draining away as he reached for the phone. Cosate’s revenge would be postponed, not abandoned.

JUNE
I
O-GAZANKULU
PRIMARY
SCHOOL
,
SOWETO

TOWNSHIP
,
SOUTH
AFRICA

Nearly fifty small children crammed the classroom. A few sat in rickety wooden desks, but most squatted on the cracked linoleum floor or jostled for space against the school’s cement-block walls. Despite the crowding, they listened quietly to their teacher as he ran through the alphabet again. Most of the children knew that they were getting the only education they’d ever be allowed by government policy and economic necessity. And they were determined to learn as much as possible before venturing out into the streets in a futile search for work.

Nthato Mbeki turned from the blackboard and wiped his hands on a rag. He avoided the eager eyes of his students. They wanted far more than he could give them in this tumbledown wreck of a school. He didn’t have the resources to teach them even the most basic skills-reading, writing, and a little arithmetic-let alone anything more complicated. And that was exactly what South Africa’s rulers desired. From Pretoria’s perspective, continued white rule depended largely on keeping the nation’s black majority unskilled, ignorant, and properly servile.

Mbeki’s hands tightened around the chalk-smeared rag, crushing out a fine white powder before he dropped it onto his desk. He swallowed hard, trying not to let the children see his anger. It would only frighten them.

His hatred of apartheid and its creators grew fiercer with every passing day. Only his secret work as an
ANC
courier let him fight the monstrous injustices he saw all around. Lately even that had begun to seem too passive. After all, what was he really to the ANC? Nothing more than a link in a long, thin chain, a single neuron in a network stretching back to

Lusaka. No one of consequence. He thought again of asking his controller for permission to play a more active part in the struggle.

Mbeki’s Japanese wristwatch beeped, signaling the end of another sc hot-.)l day. He looked at the sea of eager, innocent faces around him and nodded.

“Class dismissed. But don’t forget to review your primers before tomorrow. I shall expect you to have completed pages four through six for our next lesson. ”

He sat down at his desk as the children filed out, all quiet broken by their high-pitched, excited voices.

“Dr. Mbeki?”

He glanced up at the school secretary, glad to have his increasingly bleak thoughts interrupted.

“Yes?”

“You have a phone call, Doctor. From your aunt.”

Mbeki felt his depression lifting. He had work to do.

DIRECTORATE
OF
MILITARY
INTELLIGENCE
,
PRETORIA

Erik Muller stared at the watercolor landscape on his office wall without seeing it, his mind fixed on the surveillance van parked near Soweto’s

Gazankulu Primary School. He gently stroked his chin, frowning as his fingers rasped across whiskers that had grown since his morning shave.

“Repeat the message Mbeki just received.”

Field Agent Paul Reynders had been locked away inside the windowless, almost airless van for nearly eight hours. Eight hours spent in what was essentially an unheated metal box jammed full of sophisticated electronic gear-voice-activated recorders hooked into phone taps and bugs, and video monitors connected to hidden cameras trained on the school and its surroundings. His fatigue could plainly be heard in the leaden, listless voice that poured out of the speakerphone.