Unofficial and Deniable

by John Gordon Davis

  ‘I thought,’ Josephine grinned, ‘that you didn’t want me to write this goddam book?’

  ‘I goddam don’t – but if you do I want to see the truth, not fiction as sanctified by the goddam ANC!’

  The ANC had loudly proclaimed, like P.W. Botha, Winnie Mandela et al, that none of their members would be applying for amnesty. ‘Should Churchill,’ the ANC’s legal adviser said, ‘have asked for amnesty at the end of World War II? Should Roosevelt? Should Moses?’

  ‘Quite right!’ Josephine said emphatically. ‘How can you equate the horrific violence of the apartheid tyrant with the struggle by the oppressed to resist apartheid?’

  ‘Resist?’ Harker echoed. ‘Is the horrific necklacing of over five hundred blacks on suspicion of not supporting the ANC “resisting” apartheid? Is the torture of their own soldiers in the Angolan training camps “resisting” – starving them, torturing them with red ants and stinging nettles and floggings and other sophisticated agonies. And all the executions by firing-squad without trial on mere suspicion? And the widespread raping of their own female recruits – is rape galore “resisting”? And what about all the violence inflicted on their own people for breaking boycotts – forcing women and old men to eat soap and drink detergent while beating them senseless, is that “resisting”? And what about the reign of terror by the ANC’s so-called Self Defence Units, the bands of thugs armed with AK47s and spears and axes terrorizing and murdering anybody they suspect of not being an ANC supporter? Call that “resisting”?’ Harker jabbed a finger. ‘Make goddam sure you put all that stuff about your Holier-than-Thou ANC in your book. That’s what we want the ANC leadership to confess to, tell us who was responsible for allowing such terrible things to happen, and we need to be sure that such people never hold public office in the new South Africa. And the victims have a right to be compensated – that is the purpose of the law creating the Truth Commission. But no, the ANC considers itself above the law – even though it was the ANC itself which insisted on creating the Truth Commission! This is typical African political thinking!’

  But the ANC did not get away with it – Archbishop Desmond Tutu threatened to resign from the Truth Commission if the ANC persisted in its lopsided view of the law and ‘granted itself amnesty’, until President Nelson Mandela had to tell his party to change their blundering tune. Then the ANC put the word out that any member wishing to claim amnesty had to have his statement checked by the party.

  ‘In case they tell too much truth?’ Harker snorted. ‘The ANC only wants the Truth Commission to hear the truth the ANC approves of – history as sanctified by them!’

  The Truth Commission declared itself astounded. And when the time came for cross-examination the ANC delegation was taken offguard by the commissioners’ hard-nosed questions about the murder of black policemen, necklacing, slogans inciting people to kill, the violence of the ANC’s Self Defence Units, the torture and executions in ANC military camps, to the point where Deputy President Mbeki finally admitted that the ANC’s violations of human rights were wrong; yes it was ‘a mistake’ to issue firearms to the rabble of the Self Defence Units; yes, their military tribunals had ‘serious flaws’; yes, confessions were extracted under torture; yes, cadres were tried and executed without legal representation. They agreed that they should have condemned the dreadful necklace murders, and that the slogan ‘Kill the Boers, Kill the Farmer’ was a vicious, indiscriminate incitement to murder which could not qualify as a ‘political statement’ and therefore qualify for amnesty – and that the ANC’s death-squad activities against Inkatha members were wrong.

  ‘At fucking last!’ Harker said. ‘But it’s just an exercise in political damage control after stupidly proclaiming itself above the law. And they never told us who did what, who authorized which atrocity. For example, who authorized the bombing of those three Wimpy Bars? And Magoo’s Bar – where those three young women died. The ANC delegation is not telling. So no amnesty can be claimed, therefore the victims of those bombs can sue the ANC to Kingdom Come, for millions – I wonder if the ANC has thought about that little problem?’

  ‘You’re very uptight about this Truth Commission, aren’t you, darling?’ Josephine said. ‘You’re very antagonistic toward the ANC. Why?’

  ‘The ANC is in unabashed alliance with the South African Communist Party. The communists intend to ride to power on the coat-tails of the ANC. And communism has fucked up the world. For seventy terrible years communism has murdered millions and millions of people, deprived millions and millions of their freedom, thrown them into dreadful prisons, reduced them to poverty – communism has utterly ruined the whole of Africa, most of Asia and all of Eastern Europe. And yet the ANC still makes bedfellows with the murderous bastards! How can anyone not be antagonistic to double-speak like that?’ He jabbed a finger. ‘Make sure you put that in your book!’

  Then came ‘The Winnie Mandela Hearing’ or, as it was officially known, ‘A Human Rights Violation Hearing into the Activities of the Mandela United Football Club’. Like the Big Crocodile, P.W. Botha, Winnie had refused to apply for amnesty for anything so she had been subpoenaed by the Truth Commission to answer allegations made against her. Two hundred journalists from sixteen countries were crammed into the seedy hall set aside for her hearing, twenty foreign television crews, stringers for over a hundred news agencies, all come to see the burning of a martyr on one hand, or a Lady Macbeth on the other. Winnie was the queen of all those millions of black South Africans for whom the ANC had failed miserably to deliver; to Afro-Americans she was the incarnation of solidarity with the mother-continent and the mystique of being black. She was a siren, Caesar’s divorced wife, a dangerous warlord, seething with conspiracy, a ruthless menace to South Africa’s new democracy. As Winnie Mandela arrived at the hearing, a daunting, imperious figure surrounded by her bodyguards carrying her cooler-box of refreshments, a bevy of women chanted:

  ‘Winnie had a mandate from us to kill!’

  Winnie Mandela was linked to numerous human rights abuses by witnesses but the Truth Commission concentrated on only three murders. For two weeks the world saw her former ‘football team’ members, bosom friends and admirers testify to her crimes, watched Winnie pooh-pooh, scorn and deride her accusers, denouncing their evidence as ‘ludicrous’ and ‘ridiculous’. But the evidence was overwhelming that she ordered her so-called football team, which terrorized Soweto in her name, to kidnap little Stompie Seipei from the Methodist manse where he had fled to escape her abuses, overwhelming that she had him fatally beaten, that he was stabbed twice before she ordered his throat cut and his body dumped in the veldt. The evidence was irresistible that the next day she had her football team shoot dead Dr Asvat, her personal physician, because he was a witness to Stompei’s brutalized condition; the evidence was incontrovertible that she personally, with her henchmen, kidnapped young Lolo Sono, another youthful follower who had fallen from favour, who was never seen again. The former friends, bodyguards and football team members who testified against her admitted they were still in thrall to her, still adored her although they feared her. The proof of her turpitude was overwhelming yet at the end Archbishop Tutu addressed the unrepentant woman pleadingly.

  ‘I acknowledge Winnie Mandela’s role in the history of our struggle. And yet something went horribly, badly wrong … Many, many love you. Many, many say you should be First Lady of the country. I speak to you as someone who loves you deeply … I want you to stand up and say: “There are things that went wrong …” If you were able to bring yourself to say “I am sorry, I am sorry for my part in what went wrong …” I beg you. I beg you please … You are a great person … your greatness would be enhanced if you were to say: “I’m sorry, things went wrong, forgive me”.’

  The good archbishop’s plea to one of the toughest women in the world hung in the air; then Winnie Mandela said, with élan: ‘It is true: things went horribly wrong and we were aware that there were factors that led to that. For that I am deeply
sorry.’

  ‘Bullshit!’ Harker cried. ‘She’s not sorry, she did it for the television cameras! Archbishop Tutu has just thrown a bucket of whitewash over her which purportedly absolves her sufficiently to enable her to pursue her terrifying ambition of becoming president one day – and when that happens God help South Africa!’

  Josephine frowned. ‘Jack,’ she said, ‘I don’t understand. What’s worrying you so much about this Truth Commission?’

  There was plenty to worry about. For one thing, the army was now run by the ANC. If all the old files had not been destroyed, how long would it be before somebody discovered a file pertaining to Major Jack Harker and his Harvest House operation? And collective confessions had been ruled out so that meant the Chairman, General Tanner, would have to front up himself if he wanted amnesty – how much would he reveal under cross-examination? And P.W. Botha himself; the emperor of all securocrats: he had dodged the Truth Commission’s first subpoena on the grounds of ill health, the second on a technicality, the third he had ignored; now he had been summonsed to appear in court on a criminal charge for this defiance. Sooner or later he was going to be forced to talk to escape going to jail and then anything could happen.

  ‘Yes, of course it’s worrying,’ Luke Mahoney said on the telephone. ‘And the sooner you get to sea the better. When can you do that?’

  ‘In a couple of days. I’ve just finished rebuilding the engine.’

  ‘Well, get going. And you still haven’t seen anything of your former colleagues?’

  But then the very next evening, when Harker was having his usual jog along the waterfront, a stranger fell in beside him and said in an American accent, ‘Just keep going, Major.’

  Harker stopped, his fists bunched. ‘Who the hell are you?’

  ‘I said keep going.’

  ‘And I said who the hell are you?’

  ‘I am a friend of your friends in the former CCB. They would like to have a chat with you.’

  Harker stared. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about. And now, if you’ll excuse me.’ He turned and began to cross the road. A car suddenly appeared from behind him and swung across to block him. Harker whirled around, fists clenched; he began to run and the American hit him from behind. Harker saw stars as he sprawled on to the asphalt. Then all he knew was the bastard’s foot thudding into his ribs, and he grabbed it, and slung him. The man went reeling across the sidewalk. He crashed on to the sea parapet. Harker scrambled up furiously, ran at him and kicked. He heard the man’s arm snap, then he saw Derek Clements getting out of the car. Harker bounded at him, grabbed him by the shirt, rolled back on to his spine, got his foot in his guts and kicked. Clements went flying through the air. Harker jumped up frantically. Clements was on his knees, pulling a knife from his pocket. Harker leapt at him, seized his wrist and bent it backwards. The knife clattered into the gutter. Harker snatched it up and kneed Clements savagely on the side of the head. Clements went down and Harker dropped his knee into his back, one hand twisting Clements’ hair, the other pressing the knife against his neck.

  ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Harker hissed. The American was picking himself up off the pavement, his broken arm distorted. ‘Tell him to cool it or your knife goes through your jugular.’

  Derek Clements rasped: ‘Cool it, Mac’

  ‘Tell him to fuck off,’ Harker hissed.

  ‘Fuck off, Mac.’

  The American turned and limped away, nursing his injury. Harker held the knife at Clements’ throat and frisked him for tape-recorders. He found one strapped to his hip, he wrenched it off, grabbed Clements’ hair again and twisted it. He rammed the man’s face hard against the asphalt. ‘So what’s your problem, asshole? What the hell are you doing here?’

  ‘The Director sent me,’ Clements gasped.

  ‘Dupont is nobody’s director any more! So what does he want?’

  Clements swallowed. ‘Some cops from Platplaas are singing like canaries to the Truth Commission.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘They’re admitting they were hit-men – and members of CRITT. That they often collaborated with Military Intelligence and the CCB to make their hits.’

  ‘So, what does Dupont want me to do, publish a sonnet about it?’

  ‘He wants to be sure you don’t confess to the Truth Commission about the Long Island operation.’

  ‘So you were sent here to kill me!’

  ‘I was sent to warn you.’

  ‘Bullshit – you pulled out this knife! So why shouldn’t I kill you?’ He jabbed the knife harder against Clements’ throat and twisted his hair savagely.

  Clements jerked, trying to look up at Harker out of the corner of his eye. ‘Because I’m just the messenger. And it’s not your style to kill an old comrade in cold blood.’

  ‘I’m in fucking hot blood, comrade!’ Harker jerked the knife again and Clements flinched.

  ‘And because you know you’ll never get away with it, sir. You’re on an island. And you don’t want another murder on your hands.’

  ‘I’ll be killing you in self-defence!’

  Clements rasped: ‘That means explaining to the police. You don’t want to go anywhere near any policemen.’

  ‘And nor do you, comrade!’

  ‘Exactly, sir. We’re really looking for Ferdi Spicer.’

  ‘And I look like Ferdi?’

  ‘I mean we believe he may be hiding somewhere in the Bahamas.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’

  ‘Because Looksmart Kumalo’s here. We got a tip-off that he arrived here last month. Have you seen him?’

  ‘So when did you get here?’

  ‘This afternoon.’

  ‘No, I haven’t seen Looksmart Kumalo and I don’t fucking want to! Why do you think I might have seen the bastard?’

  ‘Because we don’t believe he’s here for his health. He’s either looking for Ferdi or for you. And Josephine.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because he wants to offer you – or one of you – a deal, to testify for him in his civil action against us for damages. And for the DA when he prosecutes us.’

  Harker jabbed the knife harder against Clements’ neck. ‘So Dupont sent you to kill me to make sure I don’t cooperate, huh?’

  Clements flinched. ‘No, sir, to warn you.’

  ‘That I’m dead meat if I either apply to the Truth Commission for amnesty or make a deal with Looksmart and the DA! And what about Josephine?’

  Clements said, ‘Head office is only worried that she’ll find out about us from you and Looksmart and publish damaging material, sir.’

  ‘Jesus …’Harker jabbed the knife harder. ‘I don’t believe you. Not even Dupont is so stupid as to think that I would publish a book that lands me in jail for life! Dupont sent you here to kill me, didn’t he?’

  ‘No, sir, only to intimidate you.’

  ‘And to kill Josephine!’

  ‘No, sir.’ Clements looked at Harker out of the corner of his eye. He rasped: ‘You need me. To find Looksmart Kumalo and Ferdi, and get rid of both of them. For your sake and ours. We’re really on the same side, sir. It’s in all our interests that Looksmart and Ferdi keep their big mouths shut.’ He paused, gasping, then went on: ‘So just tell us where Looksmart’s staying, and we’ll take care of the rest. He’ll never testify against any of us, ever.’

  Harker glared at the man. And oh God, wouldn’t it be wonderful if Looksmart disappeared?

  Clements continued: ‘We know that you know where he is, sir, which hotel he’s staying at, because he came to see you aboard your yacht recently. We’ve made a few enquiries, sir – a black man was seen drinking aboard your boat.’

  ‘The Bahamas is full of black men!’

  ‘But very few of them have had their right forearm amputated. All you’ve got to do is tell us where he’s staying, sir. And you’ll never have to worry about him again. No legal action for damages, no prosecution, no Truth Commission, no nothing. The same applies t
o Ferdi.’ He paused, then added: ‘We’ll find Looksmart, sir, with or without your cooperation, it’ll just take a bit longer without.’

  Harker crouched over Clements, the knife at his neck; he hesitated, then made a decision. ‘Get this straight: I haven’t seen or spoken to anybody called Looksmart Kumalo. Nor Ferdi Spicer. Stay out of my life, and I’ll stay out of yours. And tell Felix fucking Dupont this, verbatim: “I have no earthly reason to go to this so-called Truth Commission because I have never, in my entire military career, done anything criminal to warrant doing so”.’ He glared. ‘Reassure him. And yourself. Got that?’

  Clements flinched at the knife. ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Stay there.’ Harker slowly stood up. He put his foot on Clements’ neck, reached down, picked up the tape-recorder and stuffed it in his pocket. ‘Where’re your car keys?’

  ‘In the ignition.’

  ‘Get up,’ Harker rasped.

  Clements clambered to his feet.

  Harker pressed the knife in his ribs. ‘Get up on the parapet.’

  Clements climbed up on to the low sea wall.

  ‘Have a nice swim,’ Harker said, and shoved him. Clements fell six feet into the sea.

  Harker turned, ran to the car and scrambled in. He twisted the ignition, let out the clutch and roared off, the wheels spinning.

  37

  Harker abandoned the car in a side road. He ran into the marina complex, down the jetty, clambered into his dinghy, wrenched the outboard motor to life and swept out of the marina’s entrance into the channel.

  He looked back. Nobody seemed to be chasing him. He, opened the throttle and sped towards his yacht.

  Lights were shining in the porthole of the master-cabin’s bathroom. He churned up to the stern and grabbed the swimming platform. He cut the engine and grabbed the davit’s cables. He hooked them on to the dinghy’s cradle-wires, scrambled up the swimming ladder on to the transom, hit the button of the davit winch. There was a whirring noise, and the dinghy began to lift out of the water.