“A new telex from Sweden,” he said. “It’s not Victor Mabasha, but a guy called Sikosi Tsiki. The assassination attempt will probably take place tomorrow.”
“Goddammit!” said Borstlap.
They agreed to meet at Scheepers’ office without delay.
Judith could see her husband was scared.
“What’s happened?” she asked again.
“The worst that could possibly happen,” he replied.
Then he went out into the darkness.
It was nineteen minutes past midnight.
Chapter Thirty-five
Friday, June 12, was a clear but somewhat cool day in Cape Town. In the morning a bank of fog had drifted into Three Anchor Bay from the sea, but it had dispersed by now. The cold season was approaching in the Southern Hemisphere. You could already see lots of Africans on their way to work, dressed in woollen hats and thick jackets.
Nelson Mandela had arrived in Cape Town the previous evening. When he woke up at dawn, he thought about the coming day. It was a custom he had grown used to during the many years he spent as a prisoner on Robben Island. He lapsed into thoughtful silence. So many memories, so many bitter moments, but such a great triumph in the end.
He was an old man now, more than seventy years old. His time was limited: he was no different from anybody else and would not live forever. But he ought to live a few more years at least. Together with President de Klerk, he had to steer his country along the difficult, painful, but also wonderful path that would eventually lead to South Africa ridding itself of the apartheid system forever. The last fortress of colonialism on the black continent would finally fall. Once they had achieved that goal, they could withdraw, even die if need be. But he still had a great lust for life. He wanted to see it all through, and enjoy the sight of the black population liberating itself from the many hundreds of years of subjugation and humiliation. It would be a difficult path, he was aware of that. The roots of oppression ran deep into the African soul.
Nelson Mandela realized he would be elected the first black president of South Africa. That was not something he was striving to achieve. But he would have no grounds for declining.
It is a long way, he thought to himself. A long way to go for a man who has spent almost half his adult life in captivity.
He smiled to himself at the thought. But then he grew serious again. He thought about what de Klerk told him when they last met, a week ago. A group of highly placed boere had formed a conspiracy to kill him in order to create chaos and drive the country to the brink of civil war.
Could that really be possible, he wondered. He knew there were fanatical boere. People who hated all blacks, regarded them as animals without souls. But did they really think they could prevent what was happening in the country by means of some desperate conspiracy? Could they really be so blinded by their hatred-or was it fear, perhaps-that they thought it was possible to return to the old South Africa? Could they not see they were a dwindling minority? Admittedly with widespread influence still. But even so? Were they really prepared to sacrifice the future on the altar of a bloodbath?
Nelson Mandela shook his head. He had difficulty in believing that was true. De Klerk must have been exaggerating or misreading the information he had received. He was not afraid of anything happening to him.
Sikosi Tsiki had also arrived in Cape Town on Thursday evening. But unlike Nelson Mandela, he arrived unnoticed. He came by bus from Johannesburg, and got off unobserved when they reached Cape Town, got his bag, and allowed himself to be swallowed up by the darkness.
He had spent the night in the open. He slept in a hidden corner of Trafalgar Park. At the break of dawn, roughly the same time as Nelson Mandela had woken up and stood at his window, he climbed up the hill as far as he needed to, and installed himself there. Everything was in accordance with the map and instructions he had received from Franz Malan at Hammanskraal. He was pleased that he was being backed by such good organizers. There was nobody around; the barren slope was not suitable for picnics. The path to the summit, 350 meters high, meandered upwards on the other side of the hill. He had never used an escape car. He always felt freer moving around on foot. When it was all over he would walk quickly down the hill and blend in with the furious crowds demanding revenge for the death of Nelson Mandela. Then he would leave Cape Town.
Now he knew it was Mandela he was going to kill. He realized that the day Franz Malan told him when and where the assassination was to take place. He had read in the papers that Nelson Mandela was due to speak at the Green Point Stadium in the afternoon of June 12. He contemplated the oval-shaped arena stretched out in front of him, some 700 meters away. The distance did not worry him. His telescopic sights and the long-range rifle satisfied his requirements of precision and power.
He had not reacted to the news that it was Nelson Mandela who was to be his target. His first thought was that he ought to have been able to work that out himself. If these crazy boere were to have the slightest chance of creating chaos in the country, they would have to get rid of Nelson Mandela first. As long as he continued to stand up and speak, the black masses would be able to keep their self-control. Without him everything was more uncertain. Mandela had no obvious successor.
As far as Sikosi Tsiki was personally concerned, it would be an opportunity to right a personal wrong. It was not actually Nelson Mandela who had kicked him out of the ANC. But as he was the overall leader, he could nevertheless be regarded as responsible.
Sikosi Tsiki looked at his watch.
All he had to do now was wait.
Georg Scheepers and Inspector Borstlap landed at Malan Airport on the outskirts of Cape Town just after ten on Friday morning. They were tired and washed out after being on the go since one in the morning, trying to find out about Sikosi Tsiki. Half-asleep detectives had been hauled out of bed, computer operators controlling various police registers had turned up in overcoats over pajamas, having been collected by patrol cars. But when it was time to go to the airport, the result was depressing. Sikosi Tsiki was not in any of the registers. Nor had anyone ever heard of him. He was totally unknown to everybody. By half past seven they were on their way to Jan Smuts airport, just outside Johannesburg. During the flight they had tried increasingly desperately to formulate a strategy. They could see their chances of stopping this man, Sikosi Tsiki, were extremely limited, practically nonexistent. They had no idea what he looked like, they knew absolutely nothing about him. As soon as they landed in Cape Town, Scheepers went off to call President de Klerk and tell him that if possible, he should try and persuade Nelson Mandela to cancel his appearance that afternoon. Only when he went through the roof and threatened to have every police officer at the airport arrested did he manage to convince them who he was, and they left him alone in a room. It took almost a quarter of an hour to contact President de Klerk. Georg Scheepers told him as briefly as possible what had happened during the night. But de Klerk had responded in ice-cold fashion to his suggestion, saying it would be pointless. Mandela would never agree to cancel his engagements. Besides, they had gotten the time and place wrong before. That could happen again. Mandela had agreed to increase his bodyguard. There was nothing more the president of the Republic could do at the moment. When the conversation was over, Scheepers again had the uncomfortable feeling that de Klerk was not prepared to go to any lengths to protect Nelson Mandela from assassination. Was that really possible, he wondered indignantly. Have I misunderstood his position? But he had no time to go on thinking about President de Klerk. He found Borstlap, who had meanwhile picked up the car the police had ordered from Johannesburg. They drove straight to Green Point Stadium, where Nelson Mandela was due to speak three hours later.
“Three hours is not long enough,” said Borstlap. “What do you think we’ll have time to do?”
“We have to succeed,” said Scheepers. “Its as simple as that. We have to stop the man.”
“Or stop Mandela,” said Borstlap. “I can see no other po
ssibility.”
“That’s just not possible,” said Scheepers. “He’ll be on the platform at two o’clock. De Klerk refused to plead with him.”
They showed their IDs and were allowed into the stadium. The podium was already in place. ANC flags and colorful streamers were everywhere. Musicians and dancers were getting ready to perform. Soon the audience would start arriving from the various townships of Langa, Guguletu, and Nyanga. They would be greeted by music. For them, the political meeting was also a festival.
Scheepers and Borstlap stood on the podium and looked around.
“There’s a crucial question we must face up to,” said Borstlap. “Are we dealing with a suicide pilot, or somebody who will try to get away afterwards?”
“The latter,” said Scheepers. “We can be sure about that. An assassin prepared to sacrifice his own life is dangerous because he’s unpredictable. But there’s also a big risk that he would miss the target. We are dealing with a man who is expecting to get away after shooting Mandela.”
“How do we know he’ll be using a gun?” asked Borstlap.
Scheepers stared at him with a mixture of surprise and irritation.
“What else could he do?” he asked. “A knife at close range would mean he’d be caught and lynched.”
Borstlap nodded gloomily.
“Then he has lots of possibilities,” he said. “Just look around. He could use the roof, or a deserted radio cabin. He could choose a spot outside the stadium.”
Borstlap pointed to Signal Hill, which loomed up half a kilometer away from the stadium.
“He has lots of possibilities,” he repeated. “Too many.”
“We have to stop him even so,” said Scheepers.
They could both see what this implied. They would be forced to choose, to take chances. It was simply impossible to investigate every possibility. Scheepers suspected they might have time to check about one in ten; Borstlap thought perhaps a few more.
“We have two hours and thirty-five minutes,” said Scheepers. “If Mandela is on time, that’s when he’ll start speaking. I assume an assassin won’t delay things any longer than necessary.”
Scheepers had requested ten experienced police officers to assist him. They were under the command of a young sergeant.
“Our assignment is very simple,” said Scheepers. “We have a couple of hours in which to turn this stadium inside out. We’re searching for an armed man. He’s black, and he’s dangerous. He must be put out of action. If possible we should take him alive. If there’s no other choice, he has to be killed.”
“Is that all?” asked the young sergeant in surprise when Scheepers had finished. “Don’t we have a description of the guy?”
“We don’t have time for arguing,” interrupted Borstlap. “Arrest anybody who seems to be acting at all strangely. Or is somewhere he shouldn’t be. We can find out if we have the right person or not later.”
“But there has to be some kind of description,” insisted the sergeant, and was supported by murmurs from his ten officers.
“There has to be nothing of the kind,” said Scheepers, noticing he was starting to get annoyed. “We’ll divide the stadium into sections and get started right away.”
They searched through cleaners’ closets and abandoned storerooms, crept around on the roof and out onto girders. Scheepers left the stadium, crossed over Western Boulevard, the broad High Level, and then started climbing up the hill. He stopped after about two hundred meters. It seemed to him the distance was far too great. A potential assassin couldn’t possibly pick a spot outside the stadium itself. He returned to Green Point soaked in sweat and short of breath.
Sikosi Tsiki had seen him from where he was hidden behind some bushes, and thought it was a security officer checking the area around the stadium. He was not surprised; he had expected something like this. What worried him was that they might use dogs to patrol the area. But the guy scrambling up the slope was on his own. Sikosi Tsiki crouched down low, a pistol with a silencer ready. When the man turned back without even going as far as the top, he knew nothing could go wrong. Nelson Mandela had just a couple of hours to live.
Crowds were already flocking into the stadium. Scheepers and Borstlap fought their way through the teeming mass of bodies. All around drums were beating, people were singing and dancing. Scheepers was terrified by the thought that they might fail. They just had to find the guy Jan Kleyn had hired to kill Nelson Mandela.
An hour later, thirty minutes before the meeting was due to begin with Mandela’s arrival at the stadium, Scheepers was in a panic. Borstlap tried to calm him down.
“We haven’t found the guy,” said Borstlap. “We have very little time left to continue the search now. We have to ask ourselves what we might have missed.”
He looked round. His eyes focused on the hill outside the stadium.
“I was there already,” said Scheeper.
“What did you see?” asked Borstlap.
“Nothing,” said Scheepers.
Borstlap nodded, lost in thought. He was beginning to think they would not find the assassin until it was too late.
They were pushed backwards and forwards by the massive crowds.
“I just don’t get it,” said Borstlap.
“It was too far away,” said Scheepers.
Borstlap looked at him questioningly.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Too far away?”
“Nobody could hit a target from that distance,” said Scheepers angrily.
It was a while before Borstlap realized Scheepers was still talking about the hilltop outside the stadium. Then he suddenly became serious.
“Tell me exactly what you did,” he said, pointing to the hilltop.
“I climbed up part way. Then I turned back.”
“You didn’t actually go to the summit of Signal Hill?”
“It’s too far away, I told you!”
“It’s not too far away at all,” said Borstlap. “There are rifles that can shoot over a kilometer. And hit the target. That’s only 800 meters away at most.”
Scheepers stared at him in bewilderment. Just then an enormous cheer went up from the dancing crowd, followed by intense drumming. Nelson Mandela had arrived in the stadium. Scheepers caught a glimpse of his grayish-white hair, his smiling face, and his waving hand.
“Come on!” yelled Borstlap. “If he’s here at all, he has to be somewhere on that hillside.”
Through his powerful telescopic sights Sikosi Tsiki could see Nelson Mandela in close-up. He had removed the sights from the rifle and followed him from the moment he stepped out of his car at the stadium entrance. Sikosi Tsiki could see he had only a few bodyguards. There did not seem to be any noticeable alert or unrest around the white-haired man.
He remounted the sights on the rifle, checked the loading mechanism, and sat down in the position he had carefully selected. He had rigged up a stand made of light metal. It was his own invention, and would give his arms the support he needed.
He glanced up at the sky. The sun was not going to cause him any unexpected problems. No shadows, no reflections, no glare. The hilltop was deserted. He was all alone with his gun and a few birds hopping around on the ground.
Five minutes to go. The cheering in the stadium hit him at full volume, even though he was over half a kilometer away.
Nobody would hear the shot, he thought.
He had two spare cartridges. They were lying on a handkerchief in front of him. But he did not expect to have to use them. He would save them as a souvenir. Maybe one day he would turn them into an amulet? That would bring him good luck for the rest of his life.
He avoided thinking about the money awaiting him. He had to carry out his mission first.
He raised his rifle, put his eye to the telescopic sight and watched Nelson Mandela coming to the podium. He had made up his mind to shoot at the first opportunity. There was no reason to delay. He put down the gun and tried to relax his shoulders, taking deep b
reaths at the same time. He felt his pulse. It was normal. Everything was normal. Then he raised the rifle again, placed the butt against his right cheek and closed his left eye. Nelson Mandela was standing just below the podium. He was partly shielded by other people. Then he broke away from the group and strode toward the microphone. He raised his arms over his head like a victor. His smile was very wide.
Sikosi Tsiki pulled the trigger.
But a fraction of a second before the bullet shot out of the barrel of the rifle at tremendous speed, he felt a thump on his shoulder. He couldn’t stop his finger on the trigger. The shot rang out. But the thump had nudged him nearly five centimeters. That meant the bullet did not even hit the stadium, but landed on a parked car on a street a long way away.
Sikosi Tsiki turned around.
There were two men, breathing heavily and staring at him.
Both had pistols in their hands.
“Put down your gun,” said Borstlap. “Slowly, carefully.”
Sikosi Tsiki did as he was told. He had no choice. The two white men would not hesitate to shoot, he could see that.
What had gone wrong? Who were they?
“Place your hands on your head,” said Borstlap, handing Scheepers a pair of handcuffs. He stepped forward and locked them around Sikosi Tsiki’s wrists.
“Get up,” said Scheepers.
Sikosi Tsiki stood up.
“Take him down to the car,” said Scheepers. “I’ll be there in a moment.”
Borstlap led Sikosi Tsiki away.
Scheepers stood listening to the cheering from the stadium. He could hear Nelson Mandela’s unmistakable voice over the loudspeakers. The sound seemed to come from very far away.
He was soaked in sweat. He could still feel traces of the horror he had felt when it seemed they wouldn’t find the man they were looking for. The sense of relief had still not hit him.
It struck him that what had just happened was a historic moment. But it was a historic moment that nobody would ever know about. If they had not managed to get up the hill in time, if the stone he had thrown at the man in desperation had missed, another historic moment would have taken place. And that one would have been more than just a footnote in the pages of history. It could have sparked off a bloodbath.
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