by Larry Bond
ANC-held clump of trees. Bright, or angered explosions rippled through the foliage, tearing, shredding, and maiming every living thing they enclosed.
Other bombs burst in the air overhead, spraying a killing tain of white-hot shrapnel downward.
Within seconds, the smoke and dust thrown skyward by the bombardment obscured his view. The only things still visible within the billowing black, gray, and brown cloud were split-second flashes as more mortar bombs found their target.
Bekker let the mortars go on firing far longer than was necessary. Forty rounds of high explosive reduced the small copse of trees to a smoking wasteland of torn vegetation and mangled flesh.
THE OOST COTTAGE, IN THE HEX RIVER MOUNTAINS
Riaan Oost could hear the explosions echoing in the distance as he tossed a single suitcase into the back of his pickup truck. The sounds confirmed what logic had already told him. Kotane and his men wouldn’t be returning.
It was past time to leave.
Long past time, in fact. The ANC’s Cape Town safe house was a three-hour drive away under normal conditions. And conditions were unlikely to be normal. Oost roughly wiped the sweat from his palms onto his jeans and turned toward the front door of his cottage.
“Marta! Come on! We’ve got to go!”
His wife appeared in the doorway, staggering under the weight of a box piled high with photo albums and other mementos of their married life.
Oost swore under his breath. She had no business bringing those. Things such as those were sure to arouse suspicion if they were stopped at a security checkpoint before reaching Cape Town.
He stepped in front of her, blocking her path to the truck.
She looked up guiltily.
“I know, Riaan, I know. But I couldn’t bear to leave them behind.” She sniffed, fighting back tears.
Oost felt his anger fade in the face of her sadness.
“I am sorry. ” His voice was gentle.
“But you’ve got to leave them here. It’s too risky.”
He reached out and took the box out of her unresisting hands.
In silence, she watched him carry her small treasures back into the cottage.
Neither could bear to look back as they drove away from the vineyard they’d labored in for six years.
Oost was careful to drive slowly and precisely down the winding, dirt road, anxious to avoid any obvious sign of panic. With luck, they’d be on the main highway and hidden among other travelers before the security forces noted their absence.
He glanced off to the side at a marker post as they came round a sharp bend in the road. Only two more kilometers to the highway and comparative safety! He felt himself begin to relax.
” Riaan!
Startled by his wife’s cry, Oost looked up and slammed on his brakes.
The pickup slid to a stop just yards from two camouflaged armored cars and a row of armed troops blocking the road. My God, he thought wildly, the
Afrikaners are already here.
Beside him, Marta moaned in fear.
One of the soldiers, an officer, motioned them forward. Oost swallowed convulsively and pulled the pickup closer to the roadblock. It must be routine. Please let it be nothing more than a routine checkpoint, he prayed.
The officer signaled him to stop when they were within twenty feet of the armored cars. Two machine guns swung to cover them, aimed straight at the truck’s windshield. Oost glanced quickly to either side. The soldiers surrounding them had their rifles unslung and ready for action. He felt sick. The government knows, he thought. They have to know. But how? Could one of Kotane’s men already have broken under interrogation? It seemed possible.
The sound of a car door slamming shut roused him. For the first time he noticed the long, black limousine parked just beyond the armored cars. It was the kind of car favored by high-ranking security officers. Its occupant, a tall, fair-haired white man in a dark suit and plain tie, strode arrogantly past the soldiers and stopped, his hands on his hips, a few feet away from the pickup truck.
Oost looked at the man’s eyes and shivered. They were a dead man’s eyes, lifeless and uncaring.
“Going somewhere, Meneer Oost?” The security agent’s dry, emotionless voice matched his eyes.
“A curious time to take a trip, isn’t it?”
Oost could hear Marta sobbing softly beside him, but he lacked the strength to comfort her. Prison, interrogation, torture, trial, and execution. The road ahead held nothing good.
“Get out of the car, please. Both of you.” Still that same dry, sterile voice.
“Now.”
Oost exchanged a single, hopeless glance with his wife and obeyed. Still crying, she followed suit. The hard-faced man motioned them toward the waiting limousine.
The soldiers parted to let them pass, watching wordlessly as Oost and
Marta stumbled along in shock with the security officer close behind.
The man didn’t speak again until they were near the long, black car.
“It’s a pity you’re both trying to escape from my custody, meneer. But your actions give me no choice.”
Oost heard cloth rustling and the sound of something rubbing against leather. For an instant he stopped, completely confused. What did the man mean? Then, in the split second he had left to understand, he felt oddly grateful.
The men waiting at the roadblock started as two pistol shots cracked in the still air, echoing off the rocky hills to either side of the road.
Birds, frightened by the sudden noise, fled their perches and took to the air, a lazy, swirling, circling cloud-black specks against a deep blue sky.
His job done, Muller’s agent slid behind the wheel of his car, started it, and drove off in satisfied silence.
EMILY VAN DER HELIDEN”S FLAT, CAPE TOWN
South Africa’s state-owned television cameras showed only what the government wanted them to show. And right now they showed a grim-faced
Karl Vorster standing rigidly at a
podium-backed by an enormous blue-, white-, and orange striped national flag.
“My fellow countrymen, I stand before you on a day of sorrow for all South
Africans.” Vorster’s harsh voice emphasized the guttural accents of
Afrikaans as he spoke, pausing with evident reluctance for the simultaneous translation into English.
“I come with dreadful news-news of a bloody act of terrorism so horrible that it is without parallel in our history. I must tell you that the reports you’ve undoubtedly been hearing all this evening have been verified. At approximately one o’clock this afternoon, a band of black ANC communists murderously attacked the Blue Train as it passed through the Hex
River Mountains.”
Vorster’s rough-edged, gravelly voice dropped another notch.
“I have now been informed that the train was completely destroyed. There were no survivors. The President of our beloved Republic is dead.”
Ian Sheffield felt Emily’s grip on his hand tighten. He glanced at her. She wasn’t making any effort to hide the tears welling in her eyes. No surprise there. She’d hoped that Haymans would be the leader who could orchestrate a peaceful reconciliation of South Africa’s contending races. He looked back at the stern visage dominating the television screen. There wasn’t much chance that Vorster would continue Haymans’s negotiating efforts. Much chance? Hell, he thought, no chance. Even Gandhi would have been reluctant to trust the good will or good faith of the ANC after this attack on the
Blue Train.
Ian wondered about that. What could the ANC have thought it would gain? How could they have been so stupid?
“As the government’s senior surviving minister, I have assumed the office and duties of the presidency. I have done so in accordance with the
Constitution-compelled by my love of God and this country, and not by any misplaced sense of personal ambition. I shall govern as president only until such time as the present emergency has passed.”
Right. Ian shook his head, not believing a word. Methinks thou dost protest too much, Vorster old son.
“Accordingly, my first action as president has been to declare an unlimited state of emergency extending to all provinces of the Republic.”
Vorster’s hands curled around the edge of his podium.
“I intend to root out this terrorist conspiracy in our country once and for all. Those responsible for the deaths of so many innocents will not escape our just vengeance.”
As South Africa’s new and unelected president continued speaking, Ian felt Emily shiver and understood. Vorster’s grim words spelled the end of every step toward moderation her nation had taken over the past decade. The newly declared state of emergency imposed dusk-to-dawn curfews on all black townships; allowed the security forces to shoot anyone violating those curfews; restored the hated pass laws restricting nonwhite movement and travel, and reimposed strict government controls on the press and other media.
Ian knew that, under normal circumstances, that last bit of news would have really pissed him off. But circumstances were far from normal. There didn’t seem to be much that Vorster’s new government could do to him as a reporter that his own network hadn’t already done.
When reports of the Blue Train attack first started to spread, he and
Knowles had filmed a quick segment and shipped it off to New York on a rush satellite feed. Flushed with triumph, they’d notified the network of their plans to fly immediately to Pretoria so they could cover the government’s reaction to the ANC attack.
But they hadn’t even had time to crack open a bottle of champagne in celebration before New York’s top brass quashed their plans. He and his cameraman weren’t needed in Pretoria, Ian had been told. The network’s top anchor and his personal news team were already en route to cover the developing story firsthand. Instead, he and Knowles were supposed to “stand by” in Cape Town, ready to provide “local color” stories, should any be needed. The fact that on-site anchoring had become network-news standard procedure since the Berlin Wall came tumbling down did nothing to cushion the blow. Just because New York’s story-hogging
had a historical precedent did nothing to make it any more palatable.
Ian gritted his teeth. Here they were in the middle of the biggest South
African news event in recent memory, and he’d been shunted off to the sidelines without so much as a thank you Christ, talk about a career on the skids! He’d slipped off into a black hole without even realizing it.
“Oh, my God…” Emily’s horrified whisper brought him back to the present.
Vorster was still on-screen, rattling off a list of those he’d named to a “temporary” Government of National Salvation. Cronje, de Wet, Hertzog,
Klopper, Malherbe, Maritz, Pienaar, Smit, and van der Heijden. Ian ran through the list in his mind. Some were names he didn’t recognize, but those he did recognize belonged to notorious diehards. All were
Afrikaners. Clearly, Vorster didn’t intend to give the Englishdescended
South Africans and other Uitlanders any share in government. Wait a minute … van der Heijden?
He looked sharply at Emily.
Stricken, she stared sightlessly into the screen and then, slowly, turned her eyes toward him. She nodded.
“My father, yes. “
Ian pursed his lips in a soundless whistle. He’d known that Emily’s father was some kind of government bureaucrat. But he’d always imagined someone more suited to handling crop insurance or international trade figures-not the kind of man who’d apparently just taken the number two spot in South Africa’s security forces.
For an instant, just an instant, he found himself thinking of Emily not as a beautiful and intelligent woman who loved him, but as a possible information source-as a conduit leading straight into the heart of South
Africa’s new government. Then he saw the sadness in her eyes and realized that was just what she feared. She was afraid of what her father’s newfound power would do to what they had together.
Wordlessly, Ian reached out and took her in his arms, holding her closely against his chest. One hand stroked her hair and the back of her neck.
But he found his eyes straying back to the tall, grim-faced man still filling the airwaves with words and phrases that promised vengeance and rekindled racial hatred.
JUNE 30-STATE SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER,
PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA
Pretoria, South Africa’s administrative capital, lay at peace beneath a cloudless blue sky. Though several newly built steel-and-glass office buildings dotted its skyline, Pretoria still seemed more a quiet, nineteenth-century university town than the prosperous, bustling governmental center of a twentiethcentury state. Rows of jacaranda trees shading wide streets and an array of formal, flower-filled gardens helped maintain the illusion.
On a low hill overlooking the central city, the Union Buildings-two sprawling, three-story structures connected by a semicircular colonnade-sat surrounded by their own carefully manicured gardens.
Thousands of bureaucrats, some petty, others powerful, occupied the two mirror-image buildings. From their offices emerged the constant stream of directives, reports, regulations, and queries required to govern the sovereign Republic of South Africa.
On the surface, nothing much had changed. The various ministries and departments functioned according to time tested procedures-still carrying out the moderate policies of men whose bodies lay hundreds of miles away in a temporary morgue alongside the Cape Town railway. But all who worked in the Union Buildings knew those policies were as dead as the men who’d formulated them.
South Africa now had a more ruthless set of masters.
To defeat any attempts at electronic eavesdropping, the members of the new State Security Council met in a small, windowless room buried deep inside the Union Buildings complex. The fifteen men now in charge of their country’s foreign policy apparatus, military services, and security forces sat quietly around a large rectangular table. All of them
owed their appointments to one man, Karl Vorster, and all were acutely aware that their futures depended on continued obedience to his will.
Now they waited for an indication of just what that will might be.
Vorster studied the map laid out by his deputy minister of law and order.
Red circles outlined South Africa’s most troublesome black townships. Other colors designated varying degrees of past resistance to Pretoria’s policies.
“The circles dotting the map were surrounded by abstract symbols-symbols that stood for the sixty thousand active-duty and reserve police officers awaiting his orders.
He nodded vigorously.
“Magtig, Marius. This plan is just what we need. Show the kaffirs who’s boss right from the start and save a lot of trouble later, eh?”
Marius van der Hejjden flushed with pleasure at Vorster’s praise.
“Yes, Mr.
President. A thorough sweep through the townships should flush out the worst rabble-rousers and malcontents. Once they’re in the camps, we’ll have a much easier time keeping order.”
Vorster abandoned his contemplation of the map and looked up at the other members of his Security Council.
“Any comments?”
One by one, they shook their heads.
Every member of Vorster’s handpicked government saw the immediate security problem they faced. Years of misguided pampering by the dead Haymans and his liberal cronies had allowed the blacks to build up a network of their own leaders and organizations. Organizations around which violent opposition to a strengthened apartheid system could coalesce. And that was intolerable. The black anti apartheid movements would have to be crushed and crushed quickly.
What van der Heijden proposed was simple, straightforward, and bloody.
Teams of armed police troops backed by armored cars would descend on the most radical townships en masse-searching house to house for known agitators. Anyone resisting a
rrest would be shot. Anyone obstructing the police in the lawful performance of their duties would be shot. And anyone who tried to flee the closing police net would be shot. Those who escaped death would find themselves penned up in isolated labor camps, unable to spread their gospel of poisonous dissent.
Vorster bent down and signed the top page of the thick sheaf of arrest orders with a quick flourish.
“Your plan is approved, Marius. I expect immediate action.”
“At once, Mr. President.”
From his seat next to Vorster, Erik Muller watched with ill-disguised contempt as the beefy, barrel-chested man hurriedly gathered his papers and maps and rushed from the room. Van der Heijden really wasn’t anything more than a typical, block headed provincial policeman. The man’s socalled plan relied entirely on the application of brute force and overwhelming firepower to gut any internal resistance to the new regime. And where was the subtlety or gamesmanship in that?
He would have preferred a more surgical approach involving carefully selected arrests, assassinations, and intimidation. Muller shrugged mentally. Van der Heijden’s Operation Cleansing Fire appealed to the new president’s bias for direct action. Besides, the Transvaaler was just the kind of bluff, hearty kerel, or good fellow, that Vorster liked. So be it. Let the new deputy minister win this opening round. Muller would pour his energies into maintaining his authority over foreign intelligence-gathering and special operations.
Those were the next items on the State Security Council’s agenda. Muller grew conscious of Vorster’s scrutiny.
“Director Muller is here to bring us up-to-date on activities designed to punish the nearest kaffir-ruled states for aiding our enemies. Isn’t that right, Erik?”
“Yes, Minis… Mr. President.” Muller caught himself in time. Although he’d occupied the chief executive’s office for just two days, Vorster had already shown himself a stickler for titles. Muller beckoned a waiting aide over and watched through slitted eyes as the man unrolled a large-scale map of southern Africa.
Then he rose and leaned over the map. One finger traced the jagged outline of Mozambique.
“I trust you’re all familiar with our covert support for Renamo?”
