by Larry Bond
The big Afrikaner’s shotgun butt smashed into the side of his skull, sending a surging, tearing, burning wave of pain through Ian’s head. The alley whirled round in his dazed vision and he felt himself sliding to his knees. God, it hurt. He’d never been in so much pain before. The sunlight that had seemed so dim seconds before now seemed intolerably, horribly dazzling.
He heard Knowles shouting something he couldn’t make out through the roaring in his ears. He looked up and saw a heavy leather boot arcing toward his face.
This time, mercifully, the lights went out and stayed out.
III
JULY 19—POLITICAL DETENTION LEVEL, CAPE TOWN
MAGISTRATES’ COURT
No shadows softened the cellblock’s steel-barred doors, long empty corridors, and row after row of small square holding pens. There were no shadows because the harsh, overhead fluorescent lights were never turned off. They stayed on, robbing prisoners and guards alike of any sense of passing time.
As Ian lay faceup on a concrete slab that passed for a bed, he noticed that the cracked white ceiling tiles of his cell had finally stopped spinning around and around. And his head, though it still hurt, no longer felt swollen up like a pain-filled helium balloon. He almost smiled at the strange-sounding simile. Maybe he’d taken more punishment than he remembered.
Just the ability to think straight at all was a major improvement, he decided. In the hours since he’d struggled back to some semblance of consciousness, stray bits and pieces of rational thought had tumbled through his mind, coming and going among a host of jumbled memories, dreams, and half forgotten songs. But now he could start putting all the pieces back together, forming them into some sensible picture of what had gone on since they’d tossed him into this cramped, dingily antiseptic cage.
For instance, he remembered seeing Sam Knowles being locked into a similar cell just down the hall. And this time, Ian did smile, remembering the steady stream of swear words and obscene, elaborate insults pouring out of his cameraman’s mouth. Knowles at least, though bloody, had very definitely been unbowed.
That was a comforting image to hold on to in the midst of a series of much more depressing visions of his likely future. Ian had no illusions left about his network’s compassion or generosity. A reporter who got himself beaten up and deported while getting an exciting story would be embraced with open arms. But a reporter who got tossed out without anything to show for it, save a few bruises, was a has-been heading straight for the television trash heap.
Ian groaned softly. Being kicked out of South Africa without the chance to see Emily again was bad enough. The thought of being sent to read the weather in somewhere called Lower Podurtkia made his almost certain deportation even worse.
“Hey, you! Amerikaan! On your feet. The new kommandant wants to see you.”
Ian turned his head. A warder stood just outside his cell door. Keys dangled from the man’s plump hand.
Head pounding again, Ian slowly sat up and levered himself off the concrete slab. The cell door slammed open.
“Come on, man. Don’t keep the kommandant waiting. You’re in enough blery trouble as it is. ” The warder motioned him out into the corridor where
Knowles and three other guards stood waiting.
Fifteen minutes later, the two men found themselves standing in front of the detention-center commandant’s enormous, highly polished desk. Two bearlike guards stood to either side. Ian wondered whether they really expected Sam and him to try to jump their chief, or whether they were simply posted as part of a general pattern of intimidation. More the latter than the former, he suspected.
At first glance, the new commandant himself looked more like someone’s kindly, mild-mannered junior clerk than a secret policeman. But that pleasant resemblance dissolved on closer examination. The man’s pale blue, almost reptilian eyes rarely blinked behind thick, wire-rimmed glasses. And his puffy, thin-lipped face seemed permanently set in a sour scowl. He wore a plain uniform devoid of any badge of rank or other ornamentation-except for a single red, white, and black pin fastened to his tunic. The
Afrikaner’s fingers drummed rhythmically while he leafed through the single document blotting the surface of his desk.
Ian focused his still-blurry vision, trying to make out the insignia embossed on the man’s lapel pin. For a second, it wavered in and out of focus. Then he recognized the symbol-the three-armed swastika of the
Afrikaner Resistance Movement, the AWB. Jesus Christ. He struggled to keep the shock he felt off his face. The AWB’s fanatics were supposed to be nothing more than a lunatic fringe groupa group despised as much by the ruling National Party as by anyone else in South Africa. So what the hell was a high-ranking official doing wearing their insignia? Not only wearing it, but wearing it proudly, he thought, studying the commandant’s arrogant profile.
Things began failing frighteningly into place. The brownshirts who’d beaten them up were undoubtedly members of the AWB’s Brandwag, or
Sentry-a heavily armed paramilitary organization. The AWB’s leaders had sworn to use their private army of storm troopers against those they labeled communists and black troublemakers. Now they seemed to be actually putting their threats into violent practice. And doing so with the active approval of those in the new government.
Ian shivered involuntarily at the thought of the AWB’s ignorant, torch-carrying hatemongers running wild through South Africa’s townships and city streets. What kind of madman would give such thugs free rein?
He lifted his eyes from the commandant’s tunic and saw the harsh, unsmiling visage of Karl Vorster staring back at him from the wall.
My God, he realized, they’ve already taken the time to manufacture idealized portraits of the new president. And for the first time, he began to consider the possibility that Vorster was something much worse than a somewhat simpleminded political hard-liner.
“My, my, Meneer Sheffield, what a shocking list of crimes. Violating a police line, brawling with appointed representatives of the government, breaking the Emergency Decree’s restrictions on press coverage… what am I going to do with you?” The commandant’s dry, sneering voice brought
Ian back to the more basic consideration of his own personal fate.
Oh, oh. Decision time. Should he play it safe and act suitably meek and apologetic in the hope that they’d let him stay in South Africa? Or show the sons of bitches that they couldn’t scare him and probably get strapped into the first
plane heading overseas’? He found the decision surprisingly easy to make.
Somehow he found the thought of kowtowing to the prim little neo-Nazi in front of him too sickening to contemplate seriously. He mentally kissed both Emily and his career good-bye.
Ian leaned closer to the desk.
“I’ll tell you what you can do, you .. ” He closed his mouth on the term he’d been about to use. Even as angry as he was, it didn’t seem very wise to call the prison commandant a son of a bitch to his face.
He swayed upright.
“All right. Here’s the deal. First, you let us out of your damned jail. Then you arrest those bastards who attacked us. “
Ian took a shallow breath, calmer now.
“And after that’s done, we’ll talk about how you can pay us back for the damage to our stuff and for this.
” His fingers gently brushed the painful swelling behind his left ear.
Finished, he stood waiting for the expected explosion and immediate order for his expulsion.
It didn’t come.
Instead, the commandant simply smiled coldly.
“I shall not debate the matter with you, Meneer Sheffield. I reserve that for those I consider equals. And you are most emphatically not my equal.” His hands idly caressed the polished surface of his desk.
He stared straight into Ian’s eyes.
“You are a guest in this country, meneer. You exist at my sufferance. I suggest you remember that in the future.”
Ian h
eld his breath, surprised into silence. Were they going to let him stay?
The commandant’s thin, cold smile vanished.
“You have much to learn about the role you can play in South Africa, Meneer Sheffield. We Afrikaners are not the kind of weak willed decadent, impoverished tribesmen with whom you socalled journalists can play god. We do not care in the least what you and your prating colleagues think of us or our policies. “
A fanatical gleam appeared in the man’s pale, un winking eyes.
“The true God alone shall judge our actions to save our folk. “
“If that’s the case, why not just kick us out and have done with it?” Ian heard Knowles choke back a muttered warning to shut up.
The Afrikaner steepled his hands.
“I assure you most solemnly, meneer, if it were up to me alone, I would gladly send you back to your own godless land by the next available transport.
“But”—the hands separated and spread into the semblance of an uncaring shrug-“it seems that there are those in higher places who have some small interest in you and your friend. So I shall be merciful this once. You’re free to go. Immediately. ” The commandant jerked his head toward the office door and lowered his eyes to the open file on his desk, apparently dismissing the whole matter from his mind.
Scarcely able to believe his good fortune, Ian was halfway to the door before he remembered their damaged gear. The green-eye shade boys in New
York were bound to squawk unless he and Knowles made every effort to find another way to pay for the needed repairs and replacements. It was the same old story. If the network bosses liked you, you could even get away with writing off a trip to the south of France as a research expense. But woe betide anyone else who turned in an expense account showing anything more pricey than lunches at the local equivalent of McDonald’s.
With that in mind, he decided to press his luck a little further. He spun round sharply-stepping briskly aside as one of the guards treading close on his heels nearly blundered into him.
“Not so fast, Commandant. What about our camera and sound equipment? Who’s going to pick up the tab for the stuff your goon squad smashed?”
The Afrikaner’s head came up as fast as a striking snake’s. Despite the man’s earlier contemptuous words, Ian was shocked by the undisguised hatred apparent on his face.
“Get out of my office at once! And be thankful that only your verdomde equipment was broken. It can be repaired. Skulls and ribs are not so easily mended!”
The expression of open anger faded from the commandant’s face, replaced by a calmer, colder, infinitely more chilling look of calculated malice.
“Do not cross my path again, Meneer Sheffield. It would not be the action of a wise or healthy man. I trust I make myself clear?”
He glanced at the guards still standing to either side.
“Now take these
Uitlanders out of my sight before I change my mind and have them locked up again.”
The Afrikaner’s pale, hate-filled eyes followed them all the way out the door.
Neither man spoke until they were near the main gate leading out of the
Magistrates’ Court complex. Then, at last, Sam Knowles broke the tension-filled silence.
“Jesus Christ, Ian. Remind me to loan you my copy of How to Win Friends and Influence People before you get us both killed.”
Ian laughed softly, a somewhat forced, embarrassed laugh.
“Sorry, Sam.
I’ve learned not to eat with my hands in fancy restaurants, but I guess nobody ever taught me how to keep my big mouth shut around junior-grade gestapo wanna bees like that SOB. back there.”
“Yeah.” Knowles thumped him lightly on the shoulder.
“Well, the next time we’re looking down someone’s gun barrel, try to remember that discretion is always the best part of valor. Will you do that for me, huh?”
Ian nodded.
“Good.” The little cameraman shifted gears abruptly.
“Now just who the hell in Pretoria do you suppose likes you enough to spring us from the pokey?”
Ian didn’t answer him until they had passed a pair of armed sentries and stood blinking in the brilliant winter-afternoon sunshine. A taxicab sat parked along the curb.
“I don’t know anyone that high up in Vorster’s good graces, but I know someone who does,” Ian said.
The taxi’s rear door opened and a beautiful, auburn-haired woman got out.
Knowles pursed his lips in a silent, appreciative whistle.
“I see. I do believe I begin to sec.”
Through suddenly narrowed eyes, the short, stocky cameraman watched his friend and partner take the steps two at a time down to meet Emily van der Heijden..
JULY 20-D. F. MALAN INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT,
NEAR CAPE TOWN
The announcement buzzed and crackled through the overhead loudspeakers in the same dry, garbled, and disinterested voice used in airports all the world over.
“South Africa Airways Flight one forty-eight to Johannesburg is now ready for boarding. All passengers with confirmed seating are requested to come to the Jetway at this time. “
Ian felt his pulse race as Emily kissed him hard one last time and pulled away.
He started to reach for her and stopped as she shook her head sadly.
“I
must leave.” She blinked away sudden tears.
“I’m afraid there’s no more time.”
Ian fumbled for the handkerchief in his jacket pocket and then gave it up as he saw Emily sling the traveling case over her shoulder.
“Look, if you don’t want to go, then don’t. Stay here with me.”
Another headshake, slightly more vehement.
“I cannot, no matter how much I would wish it. My father is a hard man, Ian. To him, a bargain is a bargain-no matter how forced it might be. So if I do not return home as I promised, he’ll have you rearrested and sent back to America. And I cannot let that happen.”
Ian looked down at the scuffed tile floor. What was happening to her was largely his fault. She’d learned of his arrest when he hadn’t shown up for a dinner date the day of the riot. Nearly out of her mind with worry, she’d done what she would ordinarily have regarded as unthinkable. She’d phoned her father, asking for his help.
As the new government’s deputy minister of law and order, Marius van der
Heijden had the clout needed to spring an unruly pair of American journalists. The man was also a scheming, blackmailing bastard, Ian thought angrily. His price for their release had been Emily’s surrender of her hard won independence-the independence she’d won only after years of stormy argument and outright shouting matches. In her father’s words, she was to be “obedient.”
Emily softly touched his arm.
“You understand?”
He swore in frustration.
“Jesus Christ, this isn’t the Middle Ages! What’s he expect you to do for him… cook, clean, and keep house like every other good little Afrikaner girl?”
The ghost of a smile appeared on Emily’s face.
“No, he knows me better than that. He just wants to keep me away from you and your ‘immoral’ influence.”
The faint smile disappeared.
“Though of course he will expect me to help him around the house. To serve as hostess for parties and braais. ” She used the Afrikaans word for barbecues.
Ian picked up her other bag, and together they walked toward the passenger line forming at the gate.
Emily kept talking, as if she hoped to bury her sadness under a flow of everyday conversation.
“You see, my father’s new position compels him to be more social. And it is important, I suppose, that he be able to show the kind of home his colleagues would regard as ‘normal.”
“
Ian nodded, but couldn’t think of anything to say. He knew how much Emily valued her freedom and how much she loathed her father’s extremist political positions
. Now she was willingly going back to everything she had once escaped.
And all for him.
Her sacrifice made his own troubles seem small in comparison.
“Boarding pass, please. ” He looked up. They were already at the gate. A young, uniformed flight attendant had her hand out for Emily’s ticket.
“Look, can I write or call you?” The desperation in his voice was audible.
Emily’s voice dropped to a bare, husky whisper he had to strain to hear clearly.
“No… that would be the worst thing. My father must believe I have broken entirely with you.”
“But…”
She gently laid a finger across his lips, stilling his protest.
“I know,
Ian. It is terrible. But believe this. I will contact you as soon as I can.
As soon as I can find a way to do so without my father’s knowledge.”
Her hand dropped away from his face.
The flight attendant coughed lightly.
“Please, I must have your boarding pass.”
Silently, Emily handed over her ticket and stepped onto the carpeted ramp leading to the waiting plane. Then she turned.
“Remember that I love you, Ian Sheffield.
She disappeared around a bend in the ramp before he could say anything past the sudden lump in his throat.
Ian stood watching until he saw her plane lift off the runway and turn east, sunlight winking painfully off its silvery wings.
CHAPTER
Ear1q Warning
JULY 22-SWARTKOP MILITARY AIRFIELD, NEAR PRETORIA
The single-engined Kudu light utility aircraft rolled to a gentle, shuddering stop near the end of the oil-stained concrete taxiway. Even before the propeller had stopped spinning, ground crewmen were on their way, moving to tie down the Kudu’s wings against sudden gusts of wind.
Commandant Henrik Kruger clambered awkwardly out of the plane’s cramped cockpit, stretched, and then leaned in to shake the pilot’s hand.
