Jade repeated incredulously, “Thirty-nine?”
“Thirty-nine incidents at ten plants. Of course, many of those plants are technical dinosaurs. They were only built to last thirty years and should have been decommissioned years ago, but they’ve been patched up and kept running because it’s too expensive to close them down.”
Bongani adjusted his glasses, taking in Jade’s surprise. She hadn’t realized that nuclear power stations had a finite life span, or how much it would cost to close them down.
“That aside,” he continued, “the incidents in Russia were caused mostly because of mismanagement, defects in equipment and design errors. Not exactly confidence inspiring.”
“Definitely not,” Jade agreed.
“Even at a plant that is built to the highest standards, there’s a risk of accidents. And we do not believe that South Africans, with or without Russian assistance, are capable of building or maintaining plants that are safe.”
“Would proper safety standards be difficult to enforce?”
Bongani considered the question. “If there was proper transparency surrounding the process, it might be possible to ensure that happened. But there won’t be transparency. There never, ever has been with nuclear energy in South Africa. The apartheid mentality is still alive and well in that regard. It’s secretive, it’s corrupt and it’s not going to provide the benefits we need.”
Jade nodded. The clearer the picture became, the bleaker the canvas was.
And Bongani wasn’t finished yet. “Putting the risk of accidents and leakages aside, there are two other dangerous problems associated with nuclear power—waste and fuel.”
“Why are these dangerous?”
“Nuclear waste is a huge issue because we haven’t worked out how to dispose of it. Nobody in the world has figured that out. It’s extremely toxic to humans and the environment, and it remains that way for up to ten thousand years. Coping with such a long-term scenario is beyond our power. And then there’s the issue of the fuel. Fueling a nuclear power station contributes substantially to radioactive contamination of the environment.”
“In what way?” Jade asked.
“You probably know that the Witwatersrand basin, where we are located, is the biggest gold-mining basin in the world.”
“Yes, of course.”
“What you might not know is that it’s also the world’s biggest uranium-mining basin.”
“Really?” Jade asked, surprised.
“The two occur together in these mineral-rich rocks. You can’t mine one without bringing the other to the surface. What this means is that even the tailings from the gold mines have high levels of uranium and radionuclides, unstable particles that can cause radioactive contamination. Water can be contaminated, and usually is, but the dust from our mine dumps and tailings is even more of a threat because it can drift on the wind for thousands of miles. Dust from the West Rand mines has been found in Tasmania and Australia, almost on the other side of the world.”
“That’s incredible.”
“Incredible, but true. So there’s already uranium contamination from gold mining, and now with the prospect of nuclear power plants, there could be more. Uranium is fuel for a nuclear plant, and uranium mining has started up again here in a big way. New mines are being opened, and old dumps are being remined to extract more uranium ore from the tailings. When the old dumps were first created, there was stringent dust control in place, and over time, vegetation grew again in the areas nearby. Reopening these without the same restraints is causing a new level of pollution and posing a real health risk to people living nearby. We’re talking about poorer communities in particular, people who use the soil for subsistence farming, and who wash and cook with river water because they have no other available water source, even if the water is contaminated—radioactive in some cases—and unsafe to use.”
“I can see why you’re fighting so hard,” Jade conceded.
Bongani nodded solemnly. “It’s a massive concern for us, and we’re trying our best to make South Africa aware.”
With his overview concluded, Jade thanked him again for his time, and left. Bongani had given her a lot to think about. Certainly nuclear power was not the utopian answer to South Africa’s problems that Gillespie had described. If the stations were well built and stringently managed . . . if the process of mining the uranium was carefully regulated and the dust controlled, then perhaps it was possible, but she couldn’t help agreeing with Bongani’s perception that as it stood, the solution was likely to be fraught with problems.
That wasn’t what interested her the most, though.
As soon as she’d changed the subject to the work at Earthforce, Bongani’s gaze had met hers. Focused, strong and genuine, his body language had matched the compelling charm of his voice. The only time he’d been evasive was when they were discussing Lisa. That disconnect told Jade more than simple words.
Bongani knew something more about Lisa Marais . . . Jade was sure of it.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Jade wondered whether it was coincidence that Earthforce’s offices were a stone’s throw from the main road leading to Inkomfe. Since she was so close by, she decided to speak to Sbusiso, the jaded worker she’d met last night while waiting for Gillespie.
When she called Sbusiso, he told her he had just finished his shift and was walking to gate one’s pedestrian entrance.
“You’re still there?” Jade asked, surprised. “You work very long hours.”
“We were outside for two hours because of the fire drill,” Sbusiso said. “My job still had to be done. All the offices had to be cleaned, and the trash taken out. I am finished now, and from tomorrow I am on day shift for a week.”
She offered to meet him at the gate in ten minutes. He told her not to hurry; it was a long walk.
With her car’s new rear plate and bumper stickers, Jade felt that she’d taken all the reasonable precautions she could have. Even so, she felt adrenaline flood through her when she checked her mirrors and saw a big black SUV barreling up behind her.
“Just some asshole,” she reassured herself through gritted teeth, steering as far to the side as she could to let the driver pass.
Her hands grew cold when the car’s speed bled off as it drew level with her, and the passenger turned to stare at her through his open window. Gripping the wheel, she glanced at him, but he’d already turned away, and her only impression was that he looked tough and was wearing a black leather jacket and wraparound mirrored glasses.
Then the SUV accelerated past, and she breathed a shaky sigh of relief. Just some asshole.
Nothing to worry about.
A few minutes later, Inkomfe’s bulky cooling towers and concrete buildings loomed into view, and she saw Sbusiso waiting outside gate one.
Atteridgeville up close was different from how Jade had thought it would be. There was more energy to the place than she’d first supposed. She passed a bustling shopping mall with rows of minibus taxis in a line outside. Some smart-looking houses had been built close to the mall, which seemed to be the township’s central hub.
As Sbusiso directed her toward the outskirts, the energy ebbed, and the houses became smaller, interspersed with simple shacks made from corrugated iron, wooden boards and a hodgepodge of assorted building blocks.
This was where Sbusiso lived, down the road from the nuclear research center, in a place that bordered on nothing but a few faraway mine dumps. Perhaps there had once been farms here, but the surrounding land now looked uncared for and barren. The stunted trees were withered and only sparse grasses grew. Jade thought she could see a fine layer of dust in the air, eddied by the gusting wind. She shivered as she remembered what she’d learned about the contaminated mine dumps. Was that why this area looked like such a wasteland? Was it the insidious effect of the toxic dust and water, carrying their radioactive loa
d?
She pulled over to the side of the road and walked with Sbusiso to his house. It was not a shack, but a government-supplied Reconstruction and Development Program house, painted cream to distinguish it from its khaki neighbors.
Jade hesitated and glanced at Sbusiso when she saw the thin, frail and obviously ill older man seated under a small tree near the front door. His face was gaunt; the skin on the back of his hands was deeply scarred and ulcerated. In spite of the day’s warmth, he had a blanket wrapped around his shoulders. In front of him on a rickety plastic table was a large, well-worn envelope.
“This is my cousin Shadrack,” Sbusiso told her. “He lives nearby. He is one of the people who became sick from working at Inkomfe. In this envelope are all the papers and documents from the workers proving that they were employed, and that they became sick.”
Jade greeted Shadrack and shook hands with him. His hand felt cold, and his voice was soft and husky when he returned her greeting. She felt an immense sadness for this man who’d had so little in life, who had worked so hard for such meager rewards, and was now burdened with ruined health.
“I’m so sorry,” she said, but Shadrack shook his head.
“You do not have to be sorry,” he said. “I have lived longer than any of the other men who worked in my section. And even though I am sick now, it came more slowly.”
He said it in a way that prompted Jade to ask, “Do you know why?”
Shadrack nodded. “When I started getting ill, I consulted a sangoma, a witch doctor. He told me to make a tea each day with the African potato. The real inkomfe. He told me it has powerful health benefits. So each and every day, I have drunk that tea.”
“I’ve heard of it,” Jade said.
“I believe that the tea has helped me to fight this illness. I grow the potato plants behind the house. It is not easy.” He made a face. “On this land, nothing wants to grow. But I brought good soil in from farther away to improve it.”
“There is no time now to chatter about farming,” Sbusiso chided him gently. “There are more important things to discuss.”
Sbusiso pulled up a chair, and they all sat together under the tree, shaded from the worst of the heat, with their elbows leaning on the rickety table. Jade took a quick look through the contents of the envelope. The employee records were old, but indisputably official-looking. Jade was sure that in the right hands, this information could be used to get compensation for the workers.
“You asked about my friend Miss Lisa.”
Jade nodded.
“She started working at Inkomfe about five years ago. She was a tall woman, as thin as a stick, with curly gray hair. She used to go outside behind her office to smoke. She smoked a lot. Forty cigarettes a day, she told me. Her office was close to our staff kitchen, so I used to see her there most days.”
Shadrack grumbled in his soft voice something about cigarettes killing people faster than the red water from the bombs, and again Sbusiso reprimanded him. “We cannot get sidetracked. This lady is busy. See how she is sitting on the edge of her seat? She has not even put her car keys down. She has no time to spare.”
Hastily Jade scooted back on her chair and placed her keys on the table. “No, no, I have time.”
“Good,” Sbusiso continued. “We used to talk, Miss Lisa and me. She with her cigarette, I with my tea. I told her what I told you, about the poisonous water and the sicknesses, the sores and infections, the cancers. She was shocked to hear this. I could see she was sad, very sad. And she was worried. I said to her, ‘What is it with you people? Do you never learn? For years those bombs were stored in that strong room, and now the poisonous ingots are still kept there. Why do you not get rid of them? But no, instead, you want to build power stations that will use more poison and make more people sick.’”
“What did she say?” Jade asked.
“She tried to tell me that the power stations would be safe.” Sbusiso laughed. “I asked her how she could believe that.”
“Did she have an answer?”
“She told me that she was working very hard to make Inkomfe safer. She was fighting with lots of people. She did not like Mr. Loodts.”
“Because he was in charge back when the bombs were built?” Jade asked.
Sbusiso nodded. “She was angry about what he had done. She told me Mr. Loodts did not listen. He had his own ways of doing things and did not want to change them.”
Jade nodded. “Who else was she fighting with?”
“Miss Lisa fought with everyone. She wanted to change the world. She told me it was making her very unpopular.”
Jade laughed, as much at the words as at Sbusiso’s cynical expression. “Anything else you remember?”
Sbusiso lowered his voice. “There was something just before she left. She said she had made a big mistake. She was trying to find out information about somebody she worked with, but she would not tell me more. She said she was going to take what she had to Mr. Loodts, but that she did not know if he would listen, because he had closed his ears to her.”
“Really?” Jade said, shocked. She wondered what the mistake was and whom Lisa had been looking into. “Was that all she said?”
“She began to speak less openly. She said that we should not discuss these things at Inkomfe, that it might not be safe. I told her that finally she was starting to understand.” Sbusiso tipped his chair back against the tree trunk and folded his arms, looking satisfied.
“So then she quit her job. Did you see her again?” Jade asked.
Sbusiso nodded. “She kept her promise and did not forget us. Three weeks ago, she met me at the Florida Mall. I showed her these papers, and she made copies to take to her new work. She said they could help us there.”
Jade nodded. It made sense that Earthforce would want to assist the workers with their legal struggle. “I’ll follow up with them and find out what is happening.”
“Thank you.”
“The last time you saw Lisa, did you ask her about the information she was trying to find?”
“She was in a hurry, like you, sitting on the front of her chair, looking at her watch often. She said she already had lots of facts, but she was collecting more, and soon something was going to happen that would force Mr. Loodts to see reason and change his thinking. But she did not have time to tell me everything. She said that she would send me a copy of the information she had to keep safe, just in case.”
“Have you received anything?”
“Not yet,” Sbusiso said.
“Can you give me her details?”
“I can tell you where she lives.” Sbusiso shuffled the papers together again. “I also have her phone number.”
Sbusiso wrote these down on Jade’s notepad, then walked back into the house with the papers.
When he returned, she thanked him for his time and said goodbye. But before she left, Shadrack held up a hand and spoke to Sbusiso in a low voice.
“Do you have a garden?” Sbusiso asked her.
“Yes, I do,” Jade said. “I live in a rented cottage with a garden.” She didn’t tell the men that it had been neglected because she was better at killing plants than nurturing them. It seemed selfish to have unpolluted land with fertile soil that was going to waste while the people here strived so hard to coax life from depleted and toxic ground.
“Take this.” Shadrack fumbled in his coat pocket and produced a small, clear plastic bag. Inside it was a handful of dark, glossy seeds.
“These are the African potato plant; the real inkomfe,” he told her. “They are not difficult to grow. Plant them anywhere there is sunshine, and water them well. I hope these seeds bring you good health and long life. Thank you for coming here.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Lisa Marais’s address was in Florida Lake, which was in the West Rand and not too far away. To Jade’s annoyance, she
discovered the whole of Florida and part of Roodepoort were currently being load shed. Traffic was snarled up at the nonfunctional lights, and it would take too long to drive the whole way through. Instead, she messaged David to ask him if he could go there later.
She escaped the traffic to find supplies at a small shopping center with a working generator. She selected water, snacks and two toothbrushes from the shelves. On impulse, she made a detour to the clothing shop next door and picked up a few essentials for herself and Botha, choosing darkly colored garments. They were more practical for running and hiding at night, though she hoped they wouldn’t be doing that.
Back in the standstill traffic, she turned on her speakerphone and called Bongani at Earthforce. “It’s me again,” she told him. “Jade de Jong—we met earlier today.”
“Ms. de Jong.” Bongani’s soothing tones filled the car. “How can I help you?”
“I have an important question. A friend of Lisa’s has asked me to follow up on a case that Earthforce is handling. It’s regarding the workers who helped build the nuclear weapons at Inkomfe and are now suffering from health issues. Do you know about this, and has there been any progress?”
“Ah, yes,” Bongani said. “We have been struggling with that case. It is not easy. There is so little paperwork available; the records at Inkomfe were destroyed, and we ran into difficulties trying to obtain information from the person who’d been in charge of Inkomfe at the time.”
“Mr. Loodts?” Jade asked.
“Um.” Bongani hesitated. “I’m afraid I can’t mention names.”
Jade took this as confirmation.
“Anyway,” Bongani continued, “we’ve just managed to escalate it all the way to the district attorney, and she has promised that she will investigate and take action. Lisa—” He stopped himself. “I will arrange a meeting with the original applicants and update them. I have all the contact details in the file. I’ll call them tomorrow, I promise.”
“Thank you,” Jade said. And then, on impulse, she asked, “Bongani, is Lisa in hiding?”
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