Gold Mine

by Wilbur Smith

  It was time to begin the purchase of Sander Ditch shares.

  He called his secretary on the intercom and instructed her to place calls to numbers in Cape Town, Durban and Johannesburg itself. He wanted the purchase orders to come through a number of different brokers, so that it would not be obvious that there was only one buyer in the market.

  There was also the question of credit; he was not covering the purchase orders with banker's guarantees. The stock brokers were buying for him simply on his name and reputation and position with CRC Manfred could not place too large a buying order with any one firm lest they ask him to provide surety. Doctor Manfred Steyner had no surety to offer.

  So, instead, he placed moderate orders with dozens of different firms.

  By three o'clock that afternoon Manfred had ordered the purchase of three quarters of a million rand's worth of shares. He had no means of paying for those shares but he knew he would never be called upon to do so.

  When he sold them again in a few weeks" time they would have doubled in value.

  A few minutes after his final conversation with the firm of Swerling and Wright in Cape Town, his secretary came through on the intercom.

  "SAA have confirmed your reservation on the Boeing to Salisbury.

  Flight 126 at nine a.m. tomorrow. You are booked to return to Johannesburg on the Rhodesian Airways Viking at 6 p.m. tomorrow evening."

  "Thank you." Manfred grudged this wasted day but it was imperative that Theresa believed he had left for Europe. A She must see him depart on the SAA flight. "Please get my wife on the phone for me." "Theresa," he told her, "something important has come up. I have to fly to London tomorrow morning. I am afraid I will be away over Christmas." Her display of surprise and regret was unconvincing. She and Ironsides had made their own arrangements for the time he was away, Manfred was convinced of this.

  It was all working out very well, he thought as he cradled the receiver, very well indeed.

  The Daimler drew up under the portico of Jan Smuts Airport and the chauffeur opened the door for Terry and then for Manfred.

  While the porter removed his luggage from the boot of the Daimler, Manfred swept the car park with a quick scrutiny. So early in the morning it was less than half filled.

  There was a cream Volkswagen with a Kitchenerville number plate parked near the far end. All the line and senior members of the Sander Ditch had cream Volkswagens as their official vehicles.

  "The bee has come to the honey pot thought Manfred, and smiled bleakly.

  He took Terry's elbow into the main concourse of the airport.

  Terry waited while Manfred went through his ticket and immigration formalities. On the outside she was a demure and dutiful wife, but she also had seen the Volkswagen and inside she was itching and bubbling with excitement.

  Darting surreptitious glances from behind her sunglasses, looking for that tall broad-shouldered figure among the crowds.

  It seemed a lifetime until she stood alone on the observation balcony with the wind whipping her piebald calfskin coat around her legs, and blowing her hair into a snapping, dancing tangle. The long shark-like shape of the Boeing jet crouched at the far end of the runway and as it started forward Terry turned from the balcony rail and ran back into the main building.

  Rod was waiting for her just inside the doors, and he swung her off her feet.

  "Gottcha!" With her feet dangling, she put her arms around his neck and kissed him.

  The watchers paused and then smiled, and there was a minor traffic jam at the head of the stairs.

  "Come on," she entreated, "let's not waste a minute of it." He put her on her feet, and they ran down the staircase hand in hand. Terry paused only to dismiss the chauffeur, and then they ran through the car park like children let out of school, and clambered into the Volkswagen. Their luggage was on the back seat.

  "Go, she said, "go as fast as you can!" Twenty minutes later Rod pulled the Volkswagen to a tyre-squealing halt in front of the hangars at the private airfield.

  The twin-engined Cessna stood on the tarmac. Both engines were ticking over in readiness, and the mechanic climbed down from the cockpit when he recognized Terry.

  "Hello, Terry, right on time, he greeted her.

  "Hello, Hank. You've got her warmed up already. You are a sweety!"

  "Filed your flight plan also. Nothing too good for my most favourite customer." The mechanic was a chunky grizzled little man, and he looked at Rod curiously.

  "Give you a hand with the bags," he said.

  By the time they had the luggage stowed away in its compartment, Terry was in the cockpit speaking to the control tower.

  Rod climbed up into the passenger seat beside her.

  Terry switched off her radio and leaned over Rod's lap to speak to Hank.

  "Thanks, Hank." She paused delicately, and then went on with a rush.

  "Hank, if anyone asks you, I was on my own today, okay?"

  "Okay." Hank grinned at her. "Happy landings." And he closed the cockpit door, and Terry taxied out onto the runway.

  "Is this yours? Rod asked. It was a 100,000 rand's worth of aircraft.

  "Pops gave it to me for my birthday," Terry replied. "Do you like it?"

  "Not bad," Rod admitted.

  Terry turned upwind and applied the wheel brakes while she ran the engines up to peak revs, testing their response.

  Suddenly Rod realized that he was in the hands of a woman pilot. He fell silent and his nerves began to tighten up.

  "Let's go," said Terry and kicked off the brakes. The Cessna surged forward, and Rod gripped the arm rests and froze with his gaze fixed dead ahead.

  "Relax, Ironsides," Terry advised him without taking her eyes off the runway, "I've been flying since I was sixteen." At 3,000 feet she levelled out and banked gently onto an eastern heading.

  "Now that didn't hurt too much did it?" She smiled sideways at him.

  "You are quite a girl," he told her. "You can do all sorts of tricks."

  "You just wait," she warned him. "You ain't seen nothing yet!" They flew in silence until the Highveld had fallen away behind them, and they were over the dense green mattress of the Bushveld.

  "I'm going to divorce him." She broke the silence, and Rod was not surprised that they were experiencing the mental telepathy of closely attuned minds. He had been thinking about her husband also.

  "Good," he said.

  "You think I'd have a chance with you if I did?"

  "If you played your cards right, you might get that lucky." "Conceited swine," she said. "I don't know why I love you.

  "Do you? "he asked.

  "Yes."

  "And I you." They relapsed into a contented silence, until Terry put the Cessna in a shallow dive.

  "What's wrong?" Rod asked with alarm.

  "Going down to have a look for game." They flew low over thick olive-green bush broken by veils of golden brown grass.

  "There," said Rod, pointing ahead. A line of fat black bugs moving across one of the open places. "Buffalo! "And over there. "Terry pointed left.

  "Zebra and wildebeeste," Rod identified them. "And there is a giraffe." Its long stalk of a neck stuck up like a periscope.

  It broke into an awkward stiff-legged run as the aircraft roared overhead.

  "We have arrived." Terry indicated a pair of round granite koppies on the horizon ahead. They were as symmetrical as a young girl's breasts, and as they drew nearer Rod made out the thatched roof of a large building standing in the hollow between the koppies. Beyond it a long straight landing-strip had been cut from the trees, and the fat white sausage of a wind sock flew from its pole.

  Terry throttled back and circled the homestead. On the lawns half a dozen tiny figures waved up at the Cessna, and as they watched, two of the figures climbed into a toy Land Rover and set off for the landing-strip. A ribbon of white dust blew out from behind it.

  "That's Hans," Terry explained. "We can go down now." She lined the Cessna up for its approa
ch, and then let it sink down with the motors bumbling softly. The ground came up and jarred the undercarriage, then they were taxiing to meet the racing Land Rover.

  The man who piled out of the Land Rover was white-haired, and sunburned like old leather.

  "Mrs. Steyner!" He was making no attempt to conceal his pleasure.

  "It's been much too long. Where have you been?" I've been busy, Hans." "New York? What the hell for?" said Hans surprisingly. This is Mr. Ironsides." Terry introduced them. "Rod, this is Hans Kruger.

  "Van Breda?" asked Hans as they shook hands. "You related to the van Bredas from Caledon?" "I don't think so," Rod muttered weakly and looked at Terry appealingly.

  "He is stone deaf," Terry explained. "Both his ear drums blown out by a hang fire in the 1930s. He won't admit it though."

  "I'm glad to hear it," Hans nodded, happily. "You always were a healthy girl. I remember when you were a little piccaninny."

  "He is an absolute darling though, so is his wife. They look after the shooting lodge for Pops," Terry told Rod.

  "Good idea!" Hans agreed heartily. "Let's get your bags in the Land Rover and go up to the house. I bet Mr. van Breda could use a drink also." And he winked at Rod.

  The lodge had thatch and rough-hewn timber roofing, stone-flagged floors covered with cured animal skins and Kelim rugs. There was a walk-in fireplace flanked by gun racks on which were displayed fifty fine examples of the gunsmith's art. The furniture was massive and masculine, leather-cushioned and low. The Spanish plaster walls were hung with trophies, horned heads and native weapons.

  A vast wooden staircase led up to the bedrooms that opened off the gallery above the main room. The bedrooms were air-conditioned, and after they had got rid of Hans and his fat wife, Rod and Terry tested the bed to see if it was suitable.

  An hour and a half later the bed had been judged eminently satisfactory, and as they went down to pass further judgement on the gargantuan lunch that fat Mrs. Hans had spread for them, Terry remarked, "Has it ever occurred to you, Mr. Ironsides, that there are parts of your anatomy other than your flanks which are ferrous in character?" Then she giggled and added softly, "And thank the Lord for that. " Lunch was an exhausting experience and Terry pointed out that there wasait'de sense in going out before four o'clock as the game would still be in thick cover avoiding the midday heat, so they went back upstairs.

  After four o'clock Rod selected a.375 magnum Holland and Holland rifle from the rack, filled a cartridge belt with ammunition from one of the drawers, and they went out to the Land Rover.

  "How big is this place?" Rod asked as he turned the Land Rover away from the gardens and took the track out into the virgin bush.

  "You can drive for twenty miles in any direction and it's all ours.

  Over there our boundary runs against the Kruger National Park," Terry answered.

  They drove along the banks of the river, skirting sandbanks on which grew fluffy-headed reeds. The water ran fast between glistening black rocks, then spread into slow lazy pools.

  They saw a dozen varieties of big game, stopping every few hundred yards to watch some lovely animal.

  "Pops obviously doesn't allow shooting here," Rod remarked, as a kudu bull with long spiral horns and trumpet-shaped ears studied them with big wet eyes from a range of thirty feet. "The game is as tame as domestic cattle."

  "Only family are allowed to shoot," Terry agreed. "You qualify as family, however." Rod shook his head. "It would be murder." Rod indicated the kudu. "That old fellow would eat out of your hand."

  "I'm glad you feel like that," Terry said, and they drove on slowly.

  The evening was not cool enough to warrant a log fire in the cavernous fireplace of the lodge. They lit one anyway because Rod decided it would be pleasant to sit in front of a big, leaping fire, drink whisky and hold the girl you love.

  When Inspector Grobbelaar lowered his teacup, there was a white scum of cream on the tips of "his mustache. He licked it off carefully, and looked across at Sergeant Hugo.

  "Who have we got next?" he asked.

  Hugo consulted his notebook.

  "Philemon N'gabai." He read out the name, and Grobbelaar sighed.

  "Number forty-eight, only sixteen more." The single smeary fingerprint on the fragment of glass from the gold container had been examined by the fingerprint department. They had provided a list of sixty-four names any one of which might be the owner of that print. Each of them had to be interrogated, it was a lengthy and so far unrewarding labour.

  "What do we know about friend Philemon?" Grobbelaar asked.

  "He is approximately forty years old. A Shangaan from Mozambique.

  Height 5" 7," , weight 146 lb. Crippled right leg. Two previous convictions. 1956: 60 days for bicycle theft. 1962: 90 days for stealing a camera from a parked car," Hugo read from the file.

  "At one hundred and forty-six pounds I don't see him breaking many necks. But send him in, let's talk to him," Grobbelaar suggested and ducked his mustache in the tea cup again. Hugo nodded to the African Sergeant and he opened the door to admit Crooked Leg and his escort of an African constable.

  They advanced to the desk at which the two detectives sat in their shirt sleeves. No one spoke. The two interrogators subjected him to a calculated and silent scrutiny to set him at as great a disadvantage as possible.

  "Grobbelaar prided himself on being able to sniff out a guilty conscience at fifty paces, and Philemon N'gabai reeked of guilt. He could not stand still, he was sweating heavily, and his eyes darted from floor to ceiling. He was guilty as hell, but not necessarily of murder. Grobbelaar did not feel the slightest confidence as he shook his head sorrowfully and asked, "Why did you do it, Philemon? We have found the marks of your hand on the gold bottle." The effect on Crooked Leg was instantaneous and dramatic. His lips parted and began to tremble, saliva dripped onto his chin. His eyes for the first time fixed on Grobbelaar's face, wide and staring.

  "Hello! Hello!" Grobbelaar thought, straightening in his chair, coming completely alert. He sensed Hugo's quickening interest beside him.

  "You know what they do to people who kill, Philemon?

  They take them away to..." Grobbelaar did not have an opportunity to finish.

  With a howl Crooked Leg darted for the door. His crippled gait was deceptive, he was fast as a ferret. He had the door open before the Bantu Sergeant collared him and dragged him gibbering and struggling back into the room.

  "The gold, but not the man! I did not kill the Portuguese, he babbled, and Grobbelaar and Hugo exchanged glances.

  "Pay dirt!" Hugo exclaimed with deep satisfaction.

  "Bull's eye!" agreed Grobbelaar, and smiled, a rare and fleeting occurrence.

  "You see it has a little light that comes on to show you where the keyhole is," said the salesman pointing to the ignition switch on the dashboard.

  "Ooh! Johnny, see that!" Hettie gushed, but Johnny Delange had his head under the bonnet of the big glossy Ford Mustang.

  "Why don't you sit in her?" the salesman suggested. He was very cute really, Hattie decided, with dreamy eyes and the most fabulous sideburns.

  "Ooh! Yes, I'd love to." She manoeuvred her bottom into the leather bucket seat of the sports car. Her skirt pulled up, and the salesman's dreamy eyes followed the hem all the way.