Gold

by Darrell Delamaide

  Myeti drove slowly. Drew remembered that a nine o’clock curfew was in force in all the townships, but they made the fifteen mile trip in slightly less than half an hour and arrived well before eight.

  “Stay down,” Myeti said, as he stepped out of the car, leaving the motor running. Drew heard the clink of a chain, followed by the creak and scrape of a rusty gate being opened. Myeti drove into a carport shielded by a tangled growth of dark bushes.

  Drew remained still until Myeti had closed the gate and locked the padlock on the chain. The black man opened the door for Drew, who extricated himself from the back of the car, slowly straightening and flexing his legs.

  Imitating his companion’s silence, Drew followed Myeti around to the back of the house. In the fading light of the dusk, the journalist saw a fair-sized garden surrounded by a stone wall. The wall and bungalow, also constructed of stone, resembled a small fortress.

  They entered a large room that seemed sparsely furnished. Drew’s eyes adjusted slowly to the dim light inside. There were no lamps,

  A broad-shouldered black man of medium height, dressed in a khaki shirt and dungarees, emerged from the shadows and greeted Drew warmly. “I’m glad you made it; sorry for all the cloak-and-dagger.”

  Drew, surprised at the surge of relief he felt, shook hands with Cyril Rampart.

  “Are you hiding out?” he asked.

  “Let’s just say I thought it best to take an indefinite leave of absence from the foundation,” Cyril said, in a tone serious enough to belie his smile. “Myeti told me you had called there for me. It was fortuitous, because I need very much to talk to you.”

  For the first time, as his eyes adjusted to the light, Drew saw that there was a fourth man in the room. Cyril beckoned to a dim figure behind him. “I think you two already know about each other.”

  As the figure came closer, Drew discerned a white man in his early forties, balding and slightly shorter than Cyril. Drew did not recognize him until he spoke. “Hello, Drew,” he said, holding out his hand. “Good to meet after all this time. Antoine Van der Merwe.”

  The voice stopped Drew even before he heard the name. The two of them had spoken regularly over the past three years but had never met face to face.

  “Where in the hell have you been?” Drew said, recovering to shake the proffered hand.

  Cyril answered for him. “Here and in some other houses in the township.”

  Myeti hissed a warning. He had stationed himself to one side of the window facing the street. Drew followed the lead of the others and moved into a darker corner of the room. He saw the flash of a searchlight outside the window, although the high stone wall kept the beam from entering the room.

  “Police?” he whispered.

  “Vigilantes.”

  Drew heard the crash of breaking glass across the street, followed by a woman’s scream and several shouts. There was considerable commotion and a single gunshot. Drew saw a glow from flames that seemed to be coming from the same direction. Just moments later, the glow vanished. Within ten minutes, it was quiet again on the street.

  The darkness was nearly complete. There were no streetlights to alleviate the African night. Still no lamps were turned on in the house.

  Drew heard someone moving, closing shutters. Finally, Cyril turned on a small lamp, dimmed by a dark cloth. The men sat around the table where the lamp was.

  “The situation is very tense,” Cyril said, keeping his voice low. “The police and their stooges are looking for ALF agents, the vigilantes are looking for stooges, there is the curfew, and we have very little to eat.”

  Drew’s eyes kept moving back to Van der Merwe. He had been trying so hard to find the stringer, he could hardly believe they were finally sitting next to each other.

  “Tell me about the telex,” he said, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

  “It was a plant,” Van der Merwe said, darting a glance in Drew’s direction and then looking at his hands in front of him on the table. “They said I would be paid, but it’s not like I had any choice,” the Afrikaner continued, looking at Drew again. “I’m sorry.”

  “What do you mean you’re sorry? Was there sabotage or not?”

  Van der Merwe looked at Cyril, who spoke. “You may have suspected that I’m working for the ANC, which is true,” he said to Drew. “We have been working for a political solution, but this was too slow for some people, who now work for ALF.” He paused. “We are told by ALF that they have planned for some time to sabotage the mines, but they claim they have not done so yet. They say the government is lying about the mines.”

  Drew felt suddenly numb, as the blood drained from his face. His limbs seemed leaden. If there had been no sabotage, if his story had been false, if the market collapse had been a mistake—the implications struck at his soul.

  “Are you being told the truth by ALF?” he asked. ‘

  Cyril shrugged, a slow, measured motion. “There has been strange behavior around the mines. Convoys are moving in and out constantly, and the perimeter is heavily patrolled. The workers are being held at the mine sites, even now. There are many rumors that the mines are still in operation.”

  “But why?” Many answers to his questions swirled in his mind.

  “You know the price of gold now,” Cyril said simply.

  Drew’s head swam. If the South Africans were still producing and selling their gold, now that the price had tripled....

  “Has there been any verification? Has anyone seen the mines?” Drew looked around the table. The three South Africans shook their heads. The American turned to Van der Merwe again. “What are you doing here?”

  “I was very suspicious of their intentions. I did not like the setup. They promised money, made me spread the story of an inheritance, invited me to buy a farm on the Cape.” The stringer spoke quickly.

  “They?”

  “They. Who knows who they are, really? Two men; they said it was important for national security. They arranged to send the telex from the Sun office. They stayed with me and then made me call you.” Van der Merwe’s face was thin and haggard. “You must believe me, I did not want to.’

  “What happened then?”

  “They said I should go home and pack my things and meet them at the address they gave me. I pretended to be very grateful, very interested in the money. But I did not trust them. It is too violent here; too many people simply disappear. I went instead directly to the ANC, because I thought they could get me out of the country.”

  Drew looked around the table. The covered lamp made a small circle of light, casting long shadows across the features of his companions.

  His finding Van der Merwe had solved his initial quest but set a much more daunting one for him. He had hoped Van der Merwe would verify the sabotage for him, or at least put him on the trail of verification. Instead, Van der Merwe’s story impugned the very fact of the sabotage and put the burden on Drew of confirming the falsehood of his own story.

  For Drew, his obligation was clear; he had to establish the truth. Already, the sinking feeling he had, in realizing that the sabotage might be a hoax, had yielded to a determination to get the real story.

  “Is it possible to see one of the mines?” he asked.

  Van der Merwe and Myeti looked at Drew as if he had suggested a flight to the moon. Cyril smiled at his friend. “The army is doing everything in its power to prevent people from doing just that.”

  Drew looked at Van der Merwe. “Surely you see we have to find out the truth. If the sabotage is a hoax, we have to know, we have to get the news out.”

  The Afrikaner clasped and unclasped his hands, he looked to Cyril in appeal. “Your friend is probably right that his life is in danger,” Cyril responded. “And it would be foolhardy to try to get close to a gold mine now.”

  Drew had never been in a situation where he felt so desperately helpless. He could not abandon his investigation, but he saw no way to go any further without assistance. He had always relie
d on himself, but never before had the challenge been so great.

  “I must try to see a mine, to find out whether they are still operating,” he said. He swallowed hard. “I need help.”

  Van der Merwe avoided Drew’s gaze and looked again to Cyril. The Xhosa did not acknowledge the Afrikaner’s appeal but studied his own big hands. His brow furrowed a brief instant before he spoke.

  “We’ll go with you, Drew.” He threw a sharp, angry glance at Van der Merwe, who bit off his protest. “I have an idea of how we can do it.”

  Drew ignored the apprehension on Van der Merwe’s face. He nodded at Cyril in silent gratitude. There was a buzz in his head from a sudden, new surge of feeling: fear. Drew was more afraid than he had ever been before.

  TWELVE

  Hannes Kraml concentrated on his driving. A mushy sleet covered the road in the dim light of a late dawn.

  He did not slow down. He trusted the BMW to hold the slick road.

  Steering the car around the road’s familiar curves relieved the stress of the past twelve hours. For Hannes, living with the secret he had discovered was nearly unbearable. He had been unable to reach Drew and did not want to confide in his wife.

  He was afraid now, speeding toward Zug. But he had to show up for work or risk arousing Marcus’s suspicions. Hannes had hardly slept. Damn Drew, he cursed aloud in the car. Where was he?

  The Mercedes behind him was tailgating again. Mercedes drivers were the worst, thinking they owned the road.

  Hannes downshifted to take a 45-degree turn, timing his acceleration carefully to move deftly out of the narrow bend. He felt a harmony with the powerful car that increased his confidence. Also, he knew the road well enough that he could practically drive it blindfolded, in spite of its winding along a steep ravine on the right.

  The Mercedes had dropped back, losing ground on the turn. It tried to catch up, but Hannes was enjoying the sport now, surging ahead in the BMW. The road carried little traffic this early.

  Hannes turned up the windshield wipers to top speed. The sky was growing lighter, but the low clouds and sleet reduced visibility.

  Bank to the left, more gently back to the right. Hannes let up on the acceleration and downshifted to take the deadman’s curve, a short 90-degree turn along the ravine. Several triangle-shaped signs alerted drivers unfamiliar with the road to the upcoming curve. Hannes saw the Mercedes gaining, but he knew it would be braking before the curve, allowing him to pull ahead.

  He was well into the curve when he noticed a flash of movement. Some damn fool was on the road! Hannes saw the figure in front of him suddenly, wearing a yellow jacket. Hannes’s preoccupation with the Mercedes had slowed his reaction by crucial fractions of a second. He braked and swerved, but the BMW was too far gone in the curve. The car’s momentum carried it through the metal railing, over the narrow embankment.

  In the moment before impact, Hannes knew fear. It was not so much fear of death; it was rather a fear of the man who wanted him dead. He had seen no features of the yellow-jacketed figure, but now the face of Marcus loomed before him—warning, mocking, vindictive, triumphant.

  ~

  Du Plessis remained behind his desk but stood when Drew came into the office.

  “Thank you for taking the time to see me, Mr. du Plessis,” Drew said, shaking his hand. “It’s nice to have the opportunity to talk with you again.”

  Drew was wearing his lightweight gray suit with a blue shirt. Du Plessis was unaware of the new steeliness in Drew’s eyes. The director general waited for his visitor to start.

  “Obviously, the first question on my mind concerns the mine sabotage,” Drew said. He had decided that a direct frontal assault was the only way to pry any information out of du Plessis. “How extensive was the damage to South Africa’s gold production?”

  The Afrikaner took some time answering, as though deciding how much to tell the journalist. But Drew was convinced that du Plessis had long since made up his mind what to say. He looked at the thin-lipped, severe man across the desk from him. He had interviewed du Plessis during his previous trip to South Africa, and later he had run into him at a BIS meeting in Basel.

  Andreis du Plessis had presented the cultured face of apartheid to a financial world not too concerned with civil rights. Articulate, intelligent, respectable by all the criteria that counted in that closed community, he had been a tangible reason for bankers and monetary officials to believe in the future of South Africa.

  But bankers, too, finally had to yield to the pressure of public opinion. Du Plessis no longer made public appearances abroad. Rumor had it, though, that he still found a hearing in quiet, discreet meetings with financiers, usually in London or Switzerland.

  “You will understand that considerations of national security prevent me from answering your question with any precision,” du Plessis responded finally. “We have imposed a complete news blackout on the subject in our own country. You are the first foreign journalist I have met with since the sabotage took place.”

  Drew waited.

  “The damage was extensive, as we indicated in our original announcement.” Du Plessis’s eyes bored into Drew, recalling to him what had precipitated the original announcement. “We’re still assessing the damage. But”—he paused, to heighten the impact of what he was going to say—”it’s certain that our gold production has been reduced by more than half for several months.”

  Drew was taking notes as the official spoke. Without looking up, he said, “Our information is that nearly four fifths of gold production has been taken out.”

  “I cannot, as I said, be any more precise for reasons of national security,” du Plessis said. “I don’t know the source of your figure,” he added, as though daring Drew to use unverified information.

  “What has the impact been on South Africa’s economy, on its foreign trade?”

  “As an American, you should know that South Africa does not have much foreign trade anymore,” du Plessis said, with a theatrical smile that had no mirth in it. “The United States, after all, has successfully pushed for an international boycott against us.

  “It’s an example of what we have always wanted to avoid here,” du Plessis continued. “Because of certain faults in the American democratic structure, it is very easy for a vocal organized minority to impose its will on a whole country.”

  Drew looked up into the sober face of the Afrikaner official and bit off his response, deciding not to rise to the bait. “It is well known, though, that South Africa still does considerable trade on a barter basis, or through so-called ‘neutral’ businessmen,” he said.

  “Fortunately, not all of our friends have abandoned us. And here and there we have found new ones.”

  “Which friends are you referring to?” Drew asked, intrigued by this new line opened up by the official’s response. Israel reportedly had intensified its relationship with South Africa, in spite of U.S. pressure. Latin American countries had found a clandestine barter trade with South Africa helpful in relieving the worst effects of the debt crisis.

  Du Plessis just smiled enigmatically.

  “Do you mean Israel? Argentina?”

  “I’m not going to tell you,” du Plessis snapped. “I’m not going to expose our friends to American slander because of their willingness to help us.”

  Undaunted, Drew went on. “Has the mine sabotage affected foreign trade?”

  “We are nearly self-sufficient. We continue to import vital necessities through bilateral agreements with our trading partners.” Du Plessis paused. “Don’t forget, gold is not our only exportable commodity.”

  South Africa had been nearly self-sufficient in grain production at one point but had been importing massive amounts before the embargo. Drew had not seen any hungry whites, but Cyril’s remark about food shortages in the townships confirmed reports in the Western press.

  In addition to gold, South Africa was a major producer of platinum, chromium, and other strategic metals, as well as the worl
d’s leading producer of diamonds.

  “And the higher world price for gold partially compensates for the lost production,” the South African said quietly.

  “Do you think the present price is justified?” Drew asked.

  Du Plessis shrugged. “The market, in its wisdom, has set the price.”

  “The market seems confused. Gold seems to be coming into the market in larger quantities than expected, given the lost production here,” Drew prompted. But du Plessis only looked at him.

  “Do you know where the gold is coming from?”

  “Perhaps the higher price has drawn out some stocks,” the director general speculated.

  “Has South Africa stockpiled gold that it’s selling now?”

  “Again, national security keeps me from answering you. But I think Western experts who follow this market generally felt we were selling or trading our full production.”

  “Do you know if the Soviet Union has increased its sales of gold?”

  “You must go ask the director general of the Soviet finance ministry that question.” Du Plessis smiled his humorless smile. “We have our estimates of Soviet production and sales, of course, but they are only estimates, and they are ours.”

  “Do you think the Soviets are responsible for the sabotage of your mines?”

  “As we reported, the sabotage was the work of the ALF. We have said for many years that the ALF, like the ANC, receives substantial support from the Communist bloc.” The South African official grimaced. “For many years, we received the support of the American government, because they accepted this. They realized that our fight is their fight.”

  “Do you think the Soviet Union played a direct role in the mine sabotage?”

  “This is a question better raised with our National Defense Ministry or our Foreign Ministry,” du Plessis said. “But I am sure they would not answer you, for reasons that are obvious.”

  “I’ve requested interviews in those ministries,” Drew said. “But they’ve been turned down.”

  “You are a financial journalist, are you not? You have the opportunity to ask your financial questions in the Finance Ministry.”