On two occasions he carried out murders for Jan Kleyn. He performed satisfactorily. Jan Kleyn was pleased. But although they met regularly at that time, Jan Kleyn had never so much as shaken his hand.
The lights from Johannesburg faded slowly behind them. Traffic on the freeway to Pretoria thinned out. Victor Mabasha leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He would soon discover what had changed Jan Kleyn’s decision that they should never meet again. Against his will, he could feel his own excitement building. Jan Kleyn would never have sent for him unless it was a matter of great importance.
The house was on a hill about ten kilometers outside Hammanskraal. It was surrounded by high fences, and German shepherds roaming loose ensured that no unauthorized persons gained entry.
That evening two men were sitting in a room full of hunting trophies, waiting for Victor Mabasha. The drapes were drawn, and the servants had been sent home. The two men were sitting on either side of a table covered by a green felt cloth. They were drinking whiskey and talking in low voices, as if there might have been someone listening despite all the precautions.
One of the men was Jan Kleyn. He was extremely thin, as if recovering from a serious illness. His face was angular, resembling a bird on the lookout. He had gray eyes, thin blond hair, and was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and necktie. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, and his way of expressing himself restrained, almost slow.
The other man was his opposite. Franz Malan was tall and fat. His belly hung over his waistband, his face was red and blotchy, and he was sweating copiously. To all outward appearances they were an ill-matched couple, waiting for Victor Mabasha to arrive that evening in April, 1992.
Jan Kleyn glanced at his wristwatch.
“Another half hour and he’ll be here,” he said.
“I hope you’re right,” said Franz Malan.
Jan Kleyn started back, as if somebody had suddenly pointed a gun at him.
“Am I ever wrong?” he asked. He was still talking in a low voice. But his threatening tone was unmistakable.
Franz Malan looked at him thoughtfully.
“Not yet,” he said. “It was just a thought.”
“You’re thinking the wrong thoughts,” said Jan Kleyn. “You’re wasting your time worrying unnecessarily. Everything will go according to plan.”
“I hope so,” said Franz Malan. “My superiors would put a price on my head if anything went wrong.”
Jan Kleyn smiled at him.
“I would commit suicide,” he said. “But I have no intention of dying. When we have recovered all we have lost during the last few years, I will withdraw. But not until then.”
Jan Kleyn had enjoyed an astonishing career. His uncompromising hatred of everyone who wanted to put a stop to apartheid policies in South Africa was well known, or notorious, depending on one’s point of view. Many dismissed him as the biggest madman in the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. But those who knew him were well aware he was a cold, calculating man whose ruthlessness never pushed him into rash actions. He described himself as a “political surgeon,” whose job was to remove tumors constantly threatening the healthy body of South Afrikanerdom. Few people knew he was one of the BOSS’s most efficient employees.
Franz Malan had been working more than ten years for the South African army, which had its own intelligence section. He had previously been an officer in the field, and led secret operations in Southern Rhodesia and Mozambique. When he suffered a heart attack at the age of forty-four, his military career came to an end. But his views and his abilities led to his being redeployed immediately in the security service. His assignments were varied, ranging from planting car bombs in the vehicles of opponents of apartheid to the organization of terrorist attacks on ANC meetings and their delegates. He was also a member of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. But like Jan Kleyn, his role was behind the scenes. They had worked out a plan together, which was to be realized that very evening with the arrival of Victor Mabasha. They had been discussing what had to be done for many days and nights. Eventually, they reached an agreement. They put their plan before the secret society that was never known as anything other than the Committee.
It was the Committee that gave them their current assignment.
It all started when Nelson Mandela was released from the prison cell he had occupied on Robben Island for nearly thirty years. As far as Jan Kleyn, Franz Malan, and all other right-thinking boere ^ 1 were concerned, the act was a declaration of war. President de Klerk had betrayed his own people, the whites of South Africa. The apartheid system would collapse unless something drastic was done. A number of highly placed boere, among them Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan, realized that free elections would inevitably lead to black majority rule. That would be a catastrophe, doomsday for the right of the chosen people to rule South Africa as they saw fit. They discussed many different courses of action before finally deciding what needed to be done.
The decision had been made four months earlier. They met in this very house, which was owned by the South African army and used for conferences and meetings that required privacy. Officially neither BOSS nor the military had any links with secret societies. Their loyalty was formally bound to the sitting government and the South African constitution. But the reality was quite different. Just as when the Broederbond was at its peak, Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan had contacts throughout South African society. The operation they had planned on behalf of The Committee and were now ready to set in motion was based in the high command of the South African army, the Inkatha movement that opposed the ANC, and among well-placed businessmen and bank officials.
They had been sitting in the same room as they found themselves in now, at the table with the green cloth, when Jan Kleyn suddenly said:
“Who is the single most important person in South Africa today?”
It did not take Franz Malan long to realize to whom Jan Kleyn was referring.
“Try a little thought experiment,” Jan Kleyn went on. “Imagine him dead. Not from natural causes. That would only turn him into a martyr. No, imagine him assassinated.”
“There would be uproar in the black townships on a scale far beyond what we could have imagined so far. General strikes, chaos. The rest of the world would isolate us even more.”
“Think further. Let’s suppose it could be proved he was murdered by a black man.”
“That would increase the confusion. Inkatha and the ANC would go for each other in an all-out war. We could sit watching with our arms crossed while they annihilated each other with their machetes and axes and spears.”
“Right. But think one step further. That the man who murdered him was a member of the ANC.”
“The movement would collapse in chaos. The crown princes would slit each others’ throats.”
Jan Kleyn nodded enthusiastically.
“Right. Think further!”
Franz Malan pondered for a moment before responding.
“In the end no doubt the blacks would turn on the whites. And since the black political movement would be on the brink of total collapse and anarchy by this point, we’d be forced to send in the police and the army. The result would be a brief civil war. With a little careful planning we should be able to eliminate every black of significance. Whether the rest of the world liked it or not, it would be forced to accept that it was the blacks who started the war.”
Jan Kleyn nodded.
Franz Malan gazed expectantly at the man opposite him.
“Are you serious about this?” he asked slowly.
Jan Kleyn looked at him in surprise.
“Serious?”
“That we should actually kill him?”
“Of course I’m serious about it. The man will be liquidated before next summer. I’m thinking of calling it Operation Spriengboek.”