De Beer called Intelligence in Pretoria immediately. They promised to send him assistance first thing in the morning. The army’s special unit for political assassinations and terrorist actions would place an experienced investigator at his disposal.
President de Klerk was informed about the incident shortly before midnight. His Foreign Secretary, Pik Botha, called the presidential residence on the presidential hot line.
The Foreign Secretary could hear de Klerk was annoyed at being disturbed.
“Innocent people get murdered every day,” he said. “What’s so special about this incident?”
“The scale,” the Foreign Secretary replied. “It’s all too big, too crude, too brutal. There’ll be a violent reaction within the party unless you make a very firm statement tomorrow morning. I’m convinced the ANC leadership, presumably Mandela himself, will condemn what’s happened. It won’t look good if you have nothing to say.”
Botha was one of the few who had President de Klerk’s ear. The president generally acted on advice he received from his Foreign Secretary.
“I’ll do as you suggest,” said de Klerk. “Put something together by tomorrow. See I get it by seven o’clock.”
Later that evening another telephone conversation took place between Johannesburg and Pretoria concerning the Pinetown incident. A colonel in the army’s special and extremely secret security service, Franz Malan, took a call from his colleague in BOSS, Jan Kleyn. Both of them had been informed of what happened a few hours earlier at the restaurant in Pinetown. Both reacted with dismay and disgust. They played their roles like the old hands they were. Both Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan were hovering in the background when the Pinetown massacre was planned. It was part of a strategy to raise the level of insecurity across the country. At the end of it all, the final link in a chain of increasingly frequent and serious attacks and murders, was the liquidation Victor Mabasha was to be responsible for.
Jan Kleyn called Franz Malan about an entirely different matter, however. He had discovered earlier in the day that someone had hacked into his private computer files at work. After a few hours of pondering and a process of elimination, he had figured out who it must be that was keeping them under scrutiny. He also realized the discovery was a threat to the vital operation they were currently planning.
They never used their names when they telephoned each other. They recognized each other’s voices. If they ever got a bad line, they had a special code to identify themselves.
“We have to meet,” said Jan Kleyn. “You know where I’m going tomorrow?”
“Yes,” replied Franz Malan.
“Make sure you do the same,” said Jan Kleyn.
Franz Malan had been told a captain by the name of Breytenbach would represent his own secret unit in the investigation of the massacre. But he also knew he only needed to call Breytenbach in order to ensure that he could take over himself. Malan had a special dispensation to alter any particular assignment he found advisable, without needing to consult his superiors.
“I’ll be there,” he said.
That was the end of the conversation. Franz Malan called Captain Breytenbach and announced that he would be flying over to Durban himself the next day. Then he wondered what could be bugging Jan Kleyn. He suspected it had something to do with the major operation. He just hoped their plans were not collapsing.
At four in the morning on the first of May, Jan Kleyn put Pretoria behind him. He skirted Johannesburg and was soon driving along the E3 freeway to Durban. He expected to get there by eight.
Jan Kleyn enjoyed driving. If he wanted, he could have had a helicopter take him to Durban. But the journey would have been over too quickly. Alone in the car, with the countryside flashing past, he would have time to reflect.
He stepped on the gas and thought the problems in Sweden would soon be solved. For some days he had been wondering if Konovalenko really was as skillful and cold-blooded as he had assumed. Had he made a mistake in employing him? He decided that was not the case. Konovalenko would do whatever was necessary. Victor Mabasha would soon be liquidated. Indeed, it might have happened already. A man called Sikosi Tsiki, number two on his original list, would take his place and Konovalenko would give him the same training Victor Mabasha had received.
The only thing that still struck Jan Kleyn as strange was the incident that brought on Victor Mabasha’s breakdown. How could a man like him react so violently to the death of an insignificant Swedish woman? Had there been a weak point of sentimentality in him after all? In that case it was a good job they found out in time. If they hadn’t, what might have happened when Victor Mabasha had his victim in sight?
He brushed all thoughts of Victor Mabasha to one side and returned instead to the surveillance he had been subjected to without his knowledge. There were no details in his computer files, no names, no places, nothing. But he was aware that a skillful intelligence officer could draw certain conclusions even so, not the least of which would be that an unusual and crucial political assassination was being planned.
It seemed to Jan Kleyn that in reality he had been lucky. He had discovered the penetration of his computer in time, and would be able to do something about it.
Colonel Franz Malan climbed aboard the helicopter waiting for him at the special army airfield near Johannesburg. It was a quarter past seven; he figured he’d be in Durban by about eight. He nodded to the pilots, fastened his seat belt, and contemplated the ground below as they took off. He was tired. The thought of what could be worrying Jan Kleyn had kept him awake until dawn.
He gazed thoughtfully at the African township they were flying over. He could see the decay, the slums, the smoke from the fires.
How could they defeat us? he wondered. All we need is to be stubborn and show them we mean business. It will cost a lot of blood, even white blood, as in Pinetown last night. But continued white rule in South Africa doesn’t come for free. It requires sacrifices.
He leaned back, closed his eyes, and tried to sleep.
Soon he would find out what had been bugging Jan Kleyn.
They got to the cordoned-off restaurant in Pinetown within ten minutes of each other. They spent a little over an hour in the bloodstained rooms together with the local investigators, led by Inspector Samuel de Beer. It was clear to both Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan that the attackers had done a good job. They had expected the death toll to be higher than nine, but that was of minor importance. The massacre of the innocent wine-tasters had the expected effect. Blind fury and demands for revenge from the whites had already been forthcoming. Jan Kleyn heard both Nelson Mandela and President de Klerk independently condemning the incident on his car radio. De Klerk even threatened the perpetrators with violent revenge.
“Is there any trace of whoever carried out this crazy outrage?” wondered Jan Kleyn.
“Not yet,” said Samuel de Beer. “We haven’t even found anyone who saw the escape car.”
“The best thing would be for the government to offer a reward right away,” said Franz Malan. “I shall personally ask the Minister of Defense to propose that at the next cabinet meeting.”
As he spoke there came the sound of a disturbance on the barricaded street outside, where a crowd of whites had gathered. Many of them were brandishing guns, and blacks who saw the crowd turned off and went another way. The restaurant door burst open and a white woman in her thirties barged in. She was highly excited, verging on the hysterical. When she saw Inspector Sibande, the only black man on the premises, she drew a pistol and fired a shot in his direction. Harry Sibande managed to fling himself to the ground and took refuge behind an upturned table. But the woman kept on going straight for the table, still shooting the pistol which she was holding stiffly in both hands. All the time she was screeching in Afrikaans that she would avenge her brother who had been killed the previous evening. She would not rest until every single kaffir had been wiped out.