Despite the cold early-morning air, Sebe felt sweat starting to soak his shirt. Oh, God. Could they know what he really was? He risked a quick glance at his interrogator and began to relax. The man didn’t seem suspicious, just curious.
“I don’t know for sure, baas. The Labour Exchange people just said they wanted a digger, that’s all.”
The policeman nodded abruptly and tossed his papers back.
“Right. Then you’d better get on your way, hadn’t you?”
Sebe folded his documents carefully and walked on, his mumbled thanks unheard as a South African Airways jumbo jet thundered low overhead on final approach to the airport barely a mile away.
The policeman watched through narrowed eyes as the young black man he’d questioned joined the other workers waiting at the bus stop. He left the roadblock and leaned in through the window of his unmarked car, reaching for the cellular phone hooked to its dashboard. With his eyes still fixed on Sebe, he dialed the special number he’d been given at a briefing the night before.
It was answered on the first ring.
“Yes?”
Something about the soft, urbane voice on the other end made the policeman uneasy. These cloak-and-dagger boys managed to make even the simplest words sound menacing. He raced through his report, eager to get off the line.
“This is Kriel front the Cape Town office. We’ve spotted one of those people on your list. Andrew Sebe, number fifteen. He’s just gone through our roadblock.”
“Did you give him any trouble?”
“No, Director. Your instructions were quite clear.”
“Good. Keep it that way. We’ll deal with this man ourselves, understood?”
“Yes, sir. “
In Pretoria one thousand miles to the north and east, Erik Muller hung up and sat slowly back in his chair, an ugly, thin-lipped smile on his handsome face. The first ANC operatives earmarked for Broken Covenant were on the move.
JUNE 8-UMKHONTO WT SIZWE HEADQUARTERS, LUSAKA, ZAMBIA
Col. Sese Luthuli stared out his office window, looking down at the busy streets of Lusaka. Minibuses, taxis, and bicycles competed for road space with thousands of milling pedestrians-street vendors, midday shoppers, and petty bureaucrats sauntering slowly back to work. All gave a wide berth to the patrols of camouflage-clad soldiers stationed along the length of
Independence Avenue, center of Zambia’s government offices and foreign embassies.
Umkhonto we Sizwe’s central headquarters also occupied one of the weathered concrete buildings lining Independence Avenue. Strong detachments of Zambian troops and armed ANC guerrillas guarded all entrances to the building, determined to prevent any repetition of the
Gawamba fiasco.
Luthuli scowled at the view. Though more than six hundred miles from
South Africa’s nearest border, Zambia was the closest black African nation willing to openly house the ANC’s ten-thousand-man-strong guerrilla force. Despite the ANC’s
reappearance as a legal force inside South Africa and the temporary cease-fire, the other front line states were still too cowed by Pretoria’s paratroops, artillery, and Mirage jet fighters to offer meaningful help. And without their aid, every ANC operation aimed at South Africa faced crippling logistical obstacles.
He heard a throat being cleared behind his back. His guest must be growing impatient.
“You know why I’m here, Comrade Luthuli, don’t you?”
Luthuli turned away from the window to face the squat, balding white man seated on the other side of his desk, Taffy Collins, a fellow Party member and one of the ANC’s chief military strategists, had been his mentor for years. Whoever had picked him as the bearer of bad tidings had made a brilliant tactical move.
Luthuli pulled his chair back and sat down.
“We’ve known each other too long to play guessing games, Taffy. Say what you’ve been ordered to say. “
“All right.” Collins nodded abruptly.
“The Executive Council has decided to accept Haymans’s offers at face value. The negotiations will continue.”
Luthuh gritted his teeth.
“Have our leaders gone mad? These socalled talks are nothing more than a sham, a facade to hide Pretoria’s crimes. “
Collins held up a single plump hand.
“I agree, Sese. And so do many of the
Council members.”
“Then why agree to this… “
“Idiocy?” Collins smiled thinly.
“Because we have no other realistic choice. For once those fat Boer bastards have behaved very cleverly indeed.
If we spurn this renewed overture, many around the world will blame us for the continuing violence.
“Just as important, our ‘steadfast’ hosts here in Lusaka have made it clear that they want these peace talks to go ahead. If we disappoint them, they’ll disappoint us-by blocking arms shipments, food, medicine, and all the other supplies we desperately need.”
“I see,” Luthuli said flatly.
“So we’re being blackmailed into throwing away our years of armed struggle. The Boers can continue to kill us while whispering sweet nothings to our negotiators.”
“Not a bit of it, comrade.” Collins spread his hands wide.
“What do you really think will come of all this jabbering over a fancy round table?”
Collins laughed harshly, answering his own question.
“Nothing! The hard-line Afrikaners will never willingly agree to meet our fundamental demands: open voting, redistribution of South Africa’s wealth, and guarantees that the people will own all the means of production.”
Collins leaned forward and tapped Luthuli’s desk with a finger.
“Mark my words, Sese. In three months’ time these ridiculous talks won’t even be a bad memory. The weak kneed cowards in our own ranks will be discredited, and we can get back to the business of bringing Pretoria to its knees. “
Luthuli sat rigid for a moment, thinking over what Collins had said. The man was right, as always, but “What about Broken Covenant?”
“You’ve set it in motion, am I right?”
Luthuli nodded.
“A week ago. The orders are being passed south through our courier chain right now.”
Collins shook his head.
“Then you’ll have to abort. Pull our people back into cover while you still can.”
“It will be difficult. Some have already left for the rendezvous point. “
“Sese, I don’t care how difficult it is. Broken Covenant must be called off.” The ANC strategist sounded faintly exasperated now.
“At a time when the Afrikaners seem outwardly reasonable, carrying out such an operation would be a diplomatic disaster we can’t afford! Do you understand that?”
Luthuli nodded sharply, angry at being talked to as if he were a wayward child.
“Good.” Collins softened his tone.
“So we’ll sit quietly for now. And in six months, you’ll get another chance to make those slave-owning bastards pay, right?”
“As you say.” Luthuli felt his anger draining away as he reached for the phone. Cosate’s revenge would be postponed, not abandoned.
JUNE I O-GAZANKULU PRIMARY SCHOOL, SOWETO
TOWNSHIP, SOUTH AFRICA
Nearly fifty small children crammed the classroom. A few sat in rickety wooden desks, but most squatted on the cracked linoleum floor or jostled for space against the school’s cement-block walls. Despite the crowding, they listened quietly to their teacher as he ran through the alphabet again. Most of the children knew that they were getting the only education they’d ever be allowed by government policy and economic necessity. And they were determined to learn as much as possible before venturing out into the streets in a futile search for work.
Nthato Mbeki turned from the blackboard and wiped his hands on a rag. He avoided the eager eyes of his students. They wanted far more than he could give them in this tumbledown wreck of a school. He didn’t have the resources to teach them even the most basic skills-reading, writing, and a little arithmetic-let alone anything more complicated. And that was exactly what South Africa’s rulers desired. From Pretoria’s perspective, continued white rule depended largely on keeping the nation’s black majority unskilled, ignorant, and properly servile.