Once they were gone, Ian had slipped quietly out of the studio and followed a long, roundabout path to the pub one designed to shake loose anybody dogging his footsteps. Sudden changes in direction. Rapid taxi switches.
Even a quick stroll through a department store teeming with lateafternoon shoppers. Hell, he’d used every trick he’d ever read about in espionage thrillers. And all without seeing any sign of anyone trying to follow him.
He signaled toward the bar.
“A beer for my friend here, please. “
Henshaw watched in silence as the white-jacketed barman deposited a tall glass in front of him. Once the man was safely out of earshot, he pushed the glass aside and leaned across the table.
“Well, did you bring it?”
“Yeah.” Ian risked a quick glance around the haze-filled room. Nobody seemed to be watching. He slid an envelope across into Henshaw’s hands and looked away as the South African tore it open and riffled through the stack of crisp bank notes inside. Five hundred pounds’ worth of tax-free British currency. Henshaw was one of those people who wanted to do the right thing, but only at a profit.
Ian frowned. He hated paying for information. Bribing somebody, even to tell the truth, always left him feeling soiled. He forced himself to smile.
“Satisfied?”
The South African officer nodded abruptly and slid the envelope inside his suit coat.
“You may ask your questions, Mr. Sheffield. I will do my best to answer them.”
“Did you get a chance to check the records I mentioned earlier?”
“About the raid on the ANC’s command center in Zimbabwe? Yes.” Henshaw took a cautious sip of his beer.
“It was a classic hit-and-kill op. Very well handled. “
Ian grimaced.
“I didn’t ask you here to grade the damned thing for me. ” He lowered his voice.
“What I want to know is, was there anything out of the ordinary about the raid? Anything that struck you as unusual?”
Henshaw hesitated and took another look around the crowded bar. Then he turned back to Ian.
“There were three things, okay?”
He traced numbers on the table while he talked.
“One, the par as who went in on the assault had a complete readout on the target before they went in.
Enemy strength. Building plans. Everything. It was like they’d been talking to somebody who’d worked there. Right?”
Ian nodded his understanding.
“Okay, two. There weren’t just par as on the op.” Henshaw’s voice dropped even lower.
“I saw the orders for the mission. It listed a special intelligence-gathering unit besides the parachute company. “
Curiouser and curiouser.
“Who’d they work for?”
Henshaw looked even more nervous. He took another pull at his beer, this time a sizable gulp. Then he leaned forward.
“For a man named Erik Muller.
You’ve heard of him? The director of military intelligence?”
Jackpot. Ian nodded again, casually, as though the information were of little importance.
“All right. What else?”
“Something very odd. The brass said this raid was an outstanding success.
Medals galore for the par as involved. A unit citation. The whole works, right?”
I “SoT I
Henshaw shook his head.
“So where were all the captured documents? Nothing came through my section. Not one scrap of paper! “
Ian shrugged.
“Maybe your troops didn’t find anything worth bringing back.”
The South African officer looked annoyed.
“No . no, you don’t understand!
We don’t mount these kinds of commando assaults just to kill guerrillas.
There are easier ways to do that! With bombs, for example.” He shoved his beer aside again.
“The reason you put troops in on the ground is to seize and hold buildings so you can search them for useful intelligence-for documents!”
Ian sat back, beginning to understand Henshaw’s puzzlement. The commando raid on Gawamba had been intended to capture ANC documents. South Africa’s high command
viewed the attack as a stunning success. But nothing Muller’s intelligence boys had found had come back through regular military channels. So what kind of information had they uncovered? And where was it?
He sat motionless for a long while after the South African left the pub.
Muller had played some part in the Blue Train massacre. He was sure of that. Every piece of evidence pointed in the secret-service man’s direction.
So far, so good. But all he had right now was a collection of what could be passed off as pure supposition, malicious rumor, and drunken barroom gossip. Turning any of that hodgepodge into solid, substantial proof was going to be tough-damned tough. Unfortunately, Ian didn’t have the faintest idea of how he was going to go about doing that.
CHAPTER 15
Spreading Flames
OCTOBER 1STATE SECURITY COUNCIL CHAMBER, THE UNION BUILDINGS, PRETORIA
Clusters of red pins dotting the topographic map of the Natal told their own story. The Zulu rebellion was growing, gathering strength day by day, despite the ever harsher measures adopted by Franz Diederichs and his security troops. It was a story matched in smaller scale across the length and breadth of Natal’s neighbor to the west, the Cape Province. Student riots flared in Cape Town on a daily basis. Growing numbers of young men of draft age refused to report for induction. There were reports of increasing opposition to the war in Namibia among the province’s business and labor leaders. There were even disquieting rumors that some of the police and soldiers stationed in and around Cape Town were increasingly reluctant to enforce the government’s security decrees.
Karl Vorster’s angry voice thundered through the room.
“This situation is intolerable, Marius! You swore to me these nests of traitors and malcontents would be rooted out and
utterly destroyed by now! And instead you come here to tell us that matters are worse than they once were?”
Erik Muller hid a satisfied smile as he watched Marius van der Heijden squirm under Vorster’s tongue-lashing. His closest, most dangerous rival on the cabinet had finally bitten off more than he could easily chew.
Muller shook his head, remembering van der Heijden’s proud recitation of kraals burned and Zulus shot down in fields or on rocky slopes. The man and his oafish subordinates really had no idea of how the game should be played-no sense of subtlety at all. Mass executions, indeed. Ridiculous!
Much better results could have been achieved by a series of carefully planned assassinations and kidnappings.
Vorster whirled from his contemplation of the damning situation map.
“Well,
Marius? What do you suggest now?”
Van der Heijden cleared his throat.
“Brigadier Diederichs and his men have fought well, Mr. President. But they are too few to adequately patrol the province. These Zulus have proven more stubborn than expected.” He looked toward the tall, whitehaired general sitting at one end of the table.
“But we could subdue them if General de Wet could just spare three more battalions of motorized infantry. Diederichs assures me the extra manpower would let him form enough pursuit forces to track these guerrillas to their lairs and smash them there.”
De Wet sniffed.
“Impossible. The Permanent Force and those Citizen Force units already in Namibia are vital to our campaign there. We cannot spare units for what should be simple police work.”
Better and better. Muller found it increasingly difficult not to laugh out loud. The two cabinet factions he disliked the most were now going for each other’s throat.