Emily was implacable.
“I loathe the idea as much as you do, Ian. But it is what we must do. We have no choice.” For an instant, her selfcontrol slipped and her voice wavered.
“Please… my whole nation is being destroyed before my eyes. Thousands are already dead and thousands more will die. And all because of monsters like that!” She pointed a shaking finger toward the closest screen.
Her voice sank, failing to a soft, sad whisper.
“What choice do we truly have, Ian? We have been given a tool that could help put an end to all this madness. How can we refuse to use it?” Tears rolled down her cheeks.
“How can we? No matter how it taints our own souls with its evil.”
Without thinking, he reached out and took her in his arms, stroking her soft, sweet-smelling hair as she sobbed quietly. Over her shoulder, he saw the twinned images of Muller and his catamite writhing on the hotel bed.
She was right. They didn’t have any choice.
He stared grimly into the video monitors. Very well. They’d find out just how this bastard Erik Muller would react to the threat of having his secret sins laid out for all to see -to the threat of full exposure.
CHAPTER 17
Retaliation
OCTOBER 24-DIRECTORATE OF MILITARY INTELLIGENCE, PRETORIA
Erik Muller stared at the television screen in horror. What had seemed so natural-so wonderful-in that Sun City hotel room looked so sordid and depraved when seen on videotape. He shivered uncontrollably, feeling both feverishly hot and ice-cold at the same time. His worst nightmare had come to life and shown itself in broad daylight.
The tape had been delivered to his office earlier in the day-enclosed in an unsealed manila envelope and marked only by a typed card specifying that it was “personal and confidential.” His idiotic secretary could remember nothing beyond the fact that it had been dropped off by a courier from one of the city’s many delivery services.
As Muller watched, the grainy, half-lit black-and-white images vanished, replaced by a buzzing, static-filled test pattern that showed the tape was over. He sat motionless for several minutes, feeling sick and completely unable to summon up the energy needed to reach over and shut off the
VCR. His thoughts were far away, reaching back over time to the moment when surrendering to his, physical needs had laid him open to this treacherous attack. Who could have known? And what did they want-his death or disgrace, or something else entirely?
Muller fumbled for the receiver as his phone rang.
“Yes?”
“A call for you, Director. Something about that videotape. “
He tried to suck in air and failed. The monster of darkness and blood he had feared for so long and so long denied had come for its payment at last.
The monster he himself had created. And now death or worse stared him full in the face.
“Director?”
Through a roaring in his ears, Muller heard his own voice answera voice made harsher by unsuppressed panic.
“Put the call through.”
A new voice came on the line. A woman’s voice speaking fluent Afrikaans.
“Director Muller?”
“What do you want?”
“Copies of the documents seized by your special intelligence team during the commando attack on Gawamba. ” The woman paused briefly.
“The documents revealing the ANC’s intention to attack our president’s train. “
The Blue Train? Muller hadn’t thought it possible that anything else could shock him. He suddenly realized that he’d been wrong. Dead wrong. An unexpectedly analytical part of his brain evaluated the woman’s choice of words and decided that she was educated and probably a native-born
Afrikaans speaker.
He tried playing for time.
“I don’t know what documents you are talking about. No such papers exist.”
The woman’s words were cold and uncompromising.
“That’s a great pity,
Mencer Muller. Then I’m very much afraid that the videotape of your ‘indiscretion’ will find its way into the hands of your superiors.”
Muller gripped the phone tighter, feeling dizzy as his office seemed to swirl around him. Time. He needed more time to consider his options.
She dashed any hope of finding that time.
“You have ten seconds, meneer. If I hear nothing from you by then, I will ring off-and the matter will be out of my hands.”
The bitch! Muller sagged back in his chair. Whoever these blackmailers were, they had him in an unshakable grip. He had no illusions about how
Karl Vorster would react to seeing his intelligence chief in bed with a black man.
He swallowed hard and croaked, “All right, damn you. I agree. You’ll have the papers you want.”
“An eminently sensible decision,” the woman approved.
“Now here is how the exchange will be made. At ten tonight, you will come alone to the . “
Muller jotted down her instructions with a shaking hand and then sat motionless holding the phone for long minutes after she’d hung up. His mind wandered back and forth, figuratively tugging at the bars of the cage in which he found himself. There seemed to be no way out-no exit that did not lead to inevitable disaster. Either he betrayed his leader or he betrayed himself. Unless … Muller looked down at his notes. For all the cool, calm professionalism shown by the woman who’d called, the rendezvous site and procedures she’d outlined displayed a certain amateur touch. An amateurishness that might let him evade the noose he already felt tightening around his neck.
He made a decision and dialed a three-digit internal number. Even a slim chance of survival was better than none.
NETWORK STUDIOS, JOHANNESBURG
Four people crowded the cubbyhole that served as Ian Sheffield’s
Johannesburg office. Emily van der Heijden and Sam Knowles sat in a pair of chairs in front of his desk and Matthew Sibena stood behind them, still appearing faintly scandalized that the cameraman had offered him his seat.
The notion that white men might actually regard him as an equal partner still seemed impossible for the young man to comprehend fully.
Ian glanced at his watch. Two hours to go before their scheduled meeting with Erik Muller.
Their gear for the night’s outing stood in a separate pile on his desk.
A pair of walkie-talkies, binoculars, the videotape, a small pen flashlight, and a set of keys to the car Emily had rented under a phony name. Not much to challenge one of the leaders of South Africa’s state security services.
He unfolded a tattered city map showing Johannesburg and its surrounding suburbs.
“Okay, here’s how we’ll run this show tonight. The three of you will follow me out to the site in our pool car. Make sure you stop a couple hundred meters or so away and stay out of sight. ” He circled an area around the map.
“Probably about here-near the N-three interchange.
From there you could make a quick getaway onto either the expressway or
Lombardy Link if this stunt doesn’t work out the way we planned.”
He pointed to the walkie-talkies.
“We’ll use these to stay in touch. See any problems?”
Knowles nodded vigorously.
“You bet I do. One big one. You can’t be the guy who makes contact with Muller.”
“Why the hell not?” Ian winced at the way that came out. Sounding like a petulant child wasn’t the way to win arguments with either Emily or Sam
Knowles.
The other man jabbed a finger at his face.
“Your ugly mug is why, boyo.
You’re the on-camera talent in our little team. Odds are that this bastard’s even seen one or two of your censored reports. You show up tonight trying to exchange dirty videos for secret papers and whammo—he smacked his hands together-” we’re all heading for jail and a bullet in the back of the neck.”