Vortex (49 page)

“Really, Miss van der Heijden, I’m so glad you asked me to sit with you.

It’s such an honor. I mean, imagine me Irene Roussouw-taking lunch with the deputy minister’s own daughter. It’s fantastic!”

Emily forced her wavering attention back on track. She smiled sweetly at the young, red-haired woman in front of her.

“Come now, Irene. None of that “Miss van der Heijden’ nonsense. You’ll make me feel old! My name’s

Emily, remember?” She hoped her real feelings weren’t showing. Flattery was bad enough, but to be flattered and fawned over simply because she was her father’s daughter was infinitely worse!

“Oh, yes, certainly… Emily.” Roussouw still sounded breathless, exactly like one of those giddy, vacant-minded schoolgirls she’d always avoided whenever possible.

But it wasn’t always possible, Emily reminded herself. She, Ian, and Sam

Knowles were playing for high stakes now-stakes that made pretty but petty idiots such as this Roussouw woman worth tolerating.

She nodded.

“That’s the way, Irene. After all, we should be friends, right? Since we may wind up working together here?”

Roussouw looked puzzled.

“But I don’t understand Emily. Why should you need to work at all?”

Emily gritted her teeth and hid her irritation by taking a sip of the iced mineral water in front of her. Her smile was back when she looked up again.

“Oh, I don’t need to work. But it’s… well, it’s a sacrifice I feel I should make.”

Roussouw nodded, her bright blue eyes openly admiring.

Now for the hard part, Emily thought. She leaned forward and lowered her voice conspiratorily.

“And besides, I didn’t think it was fair for the rest of you girls to have all these eligible young men all to yourselves.”

“The other woman leaned forward herself, lowering her own voice to match

Emily’s soft, secretive tone.

“Ah, if only it were true, Emily. There aren’t too many prize catches left here. Most of the best have gone off to war. Off to risk their lives for us, and for the fatherland, of course.” She sighed theatrically.

Emily winced inwardly. She suspected that Irene Roussouw’s ideas of patriotism came straight out of trashy romance novels. She arched an eyebrow.

“Come now. They can’t all have gone. There must be a few handsome young fellows left to fight over, true?” She tapped a finger gently on the table’s plastic surface.

“What about this Major Karlsen I hear so much about? Isn’t he the one you work for?”

“Oh, no, Emily!” Roussouw shook her head, laughing.

“Major Karlsen is a nice man, I’m sure… but I don’t work for him. I’m the personal secretary for the director. ” She looked quickly to either side before continuing proudly, “For Erik Muller. Have you heard of him? He’s in charge of special operations.” The way she said it made it clear that she had very little idea of exactly what Muller’s “special operations” entailed.

Emily pretended to be surprised.

“Erik Muller? You work for him?” She wagged a finger in Roussouw’s face.

“So now I know you were holding out on me! Why, I’ve heard that he’s very handsome … and very much a bachelor.”

The other young woman blushed.

“Well, he is quite good-looking.” She seemed strangely uncertain.

“But I think he must be one of those men who are married to their work, you know? He never seems interested… ”

Her voice faded away as she blushed further, embarrassed at having admitted her evident failure to attract her superior.

Emily changed her tack.

“Well, I’m sure it’s simply that he’s so busy.

Believe me, I know what these government officials are like-my father, for instance. Work, work, and more work. That’s all they care about!”

“Yes, exactly!” Emboldened by Emily’s evident sympathy, Roussouw had recovered her equilibrium. She leaned closer still.

“Why if it weren’t for his little trips, I’d think Meneer Muller was a completely cold fish.

Like a priest, eh?”

Some instinct warned Emily to conceal her curiosity.

“Trips? Oh, hunting and hiking jaunts, I suppose. ” She waved them away as unimportant.

“No, no. Not hiking!” Roussouw shook her head impatiently. Her voice dropped even further until she was speaking just above a whisper.

“The director goes to Sun City from time to time! I should know-I’m the one who makes all his arrangements and reservations!”

Sun City? This time Emily didn’t have to pretend to be surprised. Sun City was a resort town about a two-hour drive away from Johannesburg and

Pretoria-inside the nominally independent tribal homeland of

Bophuthatswana. The homeland’s black rulers had outlawed apartheid and rescinded many of the blue laws that still marked South Africa. As a result, Sun City was famous, or infamous, for its mixed-race casinos, hotels, and pornographic entertainments.

Certainly, it seemed the last place on earth that a high ranking official in

Karl Vorster’s regime would want to visit. Unless…

My God! It was the perfect place for a covert rendezvous -assuming that their theory about a double agent inside the ANC was correct. Blacks could mingle freely with whites without arousing suspicion. Crowds were constant.

And there were few police or security agents to elude. Muller and his agent could meet there in absolute safety.

She shook her head decisively.

“Sun City? No, I can’t believe it. No one in his position would risk such a sinful thing. ”

Irene Roussouw wrinkled her face up, obviously irritated at not being believed.

“I tell you it’s true! He’s going again in less than a fortnight.

I’ve made the hotel reservations to prove it! A Saturday night at the

Cascades no less!”

A Saturday less than a fortnight away? That meant the weekend of the twenty-second. They had ten days to prepare. The twenty-second. Something about that date rang a bell in the back of her mind. What was it? Emily suppressed the thought for the moment. She had more important matters to pursue.

“Perhaps he’s going there on some kind of government business?”

Roussouw chewed her lower lip. Clearly, she’d never considered that possibility before. Finally, she shook her head -tossing her thick mane of red hair back over her shoulder.

“Hah! That’s just his excuse. He’s really going there for the cards and the liquor… and maybe even those filthy movies people say they show there.” She sat back primly, folding her arms. “it is a good thing that I am loyal to him. I tell you, if I weren’t, I could get him in some kind of trouble and that’s for sure.”

Emily coughed, choking back a strained laugh. Irene Roussouw couldn’t possibly have the faintest idea of the kind of man she was working for.

Muller was a murderer and a traitor. He’d sooner kill the pretty young woman than try to explain away any imaginary peccadilloes.

She’d better pull the conversation away from Erik Muller and onto safer ground. What Irene Roussouw needed was the chance to fill her head with catty gossip. She shrugged.

“Well, if Meneer Muller is out of consideration, what about Jan du To it? He’s unmarried, isn’t he?”

The other young woman laughed softly and shook her own finger back and forth.

“Oh, no, Emily. Jan du Toit isn’t suitable at all. You see, I’ve heard… ”

Emily leaned closer, a bright, interested expression plastered across her face as she prepared to exercise the twin virtues of patience and politeness. Inwardly, she exulted. She had it! She had the information

Ian needed. She had the clue that could lead them to the truth-the truth about the Blue Train massacre and Karl Vorster’s treachery. His exposure would mean at least his downfall, and maybe that of the entire government. No Afrikaner would be able to accept his authority.

OCTOBER
13-
JOHANNESBURG

Johannesburg’s towering steel-and-glass skyscrapers stood outlined in the pale glow of a new-risen moon. No lights gleamed behind any of their several thousand windows. Power cuts and nightly curfews were fast becoming a fact of life under the Vorster regime.

fan Sheffield turned away from the window and looked carefully at Emily van der Heijden and Sam Knowles as they sat uncomfortably at opposite ends of his sofa. The three of them probably seemed a most unlikely group of conspirators, he thought. One would-be journalist who hadn’t managed to get a single meaningful story on the air for months. One cameraman and technician shorter than his own gear if it were piled end on end. And a single, beautiful woman who probably had far more to lose than either

Knowles or him if things went wrong.

He moved to a chair across from the sofa. They waited for him to speak.

He paused, trying to find the right words.

“I think we’d better take stock of exactly where we stand with this thing. To decide whether we should press on, or whether we should drop the whole damned business right here before we get in too deep.”

Knowles looked puzzled.

“Whattya mean, boyo? Why even think about giving up? Hell, we know what we’re looking for now and we know who’s got it.

I say we go ahead and nail the bastard. Nothing could be simpler.”

“It’s not quite that simple.” Emily shook her head slowly, her eyes fixed on Ian’s somber face.

“What he is saying is that up till now we’ve simply been engaged in a kind of academic game-a paper chase, I think you would call it? But the moment we step closer to Erik Muller, we step across the line into reality. ”

“So?” Knowles shrugged.

“So someone could get plenty pissed off at what we’re trying to do-somebody who just might decide we’re better off dead,” Ian said, irritated. Sam Knowles wasn’t usually so willfully stupid.

Knowles smiled broadly, letting Ian know that he’d walked into one of the shorter man’s traps.

“No shit, Sherlock. ” He turned serious.

“Look, Ian, we’re tracking big game here . I . maybe a whole gang of murdering creeps, from this Vorster guy on down. Stands to reason that’s kind of a dangerous proposition. But it comes with the turf.”

The cameraman shrugged again.

“Sure, if we screw up, we could wind up dead or in jail. If I’d wanted to play life perfectly safe I’d have listened to my dear old mom and become an accountant.”

Knowles ran out of breath and sat back, coloring a little under their astonished gaze. Neither Emily or Ian had ever heard him say so much at a single sitting.

“Anyway, I’ve blabbered enough. I say we go.”

Ian nodded and turned to Emily. She was his main concern. He and Knowles could look after themselves. And as the shorter man had said, this was the kind of job they’d signed on to do. But Emily was different. She wasn’t getting paid to risk her neck for the news. Besides, she meant too much to him to risk losing in some damn fool race for a scoop.

Emily must have seen the thought on his face because she frowned.

“I say we go, too. And I will go with you.”

He shook his head.

“Sam and I can take it from here, Em. You’ve put us on the right track, and now…”

“Now, what? Now you leave me behind like some sort of porcelain doll-too pretty and fragile for real work? Is that what you mean, Ian Sheffield?”

Her eyes flashed dangerously.

Ian winced. Emily had always warned him that she had a sharp temper, but he’d never seen it aimed at him until now. The trouble was that she was pretty much on target.

“This is my country. These are my people, the people of my blood. One of them is my father.” Emily’s anger faded into sadness.

“I must be a part of this, Ian. Do you understand? Please?”

She smiled crookedly-a smile that contrasted strangely with the tears brimming in her eyes.

“Besides, I know where you’re going. So even if you refuse to let me come with you, I will still follow. ”

“She’s got a point,” Knowles interrupted.

“I’d say Miss van der Heijden’s in on this little jaunt no matter what you say.” He grinned. Emily appeared to have gone up several notches in his estimation.

Ian shook his head helplessly.

“All right already, I give up. We’re all in. And God help us all, because nobody else will!”

Knowles and Emily exchanged knowing looks that made

him wonder just how long they’d rehearsed their little speeches. They must have known that he’d try to give them an out. Was he really that predictable?

Maybe it was better not to know. Ian pulled his chair closer to the coffee table.

“So have either of you two geniuses given any thought to how we go about catching Muller and our hypothetical
ANC
traitor in the act?”

Both of them looked blank. Good. At least he was ahead in something for a change.

Emily chewed at her lower lip.

“I thought we’d follow Muller to Sun City and see whom he meets . Her voice trailed off as she saw Ian shaking his head.

“Wouldn’t work, I’m afraid. Muller’s a professional intelligence guy. He’d be sure to spot us following him.” Ian drummed his fingers lightly on the glass coffee tabletop.

“Besides, we’d never get a camera close enough to them to shoot some usable footage. And that’s the whole point of this exercise. ”

“What are you saying, then? That we cannot succeed?” Emily sounded frustrated. Sam Knowles looked thoughtful.

“Nope.” Ian laced his fingers behind his neck and spoke with elaborate casualness.

“I’m saying we don’t need to follow Meneer Muller at all. We already know exactly where he’s going. All we’ve got to do is be there well ahead of him. Get it?”

Understanding dawned on Knowles’s face.

“Yeah. Sound and Sight R Us. No problem.”

“Well, I don’t get it!” Emily stared from one to the other.

Ian explained.

Emily sat silently for a moment, clearly mulling over concepts and technologies she’d never before contemplated. Finally, she looked up.

“If you say this is possible, then it must be so. But what of all the equipment you’ll need? Do you have such things here in South Africa?”

Knowles glanced up from a piece of scrap paper he’d filled with hastily scribbled notes.