Larry Bond - Vortex

Ian shook his head.

“I’m afraid your information is inaccurate, Officer.

We’re on our way back from shooting a few background pictures of your city.

Nothing controversial or prohibited. Certainly nothing exciting.”

I ‘in that case, meneer, you won’t mind letting us take a look at them, eh?”

Ian hid a smile of his own and did his best to look upset.

“If you insist.

But I’ll protest this interference to the highest levels of your government.” He turned to Knowles.

“Please give these gentlemen the tape from your camera, Sam.”

His short, stocky cameraman looked sour as he unlocked the trunk and reluctantly handed over the wrong cassette. He started to slam the trunk shut.

“Halt! “

Knowles stopped in mid slam his back suddenly rigid.

The Afrikaner shouldered him aside and bent down for a closer look at the gear piled inside the trunk. He pawed through the stacks of equipment and muttered in satisfaction as he uncovered the carrying case full of unlabeled tapes.

“And what are these, Meneer Sheffield?”

Ian tried to keep his voice even.

“Blank cassettes.

“I see.” The policeman nodded slowly, his eyes cold.

“I think we shall confiscate these as well. If they really are blank, they will be returned to you.”

Damn it. Another story and hours of hard work down the drain. He tried to ignore Knowles’s quiet, steady swearing and said stiffly, “I insist on a receipt for the property you’ve illegally seized.”

“Certainly. ” The Afrikaner looked amused. He nodded toward his counterpart, a younger man who’d hung back from the whole scene as though reluctant to involve himself.

“That fellow there will be glad to write any kind of receipt you want, won’t you, Harris?” Spite dripped from every word.

Ian glanced at the younger policeman with more interest. What could he have done to warrant such hatred from his older colleague? Maybe he just had the wrong last name. Some Afrikaners never bothered to hide their long-standing, often mindless dislike for those descended from South Africa’s English colonists. It was a feeling that the English usually reciprocated.

Without another word, the older man turned on his heel and strode back to the waiting squad car, holding the case of videotapes out from his body as though they were contaminated.

“Mr. Sheffield?” The younger policeman’s voice was apologetic.

Ian looked steadily at him.

“Yes?”

The South African held out a piece of paper.

“Here is that receipt you asked for.”

Ian took it and stuffed it into his shirt pocket. Great. Instead of a story that would lift the lid on Vorster’s security services, he had a junior policeman’s signature on a piece of meaningless official notepaper.

The policeman cleared his throat and stepped closer, lowering his voice so that his colleagues couldn’t hear him.

“I’m truly sorry about this, Mr.

Sheffield. Not all of us are happy with the things that are happening in our country. But what can we do? We must uphold our laws-no matter how much we may regret them.”

Ian restrained an impulse to feel sorry for the man. Individual apologies couldn’t atone for insufferable acts.

“I imagine that’s exactly the same excuse used by Russian cops. And by those in Nazi Germany, for that matter.

“

The policeman flushed and turned away, his face almost as unhappy as Ian felt.

Doors slammed shut and the police car pulled away from the curb, accelerating smoothly into traffic. None of its occupants looked back.

Knowles stared after the squad car, anger in his eyes.

“Well, fuck you, too, you bastards.”

Sibena just stood silently, eyes firmly fixed on the sidewalk.

Ian shut the Escort’s trunk and opened the rear door.

“C’mon, guys. No sense in standing around brooding about it.” He tried to tone down the anger in his own voice.

“Hell, it’s not like that’s the first piece of film we ever lost.”

Knowles glanced at him.

“No, it sure isn’t.” He lowered his chin, looking even more stubborn than usual.

“Kinda funny, though, ain’t it? I mean, how the cops always seem to know right where we are and exactly what we’ve been up to. Almost like they’ve got their eyes on us all the time.

“Now just how do you suppose they’re doing that?”

Ian shook his head, unsure of what the cameraman meant. He’d certainly never spotted any police patrols following them. Then he followed

Knowles’s steady, unblinking gaze. He was looking straight at Matthew

Sibena’s slumped shoulders and downcast face.

AUGUST 30-PRESIDENTS OFFICE, THE UNION

BUILDINGS, PRETORIA

Karl Vorster’s spartan tastes were not yet reflected in the furnishings of the office suite reserved for South Africa’s president. Since taking power he’d been too preoccupied by both external and internal crises to worry about redecorating.

And thank God for that, Erik Muller thought, sitting comfortably for once in a cushioned chair facing Vorster’s plain oak desk. The dead Frederick

Haymans may have been a softhearted fool, but at least he’d had some modicum of taste.

Across the desk, Vorster grunted to himself and scrawled a signature on the last memorandum in front of him. The memo’s black binder identified it as an execution order.

“So, another ANC bastard gets it in the neck. Good. ” The suggestion of a smile appeared on Vorster’s face and then vanished.

“Is that everything, Erik?”

“Not quite, Mr. President. There’s one more item.”

“Get on with it, then.” Vorster’s flint-hard eyes roved to his desk clock and back to Muller.

“General de Wet is briefing me on the military situation in a few minutes.”

Muller clenched his teeth. South Africa’s chief executive

was spending more and more of his precious time trying to micromanage the stalled Namibian campaign. And while Vorster moved meaningless pins back and forth on maps, serious political, economic, and security problems languished-unconsidered and unresolved.

Muller cleared his throat.

“It’s a travel-permit request from Mantizima, the Zulu chief. He’s been invited to testify before the American Congress on this new sanctions bill of theirs. “

“So?” Vorster’s impatience showed plainly.

“Why bring this matter to me?

Surely that’s something for the Foreign Ministry to decide.”

Muller shook his head.

“With respect, Mr. President, there are vital questions of state security involved-too many to entrust such a decision to the minister or his bureaucrats.” He pushed the document across the desk.

Vorster picked it up and skimmed through the Zulu chief Is tersely worded request for a travel permit.

“Go on.”

“I believe you should reject his request, Mr. President. Beneath that toothy smile of his, Gideon Mantizima’s as much a troublemaker as any other black leader. I fear that he could make even more trouble for us in

Washington if you allow him out of the country.” He stopped, aware that he’d probably overplayed his hand. The President seemed to be in a deliberately contrary mood.

Vorster waggled a finger at him.

“That is nonsense, Muller. I know this man. This Zulu has cooperated with us in the past when all the other blacks toed the communist line. He’s even opposed sanctions by the Western powers.

Why, I can almost respect him. After all, he descends from a warrior tribe, not from wandering trash like the rest of the kaffirs. “

He sat back in his chair, hands folded across his stomach.

“No, Muller.

Mantizima and his followers hate the ANC almost as much as we do. They’ve been rivals for decades. And we rarely interfere in the way the Zulus handle affairs within their own tribe land The chief has no reason to make trouble for us. “