Larry Bond - Vortex

Though officially a white residential area, Hillbrow had long been a bustling multiracial neighbor hoW-full of trendy cafes, inexpensive apartment buildings, and late-night jazz clubs. But time and the Vorster regime’s return to strict apartheid had not been kind to the area. Now the district’s cracked sidewalks, trash-filled alleys, and boarded-up windows stood in stark contrast to the walled mansions, swimming pools, and flowering gardens of the rich white suburbs north of Johannesburg.

Though it was broad daylight, few people were on the streets. Most were at work, in the government’s crowded detention camps, or staying close to their illegally occupied flats. And some of those who dared to venture out shook angry fists or spat contemptuously at the sight of white faces inside the Escort.

Siberia shook his head nervously.

“I’m telling you, Meneer Ian, this is a bad place, a dangerous place. Surely you and Sam could find another area to take your pictures today?”

Ian leaned forward.

“Don’t sweat it, Matt. We’ll be okay. But we got the word through the grapevine that there might be some kind of illegal demonstration at the hospital here. That’s too good to pass up, right,

Sam?”

Knowles winked back and then nudged him, pointing out a graffiti-smeared phone booth a few yards ahead,

Ian nodded. It was time to activate their plan. He could feet his heart starting to race. A lot depended on what happened in the next few minutes. If they couldn’t turn Siberia against his masters, they’d have to abandon all hope of nailing Erik Muller.

Ian tapped Siberia on the shoulder.

“Pull in right here, Matt. Sam and

I can walk the rest of the way. We’ll take a few back alleys to avoid the cops.”

They popped the doors open as the Escort coasted into the curb and stopped.

Ian shrugged into his favorite on-camera blazer as Knowles pulled his gear off the backseat and out of the trunk. Then he waited while Knowles bent low one final time, fiddled with something out of sight inside the trunk, and slammed the lid shut.

The little cameraman nodded once. They were ready.

Ian leaned in through the driver’s side window.

“Just take it easy while we’re gone, Matt. We’ll be back in a jiff .

“

He ignored the stricken look on the man’s face and headed toward the phone booth, fingering his pockets as though looking for change. Knowles followed him with the Minicam and sound gear slung over his shoulder,

Once inside the phone booth, Ian waited until Sam stopped behind him—blocking most of Sibena’s view. Then he picked up the receiver and hurriedly unscrewed the mouthpiece. A small metal disk lay nestled loosely inside-the microphone disk that ordinarily transformed sound waves into electrical impulses for transmission over the phone lines. He tapped it out into his cupped palm and slipped it into one of his jacket pockets.

“C’mon, boyo. I can’t stand here looking like a barn door all day.”

Knowles’s mutter showed that he was just as nervous.

“Almost done.” Ian cradled the receiver between his ear and shoulder, pretending to make a call. He reached into another pocket and pulled out a microphone disk that looked very much like the one he’d just removed. But this disk had another, very special function built into its wafer-thin circuits. Over short distances, it worked like a miniature wireless transmitter. And any conversation over this telephone could now be picked up by the radio receiver and tape recorder hidden inside the Escort’s trunk.

Ian fitted the new disk into place and screwed the mouthpiece shut. Sweat trickled into his eyes and he wiped it off on his pants leg. Done.

He backed out of the phone booth and waved toward the car where Matthew

Sibena sat peering anxiously at them through the front windshield. Then Ian and Knowles moved

away down a nearby alley, skirting heaped piles of rotting garbage-walking fast until they were out of sight.

The alley opened up onto Klein Street beside a small, shabby Dutch Reformed

Church. Somebody had scrawled anti-Vorster slogans in white paint across its brown brick walls.

“This way.” Knowles pointed off to the right.

“There’s another alley leading back a few yards up.”

A minute later, Ian and his cameraman crouched near the side of a nightclub that had been raided and padlocked shut by the police. From their vantage point behind an overflowing Dumpster, they could just see the phone booth.

Matthew Siberia was in the booth, talking on the telephone and gesturing frantically while turning from side to side to see if they were on their way back.

“Well, I’ll be damned. Your cockeyed plan worked!” Knowles shook his head.

“He actually fell for it. Son, you’re a frigging cloak-and-dagger genius!”

“Yeah, sure.”

“There he goes!”

Ian risked another look. The phone booth was empty. Their driver was probably already back inside the car, waiting nervously for their return with that same helpful, friendly expression he always wore. Ian was staking a lot on the belief that much of Matthew Sibena’s desire to help was quite genuine.

Ian glanced down at Knowles.

“Okay, we’ll let him stew for another couple of minutes and then head back acting disgusted… like the whole trip was just one more wasted afternoon. Then I’ll pretend to make another call and switch the mike disks again. Right?”

The cameraman nodded.

“Cool.” He squatted down on his haunches behind the

Dumpster.

“So when are we going to spring our little tape on our pal over there?”

Ian squatted beside him, his forehead creased in thought.

“Later today. At the studio. I’ve got a few pieces of file footage I want to show Matt first-to put him in the right frame of mind, if you know what I mean.”

Knowles grinned suddenly and muttered something under his breath. Ian didn’t catch all of it-just the words “one devious son of a bitch.”

Matthew Siberia sat awkwardly on a folding metal chair, intently watching the images flickering across a video monitor. Scenes of carnage shot at peaceful demonstrations turned into riots. Scenes of whip-wielding South

African police and foam-flecked attack dogs. Clips of hate-filled passages from Karl Vorster’s speeches. Pictures of black-on-red swastika banners and chanting, roaring brownshirts. All flashing by at a lightning-quick tempo.

The videotape ended with a simple shot of a teenaged black girl running in panic from the police, blood streaming from a cut on her forehead. The camera zoomed in and focused on her anguished face and froze-locking the image in place until Ian got up and turned the VCR off.

He swung round and studied Sibena’s tear-streaked face carefully.

“Pretty horrible stuff, huh, Matt?”

The young black man coughed, wiped the tears off his face, and looked away.

“it is terrible, meneer. I wish it were not so.”

“You do?” Ian sounded surprised. He hit the VCR’s rewind button and pretended to watch the tape counter rolling back. His eyes, though, were really focused on Sibena’s reflection in the darkened TV monitor.

“Say,

Matt, did you ever join the ANC or any of the other antigovernment groups?”

The young man shook his head slowly from side to side without looking up from the floor.

“I was never political.” Emotion choked his voice.

“You must understand, meneer. Life in the townships is hard, impossibly hard.

It’s very difficult to find work to put food on the table.”

He looked down at his hands.

“I’ve never had time to work for freedom. And

I am ashamed of that.”

For an instant, Ian was tempted to drop the matter right there. Pushing