Larry Bond - Vortex

Sibena to the wall felt uncomfortably like bullying a handicapped child. As a white, middle-class American, Ian knew he’d never been subjected to even a tenth of

the subtle pressures and outright suffering inflicted on nonwhite South

Africans.

A glance at the tape recorder lying beside the VCR hardened his resolve.

Certain virtues had to be expected: honesty and loyalty to one’s friends, to name two. It was time to remind Matthew Sibena of that.

He cleared his throat.

“Matt?”

Sibena looked up.

“I’ve got one other thing I’d like you to listen to. Maybe you can explain it for me. Okay?”

The young black man nodded slowly, evidently unsure of just what the

American had in mind.

Ian pressed the playback switch on the tape recorder and stepped back, watching Siberia’s puzzled face as the first few seconds of static crackled faintly out of the recorder’s speakers.

Suddenly, a series of high-pitched beeps cut through the static-the sound of a six-digit number being punched in on a touch-tone phone.

The phone rang twice before it was answered. A harsh, grating voice came on the line.

“Monitoring station. Who is this?”

Ian actually saw the blood drain from Sibena’s face as the young black man heard his own voice answering, “Sibena. Four eight five.”

“Make your report, kaffir.”

“The American reporters are near Hillbrow Hospital, at the corner of

Cavell and Kapteijn. They’re here to see if the rumors of an illegal demonstration are true.”

A pause. Then the voice on the other end came back.

“We have no word of such a thing. Report back if such a protest is planned or if the

Americans take any interesting pictures. And do not fail us! You remember what is at stake, kaffir?”

Siberia’s recorded voice dropped to a strained whisper.

“I remember, baas. “

“See that you do.” The connection ended in a low buzzing hum.

Ian reached out and snapped the tape recorder off. Then he turned to look at Matthew Siberia.

The young black man sat crumpled in his chair, his face buried in his hands. Low moans and sobs emerged in time with his shaking shoulders. Ian felt sick.

He knelt beside Sibena.

“Why, Matt? Tell me why you’re working for these people. I know you hate them. So what hold do they have over you?”

Slowly, very slowly, Ian coaxed the whole story out between the young man’s tear-choked coughs.

Like the parents of most black children growing up in Soweto’s slums during the 1970s, Sibena’s father and mother hadn’t been able to keep paying the fees for his schooling. As a result, he’d gone to work just after turning fourteen taking mostly odd jobs whenever and wherever he could find them. Few lasted long or paid a living wage.

Then, as South Africa’s economy continued its long, slow slide toward collapse, Sibena found it increasingly difficult to get work of any sort.

He had few salable skills-the ability to drive a car, to read and write, and to run a cash register, nothing much more. And he was too small and too weak to be seriously considered for any job in the Witwatersrand gold mines outside Johannesburg.

Finally, out of money and down on his luck, he’d drifted into petty thievery. Nothing serious and certainly nothing violent. Just small burglaries of untenanted rooms in white run hotels or the glove compartments of parked cars. Sibena had existed that way for months—operating in the narrow fringe between legality and Soweto’s organized criminal gangs.

And then he’d been caught breaking into a locked car. But the Afrikaner officers who’d arrested him hadn’t taken him before a magistrate.

Instead, he’d been hauled into a police barracks, savagely beaten, and told to choose one of two unpalatable alternatives-either work for the security services as a paid informer, or be sent to the rock-breaking, man killing prison on Robben Island off South Africa’s coast.

To his eternal shame, Matthew Sibena had chosen the role of police spy.

Monitoring Ian and Knowles’s activities while serving as their driver had been his first and only assignment.

Ian rocked back on his heels, considering his next move.

Sibena’s story was an ugly one, but it was pretty much what he’d expected to hear. South Africa’s police forces weren’t famed for either their subtlety or their sensitivity.

“What will you do to me now that you know what I have done?” Sibena’s voice quavered.

Ian felt a sudden surge of anger toward the bastards who’d turned Sibena into the weak and fearful young man cowering before him. He shook his head impatiently, fighting to conceal his anger. The kid would only think it was aimed at him.

He looked Siberia squarely in the eyes.

“Nothing, Matt. We won’t do a thing to you.”

I “Truly?” I

Ian nodded.

“Truly.”

He paused, casting about for the best way to make his offer. Finally, he got up off his knees and pulled another folding chair over so that he could sit on the same level as Sibena.

“But I would like you to make a decision,

Matt, a difficult decision. The young man flinched. He’d heard white men offering him tough choices before.

Ian saw the panic in the other man’s eyes and shook his head.

“No, Matt.

This isn’t like what those goddamned cops put you through. Jesus, I hope that’s true, he thought.

Ian took a deep breath, unable to escape the feeling that he was about to bet his life savings on a single roll of the dice.

“All I want to do,

Matthew Sibena, is ask for your help-as one man to another.

“If you don’t want to do what I’m asking, just say so. Sam and I will drop what we’re planning and carry on as before-and you’re welcome to keep making your reports to the police.” He sat forward, keeping his eyes fixed on Sibena’s face.

“But I’ll tell you this much for now. I think we’re on the edge of a damn big story-a story that could blow the lid off this whole blasted country and tear the guts out of the Vorster government. Sibena stared at him without saying anything.

Ian lowered his voice until it was just above a whisper.

“We need your help, Matt. We need you to keep the security services off our backs while we ferret out the truth. ” He looked down at the floor and then back up.

“I won’t lie to you. I can’t promise you that we’ll succeed. I can’t promise you that even if we do it’ll really help make life better here in South Africa. And I sure as hell can’t promise you that we’ll be able to protect you from the police if things go wrong-or even if they go right.”

Silence. A silence that dragged on for what seemed like hours but couldn’t possibly have been more than seconds.

At last, Sibena sat up straight on his metal chair. His eyes were red rimmed, but they carried a new look of determination and of purpose.

“I

will try, meneer. God help me, for I am a weak man, but I will try.”

Ian held out his hand and waited until Sibena shook it tentatively at first and then with vigor. They were committed.

OCTOBER 22-THE CASCADES HOTEL, SUN CITY, BOPHUTHATSWANA

Sun City was surrounded by a vast expanse of the high veld -a barren plain of brown, withered grasslands, isolated groves of stunted scrub trees, and small, ramshackle villages. Bophuthatswana’s poverty made the sight of the resort town even more startling. It was an oasis of wealth, privilege, and pleasure in the midst of an arid, sun-baked wilderness.

The resort area’s hotel and casino complex rose around the paved shoreline of a sparkling, sky-blue artificial lake. Hundreds of picture windows gleamed in the summer sunlight-opening onto wide terraces full of greenery and purple-blossomed jacaranda trees. Outside the hotel, sprinkler systems swiveled to and fro, spraying a fine mist of fresh water over manicured lawns, towering palm trees, and an eighteen-hole golf course.