Larry Bond - Vortex

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.”

Emily chimed in, “Sam is right, Ian. I will go in your place. Muller has heard my voice before anyway.”

Knowles shook his head.

“Nope. That’s no good either.”

Now it was Emily’s turn to sound like a child deprived of its favorite toy.

“And why not, Mr. Knowles?”

The cameraman smiled mirthlessly. “

“Cause our boy’s just as likely to have seen your picture before, too. Your dad’s his number one enemy inside the government, right?”

Emily frowned and then nodded reluctantly.

“So there’s really only one person who can do this … and that’s me.”

Knowles tapped himself on the chest.

Sibena cleared his throat and spoke, looking frightened but strangely determined.

“That is not quite so, Sam. I could go in your place.”

Knowles turned sideways in his chair to look the young black man in the face.

“I’m afraid not, Matt. Muller’s not only a bastard and a thug, he’s a racist bastard and a thug. I doubt if he’d ever agree to hand anything important over to you.”

Damn it. Ian clenched his hands below the level of his desk. Much as he hated to admit it, Knowles was absolutely, undeniably right. He was the only one of the four of them who had any chance at all of successfully pulling off this clandestine swap. Besides, the South African intelligence chief had already had a glimpse of Knowles once before in his guise as an annoying American tourist back at the Cascades Hotel.

Letting him see Knowles again wouldn’t expose them to any additional risk.

He swore one more time under his breath before looking up and catching his friend’s eye.

“All right, Sam, you win. You’ll be the one who gets to go pick up our prize.”

Ian just hoped there really was a prize for Knowles to collect.

MADDERFONTEIN MUNICIPAL REFUSE DUMP, JUST

OUTSIDE JOHANNESBURG

A chain link fence surrounded the Madderfontein Municipal Refuse Dump, enclosing mounds of broken furniture, rusting food tins, old tires, and all the other assorted scraps left by a wealthy civilization. A flat, featureless plain stretched northeast beyond the dump-a plain marked only by scattered small reservoirs and the distant, floodlit smokestacks of the

Klipfontein Organic Products Factory.

To the west, a multi lane highway, the N3 Motor Route, paralleled the dump. Glaring headlights revealed traffic moving north and south along the highway at high speed. To the east, only a few of Madderfontein’s separate, single family homes showed dim lights glowing from behind drawn