Michael Ridpath - See No Evil

‘Yes, well. It’s a kind of stockbroker. It’s to do with my investments.’

‘It’s a spread-betting firm.’

‘That’s just an easy way of buying and selling currencies or shares,’ Calder said.

‘It’s gambling.’

‘I said, it’s just a way of investing,’ Calder protested. ‘Just drop it, will you? And don’t go through my stuff.’

‘Alex,’ his father said. ‘I’m glad you persuaded me to go to Gamblers Anonymous last year. One of the first things they teach you is to recognize you’ve got a problem.’

Sitting alone in his hotel room in Cape Town, the anger welled up inside Calder. He opened his mouth to swear at his father, but put down the hotel phone instead. The idea that he had a gambling problem was absurd. Typical of his father to somehow ascribe his own flaws to his son.

Now in a foul mood, Calder stalked down to the hotel bar in search of more whisky.

The light from two candles flickered feebly in the vast Hall of Heroes, illuminating the gaunt face of Andries Visser and barely picking out the silhouette of Paul Strydom, the latest candidate for induction to the Laagerbond. They were in the heart of the Voortrekker Monument, a massive granite structure squatting on the brow of a wooded hill overlooking Pretoria. The monument had been built in 1938 in Nazi-Gothic style to commemorate the Great Trek of the Boers a hundred years before. Outside was the Laager wall, a stone circle of sixty-four ox carts, and reliefs of black wildebeest symbolizing the Zulu enemy. A frieze of twenty-seven scenes from the Great Trek itself stretched around the inside wall of the building, and right in the centre was a cenotaph, arranged so that at noon on 16 December, the day of the Battle of Blood River, the sun would shine down from a window in the ceiling high above directly on to the inscription ‘Ons vir jou Suid Afrika’, the last line of the old national anthem ‘Die Stem van Suid-Afrika’.

Visser sang the first line of that hymn now, his voice weak and hoarse. The refrain was quickly taken up by the twenty-one men standing in the deep shadows behind the candidate. It was two o’clock in the morning, and the men had gathered in the utmost secrecy, the usual combination of blackmail, bribery and threats ensuring that they would not be disturbed. The Laagerbond’s ceremony followed closely the pattern of the Broederbond induction of the old days. When the last verse had been sung, Visser coughed and began in little more than a whisper. ‘Paul Gerrit Strydom, your fellow Afrikaners, who are members of the Laagerbond, have after careful consideration, decided to invite you to become a member of this organization.’

He continued, following the prescribed order of ceremony, which revealed steadily more of the nature and aims of the Laagerbond to the candidate, requiring him at each step to accept what he had heard. Strydom stood straight and tall, answering a clear ‘Yes’ to each question as it was put to him. Most candidates had little knowledge of the identities of the other members of the Laagerbond until the end of the ceremony, but Visser assumed that Strydom, who was number three in the National Intelligence Agency, would have a better idea than most.

His voice nearly failing, Visser eventually came to the climax of the ceremony.

‘In the presence of your brothers gathered here as witnesses I accept your promise of faith and declare you a member of the Laagerbond. Be strong in faith if the struggle becomes onerous. Be strong in the love of your nation. Be strong in the service of your nation. Hearty congratulations and welcome.’

With that he shook Strydom’s hand, and the other members of the Laagerbond stepped forward out of the darkness to do likewise, one at a time.

More candles were lit. An old general of at least eighty-five approached Visser. ‘I hope you know what you are doing with Operation Drommedaris, Andries,’ he said gruffly.

‘It will be a wise investment, you’ll see,’ said Visser.

‘Humph. I was told The Times will cost ten billion rand.’

‘At least that,’ said Visser.

‘Ten billion rand will buy a lot of firepower,’ the general said.

‘It’s political power we want, not guns,’ said Visser. ‘And I can assure you the money will buy us power.’

The general shuffled off. There were a number of members of the Laagerbond who just didn’t understand, Visser reflected. Fortunately they were getting older and dying off. The Laagerbond was powerful. It hadn’t needed guns to achieve that power. It had money and knowledge. It used manipulation to get its way rather than brute force. Operation Drommedaris influenced public opinion at home and abroad. Dirk du Toit and his father had multiplied the original billions supplied by Nico Diederichs through inspired investments. Some of this money could be used to bribe. If that didn’t work, Freddie Steenkamp and now Paul Strydom could use their extensive intelligence files on all of South Africa’s important politicians and bureaucrats, both black and white, to persuade and extort. Everyone of any importance in South Africa had a past, and in that past they had done things they were ashamed of. The Laagerbond knew those things. And if all else failed there was Anton van Vuuren, the grey-haired, bespectacled professor of physics who was at that moment talking earnestly to Daniel Havenga, and the sizeable stash of weapons-grade uranium buried deep in a disused diamond mine near Kimberley.

Visser smiled to himself. Under his stewardship as chairman of the Laagerbond, the Afrikaner nation had been safe.

Then he saw Kobus Moolman, and frowned. He moved over to the former policeman. ‘I heard that Alex Calder is in South Africa?’

Moolman raised his eyebrows. ‘I’m surprised. He obviously doesn’t scare easily.’

Visser’s frown deepened. ‘You seem to have lost your touch.’

Moolman smiled confidently. He wasn’t about to be intimidated by a former civil servant, even if he was chairman of the Laagerbond. ‘Don’t worry, Andries. Now he’s on my home territory I won’t let him cause trouble.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Visser. ‘Because if this van Zyl business gets out of hand it could destroy everything.’

‘We’ll have him on a plane back out of the country in a couple of days,’ said Moolman. He grinned. ‘In a coffin if necessary.’ Then he moved off to talk to the new initiate.

Visser coughed, the pain wracking his chest and shoulder. He would be lucky if he lived long enough to attend another one of these ceremonies. He surveyed the frieze around the walls of the monument. That tiny group of brave men and women clinging to life and freedom on the edge of such a vast continent. He remembered how when he had studied history at the University of the Orange Free State he had read extracts from The Times castigating the ignorant Boer farmers. He smiled again. Soon that mighty mouthpiece of British colonial rule would be under the control of those ignorant Boers. That was a day he was looking forward to.

The next morning George Field called Calder at his hotel with the addresses of Daniel Havenga, Andries Visser and Libby Wiseman. Since Professor Havenga lived in Stellenbosch, less than an hour’s drive from Cape Town, Calder decided to start there. But first he wanted to see Hondehoek, Martha’s house.

He drove out of the city past Mitchell’s Plain and the teeming township of Guguletu towards the Hottentots Holland mountains. His head throbbed vaguely from the whisky he had drunk the night before. He was still angry, angry with his father for accusing him of gambling, angry with his sister for blaming him for what happened to her, angry with Edwin for threatening Kim, and above all angry with himself. He had made mistakes over the last few weeks, but he was going to atone for them. He was sure that he had made real progress with George. There was more to be done, but the anger made him more determined to do it.