Rage (90 page)

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Authors: Wilbur Smith

BOOK: Rage
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C
entaine refused to eat the food in the parliamentary dining-room. ‘It's not that I am fussy,
chéri
, in the desert I ate live locusts and meat that had lain four days in the sun, but—' She and Shasa walked down through the gardens, across the top end of town to the Café Royal on Greenmarket Square, where the first oysters of the season had arrived from Knysna lagoon.
Centaine sprinkled lemon juice and tabasco sauce, scooped a gently pulsating mouthful from the half shell and sighed with pleasure.
‘And now,
chéri
,' she dabbed the juice from her lips, ‘tell me why you are so far away that you do not laugh at even my best efforts.'
‘I'm sorry, Mater.' Shasa signalled to the waiter to top up his champagne glass. ‘I had a strange phone call this morning — and I haven't been able to concentrate on anything else. Do you remember White Sword?'
‘How can you ask?' Centaine laid down her fork. ‘Sir Garry was more dear to me than my own father. Tell me all about it.'
They spoke of nothing else for the rest of lunch, exploring together ancient memories of that terrible day on which a noble and generous man had died, a man who had been precious to them both.
At last Shasa called for the bill. ‘It's half past one already. We will have to hurry to reach the House before it beings. I don't want to miss any part of Verwoerd's speech.'
At sixty-six years of age Centaine was still active and agile, and Shasa was not forced to moderate his stride for her. They were still talking animatedly as they passed St George's Cathedral and turned into the gardens.
Ahead of them two men sat on one of the park benches, and there was something about them that caught Shasa's attention even at a distance of a hundred yards. The taller of the pair was a swarthy complexioned man who wore the uniform of a parliamentary messenger. He sat very stiffly
upright and stared straight ahead of him with a fixed expression.
The man beside him was also dark-haired but his face was colourless as putty and the dead black hair fell forward on to his forehead. He was leaning close to the parliamentary messenger, speaking into his ear as though imparting a secret, but the messenger's face was expressionless and he showed not the least reaction to the other man's words.
As they came level with the bench, Shasa leaned forward to see past Centaine, and at less than five paces looked directly into the pale face of the smaller of the men. His eyes were black and implacable as pools of liquid tar, but as Shasa studied him, the man deliberately turned his face away. Yet his lips kept moving, talking so softly to the man in the parliamentary uniform that Shasa could not catch even a murmur of his voice.
Centaine tugged at his sleeve. ‘
Chéri
, you are not listening to me.'
‘I'm sorry, Mater,' Shasa apologized absentmindedly.
‘I wonder why this woman chose the railway station,' Centaine repeated.
‘I suppose she feels safer in a public place,' Shasa hazarded, and glanced back over his shoulder. The two men were still on the bench, but even in his preoccupation with other things the passionless malevolence that Shasa had seen in that tar-black gaze made him shiver as though an icy wind had blown upon the back of his neck.
As they turned into the lane that led to the massive edifice of parliament, Shasa felt suddenly confused and uncertain. There was too much happening all around him over which he had no control. It was a sensation to which he was not accustomed.
J
oe Cicero whispered the formula softly. ‘You can feel the worm in your belly.' ‘Yes,' the man beside him replied, staring straight ahead. Only his lips moved as he made the reply, ‘I can feel the worm.'
‘The worm asks if you have the knife.'
‘Yes, I have the knife,' said the man. His father had been a Greek and he had been born illegitimate in Portuguese Mozambique of a mulatto woman. His mixed blood was not apparent. It seemed merely as though he was of Mediterranean extraction. Only Europeans were employed as messengers in the South African parliament.
‘You can feel the worm in your belly,' Joe Cicero reinforced the man's conditioning.
‘Yes, I can feel the worm.'
Eight times in the past few years he had been in mental institutions. It was while he was in the last of these that he had been selected and the conditioning of his mind accomplished.
‘The worm asks if you know where to find the devil,' Joe Cicero told him. The man's name was Demetrio Tsafendas and he had been introduced into South Africa the previous year, once his conditioning was completed.
‘Yes,' said Tsafendas. ‘I know where to find the devil.'
‘The worm in your belly orders you to go straight to where the devil is,' Joe Cicero said softly. ‘The worm in your belly orders you to kill the devil.' Tsafendas stood up. He moved like an automaton. ‘The worm orders you to go now!'
Tsafendas started towards the parliament building with an even, unhurried tread.
Joe Cicero watched him go. It was done. All the pieces had been placed with great care. At last the first boulder had started to roll down the hillside. It would gather others as it built up speed and momentum. Soon it would be a
mighty avalanche and the shape of the mountain would be changed for ever.
Joe Cicero stood up and walked away.
T
he first person Shasa saw as he and Centaine walked up the front steps to the parliament entrance was Kitty Godolphin and his heart surged with excitement and unexpected pleasure. He hadn't seen her since that illicit interlude in the south of France eighteen months before. Shasa had chartered a luxury yacht and they had cruised as far as Capri. When they parted, she had promised to write — but she never kept her promises and here she was again with no warning, smiling that sweet girlish smile with the devilment in her eyes, coming to greet him as innocently and naturally as though their last kiss had been hours before.
‘What are you doing here?' he demanded without any preliminaries, and Kitty said to Centaine, ‘Hello, Mrs Courtney. How did such a nice cultured lady ever end up with such an ill-mannered son?'
Centaine laughed, she liked Kitty. Shasa thought that it was a case of kindred spirits. Kitty explained, ‘I was in Rhodesia to get a profile on Ian Smith before he meets Harold Wilson, and I made a side trip for the speech that Verwoered is giving today, and of course to visit with you.'
They chatted for a few minutes, then Centaine excused herself. ‘I must get a good seat in the gallery.'
As she moved away Shasa asked Kitty softly, ‘When can I see you?'
‘This evening?' Kitty suggested.
‘Yes — oh no, damn it.' He remembered his rendezvous with the White Sword informer. ‘Where are you staying?'
‘The Nellie as usual.'
‘Can I call you there later?'
‘Sure,' she smiled. ‘Unless I get any better offers.'
‘You little bitch! Why don't you marry me?'
‘I'm too good for you, buster.' It had become one of their stock jokes. ‘But I don't mind an order of small beer and chips on the side. See you later.'
Shasa watched her climb the staircase towards the press gallery. Over all the years he had known her, she seemed not to have aged a day. She still had the body of a girl, and the light spring of youth in her step. He pushed back the sudden cold gloom of loneliness that threatened to engulf him and walked into the chamber.
The benches were filling. Shasa saw that the Prime Minister was in his seat at the head of the Government benches. He was talking to Frank Waring, the Minister of Sport, and the only other Englishman in the cabinet.
Verwoerd looked fit and vigorous. It seemed impossible that he had taken two revolver bullets through his skull and had come back with such power to dominate his own party and the entire chamber this way. He seemed to have an infinite capacity for survival and, of course, Shasa grinned cynically, the luck of the devil himself.
Shasa started towards his own seat, and Manfred De La Rey jumped up and came to intercept him.
He seized Shasa's arm and leaned close to him. ‘The divers have raised the ferry. Gama's body is not in it and the door to the cabin has been forced. It looks as though the bastard has got clean away. But we have every exit from the country guarded and my men will get him. He cannot get away. I think the Prime Minister is going to make the announcement of his disappearance during his speech this afternoon.'
Shasa and Manfred began walking towards their seats on the front bench, when somebody bumped so roughly against Shasa that he exclaimed and glanced around. It was the uniformed messenger that Shasa had noticed on the park bench.
‘Be careful, fellow,' Shasa snapped at him as he recovered his balance, but the man did not seem to hear.
Although his expression was vacant and his eyes staring and unseeing, the messenger walked with a quick determined step, brushing past Manfred and heading towards the Opposition benches on the left side of the Speaker's throne.
‘Damned rude,' Shasa said, pausing to watch him.
Suddenly the messenger seemed to change his mind, he veered across the chamber and hurried towards where Dr Verwoerd was sitting. The Prime Minister saw him coming and looked up expectantly, supposing that the man had a message for him. Nobody else in the chamber seemed to be taking any notice of the messenger's erratic behaviour, but Shasa was watching with puzzlement.
As the messenger stood over Dr Verwoerd, he swept his dark uniform jacket open and Shasa saw the silver flash of steel.
‘Good Christ!' he exclaimed. ‘He's got a knife.'
The messenger lifted the blade and struck once, and strangely the Prime Minister was smiling, as though he did not realize what was happening. The blade came free and the silver was misted pink with blood.
Shasa started forward, but Manfred still had hold of his arm. ‘The Manchurian Candidate,' he hissed and Shasa froze.
Standing over the Prime Minister, the assassin struck again and then again. With each blow the blood spurted down his white shirt front and Dr Verwoerd lifted his hands in a pathetic gesture of appeal.
At last the men closest to him realized what was happening and they leapt upon the assailant. A knot of struggling men swarmed over him, but the man was fighting back with a kind of demonic strength.
‘Where is the Devil?' he shouted wildly. ‘I'll get the Devil.'
They bore him to the green carpet and pinned him there.
Dr Verwoerd still sat in his seat staring down at his own chest from which the bright flood poured. Then he pulled the lapels of his jacket closed as though to hide the terrible sight of his own blood, and with a sigh slid forward and crumpled on to the carpeted floor of the chamber.
Shasa and Manfred De La Rey were in Shasa's parliamentary office when Tricia brought the news through.
‘Gentlemen, the party whip has just telephoned. Dr Verwoerd has been declared dead on arrival at the Volks Hospital.'
Shasa went to the liquor cabinet behind his desk and poured two glasses of cognac.
They watched each other's eyes as they drank silently, and then Shasa lowered his glass and said, ‘We must start at once to draw up a list of those we can rely on to support you. I think John Vorster is the man you will have to beat for the premiership, and his people will already be busy.'
They worked together through the afternoon preparing their lists, placing ticks and crosses and queries against the names. Telephoning, wheedling and extorting, arranging meetings, making promises and commitments, trading and compromising, and as the afternoon wore on a stream of important visitors, allies, passed through Shasa's suite.
While they worked, Shasa watched Manfred, and wondered again how fate had chosen such strange travelling companions as they were. It seemed that they had nothing in common except that one most vital trait — burning unrelenting ambition and hunger for power.
Well, it was at their fingertips now, almost within their grasp, and Manfred was a man possessed. The effect of his enormous force of character was apparent on the men who came up to Shasa's office suite. One by one they were swept along by it, and one by one they swore their allegiance to him.
Slowly it dawned upon Shasa that it was no longer a possibility — or even a probability. They were going to win. He knew in his guts and his heart. It was theirs — the premiership and the presidency between them. They were going to win.
In the heady excitement of it all the afternoon passed swiftly, the grandfather clock in the corner of Shasa's office chimed the hours softly, such a familiar sound that he hardly noticed it until it struck five and he started and jumped to his feet, confirming the time with his wristwatch.
‘It's five o'clock.' He started towards the door.
‘Where are you going? I need you here,' Manfred called after him. ‘Come back, Shasa.'
‘I'll be back,' Shasa answered, and ran into the outer office.
There were men waiting there, important men. They stood up to greet him, and Tricia called, ‘Mr Courtney—'
‘Not now.' Shasa ran past them. ‘I'll back soon.'
It would be quicker on foot than trying to take the Jaguar through the five o'clock rush-hour traffic, and Shasa began to run.
He realized that the woman informer was so nervous and afraid that she would probably not linger at the rendezvous. He had to get there before the appointed time. As he ran he reviled himself for having forgotten such an important appointment, but it was all confusion and uncertainty.
He raced down the sidewalk, crowded with office workers relieved of the tedium of their day who poured out of the buildings. Shasa pushed and shoved, and weaved and ducked. Some of those he barged into shouted angrily after him.
He sprinted through the columns of slowly moving vehicles, and ran into the Adderley Street entrance of the railway station. The clock above the main concourse stood
at five thirty-seven. He was already late, and platform four was at the far end of the building.
Wildly he raced down the concourse, and barged on to the quay. He slowed to a hurried walk, and made his way down the platform, examining the faces of the commuters waiting there. They stared back at him incuriously, and he glanced up at the platform clock: five-forty. Ten minutes late. She had come and gone. He had missed her.
He stood in the centre of the platform and looked despairingly around him, not certain what to do next. Overhead the public address system squawked, ‘Train from Stellenbosch and the Cape Flats arriving platform four.'
That was it, of course. Shasa felt a vast relief. The train was late. She must be on the train, that was why she had chosen this place and time.
Shasa craned his head anxiously as the carriages rumbled slowly into the platform and, with a squeal and hiss of vacuum brakes, came to a halt. The doors were thrown open and passengers spewed out of them, beginning to move in a solid column towards the platform exit.
Shasa jumped up on the nearest bench, the better to see and to be seen.
‘Mr Courtney.' A woman's voice. Her voice – he recognized it, even after all the years. ‘Mr Courtney.'
He stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the heads of the passengers.
‘Mr Courtney!' There she was, caught up in the crowd, trying to push her way through to him, and waving frantically to attract his attention.
He recognized her instantly. The shock immobilized him for a few seconds as he stared as he stared at her. It was the Stander woman, the one he had met briefly at Manfred's holiday cottage when he had flown there to make the cannery deal with him. That was years ago, but he remembered that she had called him Squadron Leader. He should
have pieced it together at that time. How foolish and unperceptive he had been. Shasa was still standing on the bench staring at her, when suddenly something else caught his attention.
Two men were roughly pushing their way through the crowds of passengers. Two big men in dark ill-fitting suits and the fedora hats that were somehow the mark of the plain-clothes Security Police. Clearly they were making for the Stander woman.
At the same moment as Shasa, she saw the two detectives and her face went white with terror.
‘Mr Courtney!' she screamed. ‘Quickly — they are after me.' She broke out of the crowd and began to run towards Shasa. ‘Hurry, please hurry.'
Shasa jumped down from the bench and ran to meet her, but there was an old woman carrying an armful of parcels in his way. He almost knocked her down, and in the moments it took to untangle himself, the two detectives had caught up with Sarah Stander, and seized her from either side.
‘Please!' She gave a despairing scream, then with wild, improbable strength broke free of her captors, and ran the last few paces to Shasa.
‘Here!' She thrust an envelope into Shasa's hand. ‘Here it is.'
The two security officers had recovered swiftly and bounded after her. One of them seized both her arms from behind and dragged her away. The other came to confront Shasa.
‘We are police officers. We have a warrant for the arrest of the woman.' He was panting with his efforts. ‘She gave something to you. I saw it. You must hand it over to me.'
‘My good man!' Shasa drew himself up and gave the detective his most haughty stare. ‘Do you have any idea just who you are speaking to?'
‘Minister Courtney!' The man recognized him then, and his confusion was comic. ‘I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know—'
‘What is your name, rank and serial number?' Shasa snapped.
‘Lieutenant Van Outshoom No. 138643.' Instinctively the man stood to attention.
‘You can be sure you will hear more of this, Lieutenant,' Shasa warned him frostily. ‘Now carry on with your other duties.' Shasa turned on his heel and strode away down the platform, tucking the envelope into his inner pocket, leaving the detective staring after him in dismay.
He did not open the envelope until he reached his office again. Tricia was still waiting for him.
‘I was so worried when you ran out like that,' she cried. Good, loyal Tricia.

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