The Colour of Gold (12 page)

"Oh, by the
way, how are you progressing with your investigations into the
possible bombing attacks that we spoke about last time?" the
brigadier asked. "I'm taking a bit of strain from the big
brass."

"Nothing
definite yet, sir." Tiaan said. "My informants say that there
appears to be an increase in activities that could be related to
potential bomb attacks but there's nothing definite to go on.
There's a rumour that an enemy commander has moved up here from
Durban, but who it is, we don't know yet."

The brigadier
nodded and Tiaan left the room.

***

"I need a
reliable source for explosives." Shadow said to the man sitting on
the other side of the desk. "Commercial explosives would be fine.
Perhaps someone who works on the gold mines."

"I'll make
enquiries." the man said. "There are several men selling explosives
stolen from the mines but none of them are reliable, as far as I
know. Some of them work as decoys for the security police."

"I don't have
to tell you that this matter must be kept absolutely secret."
Shadow said. "Don't take any risks. If you can't find anyone, don't
worry. We'll find some other source. I also need money."

"I'll arrange
that." the man said. "Come here in two days time. Is there anything
else?"

Shadow shook
his head as he stood up.

"Not at this
stage. I need the explosives before I can move further." he said.
"I'll be here in two days time."

Shadow opened
the office door and walked out into the waiting room. He limped
towards the front door as two black men, one wearing large dark
glasses and the other with a heavily bandaged head, got up from
where they had been sitting and walked into the doctor's office.
Shadow stepped out onto the pavement and began walking towards his
shack.

***

"Good
afternoon, gentlemen." Doctor Mpilo said. "Please sit down and tell
me how I can be of assistance to you."

The two men
continued to stand in front of the doctor's desk.

"You are Doctor
Mpilo?" the man wearing the dark glasses asked.

"Of course I
am." the black doctor replied, frowning. "Who else could I be?"

"I just wanted
to be sure." the man replied.

Suddenly the
two men drew ,45 automatics from their pockets and, without a word,
each fired two shots in quick succession into the doctor's chest.
The heavy bullets knocked the man behind the desk back against the
backrest of his chair and blood began to ooze out of the holes in
his white shirt. He stared at the two killers in front of him in
shock as his life slipped away. Slowly he slumped forward, his head
striking the desk top with a small thud. The two men put their
weapons back into their pockets, turned, and casually walked out of
the office. The three black men sitting in the waiting room and
waiting to see the doctor, stared fixedly at the floor in front of
them.

The two killers
walked to the entrance of the building and out onto the pavement.
They climbed into a small white Datsun without number plates,
started the car, and drove away. A block away, Shadow watched the
white car drive away, turn into a side street and disappear. He
knew with absolute certainty that Doctor Mpilo had just been
assassinated by the white security forces. He tried to remember
what the two men who had gone into the doctor's office as he left
looked like but the dark glasses and the bandage had effectively
hidden the men's features.

"Askaris."
Shadow whispered, using the dreaded name given to black people who
worked for the white police force. "My own people - traitors."

***

"Well done,
Tiaan." the brigadier said. "Doctor Mpilo's dead and, although the
press suspect us of taking him out and have kicked up quite a fuss,
they've got no proof. In a week or two the whole incident will be
forgotten. Another one bites the dust but there are still plenty to
come."

"Thank you,
sir." Tiaan said. "The doctor's death will create communications
problems for the A.N.C. but, as you say, it won't stop them. Now
we've got to increase the pressure on them and hope that they make
mistakes."

***

"I've received
very specific instructions from our leaders outside the country."
Shadow said as he sat in his shack with his two comrades. Even with
the door wide open the heat inside the little structure was
stifling. "We are to avoid shedding blood at all costs, especially
with regard to civilians. The aim of our operations from now on
will be to attract attention to the plight of black people in South
Africa. By operating in this manner the world will see us as
"freedom fighters" and not as "terrorists"."

"How will we do
that?" Moses asked.

"We got to be
more careful about when we attack a target." Shadow said. "In the
past we've been more concerned with creating havoc, regardless of
what human damage we inflicted. Now we must try to time our attacks
so that we keep the possibility of injuring civilians to a minimum.
Our immediate mission is to attack the Westdene police station and
so, to avoid the possibility of hurting or killing any civilians,
we're going to attack the place at one o'clock in the morning."

"We're not
likely to kill many policemen at that time of night." Peter
remarked.

Shadow
nodded.

"Yes, but we're
also not likely to come under heavy return fire." Shadow said.
"We'll be able to carry out the attack quickly and get away safely.
And, if our leaders are right, we'll create an incident that will
make the rest of the world sit up and take notice."

"Okay." Moses
said. "So, what's the plan?"

"The police
station faces south so we'll park our getaway car two blocks away
to the east." Shadow said. "Then we'll circle around to the west
side of the building and move past the front of the building on
foot, firing at the top half of the windows and the any blank
walls. We'll also toss a few grenades at the front of the building
and under any vehicles that we see. We've got to cause as much
visible damage as we can without causing any casualties. Then we
run to the car and get the hell out of there."

"That's all
we're going to do?" Peter asked.

"Yes." Shadow
replied. "I know it sounds as if it won't achieve much but these
are our instructions. The next day's newspapers will tell us if
we've been successful or not."

***

The three black
men, their heads covered with dark brown balaclavas, stood silently
in the shadow cast by a large ornamental bush, staring at the
floodlit police station building, their AK 47s pressed close to
their bodies. They were dressed in dark civilian clothes.

The front of
the structure was covered with large beige ceramic tiles and two
flagpoles, their flags hanging listlessly, stood on each side of
the brick pathway leading up to the glass doors of the brightly-lit
entrance hall. Neatly mown lawns, bordered by colourful flowerbeds,
filled the space between the building and the edge of the street.
Floodlights, facing inwards, bathed the building in bright light. A
uniformed white policeman stood guard at the entrance, armed with
an automatic rifle. A solitary yellow police van stood in the car
park close to the building on the eastern side.

"What do we do
about the bastard standing at the entrance?" Moses asked.

"Wait and see
what he does." Shadow replied. "If he starts shooting at us, take
him out, but I've got a feeling he'll rush into the building for
safety."

Shadow looked
at his watch in the dim light, a dull feeling of fear in the pit of
his stomach. He glanced at his two companions. Even in the dim
light he could see the fear in their eyes. Damn it! he said to
himself. You're fighting for the freedom of your people! This isn't
about you; it's about freedom. Do it! Fight for what is rightfully
yours!

"Okay." he
said. "It's one o'clock. Time to move. I'll take the lead, Peter
you follow me and Moses, you take up the rear. Your task is to toss
in the grenades while Peter and I are shooting up the windows. If
you get a chance, Moses, try and get a grenade under that van.
It'll go up with a big bang and lots of flames from the
petrol."

Moses nodded,
his big white teeth glowing in the darkness as he grimaced in
anticipation of the action to come.

"Let's go!"
Shadow said as he burst out of the shadows in a limping gait.

Shadow ran
towards the police station and as he reached the corner of the
building he raised his AK 47 and began firing in short bursts at
the darkened windows. Behind him he heard Peter's rifle begin to
fire. The bullets smashed into the glass, spraying it out in silver
shards. The policeman at the entrance stumbled into the entrance
hall and disappeared behind the counter. Bullets knocked chunks out
of the tiles and some ricocheted off the surface, whining into the
night sky. Shadow smelt the acrid stink of cordite as he continued
to fire short burst at the building. In the periphery of his vision
he saw Moses hurl a grenade at the entrance hall. It clattered
across the brick pathway, bounced up against the glass doors and
fell back onto the paving before exploding with a solid crack. The
glass doors shattered and their frames buckled. Shadow reached the
end of the building as Moses raced closer to the isolated van and
rolled a grenade under it. The three men sprinted away towards
their getaway car. A dull explosion filled the air and Shadow
looked back, just in time to see the police van burst into a ball
of flames.

The three men
reached their car, breathing hard. Shadow climbed into the front
passenger's seat, Moses clambered into the back seat and Peter got
in behind the wheel. The engine burst into life and the yellow
Mazda 323 roared off with a squeal of rubber on tar.

Far behind them
a single white policeman rushed out of the police station and fired
a futile burst from his automatic rifle at the distant car.

***

Shadow, Moses
and Peter stood in the little shack at the back of the house in
Soweto. It was the evening after the attack on the police station.
Each man held a can on cold beer in his hand. Even with the rickety
door wide open the enclosure was stiflingly hot.

"From the
newspaper reports you'd think that the whole of Umkhonto we Sizwe
plus the I.R.A. had attacked the police station!" Shadow said,
grinning widely. "Not one paper mentioned that there were only
three of us! What's also amusing is that the statement issued by
the police claims that the personnel at the police station returned
fire and drove the attackers off! Did you guys hear any return
fire?"

Peter and Moses
shook their heads.

"Maybe they had
silencers on their guns so as not to wake up the neighbourhood."
Moses said. "But did you see that police van go up! Man! That was
something!"

"Yes!" Shadow
replied. "I'm beginning to understand the strategy of our leaders.
For the cost of about a hundred and fifty bullets and two grenades
plus the help of the police we've created the impression that a
major battle took place at the Westdene police station last
night!"

Shadow raised
his beer can.

"Here's to our
freedom!" he said.

***

Three weeks
later every police station in the country was protected by a
sandbagged defence post manned by men armed with automatic rifles.
This put an additional strain on both the finances and the manpower
of the white government, an important objective of the people
fighting for their freedom. It also sent a message to the world
that the illegitimate white South African government was becoming
more and more vulnerable.

CHAPTER 6

Bala Desai sat
at the table in the tiny kitchen of the house in Pageview with the
newspaper spread out on the table top. Fatima stood at the kitchen
counter preparing Salona's school lunch for the following day. The
child was already asleep in her room and Bala and Fatima were
almost ready to go to bed themselves. It had been a busy day at the
shop.

The kitchen was
small and cramped. A three-plate electric stove stood next to the
shelf where Fatima was standing and on the other end of the counter
a small bar fridge hummed quietly. The walls were covered in a pale
yellow tile and the floor was covered in dark blue linoleum. A
large wall calendar with a photograph of the Taj Mahal and a
brilliant sunset behind it hung on the far wall. Two steel kitchen
cabinets stood next to the wooden back door which led out to a tiny
back yard. As there was no ceiling the underside of the corrugated
iron roof had been painted white. A single fluorescent strip light
had been fastened to one of the rafters. The absence of a ceiling
made the room uncomfortably hot, especially during summer.

A knock at the
front door made Bala look up. He looked at Fatima, his eyebrows
raised. She frowned.

"Who can be
calling at this time?" she said.

"I don't know."
Bala said. "I'll go and see."

"Be careful,
Bala." Fatima said with a worried look. "Don't open the door until
you're sure that it's someone we know."

Bala nodded,
stood up from the table and walked down the passageway to the front
door, the wooden floor creaking under his feet.

"Who's there?"
he called out loudly.

"It's me,
Mister Dhupelia, your neighbour." a voice replied.

Bala unlocked
the door and opened it.

"Please come
in." he said.

Mister Dhupelia
raised his hands, the palms facing Bala.

"No thank you."
he said. "I apologise for disturbing you but I won't keep you long.
I just came to let you know that the residents of Pageview had a
meeting earlier today and it was decided to hold a peaceful
demonstration outside the offices of the Department of Community
Development to try and stop the ongoing removal of the residents of
Pageview to the new suburb of Lenasia. Do you think that you will
be able to participate?"