The Colour of Gold (4 page)

Tiaan felt his
body go cold. As calmly as he could, he smiled at the woman in
front of him.

“How long ago
did this happen, Mrs. Edgecomb?” he asked.

“Less than five
minutes ago.” the woman replied. “I came here straight away. Those
two men were behaving in a very strange way and I didn’t like
it.”

“Stay here,
Mrs. Edgecomb.” Tiaan said. “I’ll go and investigate. Do whatever
my men tell you to do, but don’t worry. You’re quite safe
here.”

Tiaan walked
briskly out of his office and climbed the stairs to the first floor
which housed the bomb disposal squad. He hurried to their
leader.

“Piet.” Tiaan
said, quietly and calmly. “A suspicious package has been reported
lying against the back wall of the station. It’s very possibly a
bomb. Get going!”

The leader
turned to his men who were gathered behind him.

“You heard what
Tiaan just told me.” he said. “There’s a possible explosive device
at the back of the building. Get your equipment and let’s go!”

Like a
well-oiled machine the bomb disposal squad sprang into action,
moving quietly but quickly out of the office and down the stairs.
Some of the men spread out to organize the evacuation of the
building while others left the police station through the front
door and circled the building, effectively cordoning it off. The
bomb experts moved carefully towards the yellow plastic bag and its
contents. A small crowd of curious onlookers gathered on the far
pavement, but was moved away by uniformed police officers.

Two blocks away
a small, thin black man stood leaning against the wall of an office
building and watching the activity taking place behind the distant
police station. He had seen the two black men leave their package
next to the wall of the building and briskly walk away. He had also
seen the white woman staring at them and suddenly change direction
and head for the entrance to the police station. He knew with
certainty that the intended bombing of the building had failed.
This was confirmed a few minutes later when he saw policemen
surround the building and move all civilians away. He also saw the
two bomb disposal experts cautiously approach the yellow plastic
bag and its contents. He nodded his head slowly, his thin lips
compressing into a grim, thin line. He turned and limped away,
favouring his shorter right leg to ease the pain that had built up
while he stood motionless. The permanent frown that crossed his
forehead deepened. He desperately needed more time to train and
discipline his recruits. They just didn’t understand all the
intricacies of subversive warfare. They had to learn that they were
fighting a deadly war, not playing a game.

The black man
with the limp, whose real name was Joseph Matimba, was known to his
comrades only by his code name “Shadow”. A secretive man, Shadow
said very little but commanded respect from all who associated with
him. Rumour had it that he was an extremely brave and fearless man
who had performed incredibly daring feats against the white
oppressors during the student uprising in 1976.

Shadow had been
twenty three years old when the students rose up against their
white oppressors who were forcing them to do their studies in the
hated Afrikaans language. As he was unemployed at the time Shadow
had been able to join the students and help organize them into
effective gangs fighting the well-armed white security forces.
Although the only weapons the young black people had were stones
and petrol bombs, they did themselves proud against the guns, stun
grenades and teargas of their enemy.

On the third
day of the revolt Shadow had taken a heavy calibre bullet in the
upper part of his right leg. The missile had shattered the femur
bone and the young fighter had collapsed in a sea of excruciating
pain. His companions had dragged him to safety and hidden him in a
small shack while they searched for a doctor. They dared not take
him to the hospital because the authorities would arrest and
imprison him for defying the State. It was automatically assumed
that any black man with a bullet wound had received it while
fighting against the white government.

When the doctor
eventually arrived there was very little that he could do except to
fix a rough wooden splint to the broken leg and hope that the bone
would knit and allow Shadow to walk again. He gave the wounded man
the few painkillers that he had and left, shaking his head
sadly.

For six months
Shadow lay on the cheap steel bed with its thin, dirty mattress,
willing his leg to heal and listening to the bitterly one-sided war
going on around him. Every day he vowed that some day he would he
able to take up the fight where he had left off and lead his
comrades to victory over the white oppressors. The young black
people were fighting a war that they could never win without help
from outside the country and by the time Shadow was able to walk
again the only alternative open to young black fighters was to
leave the country and seek military training in countries such as
Mozambique, Zambia, East Germany and Russia.

Although
Shadow’s femur bone had knitted securely, the makeshift splint had
not aligned the two pieces of bone correctly and this put
tremendous strain on his hip joint causing him searing pain each
time he took a step. Eventually he perfected a technique of walking
that minimized the pain but the pronounced limp allowed him to walk
no more than a few hundred metres before having to rest. This
didn’t stop the determined young man and over a period of several
months he walked more than four hundred kilometres to the border of
South Africa without being detected and joined the external network
of the A.N.C. From Mozambique he was flown to Moscow where he leg
was re-broken and set correctly. Too much damage had already been
done to the leg though and for the rest of his life Shadow walked
with his pronounced limp, albeit with a great deal less pain.

As soon as
Shadow left the Moscow hospital he began training for his return to
South Africa. His instructors were impressed with his
single-mindedness and dedication as well as his determination to
learn everything that was necessary to help him free his people
from the oppression that they were enduring. He wasn’t interested
in politics or negotiations. He was only interested in fighting the
enemy and bringing them to their knees using the same methods that
they were using to demean and subdue his people. He was happy to
leave the talking to those who thought that it would make a
difference.

After two years
of intensive training in subversive warfare Shadow was ready to
return to his beloved country. His instructions were to recruit
cadres for the African National Congress’s armed wing called
Umkhonto weSizwe or Spear of the Nation and train these men and
women to commit acts of sabotage that would destabilize the country
and eventually lead to the downfall of the illegitimate white
government.

Recruiting
young black people to fight for freedom wasn’t difficult but
training them to perform their tasks efficiently and effectively
was almost impossible. There were no facilities where weapons could
be demonstrated and usually the first time that recruits actually
used their weapons was when they had to use them in the field. Many
of the recruits were only semi-literate and gazed blankly at the
diagrams of weapons that Shadow showed them. The other detrimental
factor was the constant fear of being caught by the Security Police
who had a sophisticated network of both black and white informers
who were prepared to betray their own people for money.

The failed
attempt to bomb the police station in Durban was a typical example
of how the lack of proper training affected the fight for freedom.
The two men who had carried the bomb to the back of the police
station had no idea of how the timing mechanism worked and even
when they were told repeatedly that the bomb would only explode
thirty minutes after they had planted it, they had defied their
leader’s instructions and hurried away immediately after placing
the device next to the wall, thus arousing the suspicion of the
middle-aged white woman who had reported what she had seen to the
police. The bomb had been defused and another operation had
failed.

When Shadow
reached the tiny shack that he was staying in while in the black
township of Umlazi, about twenty kilometres south of the city
centre of Durban, he found a coded message in his secrete post box.
The message was from his superiors, instructing him to hand over
command of the Durban cell to a suitable cadre and travel to
Johannesburg where his expertise was needed to orchestrate an
attack on more important and politically strategic targets that
would attract the attention of the outside world and also deal a
damaging blow to the State.

Shadow met with
his deputy, gave him what instructions he could, and then packed
his few belongings into his dark blue knapsack. After making sure
that he had not left any evidence of his presence in the shack he
began the long trip to the city centre where he planned to catch
the daily Railways bus to Johannesburg and which departed from the
Durban station at nine every morning. This, he reasoned, was the
quickest and safest way to get to his destination.

At the station
he purchased a ticket for the following morning’s bus using his
meager A.N.C. funds and spent the night in an alley behind a
well-known hotel. The following morning he rose early and waited at
the station next to a young black man wearing a colourful blanket
and sitting with his back against the station wall.

There was quite
a variety of nationalities amongst the passengers waiting to board
the bus and Shadow watched a small family of three Indians
anxiously waiting in the early morning sunlight, their large
leather suitcase carefully guarded by the father. He also saw a
tall, balding white man with a heavy black moustache and his
long-haired wife arrive, each carrying a red suitcase that they
allowed the black supervisor to store in the hold. The couple spoke
with a strange accent that Shadow guessed labelled them as recent
immigrants from Eastern Europe. There were several other blacks and
Indians and Shadow estimated that the bus would be only half full
which would allow him to find a window seat and give him the
privacy that he sought.

***

“Subversive
activity is growing throughout the country,” Major Snyman said,
“and we’re getting more and more leads that have to be followed up.
Most of them are hoaxes and lead to nothing, but they all have to
be treated seriously.”

Captain Tiaan
Botha nodded as he sat on the hard, wooden chair on the opposite
side of his superior’s desk. He was wearing a grey safari suit with
short sleeves and long trousers. The shirt hung from his thin
shoulders as if hanging from a coat hanger. His grey shoes were
scuffed and in need of a coat of polish. His thin face was heavily
lined for a man of thirty five and his light brown hair was
thinning rapidly. His pale blue eyes stared at the man in front of
him expressionlessly and his mouth was no more than a straight
slash above his pointed chin.

“We’ve had
several snippets of information hinting at an increase in attacks
on government installations in or near Johannesburg.” the Major
continued. “There’s nothing definite though, but headquarters wants
you to investigate the matter. You’ve got a lot of contacts and
informants in Jo’burg and they think that you might be able to find
out if there is any substance behind the rumours. They want you up
there as soon as possible.”

“I’ll leave
tomorrow morning.” Tiaan said. “I’ll take the Railways bus from the
station.”

“Okay.” the
major said. “I’ll arrange a ticket for you. Good luck.”

Tiaan left the
office and went to the room that he had been using as an office
since his arrival in Durban three months previous. He collected his
documents and files, stuffed them into his thin briefcase, and left
the police station. Outside there was no sign of the bomb disposal
team’s presence at the back of the building and the group of
curious spectators had long since dispersed.

Tiaan walked to
the cheap, dirty residential hotel that he had been staying in
since he had been consigned to investigate terrorist activity in
the Durban area. Once in his room he put his STAR PD single action
,45 automatic on top of the small table next to the bed. He was
glad that he was finally leaving Durban. Every time he visited the
city he felt uncomfortable. The heat, and especially the humidity,
always made him feel as if he needed to take regular hourly
showers. His hands were always sweaty and his feet began to swell
after a few days. His clothes always felt as if they hadn’t dried
properly. Once he had left a sweet in his pocket and by the
following morning it had completely dissolved into the cloth of his
trousers. In Johannesburg the air was dry and although his sinuses
had to contend with the ever- present dust from the mine dumps that
littered the Reef, he always felt comfortable there.

He lay down on
the bed and stared at the ceiling.

What was the
A.N.C. planning in Jo’burg? he wondered. If the bosses thought that
it was worth him investigating then it had to be something serious.
The Stock Exchange, perhaps? Park Station? Military headquarters?
He shook his head. It could any of a hundred potential targets.
This would really test the strength of the web of informants that
he had built up over the past seven years. If there was a major
strike being planned then he had no doubt his contacts would have
heard of it.

Tiaan glanced
out of the window. It was already dark outside. He stood up, tucked
the ,45 under his belt in the small of his back and went in search
of food.

The following
morning Tiaan rose early and, after he had shaved and dressed,
walked to the police station and collected the bus ticket that had
been purchased for him. He put it into his grey safari suit top
pocket and returned to the hotel. He packed his clothes and other
belongings into his black, leather suitcase and left the building.
The Police accounts department would attend to the hotel bill. He
walked to the station and gave his suitcase to the black man
supervising the storage of the bus passenger’s luggage. He glanced
around at the other people waiting to board the bus. His eyes
flicked over the Indian family of three. Why were they so anxious?
he wondered. Perhaps they’d never travelled on a long distance bus
before. He saw a black man sitting with his back against the
building wall with a brightly coloured blanket over his shoulders.
I’ll bet he’s going to look for work on the mines, Tiaan thought to
himself. He glanced at the short, thin man with the deeply etched,
permanent frown across his forehead standing next to the seated
man. He frowned. There was something unusual about the man. An
almost unnerving sense of secretiveness surrounded him.