The Girl Who Saved the King of Sweden (16 page)

Once out in the open, all they had to do was drive straight out into the bush, pull the woman from the boot and give her a shot to the forehead, temple or back of the neck, depending on how much she struggled.

It was a bit sad: Miss Nombeko was an exceptional woman in many ways and, just like the agents, she had been subjected to Engineer Westhuizen’s ill-disguised scorn, based on nothing more than the engineer’s muddled idea that he represented a superior people. Yes, it was a bit sad, but they had more important things to worry about.

‘Our idea is to smuggle you out of here in the boot of our car,’ said Agent A, leaving out what would happen afterwards.

‘Good,’ said Nombeko. ‘But insufficient.’

She continued, saying that she did not intend to lift a finger to help the Messrs Agents until they had handed her an airline ticket, Johannesburg–Tripoli.

‘Tripoli?’ said Agents A and B in unison. ‘What are you going to do there?’

Nombeko didn’t have a good answer. For all these years, her goal had been the National Library in Pretoria. But she couldn’t go there now. She had to leave the country. And Gaddafi in Libya was on the ANC’s side, wasn’t he?

Nombeko said that she wanted to go to a friendly country for a change, and that Libya seemed like a good choice in this situation. But by all means, if the Messrs Agents had a better idea, she was all ears.

‘Just don’t try to say Tel Aviv or Jerusalem. Because my plan includes surviving the week, at least.’

Mossad Agent A was becoming increasingly enchanted with the woman in the chair in front of him. They had to be on their guard to make sure she didn’t get her way. She had to realize that her bargaining position was weak – that in order to be smuggled off the base, she had no choice but to trust the agents she couldn’t trust. But after that, at least, she could make the situation work to her advantage. Her problem was that there would never be any step two or three. As soon as the boot was closed, she would be on her way to her own grave. And then it wouldn’t matter what it said on the ticket. Tripoli, why not? Or the moon.

But first they had to play the game.

‘Yes, Libya would probably work,’ said Agent A. ‘Along with Sweden, it’s the country that is loudest in protesting against the South African system of apartheid. You would be granted asylum there within ten seconds if you asked, miss.’

‘Well, there you go!’ said Nombeko.

‘But Gaddafi does have his drawbacks,’ the agent went on.

‘Drawbacks?’

Agent A was happy to tell her all about the lunatic of Tripoli, who had once attacked Egypt with grenades just because its president had chosen to answer when addressed by Israel. It couldn’t hurt to show some concern for Miss Nombeko. To build up trust until the necessary shot to the back of the head.

‘Yes, Gaddafi is out fishing for nuclear weapons as much as South Africa; it’s just that he hasn’t fished as successfully so far.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Nombeko.

‘Anyway, he can take solace in the fact that he must have at least twenty tons of mustard gas in storage, and the world’s largest chemical weapons factory.’

‘Oh my,’ said Nombeko.

‘And he has forbidden any opposition, and all strikes and demonstrations.’

‘Oh no,’ said Nombeko.

‘And he has anyone who disagrees with him killed.’

‘Does he have any humane side at all?’ said Nombeko.

‘Oh yes,’ said the agent. ‘He took good care of the ex-dictator Idi Amin when Amin was forced to flee from Uganda.’

‘Yes, I read something about that,’ said Nombeko.

‘There is more to tell,’ said Agent A.

‘Or not,’ said Nombeko.

‘Don’t get me wrong, Miss Nombeko. We are concerned about your well-being, and we don’t want anything to happen to you, even if you recently insinuated that we are not to be trusted. I confess that we were both hurt by that insinuation. But if you want to go to Tripoli, we will certainly arrange it.’

That sounded perfect, thought Agent A.

That sounded perfect, thought Agent B.

That is the stupidest thing I have heard in my entire life, thought Nombeko. And I have spent time with assistants from the sanitation department of the City of Johannesburg
and
alcoholic engineers with distorted self-images.

The agents were concerned about her well-being? She might have been born in Soweto, but it hadn’t happened yesterday.

Libya didn’t seem as much fun any more.

‘What about Sweden?’ she said.

Yes, it would probably be preferable, the agents thought. Of course, they had just killed their prime minister, but at least ordinary people could walk down the street unharmed. And, as they’d said, the Swedes were quick to accept South Africans, as long as they said they were against the apartheid regime – and the agents had reason to believe that Nombeko was.

Nombeko nodded. Then she sat there in silence. She knew where Sweden was. Almost at the North Pole. Far from Soweto, and that was obviously a good thing. Far from everything that had been her life so far. What, she wondered, might she miss?

‘If there’s anything you want to take to Sweden, Miss Nombeko, we will certainly do our best to help you get it,’ said Agent B, in order to build up more trust with zero substance.

If you keep on like this I might almost start believing you, Nombeko thought. But only almost. It would be exceedingly unprofessional of you not to try to kill me as soon as you’ve got what you want. ‘A carton of dried antelope meat would be nice,’ she said. ‘I can’t imagine that they have antelope in Sweden.’

No, A and B didn’t think so either. The agents would arrange address labels for one small and one large package right away. The bomb in the crate would go to the Foreign Office in Jerusalem, via the embassy in Pretoria. And Miss Nombeko could sign for the carton of antelope meat at the Israeli embassy in Stockholm in just a few days.

‘Do we have an agreement, then?’ said Agent A, thinking that everything was working out for the best.

‘Yes,’ said Nombeko. ‘We have an agreement. But there’s one more thing.’

One more thing? Agent A had a well-developed sense for the sort of business he did. He suddenly suspected that he and his colleague had counted their chicks before they hatched.

‘I realize we don’t have much time,’ said Nombeko. ‘But there’s something I need to take care of before we can leave.’

‘Take care of?’

‘We’ll meet here again in one hour, at one twenty; you probably ought to hurry if you’re going to have time to get both an airline ticket and antelope meat before then,’ she said, and she left the room through the door behind the engineer’s desk, to the room the agents didn’t have access to. The agents were left alone in the office.

‘Have we underestimated her?’ said A to B.

B looked concerned.

‘If you get the ticket I’ll get the meat,’ he said.

* * *

‘Do you see what this is?’ Nombeko said when the meeting resumed and she placed a rough diamond on Engineer Westhuizen’s desk.

Agent A was a multifaceted man. He had, for instance, no problem dating a pottery goose from the Han dynasty to 1970s South Africa. And he could immediately tell that the object before him now was probably worth about a million shekels.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘Where are you trying to go with this, Miss Nombeko?’

‘Where am I trying to go? I want to go to Sweden. Not to a hole behind a bush on the savannah.’

‘And for that reason you want to give us a diamond?’ said Agent B, who, unlike Agent A, might have still been underestimating Nombeko.

‘What kind of person do you think I am, Mr Agent?’ she said. ‘No, I just want to use this diamond to make it seem plausible that I managed to get a small package out of the facility since we last saw one another. Now you must decide whether you believe I succeeded in doing so, for example with the help of another diamond like this. And whether I subsequently received confirmation that the package in question reached its destination with the help of yet another diamond. And whether you believe that one of the two hundred and fifty proud and constantly underpaid workers at Pelindaba might have agreed to such an arrangement. Or whether you don’t believe it.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Agent B.

‘Well,
I
suspect the worst,’ Agent A mumbled.

‘That’s right,’ said Nombeko, smiling. ‘I recorded our last conversation, in which you confessed to murdering a South African citizen, as well as to the theft of one South African weapon of mass destruction. I am sure that both of you understand the consequences you and your nation would face if the tape were to be played in . . . well, who knows? I’m not going to tell you where I sent it. But the recipient has confirmed via the messenger I bribed that it is where I want it to be. In other words, it is no longer here on the base. If I pick it up within twenty-four – no, sorry, twenty-three hours and thirty-eight minutes – time flies when you’re having fun – you have my word that it will disappear for ever.’

‘And if you don’t pick it up, it will become public?’ A filled in.

Nombeko didn’t waste time on a reply.

‘Well, I think this meeting is over. It’ll be exciting to see if I survive my trip in the boot. It certainly feels like my chances have increased. From zero.’

And then she stood up, said that the package of antelope meat should be delivered to the department of outgoing post within thirty minutes, and that she herself would make sure the same went for the larger crate; after all, it was in the next room. Beyond that she was looking forward to receiving proper documentation: stamps and forms and whatever else was necessary for the crate would be sufficiently inaccessible to each and every person who didn’t want a diplomatic crisis on his hands.

A and B nodded sullenly.

* * *

The Israeli agents analysed the situation. They considered it likely that the damned cleaning woman did have a tape of their earlier conversation, but they weren’t so sure that she had managed to smuggle it out of Pelindaba. There was no question that she had at least one rough diamond in her possession, and if she had one she could have more. And if she did have more of them, it was possible that one of the many workers with high security clearance at the facility had fallen into temptation and secured his family’s financial position for the rest of his life. Possible, but not certain. On the one hand, the cleaning woman (they no longer called her by name – they were far too annoyed to do so) had been at the facility for eleven years; on the other hand the agents had never seen her with a single white person, except for the late engineer and the agents themselves. Had one of the 250 workers really sold his soul to the woman they called Kaffir behind her back?

When the agents added the dimension of sex – that is, the possibility, or rather the risk, that the cleaning woman had added her body to the pot – the odds were shifted to the agents’ disadvantage. Anyone who would be immoral enough to run errands for her for the sake of a diamond would also be immoral enough to report her. But anyone who could expect the added possibility of future sexual adventures would just be biting himself in the arse. Or somewhere else, if only he could reach.

All in all, Agents A and B figured that there was a 60 per cent chance that Nombeko really was sitting on the trump card she claimed to have, and a 40 per cent chance that she wasn’t. And those odds were too poor. The harm she could bring them and – above all! – the country of Israel was immeasurable.

Thus their decision had to be that the cleaning woman would come along in the boot as planned, that she would receive a ticket to Sweden as planned, that her twenty pounds of antelope meat would be sent to Stockholm as planned – and that she would
not
receive the shot to the back of the head as planned. Or to the forehead. Or anywhere else. She was still a risk as long as she was alive. But now she was an even greater risk if she was dead.

Twenty-nine minutes later, Nombeko received airline tickets and the antelope meat Agent A had promised her, as well as duplicate copies of properly filled-in forms for the diplomatic post. She thanked them and said that she would be ready to leave within fifteen minutes; she just wanted to make sure that both packages were handled correctly. What she meant by this – but didn’t say – was that she was going to have a serious talk with the Chinese girls.

‘One large and one small package?’ said the little sister, who was the most creative of them. ‘Would Miss Nombeko mind if we . . .’

‘Yes, that’s just it,’ said Nombeko. ‘These packages must
not
be sent to your mother in Johannesburg. The small package is going to Stockholm. It’s for me, and I hope that’s reason enough not to touch it. The large one is going to Jerusalem.’

‘Jerusalem?’ said the middle sister.

‘Egypt,’ the big sister explained.

‘Are you leaving?’ said the little sister.

Nombeko wondered how the engineer could ever have come up with the idea of putting these three girls in charge of the post.

‘Yes, but don’t say anything to anyone. I’m going to be smuggled out of here in a little bit. I’m going to Sweden. I guess we have to say goodbye now. You’ve been good friends.’

And then they hugged one another.

‘Take care of yourself, Nombeko,’ the Chinese girls said in Xhosa.

‘再见,’ Nombeko replied. ‘Farewell!’

Then she went to the engineer’s office, unlocked his desk drawer and took her passport.

‘Market Theatre, please, the marketplace, downtown Johannesburg,’ Nombeko said to Agent A as she crawled into the boot of the car with its diplomatic plates.

She sounded like any old customer talking to any old taxi driver. It also seemed as if she knew Johannesburg inside out – and as if she knew where she was going. The truth was that a few minutes earlier she had paged through one last book among those in the Pelindaba library and found what was probably the most crowded place in the whole country.

‘I understand,’ said Agent A. ‘Will do.’

And then he closed the boot.

What he understood was that Nombeko wasn’t planning to let them drive her to the person who held the tape so that they could kill them both. He also understood that once they had arrived, Nombeko would manage to disappear in the crowd in under two minutes. He understood that Nombeko had won.