The Cherry Red Shadow: A Harry Dance Novel

By Eben Beukes

December 1991. South Africa announces to the world that she has terminated her nuclear weapons program and dismantled the existing six thermonuclear devices. July 1994. Weeks after the Government of Reconciliation takes power the newly appointed Director of National Intelligence learns that a nuclear weapon has surfaced in the hands of an international arms dealer. With investors scrambling for a slice of the new market the country cannot afford anything that would rock the boat. The bomb has to be found and nobody must ever know it existed. But who to trust? In charge of the very organisation that put him behind bars on Robben Island, he needs outside help. Enter Harry Dance, ex special forces and sometime fellow prisoner on The Island. And just to keep Harry on the straight and narrow he teams him up with his own man and Harry can't stand terrorists, not even newly respectable ones.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu Publishing Services
• Release date: Jun 23, 2019
• ISBN: 9781483493503

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BEUKES

Copyright © 2019 Eben Beukes.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored, or transmitted by any means—whether auditory, graphic, mechanical, or electronic—without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief excerpts used in critical articles and reviews. Unauthorized reproduction of any part of this work is illegal and is punishable by law.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9351-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4834-9350-3 (e)

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Lulu Publishing Services rev. date: 05/23/2019

Dedication

This one’s for Ruby.

Previous Novels

                            Shadows of a Rainbow series

                                    — The Cherry Red Shadow

                                    — The Lily White Shadow

                                    — The Blue Ice Shadow

                            Riad Ajmi crime series

                                    — The Mask of Louka

                                    — Devil’s Tumble

                            Other novels

                                    — Any Way the Wind Blows

                                    — Pockets of Resistance

PROLOGUE

At first he thought it was just another illusion. The kind of trick nature plays where the endless horizon meets the merciless azure and the shimmering heat dances and distorts and has a life all of its own. Except there would not be any life; not nearing noon in the kind of heat haze and moonscape that made the Kalahari desert one of the world’s truly wild places. But there was something. A repetition of movement that stood out from the lazy slow vibration of the heated air. He reached for the rifle and raised it with the smooth familiarity of the seasoned hunter and eight hundred metres away and just clearing a shale strewn crest the Bushman jumped into sharp focus through the powerful telescope. The hunter suppressed a curse and lowered the rifle. They had been on the spoor of an oryx the American had wounded some hours earlier and with the sun now a huge fireball straight up and the temperature pushing forty two degrees centigrade he knew their time had run out.

‘Boesman,’ he said over his shoulder to the tracker, a young coloured from Springbok who had been with him three years and knew the desert like no white man ever would. Where he was squatting next to the Land-Rover the tracker nodded but said nothing. Jan Van Eck took another look through the scope, taking his time now. Something was different. Out of place and it wasn’t another mirage. Then he knew what it was. The Bushman was running. Not the slow- gaited amble they could keep up for hours even days on end but the jarring muscle straining heart pounding run of a man in full flight with the adrenalin pumping and the mind closed off to all save the fight or flight response that was as old as time itself.

And he was coming straight at them and it wasn’t a lion he was fleeing and Jan reckoned the little man would be lucky, in that heat, if he made it through the soft sand of the gully and up to their ridge at the pace he was going. Behind him he heard the American trophy hunter alight from the Land-Rover and stroll over.

‘Anything?’ The man, from a small town in Montana whose name Jan had difficulty remembering let alone pronouncing, had long since given up on the buck and having spoken for the last beer in the cooler wanted nothing more than to get back to base camp and the relative protection of his tent. But he was enough of a hunter to understand and respect the professional hunter’s obsession with tracking down a wounded animal, at least up to a point. Five hours later he felt quite strongly that point had been reached.

‘A Bushman, over there, coming our way.’

The American followed the direction of the outstretched arm and the small bronze figure was nearer now and closing fast. Already he could make out the spindly limbs and the out of place looking pot belly and the small bow with the soft leather quiver of arrows clutched tightly in one hand and pumping forwards and backwards as he worked the arms.

‘Hy hardloop hard, baas,’ the tracker interjected, stating the obvious with his customary lack of outward emotion.

‘What’s he say?’ asked the American.

‘It’s most unusual to see them run like this. In fact we seldom see them as far south. Something must have scared him badly.’

‘Do you ever take safaris out that way?’

Van Eck had given up pointing out to his mainly overseas clients that safaris were something you did in Kenya in colonial times and that he did hunts.

‘Never. It’s army ground. Thousands of square kilometres of nothing where they sometimes stage big manoeuvres.’

‘And he comes from out of the wilderness like that? I mean all alone?’

‘Hardy little buggers,’ Van Eck added somewhat lamely. It puzzled him too.

Then the wiry figure had reached them and was squatting down in the shade of the vehicle without a word, his breath coming in great rasps as the small jet black eyes scanned the featureless landscape, his wiry frame as startlingly motionless as the gecko safe from the raptor. The American stared in fascination at the man who was straight from the bronze age, noting the wrinkles that crisscrossed the broad bony features in a million tiny crags, the scattered islands of hair tufts and the skin that seemed to hang from his frame like so many fronds of cured leather. He noted the absence of any sweat and yet the figure crouched before them did not appear dehydrated. He’d heard about Bushmen of course, how they were an enigma to modern man, how anthropologists viewed them as a fascinating link with the past, even a bridge between modern man and whatever had preceded him and how they lived in the southern African desert where no other man could survive just living off the veldt. He knew all about them being a threatened group, perhaps numbering as few as a thousand or two and he also realised his unexpectedly good fortune in meeting a real live one. Something to tell the boys back home. He turned to fetch his camera from the car and hesitated. ‘Give him some water. For chrissake the man must be dying of thirst!’

‘No, wait!’ He glanced sharply at Van Eck who pushed away the water bottle and was kneeling next to the Bushman who had now wrested his gaze from scanning the horizon and was saying something to the tracker, strange clicking noises rolling over the thin parched lips.

‘No water. Not yet,’ Van Eck said over his shoulder. ‘Their metabolism is quite different from ours and they’re reputed to need very little water, even under extreme conditions like now. Too much water right now might do more harm than good.’

The Bushman had in fact pushed the water bottle away and was gesturing in the direction he had come. The tracker was listening intently, nodding at intervals and getting in the occasional question which the other man would ponder for a few seconds before bursting forth with another bout of tongue clicks. After a while he fell silent and took a few mouthfuls of the water bottle and then simply sat staring into the endless wasteland.

The tracker had straightened up and the American, camera in hand, strolled up to where he and Van Eck were leaning against the hood of the car.

‘Hy het nie die bok gesien nie, baas.’

Van Eck nodded and glanced at the Bushman still squatting on his haunches with his breathing back to normal and seemingly fully recovered and watching them in silence. So he had not seen their buck. What was he running from?

‘Hy was daar doer anderkant die ver berge,’ They followed the outstretched arm as the tracker indicated how far the little man had come.

‘Hy sien groot wit geraas en toe baie groot stof,’ He paused, momentarily at a loss for words and then pressed on. ‘Toe kom daar ‘n groot wind, baie groot wind. Maar hy bring nie die reen nie en hy raak baie bang en hy hardloop. Nou hy is hier.’

‘What’s he say?’ The American was snapping away, angling the camera to and fro like he’d seen the pros do.

‘He talks about a bright light in the desert and then a very strong wind. Lots of dust.’

The American looked up sharply. ‘You mean a thunderstorm? You mean he was running from a thunderstorm?’ The man’s tone reflected his incredulity and Van Eck felt it raise his ire. He felt a sudden need to come up for the little desert dweller.

‘There was more to it,’ he heard himself say.

‘What do you mean?’

Van Eck shrugged and it sounded lame to his own ears even as he voiced it. ‘There was no rain. The flash and the big wind and no rain.’

‘And he ran through the desert from that?’

The tracker, who had hung back to exchange a last few words with the Bushman, straightened up and rejoined them. And as Van Eck searched for an answer the American could understand the tracker gave it to him.

‘Die asem van die gode, se hy baas. Die asem van die gode.’

Van Eck thought it over and gazed at the desert. It was empty and quiet and only he who knew how to look would ever see the signs of life all around them.

‘What’s he say?’ insisted the American.

‘The breath of the gods,’ Van Eck replied. ‘It was the breath of the gods.’

He didn’t look at the American again, resting his eyes on the comfortingly solid lines of the Land-Rover. Something familiar and real. He was vaguely disappointed; he had expected something more from the little Bushman.

It was July 1987.

It was the beginning.

CHAPTER 1

Torremolinos, Costa del Sol, Spain. 1994

He was sweating now and the stiff blue nylon sutures were catching on the starched collar and the itching was turning to pain, distracting him. And he didn’t want to be distracted. Not now. Not with five hundred and eighty kilogram of fighting bull not three metres away and stalking him and the leading horn already dripping red from where the banderillero had got his.

And looking for a kill.

Talking to the bull now. softly, coaxing him and all the time showing him just enough body to keep him confident that there was something real out there and not just the cape tiring him, punishing him. Always make sure he can see the muleta too but show him body if he refuses to come. The words of Antezana, his sometime teacher, milling through the white hot concentration that was his mind.

Crowd growing restless now; he could see the closely bunched group of aficiones from the corner of his eye where they sat on the contrabarrera in the shade. Some were already glancing up at the presidential box, anticipating the white handkerchief and the flat tone from the orchestra signalling the five minute warning. He forced his concentration back to the matt black Miura bull and inched his extended left foot forward arching his lithe body to slip the muleta, spread over the sword, behind his back. A silence settled over the crowd, even the tourists sensing the extraordinary.

‘The mariposo or butterfly,’ Don Luis said to his guest, his gaze fixed on the young matador below them in the arena where the dying sun was catching the hundreds of small jewels on his jacket turning it into a true suit of lights.

‘One of the most dangerous movements, putting the man right in front of the bull without the muleta to take the animal past when it charges. To do it now, when the bull has taken up querencia is madness.’ His normally gruff voice had turned soft and husky.

The Arab, stately in his flowing white robes, removed his dark glasses and glanced at his host. ‘Querencia?’

‘When the bull takes up a defensive position at the barrier and refuses to come out making the matador come to him,’ Don Luis replied, noting with some relief that the bull was slowly following Ramon as the young man enticed him towards the centre of the ring, its bulging black eyes darting from side to side as the muleta swayed.

‘You mean this bull is a coward? After almost killing the man who placed the darts?’

‘On the contrary,’ Don Luis replied. ‘This is a true toro bravo but he is clever and has learned quickly and is no longer fooled by the muleta. He is waiting for the man himself. He is now at his most dangerous and if…’

‘Ole!’

The charge had been sudden and fast and only Ramon’s hair-tuned reflexes saved him from the leading right horn as he spun on his left heel snaking the muleta out and to the left for a pase naturel, the bull passing so close the bright red blood from its hump leaving a broad smear on his vest. The crowd tense and perched forwards on their seats now and so quiet that every haunting note from the faena reached Ramon clearly even as he was at the point furthest away from the orchestra. As always the music filled him with a deep sadness. A song of death.

Working closely with the bull now. Provoking the charge with the thigh and then passing the bull quickly with a series of natural forearm passes turning him tighter every time. Knowing just how short he could turn and finally turning him so short with a backhanded pase de pecho that he brought the bull to its knees.

‘Truly remarkable,’ the Arab who sometimes went by the name of Achmat said, his dry tone belied by the twitching of his hands.

‘Note the slowness of the passes,’ Don Luis said, his voice reclaiming its usual vigour as relief coursed through his tensed frame. ‘It makes for great emotion in the bullfight.’

He was glad there was no wind, mindful of the previous Sunday when a sudden gust had lifted the muleta at a crucial moment and Ramon had been caught in the neck by the horn and had been lucky to walk away with only the sutures to show for it. He didn’t have to close his eyes to recall the scene. The hysterical shouting from the crowd, the other matadors hurriedly luring the bull away with their frantically flapping yellow and pink veronica capes, the American tourist in the seat next to him vomiting on her husband’s shoes. And Ramon. Refusing any aid. Waving them all away with a cold fury, reclaiming his sword and scarlet muleta and fixing the bull in position with a final brilliant half turn following a ayadada por dajo and then killing him in the classical way with the right hip over the bloodied horn and the sword between the shoulders of the beast up to the hilt and the bull already dead from the thrust and the crowd wild and on its feet and the old Spaniard in the next seat with tears streaming down his cheeks.

Venter is moving faster now. His hot breath coming in short rasping gasps as he strives to find an inner reserve of energy. Anything that might turn the edge on dying. For death was stalking him and even as he stumbled blindly onwards the blood was seeping through his jacket and running down his leg and it felt warm and sticky and a part of his mind wondered why he was so cold and so dizzy…

But that had all been last Sunday, last week. This was now. The last ole! still ringing round the confines of the arena, Ramon strode over to Jose, his sword handler, waiting at the barrera. The bull watched him go with head slung low and flanks moving like great bellows.

‘Muyo humbre, no?’ Jose asked as he handed Ramon the battered silver cup with cold water and watched him sip. He had been worried as had Antezana, Ramon’s banderillero and ever critical observer and possibly the only man there who knew as much about fighting bulls as Ramon. Antezana had been waiting with Jose and Ramon allowed himself a smile as he pointed to the thick bloodstained bandage around the older man’s thigh where the horn had got him as he placed the darts. ‘You’re getting too old for this? Maybe time to go and sit on the beach with the grandchildren?’

‘No hoy derecho!’ Antezana replied indignantly and then in a dropped voice. ‘This one is bad, amigo. He favours the right horn but is weak in the right eye which makes him lunge up at any sensed movement. Be careful.’

Ramon nodded. He was glad to have his old friend confirm his own observation and, in a way, angry that they had not picked the flaw up earlier. When they had been passing the bull with veronicas, during the first movement of the faena, they should have seen it, noticed that the animal lowered the leading right horn only when the cape was moved out to the left and down but any sound from its blind spot and it would lunge… A mistake that could have cost Antezana his life and not just a cornada to the thigh.

He would have to be soundless at the moment of truth when going over the top of that right horn.

Filled with a sudden cold resolve now he washed his hands and took the muleta and the new sword. The sword with the tip angled to one side to facilitate the kill. Jose had thrown water over the small scarlet cloth to keep it down should fate decide to send wind. Ramon carefully scuffed some of yellow sand from the arena onto the bottom edge of the wet muleta to add more weight and ran his gaze along the packed galleries. He picked out Petra sitting next to Don Luis and the guest and noted the very bright colours of the flowers she clutched to her bosom. Noticed also the blush on her cheeks and the yellow ribbon in contrast to the raven black hair worn slightly longer that the fashion that year. Their eyes met and she waved and he allowed himself a smile. It would not do for a matador to wave at the crowd. Not at the moment of truth.

Down a short flight of stairs now and almost stumbling as he glanced over his shoulder. Damn maze and the alleys getting narrower and darker and dozens of doors and windows and living people behind them all and nobody opens when he hammers on their door and his shouts reverberate around the courtyards and over the roofs and nobody wants to know. Venter crouched for a moment in the shadow of a low wall and wedged the sodden handkerchief into position under his belt, buttoning his jacket to add extra pressure. How much blood can a man lose before he dies he thought and tried to clear his spinning head. Plan. Must have a plan to get out of here and back to the hotel. Goddamn hellhole. Stinking rat hole and to think that during the day hundreds of tourists would gingerly pick their way through these very narrow alleyways in search of that elusive bargain.

Tangier.

How he wished he’d waited for backup but he had been so close. So close. He regained his feet by working his way up inch by inch against the moss laden wall and fixed his gaze in the general direction of where he heard a ship’s horn and stumbled forward into the night.

So close.

‘It’s time,’ Antezana said and Ramon nodded and walked to the waiting bull.

It was the third bull of the afternoon and the tourists had seen the death of the first two and knew what was coming and sat quietly and even the unexpectedly blasé amongst them felt a skipped heartbeat or a quickening of the breathing or perhaps just a sharpening of the senses. Don Luis glanced at his guest and was pleased to see the man engrossed in the spectacle. It was good. Tonight they would eat and drink well and that was always good for business.

Quiet now. The band had stopped playing, the president had given his permission for the bull to be killed and Ramon had walked all the way up to his quarry and carefully spread the lower edge of the muleta as far forward as it would go, concentrating on fixing the animal’s focus on the bloodstained cloth. Slowly he pulled the sword from behind the muleta with his right hand and lifted it to shoulder level, sighting along its shimmering blade to a spot at the back of the hump, between the shoulders.

There was a howl from the crowd as he lunged, the left hand moving across his lean body to guide the horns past but the Miura had been watching him and not the cape and lifted its head with a vicious swipe and Ramon cursed as the sword shuddered in his hand and was flung from his grasp. Then the bull was turning and coming and Ramon managed to salvage a tight pase naturel that had him with a free arm draped over the bull’s buttocks and his body pressed against the bull and turning round and round in a ballet of death.

More blood on his costume and some would call it a cheap trick but the fans loved it and it did give him a second or two to catch his breath.

‘Ole! Ole!’ The aficiones were on their feet and shouting wildly but few tourists joined in, perhaps they were feeling for the bull. Perhaps feeling that it was a brave bull and that it should go free.

It was four painful, stiff strides to where the sword had fetched up on the yellow sunbaked, blood streaked sand, every one of them taken in a kind of slow motion of the mind, feeling the presence of the bull, smelling it even with the heightening of the senses that was the elixir of fear and high exhilaration. Keeping it slow and dignified and proud, trusting the others to keep the bull’s eye with their veronicas. Always remember the dignity and the emotion would be the greater. And then Ramon had positioned the bull with his own back to the sun now and he cursed again the tight muscles in his gored neck which were beginning to hurt with a new intensity.

A hush settled over the crowd. The moment of truth. Watch the left eye! That’s where he sees best and he pushed the muleta far out this time with his left hand taut across his abdomen and the bull followed it and its head went down and he was over the top and the sword went in with a jar that meant bone but such was the strength behind the thrust that it glanced off and struck home and then the bull was milling about in circles and his aides were worrying it with their capes and he was waving them off and stepping right up to the bull with his left hand held high, the bull glaring its hatred at him one last time and then its front legs buckled and it sank slowly to its knees as Ramon spoke to it softly ‘Toro, toro…’

And those in the know loved it although the American tourists had their reservations about the whole thing and one ventured the opinion that it must have been different in Hemingway’s time but wasn’t sure how. A fellow traveller with blue rinsed hair thought it had something to do with the horses but she wasn’t sure either.

‘Torero! torero! Don Luis listened to the chanting of the crowd and saw the shower of flowers and personal items of all descriptions sailing into the arena and felt pleased. It had been a good fight with a very difficult bull and above all he was glad to see that Ramon had not lost his nerve after the cornada the week before.

A good fight. A good kill.

The square looked familiar and he thought he saw the movement of people in the shadows at the far side. Wasn’t that the spot where the tour guide had taken them to see the snake charmers? He paused for a moment to collect his thoughts. To the left? Yes to the left and through that archway and he would reach a sort of gallery from where the harbour could be viewed where it lay embraced by the two horns of the city. He seemed to recall stairs leading down to a taxi rank. Mustering the last of his strength he made it through the arch which was, although Venter didn’t know it, one of the ancient gates to the old walled ancien medina of Tangier and relief washed over him for there were the neon lights of the hotels and the stairs and the night noises of the city. He stumbled towards the dark patch at the top of the stairs and the darkness came out to meet him and engulfed him and nothing mattered any more.

The slim young man allowed the body to slide onto the cobblestones and carefully wiped the blood from the stiletto. As always the final act of the kill left him cold and somehow empty, there was no satisfaction to be had, no pride even, after the forced thrill of the chase, the rush of the anticipated contest. Only the dull echo of the execution. A quick search of the dead man’s pockets produced nothing of interest and, without a backward glance, he went down the stairs his short high set pigtail jerking in offbeat rhythm with each descending step.

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Ronda, Andalucia.

As always he was waiting for her and as she searched in her bag for the key she studied him from the corner of her eye. He was sitting high up from where he could see the whole arena of the Plaza de Toros and without his costume he looked even younger but, as always, there was that strange aloofness, the somehow hunched shoulders and the hooded eyes. She opened the heavy brass studded door and went in softly closing it behind and went to her cluttered desk to prepare for the day. It was seven in the morning and the museum would only open at nine and no self respecting Spaniard would be up yet. The turistas would be though. They were such restless people and these days there seemed to be more of them coming to Ronda than ever before. Even at the end of the season like now.

That was the reason he paid her so well to open up for him at this hour. So he could be alone for he was quite famous and even the tourists could match the face from the bullfight posters to that of the young man now pushing open the door behind her slowly, hesitantly. Reverently.

She watched as he walked between the double rows of glass cases each housing the costume of a famous matador and she knew where he was heading. Always the same and she knew what was to come and part of her hated it and part of her wanted to embrace him. Like a mother. In silence she watched as he stopped at the case. It was almost a ritual for him; at first he would just stand there and then he would slowly turn and then very slowly lift his gaze to stare at the blood spattered costume inside. And although his back would always be to her and she could never see his eyes she knew the pain that would be mirrored there. Oh dear Mother of God she knew the pain. For wasn’t it her own Romero who died in the dust that afternoon in this very arena and was it not the head of the very bull that took his life that was so triumphantly mounted over there in the far corner? The bull Chicuelo couldn’t kill which was allowed free from the ring that day? Nobody knew about her and Romero and he had only been a lowly paid picador and there was nothing of him in the museum and it had all been a long time ago. But she was here and her memories were here. So she stayed and she felt for the young man.

He was weeping now. Softly with only a slight shuddering of the shoulders but the tears were rolling over his cheeks and she knew he would be too proud to wipe them away. To acknowledge their existence even. He was not the only one; she had silently witnessed many come down here, into the bowels of the old stadium, some from up north for you could tell by their accents, and always it would be that case and that faded costume with the blood already almost like mud and flaking away.

And they would cry and the turistas would be embarrassed and take the children away and buy them ice creams.

Yiyo. Killed in the ring in Madrid in 1985. Nineteen years old and already a god in Spain. Killed by the bull Burlero on a day that had until then been so perfect, so emotionally pleasing that the crowd had refused to believe what they saw. Killed because he wanted to kill the bull recibiento and had his left hip turned in and no space to move when the bull lifted its head and paid for it all with a cornada to the heart and was dead before he was down. And the nation went into mourning and weeping had not been done with yet and the pilgrims still came.

But this one was different. She knew and felt strangely disturbed by it. She had seen him in the ring the previous afternoon, seen him kill and he was different from the others. It was not his work with the cape, the brilliance and emotion of his passes which had made him a legend. No, it was something else and from her seat at the barrera she had seen it at the moment of truth. For she had seen his eyes as he had pushed the sword in and they had been dead. He was a torero a master and artist of bulls as the crowd had chanted. But he was also very much a matador.

A stone killer.

She watched him as he walked away, the shoulders back and the eyes fixed and unseeing and she turned to stare at the glass case where he had been standing. It was there as she knew it would be, as it always was. A small white lily carefully laid on the table at the foot of the costume of Yiyo. She wondered what it meant and yet she knew and it upset her and she crossed herself in the hesitant manner of one who had not been to confession for a long time.

It was about death as a thing of beauty, of great emotion. Only experienced by the very young and the very pure and it was a macho thing and there was no place for women in it. She would go and have a cup of coffee and something to eat at the cafe across the street from the plaza and as she locked the door behind her she wondered how long it would be before he would be back.

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They were working on the road where the driver took the turnoff to Ronda. One lane was closed to traffic and a big multi wheeler was taking the tar off in a thick layer that vaguely reminded Don Luis of his late mother removing the excess icing off one of the endless wedding cakes she baked. They sat in the back of the big Mercedes waiting for the traffic officer to wave them through and he stole a glance at his guest who was quietly sipping a fresh orange juice he had dug up from the car’s icebox. Funny people, the Arabs, he thought. Never touch a drop of alcohol but fornicate like maggots. He liked that; fornicate like maggots. Maggots somehow sounded like the kind of creatures that would screw a lot. He swirled the ice in his Campari and caught the eye of Pepe, the chauffeur in the rear view mirror. He looked tired. They were all tired. It had been a long drive out to Tarifa and the voyage across the straits in the ferry was always tiring and Tangier not really his kind of town. Too noisy and dirty and impossible to get a decent drink anywhere.

The Arab had liked it though. It was his kind of people and he had looked right at home in his flowing robes and funny headwear and mercifully Joe had been waiting for them on the other side with everything already squared with customs and enough men to keep the beggars at bay. The trip to the villa in the American quarter had taken no more than fifteen minutes in spite of the scenic drive through the heart of the city to allow their guest some sightseeing. Pity they had to blindfold him for the last few minutes but he had been most understanding about the whole thing. A matter of business, nothing more. The viewing of the merchandise had gone down smoothly too and Don Luis had been left with the distinct impression that the inspection had in fact been quite superfluous, his guest being too polite to embarrass him by declining the invitation.

The Arab would have been quite content to accept his word as to the exact nature, and potential, of the item on offer. After all, nobody would be crazy enough to double cross the organisation known to the world as Hamas. Nobody would be that secure and the world had become such a terribly small place. He suppressed a shudder and ran his gaze over the herd of cattle grazing next to the torn up road the fence down where a heavy trucked had backed up. They seemed so peaceful and not even a caballero on horseback in sight to herd them from the traffic. Tame placid creatures. Nothing like the fighting bulls he bred on his ranch and yet, left alone, even they seemed so at peace with the world, their needs little and easily found. Happy or at least content. Something that had eluded him all his life.

He pressed the button to let the smoked glass window down. The stench of hot tar wafted in and there was the faint suggestion of pine needles on the breeze. The noises of the road works were drifting towards them and in the distance the hum of the traffic on the Autovia de Mediterraneo. He took a last long look at the cattle as the traffic officer waved them through and the car began to roll forward. Cattle. Waiting to be slaughtered. Oblivious of their fate and strangely content. Not for them the moment of truth in the plaza at five o’ clock on a Sunday afternoon. Not for them the dull pain of the picador’s lance or the fleeting satisfaction of getting a horn through the padding of his horse or even of tossing a matador. Of death in the afternoon.

They were moving faster now as Pepe took the turn that led up towards Los Arquiros and the winding mountain pass that lay beyond and he settled back against the cool leather of the limousine and let his mind dwell on the deal he was setting up. The deal of a lifetime.

Thirty minutes later they pulled up at the gates of his sprawling ranch and he noted with satisfaction the security system in full operation and the guards at their posts and wide awake. Pepe saw the satisfaction on his master’s face and smiled inwardly. He had phoned an hour earlier to alert the boys as to their estimated time of arrival. It made things easier on everyone, created time for a little siesta to ease the rigors of the day.

High up on a nearby hill overlooking the gatehouse and further back the hacienda Sigal lay on her stomach on the pine needles and carefully set down the binoculars before making an entry in the small notebook spread open beside her.

CHAPTER 2

Cape Town, South Africa, winter 1994.

‘You sure about this. I mean absolutely one hundred percent sure?’

‘Yes.’

The director sat back against the cool leather of his swivel chair and studied his fountain pen. It was a pretty looking pen. Heavy and solid and ornately engraved. The kind of pen you got as a gift, a token of esteem. He felt vaguely irritated at not remembering who had given it to him.

‘Sir?’ He looked up at the urbane features of Doctor Odendaal, his aide, and noted again the immaculate three piece suit, the steel framed spectacles and the carefully matched somewhat flamboyant necktie and the polished wedding ring on the little finger. A family man the director thought, probably explained the neatly pressed suit and the carefully matched striped shirt. The tall man’s expression was one of deep concern and the director wished he would light the pipe he clutched or put the damn thing away.

‘How long have we got?’ he asked.

‘Our information puts it at two weeks.’ He had the irritating habit of punctuating every sentence with our information which, combined with a curious lifting of an eyebrow, served to forestall any notion towards reckless scepticism in the mind of the listener.

‘And everything we know is in this report?’ The unvoiced question was how much the man was keeping back and they both knew it.

‘Yes, sir.’

‘Alfred. Call me Alfred.’

‘Yes, Alfred.’ He added a small smile and fiddled with the pipe again. The visitor’s chair seemed uncomfortable for he was constantly altering his position but his gaze remained fixed on that of the director. The earnest and attentive look. Something they taught them during training the director thought.

‘This man, Venter, was he working alone?’ He had opened the slim buff coloured file on his lap and was glancing at the photograph fixed to page three with a see through plastic paperclip.

‘He was alone in the field, apart from his controller.’

Odendaal hesitated and edged forward in his seat, ‘Normally we would have a larger team on a case of this magnitude but due to the extreme delicacy…’

‘I see,’ said the director and made a note in the margin in his neat cramped handwriting. He swivelled his chair to where the light was streaming through twin windows at the end of the large room. It was an old fashioned Cape Dutch window with small panes set in dark teak and the heavy shutters were open to the early morning sun. The curtains were pretty too, he thought. Full length and dark blue with a discreet evenly spaced and obliquely offset logo he had not yet had the time to decipher. They would have to do something about the bare patches on the walls thought. It was politically correct to have removed the photographs of the leaders of the apartheid regime but he wasn’t sure whether he wanted to simply replace them with those of the Government of Reconciliation. He didn’t have much faith in the permanency of the latter and would prefer something in a lighter vein anyway. Perhaps some nice prints of African wildlife or even a modern watercolour or two. He liked watercolours. They relaxed him.

‘This controller, is he here?’

‘He’s in Malaga, in Spain; awaiting orders. We had him assigned to the embassy in Madrid for cover, in case of an incident…’ He hesitated on the word, causing the director to glance up sharply. ‘There would be diplomatic cover, if you follow my meaning.’

He was fidgeting again and the pipe had journeyed halfway to his generous and perennially moist lips only to be checked in mid-flight.

‘Do me a favour and light the thing,’ the director said. He turned to the young man who had been silently listening to their conversation perched on the armrest of the imitation chesterfield. ‘What do you think, Vusi?’

They watched as he uncoiled his sinewy frame from the couch to stroll over to the large desk and the pale light streaming in through the high windows highlighted his angular features making him look older than his thirty six years.

‘It’s a fuck up,’ he said and his voice was so unexpectedly deep and musical that it made Odendaal glance up sharply, apprehension in the white circle that now lined his mouth. The director smiled and turned back to Odendaal who had, after a moment’s hesitation, stowed his pipe away and was now tapping our a discreet drum solo on an armrest with the startlingly white fingers of one hand.

‘You two know each other don’t you?’ he asked with just a suggestion of a politely disguised smile. ‘But of course you do. Way back from the bad old days when Vusi was