Vortex

Knowles were playing for high stakes now-stakes that made pretty but petty idiots such as this Roussouw woman worth tolerating.

She nodded.

“That’s the way, Irene. After all, we should be friends, right? Since we may wind up working together here?”

Roussouw looked puzzled.

“But I don’t understand Emily. Why should you need to work at all?”

Emily gritted her teeth and hid her irritation by taking a sip of the iced mineral water in front of her. Her smile was back when she looked up again.

“Oh, I don’t need to work. But it’s… well, it’s a sacrifice I feel I should make.”

Roussouw nodded, her bright blue eyes openly admiring.

Now for the hard part, Emily thought. She leaned forward and lowered her voice conspiratorily.

“And besides, I didn’t think it was fair for the rest of you girls to have all these eligible young men all to yourselves.”

“The other woman leaned forward herself, lowering her own voice to match

Emily’s soft, secretive tone.

“Ah, if only it were true, Emily. There aren’t too many prize catches left here. Most of the best have gone off to war. Off to risk their lives for us, and for the fatherland, of course.” She sighed theatrically.

Emily winced inwardly. She suspected that Irene Roussouw’s ideas of patriotism came straight out of trashy romance novels. She arched an eyebrow.

“Come now. They can’t all have gone. There must be a few handsome young fellows left to fight over, true?” She tapped a finger gently on the table’s plastic surface.

“What about this Major Karlsen I hear so much about? Isn’t he the one you work for?”

“Oh, no, Emily!” Roussouw shook her head, laughing.

“Major Karlsen is a nice man, I’m sure… but I don’t work for him. I’m the personal secretary for the director. ” She looked quickly to either side before continuing proudly, “For Erik Muller. Have you heard of him? He’s in charge of special operations.” The way she said it made it clear that she had very little idea of exactly what Muller’s “special operations” entailed.

Emily pretended to be surprised.

“Erik Muller? You work for him?” She wagged a finger in Roussouw’s face.

“So now I know you were holding out on me! Why, I’ve heard that he’s very handsome … and very much a bachelor.”

The other young woman blushed.

“Well, he is quite good-looking.” She seemed strangely uncertain.

“But I think he must be one of those men who are married to their work, you know? He never seems interested… “

Her voice faded away as she blushed further, embarrassed at having admitted her evident failure to attract her superior.

Emily changed her tack.

“Well, I’m sure it’s simply that he’s so busy.

Believe me, I know what these government officials are like-my father, for instance. Work, work, and more work. That’s all they care about!”

“Yes, exactly!” Emboldened by Emily’s evident sympathy, Roussouw had recovered her equilibrium. She leaned closer still.

“Why if it weren’t for his little trips, I’d think Meneer Muller was a completely cold fish.

Like a priest, eh?”

Some instinct warned Emily to conceal her curiosity.

“Trips? Oh, hunting and hiking jaunts, I suppose. ” She waved them away as unimportant.

“No, no. Not hiking!” Roussouw shook her head impatiently. Her voice dropped even further until she was speaking just above a whisper.

“The director goes to Sun City from time to time! I should know-I’m the one who makes all his arrangements and reservations!”

Sun City? This time Emily didn’t have to pretend to be surprised. Sun City was a resort town about a two-hour drive away from Johannesburg and

Pretoria-inside the nominally independent tribal homeland of

Bophuthatswana. The homeland’s black rulers had outlawed apartheid and rescinded many of the blue laws that still marked South Africa. As a result, Sun City was famous, or infamous, for its mixed-race casinos, hotels, and pornographic entertainments.

Certainly, it seemed the last place on earth that a high ranking official in

Karl Vorster’s regime would want to visit. Unless…

My God! It was the perfect place for a covert rendezvous -assuming that their theory about a double agent inside the ANC was correct. Blacks could mingle freely with whites without arousing suspicion. Crowds were constant.

And there were few police or security agents to elude. Muller and his agent could meet there in absolute safety.

She shook her head decisively.

“Sun City? No, I can’t believe it. No one in his position would risk such a sinful thing. “

Irene Roussouw wrinkled her face up, obviously irritated at not being believed.

“I tell you it’s true! He’s going again in less than a fortnight.

I’ve made the hotel reservations to prove it! A Saturday night at the

Cascades no less!”

A Saturday less than a fortnight away? That meant the weekend of the twenty-second. They had ten days to prepare. The twenty-second. Something about that date rang a bell in the back of her mind. What was it? Emily suppressed the thought for the moment. She had more important matters to pursue.

“Perhaps he’s going there on some kind of government business?”