Vortex

Roussouw chewed her lower lip. Clearly, she’d never considered that possibility before. Finally, she shook her head -tossing her thick mane of red hair back over her shoulder.

“Hah! That’s just his excuse. He’s really going there for the cards and the liquor… and maybe even those filthy movies people say they show there.” She sat back primly, folding her arms. “it is a good thing that I am loyal to him. I tell you, if I weren’t, I could get him in some kind of trouble and that’s for sure.”

Emily coughed, choking back a strained laugh. Irene Roussouw couldn’t possibly have the faintest idea of the kind of man she was working for.

Muller was a murderer and a traitor. He’d sooner kill the pretty young woman than try to explain away any imaginary peccadilloes.

She’d better pull the conversation away from Erik Muller and onto safer ground. What Irene Roussouw needed was the chance to fill her head with catty gossip. She shrugged.

“Well, if Meneer Muller is out of consideration, what about Jan du To it? He’s unmarried, isn’t he?”

The other young woman laughed softly and shook her own finger back and forth.

“Oh, no, Emily. Jan du Toit isn’t suitable at all. You see, I’ve heard… “

Emily leaned closer, a bright, interested expression plastered across her face as she prepared to exercise the twin virtues of patience and politeness. Inwardly, she exulted. She had it! She had the information

Ian needed. She had the clue that could lead them to the truth-the truth about the Blue Train massacre and Karl Vorster’s treachery. His exposure would mean at least his downfall, and maybe that of the entire government. No Afrikaner would be able to accept his authority.

OCTOBER 13-JOHANNESBURG

Johannesburg’s towering steel-and-glass skyscrapers stood outlined in the pale glow of a new-risen moon. No lights gleamed behind any of their several thousand windows. Power cuts and nightly curfews were fast becoming a fact of life under the Vorster regime.

fan Sheffield turned away from the window and looked carefully at Emily van der Heijden and Sam Knowles as they sat uncomfortably at opposite ends of his sofa. The three of them probably seemed a most unlikely group of conspirators, he thought. One would-be journalist who hadn’t managed to get a single meaningful story on the air for months. One cameraman and technician shorter than his own gear if it were piled end on end. And a single, beautiful woman who probably had far more to lose than either

Knowles or him if things went wrong.

He moved to a chair across from the sofa. They waited for him to speak.

He paused, trying to find the right words.

“I think we’d better take stock of exactly where we stand with this thing. To decide whether we should press on, or whether we should drop the whole damned business right here before we get in too deep.”

Knowles looked puzzled.

“Whattya mean, boyo? Why even think about giving up? Hell, we know what we’re looking for now and we know who’s got it.

I say we go ahead and nail the bastard. Nothing could be simpler.”

“It’s not quite that simple.” Emily shook her head slowly, her eyes fixed on Ian’s somber face.

“What he is saying is that up till now we’ve simply been engaged in a kind of academic game-a paper chase, I think you would call it? But the moment we step closer to Erik Muller, we step across the line into reality. “

“So?” Knowles shrugged.

“So someone could get plenty pissed off at what we’re trying to do-somebody who just might decide we’re better off dead,” Ian said, irritated. Sam Knowles wasn’t usually so willfully stupid.

Knowles smiled broadly, letting Ian know that he’d walked into one of the shorter man’s traps.

“No shit, Sherlock. ” He turned serious.

“Look, Ian, we’re tracking big game here . I . maybe a whole gang of murdering creeps, from this Vorster guy on down. Stands to reason that’s kind of a dangerous proposition. But it comes with the turf.”

The cameraman shrugged again.

“Sure, if we screw up, we could wind up dead or in jail. If I’d wanted to play life perfectly safe I’d have listened to my dear old mom and become an accountant.”

Knowles ran out of breath and sat back, coloring a little under their astonished gaze. Neither Emily or Ian had ever heard him say so much at a single sitting.

“Anyway, I’ve blabbered enough. I say we go.”

Ian nodded and turned to Emily. She was his main concern. He and Knowles could look after themselves. And as the shorter man had said, this was the kind of job they’d signed on to do. But Emily was different. She wasn’t getting paid to risk her neck for the news. Besides, she meant too much to him to risk losing in some damn fool race for a scoop.

Emily must have seen the thought on his face because she frowned.

“I say we go, too. And I will go with you.”

He shook his head.

“Sam and I can take it from here, Em. You’ve put us on the right track, and now…”

“Now, what? Now you leave me behind like some sort of porcelain doll-too pretty and fragile for real work? Is that what you mean, Ian Sheffield?”

Her eyes flashed dangerously.