Vortex

The sight of the swirling crowds brought a scowl to his narrow face. The six agents he’d posted around the concourse were going to have a damned hard time keeping the drop point in view. He lifted the field glasses hanging from his neck and focused them on the trash bin near a central pillar.

The papers were still there, stuffed awkwardly between the bin and pillar-held together only by a thin rubber band. Something that bitch who’d called him had insisted on as a precaution against hidden explosives or tracking devices.

Muller swore as a sudden surge of black day laborers heading for an arriving train blocked his view of the drop point. He lowered his field glasses, impatiently waiting for the small mob to pass by.

When he looked again, the papers were gone. For an instant, Muller stiffened in shock. Then he whirled, looking for the black workers who’d just swarmed past the drop point. They were several meters farther on, pushing their way through the milling crowds to clamber aboard the closest train. Muller swore again. Every one of the blacks was carrying a lunch pail or shopping bag of some kind-perfect for concealing documents. As he watched, they mingled with a throng of white commuters moving in the opposite direction.

Muller dropped his field glasses and reached for the walkie talkie hooked to his belt.

“Captain, order your men to stop

those blacks trying to board at Platform Two! Stop them and search them for stolen state security papers!”

Shrill whistles tore through the air and boots slammed rhythmically on the train station’s concrete floor as a platoon of heavily armed soldiers jogged forward through the crowds and deployed along the edge of the platform. In seconds, they were in position-patting down men and women alike and poking rifles into bags and lunch pails with brisk, impersonal efficiency.

Muller allowed himself a brief, humorless smile. So there were blacks involved in this little conspiracy, eh? So much the better. He knew how to extract information from blacks. A half hour’s work in a well-equipped interrogation center should give him the names of the other plotters. And with luck, he’d have them all swept away into oblivion before they had a chance to post that damning videotape.

But his smile faded as the search went on and on without any sign of success.

Two people passed through the station’s sliding doors and emerged, blinking, into the lateafternoon sunlight. The first, a stylishly dressed young white woman, carried only a gleaming leather briefcase. The thin, young black man following five paces behind her strained under a heavy load-the bags and boxes that seemed to represent the fruits of a day-long shopping expedition.

The woman glanced back once at the station and then strode confidently across Joubert Street to the parked car waiting for her-a battered Ford

Escort. The black chauffeur hurried ahead to open the rear door for her.

She slid gracefully into the backseat and kissed the man already there.

Ian Sheffield gently disentangled himself and asked, “Well, did you get them?”

Emily van der Heijden smiled happily and pulled the sheaf of papers out of her brand-new briefcase. They had the last piece of the puzzle they needed.

Muller and his master, Karl Vorster, were about to be exposed as men who’d betrayed their sacred oaths and their own people in a quest for power and position.

NETWORK STUDIOS, JOHANNESBURG

Ian finished his photocopying and laid the last sheet of paper to one side.

“All set.”

Emily looked up from her reading. She pushed a loose strand of hair away from her eyes and shook her head slowly from side to side.

“My God, even though I had some idea of what to expect, I still can’t believe it! They knew everything that would happen. The time. The place. Even the weapons and coded signals that would be used. Everything!”

Ian nodded grimly and slid his copies into a manila folder along with a videocassette.

“Your recorded narration?” Emily pointed to the tape.

He nodded again.

“Yeah. It’s just a rough cut. Sam was going to…”

He faltered briefly before continuing, “Sam was going to do the final editing, but I’ll have to leave that up to the guys in New York instead.”

He shrugged into his jacket and picked up the manila folder.

I thought I’d better drop this off at the embassy so my friend there can send it out in tomorrow’s diplomatic bag.” He reached over for one of the two remaining tapes showing Muller’s Sun City encounter.

“I’ll leave this for that bastard to find at the same time.”

Emily narrowed her eyes.

“Why give it to him at all? He murdered Sam and he would have murdered us if he’d had the chance.”

Ian sighed “I know. But we made a deal … and a deal’s a deal, even if you’re trading with the devil himself.” He waggled the tape.

“Besides, we’ve got what we wanted. And I’ll be damned if I ever stoop low enough to really use something like this against anyone for real-even someone like that son of a bitch Muller.”