Vortex

“My father must have given this to them. It’s a compilation of all my closest friends.” She sounded troubled.

“Are they in trouble now?”

He shut the door and led her away from the van.

“More to the point, how do we avoid getting nabbed by your dad’s goons a second time?” He squinted, trying to see the numbers on his watch against the orange glow of the

Johannesburg skyline.

“They’re going to start looking for this van any minute now, and they’ll find it in a matter of hours … even if we’re lucky.”

Sibena joined them.

“All set. The doors are locked and—he grinned and dangled a set of keys from one finger” they stay that way for a time.”

Ian thumped him on the shoulder.

“Good going, Matt.” He paused and looked seriously at his two companions.

“So where to now, folks?”

Sibena smiled shyly.

“How about America?”

A joke. The young black man was telling jokes now! Ian shook his head in wonder. After only three months around people who treated him as a man instead of two-legged livestock, Siberia was turning into a someone who could make light of danger-instead of cowering in fear. He wished Sam

Knowles were here to see it.

He smiled back.

“Maybe we should shoot for somewhere a little closer. Just for the time being, of course.”

Emily pulled nervously at separate strands of her long auburn hair.

“I

think perhaps there is one person who may be able to help us. ” She glanced quickly at Ian and then looked away.

“But it maybe risky.”

“Hold on there.” Ian shook his head.

“Remember your dad’s little list? We can’t count on any more of your friends. It’d be too dangerous for them as well as being suicidal for

US. I I

She shook her head, her expression unreadable in the darkness.

“Oh, no,

Ian. This one whose help I must beg wouldn’t be on my father’s list of my friends. ” Her voice fell to a whisper.

“Nor am I at all sure that he will come again when I call.”

And with that, Ian had to be content. She would say nothing more for the moment.

NOVEMBER 12-BRAAMFONTEIN CEMETERY,

JOHANNESBURG

The sun was coming again to South Africa, warming the air and earth below, and coloring the once pitch-black eastern sky a faint shade of mingled gray and pink. Inside the Braamfontein Cemetery, tall trees, headstones, and squat marble mausoleums that had for so long been nothing more than darker shadows among a lesser darkness took on line and form and hue as night faded slowly into day.

Ian yawned uncontrollably, rose, and stretched aching muscles. He looked warily around for signs of movement where there should be none. Both

Emily and Sibena had protested his choice of temporary sanctuary. But superstition worked both ways. Who would hunt for the living in a land of the dead?

He turned in a complete circle, studying every piece of ground in view.

And froze. A car, headlights on, moving slowly along the wide avenue running beside the cemetery. He sank back to the grass, listening now instead of looking. An engine growing louder—definitely coming closer.

Emily leaned closer and whispered, “I think it has to be the man we are waiting for. Who else would come here so early?”

“The police? A caretaker?” Ian shrugged. Emily’s reluctance to name this mystery man both irked and worried him.

He risked another glance at the oncoming car. It was close enough to make out details now. A Land Rover painted a uniformly drab green. That was odd.

The Land Rover stopped just outside the graveyard’s wrought-iron gate and sat idling.

Emily rose unsteadily to her feet.

“It’s him. It can’t be anyone else.”

Ian and Siberia started to get to their feet, but

she waved them back down.

“Come when I say … not before. Right?”

They both nodded their understanding and watched her make her way carefully downhill to the gate. Ian felt cold and damp and knew he was sweating again. What if they’d been betrayed? He studied the Land Rover through slitted eyes, ready to make a mad dash downhill if his worst fears were realized.

The driver’s door popped open and a tall, slender man stepped out onto the pavement. A man wearing an Army uniform.

Ian forced himself to breath. Emily wasn’t running away in panic-at least not yet.

She came to the waist-high stone wall separating the cemetery from the street and stood waiting. The soldier stepped closer, until he stood just across the wall. His shoulders seemed curiously rigid, almost as if he were holding himself at attention-or in check.

Emily said something too quietly to be heard at this distance, and the soldier leaned closer still before abruptly straightening up. Ian frowned.

For an instant this other man had seemed ready to embrace her. What the hell was going on here? Who was this guy anyway?

Part of his mind laughed at his own ridiculous pride. It was absurd to be jealous when half of South Africa’s police force must be busy hunting high and low for them. But a deeper, more primitive side wanted to go down there and beat the hell out of that damed soldier. Yeah, right. Me Ian, you