wasn’t so: there was a bend to his body, an uncertainty, like a once strong tree under pressure from a sudden wind.
“Why have you come back?” he said. The voice, like the stance, was hesitant.
“For help,” said Deaken simply.
The ingenuous honesty of the reply surprised his father. He blinked, looking to Swart again, then back to his son.
“I want to save Karen’s life.”
“What!”
To Swart Deaken said, looking at the immigration officials, “I’m happy for them to stay if you are.”
The colonel’s reaction was immediate, a head jerk of dismissal.
Deaken realized he had penetrated the barriers his father had erected but Swart was still regarding him doubtfully. Politely he offered the chair to his father, preferring to stand, as he had stood a hundred times in a hundred courts, to make his case. Except that this case was the most important of his life. He started from the morning in the Geneva apartment, not referring to the argument with Karen but mentioning the arrangement to meet during the day, because he considered the timing important. And then of the encounter with Underberg, Karen’s frightened telephone call, the photograph with Azziz and his meeting aboard the Scheherazade with the boy’s millionaire father. Deaken had always prided himself on his ability to read the expression on the juries’ or judges’ faces. His father sat frowning, uncertain; Swart’s expression was one of bewilderment, deepening when Deaken concluded with the attack in Dakar.
The old man responded first. “Do you know anything about this?” he said to Swart.
“There have been rumours of some campaign underway in Namibia, but nothing definite.”
“1 mean about my daughter-in-law?”
“Absolutely nothing,” insisted Swart.
“What about Underberg then?” said Deaken.
There was a wall-mounted telephone near the door. Swart went to it, standing with his back to them and speaking quietly, so that neither could hear the conversation. When he hung up, Swart said simply, “Our service is in no way involved.”
“Have 1 your word?”
“I’ve spoken to the Director,” said Swart. He looked at Deaken. “He said the suggestion was as preposterous as the story.”
“What about the name?” demanded Deaken.
“There are two men named Underberg in the service,” agreed Swart. “Marius Underberg in central records. Jan Underberg is in the transport section.”
“What does it mean?” asked Piet Deaken.
There was a pause and then Swart said, “Perhaps, sir, your son is unwell?”
As he had when he planned his first escape, Tewfik Azziz waited until the house quieted and he was sure that everyone was asleep. Carefully he got out of the bed and for thirty minutes practised every noiseless exercise that he could recall from the gymnastic and calisthenic instruction at the Ecole Gagner, wanting to test his strength as fully as possible. He ached at the end but knew that it was from the exertion, not from any lingering effect of the illness. So he was fit again; fit enough to get away. He got back into bed, cupping his hands behind his head and staring up towards the ceiling. It had been instinctive to promise the woman that he wouldn’t go without her. No, not instinctive: politeness. Automatic, polite gratitude, for what she had done for him when he had been ill. By himself, he stood a chance. They would never make it together. He felt a flicker of guilt. But he had nothing to feel guilty about. It was him they wanted, not her. She was just a pawn. They wouldn’t harm her, if he got away. He was sure they wouldn’t…
There had been no argument from Swart about letting the father stand guarantor for his son, but during the drive from Johannesburg to Pretoria there wasn’t the reconciliation that Deaken had imagined in the detention room. Instead his father retreated behind the usual barriers, deep in his own thoughts.
Deaken was thoroughly confused. If the South African security service was not involved, then Karen was in no immediate danger from his being in the country. And the rerouting instructions for the Bellicose had been sent independently. So for the next four or five days Underberg-or whatever his name was-would receive information that was going to keep her safe. But who was holding Karen and Azziz? It was a maze. Deaken had turned the first corner and all he could see was another blank and impenetrable wall.
As they approached the Parkstown suburb, Deaken looked out at the jacaranda trees which were black against the night sky. In the morning they would be showing violet and purple; Deaken wondered if the arbour in the grounds of the house would be as spectacular as he remembered it.
When they telephoned from Johannesburg airport, Deaken’s mother was in bed. They arrived to find her fully dressed, carefully made up and immaculately coiffed, waiting for them in the larger of the garden drawing rooms, the one which overlooked the tennis court and the stepped terraces.
“Hello, Mother,” said Deaken.
She acknowledged him with a curt nod, the sort of gesture she would have accorded a stranger. He supposed he should go across to kiss her, but didn’t think she would want him to. He decided to sit down on one of the deep, green velvet settees.
“What is this all about?” His mother was as rigid and formal as her carefully waved white hair. It came as something of a surprise to Deaken to realize that she was a stronger person than his father. But it was he who elected to tell the story, more concisely than Deaken had done, missing none of the details, and showing the ability that had taken him from the advocates’ floor to the judges’ bench before exchanging a legal career for one in politics. But he didn’t stop at the account of missing the Bellicose in Dakar.
“There’s something else,” he said to his wife.
“What?”
“I’ve got the Interior Ministry. I was told tonight officially.”
She looked at her son. “And then he had to arrive!”
“I need your help,” said Deaken, understanding now the reason for his father’s silence in the car.
“What do the authorities say?” asked his mother.
“They deny all knowledge or involvement,” said her husband.
“They think I’m insane,” added Deaken.
She looked at him. “Are you?”
“Of course not.”
“You don’t look well.”
“Karen’s been kidnapped. I’ve been tricked, cheated and left for dead in the middle of nowhere. I’ve just flown four thousand miles. How do you expect me to look?”
“We’ve a meeting with the Director in the morning.” As always the old man tried to come between them. “They’re making more inquiries.”
The woman didn’t look at him, eyes fixed on her son. “You almost ruined your father’s career once,” she said. “I won’t have you do it again.”
“I’ve no intention of ruining anything,” said Deaken wearily. “I just want Karen back.”
She didn’t speak for several moments and when she did Deaken realized she hadn’t listened to him.
“I’d have you committed rather than let it happen again,” she said.
Deaken knew that she meant it.
27
The appointment with the Director of the Department of National Security had been arranged for ten, but just as Deaken and his father were preparing to leave the Parkstown house there was a telephone call from Skinner Street, postponing it until midday.
“Why?” asked Deaken.
“I don’t know. They didn’t say,” replied his father.
