again had the uncomfortable feeling that de Klerk was not prepared to go to any lengths to protect Nelson Mandela from assassination. Was that really possible, he wondered indignantly. Have I misunderstood his position? But he had no time to go on thinking about President de Klerk. He found Borstlap, who had meanwhile picked up the car the police had ordered from Johannesburg. They drove straight to Green Point Stadium, where Nelson Mandela was due to speak three hours later.
“Three hours is not long enough,” said Borstlap. “What do you think we’ll have time to do?”
“We have to succeed,” said Scheepers. “Its as simple as that. We have to stop the man.”
“Or stop Mandela,” said Borstlap. “I can see no other possibility.”
“That’s just not possible,” said Scheepers. “He’ll be on the platform at two o’clock. De Klerk refused to plead with him.”
They showed their IDs and were allowed into the stadium. The podium was already in place. ANC flags and colorful streamers were everywhere. Musicians and dancers were getting ready to perform. Soon the audience would start arriving from the various townships of Langa, Guguletu, and Nyanga. They would be greeted by music. For them, the political meeting was also a festival.
Scheepers and Borstlap stood on the podium and looked around.
“There’s a crucial question we must face up to,” said Borstlap. “Are we dealing with a suicide pilot, or somebody who will try to get away afterwards?”
“The latter,” said Scheepers. “We can be sure about that. An assassin prepared to sacrifice his own life is dangerous because he’s unpredictable. But there’s also a big risk that he would miss the target. We are dealing with a man who is expecting to get away after shooting Mandela.”
“How do we know he’ll be using a gun?” asked Borstlap.
Scheepers stared at him with a mixture of surprise and irritation.
“What else could he do?” he asked. “A knife at close range would mean he’d be caught and lynched.”
Borstlap nodded gloomily.
“Then he has lots of possibilities,” he said. “Just look around. He could use the roof, or a deserted radio cabin. He could choose a spot outside the stadium.”
Borstlap pointed to Signal Hill, which loomed up half a kilometer away from the stadium.
“He has lots of possibilities,” he repeated. “Too many.”
“We have to stop him even so,” said Scheepers.
They could both see what this implied. They would be forced to choose, to take chances. It was simply impossible to investigate every possibility. Scheepers suspected they might have time to check about one in ten; Borstlap thought perhaps a few more.
“We have two hours and thirty-five minutes,” said Scheepers. “If Mandela is on time, that’s when he’ll start speaking. I assume an assassin won’t delay things any longer than necessary.”
Scheepers had requested ten experienced police officers to assist him. They were under the command of a young sergeant.
“Our assignment is very simple,” said Scheepers. “We have a couple of hours in which to turn this stadium inside out. We’re searching for an armed man. He’s black, and he’s dangerous. He must be put out of action. If possible we should take him alive. If there’s no other choice, he has to be killed.”
“Is that all?” asked the young sergeant in surprise when Scheepers had finished. “Don’t we have a description of the guy?”
“We don’t have time for arguing,” interrupted Borstlap. “Arrest anybody who seems to be acting at all strangely. Or is somewhere he shouldn’t be. We can find out if we have the right person or not later.”
“But there has to be some kind of description,” insisted the sergeant, and was supported by murmurs from his ten officers.
“There has to be nothing of the kind,” said Scheepers, noticing he was starting to get annoyed. “We’ll divide the stadium into sections and get started right away.”
They searched through cleaners’ closets and abandoned storerooms, crept around on the roof and out onto girders. Scheepers left the stadium, crossed over Western Boulevard, the broad High Level, and then started climbing up the hill. He stopped after about two hundred meters. It seemed to him the distance was far too great. A potential assassin couldn’t possibly pick a spot outside the stadium itself. He returned to Green Point soaked in sweat and short of breath.
Sikosi Tsiki had seen him from where he was hidden behind some bushes, and thought it was a security officer checking the area around the stadium. He was not surprised; he had expected something like this. What worried him was that they might use dogs to patrol the area. But the guy scrambling up the slope was on his own. Sikosi Tsiki crouched down low, a pistol with a silencer ready. When the man turned back without even going as far as the top, he knew nothing could go wrong. Nelson Mandela had just a couple of hours to live.
Crowds were already flocking into the stadium. Scheepers and Borstlap fought their way through the teeming mass of bodies. All around drums were beating, people were singing and dancing. Scheepers was terrified by the thought that they might fail. They just had to find the guy Jan Kleyn had hired to kill Nelson Mandela.
An hour later, thirty minutes before the meeting was due to begin with Mandela’s arrival at the stadium, Scheepers was in a panic. Borstlap tried to calm him down.
“We haven’t found the guy,” said Borstlap. “We have very little time left to continue the search now. We have to ask ourselves what we might have missed.”
He looked round. His eyes focused on the hill outside the stadium.
“I was there already,” said Scheeper.
“What did you see?” asked Borstlap.
“Nothing,” said Scheepers.
Borstlap nodded, lost in thought. He was beginning to think they would not find the assassin until it was too late.
They were pushed backwards and forwards by the massive crowds.
“I just don’t get it,” said Borstlap.
“It was too far away,” said Scheepers.
Borstlap looked at him questioningly.
“What do you mean?” he asked. “Too far away?”
“Nobody could hit a target from that distance,” said Scheepers angrily.
It was a while before Borstlap realized Scheepers was still talking about the hilltop outside the stadium. Then he suddenly became serious.
“Tell me exactly what you did,” he said, pointing to the hilltop.
“I climbed up part way. Then I turned back.”
“You didn’t actually go to the summit of Signal Hill?”
“It’s too far away, I told you!”
“It’s not too far away at all,” said Borstlap. “There are rifles that can shoot over a kilometer. And hit the target. That’s only 800 meters away at most.”
Scheepers stared at him in bewilderment. Just then an enormous cheer went up from the dancing crowd, followed by intense drumming. Nelson Mandela had arrived in the stadium. Scheepers caught a glimpse of his grayish-white hair, his smiling face, and his waving hand.
“Come on!” yelled Borstlap. “If he’s here at all, he has to be somewhere on that hillside.”
Through his powerful telescopic sights Sikosi Tsiki could see Nelson Mandela in close-up. He had removed the sights from the rifle and followed him from the moment he stepped out of his car at the stadium entrance. Sikosi Tsiki could see he had only a few bodyguards. There did not seem to be any noticeable alert or unrest around the white-haired man.
He remounted the sights on the rifle, checked the loading mechanism, and sat down in the position he had carefully selected. He had rigged up a stand made of light metal. It was his own invention, and would give his arms the support he needed.
He glanced up at the sky. The sun was not going to cause him any unexpected problems. No shadows, no reflections, no glare. The hilltop was deserted. He was all alone with his gun and a few birds hopping around on the ground.
Five minutes to go. The cheering in the stadium hit him at full volume, even though he was over half a
