past on the freeway to the north of the city.
Every time he found himself in the vicinity of Johannesburg he could feel the raging hatred he had always felt welling up inside him. It was like a wild animal constantly following him around, constantly appearing and reminding him of things he would rather forget.
Victor Mabasha had grown up in Johannesburg. His father was a miner, rarely at home. For many years he worked in the diamond mines at Kimberley, and later in the mines to the north-east of Johannesburg, in Verwoerdburg. At the age of forty-two, his lungs collapsed. Victor Mabasha could still remember the horrific rattling noise his father made as he struggled to breathe during the last year of his life, a look of terror in his eyes. During those years his mother tried to keep the house going and take care of the nine children. They lived in a slum, and Victor remembered his childhood as one long, drawn-out, and seemingly endless humiliation. He rebelled against it all from an early age, but his protest was misguided and confused. He joined a gang of young thieves, was arrested, and beaten up in a prison cell by white cops. That merely increased his bitterness, and he returned to the streets and a life of crime. Unlike many of his comrades, he went his own way when it came to surviving the humiliation. Instead of joining the black awareness movement that was slowly forming, he went the opposite way. Although it was white oppression that had ruined his life, he decided the only way to get by was to remain on good terms with the whites. He started off by thieving for white fences, in return for their protection. Then one day, shortly after his twentieth birthday, he was promised twelve hundred rand to kill a black politician who had insulted a white store owner. Victor never hesitated. This was final proof that he sided with the whites. His revenge would always be that they did not understand how deep his contempt for them was. They thought he was a simple kaffir who knew how blacks should behave in South Africa. But deep down, he hated the whites and that was why he ran their errands.
Sometimes he read in the newspapers how one of his former companions had been hanged or given a long prison sentence. He could feel sorry for what had happened to them, but he never doubted that he had chosen the right way to survive and maybe in the end start to build a life for himself outside the slums.
When he was twenty-two, he met Jan Kleyn for the first time. Although they were the same age, Kleyn treated him with superior contempt.
Jan Kleyn was a fanatic. Victor Mabasha knew he hated the blacks and thought they were animals to be controlled by the whites. Kleyn had joined the fascist Afrikaner Resistance Movement at an early age, and in just a few years reached a leading position. But he was no politician; he worked in the background, and did so from a post he held in BOSS, the South African intelligence service. His biggest asset was his ruthlessness. As far as he was concerned, there was no difference between shooting a black and killing a rat.
Victor Mabasha both hated and admired Jan Kleyn. Kleyn’s absolute conviction that the Afrikaners were a chosen people and his utter ruthlessness combined with a total disregard for death impressed him. He always seemed to have his thoughts and emotions under control. Victor Mabasha tried in vain to find a weakness in Jan Kleyn. There was no such thing.
On two occasions he carried out murders for Jan Kleyn. He performed satisfactorily. Jan Kleyn was pleased. But although they met regularly at that time, Jan Kleyn had never so much as shaken his hand.
The lights from Johannesburg faded slowly behind them. Traffic on the freeway to Pretoria thinned out. Victor Mabasha leaned back in his seat and closed his eyes. He would soon discover what had changed Jan Kleyn’s decision that they should never meet again. Against his will, he could feel his own excitement building. Jan Kleyn would never have sent for him unless it was a matter of great importance.
The house was on a hill about ten kilometers outside Hammanskraal. It was surrounded by high fences, and German shepherds roaming loose ensured that no unauthorized persons gained entry.
That evening two men were sitting in a room full of hunting trophies, waiting for Victor Mabasha. The drapes were drawn, and the servants had been sent home. The two men were sitting on either side of a table covered by a green felt cloth. They were drinking whiskey and talking in low voices, as if there might have been someone listening despite all the precautions.
One of the men was Jan Kleyn. He was extremely thin, as if recovering from a serious illness. His face was angular, resembling a bird on the lookout. He had gray eyes, thin blond hair, and was wearing a dark suit, white shirt, and necktie. When he spoke, his voice was hoarse, and his way of expressing himself restrained, almost slow.
The other man was his opposite. Franz Malan was tall and fat. His belly hung over his waistband, his face was red and blotchy, and he was sweating copiously. To all outward appearances they were an ill-matched couple, waiting for Victor Mabasha to arrive that evening in April, 1992.
Jan Kleyn glanced at his wristwatch.
“Another half hour and he’ll be here,” he said.
“I hope you’re right,” said Franz Malan.
Jan Kleyn started back, as if somebody had suddenly pointed a gun at him.
“Am I ever wrong?” he asked. He was still talking in a low voice. But his threatening tone was unmistakable.
Franz Malan looked at him thoughtfully.
“Not yet,” he said. “It was just a thought.”
“You’re thinking the wrong thoughts,” said Jan Kleyn. “You’re wasting your time worrying unnecessarily. Everything will go according to plan.”
“I hope so,” said Franz Malan. “My superiors would put a price on my head if anything went wrong.”
Jan Kleyn smiled at him.
“I would commit suicide,” he said. “But I have no intention of dying. When we have recovered all we have lost during the last few years, I will withdraw. But not until then.”
Jan Kleyn had enjoyed an astonishing career. His uncompromising hatred of everyone who wanted to put a stop to apartheid policies in South Africa was well known, or notorious, depending on one’s point of view. Many dismissed him as the biggest madman in the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. But those who knew him were well aware he was a cold, calculating man whose ruthlessness never pushed him into rash actions. He described himself as a “political surgeon,” whose job was to remove tumors constantly threatening the healthy body of South Afrikanerdom. Few people knew he was one of the BOSS’s most efficient employees.
Franz Malan had been working more than ten years for the South African army, which had its own intelligence section. He had previously been an officer in the field, and led secret operations in Southern Rhodesia and Mozambique. When he suffered a heart attack at the age of forty-four, his military career came to an end. But his views and his abilities led to his being redeployed immediately in the security service. His assignments were varied, ranging from planting car bombs in the vehicles of opponents of apartheid to the organization of terrorist attacks on ANC meetings and their delegates. He was also a member of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. But like Jan Kleyn, his role was behind the scenes. They had worked out a plan together, which was to be realized that very evening with the arrival of Victor Mabasha. They had been discussing what had to be done for many days and nights. Eventually, they reached an agreement. They put their plan before the secret society that was never known as anything other than the Committee.
It was the Committee that gave them their current assignment.
It all started when Nelson Mandela was released from the prison cell he had occupied on Robben Island for nearly thirty years. As far as Jan Kleyn, Franz Malan, and all other right-thinking boere ^ 1 were concerned, the act was a declaration of war. President de Klerk had betrayed his own people, the whites of South Africa. The apartheid system would collapse unless something drastic was done. A number of highly placed boere, among them Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan, realized that free elections would inevitably lead to black majority rule. That would be a catastrophe, doomsday for the right of the chosen people to rule South Africa as they saw fit. They discussed many different courses of action before finally deciding what needed to be done.
The decision had been made four months earlier. They met in this very house, which was owned by the South African army and used for conferences and meetings that required privacy. Officially neither BOSS nor the military had any links with secret societies. Their loyalty was formally bound to the sitting government and the South African constitution. But the reality was quite different. Just as when the Broederbond was at its peak, Jan Kleyn and Franz Malan had contacts throughout South African society. The operation they had planned on behalf of The Committee and were now ready to set in motion was based in the high command of the South African army, the Inkatha movement that opposed the ANC, and among well-placed businessmen and bank officials.
