is cold, like a man who is hungry or thirsty, would be unable to do or learn anything.
The ceilings were low. Victor could barely fit under the exposed roof beams. He wandered around the house and noticed a strange smell of furniture, carpets and wax polish. But the smell he missed most of all was that of an open fire.
Africa was a long way away. It occurred to him that making him feel the distance might be intentional. This is where the plan was to be tested, retested, and perfected. Nothing should be allowed to interfere; nothing should arouse thoughts of what might be in store later.
Konovalenko produced frozen meals from a big freezer. Victor realized he should check this out later to see how many portions were stored there; then he could figure out how long he was expected to stay in the house.
Konovalenko opened his bags and took out a bottle of Russian vodka. He offered Victor a glass as they sat at the dining table, but he declined; he always cut down on the booze when he was preparing for an assignment; just one beer a day, two at the most. But Konovalenko drank heavily and was clearly drunk even the first evening. This presented Victor with an obvious advantage. If he needed to, he could exploit Konovalenko’s weakness for liquor.
The vodka loosened Konovalenko’s tongue. He started talking about paradise lost, the KGB during the 1960s and 70s, when they held undisputed sway over the Soviet empire and no individual politician could feel sure the KGB did not have extensive files on their innermost secrets. Victor thought the KGB might have replaced the songoma in this Russian empire, where no citizen was allowed to believe in holy spirits except in great secrecy. It seemed to him that a society that attempted to put the gods to flight would be doomed. The nkosis know that in my homeland, and hence our gods have not been threatened by apartheid. They can live freely and have never been subjected to the pass laws; they have always been able to move around without being humiliated. If our holy spirits had been banished to remote prison islands, and our singing hounds chased out into the Kalahari Desert, not a single white man, woman or child would have survived in South Africa. All of them, Afrikaners as well as Englishmen, would have been annihilated long ago and their miserable skeletons buried in the red soil. In the old days, when his ancestors were still fighting openly against the white intruders, the Zulu warriors used to cut off their fallen victims’ lower jaw. An impi returning from a victorious battle would bring with him these jawbones as trophies to adorn the temple entrances of their tribal chiefs. Now it was the gods who were on the front line against the whites, and they would never submit to defeat.
The first night in the strange house, Victor Mabasha enjoyed a dreamless sleep. He divested himself of the lingering aftereffects of his long journey, and when he woke at dawn he felt rested and restored. Somewhere in the background he could hear Konovalenko snoring. He got up, dressed, and gave the house a thorough search. He did not know what he was looking for. Yet Jan Kleyn was always present: his watchful eye was always somewhere to be found.
In the attic, which surprisingly enough smelled vaguely of corn, reminiscent of sorghum, he found a sophisticated radio transmitter. Victor Mabasha was no expert on sophisticated electronics, but he had no doubt this equipment was capable of both transmitting and receiving messages from South Africa. He continued his search, and eventually found what he was looking for-in the form of a locked door at one end of the house. Behind that door was the reason he had undertaken this long journey.
He went outside and urinated in the yard. He had the impression his urine had never been so yellow. It must be the food, he thought. This strange, unspiced food. The long journey. And the spirits struggling in my dreams. Wherever I go, I take Africa with me.
There was a mist lying motionless over the countryside. He went around the house, and came upon a neglected orchard where he could recognize only a few of the trees. It was all very silent, and it seemed to him he might have been somewhere else-possibly even somewhere in Natal one morning in June.
He felt cold, and went back in the house. Konovalenko had woken up. He was making coffee in the kitchen, dressed in a red track suit. When he turned his back on Victor, he saw it had KGB embroidered on it.
The work started after breakfast. Konovalenko unlocked the door to the secret room. It was empty, apart from a table and a very bright ceiling light. In the middle of the table were a rifle and a pistol. Victor could see immediately that they were makes with which he was completely unfamiliar. His first impression was that the rifle looked awkward.
“This is one of our prize products,” said Konovalenko. “Effective, but not exactly sleek. The starting point was a run-of-the-mill Remington 375 HH. But our KGB technicians refined the weapon until it reached a state of perfection. You can pick off whatever you like up to eight hundred meters. The only things to rival the laser sights are in the American army’s most guarded secret weapons. Unfortunately, we were never able to use this masterpiece in any of our assignments. In other words, you have the honor of introducing it to the world.”
Victor Mabasha approached the table and examined the rifle.
“Feel it,” said Konovalenko. “From this moment on, you will be inseparable.”
Victor Mabasha was surprised how light the rifle was. But when he raised it to his shoulder, it felt well balanced and stable.
“What type of ammunition?” he asked.
“Superplastic,” said Konovalenko. “A specially prepared variation of the classical Spitzer prototype. The bullet will travel fast over a long distance. The pointed version is better at overcoming air resistance.”
Victor Mabasha put the rifle on the table and picked up the pistol. It was a 9mm Glock Compact. He had read about this weapon in various magazines, but had never held one.
“I think standard ammunition will be OK in this case,” said Konovalenko. “No point in overdoing things.”
“I’ll have to get used to the rifle,” said Victor. “That’ll take time if the range is going to be nearly a kilometer. But where can you find an eight-hundred-meter-long training range that’s sufficiently private?”
“Here,” said Konovalenko. “This house has been carefully chosen.”
“By whom?”
“Those whose job it was,” said Konovalenko.
Victor could hear that questions not triggered directly by what Konovalenko said annoyed him.
“There are no neighbors around here,” Konovalenko went on. “And the wind blows all the time. Nobody will hear a thing. Let’s go back to the living room and sit down. Before we start working I want to review the situation with you.”
They sat opposite each other in two old, worn leather chairs.
“It’s very simple,” Konovalenko began. “First, and most important, this liquidation will be the most difficult of your career. Not only because there’s a technical complication, the distance, but primarily because failure is simply not an option. You will have only one opportunity. Second, the final plan will be decided on very short notice. You won’t have much time to get everything organized. There’ll be no time for hesitation or contemplating various alternatives. The fact that you have been chosen doesn’t only mean you are thought to be skillful and cold-blooded. You also work best on your own. In this case you’ll be more alone than you’ve ever been. Nobody can help you, nobody will acknowledge you, nobody will support you. Third, there is a psychological dimension to this assignment which shouldn’t be underestimated. You won’t discover who your victim is until the very last moment. You will need to be totally cold-blooded. You already know the person to be liquidated is exceptionally important. That means you’re devoting a lot of time to wondering who it can be. But you won’t know until you’ve almost got your finger on the trigger.”
Victor Mabasha was irritated by Konovalenko’s denigrating tone. For a fleeting moment he wanted to tell him he already knew who the victim was. But he said nothing.
“I can tell you we had you in the KGB archives,” said Konovalenko with a smile. “If my memory serves me right we had you down as a very useful lone wolf. Unfortunately we can no longer check that because all the archives have been destroyed or are in a state of chaos.”
Konovalenko fell silent and seemed to be deep in thought about the proud secret service organization that no longer existed. But the silence didn’t last long.
“We don’t have much time,” said Konovalenko. “That doesn’t need to be a negative factor. It will force you to concentrate. The days will be divided between practical target practice with the rifle, psychological exercises, and working out the various possible liquidation scenarios. Moreover, I gather you are not used to driving. I’ll be sending you out in a car for a few hours every day.”
“They drive on the right in this country,” said Victor Mabasha. “In South Africa we drive on the left.”
