“Exactly,” said Konovalenko. “That should help sharpen your reflexes. Any questions?”
“Lots of questions,” said Victor Mabasha. “But I realize I’ll only get answers to a few of them.”
“Quite right,” said Konovalenko.
“How did Jan Kleyn get hold of you?” asked Victor Mabasha. “He hates communists. And as a KGB man, you were a communist. Maybe you still are, for all I know.”
“You don’t bite the hand that feeds you,” said Konovalenko. “Being a member of a secret security service is a question of loyalty to those whose hands happen to be attached to the arms of the people in power. Of course you could find a few ideologically convinced communists in the KGB at any given time. But the vast majority were professionals who carried out the assignments given them.”
“That doesn’t explain your contact with Jan Kleyn.”
“If you suddenly lose your job, you start looking for work,” said Konovalenko. “Unless you prefer to shoot yourself. South Africa has always seemed to me and many of my colleagues a well-organized and disciplined country. Never mind all the uncertainty there now. I simply offered my services through channels that already existed between our respective intelligence agencies. Evidently, I had the qualifications to interest Jan Kleyn. We made a deal. I agreed to take care of you for a few days-for a price.”
“How much?” wondered Victor Mabasha.
“No money,” said Konovalenko. “But I get the possibility of immigrating to South Africa and certain guarantees regarding the possibility of work in the future.”
Importing murderers, thought Victor Mabasha. But of course, that is a clever thing to do from Jan Kleyn’s point of view. I might well have done the same myself.
“Any more questions?” asked Konovalenko.
“Later,” Victor Mabasha replied. “I think it’s better to come back to that another time.”
Konovalenko jumped up from the leather chair surprisingly quickly.
“The mist has dispersed,” he said. “The wind is up. I suggest we start getting acquainted with the rifle.”
Victor Mabasha would recall the days that followed in the isolated house where the wind was always howling as a long-drawn-out wait for a catastrophe that was bound to happen. Yet when it actually came, it was not in the form he had expected. Everything ended up in complete chaos, and even when he was making his escape he still did not understand what had happened.
Superficially, the days appeared to be going according to plan. Victor Mabasha quickly mastered the rifle. He practiced shooting in prone, sitting, and standing positions in a field behind the house. There was a sandbank on the opposite side of the field on which Konovalenko had set up various targets. Victor Mabasha shot at footballs, cardboard faces, an old suitcase, a radio set, saucepans, coffee trays, and other objects he couldn’t even name. Every time he pulled the trigger, he was given a report on the outcome via a walkie-talkie, and made very slight, barely noticeable adjustments to the sights. Slowly, the rifle began to obey Victor’s commands.
The days were divided into three parts, separated by meals prepared by Konovalenko. Victor Mabasha kept thinking Konovalenko knew exactly what he was doing, and was very good at passing on what he knew. Jan Kleyn had chosen the right man.
The feeling of imminent catastrophe came from another direction altogether.
It was Konovalenko’s attitude towards him, the black contract killer. For as long as possible, Victor Mabasha tried to overlook the scornful tone of everything Konovalenko said, but in the end it was impossible. And when his Russian master drank far too much vodka at the end of the day, his contempt came out in the open. There were never any direct racial aspersions to give Victor Mabasha an excuse to react. But that only made things worse. Victor Mabasha felt he could not hold out much longer.
If things continued like this he would be forced to kill Konovalenko even though doing so would make the whole situation impossible.
When they were sitting in their leather armchairs for the psychological sessions, Victor Mabasha noticed Konovalenko assumed he was completely ignorant about the most basic human reactions. As a means of defusing his growing hatred, Victor decided to play the role he had been given. He pretended to be stupid, made the most irrelevant comments he could think of, and noted how delighted Konovalenko was to find his prejudices confirmed.
At night, the singing hounds howled in his ears. He sometimes woke up and imagined Konovalenko leaning over him with a gun in his hand. But there was never anybody there, in fact, and he would lie awake until dawn.
The only breathing space he had were the daily car rides. There were two cars in an outbuilding, one of which, a Mercedes, was meant for him. Konovalenko used the other car for trips, whose purpose he never alluded to.
Victor Mabasha drove around on minor roads, found his way to a town called Ystad and explored some roads along the coast. These trips helped him to hold out. One night he got out of bed and counted the portions of frozen food in the freezer: they would be spending another week in this isolated cottage.
I’ll have to put up with it, he thought. Jan Kleyn expects me to do whatever I have to do for my million rand.
He assumed Konovalenko was in constant touch with South Africa, and that the transmissions were made while he was out in the car. He was also confident Konovalenko would send only good reports to Jan Kleyn.
But the feeling of approaching catastrophe would not go away. Every hour that passed brought him closer to the breaking point, to the moment when his nature would require him to kill Konovalenko. He knew he would be forced to do it so as not to offend his ancestors, and not to lose his self-respect.
But nothing happened as he had expected.
They were sitting in the leather chairs at about four in the afternoon, and Konovalenko was talking about the problems and opportunities associated with carrying out a liquidation from various kinds of rooftops.
Suddenly, he stiffened. At the same time, Victor Mabasha heard what he was reacting to. A car was approaching, and came to a halt.
They sat motionless, listening. A car door opened, then shut.
Konovalenko, who always carried his pistol, a simple Luger, tucked into one of his track-suit pockets, rose quickly to his feet and slipped the safety catch.
“Move out of the way so you can’t be seen from the window,” he said.
Victor Mabasha did as he was told. He crouched down by the open fire, out of sight from the window. Konovalenko carefully opened a door leading out into the overgrown orchard, closed it behind him, and disappeared.
He did not know how long he had been crouching behind the fire.
But he was still there when the pistol shot rang out like the crack of a whip.
He straightened up cautiously and looked out a window at Konovalenko bending over something at the front of the house. He went out.
There was a woman lying on her back on the damp gravel. Konovalenko had shot her through the head.
“Who is she?” asked Victor Mabasha.
“How should I know?” answered Konovalenko. “But she was alone in the car.”
“What did she want?”
Konovalenko shrugged and replied as he closed the dead woman’s eyes with his foot. Mud from the sole of his shoe stuck to her face.
“She asked for directions,” he said. “She’d evidently taken a wrong turn.”
Victor Mabasha could never decide whether it was the bits of mud from Konovalenko’s shoe on the woman’s face, or the fact that she had been killed just for asking directions that made him finally decide to kill Konovalenko.
Now he had one more reason: the man’s unfettered brutality.
Killing a woman for asking the way was something he would never be able to do. Nor could he close somebody’s eyes by putting his foot into a dead person’s face.
“You’re crazy,” he said.
Konovalenko raised his eyebrows in surprise.
“What else could I have done?”
“You could have said you didn’t know where the road was that she was looking for.”
