crawl. Jeez walked, Jack, leaning on his shoulder, hopped beside him. In the pure darkness they went down Magazine.
Jeez said, 'Where are the wheels?'
'Far side of Skanskopfort.'
He heard the whistle of surprise.
'What I was trying for… '
'Save your strength.'
Jack found the hole that he had cut in the fence. He found his handkerchief. They slithered through. Jack, in his life, had never known such agony as when Jeez worked him through the wire and over the lower tumbler strand. He thought they should have been going faster, he knew he was incapable of greater speed. They crossed the road at the bottom of the valley between Magazine and Skanskop, and they climbed again. They climbed over the stone hard earth and the broken rock, and through the matted thorn scrub.
Against the clean night sky were the ordered plateau lines of the old fort's ramparts.
They looked down.
Jack gazed down the south face of the Skanskop slope to the road and the place where he had parked the Renault.
The triumph was bolted in his gut, the words were blocked in his throat. He could see the Renault. The Renault was illuminated by the lights of a jeep. There were many lights, many jeeps and transport lorries for moving troops. The lights of the vehicles shone on to the hillside where it fell to the road. He heard the rising drone of engines to his right, and to his left, and away behind him. His eyes squeezed shut.
The voice grated in his ear.
'You bastards took your time, and now you've blown it.'
'It was the best… '
Jeez snapped. 'Bloody awful best, and after I've been sitting there thirteen fucking months. Bastards.'
'Who are the bastards?'
'Your crowd.'
'What's my crowd?'
Teeth bared, 'The team.'
'What team?'
'Where's the back-up?'
'There's just me, me alone.' Still leaning on Jeez's shoulder.
'Where's Colonel Basil?'
'Never heard of him.'
'Lennie, Adrian, Henry.'
'Don't know them.'
'Who sent you?'
'I sent myself.'
Jeez looked up at him, searched his face. Didn't understand, couldn't split the mist.
'So who are you?'
'I'm Jack.'
'And who the hell's Jack, when he's at home?'
'He's your son.'
Jack hung on his father's neck. Jeez buried his face in his son's shoulder. And around them, far beneath them, was the tightening circle of lights.
They had come off the motorway, they were close to their parents' home.
After Jan had thrown the grenades at Local, and the S.A.A.F. recruiting office, and the creeper-covered fence of S.A.D.F. H.Q., and after he had fired a whole magazine of pistol shots at the sentry box at the bottom of Potgieterstraat, Ros had taken a circular route to Johannesburg. Not a word was spoken. Ros's knuckles were white on the wheel all the way. Their nerves were stretched like wire. They expected every moment the flail of the siren in pursuit, the road block in their path. The number plates were mud-smeared. She did not think that the sentries would have noted her number plate, they'd have been lying in the dirt and shielding their heads from the shrapnel and the pistol bullets. She had driven fifty kilometres out of her way, across to the east before doubling back through Bapsfontein and Kempton Park and Edenvale. She hadn't been followed, there had been no road blocks. They had heard one explosion. Jan had said it was the main charge going against the wall, and then they had finished with their diversion, and he had wound up the passenger window. They had heard nothing more.
Now the radio was on in the car.
The midnight news bulletin. A bland English accent.
'… English service of the S.A.B.C. Good evening. In the last ten minutes police headquarters in Pretoria has announced that the area to the south of the capital between Verwoerdburg and Valhalla has been declared an emergency military zone. All persons travelling through that area until further notice are subject to S.A.D.F. and police control.
Residents in the area are advised to stay in their homes throughout the hours of darkness… '
'They made it,' Jan squealed. 'They're running.'
'… Late this evening it was reported that explosions and firing were heard in the area of the S.A.D.F. headquarters on Potgieterstraat in the capital, but as yet there is no official police confirmation of these reports.
'In London a demonstration by an estimated two thousand people outside the South African embassy was broken up by police after violence… '
Jan switched off the radio.
'It didn't say he made it,' Ros said bleakly. 'It just said he was being hunted.'
'Wrong, not a military zone unless he's taken his father out.'
She drove on. She held the wheel lightly with one hand.
The fingers of her other hand played listlessly with the shape of the crucifix at her neck. She wanted only to be home. She wanted to tie the yellow scarf in the window of her bedroom.
'Did you love him, Ros?'
She turned the car into the driveway of her parents' home.
She parked beside her father's BMW.
'You're best to go straight to bed, Jan, or you'll be sleeping right through your classes in the morning.'
* * *
All Pretoria had heard the gunfire and the explosions.
Frikkie de Kok had heard them.
Pretoria is a valley city. The gunfire and the explosions on the southern hills were cradled above the community by the northern slopes. Distant gunfire and muffled explosions, and the city was an armed camp and the sounds were insufficient to disturb the celebration between himself and his assistant. Right that they should take some beers in the Harlequins bar after the assistant had performed well at dawn. A celebration for the two of them in the corner by the window going on long after the field floodlights had been switched off, away from the talk at the bar.
When it came to be time to gohome, the bar closed, the hangman did not know whether the gunfire and explosions were part of an army night exercise or the result of a terrorist attack.
At his front gate he waved his assistant goodnight. He came up the path. The porch light showed him that Hermione had been weeding in the evening after he had gone to the match. A fine woman, the rock of a fine family. He let himself inside, moved quietly into the darkened hall.
