more than a century before.
Ian sat restlessly on a small sofa, waiting as Emily rummaged through her closets looking for a coat to wear. He checked his watch and wondered again if this trip up the cableway was such a good idea. He was due back in the studio by four, and time was running out fast.
He resisted the temptation to get up and pace. Sam Knowles was going to be plenty pissed off if he missed his self-appointed deadline…. “Could you come here for a moment? I want your opinion on how I look in this.” Emily’s clear, happy voice broke in on his thoughts.
Ian swallowed a mild curse and rose awkwardly to his feet. God, they were already running late. Was she going to Put on a fashion show before going out in public?
He walked to the open bedroom doorway and stopped dead.
Emily hadn’t been putting a coat on-she’d been taking clothes off. She stood near the bed, clad only in a delicate lace bra and panties. Slowly, provocatively, she swiveled to face him, her arms held out.
“Well, what do you think?”
Ian felt a slow, lazy grin spread across his face as he stepped forward and took her in his arms. Her soft, full breasts pressed against his chest.
“I think that we aren’t going to make it to the mountain today.
“
She stood on tiptoe and kissed him.
“Oh, good. I hoped you would say that.”
He sank back, pulling her gently onto the bed.
“You know,” he said teasingly, “for a good Afrikaner girl, you’re becoming incredibly forward. I must be corrupting you. “
Emily shook her head slightly and Ian felt his skin tingle as her hair brushed against his face.
“That isn’t true, my darling. I am what I have really always been. Here in Cape Town I can be free, more my true self.”
He heard the small sadness in her words as she continued, “It is only when I am at home that I must act as nothing more than my father’s daughter.”
Ian rolled over, carrying her with him, still locked in his arms. He looked down into her shining, deep blue eyes.
“Then I’m very glad that you’re here with me instead.”
She arched her back and kissed him again, more fiercely this time.
Neither felt any further need to speak.
JUNE 3-NYANGA BLACK TOWNSHIP, NEAR CAPE TOWN, SOUTH AFRICA
Andrew Sebe stood quietly in line among his restless, uneasy neighbors, waiting for his turn to pass through the roadblock ahead. He felt his legs starting to tremble and fought for control. He couldn’t afford to show fear. Policemen could smell fear.
The line inched forward as a few more people were waved past the pair of open-topped Hippo armored personnel carriers blocking the road. Squads of policemen lounged to either side of the Hippos, eyes watchful beneath peaked caps. Some carried tear gas guns, others fondled long-handled whips, and several cradled shotguns. Helmeted crewmen stood ready behind water cannon mounted on the wheeled APCs.
Hundreds of men and women, a few in wrinkled suits or dresses, others in faded and stained coveralls, jammed the narrow streets running between
Nyanga Township’s ramshackle houses. All had missed their morning buses to Cape Town while policemen at the roadblock painstakingly checked identity cards and work permits. Now they were late for work and many would find their meager pay docked by
inconvenienced and irate employers. But they were all careful to conceal their anger. No matter which way the winds of reform blew in Pretoria and
Cape Town, the police still dealt harshly with suspected troublemakers.
The line inched forward again.
“You! Come here. ” One of the officers checking papers waved Andrew Sebe over.
Heart thudding, Sebe shuffled forward and handed the man his well-thumbed passbook and the forged work authorization he’d kept hidden for just this occasion.
He heard pages turning as the policeman flicked through his documents.
“You’re going to the du Plessis winery? Up in the Hex Rivierberge?”
“Yes, baas.” Sebe kept his eyes fixed on the ground and forced himself to speak in the respectful, almost worshipful tone he’d always despised.
“It’s past the harvest season. Why do they want you?”
Despite the cold early-morning air, Sebe felt sweat starting to soak his shirt. Oh, God. Could they know what he really was? He risked a quick glance at his interrogator and began to relax. The man didn’t seem suspicious, just curious.
“I don’t know for sure, baas. The Labour Exchange people just said they wanted a digger, that’s all.”
The policeman nodded abruptly and tossed his papers back.
“Right. Then you’d better get on your way, hadn’t you?”
Sebe folded his documents carefully and walked on, his mumbled thanks unheard as a South African Airways jumbo jet thundered low overhead on final approach to the airport barely a mile away.
The policeman watched through narrowed eyes as the young black man he’d questioned joined the other workers waiting at the bus stop. He left the roadblock and leaned in through the window of his unmarked car, reaching for the cellular phone hooked to its dashboard. With his eyes still fixed on Sebe, he dialed the special number he’d been given at a briefing the night before.
It was answered on the first ring.
“Yes?”
Something about the soft, urbane voice on the other end made the policeman uneasy. These cloak-and- dagger boys managed to make even the simplest words sound menacing. He raced through his report, eager to get off the line.
“This is Kriel front the Cape Town office. We’ve spotted one of those people on your list. Andrew Sebe, number fifteen. He’s just gone through our roadblock.”
“Did you give him any trouble?”
“No, Director. Your instructions were quite clear.”
“Good. Keep it that way. We’ll deal with this man ourselves, understood?”
“Yes, sir. “
In Pretoria one thousand miles to the north and east, Erik Muller hung up and sat slowly back in his chair, an ugly, thin-lipped smile on his handsome face. The first ANC operatives earmarked for Broken Covenant were on the move.
JUNE 8-UMKHONTO WT SIZWE HEADQUARTERS, LUSAKA, ZAMBIA
Col. Sese Luthuli stared out his office window, looking down at the busy streets of Lusaka. Minibuses, taxis, and bicycles competed for road space with thousands of milling pedestrians-street vendors, midday shoppers, and petty bureaucrats sauntering slowly back to work. All gave a wide berth to the patrols of camouflage-clad soldiers stationed along the length of
Independence Avenue, center of Zambia’s government offices and foreign embassies.
Umkhonto we Sizwe’s central headquarters also occupied one of the weathered concrete buildings lining Independence Avenue. Strong detachments of Zambian troops and armed ANC guerrillas guarded all entrances to the building, determined to prevent any repetition of the
Gawamba fiasco.
Luthuli scowled at the view. Though more than six hundred miles from
South Africa’s nearest border, Zambia was the closest black African nation willing to openly house the ANC’s ten-thousand-man-strong guerrilla force. Despite the ANC’s
reappearance as a legal force inside South Africa and the temporary cease-fire, the other front line states
