Luthuli nodded slowly. Xurna’s reading of the situation was optimistic, but not outrageously so. The odds favored the major’s belief that Broken
Covenant had been aborted as ordered. He sat up straighter.
“I hope you’re right. But ask for confirmation anyway. And I want an answer back by the twenty-eighth. “
Xuma eyed his superior carefully. Luthuli must know that
what he wanted done was impossible. That meant the colonel was already thinking about covering his tracks should something go wildly, incalculably wrong in South Africa’s Hex River Mountains over the next several days. If the abort signal hadn’t gone through, the colonel could truthfully say he’d given his chief of intelligence a direct order to send another message. The blame for any disaster would fall squarely on Xuma’s shoulders.
So be it.
The major saluted sharply, spun round, and left Luthuli’s office at a fast walk. The colonel was a clever bastard, but two could play the blame-shifting game. Xuma had never especially liked the captain in charge of Umkhonto’s clandestine-communications section anyway. The man would make an excellent scapegoat.
Besides, he told himself, the odds really were against anything going seriously wrong. Even if Mbeki hadn’t passed the signal on, South Africa’s security forces were still incredibly efficient and deadly. The men assigned to Broken Covenant weren’t likely to get within twenty kilometers of their target before being caught and killed.
He was wrong.
JUNE 27-CAPE TOWN CENTRAL RAILWAY STATION
The seventeen-car Blue Train sat motionless at a special platform, surrounded by a cordon of fully armed paratroops and watchful plainclothes policemen. Within the security cordon, white-coated waiters, immaculately uniformed porters, and grease-stained railway workers scurried from task to task each engrossed in readying the train for its most important trip of the year.
One hundred yards away, Sam Knowles squinted through the lens of his
Minicam, panning slowly from the electric locomotive in front to the baggage car in back. He pursed his lips.
Ian Sheffield saw the worried look on his cameraman’s face.
“Something wrong?”
Knowles shook his head.
“Nothing I can’t fix on the Monster. “
The Monster was Knowles’s nickname for their in-studio computerized videotape editing machine. It worked by digitizing the images contained on any videotape fed into it. With every blade of grass, face, or brick on the tape reduced to a series of numbers stored in the system’s memory banks, a skilled technician could literally alter the way things looked to a viewer simply by changing the numbers. These hightech imaging systems were ordinarily used for routine editing or to enhance existing pictures by eliminating blurring or distortion. But they could also be used to twist a recorded event beyond recognition. People who weren’t there when a scene was taped could be inserted after the fact. And people who had been there could be neatly removed, erased without a trace. Buildings, mountains, and trees could all be transformed and shifted about at the touch of a single set of computer keys.
Put simply, computer-imaging systems made the old truism that a picture was worth a thousand words as dead as the dinosaurs. Now only the honesty of each individual cameraman, reporter, and technician guaranteed that what people saw on their TV screens bore any resemblance to the truth.
Knowles lowered his camera.
“I’m getting the damnedest kind of yellowish glare off those sleeping-car windows.”
Ian tapped the South African Railways tourist brochure he held in his right hand.
“According to this, that’s the gleam of pure gold you’re getting,
Sam. Pure, unadulterated gold.
“I hope you’re pulling my leg.”
Ian shook his head.
“Not at all. Every one of those windows has a thin layer of gold tacked on to reduce heat and glare inside the train.”
“Jesus Christ.” Knowles didn’t bother hiding his half envious contempt.
“Is there anything they haven’t thrown into that track-traveling luxury liner?”
Ian ran a finger through the list of amenities that were standard items on
South Africa’s Blue Train. Air-conditioned cars. Elegant private baths and showers. Five-star gourmet meals. Ultramodern air springs and extra insulation to ensure
a quiet, smooth fide. Even free champagne before every departure. He smiled cynically. Whoever wrote the brochure must have been running out of superlatives near the end.
He folded the brochure and stuffed it into his jacket’s inside pocket.
“Cheer up, Sam. It gives us a good hook for tomorrow’s otherwise boring story.”
“Such as?”
Ian thought quickly.
“Okay, how’s this for a lead-in?
“With Parliament out of session, South Africa’s president and his top cabinet leaders left Cape
Town today aboard the famous Blue Train-taking their traditional fide back to Pretoria in comfort through a country still filled with millions of impoverished and disenfranchised blacks. “
Knowles grinned.
“Not bad. Probably a little too rabble rousing to suit New
York, but not bad at all.”
“It doesn’t really fit the facts, though, so I can’t use it. I’ve got to admit that Haymans and his people seem genuinely willing to change the way things work in this country.”
“Maybe so.” Knowles sounded unconvinced.
“You gonna let a little thing like that stand in the way of a good intro line?”
“I know guys who wouldn’t.” Ian smiled ruefully.
“But I probably couldn’t look at myself in the mirror if I started pulling stuff like that.”
Ian heard the sanctimonious tone he’d just used and secretly wondered just how well his scruples would stand up to another few months of virtual exile in South Africa. Damn it! He needed a big story to break back onto the charts in the States. And he needed it soon.
Knowles slung the Minicam carrying case over his shoulder and checked his watch.
“Well, you’d better sleep on it and get good and creative.
“Cause you’ve only got until eleven o’clock tomorrow morning to come up with an opening spiel. “
The little cameraman easily dodged Ian’s mock, slow-motion punch and headed for the station exit.
Behind them, the paratroop major commanding the Blue Train’s security force shook his head in disgust. Americans. You could spot them half a mile away.
They were so ridiculously frivolous. He turned and barked an order at the nearest soldiers.
They snapped to rigid attention.
The major took his job seriously. He and his men were sworn to defend
South Africa’s top officials with their very lives. But few of them ever truly expected it to be necessary.
THE MINISTRY OF LAW AND ORDER, PRETORIA
From where he stood, Erik Muller could only hear Vorster’s part of the phone conversation. He didn’t need to hear more.
“No, Mr. President, I won’t be taking the train with you and the others tomorrow. I’m afraid I simply have too much work to do here.” Vorster’s fingers drummed slowly on his desk, unconsciously mimicking the rhythm of a funeral march.
“What’s that, Mr. President? It’s a great pity? Oh, yes. Very definitely.” Vorster’s thick, graying eyebrows rose sardonically.
“Yes,
I’ve always enjoyed the food immensely. And the magnificent views as well. Especially those in the mountains. “
Muller fought the urge to laugh. Instead he watched Vorster pick up a pencil and draw a quick, decisive circle
