that was to be carried out within the USA. And how he’d ended up as warden of the most controversial prison in the world was the story of a fascinating and circuitous journey.
His mother was from Brooklyn and had met his father while on a safari holiday in the Kruger Park. His father, ironically, was a senior prison guard who had spent the last ten years of his life as a shift commander on Robben Island, the notorious prison where Nelson Mandela spent most of his twenty-six-year incarceration. Mandrick had never had the slightest intention of following in his father’s footsteps and as a young man would have laughed at the very notion of one day working in a prison, let alone running one. He grew up in South Africa, rather than the States, after his mother became attracted to the new lifestyle she encountered in her husband’s homeland. She was not a fan of apartheid but neither was she strongly opposed to it.What she did appreciate were the two live-in maids who practically mothered her baby boy; they fed him, changed his nappies and played with him. That was in between doing every bit of housework including gardening, cooking most of the household’s meals - and serving sundowners.
Mandrick was a born adventurer and after leaving university in the mid-1970s he was determined to find more action than the prison service could offer. Before his military conscription papers arrived he volunteered to join the South African army, which was only the first step in his plans. As soon as he could he attended the selection course for the 4th Reconnaissance Commando, a Special Forces unit based in Langebaan, and was accepted after passing with distinction.The unit was set up to perform maritime operations, a subject that interested Mandrick, and after joining the R&D submersible wing he piloted one of the unit’s first swimmer-delivery vehicles.
Military life was for the most part enjoyable but after three years it had failed to deliver the adventure that Mandrick had joined up for. As luck would have it, as he was waiting in the HQ building to talk to his sergeant major about quitting the armed forces one of the clerks told him that his unit had just been placed on standby to go to Angola. They were to join in the fight against the South-West Africa People’s Organisation (SWAPO), a black guerrilla group fighting for Namibia to separate from South Africa. It was going to be a real war, a deadly guerrilla campaign and more of an adventure than Mandrick had ever hoped to experience. He was overjoyed.To make matters even more exciting, his introduction to the conflict was from the air when his section parachuted deep into enemy territory.
By this time Mandrick was a sergeant in charge of his own troop. Having shown his talents early on in the campaign, he was given a lead role in the raid to destroy the SWAPO headquarters in the heart of one of the most hostile jungles on earth.The opening battle for the HQ was the most brutal he had experienced and it would only get worse. In the latter stages, when his section found itself cut off from the rest of the unit, it came down to hand-to-hand fighting where empty guns gave way to knives and machetes that then gave way to clubs, fists and boots. By the end of it the black greasepaint he had used to disguise himself as a SWAPO guerrilla in order to get close to the compound had been washed away by blood - fortunately only a little of it was his own.
A few months after the war, while attempting to drink a litre of Scotch alone in his barrack room, Mandrick tried to recall how many men he had actually killed in Angola. But his mind was immediately swamped with images of machetes slicing into limbs, boots stomping on throats, fingers gouging eyes: scenes of carnage that assaulted him until he screamed for them to go away. He woke up a day later, lying in his own urine and vomit. The memories were still vivid and it took many years before they eventually grew foggy and their accuracy became uncertain.
In the mid-1990s he quit the military after turning down a full commission and went to America to visit his mother who had by now divorced his father. The trip was intended as a sabbatical that would last long enough for Mandrick to get his head together and figure out a plan for the future. But the weeks turned into months and he still hadn’t discovered a firm direction. To help pay the bills he took employment in a local sports bar. He soon settled into a relaxed routine, although he was plagued by a permanent unease that prevented him from making any kind of long-term commitment to work or relationships. He blamed his disquiet on the political events taking place in his home country. Several options concerning his future that he had considered depended on him returning to South Africa but the growing revolt against apartheid and then the death of his father at the hands of a berserk prisoner influenced his decision to close that door and pursue a life in the USA.
Taking advantage of his mother’s nationality Mandrick applied for American citizenship and the year it was granted, in the absence of anything more inspirational, and perhaps still motivated by a latent need for action, he decided to join the New York Police Department. He was not unduly surprised when he was turned down; he assumed it had a lot to do with his politically incorrect South African military background. But several weeks later something extraordinary happened that he later suspected was a result of his application - he had shown up on someone’s radar. It was a mysterious meeting that would turn his entire life upside down.
Late one evening, as Mandrick left the bar where he worked, he was approached by a man who introduced himself as an employee of the United States government. The man knew everything about Mandrick’s past from the day he’d been born: his parents, his military background (including citations for bravery) and the operations he’d taken part in while serving with the South African Special Forces. Mandrick was invited to a meeting a week later which curiosity more than anything else urged him to attend. It took place in an innocuous sterile room in a downtown office block and was, to all intents and purposes, an interview conducted by three suited men who were also ‘United States government employees’. He was asked to keep the meeting secret although he was not told what kind of job the interview concerned and was denied any information that would provide a clue about the government department to which the men belonged. It seemed pretty obvious though that they were connected to the intelligence community.
A week later the mysterious man appeared again. This time he extended to Mandrick an invitation to take part in a personal evaluation. Mandrick was again left without a clue as to what it was all about but neither could he resist continuing with the mystery tour. A few days later, as promised, he received expenses money and travel details for a flight to a small airport in Virginia. On arrival he was met by a man who gave him a password that he had been briefed to expect and he was then driven without further conversation to Camp Peary near Williamsburg, otherwise known as ‘The Farm’. It was his first solid clue that these mysterious men were employees of the Central Intelligence Agency.
After signing several confidential contracts and undergoing a fitness and medical examination Mandrick embarked on a week of private schooling. He was the only student in the class. Lessons included the part US embassies played in intelligence processing, agent contact and human-pipeline procedures, field-finance accounting, a basic medical course, clandestine photography and how to operate a sophisticated coded communications system that separated into several innocuous components that fitted into a shaving bag. On the last day he attended a briefing about his potential duties and where he was asked if he would like to go back to Africa and work as an intelligence gatherer and processor for his ‘new’ country.
Mandrick had then become an operative for the Central Intelligence Agency, although he was no ordinary NOC (non-official cover). Older than most new recruits, he had not gone through the usual agent-induction system at The Farm. His level of knowledge of Africa and his military jungle skills could not be learned in any school and his composure in life-threatening situations was, rightly, taken as proven.
He was given a month to set his regular life in order and prepare a cover story for his mother and a handful of friends. His explanation for moving abroad was that he needed a change and had taken a position in an American travel agency that was opening offices all over Africa. On arrival in Nairobi he was given time to acclimatise and to familiarise himself with procedures under the supervision of the US embassy’s operations officer.
Two weeks later he was sent out into the region with the false identity of a road-construction engineer for an American contractor. His main theatre of operations was Uganda, Kenya and the Congo and his main task was to monitor the subversive activities of groups like the Allied Domestic Front and the Lord’s Resistance Army. It was not as exciting as Mandrick had hoped but he embraced the role with enthusiasm and within a couple of years he had set up a comprehensive network of couriers and informants.
While carrying out one of his tasks, the processing and collating of information, Mandrick detected the presence of a home-grown, powerful, dark and disturbing influence that was acquiring an operational foothold in the area. But his efforts to get his superiors to take his findings seriously were doomed to frustration. The faction was at the time a relatively unknown group of Arab Islamic militants and only when the US embassies in Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Nairobi in Kenya were blown up by them, killing more than two hundred and twenty people and wounding over four thousand, were his warnings vindicated. By then it was too late. To add to Mandrick’s misfortune he himself was caught up in the Nairobi bombing, barely escaping with his life.
Mandrick was repatriated to the USA to recover from his minor wounds. After sitting at home for a month while waiting to be retasked he was informed, without explanation, that his services were no longer required.
