Chapter 14

June 2019

Bongi sat at her desk – one of those modular, L-shaped ones with the metal legs and frame and the formica top, more suited to a kitchen table, but at least easy to wipe off the spilt coffee. She swivelled her chair left and right, as if to a song in her head, but the lyrics consisted of just two names, repeated over and over, as given to her by Vladimir in their brief meeting at the Woodlands shopping mall the previous evening. The lyric was the names but the accompaniment, the rhythm section, was the anxiety over Vladimir’s revelation.

Her desk faced the door, painted grey like the walls, with the bottle-green frame repeated, as she knew, throughout the building housing the secrets of the nation. Secrets of the nation? Not so popular any more, the notion of secrets. In the public mind – whatever that might be – an anachronism from olden days, a kind of pre-history. She remembered the campaign some years ago, in the days of Twitter, with its hashtags, the days of the student protests, of #RhodesMustFall, #FeesMustFall, #ThisViceChancellorMustFall, #ThatMinisterMustFall, #ThisPresidentMustFall. And, following another intelligence scandal, #SecretsMustFall. She felt like an artisan plying a craft long dead, for which humanity no longer had any need. She could have – should have – retired last year when she’d turned sixty. Jerry had discouraged her. They needed her salary to supplement his pension. The house was not yet paid for. The cars were not paid for. Nadine was still, in a way, dependent on them.

Her desk – the long side of the L – was bare, except for the wooden knickknack with a row of tinkling metal bells and the little wooden hammer. It had been given to her as an official gift by a delegation of visiting analysts from the Chinese service. And to her left were the three-tiered plastic filing trays, a relic she couldn’t let go of from the days they used to work on paper, now with only a few notes to herself in the in-tray and a pile of magazines and journals she would never get to reading in the pending tray. The out-tray had a couple of photos of Jerry and Nadine fishing that she’d recently scanned. Today everything was digital: intelligence reports, analytical reports, submissions and leave forms and procurement forms – all signed digitally – as well as maps and images. She missed the feel of something tangible, singular, present, with a pen and highlighter in her hands.

On the shorter side of the L stood her two computers. One for the Service’s internal network that she had to sign into with her fingerprint, eye scan, voice recognition and then the good old-fashioned password. The other her connection to the world, the internet. Tucked into the front left corner of the room was the large wooden table she had refused to let go of when there had been a modernisation of the office that involved some kind of scandal that lost the procurement officer – her friend – her job. On the table stood a parsley plant in an earthen pot, from which she broke a twig every now and then to take home. She didn’t know how, but it survived in her office with the daily watering she gave it from the water cooler in the corridor. The rest of the table was covered with books, more magazines and journals, and the week’s newspapers, which she looked at only briefly during her first morning coffee and then read online.

Behind her was the window with the green frames and small panes, metal burglar bars fixed to the wall outside, and the off-beige blinds that she opened first thing every morning and closed every evening. When she swivelled in her chair, she saw the low koppie behind the Service building, the bushes and shrubs now dry in the rainless winter. Beyond were the pale sky and brazen array of satellite dishes breaking the natural lines of the landscape. In the back left corner of her office stood a grey steel filing cabinet. In addition to its normal locks, it had welded onto the top and bottom steel slats through which fitted a flat steel rod, locked to the top slat with a large combination lock. This too she had refused to yield when they went digital. It was empty. It was still locked. Perhaps now, with Vladimir’s investigation, she might have use for it.

Bongi rose, left the room, locking the door behind her, breaking the rule of always logging out of her computer before she left the room. She made her way down the corridor to the kitchen, poured herself another coffee and came back. She used to have a secretary to do that, but they too became obsolete with the digitalisation. She sat down again, placed the wireless headset on her head and turned to her computer – the internal one. It had automatically logged off. She cursed. She went through the routine, wondering if the irritation in her voice would affect the voice recognition. Indeed, it did seem to hesitate after she spoke her name, but allowed her in on the third try.

She activated the Service database app, selected the intelligence dataset and typed one of the names Vladimir had given her into the search field. Sorry. No results match your search. Try a different spelling or modify your search criteria. She tried the second name. Still no results. She sipped at her coffee, selected the administrative dataset and typed in the first name. The computer and the invisible network and servers behind it took their time. Eventually, red text appeared on the screen: You do not have access to this data! She spoke aloud, but in her head she was addressing Vladimir.

‘Fuck! What IT idiot programmed in the exclamation mark? Like it’s a reprimand, a threat.’ She waited for Vladimir’s response in her head, had an image of him shrugging his shoulders and smiling that crooked smile of his.

She cleared the screen. Taking off her headset, she reached back and untied the ochre-and-yellow scarf that held her grey-speckled hair in a bunch at the back of her head. She ran a thumb and forefinger along the edge of it in long, gentle strokes, as if soothing a child. She stared at the door, then the plant, the computer screen, then swivelled her chair to face the window, still stroking the scarf. On the grey grass outside three mossies pecked at the earth. Bongi thought of the garden in their house two kilometres away, up the Delmas Road (that, if followed in the other direction to the east, would bring you to Mpumalanga, the old Eastern Transvaal). She thought of the birds in the garden, lots of mossies and the loud hadedas. She thought of the flowers she wanted to plant in time for the spring rains, if they came this year. She wished Jerry would take more interest in the garden.

She swivelled back from the window, selected the phone app on her computer and clicked on the name of Johan van Deventer. He headed the analysis division under her dealing with the right wing, organised crime and anti-constitutional activities – the catch-all division entrusted to this very intelligent Afrikaner leftover from what they still called ‘the old order’ when they were among comrades. She clicked the call button. He answered immediately.

‘Morning, ma’am.’

‘Morning, Johan. How’s it going this morning?’

‘Fine, thank you, Director.’ She always detected a hint of false respect in his voice. But she was used to that. A quarter of a century into democracy and some still could not acclimatise to taking orders from a black woman.

‘Are you very busy, Johan?’

‘I’m working on the report on the ultra-left, ma’am.’

‘What ultra-left? Since when do we look at the ultra-left?’

‘DG’s instructions, ma’am. He set up a task team.’

‘Oh, Okay. I’ll clarify with him.’ She paused. Brought her internet computer to life. ‘Listen, Johan. Give yourself a short break and come up to my office for a few minutes.’

‘Sure, Director. Be there in five.’

She logged off her internal computer and turned to the internet one. She typed one of the names into the Google search field. There were over six thousand hits. She opened the first few links but found nothing that seemed to tie into Vladimir’s interests. She tried the second name. Still nothing. There was a knock at the door. She switched off the computer screen.

‘Come in, Johan.’

Van Deventer entered. He was dressed in a pale blue suit, shirt of paler blue and navy blue tie, in spite of the deformalisation of dress code in the Service years ago under Vladimir’s watch, the suit a size or two too big for his tall, skinny body. His hair was close-cropped to disguise the grey and the bald patch that had gradually spread over the years, which for Bongi was a measure of the passing of the twenty-four years she had been in the Service.

‘Morning, Director.’

‘Hello, Johan. Take a seat.’

Van Deventer slipped into one of the two visitors’ chairs in front of Bongi’s desk. ‘What can I do for you, ma’am?’

‘Can I get you some coffee or something, Johan?’

‘No thanks, ma’am. I’ve left a half-finished cup in my office.’

‘Sorry about that. I won’t keep you long.’

‘No problem, ma’am.’

He shifted in his chair, stared at her with the eyes that matched his shirt.

‘Tell me, Johan, do you know if we have records of people who served in the old Security Police?’

‘Why would we have those, ma’am?’

‘No, I mean, left over from the old NIS days.’

‘I don’t understand, ma’am. NIS would have had no reason to collect intelligence on the Security Police.’

‘No, of course not. I understand that. I meant from their liaison and coordination with the Security Police.’

‘Well, ma’am, that would not have been in intelligence records – possibly operational or administrative ones.’

‘And would we still have those records.’

‘I very much doubt it, ma’am.’

‘Why?’

Van Deventer put his hand into the inside pocket of his jacket as if looking for something that would help the conversation, removed it again, patted down his tie then let his hand drop down next to the other one on his lap. He looked down at his hands as if surprised to find them there, then up again at Bongi again. ‘Well, Director, there would be no need for them now. So they would have been archived or destroyed as provided in the Archives Act.’

‘Indeed, Johan, and the old NIS destroyed much of its records before 1994. Would such records have been among them?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Yes?’

‘I mean, yes, I know they destroyed some records.’

‘They, Johan?’

‘We, ma’am, but I was not involved in the destruction of records.’ He shifted in his seat, crossed his legs, changed his mind and reached inside his jacket again, smoothed the front of his shirt. She wondered if this was an old instinct of reaching for a firearm when threatened.

‘It’s okay, Johan. I’m not holding you personally accountable. Those days are long gone.’

‘Yes, ma’am, they are.’

‘So?’

‘Yes, ma’am?’

‘So? Would those kinds of records have been destroyed then?’

‘To be honest, ma’am, I wouldn’t know. I wasn’t involved, as I said.’

‘You said they might have been archived?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘Where?’

‘In the National Archives, ma’am. They might be open now. Twenty years have passed.’

‘Indeed. Can you check on that for me, Johan?’

‘Sure, ma’am. Anything else?’ He managed to cross his legs and sat back in the chair. Bongi stared at him, looked down at her fingernails, scratched at a chip in the polish on her thumb.

‘Tell me, Johan, are you aware of any former security policemen who joined the NIS before 1994?’

‘You know the Security Police despised us, ma’am?’

‘Yes, Johan, I’m aware of that. So? Were there?’

‘I think there were some, ma’am.’ The hand in and out the jacket again. ‘As I recall. But I wasn’t personally aware of any.’

‘But you were a member of the NIS then, Johan. Wouldn’t you have been aware of new members?’

‘I’ve been in analysis my whole career, ma’am. Those that came would have gone into operations. As far as I know, to the covert collection directorate. They wouldn’t have been allowed at headquarters. They had their own undercover offices. We would never have met them.’

‘And did any of them stay, move over to the new Service?’

‘That I wouldn’t know, ma’am. The covert collection directorate was brought into the new service, so I suppose some could have come across.’

‘Okay. Thanks, Johan. I’m sorry about your cold coffee. I owe you a cup.’

‘Ma’am?’

‘Yes, Johan?’

‘May I ask why you’re asking these questions?’

‘Need to know, Johan.’

‘Sorry, ma’am.’ He prepared to stand.

‘I’m joking, Johan. Relax.’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘A colleague in the Missing Persons Task Team ...’

‘Missing Persons Task Team, ma’am?’

‘Yes, the team that was set up after the TRC in the National Prosecuting Authority. It was tasked to trace people, or their bodies, who went missing during apartheid. People who died in combat, were hanged, killed by the Security Police, died in exile. Their main task is to try to find the bodies and provide a reburial and closure for the families.’

‘Yes, ma’am. I remember.’

‘Well, the team is in the process of closing its books, shutting down their cases, but they have a few unsolved cases left and they’ve asked for our help.’

‘I see, ma’am. But why do they need to know about former security policemen?’

‘Because some might be able to help them with the unresolved cases.’

‘But I thought the TRC had all that information, Director?’

‘Not everyone applied for amnesty, Johan.’

‘I see, ma’am. Do you want me to make more enquiries, ma’am?’

Bongi scratched at the nail polish again, laid her hands on the desk and pushed herself to her feet. ‘No, Johan, that’s not necessary. You’ve been very helpful. I just wanted to get a sense of what we might have. Go back to your cold coffee and your ultra-left report. I’d like a look at the report when you’re done.’

‘The DG said the task team must report directly to him, ma’am.’

‘That’s okay. I’ll discuss with the DG.’

She escorted him to the door, tapped him lightly on the back as he left. She went back to the desk, unlocked a drawer, took out her handbag and left the room. She walked down the long corridor with the wooden statuettes in alcoves and the paintings by local artists on the walls, used her access card to exit through the revolving security doors and walked to the smoking area with the concrete benches, concrete ashtrays and small trees. She thought of bumming a smoke, but remembered how she’d feel when she went for her jog in the morning. She took her cell phone from her bag and switched it on. Mobile signals were blocked in the building. She sent a text to Jerry: Sorry about dinner last night. Let’s do it tonight. TGIF. Nadine home for the weekend.

She started a text to Vladimir, paused mid-sentence, changed her mind, deleted it, switched off the phone and went back inside.