Chapter 23

August 1986

When Amos entered the pub in Kilburn at precisely 19:30, Otto Bester was seated on an upholstered bench in the far corner, his back to the wall and a three-quarters-full pint of lager on the table in front of him. He watched the young man, immaculate in a grey suit, sidle over to the bar, stand for a while, then make his way over to Bester with an ice-frosted glass of white wine in his hand. He sat down.

‘Bester, I had to forego the conference reception to be here. You need to plan better.’

‘And hello and how are you to you too, Amos? Sorry about that, but opportunities were limited.’ He pointed at Amos’s glass. ‘You drinking girls’ drinks now, Mr Vilakazi? What happened to the whiskies?’

‘Ha, meneer Bester, I can’t afford whiskey any more. We get 14 Kwacha a month in Lusaka, you know.’

‘Yes, I know. And the money we give you.’

Amos scratched at his eyebrows. ‘Otto, you know I can’t be seen to be spending money I can’t explain. Anyway, this wine is bought with the forex allowance I get for these trips. And wine is more distinguished for an international jet setter like me, no?’

Bester had travelled to escape a highveld winter in favour of a northern summer, but this August was a little cooler than usual for a typical London summer. He rubbed the evening chill from his bare arms below the sleeves of his short-sleeved shirt. Amos sipped at his wine, keeping his eyes on Bester over the rim of the glass.

Bester took a swig of his beer, kept his gaze fixed on Amos and spoke quietly. ‘Welcome to London, Amos. It’s good to see you, as always. How you been?’

Amos pushed his glass forward on the table. Leaned closer. ‘I’ve been good. Very busy. Always busy.’

‘Yes. You’re going up in the world. Very good.’

Amos lifted his glass at Bester. Bester raised his mug. ‘Cheers!’

Amos pointed at Bester’s bare arms. ‘Aren’t you cold, Otto?’

‘Actually, I am. This blerry place can’t even do a proper summer. I have something in my bag.’ He bent down to the knapsack under the table and fished out a green tracksuit top. As he pushed his arms into it and pulled it over his head, he reached into the side pocket and pressed the record button on the hand-held tape recorder.

‘Jesus, Bester! You want people to see the secretary of the ANC Economics Desk talking to a boer wearing a Springbok jersey?’

‘Sorry, man. It’s all I’ve got. No one here will notice.’

Amos fidgeted on his chair, eyes darting around. The pub was sparsely populated. Unusual for a London pub at this time of night. ‘So, Otto,’ he turned back to Bester. ‘how things at home?’

‘Hey, Amos, you know ... Hotting up. Your guys are giving us a hard time.’

‘My guys?’

‘You know what I mean. Making the country ungovernable. Students. Unions. Terrorist attacks. PW extended the state of emergency to the whole blerry country in June.’

‘Yes, I know, Otto. And in May you guys tried to bomb me in Lusaka and hit a UN refugee camp. You screwed up the Eminent Persons Group mission. More sanctions are coming. Thatcher can’t stop them now. Damn stupid.’

‘I know, I know ... That was the military. Bunch of idiots, led by idiot politicians.’

‘You mean the police are not idiots, Otto?’

Bester lifted his glass. ‘Actually, Amos, they are. I’ve left them.’

Amos put his glass down, looked around the pub and back at Bester. ‘You’ve what?’

‘Ja, I’ve left the vokken police.’

‘So, who am I talking to then? You really work for Unisa now?’

Bester brushed a fringe of hair from his forehead. It was longer than usual. ‘Ha-ha, Mr Vilakazi. Nope. Me and my unit have been moved to the NIS – National Intelligence Service. And they are more intelligent, I can tell you. They better understand what you and me are doing. And their head, Niël Barnard, is a bright, bright man; damn bright man.’

‘And what is it you and I are doing, Otto?’

‘You know, Amos. Finding a middle way.’

‘Middle of what?’

‘Come on, man, don’t play. Middle of the extremists. The commies on your side, the Nazis on mine.’

Amos picked up his empty wine glass, stood up and walked to the bar, returning with a refill to continue where Bester had left off.

‘Yes, I know, Otto. I just like provoking you. But you’ve got to understand, on my side there’s no thick khoki line between what you call extremists and the rest. It’s gradations, shades.’

‘Yes, but ...’

‘No, Otto. In a sense, we’re all extremists on my side, all communists or communist sympathisers. That’s the ideological frame your side has laid down for us. Extremism begets extremism.’

Otto drained his beer. ‘Hey, Vilakazi, that soutpiel university has made you clever, hey? An ANC intellectual. That’s good, that’s good. Give me a sec.’ He hoisted himself from the bench and picked up his empty glass. Amos stood. ‘Whoa, Bester. You’re not going to the bar with that top on. Give me your glass. What you drinking?’

When Amos returned, Otto nodded his thanks and sipped at the lager.

‘So, what you saying, Amos? You an extremist now?’

‘Actually, Bester, in technical terms, from your viewpoint, I am.’

‘What do you mean “in technical terms”?’

‘I’ve been recruited into the Party.’

Bester lowered his glass. ‘You’ve joined the SACP? Jirre!’

‘Hawu, Otto, I thought you knew better: nobody joins the Communist Party – you are recruited, spotted.’

‘So you a blerry commie now?’

‘Meneer Bester, I’m used to more sophistication from you. I told you it’s in “technical terms”. I’m a member. That doesn’t mean I’m a believer. It’s a career move. You keep encouraging me to advance. Well, I’m advancing.’

Bester tugged at the neck of his tracksuit top, letting some air in.

‘Yes, yes, Amos. I’m sorry. You’re right, of course. You just hit me with it so sudden; I thought you’d defected.’

‘Defected, Otto?’

‘Well, you know ... I thought for a minute there you’d gone over to the extremists.’

‘I told you, Otto, the boundaries are woolly. There are some sensible communists who know that South Africa, even if apartheid is gone, is not ready for communism; who understand the need for some talking, compromising. There are some of those.’

‘Who, precisely?’

‘All in good time, Otto. All in good time.’ He patted at the left breast of his jacket.

Bester curled his thick fingers around his glass and stared at Amos, quiet for now. He longed for a cigarette but he had chosen a bloody pub that now banned smoking inside. His mind traced the trajectory of his relationship with Vilakazi over the years, like a finger moving with nostalgia over a route map to fathom the road travelled from A to B and all the stops in between. In two months it would be seven years since his first meeting with Vilakazi. This boy was only – what was it? – twenty-four years old, ten years his junior, and already well on his way. Seven years ago he had struck a golden seam. And the mining was going well. He took his eyes off Amos and glanced around the pub. Diagonally opposite, a few metres away, at a table in the middle of the pub, sat two pallid but attractive young English women. They were looking in their direction. He raised his glass and turned his smile to them. They turned away. He put his glass down and turned back to Amos. ‘Two pretty chicks at two o’clock, Amos.’

Amos didn’t turn. ‘You seriously want us to pick up women in an English pub in these circumstances? Zip your pants, Otto. And, anyway, I’m married now.’

‘Shit, Amos! I forgot. Congratufuckinglations!’ He held out his hand to Amos, who hesitated for a moment then took it limply.

‘You forgot? I never told you, so how can you have forgotten?’

‘Amos, you’re not the only friend we have in Lusaka. I heard about it.’

‘From who?’

‘Never mind who. One of our friends over there. They were at your wedding party.’

‘Ha! That narrows it down. The place was packed.’

‘So who is she, Amos?’

‘I thought you knew everything.’

‘Just that you got married.’

‘Her name is Lindiwe.’

Bester raised his glass. ‘Ah, nice name. How d’you meet?’

Amos raised his glass in return, then drained it. ‘Actually, strangely enough, she was the one who interviewed me when I arrived in Maputo.’

‘She with security? Jeez! So you arrive in exile and the first thing you do is screw your interrogator?’

‘Please, Otto. Cloak your prejudices. She didn’t interrogate me. And I didn’t start anything with her until much later, when I came back from varsity.’

‘Okay, okay, but does she know about me?’

‘Jesus, Bester! Is jy mal? Of course not!’

Bester noted the slip into Afrikaans. ‘So you have secrets from your wife?’

‘We all have secrets from each other in this turmoil of ours. Of course I can’t tell her about us. I can never tell her about us. And you’d better make sure she doesn’t find out from some slip on your side.’

‘And where’s she based now?’

‘She’s back in Maputo.’

‘So you guys are living separately. And, by the way, after the Nkomati Accord, you guys are not supposed to have trained people in Maputo.’

‘And you guys are not supposed to be providing support to Renamo. And, yes, we are living apart. Many ANC couples are.’

‘It’s not us, it’s the military.’

‘Yeah, sure.’ Amos stood and returned to the bar, taking the opportunity to assess the two young women. They were attractive but looked out of place in this pub. When he returned to his seat, Bester was taking off the tracksuit top.

‘You not cold any more?’

‘A bit sweaty, actually. So ... what’s her real name?’

‘Who, Otto?’

‘Lindiwe, your wife, of course.’

Amos pushed his glass away. ‘Look, Otto, you told me a long time ago, when this ... this thing started, that I was not going to be your spy. I was going to be your advisor on trends and tendencies in the ANC and the chances of a negotiated settlement. My wife has nothing to do with that. Don’t ask me to give you information about her. Don’t.’

‘Okay, Amos, jammer. But where does she fit in the political scheme of things? You must have married her for a reason, some sort of empathy?’

‘I married her because she’s pretty. She’s intelligent. She’s a good woman. And being married in the ANC is good for me.’

‘Good for you?’

‘Yes. It makes me a complete ANC family. A closed unit.’ Amos pulled his glass closer again and took a long swig. He smiled with a hint of mischief. ‘And, anyway, being married in Mbokodo is a good thing. If suspicion is ever raised about me, she will no doubt protect me.’

‘Ha, Amos, you’re a real Machiavelli. You’ll go far. Okay, what have you got for me today?’

Amos reached inside his jacket and took out a long thick envelope and pushed it across the table. ‘Lots for you there. My party unit members; summaries of party documents; some analysis of likelihood of accepting negotiations; and the programme of this conference I’m at. Should be interesting. Everyone wants to talk these days of South Africa after apartheid. But I guess I’m not the only friend you guys have got there.’

Bester grunted, then smiled, his dimples accentuated by the shadows thrown by the dim pub lighting. ‘No comment, Amos.’ He held up the envelope – ‘Thanks for this’ – then bent to slip it into his knapsack and came back up with a smaller envelope in his hand.

‘And this is for you. Five hundred quid – British quid.’

Amos slipped the envelope into the pocket vacated by his envelope.

‘Okay, Amos, you leave first. It’s been good to see you again. In the envelope with the money is a note with instructions for our next meeting, as well as some questions we’d like you to try to get answers to. Go well.’ He stood up and put his hand out. Amos didn’t look up. He slowly drained his glass, then took Bester’s hand, turned and left.

Bester sat down again and sipped slowly at his beer, glancing across at the two women. One got up to leave. The other didn’t look back. He tipped his glass up and let the remains of the lager slip in one stream down his throat. Outside, he looked around, crossed the street to the bus stop and waited there to see if anyone followed him out of the pub. After a minute, the other woman came out, hesitated at the door, looked around as if unsure which way to go. Bester looked at his watch and then turned towards the tube station, crossing the street now and then. The woman also seemed to be going to the tube station. He ducked into a shop doorway and lit a cigarette. She walked past.

Back at the MI5 Gower Street headquarters the next morning, Sandra Collingwood and Judy Hutchins briefed the Security Service’s South Africa desk officer and her MI6 counterpart, Martin Simmonds, about their previous day’s surveillance of Amos Vilakazi. A manila envelope lay on the table before them.

When they were done, Simmonds, in an almost caricatured Eton drawl, spoke. ‘And who was this fellow the target was meeting?’

Sandra looked at Linda and back to him. ‘We don’t know, sir,’ she shrugged. ‘He’s not been of interest to us before.’

‘And? What did you make of the nature of the meeting?’

‘Nature, sir?’

‘Yes, nature. Was it two old pals meeting for a pint? Or something more sinister, eh?’

‘Well, sir ...’ Sandra looked across at their desk officer, who nodded assent. ‘Well, sir, they were unlikely friends.’

‘Indeed? Why not?’

‘Well, for one, it is a bit unusual for a black and white South African to be friends.’

‘Oh yes? And how do you know the other fellow was a South African?’

‘He looked it, sir.’

‘Looked it?’ Simmonds ran his thumb and forefinger across his moustache. ‘And you can tell a white South African by his looks, can you?’

‘Actually, I can, sir. He looked like an Afrikaner. We’ve had to do surveillance on enough of them.’

‘Indeed. And what else?’

‘What else, sir?’

‘Yes. What else might have led you to conclude this was not a meeting of old pals?’

Sandra looked at her desk officer again. She raised her eyebrows.

‘The envelopes, sir. ’

‘Envelopes?’

‘Yes, sir. The subject and the other man exchanged envelopes.’

‘Oh, really? Interesting. Anything else?’

‘Well, the target left the pub first. Judy followed him. He went back to his hotel. I followed the other gentleman.’

‘You did? Excellent. And where did he go?’

‘Don’t know, sir. He took countermeasures. I lost him.’

‘Mmm ... You don’t by any chance have a photograph of this other chap, do you?’

Judy pushed the envelope over to Sandra who took out a wad of black-and-white images, flipped through them and handed an enlarged one showing the back of Amos’s head and the full face of Bester.

The MI6 man picked it up, tilted it for better light, and grunted. ‘Goodness! We know this fellow. We have him on file. Former South African special branch. Now with NIS. Well done, girls!’

The MI5 desk officer spoke. ‘Excellent. Can we have his name, please.’

‘Sorry, ma’am, can’t do. Need to know.’

‘Really?’

‘Really, ma’am. No can do.’

The desk officer stood up, gathered the photos together and stuffed them into the envelope. ‘So, this is the nature of the collaboration between our services? One way, is it?’

‘Not at all, ma’am. I can tell you this. This Vilakazi fellow is going places in the ANC and, from what we know, this fellow he met is a mover and shaker on the other side. If Vilakazi is his source, this could be good for us. This could be something we could use down the line.’