Chapter 35

As someone long prepared for the occasion
In full command of every plan you wrecked
Do not choose a coward’s explanation
That hides behind the cause and the effect

– LEONARD COHEN, ‘ALEXANDRA LEAVING’

September 2019

Masilela was already there at the house in Pretoria East when Whitehead arrived and let himself in. He had noticed Masilela’s A4 parked discreetly down the street, and found him in the kitchen with Gail. Their conversation paused when he walked in.

‘Heita, Jerry. You’re late.’

‘No, Vladimir, you’re early.’ He glanced at his fitness watch, the watch he used to check his heart rate and count his daily steps. He had forgotten to charge it again. ‘Hi, Gail. Still no work?’

‘Hi, Jerry. No, don’t be stupid. I wouldn’t be here in the middle of the week if I was working.’ She poured him a coffee without asking.

Masilela drained his mug, took it over to the sink and rinsed it. ‘Poydem. My dolzhny rabotat.’

Gail’s forehead furrowed. ‘Huh?’

‘It’s Russian, Gail. I’m saying it’s time to go do some work. Thanks for the coffee.’

‘You still know Russian?’

Masilela turned back from the door. ‘I talk to myself in Russian to retain what I learned in the Soviet Union.’

‘But, why?’

‘In my heart, Russian is still the language of revolution.’

Whitehead sat down, and sipped at his coffee.

Gail snorted. ‘Revolution? After what happened? You’re joking.’

‘Yes, the Soviets messed up,’ Masilela retorted, clearly a little irritated. ‘They messed up badly. But they had a revolution that shook the world. Perhaps all revolutions are destined to mess up when they face such vicious opposition. Look at ours.’

‘Our what?’

‘Our revolution.’

‘What revolution?’

‘Exactly! Come Jerry. Let’s go.’

‘Thus your name? You’ve kept “Vladimir” because it’s revolutionary?’

Masilela turned from the door. ‘Yes, Gail ... My MK name is my badge of honour. I wear it proudly, unlike those who’ve discarded their politics and analysis for the comforts of capitalism. It’s easy to rationalise what you’re enjoying. Much harder to stick to your principles and your history in spite of the temptations of sophistry.’ He ushered Jerry out, turned, smiled and waved at Gail.

At the entrance to the room, Masilela clucked his admiration for the security procedures. Inside, he remarked on the orderliness – rows of filing cabinets, bookshelf, desk and, on the far wall, above the row of cabinets, four large sheets of newsprint joined together and covered with multicoloured diagrams, arrows, boxes, circles and text. To the right, something large attached to the wall but screened by what looked like a tablecloth – chequered green and white.

He pointed at the newsprint. ‘And what’s all that? You been busy, Jerry?’

Whitehead walked over to the far wall, picked up a long wooden pointer, the kind from the old school days that doubled as a cane. He pointed to a set of red squares with text to the left of the diagram. ‘These are the names on the Mandela list. The ones with black crosses are dead. The ones circled in blue are the ones we already suspected in exile and have dealt with one way or the other. These, the ones with blue crosses, are retired or out of active life. And these ...’ He ran the pointer from left to right from one of the squares along an arrow to circles with text. ‘These are the ones who are still active – red in government, green in the ANC, blue in business, and black in civil society or academia.’

Masilela stepped closer to the diagram, slipped on his spectacles and quietly read out some of the names in the different-coloured circles. ‘You’ve really been working, Jerry. Impressed. And your conclusions?’

Whitehead waved the rod in circles on the left of the diagram. ‘Basically, chief, I think the Mandela list leads nowhere. These names to the right here – in the circles – I’ve checked their files. We had nothing on them of any concern. I’ve unpacked their bios; nothing to arouse suspicion or even curiosity. I’ve researched their activities and views in the past decades – nothing to indicate anything worrying. Sure, one or two went over to Cope, or criticised the ANC as stalwarts, but if those were criteria there are hundreds we’d have to paint as sell-outs.’

Masilela removed his spectacles and waved them at the wall. ‘Conclusion?’

‘The list the boers gave Madiba was a mix of truth and lies; truths we mostly already knew or were mainly harmless, and lies – these in the circles here – good comrades they wanted us to doubt and suppress. As we suspected all along. The research seems to confirm this.’

Masilela stepped back and nodded towards the rest of the newsprint diagram. ‘Good. As we suspected. And the rest of the diagram?’

Whitehead tapped on the diagram, rhythmically, more as an accompaniment to his words than to point to anything in particular. ‘Here, chief, what I’ve done is this ... Similar to the Mandela list, but more complicated. I’ve been through the old files of all those we suspected or discovered were enemy agents. Again, I’ve eliminated all the dead and inactive. Also, those where I thought the basis of suspicion was flimsy. We were cowboys in those days. But if I included all that remained, my diagram would not fit it all, so these squares and names here are those who are still alive and active – same colour scheme as for these on the left. Red for—’

‘Yes, yes, Jerry, I got that. Have you written this up in a report that I can give to Sandile?’

‘Not yet, chief. Will do.’

‘And when you do, include a brief assessment of the likelihood that the individuals are still serving agendas of their old masters.’

Masilela’s phone beeped. He looked at the screen. He went silent, moved over to the desk, sat down and stared for a long while at the phone, his thumb scrolling down.

‘What’s up, chief?’

Masilela held his palm up, and continued reading. Eventually he looked up. ‘It’s the first reports from the surveillance team. Curiouser and curiouser.’

Whitehead walked over to the desk. Masilela handed him the phone. ‘Our friend Baba Dlamini visited Bester’s farm. That’s after Bongi and I met him.’

Whitehead’s stomach muscles contracted. Masilela continued. ‘And it seems, after that visit, Bester came up to Gauteng.’

Whitehead looked up from the phone. ‘Gauteng? Where in Gauteng?’

‘They don’t know that. Vhonani couldn’t follow him all the way. Only one vehicle. Too conspicuous. You’ll see in there – he followed him on the N4 up to the Mpumalanga border. So, Gauteng it was.’

Whitehead finished reading. ‘You’ll send me a copy?’

Masilela took the phone back, punched the keys and Whitehead’s flexi-tab pinged in his bag. He ignored it.

Masilela walked back to the far wall. ‘And, Jerry, what’s that behind the dishcloth?’

Whitehead picked up the pointer. ‘Tablecloth, chief. Bongi donated it to the struggle.’ They laughed, Whitehead nervously. He dislodged the tablecloth with a flourish to reveal a mounted and laminated 1:1,000,000 map of the northern half of South Africa: Gauteng, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and portions of North West and KwaZulu-Natal. Dotted over the eastern side of the map, all in Mpumalanga, there were felt-tip markings and Post-it Notes, a few arrows pointing towards the Zimbabwe border and to Gauteng. ‘I’m working on a theory, chief.’

Masilela groaned and scratched his scalp. ‘A theory, Jerry? A theory? What? The Signs again?’

Whitehead sniggered. ‘No, chief. No. We’re moving beyond The Signs now.’ He paused. ‘Or maybe “beneath” The Signs?’ He stroked his beard with his right hand, a mannerism reminiscent of Thabo Mbeki. ‘There was something in philosophy about that – signs, semiology, I think ... Yes, Augustine. St Augustine.’

‘Hey, Jerry. Come back to the present. What’s this theory of yours?’

Whitehead pointed with the rod at the board. ‘We have moved beyond signs now, chief. We are moving to cause and effect. Look here.’ He tapped at the denser markings on the map to the east of Mpumalanga and then turned away to face Masilela. ‘I know it’s a bit of a crude categorisation, but it’s useful to characterise the roles of the apartheid security institutions in two ways – the military and the police were largely focused on what the Soviets called tactical and operational intelligence ... Potential targets: our camps, personnel, houses, offices, training methods, who’s who, etcetera. Their main purpose was the short-term destruction of the ANC.’

Masilela sat down. ‘Okay, Jerry, makes sense, broadly speaking. And?’

‘And, chief, the main focus of the NIS was strategic, long term. Yes, they collected tactical, operational and strategic intelligence on us, but – and this is the issue – their aim was also, perhaps even mainly, influence; to influence the movement in a certain direction – then and in the future.’

Masilela mimed applause ‘And the map? How does the map illustrate your theory?’

‘I’m coming to that, chief. The map deals with the one manifestation of my theory that we are currently dealing with. You see, I believe that the NIS, apart from all the other stuff they did, had a project to inject high-quality agents into the movement, with the long-term aim of placing them in the leadership not just for the period of struggle but for the post-apartheid era ... for now. Why d’you think they were so willing to push Botha to negotiations?’

Masilela shifted his buttocks on the seat, trying to rid himself of an itch. He stood up and walked towards the map. ‘Yes, yes, Jerry. Very feasible theory. But the map. What’s on the map?’

Whitehead pointed at the markings and Post-its on the right edge of the map. ‘You’re not going to like this, comrade.’

‘Just tell me, Jerry. Get on with it!’

‘I believe, chief, that our friend Bester was part of this NIS project ... the long-term project. We know that he moved from the security police to the NIS, probably because his strategic vision didn’t suit the police, as I’ve said. What would make sense if you’re looking for high-quality agents to infiltrate the ANC? Finding the brightest among black people who could be persuaded, or otherwise pressured, to do their bidding. And where to find such people? At schools – young, malleable. At schools.’

‘Jesus, Jerry! Dlamini. Baba Dlamini. A headmaster. Seen meeting Bester. Envelopes. Confirmed to us he knew Bester. Shit! He was Bester’s spotter at his school.’

‘Exactly, chief.’ He dabbed with the pointer at a flag drawn towards the outer edges of the map. ‘That is, or was, Dlamini’s school. These arrows to these Post-its show the four people I’ve managed to identify who came to the ANC from Dlamini’s school.’ He dabbed at the first Post-it. ‘This one died in exile, of malaria in the camps, according to the ANC submission to the TRC.’

Masilela moved closer.

‘These other two are also dead. Inside the country after ’94. But this one ...’ He struck at the last Post-it with vehemence. ‘This one is still alive.’

Masilela put on his glasses and moved closer still. ‘But there is no name on this one.’

With a flourish, Whitehead peeled off the Post-it to reveal another beneath it, one with a name in dark black ink.

Masilela fell back. ‘Shit, Jerry! He’s not only still alive, he’s ... Fuck!’