He did not go over the fence that day. They spent the morning grinding around the huge guest farm in the Landrover, following the manager’s map, trying to determine the lie of the land the other side of the fence. The track descended to a huge plain studded with isolated hills, until, on the horizon, another hazy line of hills rose up. There was complete silence. The track meandered down, sometimes following the fence. The heat shimmered up from the mauve-grey, unmoving plain. Sometimes they got a clear view of Muller’s land, and several times they glimpsed a track on the other side of the fence. McQuade stopped and peered at it, looking for signs of vehicle tracks, a sign of life. Yes, there were faint tyre marks.
In the middle of the plain they encountered a dry stream bed, marked on the map as the northern border of the guest farm. They had come over twenty kilometres from the farmhouse. They climbed a rocky hillock and looked through binoculars. Muller’s land did not end here, but appeared to stretch on, beyond the stream bed, towards the distant hills. Here and there they could make out the track, but there was no sign of a dwelling, just the vast, silent, shimmering bush. For half an hour they sat on the hilltop, waiting for something to happen, something to move, dust to rise up. But, nothing.
‘He sure lives in the middle of nowhere.’
They drove back to the guesthouse via the waterhole, so they could tell the proprietor they had seen it. They Saw no game but plenty of spoor. It Was mid afternoon when they got back; the manager let them have cold meat and salad. They had it at a table under a tree, with beer.
‘All right. How would Mossad do it?’
‘Not on a bellyful of beer.’
‘It’s too late, anyway. It’d take three hours at least to cover ten kilometres on foot in those hills. So I’ll have to go tomorrow.’
‘First Mossad would do an aerial reconnaissance. Send up a man with a camera, and make enlargements of the photographs, then enlargements of enlargements, until they could see the whites of Muller’s eyes. Then they’d go over the fence to confirm their information. Then they’d build a model of the castle. Then they’d make a plan.’
‘I can’t afford an aerial survey.’
‘Why not? A lot of money is at stake. There must be literally hundreds of private planes you could hire in this vast country. Like in Australia.’
‘The difficulty would be finding a pilot we could trust.’
‘In Otjiwarongo there must be a flying club where you can rent a plane and a pilot. Say you’re a geologist. Or an archaeologist, looking for evidence of ancient ruins. Alternatively, there are probably aerial survey photographs of most of this country on file in some government office, and detailed survey maps. You can probably get them perfectly legitimately.’ She leant forward. ‘What I’m saying, Jim, is that you’ve achieved wonders in finding your target. Now is the time to sit and do some clever thinking.’
‘Some fast clever thinking: 435 is just around the corner and the country’s going to be swarming with United Nations troops and officials.’ He rubbed his chin. ‘Tomorrow you go back to Outjo, and see what you can find out. While I go over the fence, to see what I can see. Then we think about aerial surveys.’
At breakfast the next morning, they told the manager they were going to look for game. At eight o’clock Sarah stopped the Landrover amongst the hills, five hundred metres from the main road. McQuade got out, holding a small bag containing her telephoto camera, his binoculars and notebook, hurried to the barbed-wire fence, climbed over it, and dropped onto Muller’s property. He strode away. Within thirty paces he had disappeared into the scrub. Sarah drove on down the winding track, for the main road.
McQuade worked his way up to the crest of the nearest hill, and crouched behind a rocky outcrop.
But all he could see were more yellow-brown hilltops stretching on and on. No sign of life, no road. Only the ringing silence of the bush. He checked his watch, and the position of the sun, then set off into the jumble of hills, heading north-east.
It was about eleven o’clock when he came across the track, winding through the hills. He presumed it to be the same he had seen yesterday when reconnoitring. He crouched and examined the surface.
It was flinty. He crept along, looking for soft ground that would show a vehicle tyre. He found a patch which showed an indistinct imprint of a broad tyre. He could not judge how old the spoor was. The track twisted away, into the hills. His guess was that it joined up with the road from the gate. He started following it, avoiding any soft patches so as not to leave footprints. He followed it for twenty minutes. Now he was working his way up a big hill. He came up to the crest, and crouched down.
Below him, the hills gently flattened out into the plain. Cut through it was the brown stripe of an airstrip. Beside it was a hangar.
McQuade crept along the crest of the hill, looking for the best cover with the best view, stopped behind an outcrop of rocks, and pulled the binoculars from the bag.
He could see everything clearly, even the heatwaves shimmering off the galvanized-iron hangar.
McQuade did not know much about aeroplanes, but the airstrip looked a big one to him. The doors of the hangar were open, but from this angle he could not see an aeroplane. There was no vehicle, though some might have been parked behind the hangar, or inside it.
He swung the binoculars as far west as his field of vision would permit, then slowly swept them back, searching the distant scrub. He saw no signs of habitation. He swept as far east as he could see, and slowly swung the binoculars back, checking again. He reached the western end of his field of vision, and he saw it.
It was just a flash amongst the distant trees beyond the airstrip, a glimpse of a vehicle and a suspicion of dust in the air; then it was gone.
A patrol vehicle? He waited, searching the distance for more movement. If it was a patrol vehicle, it was possibly coming this way, very likely on the perimeter track they had seen yesterday alongside the fence, and very likely that track linked up with this one he was following.
Crouched beside his rocks, about fifty yards from the track, he did the arithmetic. That vehicle must have been three or four kilometres from him, as the crow flies, say ten kilometres via the winding track. If it hadn’t shown in half an hour he could risk moving.
He sat down. He turned his binoculars back to the hangar. In the next half hour nothing happened. The only movement was heatwaves shimmering, his sweat trickling, his uncomfortable shifting. After thirty-five minutes he got to his feet with relief.
He started creeping down the hill, peering through the scrub for the continuation of the track. He saw it when he was almost upon it. It ran down around the side of the hill, heading east again. He decided not to risk walking along it. He crept through the bushes, keeping parallel with it.
After ten minutes he paused and listened. Nothing. Then he cautiously descended, down onto the track. He hadn’t walked ten paces when he heard the vehicle breasting the hill, and his heart lurched.
He flung himself into the bush and scrambled frantically up the hill. He scrambled six, seven, eight, frantic yards, desperately looking for cover, then he flung himself flat. He looked wildly back at the track, and the Landrover burst into view around the bend.
He lay there, heart pounding, eyes wide. He glimpsed three men in the vehicle, two blacks and a white, and at least two Doberman dogs. The men were in khaki uniforms. McQuade stared, desperately praying that they would not look up the hillside. The Landrover ground slowly down the track, its engine roaring above the knocking of his heart, until it was almost level with him. If they did not look now they would not see him. He screwed his eyes up, and he heard the vehicle grind past him. He lay there, not daring to turn his head.
The noise of the vehicle diminished, and he went limp.
He got up and scrambled further up the hillside. He looked down at the track, panting. He could not see it any more, but that didn’t mean that somebody down there would not see him.
He climbed to the top of the hill. Now he could see the airstrip again. He went over the crest, then began to make his way carefully along, heading east.
Fifteen minutes later he heard the aeroplane.
He scrambled to a vantage point where he could see the airstrip clearly. He crouched down and searched the sky.
A white aircraft was coming in from the south-east. He put the binoculars to his eyes.
It appeared to be a six-seater, and had two engines. He could read the markings, and memorized them. The aeroplane was descending in a slow circle; then a vehicle appeared, approaching the airfield.
It was coming down a track which McQuade could not see. His pulse tripped. It was a white, four-wheel drive vehicle and it could have been a Landcruiser, the same kind of vehicle that had chased him in the desert. It was coming from the east, so Schloss Namib was that way. It emerged from the bush, and drove across open ground towards the hangar. The aircraft was commencing its approach.
The vehicle pulled up at the hangar. A white man got out. A black man was emerging from the hangar. The aircraft touched down with a puff of dust.
It went careering down the airstrip, then came trundling to a halt opposite the hangar. The black man ran for it. The pilot’s door opened, he got out onto the wing and the black man opened the door on the other side.
Four men climbed out. They were wearing dark suits. The driver of the vehicle came to attention, then he raised his right arm in the Hitler salute.
The four men responded. Then there were handshakes. They began to walk towards the vehicle. They all climbed in and the vehicle drove off the way it had come.
McQuade watched it go through the binoculars. It disappeared. He got up and began to scramble through the bush along the hillside.
Ten minutes later he saw the castle. Suddenly it burst into view, a few kilometres away. He scrambled for better cover, heart knocking.
He studied it through the binoculars. It was a large oblong building similar to the fort at Namatoni, gleaming white in the noon sun. The walls were as high as a double-storied building. The top was lined with battlements. In each corner rose a squat tower. In two stood flag poles: from one hung the red, white, and black flag of Germany of World War II, and from the other hung the Vierkleur, the flag of the Republic of the Transvaal before the Boer War. From within the courtyard rose the tops of tall palm trees. No windows broke the white walls, only what appeared to be gun slits. A large black double door was the only entrance. A gravel drive swept up to it. The area surrounding the schloss had been cleared of most of the trees. Lawns extended for about fifty yards, then there was a large paddock and a number of horses were grazing in it. Beyond was a long row of stables, and beyond that were rows of huts. McQuade thought he could make out a fence at the treeline behind the huts.
He looked uphill. He could get about thirty feet higher. He started scrambling upwards.