When the lights came on the place erupted.
It was as if the sudden illumination, the flooding of the chamber with a million-and-a-half candle power of electric light, broke the spell of terrified silence that had held the place gagged and huddled since they’d arrived. Screams filled the air, every frequency saturated, decibels pulsing from heaving lungs and snarling, fang-toothed mouths. It was the sound of rage. Rage fuelled by fear and desperation.
And then above it all, the sounds of language.
Clay shielded his eyes and looked instinctively back towards the doorway. Vivian grabbed his arm. Clay froze, his torch shining uselessly on the floor by his feet.
A man was standing in the doorway, his left hand still on the main light switch. He wore a surgical facemask that hid his nose and mouth. His white lab coat hung open, revealing a blue-shirted girth beneath. He held a black handgun in his right hand.
‘God dam,’ muttered Cobra.
‘I often work late on Tuesdays,’ the man said in English, the facemask and his thick Afrikaner accent clogging the vowels, shredding the consonants. His words were barely audible above the screaming of two dozen primates and God knew how many human beings. He started walking towards them, gun levelled.
‘It’s him, said Clay.
‘Botha?’ said Vivian.
‘No. The one I told you about. O Medico de morte.’
He felt Vivian’s hand tighten around his forearm.
‘Stay exactly where you are,’ shouted the man above the cacophony. He had closed the twenty or so metres that separated them from the doors, herding Cobra back to where Clay and Vivian stood. He now stood a few paces away, holding the handgun level at his waist. It was trained on Clay.
‘You,’ he said. ‘You killed Shwartz, didn’t you? In the dunes. He never came back.’
Clay said nothing, held his ground.
Veins throbbed at the man’s temples, bulged over his balding scalp. ‘Tell me, what happened to him?’
Clay remained mute, unmoving.
‘Murderer,’ he shouted, jabbing the handgun towards Clay.
‘Be careful with that thing,’ said Clay. ‘Might piss yourself again.’
The man the Angolans called O Medico de Morte snapped the pistol forward, aimed for Clay’s face. Hate burned in his eyes.
Vivian took a step back. ‘Doctor, please,’ she said.
Her voice seemed to calm him. He steadied, filled his lungs, exhaled.
‘Doctor Grasson,’ she said. ‘You are a medical doctor.’
He seemed deflated now, as if she had tamed something inside him.
‘Please,’ she said. ‘Lower the gun. Consider what you are doing.’
The doctor seemed to think about this a moment, his eyes flicking up and to the left before settling back into their lambent stare. Then he frowned. ‘What I do is necessary,’ he said.
‘What you are doing is illegal,’ she said. ‘And immoral.’
The man’s chest swelled. The window of connection was gone. ‘Quite the opposite. Everything we do here is perfectly legal.’
‘What about them?’ shouted Vivian, pointing back towards the far cages, the ones containing blacks, human beings.
‘Those blacks are diseased.’ Then he smiled and said: ‘This is a high-level quarantine area. I am afraid you have all been exposed.’
‘Exposed to what?’ said Clay.
‘Anthrax. Cholera. Botulism. Take your pick.’
‘Fok jou,’ said Cobra.
‘And you,’ said the doctor, pivoting slightly to bring his handgun to bear on Cobra. ‘Have you decided to side with the kaffir lovers and communists?’
‘What are you doing to them?’ shouted Vivian. She let go of Clay’s arm and took a step towards the doctor. The movement caught him by surprise and he stumbled back. He had just started swinging the gun around towards her when Cobra struck.
He covered the metre and half between them in a fraction of a second, parrying the doctor’s gun hand with his left so that the weapon was pointing uselessly at the far wall. At the same instant, his open right palm smashed into the doctor’s face. As the doctor’s head snapped back, Cobra’s right hand joined his left on the gun, and with a tearing motion, he ripped the pistol from the doctor’s hand.
A scream cut the din. The doctor crumpled to the ground, clutching his hand. Blood poured from his nose. His bent and bleeding trigger finger hung limp from its knuckle. Cobra stood above him with the handgun aimed at his head.
‘Go, Straker,’ Cobra hissed, handing Clay his own weapon. ‘Both of you. I’ll catch up. Don’t leave without me.’
Vivian gasped. ‘What are you going to do?’
‘What do you think?’ said Cobra, raising the handgun.
She put her hand on Cobra’s forearm. ‘No, wait,’ she said. And then to the doctor: ‘What are you doing with the peptide sequencer?’
The doctor looked up at her through tears of pain.
‘And the embryos? Tell me. Is it some kind of genetic engineering?’
The doctor looked down at his broken hand. ‘Don’t, poppie,’ he barked.
‘Go,’ said Cobra. ‘We’re out of time.’
Clay grabbed Vivian’s hand. ‘Let’s go. He’s right. If we don’t leave now, we never will.’ He started pulling her towards the door.
She pulled back. ‘No, Clay. This is why we came. I need to know.’
‘For Christ’s sake,’ said Cobra. ‘I’m not telling you again. Go. You don’t want to see this.’
Clay wrenched Vivian by her elbow, manhandling her towards the door. Any doubts he might have had about Cobra were gone.
But Vivian twisted herself around and looked back at the doctor. ‘What is the swarts bom?’ she shouted. ‘You’re going to die anyway, you sick bastard. You might as well tell me.’
The doctor bared his teeth. ‘Traitor,’ he shouted.
‘Straker.’
No matter what the situation, no matter how many voices overlap, you can always hear someone calling your name. Again it came, over the noise of chattering monkeys and chimpanzees, the wail of a dozen caged voices. His name. Loud, clear, familiar.
Clay stopped, turned, faced the sound. It was coming from the far cages. His name again, clear now. He let go of Vivian, started towards the far end of the room. Everywhere, naked black men and women pushed themselves up against the bars, their fists clenched around the steel uprights. They were staring at him.
‘Where are you going, Straker?’ called Cobra.
‘Straker.’ The voice again, hoarse, desperate.
‘God damn it, come back,’ shouted Cobra.
Clay shivered, cold suddenly, despite the dripping exhalations of three dozen mouths. He stepped towards the cage, within touching distance of the bars. A black arm reached out for him, its fingers like twisted mopane roots. The face was swollen, deeply discoloured around both cheekbones, the eye sockets caved.
‘Jesus Christ,’ said Clay.
‘Straker. Get me out of here.’
‘My God. Brigade. What have they done to you?’
Commissioner Rotzenberg: Are you aware, Mister Straker, of the requirements for the granting of amnesty by this commission?
Witness: Yes, sir.
Commissioner Rotzenburg: Let me restate them for you. First and foremost, you must relate the entire truth, to the best of your ability, no matter how difficult.
Witness: Yes, sir. That’s what I’m trying to do.
Commissioner Rotzenburg: And then you must show real contrition.
Witness: I understand.
Commissioner Rotzenburg: The witness maintains he wants amnesty, that he is here to tell the truth, and yet he systematically withholds important information.
Witness: I don’t understand.
Commissioner Rotzenburg: The witness claims that after hospitalisation, he began working with Torch Commando to uncover a conspiracy to use engineered drugs against the enemies of the regime. But his account of events systematically contradicts those of other witnesses. You say Doctor Grasson, the man you have been calling Doctor Death, was there, the day you supposedly broke into Roodeplaat Research Laboratories.
Witness: We did get into the laboratory. He was there.
Commissioner Rotzenburg: And yet official records place Doctor Grasson in Libya at the time. Over the course of that entire month, in fact. We have documentary evidence of this. Airline records, hotel receipts.
Witness: I’m telling you, he was there. He had us at gunpoint, for Christ’s sake. Why would I lie?
Commissioner Rotzenburg: Are you lying, or are you simply remembering incorrectly, as you have at various points throughout your testimony to this commission?
Witness: Look, I’m telling you what I saw, what I heard.
Commissioner Lacy: Could it have been someone else you saw, Mister Straker? Perhaps because of the mask you say this man was wearing?
Witness: I’m sure it was him. He recognised me, from the plane. That’s why he accused me of murdering his assistant. Who else could it have been?
Commissioner Rotzenburg: Indeed. Who else?
Witness: What are you saying? That I’m lying? Making this up? _____ you.
Commissioner Barbour: The witness is warned that further outbursts will not be tolerated. You say you want amnesty, Mister Straker, that you want forgiveness for the things you have done – the terrible things you have done. We are here to get to the truth. Attacking members of the commission will do you no good.
Witness: I’m … I’m sorry. This isn’t easy for me.
Commissioner Lacy: Nor for us, young man. We are all South Africans.