Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
At last the men closest to him realized what was happening and they leapt upon the assailant. A knot of struggling men swarmed over him, but the man was fighting back with a kind of demonic strength.
'Where is the Devil?" he shouted wildly. 'I'll get the Devil." They bore him to the green carpet and pinned him there.
Dr Verwoerd still sat in his seat staring down at his own chest from which the bright flood poured. Then he pulled the lapels of his jacket closed as though to hide the terrible sight of his own blood, and with a sigh slid forward and crumpled on to the carpeted floor of the chamber.
Shasa and Manfred De La Rey were in Shasa's parliamentary office when Tricia brought the news through.
'Gentlemen, the party whip has just telephoned. Dr Verwoerd has been declared dead on arrival at the Volks Hospital." Shasa went to the liquor cabinet behind his desk and poured two glasses of cognac.
They watched each other's eyes as they drank silently, and then Shasa lowered his glass and said, 'We must start at once to draw up a list of those we can rely on to support you. I think John Vorster is the man you will have to beat for the premiership, and his people will already be busy." They worked together through the afternoon preparing their lists, placing ticks and crosses and queries against the names. Telephoning, wheedling and extorting, arranging meetings, making promises and commitments, trading and compromising, and as the afternoon wore on a stream of important visitors, allies and potential allies, passed through Shasa's suite.
While they worked, Shasa watched Manfred, and wondered again how fate had chosen such strange travelling companions as they were.
It seemed that they had nothing in common except that one most vital trait - burning unrelenting ambition and hunger for power.
Well, it was at their fingertips now, almost within their grasp, and Manfred was a man possessed. The effect of his enormous force of character was apparent on the men who came up to Shasa's office ji ii
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suite. One by one they were swept along by it, and one by one they swore their allegiance to him.
Slowly it dawned upon Shasa that it was no longer a possibilityor even a probability. They were going to win. He knew in his guts and his heart. It was theirs - the premiership and the presidency between them. They were going to win.
In the heady excitement of it all the afternoon passed swiftly, the grandfather clock in the corner of Shasa's office chimed the hours softly, such a familiar sound that he hardly noticed it until it struck five and he started and jumped to his feet, confirming the time with his wristwatch.
'It's five o'clock." He started towards the door.
'Where are you going? I need you here,' Manfred called after him.
'Come back, Shasa." 'I'll be back,' Shasa answered, and ran into the outer office.
There were men waiting there, important men. They stood up to greet him, and Tricia called, 'Mr Courtney--' 'Not now." Shasa ran past them. 'I'll be back soon." It would be quicker on foot than trying to take the Jaguar through the five o'clock rush-hour traffic, and Shasa began to run.
He realized that the woman informer was so nervous and afraid that she would probably not linger at the rendezvous. He had to get there before the appointed time. As he ran he reviled himself for having forgotten such an important appointment, but it was all confusion and uncertainty.
He raced down the sidewalk, crowded with office workers relieved of the tedium of their day who poured out of the buildings. Shasa pushed and shoved, and weaved and ducked. Some of those he barged into shouted angrily after him.
He sprinted through the columns of slowly moving vehicles, and ran into the Adderley Street entrance of the railway station. The clock above the main concourse stood at five thirty-seven. He was already late, and platform four was at the far end of the building.
Wildly he raced down the concourse, and barged on to the quay.
He slowed to a hurried walk, and made his way down the platform, examining the faces of the commuters waiting there. They stared back at him incuriously, and he glanced up at the platform clock: five-forty. Ten minutes late. She had come and gone. He had missed her.
He stood in the centre of the platform and looked despairingly around him, not certain what to do next. Overhead the public address system squawked, 'Train from Stellenbosch and the Cape Flats arriving Platform Four." That was it, of course. Shasa felt a vast relief. The train was late.
She must be on the train, that was why she had chosen this place and time.
Shasa craned his head anxiously as the carriages rumbled slowly into the platform and, with a squeal and hiss of vacuum brakes, came to a halt. The doors were thrown open and passengers spewed out of them, beginning to move in a solid column towards the platform exit.
Shasa jumped up on the nearest bench, the better to see and to be seen.
'Mr Courtney." A woman's voice. Her voice - he recognized it, even after all the years. 'Mr Courtney." He stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the heads of the passengers.
'Mr Courtney!" There she was, caught up in the crowd, trying to push her way through to him, and waving frantically to attract his attention.
He recognized her instantly. The shock immobilized him for a few seconds as he stared at her. It was the Stander woman, the one he had met briefly at Manfred's holiday cottage when he had flown there to make the cannery deal with him. That was years ago, but he remembered that she had called him Squadron Leader. He should have pieced it together at that time. How foolish and unperceptive he had been. Shasa was still standing on the bench staring at her, when suddenly something else caught his attention.
Two men were roughly pushing their way through the crowds of passengers. Two big men in dark ill-fitting suits and the fedora hats that were somehow the mark of the plain-clothes security police.
Clearly they were making for the Stander woman.
At the same moment as Shasa, she saw the two detectives and her face went white with terror.
'Mr Courtney!" she screamed. 'Quickly - they are after me." She broke out of the crowd and began to run towards Shasa. 'Hurry, please hurry." Shasa jumped down from the bench and ran to meet her, but there was an old woman carrying an armful of parcels in his way. He almost knocked her down, and in the moments it took to untangle himself, the two detective had caught up with Sarah Stander, and seized her from either side.
'Please!" She gave a despairing scream, then with wild, improbable strength broke free of her captors, and ran the last few paces to Shasa.
'Here!" She thrust an envelope into Shasa's hand. 'Here it is." The two security officers had recovered swiftly and bounded after her. One of them seized both her arms from behind and dragged her away. The other came to confront Shasa.
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'We are police officers. We have a warrant for the arrest of the woman." He was panting with his efforts. 'She gave something to you. I saw it. You must hand it over to me." 'My good man!" Shasa drew himself up and gave the detective hi, most haughty stare. 'Do you have any idea just who you are speaking to?" 'Minister Courtney!" The man recognized him then, and his confusion was comic. 'I'm sorry, sir. I didn't know --' 'What is your name, rank and serial number?" Shasa snapped.
'Lieutenant Van Outshoorn No. 138643." Instinctively the man stood to attention.
'You can be sure you will hear more of this, Lieutenant,' Shasa warned him frostily. 'Now carry on with your other duties." Shasa turned on his heel and strode away down the platform, tucking the envelope into his inner pocket, leaving the detective staring after him in dismay.
