Rage - Smith Wilbur (читать книги онлайн без сокращений .TXT) 📗
He did not open the envelope until he reached his office again.
Tricia was still waiting for him.
'I was so worried when you ran out like that,' she cried. Good, loyal Tricia.
'It's all right,' he reassured her. 'It all worked out fine. Where is Minister De La Rey?" 'He left soon after you, sir. He said he would be at home at Groote Schuur. You could reach him there if you needed him." 'Thank you, Tricia. You may go home now." Shasa went through to his own office and locked the door. 'He went to his desk and sat down in his studded leather chair. He took the envelope from his inner pocket and laid it in front of him on the desk blotter, and he studied it.
It was of cheap coarse paper, and his name was written in a round girlish hand. The ink had smeared and run. 'Meneer Courtney." Shasa was suddenly relucta to touch it again. He had a premonition of some terrible revelation which would turn the even tenor of his existence into strife and turmoil.
He picked up the Georgian silver paper knife from his desk set and tested the point with his thumb. He turned the envelope over and slid the point of the knife under the flap. The envelope contained a sheet of ruled notepaper with a single line of writing in the same girlish script.
Shasa stared at it. There was no sense of shock. Deep in his subconscious he must have known the truth all along. It was the eyes, of course, the yellow topaz eyes of White Sword that had stared into his own on the day his grandfather died.
There was not even a moment of doubt, no twinge of incredulity.
He had even seen the scar, the ancient gun-shot wound in Manfred's body, the mark of the bullet he had fired at White Sword and every other detail fitted perfectly.
'Manfred De La Rey is White Sword." From the moment they had first met that childhood day upon the fishing jetty at Walvis Bay, the fates had stalked them, driving them inexorably towards their destiny.
'We were born to destroy each other,' Shasa said softly, and reached for the telephone.
It rang three times before it was answered.
'De La Rey." 'It's me,' Shasa said.
'Ja. I have been waiting." Manfred's voice was weary and resigned, in bitter contrast to the powerful tones in which he had exhorted and rallied his supporters just a short while before. 'The woman reached y-)u. My men have informed me." 'The woman must be set free,' Shasa told him.
'It has been done already. On my orders." 'We must meet." 'Ja. It is necessary." 'Where?" Shasa asked. 'When?" 'I will come to Weltevreden,' Manfred said, and Shasa was taken too much by surprise to respond. 'But there is one condition." 'What is your condition?" Shasa asked warily.
'Your mother must be there when we meet." 'My mother?" This time Shasa could not contain his amazement.
'Yes, your mother - Centaine Courtney." 'I don't understand - what has my mother got to do with this business?" 'Everything,' said Manfred heavily. 'She has everything to do with it." When Kitty Godolphin got back to her suite that evening, she was in a mood of jubilation. Under her direction, Hank's camera had captured the dramatic moments as the blood-stained body of Dr Verwoerd was carried from the chamber to the waiting ambulance, and she had recorded the panic and confusion, the spontaneous unrehearsed words and expressions of his friends and his bitter enemies.
The moment she entered the suite, she booked a call through to her news editor at NABS in New York to warn him of the priceless footage she had obtained. Then she poured herself a gin and tonic ?, / and sat impatiently beside the telephone waiting for her call to come through.
She lifted it as it rang.
'Kitty Godolphin,' she said.
'Miss Godolphin." A strange voice, speaking with a deep melodiou, African accent, greeted her. 'Moses Gama sends you his greetings." 'Moses Gama is serving a life sentence in a high security prison,' Kitty replied brusquely. 'Don't waste my time, please." 'Last night Moses Gama was rescued by warriors of the Umkhonto we Sizwe from the Robben Island prison ferry,' said the voice, and Kitty felt the flesh of her cheeks and lips go numb with the shock of it. She had read the reports of the ferry sinking. 'Moses Gama is in a safe place. He wishes to speak to the world through you. If you agree to meet him, you will be allowed to use your camera to record his message." For a full three seconds she could not answer. Her voice had failed her but her mind was racing. 'This is the big one,' she thought. 'This is the one that comes only once in a lifetime of work and striving." She cleared her throat and said, 'I will come." 'A dark blue van will arrive at the ballroom entrance to the hotel in ten minutes from now. The driver will flick his lights twice. You are to enter the rear doors of the van immediately, without speaking to any person." The vehicle was a small Toyota delivery van, and Kitty and Hank with the sound and camera equipment were cramped in the interior so that it was difficult to move, but Kitty crawled forward until she could speak to the driver. 'Where are we going?" The driver glanced at her in the rear-view mirror. He was a young black man of striking appearance, not handsome but with a powerful African face.
'We are going into the townships. There will be police patrols and road-blocks. The police are everywhere searching for Moses Gama.
It will be dangerous, so you must do exactly as I tell you." For almost an hour they were in the van, driving through darkened back streets, sometimes stopping and waiting in silence until a, shadowy figure came out of the night to whisper a few words to the driver of the van, then going on again until at last they parked for the last time.
'From here we walk,' their guide told them, and led them down the alleys and secret routes of the gangs and comrades, slipping past the rows of township cottages, twice hiding while police Land-Rovers cruised past, and finally entering the back door of one of the thousands of identical undistinguished cottages.
Moses Gama sat at a table in the tiny back kitchen. Kitty recognized him instantly although his hair was now almost completely silver and his great frame was skeletally wasted. He wore a white open-neck shirt and dark blue slacks, and as he rose to greet her, she saw that though he had aged and his body was ravaged, the commanding presence and his messianic dark gaze were as powerful as when she had first met him.
'I am grateful that you have come,' he told her gravely. 'But we have very little time. The fascist police follow closely as a pack of wolves. I have to leave here within a short while." Hank was already at work, setting up his camera and lights, and he nodded to Kitty. She saw that the gritty reality of the surroundings, the bare walls and plain unadorned wooden furniture would add drama to the setting, and Moses' silver hair and enfeebled condition would touch the hearts of her audience.
She had prepared a few questions in her mind, but they were unnecessary. Moses Gama looked at the camera and spoke with a sincerity and depth that was devastating.
'There are no prison walls thick enough to hold the longing of my people for freedom,' he said. 'There is no grave deep enough to keep the truth from you." He spoke for ten minutes and Kitty Godolphin who was old in experience and hardened in the ways of a naughty world was weeping unashamedly as he ended, 'The struggle is my life. The battle belongs to us. We will prevail, my people. Amandla! Ngawethu!" Kitty went to him and embraced him. 'You make me feel very humble,' she said.
'You are a friend,' he replied. 'Go in peace, my daughter." 'Come." Raleigh Tabaka took Kitty's arm and led her away. 'You have stayed too long already. You must leave now. This man's name is Robert. He will lead you." Robert was waiting at the kitchen door of the cottage.
