The Lion Conspiracy E-Book

Peter Hain

• Herausgeber: Muswell Press
• Kategorie: Abenteuer, Thriller, Horror
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 490

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

Having thwarted murderous poachers in The Elephant Conspiracy, the Veteran, Thandi and Mkhize are back fighting to save lion prides from being killed for their claws, teeth and bones. As demand for lion parts soars, impoverished local communities are being incentivised to poach, and the fight against this illegal plunder becomes ever more vicious. Struggling to defeat the international criminal syndicate responsible for poaching, the team find themselves embroiled in mafia-style smuggling, illicit night flights, tense shoot-outs, and an encounter with a protégé of Vladimir Putin. 'Another fantastic wildlife corruption thriller full of geo-political intrigue and suspense' Charlie Mayhew, Founder CEO of Tusk. 'Brilliant, part crime thriller and part political manifesto' Book of the Week, The Sun

Leseprobe

i‘By turns horrifying – a tale of a devastating clash between big game and big money. Brave, riveting and terrifyingly relevant.’

Sarah Sultoon

‘Another fantastic wildlife corruption thriller full of geo-political intrigue and suspense.’

Charlie Mayhew, Founder CEO, Tusk

‘Hain weaves in past and present, heroes and villains, fiction and fact in a gripping tale of South Africa’s state corruption villains and the heroes battling against it.’

Tara O’Connor, Director, Africa Risk Consulting

‘A pacy peek into the slaughter of Africa’s lions by mafia looters, political shysters and global financiers.’

Mavuso Msimang, former ANC underground commander

‘A riveting read.’

Amina Frense, former Managing Editor, South African Broadcasting Corporation

‘Another engrossing read about biodiversity loss, the wildlife crime behind it, and efforts to combat that.’

Luthando Dziba, leading African conservationist

‘[A] Taut thriller, impeccably researched, a wake-up call, spotlighting international criminal networks and the illegal wildlife trade. Lions, rhinos, elephants … Hain’s series could continue with pangolins, abalone and proteas and still not fully cover the horrifying destruction of Africa’s wildlife.’

Cathy Dean, Save the Rhino International ii

iii

THE LION CONSPIRACY

COLLUSION, EXTERMINATION, INSURRECTION

Peter Hain

v

For the brave wildlife rangers continuously risking their lives – and the brave activists fighting political and financial corruption vi

vii

‘I do not like killing any living thing, even those creatures that fill some people with dread.’

‘I like to see the coming of dawn, the change between day and night, which is always majestic.’

‘Let us stand together to make of our world a sustainable source for our future as humanity on this planet.’

Nelson Mandela, By Himself

‘It turns out building accountable institutions is hard work – the work of generations. The gains are often fragile. Sometimes we take one step forward and then two steps back. So, those of us who believe in democracy, we need to speak out forcefully, because both the facts and history, I believe, are on our side. That doesn’t mean democracies are without flaws. It does mean that the cure for what ails our democracies is greater engagement by our citizens.’

Barack Obama in his final speech as president to the United Nations

‘As much as the world has an instinct for evil and is a breeding ground for genocide, holocaust, slavery, racism, war, oppression and injustice, the world has an even greater instinct for goodness, rebirth, mercy, beauty, truth, freedom and love.’

Desmond Tutu

CONTENTS

TITLE PAGEDEDICATIONEPIGRAPHPROLOGUECHAPTER 1CHAPTER 2CHAPTER 3CHAPTER 4CHAPTER 5CHAPTER 6CHAPTER 7CHAPTER 8CHAPTER 9CHAPTER 10CHAPTER 11CHAPTER 12CHAPTER 13CHAPTER 14CHAPTER 15CHAPTER 16EPILOGUEGLOSSARYACKNOWLEDGEMENTSSOURCESCOPYRIGHT

1

PROLOGUE

Spring wind cool, sun rising, clear, bright-blue sky over the green hills, as father and son trekked steadily through the undulating path of Parque Nacional de Monfragüe in west-central Spain, famed for its rich birdlife.

Above them black vultures surfed the thermals, their razor-sharp eyes on the lookout for food scampering on the ground.

Earlier, father and son had spotted a couple of rare black kites, dark brown plumage, though head paler, circling over the beautifully designed visitor centre near the National Park’s northern entrance surrounded by blooming wildflowers.

As they trudged forward, taking care not to slip on the jagged layers of rocks cascading up and down the footpath, an Iberian magpie, pinkish belly and blue wings, flitted between the squat Spanish oak trees; the magpie was said to have been brought by early seafaring explorers from east Asia: Japan in particular.

His son had been set on their visit, didn’t want to stay in their native South Africa, which had plenty of similar attractions, instead wanted to take his dad out and away from the stresses of his life, wanted space to bond with him.

It was well over four years since his mom had asked his dad to leave their home – as much a shock to him and his sister, both teenagers, as it had been to their dad. Theirs had seemed a comfortable family in which to be raised. A fun dad – when he was around – and a caring mom.

Since then, they’d grown apart, seen little of each other, as a new man had moved into their home, resented initially, accepted gradually. Hardly saw their dad anymore, though he phoned regularly – always interested in their progress, congratulating them on good school grades, discussing 2their options for future qualifications. Asking darkly after his sister’s boyfriends, warning they were probably up to no good at her tender age, making her even more determined to see them.

Meanwhile, his dad had seemed to enter a mysterious life, spent a lot of time in Zama Zama game reserve, didn’t talk much about it, hadn’t even invited him down from their family home in Johannesburg to visit the wildlife park near Richards Bay on the KwaZulu-Natal coast, seemed to have grown simultaneously more intense and happier, having found a new love in the owner, Elise – though his dad hadn’t volunteered that, had to be prised out of him.

But now they were together in this magical place on a ten-kilometre walk, where they scanned with their binoculars and talked like they never had before.

The Sniper told his son the rudiments of his exploits, swore him to secrecy, because otherwise his life would be endangered. He felt he had to explain, as he supposed he would to his daughter too. Felt they deserved to know.

He described his early life aged eighteen as a military conscript, trained in the art of long-distance sniping right at the end of the war against Mandela’s African National Congress.

He’d been something of a star, though didn’t tell his son exactly that, always understated, modest, not one for the limelight. He told him instead of his recent conscription by Zama Zama to battle against poachers, how it had dragged him further into combating criminal and political conspirators, utilising his sniper skills.

‘Did you kill people?’ his son asked quietly.

The Sniper nodded. ‘I had to, didn’t relish it, still don’t. Responsibility weighs heavy. But the consequences of not doing so would have been terrible – for the rhinos and elephants, for the whole country.’

The son nodded, said nothing, absorbed the admission; he didn’t really know whether to consider his dad a soldier or a killer.

Sensing that, the Sniper added quietly: ‘When I was in the army, I never questioned my duty as a sniper. Just following orders, serving the state. Same as when they instructed me to protect Mandela during his walk to freedom in February 1990. But out of the army, as a civilian, it’s become more complicated: protecting Mandela’s legacy, protecting endangered species, combating poaching and its protector, political corruption, stopping ruthless criminals.’3

Below them, the sun even hotter now, relieved that they both were wearing brimmed bush hats, they spotted a red deer stag, with large, branched antlers, meandering through a glade, chewing grass, a relatively rare sight for visitors.

The two men, one young and lean, the other greying but fit, talked incessantly – about the magical tranquillity of their surroundings, excited at spotting wildlife, but also about the Sniper’s recent life, how he had helped thwart both the rhino and elephant conspiracies, felt uneasy about his shadowy role, lethal but secret and – apart from his tight band of activists, including, more recently, the Security Minister Yasmin Essop – totally deniable.

Even admitted to his son he was worried about whether his sniping skills were being blunted with ageing, wasn’t sure he was up to it anymore.

As the temperature relentlessly rose, layers were successively peeled off and stowed in the small backpack the son insisted on carrying – jesting his dad was ‘too old’ for that kind of load.

Suddenly the Sniper halted, lifting his finger to his lips signalling total silence to his son, and pointing through the darkness of the trees to where they were trudging, a clearing a couple of hundred metres away bathed in sunlight.

There, an extraordinary spectacle.

A couple of dozen black vultures – giant predators, viciousness epitomised, hooked beaks bloodied, largest birds in the Iberian Peninsula, wingspan fully three metres – were in a standoff with a single fox over a deer kill.

The fox, puny by comparison, repeatedly rushed at them, its jaws snapping, the birds retreating, flapping their wings, storming back, the fox darting in again.

Predators versus predators in a fight for life to eat the deer meat: a contest for survival.

Finally, and improbably, the fox triumphed, the birds seemingly making the best of a bad job and permitting it to gorge on the deer until it slunk off satisfied, the vultures greedily reclaiming their prey.

‘Pristine nature, no interference by humankind,’ whispered the Sniper.

‘But you sort of interfere with nature, Dad, don’t you?’ his son replied.4

‘Aah but that’s different,’ he said, ‘only to protect it from criminals.’

Two more days of their journey through Spain together. They had already spent nearly a week walking in the snow-topped Picos mountains in the north, staying in small casas rurales, typical small hostels, comfortable, often quaint, usually historic, eating whatever was served up to them from the short menus offered, and drinking the local wines before collapsing early in their twin-bedded rooms, all ensuite, pretty cheap, sometimes with breakfast included, strong coffee, bread, and goat’s cheese usually.

Another captivating scene caused them to halt in their tracks. A couple of male deer rutting, antlers interlocking, wrestling slow motion for supremacy and choice of females on heat.

Then the Sniper’s phone rang.

An alien digital screech through the bird tweets, persistent calls from a cuckoo, the rustle of scampering wildlife amidst the lavender bushes all over the hillsides.

His son raised an eyebrow, seemed distracted, gazed out over the river Tagus with its sparkling clean water running constantly down from the mountains around.

‘Sorry man, have to take it,’ the Sniper grunted, recognising the number.

On the line was the Veteran, the leader of their small band of operatives.

The nub of it, the Sniper explained after he’d ended the call, was he was urgently needed back home for another mission.

The security minister had fixed with her oppo in Madrid to send an unmarked car to wherever he was tomorrow, thereafter to catch a flight from Madrid, connect in London and fly to Joburg.

No, it couldn’t wait. He was needed for a key operation, and soonest – like now.

Their walk that day was ending anyway, both tired and sweaty, needed a break, a cold beer each and a shared bottle of vino blanco de la casa – white wine of the house – to wash down their lunch under parasols amidst the buoyant, raucous chatter of a typical Spanish lunchtime.

As they relaxed, the Sniper diffidently, hesitantly, explained to his son what was happening. Expected angry resistance, even accusations of abandonment – again.

Instead: ‘No, dad, you must go. I can easily complete our journey on my own. Only a couple of days, and I’m a big boy now.’5

‘Sure?’

‘Of course. Never understood why you kept disappearing in such mysterious ways. Now I do. And I’m proud of you.’

Not many sons told their dads that – usually only the other way around.

The lioness was close to the end.

Her toddler cubs – four of them – were thin and scrawny, they hadn’t had meat for weeks, were finding it hard to keep up as she scanned the terrain ahead, smelling constantly for prey, lifeblood for her tiny ones. Although she was famished – and had often had to endure over a week without food and days without water, she was used to coping and they always came first.

But never quite like this. The sun burned down, baking the earth.

Still she ploughed on, her spirit sagging, knowing her cubs were following. Couldn’t leave them behind at her lair, they’d be easy prey for hyenas. She had to take them with her but knew they wouldn’t last long at this rate. They desperately needed food.

They were the only cats that lived in groups dominated by females who, like her, always did the work, hunting for prey and raising cubs. The males mostly lazed about when they weren’t seeking to mate – and that went on for days at an end, the male repeatedly mounting her.

Now she’d searched and searched, her sole mission to feed her young ones – and protect them. They were so very vulnerable, their precious little lives hanging by a thread. Hers too. If a pack of hyenas zeroed in on her, she would be too weak to protect herself, let alone her cubs: they’d be ruthlessly picked off, one by one.

What was happening? When she’d been young and following her mother, learning with her sisters and her younger brother, the impala, even the bigger antelope like nyala, or bigger still like kudu and eland, had been plentiful.

She didn’t know that only 20,000 lions remained in Africa, down from 200,000 a century ago.

Nor did she realise that there were now fewer lions in the world than rhino – even as threatened as they were – or that there were fourteen threatened African elephants for every remaining lion.

She hadn’t the faintest idea that Africa’s venerated predators had disappeared from over 90 per cent of their historic territories, once spanning the entire continent, and were now facing extinction.6

All she knew was that her life was becoming more difficult all the time. One of her baby cubs fell to the ground, eyes glazed, she couldn’t get up, her spirit draining fast. The lioness paused, examining, then herded her little ones to march resolutely on, not even looking back. She couldn’t bear to. Survival of the fittest.

‘Queen of the jungle?’ Not exactly how she felt.

Precious little jungle left anyway in her part of the world, the savannah stripped almost bare, and with that the antelope – difference between life and death to her family – vanishing.

7

CHAPTER 1

The Apparatchik – nicknamed ‘Star’ after his youthful reputation for football prowess – had fled South Africa on learning that the Minister of Security, Yasmin Essop, was preparing for his arrest. After a hurried, covert flight, he was now comfortably settled in his house in Dubai.

From safety there – and drawing upon large funds covertly deposited after being money-laundered out of South Africa – he orchestrated his network in clipped instructions via burner phones. Still effective, even if not as straightforward as when he resided in his fiefdom, Bloemfontein, capital of the Free State, where he was on the spot to coordinate conspiracies and fresh looting opportunities.

But Star was restless in exile. Wondered whether his elders, Tambo, Kasrils and the many other leaders of the freedom struggle, had felt similarly stranded in a sort of limbo: driven by anti-apartheid imperatives but rootless, their families struggling to adjust, not knowing where home really was, whether their beloved country would ever be theirs again.

He’d heard rumours of extreme family stress, suicide, alcoholism and mental breakdowns amongst the anti-apartheiders exiled to countries like Britain or Sweden or Australia – or in the ANC camps in Zambia or Angola or Tanzania.

He spoke to his wife as securely as he could, but mostly about the funds she needed to sustain her extravagant lifestyle. He video WhatsApp-ed his grandchildren, though they seemed increasingly distracted whenever he got through, as if he was a vanishing figure in their world – which he probably was, he thought.

But this was the life he had chosen. Would not allow himself to be arrested on those corruption charges he regarded as trumped-up by 8his enemies, notably the President and his henchwoman, the security minister.

So bloody self-righteous, the pair of them.

The President was rich anyway, a business billionaire made so by the policy of ‘black economic empowerment’ introduced by President Mandela.

And who did she think she was, that bloody security minister? A nobody in his mind. Too many women in senior positions anyway, some simply not up to it, though sadly that was not true of her. Her efficiency seemed deadly, her resolve unbendable.

Why couldn’t the likes of him enjoy the same so-called ‘black economic empowerment’? That’s what he had tried to do in his native Free State as Provincial Premier – labelled under his iron rule the ‘Gangster State’.

The old apartheid rulers had milked the system for their personal benefit, tax-free ministerial salaries and the rest, good pensions when his was pathetic, never been able to have one under apartheid.

Post-apartheid, he was simply trying to look after himself like they had. What’s more, they’d been let off from reprisals for all their oppression, torture and murder, most enjoying a more than comfortable retirement when he was being hunted and penalised, exiled to Dubai.

Made him furious. Double standards, he raged to confidants.

At home, Star faced charges of corruption, fraud, theft and money laundering.

Amongst his many scams was a project undertaken by the Free State department of human settlements to remove asbestos from the roofs of all the houses it had built. The asbestos posed serious health hazards to the lungs and many residents were suffering from breathing problems, unaware that the cause was on their roofs.

255 million rand was set aside to remove it. But the consultancy commissioned won the tender without any competitive process and was paid the full amount upfront. It wasn’t even competent to undertake the project, having neither the qualifications, skills, expertise nor the experience required.

No asbestos was ever removed. The whole thing was a scam from the outset, always intended as a looting vehicle for the various government officials complicit, throwing millions of taxpayers’ money down the drain.

The bastard investigative media at home were all over the scandal, and so now, it seemed, was the security minister, his principal enemy.9

But Star would not allow himself to be distracted, had to maintain a steely focus upon his objective: plotting to return in the ascendant. And in that cause, he had lots of plots to orchestrate. Plots to destabilise the country, exploiting despair amongst the destitute.

His people were already fanning the flames of xenophobia against millions of the immigrants from the rest of Africa – accusing them of taking South African jobs, occupying South African houses, grabbing South African opportunities. Like restaurant waiter jobs, which so many of his own people simply would not do.

So, continue to target scapegoats and stoke discontent, continue to foment division, he instructed.

Meanwhile, he had fashioned more serious disruption and destabilisation, and constantly surveyed the South African TV channels streamed into his sumptuous Dubai home.

Not that he really felt it was ‘home’. Convenient, yes. Dubai was hardly regulated, a perfect haven for people like him with plenty to hide. Provided you caused no fuss.

He didn’t like the unrelentingly baking desert climate, the hot winds and steamy humidity. Preferred the veld of his homeland, the cool wind blowing off it, very different from being constantly in the suffocatingly oven-like heat, liveable only in air-conditioned houses like his, air-conditioned offices like those he visited, air-conditioned cars like those he travelled in, air-conditioned bloody everything.

His housekeeper – an immigrant from South Asia, as all of the manual workers in Dubai seemed to be – was solicitous, kept the place spotless, and lived in quarters to the rear of his double-storey mansion.

His local lawyer kept introducing him to various women, much younger than him. Some ultra glamorous, from places like Romania and Moldova, making him wonder what their real profession was. But, though always polite, Star ignored their entreaties, despite having enjoyed liaisons with young female associates back home.

He had heard his wife might be playing the field with younger male admirers as Winnie Mandela used to, but even that didn’t entice him. Was worried that some of these seemingly obliging women could be spies, trying to inveigle themselves close to him to obtain intelligence.

He paid hardly any local taxes in Dubai and paid very little too in his home country, despite his immense wealth: skilled financial advisers ensured that. Very convenient, though in utter contradiction to the 10equalitarian principles of the 1955 Freedom Charter to which he paid lip service.

Star repeated the mantras of the freedom struggle, recited them to his ANC audiences, knew they still resonated. But he never acknowledged how an absolute, irreconcilable chasm had opened up between his practices and the values of the leaders to whom he paid tribute – though only when obligatory. The names Mandela, Tambo, Sisulu, Mbeki, Kathrada, Hani, Biko, tripped off his tongue when occasion demanded.

But that was all, he cared nothing for them, felt he owed nothing to them.

When younger, self-styled ‘radical critics’ asserted that Mandela’s generation were ‘sell-outs’, Star encouraged them, even made donations to their online journals and research projects, for it played into the demands of his ANC faction for ‘Radical Economic Transformation’ or RET as it was known.

The RET with its allies, the Economic Freedom Fighters, was stepping up its malign and corrupt influence, threatening the judiciary, the National Prosecuting Authority and the Constitutional Court, claiming the South African constitution was responsible for inequality.

Chanting the mantra that ‘white monopoly capital’ was to blame for the country’s dire state – rather than their own systematic looting – they also proposed massive extensions of nationalisation, not to pursue some higher public interest, but to open new opportunities for thievery.

Mandela, Tambo and the rest of the poster pin-ups were the past.

He was the future – and his every waking hour was directed towards ensuring that.

Acacia tree branches and leaves began to silhouette against the palest of orange glows in the sky.

Hesitantly the dawn blended to light blue, then brighter into full blue with the persistent call of the Cape turtle dove – ‘coo-coo’ – ringing out over the dew-covered veld.

Morning had arrived in all its glory, called on by the chatter of birds and the constant chirruping of cicadas like a rasping hum: never seemed to stop, morning day or night. Where on earth did they get their 24/7 energy from?11

A bunch of coral trees, small pointed red flowers in bloom, stood proud. Umbrella thorn trees, part of the acacia family, scattered over the area.

Two zebra, appearing locked together side by side facing opposite ways, were grooming each other by gnawing at ticks and other insects feeding on their backs.

Zama Zama game reserve head ranger Isaac Mkhize answered queries constantly: ‘What’s that, what’s this?’ But never tired of questions from guests, enjoying their enthusiasm.

‘It’s not what you see it’s everything to do with the way you see. Wildlife is so powerful it takes you to a place well beyond yourself,’ preached Mkhize.

His eyes constantly swivelling, he began peering down at the dirt track, asking his fellow ranger Steve Brown to stop and reverse, getting out of the cruiser and walking back, then climbing back in and pointing down to the track: ‘Look at the paw marks. Lion. See the size, largest of the big cats, three lobes on the back pad, toes shaped a bit oblong, and no impression of its claws left in the sand.’

Mkhize climbed back in and turned around. ‘Leopard tracks are similar to lions but smaller.’

South of Pretoria on the shores of Rietvlei Dam was a covert security agency control centre nicknamed ‘The Farm’ – and it was there that the Johannesburg-based detective sergeant lost his life.

He’d screamed as he was stripped naked, electric wires clipped onto his toes, inside his lip, his thighs and penis, then tortured to try and extract false confessions about fellow police officers who, with him, had been trying to expose corruption and mafia malpractices in their local force.

But he wouldn’t submit, and was savagely beaten to death, his body taken from The Farm and dumped in the bush where his loved ones would never find it.

His assailants, his torturers, his eventual killers were fellow police officers whom he had known well and had been chasing down under instruction from Security Minister Yasmin Essop. She had also demanded to know why a renowned head cop had been arrested and jailed on trumped up charges and why news had been deliberately leaked to certain sections of the media to trash his reputation – again by his fellow officers. Why a highly commended general in Crime Intelligence in the 12Free State had been hounded out of the force into premature retirement after threats to his family, a mysterious fire at his home, intimidation and school bullying of his grandchildren.

Why, too, a celebrated anti-corruption campaigner had been dragged off a plane readying for take-off by shadowy intelligence officers and incarcerated for days with his lawyer who’d also been abducted.

And now Minister Yasmin had lost her detective sergeant, a key member of her inner circle, one of the few officers upon whom she could rely implicitly – indeed, trust with her life.

All of this – and much more – she was absolutely certain, was carried out under instructions from Star and his mafiosi, centred around the Former President and their RET faction in the ruling party – her own party, the ANC of Mandela, Tambo, Sisulu and Kathrada. The Party which had betrayed the values enshrined when they were its leaders, and when she herself had been working undercover for its linked mass movement, the United Democratic Front in the 1980s.

It had been quite a while since the Veteran had made a major public speech, the injury he sustained during the rhino conspiracy restricting his mobility and his energy.

He couldn’t just jump on a plane like before. He needed help, sometimes even a wheelchair, which pissed him off mightily.

But when he was invited to give the annual memorial lecture for murdered anti-apartheid activist Neil Aggett, a man he’d much admired, the Veteran accepted with alacrity.

Worried about the country’s remorseless degeneration, he decided to use the platform to urge his fellow citizens to rise up and reclaim the values of the freedom struggle.

The invite had come from Neil Aggett’s old high school, Kingswood College, in Makhanda (Grahamstown), to be delivered in its beautiful Methodist Chapel constructed in honour of former students killed during the two World Wars.

Surrounded by jacaranda trees, their purple blossoms falling onto the ground, green bushes in the flower bed in front, the Veteran processed inside through the chapel with the headteacher, white head girl, black head boy, teachers, local mayor and other dignitaries. Well over 400 people were packed in, principally students, multi-racial he noted and hardly a spare seat.13

Introduced and welcomed, he began with a few amusing anecdotes to lighten the atmosphere and relax everyone – like how he’d slept with an AK-47 more often than with his wife during the underground struggle days.

Then he began, his oratory soaring at times during the speech.

‘With South Africa’s ruling ANC government sadly riddled with corruption from top to bottom, Neil Aggett serves as a reminder of the values of the struggle for liberation the party once led so nobly,’ he said, looking up, pausing, then continuing.

‘A doctor working mainly in overcrowded and desperately under-resourced black hospitals, he was also a champion of workers’ rights with the African Food and Canning Workers’ Union, working without pay, taking additional weekend hospital night shifts to support himself.

‘But as you know, his passionate trade unionism proved fateful. He was arrested and assassinated in police detention on 5th of February 1982.

‘The security services maintained he’d “hanged himself with a scarf” – just as they variously claimed others who died mysteriously in prison had “slipped in a shower”, “fallen out of a window”, “fallen down stairs”, or many other mendacious, specious excuses.’

Again he paused, wanting the brazen lies of the apartheid state to register.

‘He was the 51st person to die in police detention – an apartheid total that later escalated to over 70 – and the first and only white.

‘The same might have happened to any student at this school, had you been born under apartheid like Neil was, had you been brave like he was, had you believed that every school student should be treated equally whatever the colour of their skin, like he did.

‘Neil was one of a very tiny minority of white anti-apartheid activists of his era, coming from a community enjoying one of the most privileged existences on earth, with a black servant class attending to their every need.

‘Yet he gave that all up because he believed every person – regardless of their race, religion, gender or sexuality – had the right to justice, the right to liberty, and the right to equality of opportunity.

‘And he was selfless, fighting for others, not for himself.

‘He lived according to Nelson Mandela’s guidance: “What counts in life is not the mere fact that we have lived. It is what difference we have made to the lives of others.”14

‘Pilloried, harassed, exiled, abducted, or simply “disappeared”, imprisoned, banned, house-arrested, tortured or assassinated – people forget how hard a battle it was for those struggling to overthrow apartheid.’

The Veteran looked up to confirm that he was being listened to intently, aware that he was talking to both youngsters and adults; the speech was being streamed live and the state broadcaster SABC was recording it too.

‘Today it is taken for granted that Nelson Mandela walked to freedom in February 1990 after 27 years’ imprisonment and four years later was elected president.

‘Today it is taken for granted that however serious South Africa’s problems of poverty, unemployment, homelessness, corruption, power and water cuts and mafia-like crime, each South African citizen has human rights protected by their Constitution.

‘But none of that was achieved without a bitter fight against merciless opponents.

‘Yet today, tragically, the many thousands of activists like Neil Aggett have been betrayed by the ANC politicians who have looted and brought the country nearly to its knees.

‘Decent people across South Africa, people of all ages and skin colours, tell me how despairing they are for the future of the country under incompetent, thieving ministers and councillors.

‘South Africans from every walk of life, black and white, young and old, tell me they feel helpless, feel they cannot do anything about power cuts, water cuts, or about dysfunctional or non-existent postal or local municipal services; they feel politics doesn’t serve them anymore, feel their vote is worthless – even though it took a momentous fight to get it for everyone.

‘My message to them is learn from South Africa’s struggle history.

‘The struggle giants, the Nelson Mandelas and Oliver Tambos, the Neil Aggetts and Joe Slovos, didn’t defeat apartheid on their own. They were leaders of a mass movement of many tens of thousands of ordinary people who, in the most oppressive of conditions, resisted apartheid, risked their very lives, and threw themselves into activism.

‘They defeated a powerful police state. They refused to be subjugated by an economic system feeding profitably in a trough of racism. And they beat and defeated apartheid, the most institutionalised and micromanaged system of racism the world has ever known.’15

Then he delivered his principal message:

‘Today South Africa must be changed again – radically, and soon. But history teaches us that big change doesn’t normally come from the top. It never did under apartheid, it usually never has anywhere else.

‘In Britain, when women eventually won the right to vote, generations after men had won their struggle, the government didn’t voluntarily agree to that. It took the suffragettes to rise up and demonstrate and campaign and fight a government run by men until eventually it gave in.

‘You won’t change this country unless you do it yourselves. Politicians won’t do it for you. They have become too comfortable in power, too dependent upon its privileges. They have a vested interest not to change.

‘Once politicians start looting it becomes an addiction. They become the political alcoholics, political drug addicts. They can’t, and they won’t, stop doing it.

‘The people of South Africa have once again to rise up and resist as civil society, firmly standing together to say, “enough is enough”. To reclaim the democracy and the ideals of the freedom struggle.

‘I don’t know if the ANC can be saved from itself. I don’t know if the good people still in the ANC can fully reclaim it from the corrupt ones.

‘But meanwhile, all of you, all South African citizens, can say “No!” to paying a bribe for a contract, for a job, for a permit, for a licence, for starting a business, for building a home, “No!” to a corrupt trade union when applying for a teaching job.

‘Saying “No!” to the Home Affairs Department official demanding a payment to grant a visa to a Zimbabwean employee facing deportation.

‘Saying “No!” to the policeman using a spurious traffic offence to demand money.

‘Often, it’s very difficult to say “No!”. Much easier to opt for a quiet life and just hand over the money.

‘But until everyone unites to say “No!”, nothing will change.

‘Until a mass uprising said “No!” to apartheid, it didn’t change, and never would have.

‘If you don’t act, don’t complain. If you don’t resist, don’t moan. And don’t be surprised if this beautiful, special country slides into becoming a failed state.

‘I urge South Africans to rise up and reclaim the noble mission of Nelson Mandela, of Oliver Tambo and Robert Sobukwe, of Walter Sisulu 16and Ahmed Kathrada, of Steve Biko and Joe Slovo, of Chris Hani and Denis Goldberg.

‘Stand on the shoulders of these giants – and you can do it.’

Perspiring heavily and feeling exhausted as he leant on the lectern, the Veteran was given a standing ovation.

One of his listeners online was Star, holed up in Dubai, and now reinforced in his view that the Veteran needed to be sorted – permanently.

17

CHAPTER 2

In their apartment in Richards Bay, Thandi Matjeke woke early, alone. Her husband was on the ranger duties which took him away for weeks at a time.

They’d adjusted to their lifestyles: his, focused upon his responsibilities which were 24/7 in the KwaZulu-Natal wildlife park; hers, concentrating on political activism – and since her mentor, the Veteran, had found a sponsor, she was able to devote herself fulltime to their cause.

She both missed her part-time radio producer job and was exhilarated at being able to focus all her energy, all her creativity on the missions she and the Veteran agreed between them. But it did require a new discipline on her part, not to laze too long in bed in the early morning when she might not have a full diary that day.

As often happened, she thought of her granny, old Mrs Matjeke, sadly long passed. For Thandi had learnt so much from her, especially in her last months, confined to bed in her small brick house in Mamelodi outside Pretoria.

Thandi still thought of herself, described herself, as ‘a Pretoria girl’, who had lived with her parents until her marriage.

But she had been especially close to her granny, hoovering up information on the freedom struggle, captivated by stories from when the old woman had been a domestic worker for a young white couple who became notorious for their anti-apartheid activism in the city, the citadel of apartheid.

The stories still made Thandi misty-eyed. Like when in May 1961 her granny had been woken up after midnight by an activist friend of the couple to say they had been arrested. And she’d had to take over as 18a surrogate parent, waking the children to tell them, the eldest boy aged eleven stoic, the younger siblings frightened. She had herself been expecting something like this, indeed had been forewarned by the couple, who seemed fearless. They had been preparing to ‘fly-post’ in support of a three day ‘stay-at-home’ protest by black workers called by Nelson Mandela.

His plan was for a mass strike by the domestic workers who flooded each morning into the city to service its white elite, Mandela issuing his clarion call while operating underground and being constantly hunted by the security police.

The couple had enthusiastically agreed to distribute ‘stay-at-home’ leaflets and put up posters in the Lady Selborne township just outside Pretoria city precincts, rendezvousing there with black comrades to agree on the final content of the next-day leaflets, now a draft in the hands of the young mother.

‘But they were immediately pounced upon by two Special Branch officers,’ her granny said, a rueful smile creasing her weathered face, as she explained: ‘The mother activist didn’t panic. Quickly stuffed the leaflet in her mouth, chewing and spitting it out. Jumping from the car, she ran off to a nearby shop which she knew had a back entrance for a getaway. But the shop was locked up for the night, and she was cornered, the couple arrested. I had to take charge and ensure the children got off to school like normal.’

‘Normal?’ Thandi had stared wide-eyed at her granny.

‘Well, it was a kind of abnormal normality,’ the old lady struggled for the right words. ‘Their telephone was tapped. There were always Special Branch cars parked on the street outside the house, which was regularly raided. Yet somehow, the couple kept up a caring close knit family life in all this. Their children came first, but they were so determined in the resistance.’

‘Impressive that whites like them made such sacrifices. They didn’t have to, and virtually none of them did support the struggle,’ Thandi interjected.

‘Yes, I don’t remember any of the kids’ schoolfriends had parents like theirs. Most whites never questioned apartheid, just enjoyed all the benefits,’ her granny replied.

‘So you kept the house running,’ Thandi mused. ‘How long before they were released?’19

‘Two weeks, seemed a very long time for the kids. I found out afterwards that they were the first people to be detained under a new Twelve-Day Law. It meant detention without charge or trial.

‘The police searched for evidence to bring charges. But couldn’t find any, because the mother activist had destroyed the leaflet urging our people to strike by staying at home. It was the one piece of incriminating evidence. So the police had to release them, and they came home. The father activist had been sacked while in jail, so they struggled.’

The old lady twisted in her bed, wincing in pain. Thandi clasped her hands, rubbing to warm her up. Tears ran down her wizened old face.

She sobbed quietly as the memories flooded back, Thandi not really knowing how to be a comfort except to be there and hold her hand – always cold – tight.

Her granny said nothing for a few minutes, a stillness between them. Then she started to reminisce again.

‘I had become a close friend of the mother activist. Very unusual for a black and a white boss. Very unusual. None of my friends and fellow workers ever had anything like that. Whites just took us for granted. We weren’t treated as human beings with feelings, with opinions. Just as servants. Often, we could be in a room and they would talk as if we weren’t even there.

‘But the two of us shared so much together. And the thing that upset me most about when she was jailed was hearing how she was separated off, alone in a huge hall in Pretoria Central Prison, where white women detainees had been held the year before during the 1960 Emergency. And she could hear the screams of black women prisoners being assaulted, and see them being humiliated by white warders who forced them to strip.’

The old lady paused again, as if recharging her energy. ‘She told me afterwards how much she worried about her four children – felt guilty at how she had abandoned them, even wondered whether to give up her campaigning. I didn’t know what to say. But I knew she would never give up on the struggle. And she never did. Until the security police forced the family to go into exile.’

Her granny asked for some tissues, dabbing her eyes. ‘The worst thing was having to stand right at the far end of the Pretoria station platform on my own – because it was a platform for whites only – and wave them goodbye. I never saw them again. I’d lost friends for life.’

By now Thandi was also sobbing, the two holding hands very tight.20

Memories, memories. Thandi would never forget those cherished moments with her granny, hoped she would be proud of her granddaughter, felt the old lady’s spirit still marched within her.

Eighty kilometres away, her husband Isaac Mkhize was on a game drive in the land cruiser, explaining to guests why a herd of impala seemed to be chasing each other around in circles.

‘It’s the rutting season for males,’ he said. ‘They charge around, fighting with their antlers, barking at each other and generally showing off to females, the dominant males planning to be the favoured ones for mating. But their sexual obsession also makes them careless and vulnerable to predators.’

Soon afterwards, the party alighted upon a cheetah with her cubs ripping apart an impala, its antlers torn off lopsided on the earth, the lean magnificent creatures with their jaws bloodied.

‘They’ll have to be quick because the hyenas will be here soon, followed by jackals and then the vultures. By this evening pretty well only the bones, antlers and heels will remain.’

‘Horrible!’ exclaimed a woman from the UK.

‘No!’ exclaimed Mkhize. ‘Nature. If that mother cheetah hadn’t caught and killed the impala, would her cubs have survived? Cheetah numbers are shrinking very fast. When I see them at a kill – which isn’t very often because they are hard to find – I cheer. Plenty of impalas. Very few surviving cheetahs – they face extinction. Like lions do.

‘Fewer than 7,000 wild adult cheetahs remain alive globally,’ explained Mkhize, ‘they inhabit under a tenth of their original habitat – increasing human population and climate change are the main culprits, along with poaching and hunting. They’re in a race against total extermination.’

‘Is there any hope?’ asked one guest.

‘Conservationists are doing their best, but even well-intentioned moves can come unstuck. Not long ago an expectant female cheetah was exported to India where the animals had become extinct. Her cubs were the first to be born there in over seventy years. Tragically, they died in a scorching heat wave.’

Holed up in his Dubai luxury, Star plotted and schemed; he had a nose for new opportunities, seemed to have more time than at home, the days in the hot arid climate stretching out interminably, only the nights a blessed relief, when he could stroll outside in comfort.21

He’d identified another prospect, yet another front in the poaching wars: stealing plants. No matter that this damaged vital ecosystems back home, triggering the near extinction of rare succulent species.

Big crime syndicates, it seemed, were behind the smuggling of succulent plants in the Western Cape. This region, stretching from Namibia, across South Africa’s West Coast and into the Little Karoo, contained succulent species found nowhere else on Earth. Single plants could fetch from a few hundred to thousands of US dollars.

Experts reported that the trade in succulents had become rather like rhino poaching, the syndicates international, the poachers local and desperate for incomes. Star read that the illegal trade was one of the five largest illegal activities in the world, along with drugs, weapons smuggling, wildlife and human trafficking.

He wasn’t concerned, he would get Piet van der Merwe onto it right away.

Wasn’t troubled about employing the old apartheider – didn’t care about his past shadowy role for the police state, just exploiting his acumen now.

Continuing restlessly to surf the internet, Star spotted what he thought might be yet another opportunity.

Zimbabwe was opening vaults where 135 tonnes of ivory and rhino horn had been stockpiled. Seized from smugglers and poachers, and taken from carcasses found in national parks, the sale, estimated at raising over 700 million US dollars, was intended for wildlife management, the government claimed.

Whether it would be siphoned off by the country’s notoriously corrupt ministers remained to be seen.

‘But surely there must be a chance of grabbing at least some of the precious horns and tusks,’ Star said, tasking van der Merwe with exploring it.

A lot of his ideas came to nothing. He sent van der Merwe scurrying down dead-end alleyways, had to pay him a fee for his time. But no problem – a few came up trumps, and that’s what mattered.

Russia’s Federal Security Service, the FSB – the Federal’naya Sluzhba Bezopasnosti, previously known as the Federal Counter-Iintelligence Service – was one of the successors of the KGB, feared during the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West.

Its chief in Dubai, a lugubrious character called Nikolay Volkov, 22had clocked Star almost as soon as his Learjet had touched down from Johannesburg, and had made it his business to bone up on the self-exiled former ANC chief.

Volkov, a protégé of Vladmir Putin who’d headed the FSB prior to becoming Russian president, was ushered into Star’s smart new gabled home by his housekeeper, a Bengali woman, the air con blasting.

He bowed, extending his hand, Star stiff, alert, wondering what this might be about.

‘I’m here to help you – if you want,’ Volkov grimaced, attempting a friendly smile.

‘Oh yes?’ Star grunted, as the housekeeper served coffee in the pristine cups that came with the fully furnished property.

‘Yes.’

‘Why?’ Star asked, feigning disinterest.

‘Because my president doesn’t like your president,’ Volkov gave another attempted smile, watery this time, ‘something he shares with you – if I am not wrong?’

Star nodded, interested now.

‘My president considers your president a lame duck–’ Volkov paused, letting it sink in, ‘–and a lame duck is a dead duck.’

Star nodded again, even more interested. But said nothing.

Volkov, pretending not to notice, continued. ‘We had a good relationship with your former president – your friend.’

Star waited for him to continue.

‘We want such a good relationship with your government again. We want to help you achieve that – if you want us to, of course.’

Another watery smile before he paused.

‘I will call by tomorrow when you have had a chance to consider?’

Not so much a request, more an instruction.

The assassination of a poaching kingpin from the Kruger National Park in northeast South Africa showed just how far and lethal Star’s reach could be.

The kingpin and his driver had pulled up in the countryside at a deserted spot with a flat tyre. He was furious: this sort of thing didn’t happen to a big fish like him.

He mooched about, shouting abuse at his driver, surveying the scene, strutting his stuff, feeling his power, instructing his driver to call for help.23

Within several minutes a shiny BMW X5 roared up. The kingpin was pleasantly surprised at the quick response, and his frustration ebbed – just showed what he could do, he thought, smugly satisfied.

Only to be cut down instantly by multiple bullets, after hooded men acting on Star’s orders opened fire with high-calibre rifles.

The kingpin had himself been charged with murder, money laundering, the illegal sale of rhino horn and racketeering, his poaching syndicate bearing all the hallmarks of a paramilitary operation, extending across the country from the Kruger Park in the northeast to Gauteng and even to KwaZulu-Natal.

His ruthless efficiency had collapsed the Kruger’s white rhino population by three quarters in just over one decade, assisted by buying off local politicians, game rangers and police chiefs.

Local communities were infected by the same poison: murders, organised crime, kidnappings, cash-in-transit heists, ATM bombings, illegal mining, extortion and corruption rife right across Mpumalanga province.

With one in two local adults unemployed, poacher leaders even became heroes, the kingpin’s coffin arriving at his funeral by helicopter, draped in a leopard skin, huge crowds singing his praises.

Star knew full well that the kingpin had got too bloody big for his boots. He was refusing to cut Star in, so had to be eliminated. An ominous warning to anyone else tempted to fill his shoes.

You either danced to Star’s tune or you’d never dance again.

Even after the extreme corruption she’d previously exposed, the brazen greed and decadence took Thandi’s breath away.

Just two hours down the N2 highway from where she lived in Richards Bay was eThekwini, the KwaZulu-Natal metropolitan municipality which included the city of Durban and surrounding towns.

When police arrested its executive mayor, they discovered at her palatial home a bunch of luxury cars: a Lamborghini Huracan Spider, a silver Mercedes V8 Biturbo AMG GT, a white Porsche Cayenne S, a silver Jaguar F-PACE, a red Porsche Cayman Gen II, a black Audi RS3, an Isuzu double cab and a Ford Ranger Wildtrak.

What on earth the mayor could possibly have done with all those cars? Thandi hadn’t the faintest idea. They seemed more like ostentatious adornments, flaunting wealth generated by her mafia-style looting operation, its proceeds trickling down to her cohort of ANC councillors and 24senior officials, as well as business owners known as ‘tenderpreneurs’ for the backhanders they paid to win eThekwini municipal contracts. This elite around the mayor, prosecutors found, used an array of ploys – coercion, bribes and political power – to purloin vast quantities of public cash for themselves, their proxies, and their political party, the KwaZulu-Natal ANC and business forums, all of them up to their neck in it.

Not for the first time, Thandi felt, the businesses involved were just as culpable as the politicians for the wholesale looting and degradation of her country.

The only consolation was that the President had actually done something decisive for a change and installed new leadership in the National Prosecuting Authority to replace the corrupt cronies under the Former President.

Which meant that when Thandi approached the NPA with evidence about the eThekwini executive mayor, action followed and police officers who’d previously turned a blind eye were forced to arrest her.

The personal cost for Thandi, however, was considerable. It was now too dangerous for her to remain living in her marital apartment in Richards Bay. She had helped assemble the evidence against the mayor after being approached by a courageous whistle-blower.

Minister Yasmin had instructed her to ‘disappear and stay away from home, from family, find friends to take you in. You were attacked at home before and these people are ruthless.’

Ironic, the Veteran later observed sardonically to Thandi. He’d been forced to go underground under apartheid. Now his young protégé Thandi had been driven to live one step ahead of the mafiosi currently extending its tenacles throughout the country.

As ominous was the fact that the mayor was close to Star, definitely part of his RET faction.

Piet van der Merwe had established a nice little earner on the side. He’d become the South African agent for an international gunrunning syndicate channelling high-calibre hunting rifles from Europe and the US to poachers across Southern Africa.

Most of them manufactured in the Czech Republic, some fitted with silencers on van der Merwe’s instructions to help the poachers to dodge detection.

When he couldn’t get hold of these rifles, he arranged for similar 25weapons to be purloined from corrupt security officers, or hunting rifles stolen in farm robberies. There was always a ready supply enabling the lean Afrikaner to sell on to local poaching gangs.

Sometimes, he was able to get guns from corrupt game park officials, sometimes the police, or even poaching syndicates with dishonest crime-intelligence officers, government officials, and occasionally magistrates too.

A lot of his business was done online, through encrypted intranets and social media groups. But although this illegal gun trade was also linked to ATM bombings, cash-in-transit heists, sometimes murder too, van der Merwe was careful to stay clear of those intersections with organised crime.

Didn’t want to become a target, either for police investigators or rival syndicates, preferring to stay in the shadows – even if that meant a reduced share of the proceeds. He prided himself on not being too greedy. Seen too many people brought down or killed by greed and wanted enough but had no desire for more.

Circumspection was van der Merwe’s middle name.

And it had served him very well over the decades.

The Veteran sat Thandi down in a comfortable chair.

Although she was a formidably independent young woman, he nevertheless felt responsible for her. Much of her current activism, including its difficult and dangerous moments, was because he’d prompted her.

His wife, Komal Khan, brought her an enormous mug of rooibos tea and him a glass of his favourite Jameson’s – limited now to three a week because of his injury.

He clinked her mug with his whisky tumbler, glowing in the evening light.

‘I realise how alone, how isolated sometimes, you feel. It was like that for us too during the freedom struggle. Seemed like most of the world was either against us or certainly didn’t care enough to support us. But we were actually never alone. In some of the lowest moments, people and movements demonstrated international solidarity.’

Thandi nodded, having seemed distracted to begin with. ‘You’ll remember when we first met, I told you about “the London Recruits”. How Thabo Mbeki said they “came to help us in our darkest hour.”

‘They infiltrated apartheid South Africa at a time when almost all the 26internal resistance had been smashed, Mandela and his leadership comrades stuck on Robben Island.

‘One of these recruits was Brian Nean, a working-class lad, a Young Communist Londoner who carried out leaflet “bombings” in Johannesburg in 1971 with suitcases he’d taken as luggage. They exploded, showering key transport centres with flyers proclaiming to the apartheid state: “Your days are coming to an end” and calling on the youth to join uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK) to fight and win freedom for their country.

‘Brian returned the following year as one of the reception party for the ship Aventura, bringing MK fighters back into the country from military training in Somalia. Like most of the other London recruits, Brian had never been on a plane or stayed in a hotel before. They knew about apartheid through supporting the British Anti-Apartheid Movement, but nothing could prepare them for the reality.

‘I debriefed Brian on his return, and he recalled walking down the street when a white man came out of a jewellery store and proceeded to kick a black man into the gutter because he’d not stepped off the pavement to let the white man pass. Brian was so incensed he wanted to confront the guy, but his comrade touched him on his shoulder to remind him of their secret mission and why he should show no reaction.’

The Veteran paused, noticing he now had Thandi’s undivided attention. ‘You’ve told me how frightened you’ve been at times during our work.’

Thandi nodded.

‘Well Brian told me – rather reluctantly, I might add – how frightened he’d felt all the time he was in South Africa. Every time someone stared at him, he became convinced he’d been rumbled. But my point is that Brian managed to overcome his fears, and his sense of inadequacy, and delivered exactly what I’d tasked him with. So did the others, over twenty of them.’

Thandi, transfixed, began to relax.

‘Same for us. We are small but we are not alone. Just look at the tremendous support we’ve had from Bob Richards. Remember how he told you when you went on that mission to London, how his parents had run onto the pitch at Twickenham in 1969 to stop the whites-only Springboks as part of the Stop the Seventy Tour campaign? How hehas often used parliamentary privilege at our request to expose the corruption and money laundering we’ve been fighting against?’27

She nodded, a smile on her face now.

‘Another London Recruit was Trent Ball, a fresh-faced youngster of nineteen, an electrician or “sparky” by trade, a few years younger than his brother Ron. They both projected an easy innocence – especially once I had convinced them to cut their hair short, shave their beards and don unaccustomed suits. I wanted them to be able to slip in as tourists to South Africa without raising suspicions in that paranoid police state.

‘But it was really risky stuff for the Balls brothers. I trained them in London in the subversive art of “leaflet bombs”. Essentially a plastic bucket filled with leaflets, contained in a shopping bag with timing device and fuse connected to a small amount of gunpowder. Once activated, a harmless explosion with a loud bang propelled leaflets high into the air. These devices would be left where workers congregated and commuters passed by, like busy railway stations, taxi ranks and markets. Another device which Tom and Ron used alongside the leaflet bombs was a small tape recorder which broadcast taped messages through miniaturised amplifiers exhorting the people to rise up against apartheid.

‘If caught, the penalty for such derring-do, after heavy-duty beating by the police, could be up to fifteen years imprisonment in Pretoria. The underground movement in South Africa had been crushed at the time and we desperately needed to relay the message of resistance to the people.

‘But what Trent and Ron did not know was that we were recruiting other couriers and activists from all around Britain, parts of America and Europe as well. Unknown to them, when they carried out their mission in Cape Town, at a certain time and day, similar actions would simultaneously occur in all the main cities of South Africa. These brave activists succeeded admirably, making front-page headlines and spreading the ANC’s message of defiance to numbers well beyond those who picked up the leaflets or heard the street broadcasts. But some of them were caught and served prison terms.

‘We have lots of friends, some of them supporting South Africa’s struggle to overcome the legacy of apartheid – including Brian and Trent, though with grey beards now – and involved in Action for Southern Africa, the successor organisation to the Anti-Apartheid Movement.’

The Veteran took a last sip from his tumbler, tasting the smooth warmth of the whisky, wishing he was allowed a top-up – or several – before continuing.

‘The London Recruits were all young men and women. Like you. 28