The Colour of Gold (24 page)

There were
three men in the car. The driver, wearing a leather jacket, a man
in the front passenger's seat wearing a dark grey suit and a man
sitting in the back seat wearing blue overalls ignored him
completely. The car moved through the drab township in silence
until it reached the suburb of Diepmeadow. It stopped at an
intersection.

"Get out and
walk down that street until you get to number one sixty two." the
man in the blue overall said. "Knock on the door three times, wait
five seconds and knock three times again. Somebody will then let
you in."

Isaiah climbed
out of the white Datsun and walked along the street to number 162.
The house was a small dwelling built of rough dark brown bricks
with a rusty corrugated iron roof, a badly scarred brown wooden
door with tiny windows flanking it on both sides and a leafless old
peach tree standing forlornly next to it. Isaiah knocked on the
door three times with his knuckles, waited five seconds and then
knocked again. The door opened and he walked into the dim
interior.

"Greetings,
Comrade I.Z." Shadow said. "Have you received the goods from the
white man yet?"

"Yes, Comrade
J.M." Isaiah replied. "I've hidden them…"

Shadow held up
his hand.

"Don't tell me
where they're hidden." he said. "Can you fetch enough parts to make
one bomb and bring them here tonight?"

"Yes." Isaiah
said. "But the hiding place is quite far from here."

"That's no
problem." Shadow said. "I'll arrange transport for you. The car and
the driver that brought you here will be back shortly. He will take
you to fetch the parts. But don't take the driver with you or tell
him where you're going. Get him to drop you off near your hiding
place and walk there on your own. Again try to make sure that
nobody is following you."

The driver of
the white Datsun drove Isaiah to the edge of the buffer zone. He
walked into the dark wasteland and headed towards the abandoned
gold mine, stumbling through the bushes and trying not to make any
noise. He reached the mine entranced and clambered down to the
sloping tunnel. He walked down until he reached the second level.
From there he carefully paced out the forty two paces in the
darkness and felt along the tunnel wall until he found the hidden
alcove. He located the cardboard box of bomb parts, withdrew one
length of threaded pipe and two end caps, a length of
plastic-coated electrical wire and a detonator and walked carefully
back to the sloping tunnel and up to the entrance. He left the old
mine and walked cautiously back to the waiting car. He climbed in
and the driver drove him back to Diepmeadow. He entered the house
and, in the dim light from a candle, placed the contents needed to
make the bomb onto the kitchen table.

"What about the
explosives?" Shadow asked. "When will you have enough for one
bomb?"

"By the end of
the week." Isaiah said. "We can build the bomb over the
weekend.

"Good." Shadow
said. "My guys will pick you up on Saturday morning at about eight
o'clock just as they did today except that you must walk along
Ramushu Street. Okay?"

"Yes." Isaiah
said. "I'll be there."

***

Isaiah and
Shadow sat down at the battered kitchen table in the little house
in Diepmeadow. The parts for the bomb that Bogdan Vodnik had
supplied lay on the table top together with a small cheap brown
suitcase, a cheap wind-up alarm clock, a ,45-volt lantern battery,
two tubes of quick-drying chemical adhesive and several pieces of
thin insulated electrical wire. Although the inside of the house
was dull and gloomy the light that entered through the small
kitchen window was sufficient for the two men to work in.

"What happens
when you make a pipe bomb is that when the explosives inside the
pipe ignite they create an incredible amount of pressure because
there is nowhere for the pressure to escape." Isaiah told Shadow.
"The pressure eventually becomes so great that it bursts through
the pipe walls and causes the explosion. That's why we have to seal
the explosives inside the pipe."

Isaiah could
see that Shadow felt very uncomfortable about having the dynamite
so near to him.

"I can see that
you're worried about the dynamite exploding." Isaiah said. "But you
can relax. The dynamite can only explode if it is subjected to an
electrical current of high magnitude. That's what these detonators
are for. When an electrical charge passes through them they magnify
the charge so that it sets off the dynamite. So, what we'll be
doing is burying the detonator in the explosives and, when we want
it to explode we'll connect it to the battery. But we'll only do
that when we're ready to set off the bomb. There are types of
dynamite that are unstable and can go off if they're struck or
dropped but the explosives that the mines use are very stable and
won't explode without an electrical charge through a
detonator."

"So, what's the
alarm clock for?" Shadow asked.

"The alarm
clock allows us to set the time that we want the bomb to explode."
Isaiah said. "But I'll explain how we do that as we build the bomb.
So, you can relax. We're not going to blow ourselves up."

Isaiah picked
up one of the pieces of pipe that was threaded at both ends and
screwed on one of the steel end-caps that didn't have a small hole
drilled in it. He then filled the pipe with explosive from the
small plastic container that he'd brought with him. He then took a
short length of insulated electrical wire, stripped off the plastic
to expose about twenty millimetres of wire and twisted it onto the
detonator's wire. He pushed the detonator well into the explosives,
threaded the wire through the hole in another of the end-caps and
screwed that onto the end of the pipe. He put the pipe with the
length of insulated electrical wire protruding from its one end
down on the table top.

"As I
understand it, the "bomb" part is now complete." Shadow said.

"That's
correct." Isaiah said. "If we had wanted to cause a lot of damage
to any people standing near the bomb when it exploded we could have
taped nuts and bolts and other small pieces of metal around the
pipe. When the bomb exploded these pieces of steel would have been
sent flying at great speed and would have seriously hurt or killed
anyone standing nearby. These pieces of steel are called
"shrapnel". Now, what we have to do is make the timing
mechanism."

Isaiah picked
up the alarm clock and removed the glass face. He grabbed the
minute hand with his thumb and forefinger and bent it backwards and
forwards until it broke off. He then stripped the plastic covering
off the end of a piece of electrical wire and mixed a small amount
of chemical glue with which he glued the end of the wire to the end
of the hour hand of the clock, making sure that the tips of the
copper wire were exposed. Opening the suitcase Isaiah then mixed a
much larger amount of glue and glued the clock and the battery next
to each other onto its base, making sure that the wire attached to
the hour hand could reach the battery terminal. Then he glued the
pipe bomb onto the base of the suitcase, again making sure that the
wire from the bomb could easily reach any place of the clock face
surface.

"Now, if we
connect the wire from the clock's hour hand to the battery and the
wire from the bomb to the face of the clock opposite the time that
we want it to explode, wind up the clock and let it run, the ends
of the wire glued to the clock's hour hand will eventually touch
the ends of the wire glued to the clock face. This will set off the
detonator and the bomb will explode." Isaiah said.

"Great!" Shadow
said. "So now, all we've got to do is decide what we're going to
bomb and when we're going to do it."

"Exactly."
Isaiah said. "Have you decided on a target yet?"

"Yes." Shadow
said. "I've given it a lot of thought and the target that I've
selected is the Germiston Magistrates Court. Some time ago I and
two of my comrades planned to attack the court with automatic
rifles and a few grenades late one night but the security police
got to my two comrades before we could carry out the attack. If
they had got to the house where I was waiting for them even two
minutes earlier they probably would have taken me out as well. Do
you remember the burnt-out car in the street in Orlando East where
I was staying when you first met me? My comrades died in that car
so I believe that we should bomb those courts in honour of
them."

Isaiah
nodded.

"When do you
want to do it?" he asked.

"As soon as
possible." Shadow said. "Tomorrow night. We'll go from here to
Germiston by car and stop a block away from the building. Then when
we're sure that there's nobody in the vicinity, I'll hide the bomb
behind one of the flowerpots at the front entrance. Then we'll read
about it in the following morning's newspapers. What's important is
the message that the bombing will send out. It will tell the world
that the white government is not in control and that we are able to
bomb any target that we wish to and their security forces are
powerless to stop us. It will also tell the world that we have
chosen to target government buildings and avoid endangering the
people of our country, regardless of whether they are black or
white. We are therefore "freedom fighters" and not
"terrorists".

***

Bogdan Vodnik
leant back in his office chair and rubbed the muscles at the back
of his neck. He lowered his arms and glanced at the bruised
knuckles of hi right hand. He felt his anger rise in his chest as
he remembered Catherine's betrayal. How could he have been so
stupid? he asked himself. He had never been so humiliated in all
his life when that black bastard had shown him the three
photographs. And now he was trapped. Those black terrorists
wouldn't stop blackmailing him, that was for sure. They had him by
the balls and they surely wouldn't ever let go. And if they were
ever caught by the Security Police and implicated him he was quite
likely to get the death penalty.

The telephone
on Bogdan's desk rang.

"Hello, Bogdan
speaking." he said as he lifted the receiver.

"Sorry to
bother you, Bogdan." Sally the receptionist in the front office
said. "There are two men here to see you. They say that they don't
have an appointment but the matter is urgent. They're police
officers. Shall I send them up?"

Bogdan went
cold. The police were onto him already? How was that possible?
Surely the black bastard couldn't have been an undercover
policeman. He struggled to regain his composure.

"Okay, send
them up." he said.

Bogdan stood up
from his desk as the two men entered his office. They were both in
their thirties and both wore safari suits, one a light blue suit
and the other a grey one. The policeman in the grey suit closed the
office door.

"Mister Bogdan
Vodnik?" the first policeman said, raising his eyebrows
inquiringly.

"Yes, I'm
Bogdan Vodnik." Bogdan replied with a sigh. "What can I do for
you?"

"I'm Detective
Smit from the Vice Squad and this is detective Beyers." the man in
the blue safari suit said. "I'm not going to waste time with
formalities. Two days ago we received a request from the caretaker
at the Grande Mansions complex in Hillbrow. Apparently the front
door of apartment number five had been standing open for two days
and he suspected foul play as there appeared to be a large stain on
the lounge carpet that he thought might be blood. We sent a
detective to investigate and tests proved that the stain was in
fact blood. We were then informed that the apartment was being
rented by you. Is that correct?"

"Yes, that's
correct." Bogdan said.

"Are you living
in the apartment?" Smit asked.

"No." Bogdan
replied. "I use the apartment when I'm visiting clients in town and
don't have time to come back here to the office."

"So, apart from
you, nobody else uses the apartment?" the detective asked.

"No. But there
is a maid who comes in once a week to clean the place." Bogdan
replied.

"So you've no
idea how the bloodstain came to be on your carpet?"

"No." Bogdan
said.

"Really?" the
detective asked as he reached into his safari suit pocket and
withdrew the three photographs that Isaiah Zuma had given Bogdan.
He placed them on the desktop in front of Bogdan "So, how do you
explain these photographs that were found on the lounge carpet?
Isn't that you in the photographs?"

Bogdan stared
down at the photographs, relieved that the detectives were not
there to arrest him for treason.

"Yes, that's
me." he said.

"Mister
Vodnik." the detective said. "From our investigation we notice that
you've been resident in South Africa for just over three years.
Long enough, I believe, to be aware of the Immorality Act of 1950
which makes it a criminal offence for a white person to have sexual
relations with a person of colour. Are you aware of this law?"

"Yes." Bogdan
said, sighing.

"And do these
photographs show you having sexual relations with a black person?"
Smit asked.

"Yes." Bogdan
said.

"As yet, we've
been unable to identify your black conspirator. Was she black
mailing you?"

"No." Bogdan
replied. "Her name is Catherine and she works for my wife and me as
a domestic worker at our house on the mine."

"And the
bloodstain?" the detective asked. "Can you explain that?"

"We had an
altercation and I hit her." Bogdan said.

"Is she still
alive? Have you seen her since this altercation?" Smit asked.

"No. I
haven't." Bogdan said. "But I'm sure that she's alive because she
left the apartment."

"Do you know
how to contact this Catherine?" Smit asked.