He knocked on the minister's door and opened it to the command, 'Kom binne, enter! Charles Robberts Blackie Swart was tall almost to the point of deformity with huge hands that now lay on the desk top in front of him.
Manfred. He smiled like a crack appearing in a granite slab. 'Here is the little present I promised you. He picked up an envelope embossed with the crest of the Union of South Africa and handed it across the desk.
I will never be able to express my gratitude, Minister. Manfred took the envelope. I hope only to demonstrate it to you by my loyalty and hard work in the years ahead. Back in his own office Manfred opened the envelope and unfolded the document it contained. Slowly savouring each word of it, he read through the free pardon granted to one Lothar De La Rey, convicted of various crimes and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Manfred folded the document and slipped it back into its envelope.
Tomorrow he would deliver the pardon to the prison governor in person, and he would be there to take his father's hand and lead him out into the sunshine again.
He stood up and went to his safe, tumbled the combination and swung open the heavy steel door. There were three files lying on the top shelf, and he took them down and laid them on his desk. One file was from military intelligence, the second from CID headquarters, the third from his own Department of justice. it had taken time and careful planning to have all three on his desk and all record of their existence removed from the archive registers. They were the only existing files on White Sword'.
He took his time and read each one through carefully. It was long after midnight when he finished, but now he knew that nowhere in those files had any person made the connection between White Sword and Manfred De La Rey, Olympic gold medallist and now Deputy Minister of justice.
He picked up the three files and carried them through to the outer office where he switched on the shredding machine. As he fed each separate page into the shredder and watched the thin strips of paper come curling out the far side like spaghetti, he considered what he had learned from them.
So there was a traitoress, he murmured. I was betrayed.
A woman, a young woman, speaking in Afrikaans. She knew everything, from the guns in Pretoria to the ambush on the mountain. There is only one young woman who knew all that. There would be retribution in time, but Manfred was in no hurry, there were many scores to settle, many debts to pay.
When the last page of the reports was reduced to minute slivers, Manfred locked his office and went down to where the new black Ford sedan that went with his rank was parked.
He drove back to his sumptuous official residence in the elegant suburb of Waterkloof. As he went upstairs to the bedroom he was careful not to wake Heidi. She was pregnant again, and her sleep was precious.
He lay in the darkness unable to sleep himself. There was too much to think about, too much planning to do, and he smiled and thought, So at last the sword of power is in our hands, and we will see, with a vengeance, who are the underdogs now.
The End
The novels of Wilbur Smith
The Courtney Novels:
When the Lion Feeds
The Sound of Thunder
A Sparrow Falls
The Burning Shore
Power of the Sword
Rage
A Time to Die
The Ballantyne Novels:
A Falcon Flies
Men of Men
The Angels Weep
The Leopard Hunts in Darkness
Also:
The Dark of the Sun
Shout at the Devil
Gold Mine
The Diamond Hunters
The Sunbird
Eagle in the Sky
The Eye of the Tiger
Cry Wolf
Hungry as the Sea
Wild justice
Golden Fox
Elephant Song
River God
Power of the Sword
Wilbur Smith was born in Central Africa in 1933. He was educated at Michaelhouse and Rhodes University. He became a full-time writer in 1964 after the successful publication of When the Lion Feeds, and has since written twenty-four novels, meticulously researched on his numerous expeditions worldwide. His work is now translated into twenty-five languages. He normally travels from November to February, often spending a month skiing in Switzerland, and visiting Australia and New Zealand for sea fishing. During his summer break he visits environments as diverse as Alaska and the dwindling wilderness of the African interior. He has an abiding concern for the peoples and wildlife of his native continent, an interest strongly reflected in his novels.
He is married to Danielle, to whom his last twenty books have been dedicated.