He had grown up in the shadow of Jan Christian Smuts and had a natural and unshakable allegiance to the party that Smuts, that great and good man, had founded. He opened his mouth to answer angrily, but Manfred De La Rey raised his hand to stop him.
'Hear me out,' he said. 'The person chosen for this patriotic work would be immediately given a senior cabinet appointment which the prime minister would create specifically for him. He would become minister of mines and industry." Shasa closed his mouth slowly. How carefully they must have studied him, and how accurately they had analysed him and arrived at his price. The very foundations of his political beliefs and principles were shaken, and the walls cracked through. They had led him up into a high place and shown him the prize that was his for the taking.
At twenty thousand feet Shasa levelled the Mosquito and trimmed for cruise. He increased the flow of oxygen into his mask to sharpen his brain. He had four hours' flying time to Youngsfield, four hours to think it all out carefully, and he tried to divorce himself from the passions and emotions which still swept him along and attempt instead to reach his decision logically - but the excitement intruded upon his meditations. The prospect of wielding vast powers, building up an arsenal that would make his country supreme in Africa and a force in the world was awe-inspiring. That was power. The thought of it all made him slightly light-headed, for it was all there at last, everything he had ever dreamed of. He had only to reach out his hand and seize the moment. Yet what would be the cost in honour and pride - how would he explain to men who trusted him?
Then abruptly he thought of Blaine Malcomess, his mentor and adviser, the man who had stood in the place of his own father all these years. What would he think of this dreadful betrayal that Shasa was contemplating?
'I can do more good by joining them, Blaine,' he whispered into his mask. 'I can help change and moderate them from within more effectively than in opposition, for now I will have the power --' bul he knew he was prevaricating, and all else was dross.
It all came down to that one thing in the end, the power - and he knew that although Blaine Malcomess would never condone what he would see as treachery, there was one person who would understand and give him support and encouragement. For after all it was Centaine Courtney-Malcomess who had so carefully schooled her son in the acquisition and use of wealth and power.
'It could all come true, Mater. It could still happen, not exactly as we planned it, but it could still happen all the same." Then a thought struck him, and a shadow passed across the bright light of his triumph.
He glanced down at the red folder that Manfred De La Rey, minister of police, had given him at the airstrip, just as he was about to climb up into the Mosquito, and which now lay on the copilot's seat beside him.
'There is only one problem we will have to deal with, if you accept our offer,' Manfred had said as he handed it over, 'and it is a serious problem. This is it." .The folder contained a police special branch security report, and the name on the cover was:
TARA ISABELLA COURTNEY the MALCOMESS
Tara Courtney made her round of the children's wing, calling in at each of the bedrooms. Nanny was just tucking Isabella under her pink satin eiderdown, and the child let out a cry of delight when she saw Tara.
'Mummy, Mummy, teddy bbs been naughty. I'm going to make him sleep on the shelf with my other dolls." Tara sat on her daughter's bed and hugged her while they discussed teddy's misdemeanours. Isabella was pink and warm and smelled of soap. Her hair was silky against Tara's cheek and it took an effort for Tara to kiss her and stand up.
'Time to go to sleep, Bella baby." The moment the lights went out Isabella let out such a shriek that Tara was stricken with alarm.
'What is it, baby?" She snapped on the lights again and rushed back to the bed.
'I've forgiven teddy. He can sleep with me after all." The teddy-bear was ceremoniously reinstated in Isabella's favour
!!Z
and she took him in a loving half-nelson and stuck her other thumb in her mouth.
'When is my Daddy coming home?" she demanded drowsily around the thumb, but her eyes were closed and she was asleep before Tara reached the door.
Sean was sitting on Garrick's chest in the middle of the bedroom floor, tweaking the hair at his brother's temples with sadistic finesse.
Tara separated them.
'Sean, you get back to your own room this instant, do you hear me?
I have warned you a thousand times about bullying your brothers. Your father is going to hear all about this when he gets home." Garrick snuffled up his tears and came wheezing to his elder brother's defence.
'We were only playing, Mater. He wasn't bullying me." But she could hear that he was on the verge of another asthma attack. She wavered. She really should not go out, not with an attack threatening, but tonight was so important.
Tll prepare his inhaler and tell Nanny to look in on him every hour until I get back,' she compromised.
Michael was reading, and barely looked up to receive her kiss.
'Lights out at nine o'clock. Promise me, darling." She tried never to let it show, but he was always her favourite.
'I promise, Mater,' he murmured and under cover of the eiderdown carefully crossed his fingers.
On the way down the stairs she glanced at her wristwatch. It was five minutes before eight. She was going to be late, and she stifled her maternal feelings of guilt and fled out to her old Packard.
Shasa detested the Packard, taking its blotched sun-faded paintwork and its shabby stained upholstery as an affront to the family dignity. He had given her a new Aston Martin on her last birthday, but she left it in the garage. The Packard suited her Spartan image: of herself as a caring liberal, and it blew a streamer of dirty smoke as she accelerated down the long driveway, taking a perverse pleasure in sending a pall of fine dust over Shasa's meticulously groomed vineyards. It was strange how even after all these years she felt herself a stranger at Weltevreden, and alien amongst its treasures and stuffy old-fashioned furnishings. If she lived here another fifty years it would never be her home, it was Centaine Courtney-Malcomess' home, the other woman's touch and memory lingered in every room that Shasa would never allow her to redecorate.