Hardin lifted his head. 'Chip's coming back.'

Stafford heard the crunch of Chip's footsteps. He raised his head and said, 'What's the verdict?' His eyes slid sideways and he watched the grey-haired Mr Anonymous walk down the slope and out of sight among the trees.

Chip said, 'We wait awhile.'

'I might have guessed it,' said Stafford. He shrugged elaborately as though to make his point with Alan Hunt.

Hunt said, 'What about us?' He indicated his sister.

'You just carry on normally,' said Chip. 'If we need you we'll get word to you. But until then you don't, by any action or quiver of a muscle, give any indication that anything is out of the ordinary.'

Hardin said, 'And me? What do I do?'

Chip blew out his cheeks. 'I suppose you come under Mr Stafford. I recommend that you stay here – on Crescent Island.'

Hardin nudged Nair. 'That means more beer.'

Stafford said, a little bitterly, 'Chip, you've talked to that mate of yours. I suppose he was a high-ranking officer. Am I to take it that he's going for instructions?'

Chip shook his head sadly. 'You know how it is, Max. Wheels within wheels. Everyone has someone on his neck. Any action on this has to be taken on instruction from the top. We're talking about international stuff now – a clash of nations.'

Stafford sighed. He leaned back so that he lay flat, and put his hands over his eyes to shade them from the sun. 'Then get on with your bloody clash of nations.'

Chapter 27

Brice stood looking out of his window over the grounds of Ol Njorowa. His brow was furrowed as he swung to face Hendriks. 'First Stafford, and now Gunnarsson. You heard them. They're on to us.'

'Not Max,' said Hendriks. 'He's going home.'

' All right. But Gunnarsson suspects something. Who is he?'

'You know as much as I do,' said Hendriks. 'He's boss of the American agency which found Henry Hendrix in California. You heard what he said to Stafford. He tried to cut himself a slice but he failed when he lost Hendrix. He's a bloody crook if you ask me.'

'I don't need to ask you,' said Brice acidly. 'It's self-evident.'

Hendriks held up a finger. 'One thing seems clear,' he said. 'Cousin Henry really must be dead. Stafford certainly thinks so.'

'That doesn't do us much good if there's no body.' Brice sat behind his desk. 'And you heard Gunnarsson. He says he's staying around to investigate.'

'So what is there to investigate?' asked Hendriks. 'He's not interested in us. All he wants is to find Henry – which he won't. After a while he'll get tired of it and go home like Max. There's nothing for him to find, not now.'

'Perhaps, but we'll keep an eye on him.'

'Do that,' said Hendriks. He stood up and walked to the door. 'If you want me I'll be in my room.'

He left Brice and went upstairs. In his room he lay on the bed and lit a cigarette, and his thoughts went back over the years to the time it had all started.

He supposed it began when he was recruited to the National Intelligence Service. Of course in those days it was called the Bureau for State Security. Joel Mervis, the then editor of the Johannesburg Sunday Times, had consistently replaced 'for' with 'of' which resulted in the acronym BOSS. A cheap trick but it worked and was adopted by newspapers all over the world. Hendriks reflected how oddly insensitive his fellow countrymen were in matters of this nature. It took them a long time to get the point and then the name was changed to the Department of National Security which made the acronym DONS. Even that was received with some hilarity and another change was made to the National Intelligence Service. Nothing much could be made of

NIS.

He was thoroughly trained and began his fieldwork, working mostly in Rhodesia at that time. South Africa was desperately trying to buttress the Smith government but, of course, that came to nothing in the end. The death of Salazar in faraway Portugal sent a whole row of dominoes toppling. An anti-colonial regime in Portugal meant the loss at Angola and then Mozambique; the enemy was on the frontier and Rhodesia could not be saved. Now the Cubans were in Angola and South West Africa was threatened. It was a bleak outlook.

But that was now. In the days when it seemed that Rhodesia could be saved for white civilization Hendriks had enjoyed his work until he stopped a bullet fired not by a black guerilla but, ironically, by a trigger-happy white farmer. He was pulled back to South Africa, hospitalized, and then given a month's leave.

Time hung heavily on his hands and he sought for something to do. He was normally a mentally and physically active man and not for him the lounging on the beach at Clifton or Durban broiling his brains under the sun. His thoughts went back to his grandmother whom he dimly remembered – and to his grandfather who was thought to have been killed in the Red Revolt of Johannesburg in 1922. But there had been no body and Hendriks wondered. Using the techniques he had been taught and the authority he had acquired he began an investigation, an intelligence man's way of passing the time and searching the family tree. It paid off. He found from old port records that Jan-Willem Hendrykxx had sailed from Cape Town for San Francisco on March 25, 1922, a week after the revolt had been crushed by General Smuts. And that was as far as he got by the end of his leave.

He did not go back to Rhodesia but, instead, was posted to England. 'Go to the Embassy once,' he was told. "You'd be expected to do that. But don't go near it again. They'll give you instructions on cut-outs and so on."

So Hendriks went to London where his main task was to keep track of the movements of those exiled members of the African National Congress then living in England, and to record whom they met and talked with. He also kept a check on certain members of the staffs of other Embassies in London as and when he was told.

Intelligence outfits have their own way of doing things. The governments of two countries may be publicly cold towards each other while their respective intelligence agencies can be quite fraternal. So it was with South Africa and the United States – BOSS and the CIA. One day Hendriks passed a message through his cut-out; Could someone, as a favour, find out what happened to Jan-Willem Hendrykxx who had arrived in San Francisco in 1922? A personal matter, so no hurry.

Two months later he had an answer which surprised him. Apparently his grandfather could out-grandfather the Mafia. He had been deported from the United States in 1940. Hendriks, out of curiosity, took a week's holiday which he spent in Brussels. Discreet enquiries found his grandfather hale and well. Hendriks went nowhere near the old man, but he did go to the South African Embassy in Brussels where he had a chat with a man. Three months later he wrote a very detailed report which he sent to Pretoria and was promptly pulled back to South Africa.

Hendriks's immediate superior was a Colonel Malan, a heavily built Afrikaner with a square face and cold eyes. He opened a file on his desk and took out Hendriks's report. 'This is an odd suggestion you've come up with.' The report plopped on the desk. 'How good is your evidence on this Belgian, Hendrykxx?'

'Solid. He's the head of a heroin-smuggling ring operating from Antwerp, and we have enough on him to send him to jail for the rest of his life. On the other hand, if he comes in with us he lives the rest of his life in luxury.' Hendriks smiled. 'What would you do, sir?'

'I'm not your grandfather,' growled Malan. He leafed through the report. 'You come from an interesting family. Now, you want us to give the old man a hell of a lot of money tied up in a way he can't touch it, and he makes out a will so that the money goes where we want it when he dies. Is that it?'