Unofficial and Deniable. John Davis Gordon
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they were going to be plotting sabotage within South Africa, and that made them murderers – five years ago ANC agents had planted a car-bomb outside the South African air force headquarters in Pretoria and killed and injured many people, most of them civilian passers-by. That was despicable, but on the other hand wasn’t the air force headquarters a legitimate military target for the ANC, hadn’t the bomb blown out all the windows and a fucking great hole in the wall? Sure it was despicable to blow up civilians, but hadn’t the explosion impressed the shit out of South Africans, delivered the message that apartheid was a dangerous, bloody business? And then had come the murder of Dulcie September; the whole world had had no doubt that South Africa had done the job, and Harker now had no doubt that the CCB was responsible. The thought had sickened him. Christ – soldiers were legitimate targets, but unarmed civilians who had committed no wrong other than espouse a political cause opposed to your political masters’ credo stuck in his craw. Jesus, he’d hoped such action would never be required of him.
‘They’re plotting murder,’ Dupont had said.
Yes, most probably, Harker admitted to the passing twinkling lights beyond the Amtrak dining saloon carrying him back to New York with the suitcase of explosives the CIA had provided; yes, most probably they would be plotting murder, but how do we know for sure? We have only the CIA’s word for it. Perhaps they’re discussing something like children’s nutritional aid, or the ANC’s next tactic around the corridors of the United Nations which Harker would hear all about from his salesmen anyway …
‘Of course they’re saboteurs,’ Dupont had shouted. ‘Why else are they meeting Sanchez and Moreno?’
Yes, they must be, but he wished he knew their names so he could try to verify the fact, and he wished he had more than the CIA’s word for the purpose of the meeting.
It took him a long time to go to sleep that Monday night, staring out of the train window, watching the night lights of America slip by.
The reconnaissance was easy.
Harker did not do it himself because his CCB cover as a publisher would have been blown if he had been caught. He sent one of his senior salesmen, Derek Clements, the very tough American who had been a US Marine and a mercenary in the Rhodesian army. He was one of the best soldiers Harker had known, the right sort to have on your side in a tight corner: amongst other military accomplish-ments he was a tracking and survival expert, an instructor in hand-to-hand combat, an expert in demolition work. Clements had been in the CCB longer than Harker, who had inherited him from Dupont. His front-business in America was a car-hire firm much patronized by United Nations officials: his rank and pay scale in Military Intelligence was that of lieutenant. But he was really staff-sergeant material, one of the breed of men who kick ass and make an army function.
Harker drove Clements to Long Island that Tuesday afternoon in a Hertz car rented in a false name. They located the area of the farm, then went to eat at a roadhouse. When darkness fell they synchronized watches and drove back to the area. Clements was dropped off at the roadside. He disappeared into the dark, and Harker drove on.
The farmhouse was surrounded by woods and, as Dupont had promised, it was deserted. There wasn’t another dwelling for over a mile. Clements approached carefully. There was no light. He observed the old clapboard house for half an hour, looking for signs of life, then he crept to the back door and let himself in with the keys Dupont had given to Harker.
And, yes, though the place was empty, it was in use: the kitchen was clean, there was water in the taps. Clements went through it slowly, shining a shaded torch. There were a few cans of food in the small pantry and some Cuban rum. The living room was the only suitable place for a meeting: there was a dining table surrounded by eight chairs. The bookshelves were empty, there was no paper anywhere. Upstairs there were three bedrooms holding ten narrow beds, made up with blankets but no sheets. All the cupboards and drawers were bare. There was one used bar of soap in the small bathroom but nothing else. All the floors were made of wood, covered with a scattering of worn mats.
Clements went back downstairs. He began to go through the house again systematically, carefully noting every detail, the position of the furniture, of the mats. Then he let himself out by the kitchen door, and crept back through the woods. At ten o’clock exactly Harker’s headlights appeared down the road. Clements emerged from the darkness, and Harker picked him up.
‘Well?’
‘It’ll be a cinch,’ Clements said. ‘We hit all three entrances as shown on the architect’s drawing. And the place is a tinder-box, everything is wood. A couple of bombs will blow the lot sky-high. It’s obviously just a safe-house for transients. No armour, no communications, not even a phone. So who are these guys we’re hitting?’
‘Sorry, you have no need to know. Is there a good place for the listening device?’
‘Perfect. One just under the floorboards as a back-up, the main just inside the surrounding forest – plenty of undergrowth, but a clean field of fire if the action starts at the wrong time.’
‘Okay, so plant the gear on Thursday night. Rent a car, park it at the hamburger joint and walk to the scene. Rig your listening device in the right place and then make yourself scarce. Take Spicer to cover you. Then we rendezvous on Saturday, with our hardware – the CIA are supplying us with the Russian machine pistols that the Cubans use, and the grenades. The CIA are tailing the targets all day to see what else they get up to. When they arrive here the CIA will radio me. We move into the forest and listen. At the right time we hit ’em, front door, kitchen door and french window. Then we get their documents and blow the place up.’
‘How many of us?’
‘Four. You, me, Spicer and Trengrove.’
Clements said, ‘Wish we could hit them as they arrive, as they’re getting out of the car.’
‘Wish we could too. But the boss wants to hear what they’re talking about.’
‘Well,’ Clements said with a smile, ‘sounds like fun, sir. About time we did something exciting.’
Exciting? Harker felt ill in his guts. He was sick of war. He sighed grimly. ‘Okay, we’ll go back to Harvest and I’ll give you the listening gear Dupont gave me.’
Yes, Harker was sick of war, sick of soldiering: he didn’t feel like a soldier any more, he felt like a publisher. He didn’t even feel much like an African: he felt more of an Anglo-American now. But a professional soldier he was. He owed his position as a publisher to his military superiors, and he was at war. And the purpose of warfare, every military scientist agrees, is to kill as many of the enemy as possible as fast as possible in the pursuit of victory: you only stop killing the enemy when he is defeated or makes peace. It is the characteristic of the professional military man that once he has made up his mind on a course of action he carries it out: he only departs from his objective if he has to make a tactical retreat.
Harker’s character and talents fitted him perfectly for a successful military career. Yes, he was sick of war but he regarded it as a just battle against the communist forces of darkness. By the time the train had carried him back to New York from Washington he had made up his mind that the persons meeting at the safe-house in Long Island were legitimate military targets: the CIA said so, the Chairman said so, Dupont said so. The qualms he had about the ANC officials being civilians were groundless – they were plotting sabotage within South Africa which would surely involve innocent civilian casualties. Harker wished he knew more but he had no need to know before accepting his superiors’ word for this. True, his action would be highly illegal under the laws of America, first degree murder, but that did not diminish the moral legitimacy of it under the laws of war.
Nonetheless Harker felt sick in his guts. He did not waver, but the fact that those ANC officials were civilians kept nagging at him. He grimly told himself that his qualms were illogical, attributable to his war-weariness, to being softened. He pushed the point out of his mind but it kept stalking