Hain Fallout

1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-0686844-8-7
Verlag: Muswell Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 354 Seiten

An explosive Cold War thriller, a deadly arms race that threatens to tip the world into conflict. South Africa, Zimbabwe, China and Britain. In the shadow of the Cold War, a deadly secret connects three continents, and time is running out. When a mild-mannered scientist accidentally uncovers a web of international espionage during a routine visit to Beijing, he's thrust into a deadly game of cat and mouse. His only ally? A magnetic anti-apartheid activist who may have secrets of her own. As they race to expose the truth, a veteran South African intelligence operative moves through the streets of newly-independent Zimbabwe, his mission intertwined with the machinations of a mysterious Chinese power player from Mao's inner circle. Meanwhile, a sinister collaboration between apartheid forces and rogue British intelligence agents works in the shadows to keep their nuclear conspiracy buried, at any cost. From the neon lit backstreets of Beijing to the wild, untamed lowveld where Zimbabwe meets South Africa, this explosive thriller weaves together Cold War tensions, political intrigue, and the threat of nuclear devastation. As these disparate threads converge, our unlikely heroes find themselves at the centre of a plot that could reshape the balance of power in the Southern Hemisphere, if they can survive long enough to expose it.

Peter Hain was born in Africa. His parents were forced into exile in 1966. He was involved with the Anti-Apartheid Movement and the Anti-Nazi League during the 1970s and 2015 and a senior minister for 12 years in Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's governments. He is a lifelong Human Rights campaigner, and currently a Labour member of the House of Lords. Hain has written or edited twenty-one books including Mandela, Outside In, Pretoria Boy, The Rhino Conspiracy, The Lion Conspiracy and The Elephant Conspiracy

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hain, Peter

Leseproben

2

Evans spent the day meeting more scientists, and being briefed by officials from the Chinese energy ministry. He also had time to think and update his notes.

He had slept badly. His mind kept racing all night: the confusion over the notebook, Wang’s menace – the coming visit to meet Hu’s father.

Now, with a free half hour, he forced himself to relax. He sat down on the steps of the Great Hall of the People, a short walk from his hotel, trying to imagine what it must have felt like to witness one of Mao’s famous addresses to the cheering masses assembled below.

Tiananmen Square stretched out before him, the towering Martyrs Memorial honouring revolutionary heroes on one side, a vast area which had held over a million people in its time.

Now it was calm in the afternoon sun, as people went about their business, some pausing to stare at him. As a white foreigner, he was an object of curiosity, but their stares were respectful, not intrusive.

Evans found this place deeply compelling – even though he was wary of behaving like latter-day colonialists who patronisingly ‘fell in love’ with developing countries.

But he couldn’t help being captivated by the straightforward dignity of the Chinese people, and the way their courtesy and old-fashioned formality contrasted with the informality of their attire. Even on official visits, open necked shirts and slacks were the norm, and he had been happy to jettison his own tie and suit for more casual attire.

Paradoxically, the more he discovered, the more questions he had: especially about the use of power, and how ordinary people lived and thought.

The influence of global brands took him aback. The minibus assigned to the group was a Mitsubishi, and the first thing he had noticed on the drive from Beijing’s futuristic new airport was a giant billboard advertising the Japanese vehicle firm. Coca-Cola signs were also ubiquitous at tourist attractions.

Evans admired the way the Chinese had rebuilt after their liberation in 1949. Gone were the days when carts went round the streets of cities like Shanghai every morning at dawn, picking up scores of bodies of homeless paupers who had died in the night. Gone were the days when landowners used private armies to control and maintain peasants in a state of near starvation. But who was benefiting from all this consumerism? Certainly not the women pulling handcarts piled high with surplus produce from their communes to sell privately in street markets, their faces prematurely aged with fatigue.

The hourly chime sounded on his digital watch, which had half a dozen knobs and carried as many different functions: from a miniature calculator to an alarm. Better get back to the hotel, have a shower and freshen up before the sticky humidity of the evening and his important appointment.

But there was a note in his room from Jenny. She couldn’t make it, so he would have to see the student Hu and his father alone. Disappointing – and disconcerting. He would have felt more secure with her: she was the politico; he just a scientist.

Evans poured himself a cup of jasmine tea from the thermos flask which seemed always to be topped up. Every hotel room had one, together with a set of cups with elegant lids. Checking that his notebook was in his jacket pocket, he looked out of the window.

It was ten minutes before Hu was due. But the young man was already there, standing unobtrusively several metres from the gates, apparently studying the traffic, deliberately not looking at the hotel.

Then, Evans froze.

One minute Hu was there, the next he was surrounded by three men, hustled towards a black saloon in the hotel car park and bundled in. Evans saw him struggling, caught a last glimpse of his gaunt face: his expression of despair vanishing behind the car’s curtains as the door was slammed, and the saloon roared away.

Despite the warmth of the afternoon, Evans shivered. He recalled Hu’s haunted look; the furtive arrangements to meet his father – now so cruelly aborted.

Nobody seemed to notice, still less to care. Not the cyclists, not the pedestrians, not the tourists hanging around the hotel. Only him. And who on earth could he trust?

He felt a surge of disbelief, remembering the notebook incident and the confrontation with Wang. Then resentment. All he had wanted was to visit China. Just as an observer – not a bloody activist.

Evans sat down to pour a fresh cup of tea, nervously spilling it onto the table. An image of the stranger jumping belatedly on and off last night’s bus flashed through his mind.

Robert Temba’s eyes took an age to open. He stared dully at the two figures bending over him: one clad in white, the other wearing dark glasses.

He didn’t want to wake up. Better just to lie there – but the dark glasses triggered something deep down in his numbed mind.

The glasses were signalling to him … what? Couldn’t get his thoughts together – and his body told him not to. Much easier to close his eyes and rest again. But the glasses kept shining, recognising him. Or was he recognising them?

Then a voice, also far away. ‘Robert – can you hear me? It’s Keith.’

Temba tried to bring the voice nearer, to get hold of it. But it kept slipping away.

He closed his eyes. Bliss. Leave me alone.

‘Robert! Please wake up! It’s important.’

Suddenly, it all came tumbling back. The face behind the glasses – that familiar voice …

The instant he recognised his old friend Keith Makuyana, he remembered the searing, terrible roar of the explosion. Then the pain flooded back.

‘My fault.’ The words stuttered out of his dry, caked lips.

‘What was?’ Makuyana’s voice: gentle, encouraging.

‘The bomb. Should have checked. Must have been the Grassroots envelope.’

‘Grassroots? Are you sure?’ Makuyana sounded disbelieving.

‘Yes. Sure.’

‘What did it look like?’

His voice felt alien, like a machine. ‘Large. Brown envelope. Grassroots label. My daughter … No! Nomsa … my fault …’

He couldn’t continue, didn’t want to.

‘Leave me alone …’

His eyes were shutting. Didn’t want to open them again – ever.

The doctor motioned Makuyana away and smoothed the blanket. Grimly, she checked Temba’s pulse and temperature, focusing only on her patient.

Makuyana headed straight back to the control room, barking instructions to check out the Grassroots bookshop.

‘It was a local job. Bastard could be based here in Harare!’

While Makuyana’s staff combed the intelligence reports, Swanepoel was gazing at the evening ZTV news bulletin.

The broadcast led with his handiwork. Images of a shattered family home, bodies being taken away in canvas bags. Even he had to admit: it was not a pretty sight.

The bulletin highlighted the children’s deaths. He sneered. How predictable. He had grandchildren himself, but black kids weren’t worth his sympathy.

The Zimbabwean authorities were blaming ‘South African backed terrorists’. That didn’t surprise or worry him. They’d probably be looking for an outside group, and would focus their attention on the border.

He drove to a hotel where it was safer to make phone calls. Public call boxes were rare in Harare.

First, he called the mortuary, pretending to be a friend, and received the welcome confirmation that the entire family had died. Next, he tried to contact his handler – a businessman based in the city centre – but the man was unavailable, so he had no alternative but to make direct contact with Pretoria.

Direct dialling between Harare and the South African capital wasn’t too risky. But as soon as he had given the codename NOSLEN, he was careful to disguise the conversation as a family matter.

There was a chance that the Zimbabweans could monitor calls to Pretoria and Johannesburg: direct dialling to the Transvaal area was via a satellite link, and they had the technology to listen in.

He’d been warned that computerised eavesdropping could be programmed to identify key words and phrases. They could ‘suck’ suspicious phone calls out of the jumble of routine ones, and record them.

After buying some hamburgers and beer, Swanepoel returned home to eat and relax. He missed the familiar tones of the state-controlled South African Broadcasting Corporation and avoided local television, preferring to listen to Afrikaner folk songs on his cassette player.

Reaching for a fresh bottle of KWV brandy, he filled and swilled his favourite shaped glass, the aroma drifting pleasingly up to his nostrils. People said KWV wasn’t up to fine European...