Prologue
Robben Island, 31 January 1966
The Great Man, whose face would become the most recognised on earth and who was destined to be one of the political giants of the twentieth century, leaned on his shovel, as a labourer might do, in a lime quarry on Robben Island.
It was a mid-afternoon in January 1966 and a family of springboks, introduced recently from the mainland, hopped and skipped their way to a favourite pasture along a line where sea met land. The background of their silhouette changed from the brown and green of the land as they gathered for a jump, to the blue of the sea as they reached its apex and then back to brown and green as gravity exercised its dictatorship.
Only a headshot would guarantee death with the 9mm Patchett
sub-machine-gun he was using.
These interlopers were ignored by the jackass penguins who sunned themselves on the beach, their coats ruffled by the summer winds blowing in from Antarctica across the great Southern Ocean; dust devils skittered across the landscape as the air-currents brought a welcome breath of coolness to the quarry labourers.
Seventy metres away, on a knoll above the quarry, an ordinary man was lying, his camouflage clothing blending in with the surrounding green and brown bushes. This man´s face would be recognised by only a few: his friends, wife, children and colleagues. Neither he nor the Great man would ever meet; manipulation by others had brought them to this same place at the same time but at a distance from each other, to play their part in what would be a tragedy for one of them.
The sniper set his sight on the Great Man's face, just where nose and forehead met. Only a headshot would guarantee death with the 9mm Patchett sub- machine-gun he was using because its silencer would reduce the bullet's muzzle velocity by up to one third.
The Great Man was still, looking towards the knoll as though co-operating with the sniper. The sight´s cross hairs were focused just right; the sniper applied pressure to the trigger, breathed in deeply, half exhaled and held his breath.