Free Mortals by Norman Rush Page A

airports, or was it just that he was so used to this one?… its homely khaki main building with the black, white, and blue national colors painted in stripes across the front above the window … the presentation of various national flags over the main entrance unchanged and untended since the day the flags were raised. He wondered if anyone had ever complained about the sunbleached, bedraggled condition of the flags? Probably not, since all of them were getting equal disrespect. He liked the faint permanent insult of kerosene in the air. From the kiosk, he looked out at a nondescript escarpment wavering in the distance behind the heat waves rising from the runway.
    He bought a pine nut soda and drank half of it leaning against the railings around the Independence Monument, a boulder set in a bed of white pebbles and bearing an enameled representation of the national logo, a medley of black and white hands seemingly pulling in opposite directions on a quoit. I belong here, Ray thought.
    He went around to the back of the Customs complex and waited. Victor would see him.
    His man was hardly the only asset in the airport. Ray was pretty sure the British had their own contact in Customs, as they did in the Air Botswana office. The Russians had tried to line up someone in the control tower. He wasn’t quite sure how it was done, but the Americans, the Brits, and the Russians, at least, had regular and early access to the air passenger lists. Two other intelligence services had contacts in Immigration. The Chinese had assets in the maintenance staff. It can’t be helped, he thought, airports are of interest … it looks like an airport but …
    He felt cold for a moment. A good idea was not to let the image of a society invisibly occupied at certain key points by people who aren’t what they purport to be get out of hand. And it was important not to forget the South Africans, who were in here somewhere.
    His man, Victor Mfolwe, was an elder in the Zionist Christian Church and looked the part, in his gauntness, the gravity of his manner, and in his unvarying costume, an aged but immaculate black business suit with a Zed CC medal and swatch always pinned to the left lapel. All Ray’s payments to Victor, in South African rands at Victor’s request, were referred to by both of them as church donations. The Zed CC was an enigma.
    The main body of the church was across the border in the Transvaal. It was well known that they had an accommodation with the South African government. But he had no reason to distrust Victor, who had been productive for him. He shook the gate to attract Victor’s attention. He meant to find out more about the Zed CC when he had the time.
    Victor arrived, inwardly on fire over something, his eyes alive.
    Ray was let in fumblingly. Normally Victor was deft and quick.
    Ray couldn’t see any need to run, but they were going to, apparently. Victor never showed excitement, so this was puzzling.
    The interior of the warehouse was divided into cagements that locked individually. The cage Victor had led them to was one of the larger ones. Again Victor was having difficulty addressing the combination lock. He stopped to dry his hands on the tails of the dustcoat he wore over his suit. The sides of the cage had been draped with blue tarpaulins and a worklight had been dropped over into the cage. They entered.
    Victor closed them in, composed himself, and remembered that he had neglected to greet Ray.
    “Dumela, rra,” he said.
    “Dumela.”
    “O tsogile jang?”
    “Ke tsogile sentle, wena o tsogile jang?”
    “Ke tsogile sentle.”
    Victor made a slight involuntary hunching movement revealing his relief that the ritual exchange of greetings had been accomplished.
    There were ten shipping cartons, the maximum size, all marked as containing personal effects. They were here because although they had originated as seat freight, the last leg of their transportation had been via air, from Durban.
    Well thank