Gold Page 23

  It was midnight when Collington’s telephone rang.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Collington was alerted immediately and automatically about any emergency. He was already on his way to the airstrip, responding to the alert about Witwatersrand Three, when the second call came about mine One. By the time he got to the company helicopter there was news of Five and Two and before they received control tower clearance, the pattern was complete, with the explosion at Four.

  ‘What the hell is this, a war?’ demanded the pilot.

  Collington was in the co-pilot’s seat so that he could fly connected to the earphones and receive the latest bulletins. He didn’t respond to the pilot, instead gazing down at the necklace of lights around the capital and the velvet blackness of the veld beyond. It couldn’t be this! He was prepared to believe almost anything about Metzinger. But he could not conceive that the Afrikaner had in some way arranged with Wassenaar and Janet Simpson the simultaneous bombing of the company’s five mines, in order to affect the share balance. The Afrikaners might be determined to upset control of the company, but it was preposterous to consider them capable of something like this: this was elaborate, co-ordinated sabotage, something beyond their ability and resources. So what in God’s name had happened? It didn’t make sense, any of it. There was only one thing of which he was certain and the knowledge frightened him. The share fluctuation was going to be far more dramatic than he had ever calculated. The mine holdings were vast, extending beyond gold: there was coal and copper and uranium and diamonds and all of them would be affected by an attack like this. There were four thousand issued shares in gold alone, spread in pockets of varying sizes amongst small investors who would hear the news of the bombing on their morning radios and, by the time the market opened, would be sitting by their telephones, waiting to see what would happen.

  And Collington knew what would happen. Across the board, in all their mining divisions, there would be a shiver of nervousness. The first effects would be felt upon the shares of the parent company. The moment the SAGOMI shares dropped, the mood would spread to the separate companies. The quickest and severest dip, inevitably, would be in the gold. It would go below five. Collington had prepared himself to pick up the 253,000 combined holdings of Metzinger, Janet Simpson and Wassenaar. But not the thousands of others that would be offloaded in those first hours of panic.

  By complete and utter accident, by placing automatic purchase orders at five points below market par, Collington had assembled the most effective barrier against the sort of panic that would arise from the disaster towards which he was flying. The value couldn’t drop below five. Because he was buying at that valuation. In a day or two, a week at most, the market confidence from his buying would bring the strength back to the shares. It was an impossible assessment to make so soon, but Collington calculated that by then he would have exhausted his personal commitment of £4,000,000 and probably drawn upon the majority of his £15,000,000 standby credit. And if he spent a total of £19,000,000 on ten per cent margin purchases, that meant that within twenty-eight days he would be required to pay out a further£l 71,000,000 to settle his brokerage orders in full.

  Which he didn’t have. Nor did he have any way of raising that amount without the support of the company. And he couldn’t seek company backing until he had clarified the involvement of Metzinger, Wassenaar and Janet Simpson. There was an escape, Collington recognised. He could be ready, when the brokerage offices opened. And withdraw the buy orders. He would not be able to cover them all before the trading began, but he could minimise his losses.

  But if he did that, the block would be removed from the selling. Millions would be wiped off the value of the companies. And the Afrikaners would succeed in their coup.

  So what was he going to do? Gamble? Or run? It wasn’t a question, Collington thought at once – not one that he had to consider, anyway. He’d gamble on being able to beat them, in a twenty-eight-day time limit. And if he failed, he’d go bankrupt. He’d aimed high, all his life. To go broke for £171,000,000 was high enough.

  The radio crackled, blurred by static, and Collington tensed forward. He had demanded the information before they had taken off and smiled in fleeting relief when it was relayed. No one had been killed at either Witwatersrand Three or One and only eight of the injuries were regarded as serious. As the machine was putting down at Three, Collington heard of the first death at mine Two, but that hadn’t resulted directly from any blast: an elderly timekeeper had suffered a heart attack and died.

  There was pandemonium at Witwatersrand Three. Six hundred men had been brought up safely from the mine and were milling aimlessly around the shaft-head. The alarm siren had echoed through the black settlements where the workers lived. Wives and relatives of those on the shift were flooding in, imagining their men trapped below, and the off-duty miners came as well, some out of curiosity and others to help with any rescue attempts. There were rumours that there were some people still trapped below and the women who couldn’t immediately locate their men began to panic and scream, setting up the ululating African wail of grief. Only immediately around the shaft entrance was there a cleared area, a radius of little more than twenty yards created by a linked-arm cordon of South African security police.

  Collington clawed his way forward, pushing and thrusting people aside. At the police barrier, an officer threw his arm across Collington’s chest and just as roughly Collington swept it aside, shouting his identity into the man’s face and demanding to see the officer in charge. The man went for his baton and Collington shouted his name again, then that of the company. He would probably have been clubbed down in the confusion, but for the nearness of the superintendent. The man nodded and led him through and Collington hurried across the floodlit area, squinting at the brightness towards the knot of mine officials.

  There he was recognised at once. The local manager identified himself as a man called Jorgensen and introduced the mine engineer as Becker. It was obvious both men had just come up. They were still wearing their lamp helmets. Their protective clothing was mud-slimed and soaked, clinging to their bodies.

  ‘How bad?’ shouted Collington.

  ‘Bad enough,’ said Becker. ‘The river’s breached on the middle level. Water’s maybe four feet deep and would be deeper if it weren’t going down into the third section.’

  ‘What about the pumps?’

  ‘They’ll be able to reduce it, but not appreciably. And it’ll only need one or two pump failures for us to fall behind. We’ll have to seal off the river.’

  ‘How long?’

  Collington thought the man was going to swear at him for the stupidity of the question. There was a visible tightening of Becker’s mouth as he controlled himself. He said: ‘I’ve got four teams working down there now. It’s impossible to give an estimate. There’s God knows how many thousands of gallons to be pumped out, even if we dam the river.’

  ‘Is it true the other mines have been attacked?’ Jorgensen demanded of Collington.

  ‘Every one,’ confirmed Collington. ‘All within an hour of the first explosion here.’

  The superintendent who had allowed Collington to enter the closed-off area had joined the group. ‘Goddamned Communists,’ he said, as Collington confirmed the extent of the damage.

  ‘What proof have we here?’ demanded Collington, turning to the man.

  The security officer looked back at him in apparent bewilderment. ‘Who else could organise something as widespread as this, apart from one of the black organisations?’

  ‘It was definitely planned explosions, down here anyway,’ said Becker.

  ‘I’m going to the other sites,’ Collington said to the man. ‘I know it won’t be easy and I know I’m asking a lot, but I want as complete a report as possible by midday tomorrow on the extent of the damage, the length of time it is going to take to make the necessary repairs and how long it will be before we can begin even partial production.’

  Because h
e knew that every one of their mines had been sabotaged and that there was no point in maintaining a sequence, Collington ordered that they fly to the nearest, in a direct line. That was Witwatersrand Five and it proved a fortunate choice, because it was one of the least damaged. Control was better there, the crowd cordoned back not just from the mine-head but to the sides as well, so that a roadway had been formed. The engineer was a man called Robertson and the manager someone named Walton or Wilton, which Collington didn’t even attempt to clarify in his impatience.

  ‘We seem to be luckier than most,’ said Robertson. He lifted his hand and Collington saw he was carrying a short-wave radio; he guessed contact had been established between all the mines by now.

  ‘What is it?’ he said.

  ‘A few rock-falls, on the second or third. Maybe two or three days to clear and check the can-tracking,’ reported Robertson. ‘Worst damage at number one. The tunnel is completely blocked here and we don’t know yet how far it goes back.’

  ‘I want to go down,’ said Collington.

  The manager shouted towards the time-keeper’s hut and a lamp helmet and cover-alls were hurried out and handed to Collington with a grin of embarrassment. They were much too small for him, ending a good foot and a half above his ankles and cutting into his groin.

  ‘Let’s go,’ said Collington, careless of his appearance.

  The main electricity supply had been cut, as a precautionary measure against fire, and the cage was lowered by an emergency generator. Collington was almost immediately conscious of the heat and turned to Robertson. ‘What’s happened to the refrigeration?’ he asked.

  ‘That was sabotaged, too.’

  ‘By the explosion?’

  ‘No,’ said the engineer. ‘Something else.’

  The cage came to a lurching halt and they emerged on the first level. Temporary, battery-powered illumination had been strung along the shaft, giving an incongruous appearance of party lighting. Although it was three hours since the explosion, dust was still swirling in the air, catching the back of Collington’s throat and forcing him to swallow. As he approached the men already working at the main blockage, he saw several were wearing breathing apparatus.

  ‘Here,’ said Robertson.

  Collington went towards the equipment against which the man was standing, straining up to see what he was pointing at. Then he saw the punctures in the gas return pipes.

  ‘Looks like a pick edge. Or a spike of some sort,’ said Robertson. ‘And look here.’

  Collington followed the man to the emergency system and saw the stains where the suddenly released liquid had spurted out at the sudden moment of release.

  ‘What’s it mean?’ he demanded.

  ‘It would have made us inoperative,’ said Robertson. ‘We’d have been unworkable until we repaired it. But it wouldn’t have been as prolonged as the sort of shutdown the explosions will have caused.’

  ‘Could they be independent acts?’ asked Collington.

  ‘Unlikely, don’t you think?’ said Robertson. ‘This looks very organised to me. Not haphazard. And they’ve found the same thing at Two and at One. There’s a connection, but I can’t think what it is.’

  Robertson moved away for a muttered conversation with the men attempting to clear the main blockage and then returned, shaking his head. ‘Still no idea how far it goes back,’ he said.

  ‘What are the other two levels like?’

  ‘Much better, like I said,’ reminded Robertson. ‘I’ve got men working on both of them. I reckon we could clear both sections to get some sort of production moving within twenty-four hours. It’ll probably be more difficult to repair the refrigeration.’

  ‘They did it on every level?’ said Collington.

  ‘Always the same,’ confirmed Robertson. ‘Something sharp, driven into the pipe so that we lost compression and the gas leaked out.’

  They were winched slowly and in darkness, apart from the narrow beam from their helmet lamps, back up to the surface. The heat and the extra layer of clothing had soaked Collingtonwith sweat, so that his clothes hung about him as wetly as they had upon the officials at the first mine. The manager had obtained a car from somewhere, so Collingtondid not have to walk back to where the helicopter was waiting, its rotor arms hanging like the limp wings of some insect. As soon as he got into the cabin, the pilot gave him an updated repon of the damage. Collington decided to visit Witwatersrand Two next.

  By the time he arrived, a plan had already been thumb-tacked to a blackboard set up at the shaft-head, to brief the damage ex pens before they descended. The manager stood, pointer in hand, tracing it through the cross-section illustration of the mine, indicating the destruction they had so far discovered on each working.

  ‘How long to get the first level back into production?’ demanded Collington, at the end. it only seems to be tracking.’

  It’s all the tracking,’ said the man. ‘And all the drive motors. The refrigeration is shattered. I’d say a fortnight, working nonstop.’

  Collington frowned at the pessimism. ‘What about the rest?’

  ‘Longer,’ said the man. ‘Much longer. Three months, I’d say.’

  Collington’s depression increased when he got a similar estimate from the engineer at mine One. He asked if he could make a personal inspection again and the man shook his head, doubtfully. ‘No problem on the first, because nothing happened there, except to the refrigeration. On the second level we’ve counted at least eight roof-falls and it’s still dropping, at the slightest disturbance. Third level is incredible: there’s hardly a recognisable shaft visible.’

  Because the damage was slightest at Four, they remained there for the briefest period of time, just long enough for Collington to gauge a production resumption date and confirm that the greatest difficulty would be cooling the mine.

  Dawn broke as the helicopter lifted off and set course for Pretoria, a great orange and peach blush spreading over the skyline and warming through the veld below, changing the blacks and browns into ochres and yellows. A family of sedate giraffe skittered nervously as the sound of the helicopter reached them; and a herd of elephant prepared themselves for the heat of the day in a dust bowl, scattering the red earth over their backs with their trunks.

  Collington returned to the cabin, taking a clipboard from a side pocket and strapping it to his thigh, so he could make his assessment while they flew. Witwatersrand One and Two were probably the worst, with Three submerged in an unknown quantity of floodwater and therefore not much better. Five was quite good and Four could be back in production within a week, if they could rush the refrigeration equipment through.

  Collington arrived back in Pretoria gritty-eyed through lack of sleep, his face stubbled by beard. His suit was mud-caked and concertinaed by dried perspiration at every fold and crease, but he decided against wasting time at Parkstown. Instead he went straight from the airstrip to the SAGOMI building. There was a still, expectant mood throughout the building; people were gathered together in gossiping groups, seeking either sensation or reassurance.

  Collington thrust into his set of offices, shouting for Geoffrey Wall to follow him. The American was in step almost immediately, and they entered Collington’s private suite one behind the other.

  ‘OK,’ said Collington. ‘How bad is it?’

  ‘Something like an avalanche, when trading started,’ said his personal assistant. ‘It’s amazingly difficult, trying to read a pattern. It steadied at six, immediately lifted to five, and there it’s stayed for the past hour. Currently we’re four below last night’s market par, on both SAGOMI and the mines.’

  Collington sank gratefully into his chair, leaning forward to cup his head in his hands. He was too weary to make the conversion himself, so he said: ‘Tell me, in sterling, the total value of the shares that were offered for trading.’

  There was a moment’s quiet while the man made a calculation and then he said, still cautious, ‘It’ll be an estimate, you understand.’ />
  ‘That’s all I want,’ said Collington.

  ‘I guess about £120,000,000.’

  Not as bad as he had calculated, but it was going to be a lot of money to raise in a short time.

  ‘All the directors, apart from Mr Jenkins, have come in,’ said Wall. ‘They want an immediate meeting.’

  ‘I bet they do,’ said Collington.

  ‘Sensational,’ said Moreton, his enthusiasm echoing down the telephone line. ‘Absolutely sensational. I’m going to recommend a commendation to the Director personally. Absolutely sensational.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ said Englehart. Objectively he supposed only two dead was something approaching the miraculous, but he still felt it was too many.

  ‘It’ll make the point to Hassan,’ said the Treasury Secretary, and Englehart winced at his carelessness on an open telephone line.

  ‘I’m wrapping the whole operation up,’ he said. ‘I want to get the people out as soon as possible, even though things have gone so well.’

  ‘No!’ said Moreton, at once.

  Englehart felt a wash of helplessness sweep over him. ‘Why not?’ he said.

  ‘Be wrong to get out too soon,’ said Moreton. ‘This is going too well to leave it. Just stay where you are. Enjoy yourselves. We’ll talk about it again in a few days.’

  In a few days, thought Englehart, Moreton would be safe in the comfort of Washington. And he’d be here with his neck on the fucking block, five thousand miles from home. And five thousand miles from the clapboard house at Cape Cod and the retirement pension.

  Brigitte re Jong had been finding sleep increasingly difficult and so she had taken to listening to the earliest newscasts. It was there that she heard the first flash about the mine explosions, driving away any chance of rest for the remainder of the early morning. She got out of bed and lit a cigarette and sat with it smouldering in her hand, considering the implications. Speculators and investors and bullion dealers and everyone else who wanted to get in on the act would link the South African suspension to their expeaation of an attack that had materialised. There would be an automatic assumption of a gold starvation and the price was going to be uncontainable.