will remain anonymous but they are the heroes of this book. One day, when we emerge from this mess – and I have no doubt we will – they should be honoured for revealing the true colours of Jacob Zuma, and also of people such as Richard Mdluli, Nomgcobo Jiba, Lawrence Mrwebi, Berning Ntlemeza, Arthur Fraser, Prince Mokotedi and Tom Moyane. These latter folk will not be remembered for contributing positively to state institutions. Under their reign, crime has spiralled, thugs have walked free, prosecutions and convictions of organised criminals have disintegrated, tax collection has dropped and state revenue has decreased.
Instead of strengthening our democracy, they will go down in history as people who were prepared to sell their souls, to sup with the devil, to keep Zuma out of prison and in power. These are Jacob Zuma's keepers: the people who have brought our beautiful country to the brink of a mafia state.
One
The spy in the cold
How the hell do you track down a spy in Moscow, a metropolis of 14 million residents, 7 million cars and 203 metro stations? It might have been the stamping ground of spying and counter-intelligence during the Cold War but these days it's a city on steroids where super-rich oligarchs buy Greek islands and London football clubs and commission Jennifer Lopez to perform at the weddings of their offspring. Soaring skyscrapers stand side by side with granite feats of Stalinist architecture, and Mercedes-Maybachs and Aston Martins roar past the remnants of boxy Ladas on six-lane highways.
What has happened to the armies of snoops and spooks who floated like ghouls across Red Square with bulges in their pockets and poison-tipped umbrellas in their hands; and who concocted conspiracies in hushed voices in stolovayas – Soviet government canteens – while gulping down stinky kolbasa sausages with Moskovskaya vodka?
I had just spent a substantial amount of money on an air ticket, subjected myself to a torturous flight across three continents and abandoned my new life as a chef and restaurateur in the hope of tracking down a former South African spy who I believed had a hell of a story to tell. I was like a rehabilitated drug addict who after two years of abstinence was about to stick a needle in my arm and propel heroin through my veins. I was attempting to do exactly what I had vowed never to do again: immerse myself in the seamy world and fortunes of low-lifes and charlatans, fraudsters and crooks, conmen and swindlers.
I was beset by a mixture of guilt, doubt and apprehension when we approached Moscow's Domodedovo International Airport. Under the belly of the Emirates Airbus was mounted a camera that beamed pictures of the landscape to the television screen on the back of the seat in front of me. We had flown for hundreds of kilometres over a patchwork blanket of white fields and dark woodland. I realised there is no colour in an iced landscape; it's all shades of white, grey and black. The airport was way out of the city and was surrounded by farmland and tiny villages that stood frozen in the face of daily blizzards. Cars were buried under snow and there were no signs of life except for grey smoke belching from tall, thin chimneys.
Domodedovo is an unfriendly place. After we had disembarked, I stood in a queue that snaked around silver-coloured metallic dividers. A sense of paranoia permeated the air. Border policemen clutching Kalashnikovs eyeballed arrivals with looks that could kill. I was anxious. It is notoriously difficult to get a Russian visa, especially for an independent traveller (visas have since been scrapped for South Africans). You require what is called a “visa invitation”, an official document issued by an accredited Russian travel company that confirms that you have submitted a full itinerary and that your accommodation and travel have been prepaid. I didn't have time to go through the formal channels and instead bought papers for £30 from a London-based company. I had within half an hour a bogus document in Russian, confirming a full (false) itinerary and containing a host of stamps and signatures. The Russian consulate in Cape Town accepted the invitation, but I had to take copies of my documents with me because customs in Moscow might require them.
Moscow has recently been named as the most tourist-unfriendly city in the world. There are no welcoming signs at the airport or any indication that the authorities want foreigners in their country. A blue-uniformed immigration commissar awaited me in a booth at the front of my queue. She probably came to work every day in one of those fucked-up Ladas and had a permanent frown on her forehead that was partly covered by a peroxided fringe. A set of glasses that Lenin's Bolshevik Republic issued to her grandmother balanced on her nose. She asked the passenger in front of me for a document. He scratched frantically in his bag. He was of Middle Eastern origin and I hoped that that was the reason why his documents were scrutinised. Russia was bombing Islamic State in Syria and was in the organisation's cross-hairs.
When my turn came, she studied my passport – page for page – under a magnifying glass. News might have reached the expanse between the Great Steppe and the Baltic that South African travel documents were easy to obtain on the black market. She then looked up at me, down at the passport and up at me again. Come on, comrade, I thought, it's a new passport! She scribbled for a long time and stamped many papers. Without uttering a word, she waved me through with a slapping action to face customs – an equally frightening and inquisitive lot. Outside the building I was greeted by sharp blades of icy wind that threatened to cut my face open. It was also a perplexing English-less world because every signpost, nameplate or noticeboard was in Cyrillic script. It left you bewildered, like a rudderless ship with a spinning compass in an open and hostile ocean.
It was just past three in the afternoon and a dingily bilious sun was seeping through a tent of black clouds, their bellies heavy with snow. Moscow's taxi brigades are notorious for ripping off foreigners. I approached one that wanted 8,000 rubles (about R1,700) for the journey to the hotel. He shoved a map in front of me and pointed at the distance between the airport and my hotel. I waved my hands, protested loudly in English and walked away. We settled on 3,000 rubles. He shook my hand, babbled incessantly and took swigs from a flask while swerving through the traffic and negotiating the icy roads.
Moscow's frenzied traffic was almost the only audible sound at the height of winter. Birds had long since headed south for sunnier pastures, the city's café society had emigrated indoors, playgrounds and parks were empty, and Muscovites themselves were like dark ghosts, clad in fur, wool or leather with scarves wrapped around their necks and ushanka caps on their heads and over their ears. They floated effortlessly and silently over the snowy brown sludge and cut like blades through the Arctic breeze. It was impossible to walk at their pace – as futile as trying to keep up with a Masai in the scrub and savannah of southern Kenya.
Moscow and Russia have always been high on my bucket list and I have throughout my journalism career submitted story proposals that included a trip to Russia. They were all shot down, and when I left the profession at the end of 2014, I had given up hope of ever strolling on Red Square or downing a shot of vodka in a Russian bar.
This was until November 2016, when I received a phone call from a former employee of the State Security Agency (SSA). I had last spoken to him when I was still a journalist and did a story on major corruption in the agency.
“Do you remember Arthur Fraser?” he asked me.
“The new guy at State Security?”
“That's the bugger! Well, I've got a name for you. And an e-mail address.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“The guy that did the corruption investigation into Fraser. He knows everything. His name is Paul Engelke.”
“I'm not a journalist any longer,” I told him. “I'm a chef!”
“I know,” he said. “But I thought you'd be interested. I've also been told that he might be willing to talk.”
“Why would Engelke talk?” I wanted to know. “It's dangerous for him.”
“I've been told that he had left the service and is bitter.”
“Interesting,” I said. Journalists feast on the disgruntled and those that are intent on revenge. But I wasn't a journalist any longer. I was now the owner of a 60-seater restaurant, bar and guesthouse. It was the onset of summer and the establishment was packed over weekends as Capetonians flocked to the Swartland to get married,