Unofficial and Deniable. John Davis Gordon

ever known. The evening seemed a dream, a haze of breathtaking sensuality. And, oh, it felt like love.

      What was he going to do about this?

      He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling.

      He had lived long enough to know it couldn’t be love yet, of course. But it was certainly the start of that delicious phenomenon, and what was absolutely certain was that he did not want to let this woman go – he simply had to pursue it. But what was equally clear was that no way could he betray her.

      So there was only one honourable thing to do: get this publisher-author masquerade right out of the way, tell her that Harvest House could not publish her book, tell Felix Dupont that Josephine did not want him to do so because she had a better publisher in mind – and tell Dupont that he would learn absolutely nothing new about her anti-apartheid activities because she wasn’t interested in seeing him again.

      Harker sighed grimly at the ceiling.

      Yes, but when Dupont found out that he was still seeing her – as he would, sooner rather than later – the bastard would rub his hands in glee and put the screws on him to deliver information about her. He could not be party to a deception like that, so he would either have to deceive Dupont, or deliver insignificant information the bastard knew already.

      Or refuse.

      Yes, and if he refused he would be fired. Being fired from the CCB didn’t worry him – but fired from Harvest House? His American work-permit revoked? Sent back to Pretoria?

      Harker sighed again. The only alternative was to take up her offer of walking out: drop her right now. Tell her that last night was all a big mistake. And that Harvest House didn’t think it wise to publish a political book …

      Harker lay there beside her on the double bed in the glow of Manhattan’s lights. Yes, undoubtedly, that is what he should do. Get out of this potential briar patch of multiple deceit while he could still do so with reasonable grace and a reasonably clear conscience. It would wound her feelings, but only her pride and that would be good, she’d keep well away from him, from the clutches of the CC fucking B. In fact he would be the only one to be hurt.

      He lay there, thinking it through. At least he had to go through the motions of reading her book and rejecting it.

      He hated this. With all his lustful heart he just wanted to roll over and take her beautiful body in his arms again. But he had best get up and start reading that book so he could tell her when she woke up that Harvest would not publish it.

      He got up off the bed carefully so as not to waken her, and pulled on trousers. He picked up her folder and walked barefoot across the room. He stopped at the door and looked back at her. What a crying-out pity …

      It was one o’clock on a Sunday morning in June. He was wide-awake now. He went into his kitchen, opened the refrigerator and got a beer. He snapped the cap off and upended it to his mouth. He sighed grimly and returned to the living room, picked up the folder, and sat down on the sofa.

      And within ten minutes he knew that his decision, this whole thing, was an even bigger crying tragedy. Because this book was going to be brilliant.

      Harker went to the kitchen and got himself another beer. Christ, it was good. He had only speed-read thirty pages in ten minutes but if the next two hundred were as good it was going to be a bestseller. Oh, it needed editing, she was a slash-and-burn writer who wrote wrote wrote, letting it all hang out, repeating herself shamelessly, flying off on descriptive tangents that left the reader both breathless and impatient. But it was brilliant. Harker returned to the sofa with his bottle of beer. He stared out of the bay window at the pretty little courtyard.

      What was he going to say to her about this? How could he tell her that her book didn’t have promise?

      He took a tasteless swig of his beer.

       You tell her it’s got loads of promise but you don’t consider it’s suitable for Harvest House because Harvest doesn’t publish political works, you solemnly advise her to take her brilliant book to Random House when it’s finished, or Doubleday or one of the other big guns who throw money around like confetti hyping up books.

      He sighed. Just the book Harvest needed to really put itself fair and square at the upper part of the publishing totem pole. But worse than that, much, much worse, was that not only did he have to tell her it wasn’t worth Harvest’s while publishing, he also had to watch this beautiful, talented woman walk off into the morning, freeze her out, tell his secretary to make excuses that he wasn’t in, not return her calls. Whereas all he wanted to do was walk back into that bedroom and take her glorious body in his arms.

      Harker took a deep breath, and reverted to her typescript.

      It was called Outrage. It showed an astonishing grasp of the causes of the great South African historical drama: in the first forty pages Josephine Valentine transported the reader through the Frontier Wars of the eastern Cape, through the Great Trek that followed, the turbulent opening up of the Cape Colony’s northern frontier by the Dutch wagoneers rebelliously moving away from the recent British occupation of the Cape of Good Hope and their Abolition of Slavery Act. Then came the horrors of the Mfecane, Shaka’s crushing, the battles with Mzilikazi’s Matabeles and Dingaan’s Zulus, the establishment of the independent Voortrekker republics, the discovery of gold and the bitter Boer War that brought them back into the British Empire, through the horrors of two World Wars where the defeated Boers fought for their British victors against their German soulmates. It was a gripping piece of storytelling. Somehow, through these opening rampant pages, Josephine Valentine had managed to weave in her principal characters, American clipper-ship captains who traded, lived and loved amongst these rough tough Boers until the reader leapt a hundred years to 1948 when the Boers triumphed in the elections, won their beloved South Africa back from the British and immediately instituted their policy of apartheid to contain the Black Peril.

      Harker stared through the window at the dark courtyard. The book showed a professorial understanding of the background to the modern curse of apartheid, its roots in the battles of not so long ago. All this Josephine had squeezed digestibly into forty bounding pages, making it high adventure: it showed remarkable narrative talent. How could he tell the author differently? Harvest House should jump for joy and shout Hallelujah for stumbling upon this book which should make any publisher a lot of money.

      He gave a sigh, took a swig of his beer and read on.

      The next thirty pages encapsulated the oppressive doctrine of apartheid in a speech in parliament by the descendant of the American traders which tore the doomed policy to tatters, heaping shame upon its creators, proving its folly, its cruelty, its repressiveness, evoking pity for its black victims. It was a brilliant speech made poignant by the vivid character who articulated it – everything anybody would want to allege against apartheid, logical argument unfolding irresistibly, yet all in narrative form.

       Christ, this woman can write.

      Harker got up off the sofa and walked back to the kitchen. He reached for a bottle of whisky and poured a big dash. He stood at the sink, staring out of the back window.

      It squeezed his heart to turn down a book like this. And it broke his heart to walk away from this woman.

      But he had to do both. If he did not, Dupont would get his hooks into her, Harker would either have to betray her or lie to Dupont – either way led to a treacherous, duplicitous life. No – he had to be cruel to be honourable, cruellest of all to himself – because all he wanted to do right now was walk back into that bedroom and enfold that beautiful, talented, captivating woman, and then wake up beside her at midday and take her to brunch and drink wine while he looked into her big earnest eyes and told her how great she was, how Harvest House was behind her all the way, what a talented person she was, how captivating, how she was stealing his heart … He walked back towards the living room and abruptly halted in the doorway.

      The most beautiful, most talented, most captivating woman in the world stood before him, fully dressed, her book clasped to her breast, her hair awry.

      ‘I’m