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let...'
    'Is it going to help, Tau?'
    'What do you mean?'
    'Is it going to help to get someone into one of those houses?
A few more photos of them coming and going. That gives us nothing new. We need
to know what they are talking about.'
    'Ma'am, we are planning a great deal more than a camera.'
    'Oh?'
    'We are going to erect cellphone antennae, parabolic microphones
...'
    Mentz made a dismissive gesture.
    Masilo wasn't put off his stride. 'Look at this, for example,
here on the front wall. If we can replace one of these screws with an electro-
acoustic microphone ...'
    'If?'
    'Ma'am, you know we have to do surveillance first.'
    'Tau, sometimes I get the impression that we are just
playing. With all this technology, with the idea of espionage. It's all so
filmic, so much fun and excitement. But when it comes to results, we fall
short.'
    'I object...'
    'You can object all you want, but where are the results? We
had Ismail Mohammed inside, we tried to tap them with technology that I don't
completely understand, and here we are. In the dark.'
    'Not entirely.'
    Janina Mentz pulled a face and shook her head. 'Bring me
results, Tau.'
    He
smiled at her. 'We will.'
    19 August 2009. Wednesday.
    'Would you describe yourself as ambitious?' asked the
maternal, middle-aged Mrs Nkosi.
    Milla thought before she answered, because she suspected it
was a trick question. 'I believe if you work hard, if you fulfil your
responsibilities faithfully and to the best of your ability, you can be
successful.'
    Mrs Nkosi said 'uh-huh' again happily and wrote something on
her papers. Then she looked up. 'Tell me a bit about yourself. Your
background.'
    Milla had expected that, and prepared for it. 'I was born in
Wellington, I grew up and finished school there. My mother was a housewife ...'
    'A home maker,' said Mrs Nkosi, as if it were the most noble
of professions.
    'Yes,'
said Milla. 'And my father was a businessman, I suppose you could say ...'
    Operation Shawwal
    Transcription: Audio surveillance, M. Strachan. No 74 Daven Court,
    Davenport
Street, Vredehoek
    Date and Time: 7 October 2009. 23.09
    MS: They were Afrikaner hippies, my mom and dad. Very eccentric, very different
from the other children's parents. I still don't know whether. . . what effect
it had on me. There was a time when I was so ashamed of them ... I mean, my mom was ... Sometimes she walked around the
house in the nude when we were alone. My dad smoked dope now and then. In our
sitting room. He worked from home. The garage was his workshop. He fixed cash
registers, at first. Then computers...
He was ... not just eccentric, he was clever. He read widely,
science, history, philosophy... He
was a great fan of Bertrand Russell, he considered himself a relatively
political pacifist, his favourite quotation was 'free intellect is the chief
engine of human progress' ...
     
    'I got married the year I completed my honours in journalism.
Also pregnant. Then home maker ...' she let the designation hang between them
with a bashful smile, because it was Mrs Nkosi's.'... for seventeen years. And
now I am on my own again. I must add, that I am not officially Strachan yet. It
is my maiden name, but the divorce is not through ...'
    'Good for you,' said Mrs Nkosi. 'How long have you been on
your own?'
    'Oh a few months already.' A lie, born of necessity. 'Good,'
said Mrs Nkosi. Milla had no idea why. The entire experience had a certain surreal
feeling. The employment agency was a disappointment. On the fifth floor of a
charmless building in Wale Street, the letters on the door were small and
unimaginative. Perfect Placement Employment Brokers. The furniture and decor were without character, vaguely depressing. Which
magazine was the position for,
    she wondered. A small industrial publication? A new, free
suburban newspaper?
    They chatted for over an hour and a half, wandered off in
slightly apologetic exploration of her background, her personality, her opinions
and ideology, every answer rewarded