Win a copy of the never-before-told story of working for 'Mandela's spies'
Jacana is giving away three copies of Bradley Steyn's account of working for the DIS
Image: Jacana Media
The year is 1988 and South Africa teeters on the edge of a state of emergency.
Seventeen-year-old Bradley Steyn crosses Pretoria's Strijdom Square and walks straight into a massacre. Barend Strydom, the notorious white supremacist known as the "Wit Wolf", is mowing down black bystanders relaxing in the square during their lunch break.
Bradley cradles a dying man in his arms. Later, with reports of eight dead and 16 seriously injured, he is brought face to face with the insanity of the nation.
Suffering from acute post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), unable to cope with day-to-day life and consumed by rage, Bradley spirals out of control.
His parents unwittingly initiate the next chapter in the story of the boy who crossed the square when they arrange for him to join the navy. Here, angry and unable to work though his trauma, he is called upon by the apartheid regime's Security Branch to "confront the threat of communism".
The navy serviceman joins the dreaded D Section of the Security Branch as a classified government enforcer - but not for long before the underground ANC's department of intelligence and security (DIS) recruits him.
On the political stage, events are changing fast: FW de Klerk becomes president, the ANC is unbanned and Nelson Mandela walks to freedom.
However, undermining this progress, a sinister "third force" has formed an alliance between the state's military intelligence and white supremacists. With these forces edging the nation toward a bloody race war, President FW de Klerk is forced to make a deal with Nelson Mandela.
Bradley is part of the DIS's plan to infiltrate the mysterious "third force" before all hope for a free future is destroyed. He goes undercover to help unravel the extremists' master plan – but will his time run out before they discover he is working for Mandela’s spies?
This astonishing true-life thriller reveals for the first time some of the dirty secrets of a dirty war.
Jacana Media is giving away three copies of Undercover With Mandela's Spies. To enter the competition, answer the following question: what section of the Security Branch did Bradley join? Mail your answer to Mila de Villiers (mila@book.co.za) by Monday June 10.
- Article provided by Jacana Media