Seed of the Assagai

Book excerpt: It is the mid-1980s in South Africa. The white minority of this black nation is fighting--politically and physically--to maintain its leadership. Into this unstable environment comes Shaka II, the descendant of a feared nineteenth-century warrior and Zulu king of the same name. Like his ancestor, this twentieth-century militant and charismatic leader has assembled an army of ferocious, loyal fighters that embarks on a bloody campaign to topple white rule. Shaka's warriors began an uprising by slaughtering a prominent South African family. Yury Isakov, a KGB agent posing as a hydroelectric engineer, offers Shaka the Soviet Union's clandestine support for the uprising. Mark van Rooyan, son of the slaughtered family, vows to avenge his family's death. Ensues a battle against time between van Rooyan and his supporters against Shaka's warriors and an impending Soviet nuclear intervention. This story of a farmer and a few friends clashing head on with the fearsome power of primitive warriors and the threat of Soviet military might portrays a classic conflict between good and evil.