Cold war spy novels have always been a fascinating read. However, to have the world of spooks played out like theatre in front of the South African public is a bonus for anyone who has a interest in intelligence matters.

The veil of secrecy around intelligence gathering and operations has a tendency to do exactly the opposite of what is intended it arouses interest in what spooks and their handlers do in a day's work.

The setting for SA's badly written spy drama is the city of Bloemfontein, where African National Congress (ANC) intelligence and counterintelligence in the 1980s is being exposed to public scrutiny.

Mac Maharaj, a respected senior ANC and former Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) leader, and Mo Shaik, the military wing's former intelligence operative, are accusing national director of public prosecutions Bulelani Ngcuka of being an apartheid spy.

So far they have failed to back up their claim and, until they present their evidence before the Hefer commission set up to investigate the allegations, it would seem they have made a massive political blunder that is likely to cost them dearly.

Instead of hearing evidence from the two, the commission is told by witnesses that Maharaj and Shaik seem to be doing their investigations now, weeks after they first made the allegation against Ngcuka.

The duo have been absent from proceedings in Bloemfontein this week and unable to guide their attorney in crossexamination of witnesses who have testified so far. They have complained their costs for attending the hearing are not being met. This could be a reason for their absence, but it appears they are also involved in an investigation taking them away from the action at the commission.

Through a lawyer, Shaik and Maharaj contacted former MK cadre Patrick Maqubela last week to find out about Ngcuka's possible involvement in his arrest and treason trial in Pietermaritzburg in 1980. Another former MK soldier, Litha Jolobe, yesterday told the commission Maharaj personally called him towards the end of September this year, after the story about the spy allegations was published in City Press, to ask whether Ngcuka "was responsible for our arrest".

Jolobe says Maharaj also asked whether Ngcuka indeed served his threeyear prison term for refusing to testify against him in the trial. Maqubela says Maharaj and Shaik know who sold his unit out in the 1980s and that this person has since died.

What is clear is that there were suspicions within ANC ranks about an informer who spied and reported on MK activities in Durban in the 1980s. It is also now evident this person was a lawyer and a member of the National Association of Democratic Lawyers (Nadel).

An investigation by the ANC in the 1980s managed to ascertain the spy was Agent RS452, and it had reasonable grounds to believe this person was Ngcuka, a lawyer and member of Nadel.

It would appear Shaik wrote the intelligence report and passed it to the ANC without verifying the information. And it was on this basis he made the recent claim Ngcuka was an apartheid spy.

Following a corruption investigation that the national prosecutions authority was conducting on Maharaj, he and Shaik leaked the spy story to former Sunday Times journalist Ranjeni Munusamy. But it has since been established Agent RS452 was human rights lawyer Vanessa Brereton, who confessed this week.

What is unclear is why the ANC's Project Bible made a link between an Eastern Cape-based human rights lawyer and Ngcuka, who was in Durban and in prison at the time.

However, it now seems the chickens are coming home to roost. President Thabo Mbeki's promise that the commission will embarrass those who made the claims is almost definitely going to haunt Maharaj and Shaik.

Mbeki wrote in his weekly letter in ANC Today: "In time, all those who feel free to charge others in our ranks with having been agents of apartheid will have to answer for the charges they have made Those who are peddling false stories about enemy agents in our ranks will be defeated."

This sorry saga raises questions about the poor quality of intelligence gathered by the ANC in its dark years in exile. Suspicious of enemy agents within its ranks, the organisation was on high alert and a number of people, including ANC MP Pallo Jorda n and other exiles, were subjected to torture, detention in MK camps, and some paid with their lives for suspicions that they were traitors.

Maqubela maintains the person he calls "Mr X", who betrayed him and led to him being sentenced to 20 years in prison, was someone from "outside the country" at the time, not a person working underground inside SA, like Ngcuka.

The ANC had been suspicious of Mr X when two operatives he worked with were executed in Swaziland. Surprisingly, he was spared. With details of Project Bible now becoming public, it appears the ANC was conducting similar witchhunts inside SA in the 1980s, seeking people who were betraying cadres engaged in underground activities.

Another disturbing feature of this saga is the apparent ease with which Maharaj and Shaik seem to have a hotline to former ANC cadres who are now with the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) in their quest to prove their allegations. These operatives seem to be assisting Maharaj and Shaik make their case against Ngcuka, raising questions about their loyalties

Jolobe testified yesterday that Ricky Nkondo, a senior official with the NIA, told him about five minutes before Maharaj called him that there were people who wanted to speak to him. Then his phone rang, and it was Maharaj on the other side of the line, pumping him for information on Ngcuka.

Is it possible that because of former struggle ties in exile, that the NIA might be open to abuse by people who have axes to grind with their enemies?

Where will this leave Deputy President Jacob Zuma, who was head of ANC intelligence in the 1980s, and who has also been investigated by Ngcuka for alleged arms deal-related corruption?

Zuma has kept his cards close to his chest. After publicly stating that he would testify at the commission if called to do so, he has since withdrawn from the row over Ngcuka.

Maharaj and Shaik are running out of time to find the proof of their spy allegation. Shaik was seen on television waving documents he said were the proof. Why are he and Maharaj now attempting to find evidence from people who were involved in ANC activities with Ngcuka in the 1980s?

Unless they have evidence to prove otherwise, Maharaj and Shaik will definitely face political consequences for branding Ngcuka as a spy without firm evidence. Whether they face legal consequences remains to be seen.

With acknowledgements to Xolani Xundu and the Business Day.