A call was put in to Plato, who agreed to what was already contracted except for the yearly payments. He suggested the amount be increased a little each year. Cangé still laughed as he spoke but really felt bad about the expedition members who died on the mission. John presented him with one of the shields with dozens of pygmy arrows sticking in it. Cangé was thrilled and hung it immediately. Jan had taken a quiver of leaf wrapped arrows to South Africa so that the poison center could provide a more exacting antidote.
John caught a flight to South Africa the next day and met up with Vikki in the hospital. The couple was married a few months after returning to the states. All the members of the expedition were invited but only Sony, Marc, and Jan were able to attend. Zuka came to visit later that year as he was in Texas to try out for a semi-pro basketball team. Most of the expedition members stayed lifelong friends.
John and Vikki worked in various capacities for her dad. They didn’t need the income so much, since money rolled in every year from the bank in the Ivory Coast, but it was good to have grandparents close by to help with the kids who came along in rapid succession. He and Vikki never returned to the Congo, as they were too busy raising a family.
Their kids, however, couldn’t wait to follow in their parent’s footsteps as they had heard all the stories about Africa since they were small children. John and Vikki had beautiful, tall twin daughters named Jan and Zuka after members of the expedition. They also had a son named after Vikki’s dad, Mike. He was given a middle name of Sony and was told many times how the expedition leader would shorten sentences in a John Wayne combat method. Young Mike practiced this until he was irritatingly good at it. So many people called him Sony that it stuck as a nickname. A time in the very near future would find young Sony repeating the same dangerous expedition that almost killed his parents
Chapter 14
London 2010
Getting this trip planned and executed took much longer than the group had hoped. The word ‘executed’ also described what happened to Chris Zacharius, when his wife Lu discovered the real plans for this trip. The men in the group convinced the ladies to go on an African Safari booked through Holland and Holland of London. All of them would ride in on elephants and stay at a lodge so plush most self-respecting wild animals would considered it unfit. They would take pictures, relax and generally be on vacation.
The devious part of their plan was going to be difficult to pull off. If it worked, the girls would not find out until they got back home, or at least on the plane ride back, since air marshals would be on the plane to protect the guys from being murdered. Mit Kruger, Modesto Tejeda, and Chris Zacharius had booked a side trip out of the lodge for three nights to go on a lion hunt to kill those deemed as “man eaters” in a Tanzanian village. They would fly in from an airstrip at the lodge and camp in the area where the lions were last seen (and had last eaten some tasty villagers.) Each of them would have a gun bearer, and a game warden would supervise. At least, that was the story told to the girls, Lucero Zacharius, Modesto’s wife Gretchen, and Mit’s longtime girlfriend, Angel Dominguez. The lion hunt would be something the men would look forward to, if they survived the task.
The girls wanted no part of this macho “kill-or-be-killed adventure” and made sure all the life insurance policies were handy, just in case. Their plans were to have drinks on the veranda and watch the leopards chase down monkeys. Afterwards, they would beat a path to various spas, go on photo jeep tours, and elephant rides. What the guys were really going to do was much more dangerous.
This scheme originated in the Dominican Republic, about three years before. After chasing down a tremendous treasure hidden by the tyrannical dictator Rafael Trujillo, they also found that his arch rival dictator from Haiti, Papa Doc Duvalier, had been sending huge shipments of gold from his northern Haitian mine, which he briefly owned with Trujillo, to Africa. The log from his ship recorded sixty-seven trips before Papa Doc’s death in 1971, and none after, suggesting that Baby Doc was not aware of his dad’s African connection. The secret gold shipments to Africa were uncovered when the three friends translated the log of the Afrik-Rev given to Chris by her captain, Plato Duvalier. Plato was a first cousin to Papa Doc and also a cousin to Baby Doc. Chris’ cousin in Memphis, Tennessee, who studied family trees, told him. Plato would be a first cousin once removed. She, however, also told him she traced Chris’ background to a rare tree ape in Borneo.
Since they had the money to spend, Chris and his pals hired private investigators who spoke both French and the local African dialects to poke around using the leads that were provided them from the log. They had been sniffing out clues and interviewing anyone in the vicinity of the Ivory Coast who was still alive, where Papa Doc’s gold ship docked every month or so. To ward off suspicion, they posed as historians and anthropologists studying African influence on Haitian society. It took almost three years of work to finally hit the jackpot—or as any sane person would say, it was a sure way to die. The bizarre discovery of the investigators was not what anyone expected. A trip deep in the jungles of the Congo would be required in an area that might be classified as unexplored.
Mit, Modesto, Chris and their companions flew to London for the connecting flight to Nairobi, but couldn’t talk the girls out of a brief layover in London to shop at Harrods. They just had to have the very best safari wear in the world, or at least the most expensive. Lu picked out a khaki short culotte skirt and a khaki long sleeved hunting shirt, with a matching vest with slots for large cartridge shells. She wouldn’t need bullets or a gun on her camera safari, but the outfit would look cute when she showed up at the spa for her hot rock massage. Modesto’s wife, Gretchen, and Mit’s longtime girlfriend, Angel, emerged from the dressing room with slacks and authentic bush jackets. If Vogue photographers had been there, all three ladies would compete for the cover.
While the girls were loading their credit cards with purchases for the trip, the three non-Vogue contenders headed to the gun shop. The men had made their purchases some time back and had the guns shipped to the lodge, but they wanted to see what was new. All three had their orders in for the 100th anniversary Holland and Holland .375 which was coming out in 2012, but for now, Mit and Modesto were going to use .458’s. Chris was going to stick with an older model .375 which many hunters declared to be the most versatile caliber for big game. Chris had watched videos of people shooting the new .577 T-Rex cartridge and decided that having his face smashed to pieces after the recoil of the first shot wouldn’t leave much enthusiasm for a second shot. Of course if he hit his target on the first shot, there would be no need to repeat. Holland and Holland made that cartridge model several years before. While they were looking at their guns, they saw a couple of the old relics.
Modesto, an avid reader of everything, pointed out something the others didn’t know.
“Did you guys know that Henry Stanley and two others in his party put five rounds of the old .577 in an elephant on one of his safaris in 1887? The elephant didn’t even slow down! They were not pleased, and one in the party, a Dr. Parke, actually traded his rifle for food during a bad time on the expedition. Stanley was used to shooting 8 and 10 bore guns which he said never failed. The old rounds may not have had the more powerful loads that are used today.”
“Where do you come up with this shit?” Mit said
“I read In Darkest Africa for this trip. Mit you should put down the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and read a real ass book,” Modesto said.
The appeal of Holland and Holland had to be the quality of workmanship and engravings. It certainly wasn’t the prices which seemed to start at over a hundred thousand pounds and go up from there.
They left Harrods carrying the girls’ new duds and headed up to Knightsbridge Road and over by Wilton Row. Someone had suggested dining on Beef Wellington at the Grenadier Pub. The group learned the pub was now a part of a chain and no longer served Beef Wellington. It was supposed to have a ghost. Maybe the ghost was someone wait
ing for one good English meal before they transcended to heaven. Although the guy drinking a beer wasn’t exactly a ghost, Chris noticed the young black man sitting at the bar watching the three couples in a casual sort of way as he sipped on a Guinness. He appeared to be strangely familiar, so Chris jabbed Modesto in the ribs and told him to sneak a look at the guy. Chris’s wife, Lu, glanced at the man at about the same time Modesto did. Both Lu and Modesto froze, turned back and stared at Chris. The color drained from their faces. He bore an unmistakable resemblance to the drug lord Lu killed on the night they were recovering the biggest gold stash in history, off the shores of the Dominican Republic.
“Chris, this guy has to be kin to Jon Jon Vieux!” Lu blasted in his ear. She meant to whisper, but in her excitement, she forgot the volume control.
Before they could look again, he was gone. Modesto rushed out the door of the pub and saw him some distance away in the parking lot aiming a pistol with a silencer attached. The gun made muffled sounds as three rounds struck the pub sign over Modesto’s left shoulder. The holes were spaced within an inch of each other and were meant only to detain, rather than kill him. It worked, and Modesto calmed himself. He walked back into the pub smiling, with no intention of telling the girls what just happened. A man with a firearm in London, where they were outlawed, spoke of a well-connected criminal. Modesto just said he couldn’t catch the man. Apparently, they were being followed by someone who didn’t believe in the safari ruse.
After drinks and burgers, they headed back to the airport for their flight. All of them had first class fares on British Airlines that left at 7:00 pm and got them to Africa in about six hours. They would arrive in the middle of the night, stay at a local hotel, then catch a flight to the pick-up area for their safari. Now everyone was keeping their eyes out for others who might not believe the group was on vacation. Their movements were always watched by those who waited like buzzards to cash in on anything the group of treasure hunters found.
Modesto broke out his computer and started to use his contacts to find all the living relatives of Jon Jon Vieux. Before his computer warmed up, a name came back from Interpol. Apparently, Jon Jon had a younger brother Barbos Marcel Vieux, cooling his heels in a Florida prison while the three couples were dancing around dodging bullets from his older brother. Barbos was released on parole a year ago. He hadn’t been seen since.
“Lot of warrants out for him now,” Modesto said.
The six friends felt certain there would be other interested parties waiting on them when the group arrived in Africa, but at least the three couples had the name of one of their admirers.
A few years back, Barbos Vieux’s brother, Jon Jon Vieux, had kidnapped Chris’s then girlfriend Lu, and attempted to rape her in front of a large crowd. She was rescued before he finished his crime, but he hounded the entire search and recovery of a fortune in gold uncovered in the Dominican Republic. While a final battle with the drug lord’s army raged on the ship Afrik-Rev, Jon Jon slipped on board and held a knife to Lu’s throat. She had a gun hidden on her and shot him several times, killing him before he took her head off with his knife. Now that she had seen Barbos at the Pub, she knew instantly this guy was a relative. Her instinctive fear was that she would meet the brother of the evil person she had shot to death. It would occur somehow, sometime, someplace and she would have to deal with him. Lu hoped she would be ready when it happened.
Chapter 15
Abu Camp, Okavango Delta, Botswana, Africa
The jungle drums were powerful, sensuous and so fitting for this large piece of African paradise. Chris and Lu were experiencing their first night in the Abu Lodge. A nearby native village had furnished the drum and dance demonstrations. The small crowd clinked together stylish glasses filled with after-dinner drinks in celebration of what was most surely a large checkmark on their respective bucket-lists of accomplishments. They all watched the sun go down over the wet delta, but most of the guests could not take their eyes off the furnishings in the beautiful lodges. The floors were polished teak as was much of the furniture. As difficult as it was to believe, every lodge was actually a tent. The huge beams and framing made them arguably some the most beautiful tents in the world. Most of the bedrooms had real zebra skin rugs and zip up full length doors to the outside deck. Most of the rooms had outside bath tubs and if you were really brave there were ‘star beds’ that allowed for a romantic evening completely in the open above the elephant enclosure. Everything opened up to the wild—even bedrooms had that option. Parts of the conversations could be heard, including such phrases as, “Don’t these people know there are wild animals out there that can eat our faces off?”
While the drums sounded out a traditional dance melody, Lu and Chris had devious smiles on their faces as they sat at a small mahogany table with a designer lantern placed in the middle. The smiling couple was sharing the table and the extraordinary view with their best friends, Mit Kruger, Angel Dominguez, and Gretchen and Modesto Tejeda.
Mit spoke first. “Are you goofballs still going to go out on an elephant tonight?” He was also smiling like a monkey.
“Hell yes!” Chris and Lu spoke in unison.
“Did you guys tell the elephant driver what you guys are going to do in the backseat of that elephant rack thingy?” asked Angel who was suppressing the urge to laugh.
“Yes, I believe he got the picture, and the driver is called a mahout. We think there will be room in that padded thingy to…get the job done,” Chris answered.
In a few moments a native wearing an Abu Camp shirt stopped by their table and introduced himself as Jambi. He asked Lu if they were ready for the night elephant adventure. They were most likely part of a long line of tourists who had requested this little mile high club on the back of an elephant.
“Jambi, do you mind if I take my pistol along for protection?” Chris asked.
“If it makes you happy Mr. Chris, but you can no shoot it here since this no a hunting camp,” Jambi answered with some apprehension in his voice.
Chris and Lu headed to their rooms and asked Jambi to wait for a couple minutes while they dressed for the ride.
Lu and Chris had stripped down to total nakedness, wrapping themselves in bathrobes that sported large Abu Camp monograms for the great safari lodge. They made a concession to put something on their feet, so both were wearing huge hiking boots. Although the clunky boots were unlaced, they looked ridiculous with the robes. To make matters more absurd, Chris strapped a pistol on his waist, but not just any pistol—a .50 caliber Desert Eagle which arguably was the most powerful handgun commonly in mass production.
As their elephant mahout, Jambi met them on the deck of the lodge. He was poorly suppressing an urge to laugh out loud. He led the two, who were stumbling around in the dark, to the side of a huge female elephant named Cathy. She was down on her belly making the loading process less of a chore, yet still a nice climb up a portable step ladder. The basket seat they had awkwardly fallen into had a padded bottom, two seats and side rails. There was a raised seat on the back side of the contraption, and Chris and Lu were now plotting their next move.
Jambi was not new to the safari business. He was accustomed to rich couples wanting to live out fantasies, yet just being on the Okavango Delta on the back of an elephant might be enough for most people. Not rich people. They always wanted something bizarre, and for a couple to have sex on the back of an elephant sloshing through swampy water in the heart of Africa was more common than people would expect. Chris and Lu had paid dearly to have Jambi put together this little adventure. If you’re paying a few thousand a day for the safari then what’s another thousand for a little nighttime fooling around? Thus another reason Jambi was smiling.
The elephant was causing a rolling and up and down motion. Chris took off his robe, placed it into the storage bag behind the back seat, and strapped his pistol belt around the side rail. Lu looked around to see if Jambi was facing ahead, then she slowly dropped her robe and exposed her bea
utiful body that was illuminated only by an African moon. Chris was pleased Lu had kept her gorgeous up-turned breasts and her flat stomach after giving birth to their son Reid three years before. She knew Chris was turned on by the completely shaved look, so she complied without complaining. If anyone knew Lu, getting her to do anything without causing a temper tantrum was difficult. She was to be feared when she was mad, and that was often.
Lu kneeled down and used her mouth to get Chris erect, and then she slid into his lap facing him and gently put him inside her. For a while they just let the movement of the elephant do all the work. They smiled at each other, kissed, and whispered short conversations to each other. It was magical and brought back memories of making love on Chris’s speed boat, the Blazing Lu, after putting it on cruise control. At the time they had just verified the location of three billion dollars of gold that had been hidden by the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo. The vibrations of the boat had made that love making session an epic event. This time it was Africa. They could hear drums in the back ground and couldn’t tell if the sounds were coming from their lodge or from a native village. Now Lu was moving faster trying to keep up with the beat of the drums.
Jambi had directed Cathy out of the marshy waters onto land and was sending her in the direction of a group of acacia trees. Lu would look Chris in the eyes and tell him she loved him, then look up at the millions of stars, then back at him. She was moving faster now and it was obvious she was moving into her orgasm, which was usually a loud affair. Because Jambi was only a few feet away, Chris was hoping this one wouldn’t involve screaming since the elephant might stampede. Lu’s moaning was softer now and apparently Chris was spent as well. Shortly after the two lovers had finished, Lu spoke quietly.
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