“Wait here,” ordered Vermeulen, sliding out of the vehicle and cautiously walking towards the house, preceded by Pieter, who was looking about nervously. Karl also got out and stood beside the minibus, machine pistol held beneath his jacket out of sight.
“What is to become of us, Anna-Maria? I am so scared. Believe me, darling, I had no idea that Jan was really like this.”
“Really, Mama, really? You are telling me that you had no idea how he made all his money.”
“No, darling, I didn’t, he always said that business was business and home was home so I never really asked. Please, Anna-Maria, please believe me, I honestly knew nothing of this. Oh! How could I have been such a fool.”
Anna-Maria had not looked at her mother; her eyes were locked onto the scene outside. “It’s all right, Mama, I believe you.” What was the point, she thought, in rowing with her mother now when both of their futures were in the balance; they could be shot at any moment and their bodies disposed of with ease here. She was trembling with fear and tried hard to calm herself and think clearly.
The shabby double doors at the front of the building opened and two heavies appeared, each carrying guns.
“Nice to see your boys carrying the goods,” said Vermeulen to a tall thin Arab-looking man now stepping out to stand between the two heavies. “What do you think of those Heckler and Koch MP7s, eh?”
“They will do the business,” the Arab replied nodding and laughing. “No problem at the border?”
“No, the crossing was easy. Thank you for your efforts.” Vermeulen took a few paces nearer to the house. “I have brought my wife and stepdaughter with me, they needed a holiday.”
The Arab looked surprised. “You brought them here, to Rosso?” he laughed incredulously and shook his head in amazement.
“Just taking a break before going on.”
“I will arrange some food and drink,” said the Arab, as demanded by his cultural tradition of hospitality to travellers, and turning to one of the heavies gave some instructions.
The man hurried off and the apparent stand-off continued in silence for a time with Vermeulen and Pieter trying to look relaxed and confident but obviously feeling exposed in the middle of the courtyard.
“Bring them inside,” the Arab said at last.
Anna-Maria’s legs were like jelly as she got down from the vehicle, the heat hitting her like a punch after the comfort of the air-conditioning. Her mother grasped her arm tightly. “Stop squeezing me, Mama, you are hurting me.”
“I feel sick with fear, Anna-Maria, what will he do with us I keep wondering.”
“When he is in a safe place he will let us go, Mama,” she replied, not actually believing what she was saying.
The Arab’s minder, standing by the doorway, gave Anna-Maria a lecherous stare and smile, making her shudder, but she kept moving, stepping out of the dazzling sunshine into what at first appeared to be absolute darkness as a bead of perspiration trickled down her spine causing her to shudder again. She removed her sunglasses and stopped to let her eyes adjust; the interior of the house in the dim light appeared surprisingly clean and tidy, an amazing contrast to the dusty courtyard they had just left. A young woman wearing a brightly coloured mulafa beckoned to her mother indicating that they follow her. The highly patterned ceramic floor tiles and heavily shaded windows gave the house a coolness that made the environment almost tolerable.
They were taken to a room at the back of the house, where Anna-Maria noticed the surroundings to be less elaborate, the floor tiles here were a plain dull fawn but everywhere was clean and tidy. There was a low table in the centre of the room surrounded by cushions and the woman, pointing to them, indicated that they should sit; bowls of water were brought together with hand towels. Washing their hands, Anna-Maria and her mother watched as a roasted goat on a bed of rice was brought in by the woman who then sat at the table with them. Having indicated that they should start to eat, she pulled some meat from the bones and served it and some rice onto their plates then, serving herself, dextrously massaged some rice into a ball and ate it.
“Eat only with your right hand, Mama, this is obviously a Muslim household.”
“Obviously, I am not that daft that I do not know such things.”
Anna-Maria glanced at her mother and saw how close to tears she was. “I am sorry, Mama, I was just saying…”
Anna-Maria, now anxious to divert attention away from her mother, asked the woman whether she was the wife of the house owner, using French, guessing that it would be understood in Rosso.
“Oui, Madame,” the woman replied.
Slowly they learnt that they were in the Elmoctar household and that her husband’s name was Harel Elmoctar, a trader. When asked what he traded in they were told that it was mainly rice and ground nuts from Senegal; another family probably unaware of the evil trade that really supported them.
At the end of the meal the woman left them alone and they could hear her excitedly telling someone in a nearby room all about them and the strange way they spoke. When she returned both Anna-Maria and her mother were becoming desperate to use the toilet facilities. After their experience during the journey to the border where they had been forced to urinate at the side of the road guarded and watched by the leering Karl, the Arab style toilet seemed quite civilised. Anna-Maria had just got back to the room when her mobile chirped, and taking it from her handbag she looked at the message then hurriedly tapped in a reply in the hope that the friend from her gym club would be able to help in some way.
“Who was the message from?” asked her mother.
“It was Lynn, she asked why I wasn’t at the gym this morning.”
“What did you say?”
“I told her where I was and that we were in deep trouble and desperately needed help.”
“Can she do anything?”
Anna-Maria shrugged her shoulders, “I don’t know, Mama, I just hope she can.”
The door opened and Pieter, with a jerk of his head, said, “We’re leaving.”
Anna-Maria and her mother looked at each other, both seeming unwilling to move.
“Hey, come on, we have a long way to go and the boss is waiting.”
Reluctantly the two women got to their feet and followed Pieter through the house and out to the minibus, with Anna-Maria wondering how to get away; but where could she go? In Luanda she knew of several people who would have helped her, even hide her, but here she knew no one, no one at all. Panic was seizing her and she was tempted to chance her arm and just run from the courtyard; she measured the distance with her eye, no, it was too far, she would never make it, and if she did they would soon track her down. Her mother! What was to happen to her mother? It would take far too long to explain how she became involved in the exposure of her stepfather. Again the question of where to run to entered her mind; then she remembered her tablet and the small memory stick giving a list of David’s “relatives” which “Uncle Alex” had given her, and was now hidden in her luggage.
Vermeulen, with Karl beside him, was talking to Elmoctar, who as always, was attended by the two heavies; she looked around, now was her chance, with Karl and Vermeulen isolated and Pieter distracted by his bodyguard duty.
Anna-Maria pointed to the back of the minibus, “I need to get something from my case.”
Pieter looked at her for a moment, checked that Vermeulen’s conversation with Elmoctar was still amicable then, not taking his eyes from his boss, opened the rear door.
Heaving her suitcase up on top of the others she opened it and took out her washing and make-up bags, slipping her tablet under the two items whilst Pieter wasn’t looking. Closing the case she said, “Pieter, could you put the case back for me, it’s a bit too heavy for me, I seem to have hurt my arm putting it up here.” Without thinking Pieter stepped forward, picked up the case and slid it back into the gap, giving Anna-Maria time to take both bags and the tablet into the vehicle and close the door without him noticing the subterfuge. Che
cking that Pieter’s concentration was elsewhere she said, “Tell me when Jan has finished his chat, Mama,” as she tore the lining of the make-up bag and took out the memory stick.
Turning on the tablet she inserted the stick and waited while the list loaded. “Come on, come on please hurry… oh, at last, now let’s see.” After reading through it three times her heart sank. “The nearest ‘cousin’ lives in Nouakchott. Oh God, that’s more than two hundred kilometres from here.”
Her mother glanced at her, confused as to what her daughter was talking about, then nudged her, “He’s coming.”
Pulling out the stick Anna-Maria slipped it back into the bag, switched off the tablet and put both bags on top of it again as Pieter climbed into the seat behind her. Karl was now driving, and with Vermeulen at his side they drove out of the courtyard where Karl went to turn left, back towards the main road.
“No,” shouted Vermeulen, “Turn right and go a couple of blocks and turn right again. I trust Elmoctar about as far as I can spit.”
Anna-Maria noticed Pieter, behind her, turn round and keep a steady watch out of the rear window.
“One of his men is watching and reporting, Boss.”
“The bastard wants his money back. I thought as much. Well he ain’t going to get it today.”
“You reckon, Boss, sure he would have held out when you asked him for it or took it by force as we were leaving.”
“No, Pieter, that would have been against his Arab culture, he would not harm a guest whilst they were under his roof, but you wait, now we are off the premises.”
At that moment Karl threw the minibus into the right turn narrowly missing three women carrying water jars on their heads.
“Go three blocks then right again,” ordered Vermeulen, thrusting a long magazine into the base of his machine pistol handgrip.
Three crossroads further on, Karl almost had them in the front wall of the corner property as the Mercedes, almost on two wheels, rounded the corner, a near miss that had both Anna-Maria and her mother screaming. As the minibus accelerated down the narrow track, Vermeulen opened his side window and leaned out, gun in hand. One crossroads, then two, then three were passed without any sign of pursuit and Anna-Maria was just beginning to think that Vermeulen’s fears had been unfounded when at the next junction a battered Toyota pick-up truck pulled out in front of them and skidded to a stop. Vermeulen and Pieter opened fire immediately but inaccurately due to the bouncing of the vehicle on the rough road surface. The return fire however was on target and in moments their windscreen had been hit several times before they smashed into the pick-up truck pushing it sideways into the opposite wall just as Karl made a loud coughing noise. Pieter, smashing the side screen out, fired directly into the Toyota’s cab, killing both men before shooting a third man as he tried to escape leaping over the truck’s tailboard.
“Shit! Karl’s been hit. Pieter, climb over and give me a hand getting him out of the driver’s seat. Quickly!”
Anna-Maria got off the floor where she and her mother had been sheltering. They were both dazed and terrified by the shooting. She tried to open the door but saw that the truck was pinned up against it. A yelp of pain from Karl told her that at least the man was still alive and she watched in horror as Pieter hauled him between the driver’s seat and the double front passenger seat then heave him like a sack of potatoes over onto the seat behind, blood pumping from a chest wound. As soon as Karl was pulled clear, Vermeulen was across and, gunning the engine, reversed the minibus away from the wreck of the truck to the sound of screeching metal.
“Incoming!” yelled Pieter as he looked up to see a second truck hurtling towards them down the side road.
Again Anna-Maria ducked down, kneeling on the floor and making herself as small as possible.
There was something in her way and pushing it to one side she realised that it was her stepfather’s briefcase that had been dragged through the gap with Karl’s body, it was open and some of the contents had fallen out. A black notebook attracted her attention and she grabbed it just as bullets hit the side of the vehicle. Anna-Maria heard her mother gasp and saw her fall across the seat, blood oozing from a gaping hole in the side of her head. At that same moment the minibus cleared the wrecked pick-up truck and the side door sprung open. As Vermeulen let the clutch in to charge the minibus forward Anna-Maria was thrown out onto the dusty road as the vehicle took off, clipping the truck, before charging through the gap and away down towards the main road, its front wheel arch panel hanging off and flapping like a wounded bird’s wing.
Hidden by the cloud of dust thrown up by the wheel spin as the Mercedes accelerated away, Anna-Maria, with her handbag over her shoulder and still clutching her tablet, washing and make-up bags, plus the notebook, hid behind the wreck of the truck to remain unseen by those in the pursuing vehicle as it bore down on the crossroads.
Vermeulen had gone no more than one hundred metres when Pieter called out, “She’s gone, Anna-Maria, she’s gone, and your wife has been shot in the head.”
Vermeulen slammed on the brakes, skidding to a stop and looked at his wife as she lay staring blindly at the back of his seat. Looking up he saw the second truck rounding the corner, and side slam the wreck before taking off again in their direction, “Pieter, shoot the bastards!”
As the minibus pulled away again, Pieter opened fire. Three bullets came through the Mercedes rear window but neither man was hit, then with only two more crossroads before the main road, Pieter got lucky, killing the driver of the pursuing truck, which, after bouncing off the wall of a house, roared out of control across a junction and smashed headlong into the house on the opposite corner.
Meanwhile, Anna-Maria was cautiously getting to her feet and trying hard not to look at the dead bodies in the truck, one of which was hanging half out of the vehicle, his lifeless arm on a patch of bloodstained ground, his assault rifle nearby. She could hear the shooting as the second truck pursued the minibus, and prayed that they would succeed in killing the man who had caused her such heartache and pain, then she heard a crash and the shooting stopped. Was he dead, oh please let him be dead.
A gentle touch on her shoulder made her leap in fear and she turned to find herself looking into the tender eyes of an African woman, who beckoned her to follow. Unsure, she hesitated, but only for a moment, before hurrying after the woman who, after a short distance, turned into an alleyway that led to the next cross street. Here, the woman paused and, peeping round the corner of the wall, checked that all was clear along the road before ushering Anna-Maria across the street and into a house. After the loud engine noise, screeching tyres, gunfire and the horrendous noise of the crash, the quiet of the house seemed quite eerie.
Anna-Maria hardly noticed the distressed interior of the property with its peeling paintwork and cracked floor tiles on which wooden boxes took the place of seats and tables, all her senses were looking for it being a trap. The woman, however, appeared to be calm and almost serene as she placed a worn cushion onto one of the boxes and indicated that Anna-Maria should sit, saying in heavily accented French, “You are safe here, Madame, I will not harm you.” The shock of the last five or six minutes were now taking effect and, shaking uncontrollably, her knees on the point of giving way, Anna-Maria sat down and immediately burst into tears.
As they had made their way along the alley there had been another burst of gunfire, closer than previously, that had Anna-Maria staring back in terror, then there was silence again. Now in the stillness of the house she was aware of the woman standing quietly alongside her, the smell of cheap soap reminding her of Emmanuel in Luanda and she was, for the first time in years, aware of her own natural body odour. She heard the sound of an approaching vehicle and stood again holding her breath as she stared at the narrow gap between the window shutters and watched as the battered minibus slowly moved into view and stopped. She turned and looked at the street door as fear gripped her, wondering whether Vermeulen or Pieter would kick the door in a
nd she be handed over to them, but then after a second or two, the minibus moved off again.
“It is all right, Madame, they are gone.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, Madame, I am sure, no one got out of the car, Madame.” The woman stretched out a hand seeking to comfort Anna-Maria but she moved away frightened of the woman’s intentions. “My name is Nandini, Madame, please believe me, I mean you no harm.”
***
Vermeulen had ordered Pieter to close the side door that Anna-Maria had fallen from, as soon as the second truck had been stopped.
“Your briefcase is down here and a load of your stuff is all over the floor, Boss.”
Braking hard, Vermeulen brought the vehicle to a halt and leapt out; grabbing his briefcase he hurriedly checked its contents and picked up the items on the floor. “Christ man, my notebook is missing, it must be on the ground back there somewhere.”
“Anna-Maria is also back there, Boss. We should go and look, eh.”
Turning the vehicle round, Vermeulen drove back along the track to where the second truck was buried in the rubble of the house. Pieter got out cautiously, there was no sign of life in the wrecked truck, the body of one man lay on the cab roof, his head crushed by the impact with the building, the bloody remains scattered over the cab roof and walls.
Pieter fired at the three bodies in the cab to make sure they were all dead, recognising one man as one of the heavies in the courtyard.
“Elmoctar will have to find a replacement for Faris,” he said, when he got back in the minibus.
In Treacherous Waters Page 3