The Cuban

by Paul Eksteen

  I fell back on the pillows and closed my eyes.

  My head was bursting with pain.

  I tried to think. The memories materialised slowly. A bright flash, with an explosion of broken glass and gunshots.

  Four of them. I could hear them clearly. As if in slow motion.

  Pop, pop, pop, pop.

  But where did it happen? And where am I now?

  I am Tom Allen Coetzee. That I know. No brain damage. At least not according to my own prognosis.

  I could hear voices from outside the room. Someone was coming my way. Police? I jerked my head up from the pillows and started looking around anxiously.

  It was too late. The door to my room opened and two people in blue scrubs entered. It was an elderly coloured man in his late sixties, and a young coloured woman in her twenties. Maybe his daughter. I sighed with relief; it wasn’t the police.

  I knew where I was. I was in the Western Cape. Everything came suddenly back to me.

  I was on a ‘deniable ops’ to eliminate ‘Dog’, a leader of the Twenty-Sevens prison gang, who was out on parole from the Goodwood prison.

  But things went seriously wrong. Instead of taking Dog out, Dog ate cat.

  Shit!

  Nic was not going to be very impressed with this one.

  And me lying somewhere in a hospital was not going to make him smile either.

  “Good morning, sir. I am Doctor Patel,” the doctor said with a slight frown on his face.

  “Hi Doc, am I ready to go?” I enquired.

  He did not find it amusing at all.

  “You are lucky to still be alive, young man. Can you remember what happened?”

  I was not going to offer information that easily. Not until I knew where I was and had figured out exactly what happened for myself.

  “No, Doc. I am still slightly confused. Where am I?”

  The nice young assistant walked around the doctor and fixed a blood pressure tube around my left bicep. She pumped it up and listened to the blood rushing through my veins with her stethoscope.

  “One eighty over a hundred,” she informed the doctor.

  He seemed to be happy with that result at least.

  “Not ideal, but much better than when you came in last night,” he said.

  “You might have concussion, young man. You were shot through the right bicep, and also took a shot in the chest. Another bullet grazed your skull. You were lucky that you were wearing a vest. And obviously, someone really wanted you dead.”

  “I have to leave, Doctor. Where are my clothes?”

  “Your health seems to be excellent in general, but we had better watch you for a while.”

  “Nuts to that,” I said. “I’m leaving today.”

  The doctor nodded. “Well, let’s see how you feel in an hour or two.”

  He stepped closer and stretched up to a valve at the bottom of the IV bag. He clicked it a notch and tapped a tube with his finger. He watched carefully and nodded and walked back out of the room.

  That gave me the opportunity to have a good look at his assistant.

  She had big brown eyes and a friendly smile. She was all of one point five metres short and slightly overweight. Not even the shapeless scrubs were going to hide her chubby cheeks.

  “Don’t worry, sir. We will take good care of you.”

  “Where am I?” I enquired.

  “You are in a private practice in Durbanville, sir.”

  Hallelujah. At least not in a Provincial Hospital, with the cops standing outside the door, waiting for me to make a three-hour statement for their records.

  I turned my head to look around, but the movement sent a spike of pain radiating through my skull.

  “Relax, sir,” my guardian angel exclaimed when she saw the painful expression on my face.

  “Can I get you some water or tea?”

  “Tea would be nice, please. And my clothes. I need to get out of here.” I tried to sit upright.

  I need to get her out of here to have time to think. I was not safe yet. The doctor might be on the phone with the police right at this moment.

  I had to think.

  “You sure?” she asked.

  I nodded. I was sure, but I felt very sleepy. I put my head back on the pillow, just temporarily. I was warm and the pillow was cool and soft. My head weighed a ton, and my neck muscles were unable to move it. The room was darkening. I swivelled my eyes upwards towards the IV bag. I looked at the small valve that the doctor had adjusted. He clicked it. There was writing on it. I tried to focus on the writing, but it was upside down.

  When I opened my eyes again, it was dark. “Nurse!” I shouted.

  She rushed into the room. “Are you awake, sir?”

  Really? Fuck. Was I shouting in my sleep the whole day?

  “Yes, I’m awake, and thirsty. And please switch on the light.”

  When I turned my head, I saw a pile of blood-soaked clothes in a bucket next to the bed. They must be mine. And if it was, whatever happened was quite bad. There was a lot of blood. Which meant that I would not be going anywhere soon.

  I closed my eyes and thought about the mission.

  Dog, a leader of the Twenty-Sevens prison gang, was out on parole from the Goodwood prison. He was seen and expected to stay in Atlantis on the West Coast at his aunt’s house, as this was the address given to his parole officer.

  The day I arrived in Cape Town, he disappeared. I was booked in at the Blue Peter Hotel in Blouberg, a mere fifteen kilometres from Atlantis.

  Matt, my local SSA contact, informed me that it seemed that Dog and three other parolees stole a blue Toyota Camry and were cruising up the West Coast, looking for drugs, booze and action.

  The next day I was informed that a white family had been murdered on their farm — husband, wife, elderly mother and two children. All stabbed to death by four coloureds who raced away in a blue Toyota Camry.

  I received a 9mmP Glock pistol from Matt with two magazines and a packet of fifty hollow point rounds for it.

  I was told to eliminate Dog without any further delay.

  I loaded the pistol, waited until after dark — which was at about nine — and parked my SSA-issued Ford Fiesta two street blocks away from Dog’s aunt’s house.

  Time was running out, as we couldn’t have Dog killing more innocent people.

  Desperate times called for desperate measures.

  My plan of action was to wait for Dog to leave the house, follow him and try to eliminate him at the first opportunity that presented itself.

  In and out. Easy as pie.

  I could feel my pulse accelerating.

  Nothing ever works out as easy as planned on paper.

  At close to eleven that night, I was still waiting two blocks away in the Fiesta. I had the Glock between my legs on the seat of the car, when suddenly a car drove up from behind and stopped right next to me.

  The next moment the side window next to my head shattered and I could hear shots ringing out. I felt something hitting me in the chest and something jerking on my right arm.

  Something smashed against my head.

  I tried to get hold of the Glock with my right hand, but my hand was completely numb. I was seeing double and everything moved in slow motion.

  I was vaguely aware of a car racing away.

  One advantage of driving from the right side of a car is that you could use your right hand to shoot out of the window at someone racing away from you. It was almost impossible to shoot at someone directly to the right of you though.

  That didn’t help me much. Even though I carried the Glock with a round in the chamber, I was unable to lift the gun to fire a shot in self-defence.

  My face was full of glass fragments and my right arm was numb and was bleeding profusely. Time to get away!

  I got the car going and raced out of Atlantis, skipping all the stop signs and traffic lights, until I reached the highway. Five kilometres down the highway, I turned into a side road and called Matt. He tol
d me to meet him in the Blue Peter parking lot.

  That was the last I remembered.

  I was lying in the bed with my eyes wide open. Staring at the pristine white ceiling.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck!

  I was alive.

  But I had fucked up badly.

  I have to get hold of Danielle. If I came in last night, like the doctor said, then it must be Sunday today. My flight back was booked for this evening.

  “Nurse!” I shouted.

  I could hear her Green Cross sandals clicking on the tiles in the hallway.

  “I am coming, sir,” she exclaimed.

  “I need a phone. And I need to get to the airport before eight.”

  “I will get you a phone, sir. No problem. But you are not going anywhere soon. And I am busy with your tea.”

  CHAPTER 2

  Pretoria East — Tuesday, 3 February

  Quinten Fraser woke up with someone vigorously jerking his right arm. He was lying face down on a blood-soaked pillow, his long hair sticking to it.

  “What is happening,” he mumbled as a police officer twisted his arm behind his back. His head was throbbing from the after effect of a bottle of brandy, a proper dagga pipe and the sickly smell of blood. He could even taste the metallic taste of blood in his mouth.

  The police officer jerked him upright and his eyes started to focus. He could see blood everywhere. On his pillow, duvet, the carpet of his room, even smudges on the wall and on the door and door frame.

  Outside, through his closed curtains, he could vaguely see the flashes of rotating blue and red lights of what must be police cars and ambulances. Aggressive voices could be heard from neighbours and spectators outside the house.

  Then he remembered, and Quinten smiled inwardly — he had performed the Greater Magic. Not only could he now achieve Joy in Life, he had become a point of the Star. The Supreme Leader would be satisfied.

  He grimaced from pain as the policeman forced his arm upwards behind his back. A second policeman stepped closer and cuffed his hands behind his back. They jerked him to his feet and shoved him towards the door and out down the passageway.

  As they passed the room next to Quinten’s, he saw more policemen talking in hushed tones to an elderly man in green coveralls. They were standing next to his sister’s mutilated body. Five candles were placed in the position of a five-pointed star with her body positioned inside it. There were only piles of wax left where the candles had burnt down to the floor.

  His sister laid naked with her throat slit almost from ear to ear. Both her wrists were slashed as well, and pools of blood had formed and dried under her arms and torso. A pile of ashes was visible outside the star close to her feet. It was later established that she had stab wounds in her back as well.

  Most of the blood found on Quinten originated from her. He had tried to cut off her left hand but gave up at some point.

  The ashes at her feet were from papers burned by Quinten after he wrote on them with his fingers dipped in his sister’s blood. A butcher’s knife with a thirty-centimetre-long blade was lying next to her, bearing Quinten’s fingerprints and her blood.

  He was ushered further down the hall towards the living room. Both his parents were lying on the sofa in front of the television, where they had been watching a favourite programme the previous night. They were both hacked to death with an axe which was lying next to the sofa on the ground.

  Quinten’s fingerprints were on the axe as well.

  Quinten later explained to the authorities that he had bought the candles and axe to perform a satanic ritual of Destruction. The ritual would cleanse him of anger towards his parents who have done him an injustice, by not understanding his beliefs, and for emotional stimulation in the pursuit of Joy in Life.

  He had to use his sister to perform a ritual after the cleansing of his soul, by butchering both of his parents. He drank a vial of her blood as part of the ritual.

  Quinten had a tattoo of the number six six six behind his left ear.

  The Frasers’ maid arrived for work at half past seven on the morning of 3 February and, after no one opened the door for her, she looked through the windows of the living room where she saw the horrible sight of the murdered Fraser couple on the sofa. She immediately ran to the neighbours, who called the emergency services and the police.

  Seventeen-year-old Quinten Fraser was arrested and admitted to the three murders.

  He was refused bail and will be awaiting trial at the Emthonjeni Youth Centre, at the Baviaanspoort Prison near Pretoria.

  CHAPTER 3

  Bloemfontein — Saturday, 7 February

  The Doctor was walking into the casualty ward of the Universitas Academic Hospital. The hospital is situated on the north-west side of Bloemfontein, in the Free State Province.

  He had been working for thirty hours non-stop since Friday, and knew that, even though it was ten o’clock on a Saturday night, he would most likely be working for the next six hours as well.

  But he didn’t mind. He had been in South Africa for three years now and was used to the long hours. His first posting was at Mokopane Hospital in Limpopo, one of South Africa’s poorest provinces.

  He was one of more than three hundred doctors sent by Fidel Castro to South Africa. Cuban aid started in 1996 to help alleviate the shortage of doctors, to reverse the brain drain caused by the exodus of white South African doctors.

  South Africa was one of a few countries who paid the Cuban doctors directly — other countries paid the Cuban government and gave the doctors a small stipend — it was a sought-after destination for young doctors like him.

  In Cuba he would earn less money as a doctor than as a taxi driver. The average salary in his homeland would be around thirty dollars a month. In South Africa he was paid at least twenty times that.

  His mother and his younger sister still lived in Cuba and he missed them a lot. But he had decided never to return home. With the salary that he was earning in South Africa, he could send them enough money to live a decent life in Cuba.

  He was supposed to return to Cuba after serving out his initial two-year contract, but Fidel Castro’s decision to resign as Cuba’s leader early the previous year, opened new doors for him.

  He accepted a contract with the Universitas Academic Hospital for a further two years, after he finished his initial contract at Mokopane.

  Bloemfontein was a much larger city than Mokopane and the Doctor enjoyed the city with its student vibe.

  He worked with a fellow Cuban doctor who was a specialist in the termination of pregnancy (TOP) field. During the last three years of his training at the Medical University of Havana, he was exposed to terminations and, together with his colleague, had been doing second trimester abortions at the Bloemfontein State Hospital’s TOP clinic.

  He’d learnt a lot. Human life was not much worth in Africa. And he liked to learn. Aristotle once said: “The wise man is to the ignorant as the living is to the dead.” It took him six months in Africa to understand what that meant.

  Abortions in South Africa only became legal in February 1997 when the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act came into force. In South Africa, any woman of any age can get an abortion by simply requesting it with no reasons given, if she was less than thirteen weeks pregnant.

  In general, only medical doctors could perform abortions. Nurses who had received special training may also perform abortions up to the twelfth week of pregnancy. Abortions could be done for free at certain state hospitals, and the Bloemfontein State Hospital was one of them.

  The Doctor had been very busy as abortion patients streamed in from all over the Free State, especially after they found out that, for a small fee, a sixteen weeks’ pregnant woman will be diagnosed as being only twelve weeks pregnant. Business was booming.

  Dozens of other Cuban doctors who served out their contracts had left for Spain where the language was less of a problem, and they did not have to struggle helping the poorest of the poor working in di
lapidated under-budgeted facilities.

  But the Doctor was here for another reason.

  After he achieved his goal, he would also move to Spain and try to move his mother and sister there as well.

  The Doctor finished with the last of the Saturday night casualties at six on Sunday morning. His eyes were red and scratchy from a lack of sleep and an overdose of caffeine.

  He would have been home two hours earlier, was it not for four students who were seriously injured in an accident between a vehicle and a donkey cart.

  The students were driving back to their residence in town from a braai on a farm nearby, when they crashed head-on into a donkey cart on one of the dirt roads early Sunday morning.

  The Doctor had already removed his scrubs and had just finished showering when an ambulance delivered the injured students to the casualty ward of the hospital. He was on his way home for a well-deserved, few hours of rest, when suddenly he was called upon to assist in the emergency room.

  He did not really care whether the students survived or not. He was not in Africa to assist the Oligarchists of the Old Regime. He actually despised the white male landowners of the Orange Free State. And the white males of the rest of South Africa as well. It was because of this attitude that a fifty-fifty case died on the gurney while waiting for his attention.

  His vision in life was to get what he wanted. Even if the only way to get it was to persuade others to give it to him.

  “Man is the measure of all things.”

  That was his path of knowledge. Each person was the final judge of what is to be considered beautiful and ugly, or true and false. All these notions become relative to the individual or his tribe.

  The Doctor lived on the hospital premises in staff quarters. As he left the hospital, he decided to stay awake and have breakfast in the mess at seven a.m. Another quick shower at home and a shave, a good breakfast and at least eight hours of sleep was what his body craved for.

  As he walked to his quarters, his mind drifted to the Cuban get-together which he had attended in Pretoria the previous weekend. He had attended these parties over the past two years with the hope of gathering information.