The Cuban

by Paul Eksteen

  “You are no longer a cugine, but a made man. The boss will be pleased. He will be very pleased indeed”. Chicco replaced the receiver and fell backwards in his recliner with a huge smile on his face. Good news at last! And the person who gives Mario the good news would be richly rewarded.

  Chicco looked at his mobile for a long time after the connection was broken. The jamook had been taken care of and he, Chicco, would be confirmed. Mario didn’t need to know the details. He smiled as he pocketed the mobile. He could see a great future ahead of him.

  ***

  Dullstroom

  Danielle was sitting downstairs in the Rainbow Lodge. She was sitting upright on a very uncomfortable Oregon pine chair, her feet tied to the legs of the chair with cable ties, and her hands tied behind her back.

  She didn’t like the evil lady or the little wimp, who fluttered around her like a mother hen, one little bit. Grow some balls, you mofgat, she thought to herself.

  She was very embarrassed about her situation. Her father had told her time and time again to be careful, but despite his warnings, she had fallen for the lady’s trick.

  She had attended hockey practice the previous afternoon with some of her friends. Afterwards, Sarie, who played in the same team as her, couldn’t find her mobile phone. She had left it in her tog bag in the dressing room, but when she returned from the hockey field, it was gone.

  They looked everywhere for the phone, and even phoned the number, but they couldn’t find it.

  Then at half past ten last night, Danielle received a SMS from Sarie’s phone to meet with her in the dressing room. She was not to tell anybody. It was a secret.

  It was nothing new for her to sneak out of the hostel, but approaching the dressing rooms in the dark, was nerve-wracking.

  “Sarie, where are you,” she whispered in the dark as she approached the dressing room door. The next moment a dark figure appeared from the side of the building and she heard a dull pop. She felt a pain in her chest just before she collapsed.

  When she woke up, she was gagged and blindfolded, her hands bound behind her. She was lying on her side and could feel that she was in a moving vehicle. When she tried to sit upright, she hit her head against a cover not more than six inches above her.

  She shared her father’s fear of enclosed spaces, and frantically started kicking about. The vehicle immediately pulled over onto the side of the road and stopped. A moment later, the lid to the boot opened, and she could feel the cool air on her face. Even though she relaxed slightly, her body was still a tense ball.

  “I will take the gag out, and you can sit upright on the rear seat. But if you don’t behave, we go back to status quo.”

  It was a woman’s voice.

  They drove on for at least another two hours, before they turned off the tar road, and followed a dirt road to the lodge.

  The woman, and someone who she assumed must be the little wimp, pulled her out of the car, marched her to the lodge, and tied her to the chair. She was still blindfolded, but she could sense that it was still dark. The air was cool, and she could hear the noise of crickets chirping away.

  She could sense that there was someone in the room with her, but that person did not answer her when she asked for something to drink. The woman untied her early the next morning and took her to the bathroom where she supervised her using the toilet and washing her face in the basin.

  She was given nothing to eat, but instead was tied up again on the uncomfortable chair.

  ***

  Somewhere between Zebediela and Roedtan

  Kwinzee was driving south on the R519 between Zebediela and Roedtan. He collected DC’s rifle from his farm and was driving very carefully to avoid the numerous potholes in the road.

  He was driving in one of Papillon’s rebuilt double cab Toyota bakkies, and had the rifle stowed away in a small cavity behind the rear passenger seats.

  He had left BJ and Johanella in charge of the shop and had told them to lock up at three. He phoned Lebo after he collected the rifle from DC’s farm and had told her that he had to deliver a vehicle to Dullstroom and might be home late.

  He hadn’t heard anything from DC yet and was wondering what had happened in Clarens. Obviously, everything went okay as DC was still alive.

  He hoped that the operation in Dullstroom would sort out the last of DC’s troubles. Poor DC had a hectic few weeks behind him, and he needed DC’s guidance at the office. They were getting very busy now, and there was lots of marketing that needed to be done.

  ***

  Somewhere between Standerton and Belfast

  I was driving at the maximum speed that I could keep the Merc on the road. Stuff the speed cops, I thought. Although I am not usually keen on bribery, today was one of those days where I would bribe myself out of a traffic fine.

  I had just spoken to Karlien, and I could hear that she was not very happy. I told her that something had come up, and that Danielle and I would join her for supper the following evening.

  Playing for time. The story of my life. There was no way that James Bond Coetzee was going to drive to Dullstroom, free the stricken maiden, and make it to Karlien’s house in time for supper today.

  I was very optimistic in my postponement of our date, but what the hell, this thing must come to an end today. I would not die without a fight.

  My thoughts kept on going back to Nic. I was surely going to miss him. I remembered his last words from our meeting in Pretoria a few days ago.

  “Of course, I know everything. Or rather, I did, once upon a time. But South Africa has changed. Every day brings new puzzles to be solved, but now the complications are of such a magnitude that I often feel lost. The SSA became a forest of enemies that seek to rip from us their pound of flesh. We always thought that we were special, but we are not very different from the other state departments.”

  I phoned Kwinzee as I drove through Bethal. I had another hour and a half to go, but he was less than thirty minutes away. I told him what had happened in Clarens and discussed the layout of the Rainbow Lodge. We would both think of a plan and brainstorm once we meet in Belfast.

  ***

  Rainbow Lodge

  It was ten minutes to three as I approached the entrance gate of the Rainbow Lodge. Although I had been there twice before, this was the first time that I did it via the proper access road.

  I stopped at the closed gate and killed the motor. There was an old rusted mailbox at the gate, back from when the postal service was prepared to come a little nearer to your house. I got out in the silence. As I opened the two gates, my phone started ringing. Lillynn.

  I pressed the green button on the phone and held it to my ear with my left hand, my eyes scanning the surroundings for any sudden movements. I had moved behind the stone pillars at the gate, and had my Sig in my right hand, hidden from view of the lodge.

  “Drive the car ten metres into the yard. Then close the gate. Strip into your boxers and, together with the Doctor, slowly walk towards the front door.”

  I did as was told. There was no place to hide the Sig, so I decided to leave it behind. I slowly started walking towards the lodge.

  I was halfway to the front door when I heard a voice from one of the upstairs windows.

  “Stop! Where is the Doctor? I told you to bring him with you! If you don’t follow my instructions, you will not see your daughter alive again!”

  I kept on moving towards the front door and replied, “The Doctor is in the trunk of the car. I am sure the trunk is not airtight, but I shouldn’t take any chances if I were you. As soon as I have my daughter, you can have him.”

  It was broad daylight and, although I didn’t pass any cars on the short piece of dirt road to the lodge, a car could pass at any moment. I hoped that Lillynn would realise this and would try to get me into the lodge as fast as possible.

  It was a gamble I had to take, as I didn’t have the bloody Doctor to do the swap.

  As I got to the verandah, the front door opened
. Lillynn’s lips thinned the moment she spotted me. “Uh, oh,” I thought, bracing myself. She moved backwards gesturing my way with a snub-nosed revolver.

  “Let my daughter go. You want me, not her.”

  “Such egotism. How do you know what I want?” she said as she moved in behind Danielle and pressed the muzzle of the revolver against Danielle’s head.

  It was difficult for me to take my eyes off Danielle. She was gagged, but not blindfolded and could see exactly what was happening. Her eyes were large with fear.

  “It’s okay, Danielle. I’m here,” I said as I slowly ambled into the lodge. I heard a pop and felt needles sting in my side at the same time as my knees buckled underneath me.

  ***

  Kwinzee was lying between some tall pine trees, four hundred metres north-west of the lodge. He saw DC arriving and shook his head when he saw him approaching the lodge in his underpants. Light blue Jockey skants. He shook his head again. This Cuban bitch was not taking any chances.

  He had a clear view of the front door to the lodge, and saw DC going down. He tried to find Lillynn in his scope, but she was hidden from view.

  Louis dragged DC further into the lodge and closed the door behind him. He and DC had agreed that it was no use shooting Louis, Lillynn was the dangerous one. He needed to get a bead on her.

  After the front door was slammed shut, everything went dead quiet in the lodge. He waited for fifteen minutes, in which time he didn’t see or hear anything happening inside. Surely someone must come for the Doctor in the car? He carefully scanned all the windows. No movement.

  He was ninety per cent sure that Lillynn was not the one that would go to collect the Doctor from the car. If he was correct, it was check mate.

  ***

  I was lying on the ground, shaking uncontrollably. My legs had collapsed under me, causing me to fall forward, crushing one of the French coffee tables with my weight.

  Louis had shot me with a taser into my right side, and as I went down, dragged me further into the lodge, and slammed the front door shut.

  Lillynn rushed to me and jerked my hands behind my back. She strapped them together with a cable tie and did the same to my ankles. I was lying on my side and was still shaking uncontrollably when Louis walked up to me and stunned me again. This time using the drive stun mode on the taser.

  I was now jerking and groaning with pain; it felt as if my body had been stung by a million bees. My tongue tasted of metal — as if I had bitten through a piece of aluminium foil with my teeth.

  They dragged me to the recliner next to the fireplace and tied me down onto the chair with a piece of nylon ski rope.

  The next moment, Lillynn was standing in front of me, the taser in her right hand and her revolver in her left hand. I could feel the two pins sticking to my side and could see the two cables hanging on the floor. Louis had removed the cartridge from the taser, before using the drive stun mode. Louis took position behind Danielle, not really sure what his role was.

  “Where is my son?” Lillynn enquired.

  “Your son?”

  I was confused. I didn’t know whether it was from the taser or from her question. I was busy hyperventilating again, my bruised rib causing severe agony. I tried to shake my head to clear my mind, but my neck was in some kind of spasm.

  “Yes, my son. Doctor Luis Esteban Fernandez.”

  I struggled to focus. My body started shaking again and shivers ran down my spine. The ropes were putting extra pressure on my ribs, which blinded me with pain.

  “Your son?” I croaked.

  I was confused. What was she talking about?

  “Yes, you fucking murderer. Luis. He is my son. Where is he?”

  “The Doctor?” I enquired.

  She bent forward and pressed the taser against my bare stomach. Krrrrrrr.

  I almost shat myself. My body was jerking uncontrollably, and I could hear Danielle screaming.

  Her son? What was she talking about?

  “Captain Arnaldo Fernandez and I had a son. Years ago, when we were both stationed in Angola. I left him with Arnaldo’s wife in Cuba. She raised him as her own. Where is he?”

  She tasered me again. This time on my upper leg.

  My body was jerking uncontrollably. I could hear Danielle screaming again. Louis must have removed the gag. Probably to inflict more horror. This was a crazy couple. My right leg was kicking out in a spasm, pulling my left leg with it.

  “Your son, Doctor Fernandez?”

  “Yes, you filthy dog. What did you do to him?”

  “He is in the car. Go see for yourself,” I managed through clenched teeth.

  “Louis, go to the car. See if Luis is there,” she instructed her husband.

  I could see that her husband was just as confused as I was.

  “We must swap,” I croaked again. “Danielle for the Doctor.”

  Louis opened the front door and started towards the Merc.

  ***

  Kwinzee had moved towards the hedge which ran down the side of the lodge as soon as he heard the screaming from inside. They must be torturing poor Danielle, he thought.

  He was moving towards the lodge, using the hedge as cover, when the front door opened, and Louis emerged.

  ***

  Lillynn turned away from me and started towards Danielle.

  I was getting more and more anxious, as I knew what Louis was going to find in the trunk of the Merc. Sweet blue fuck-all. He didn’t ask for the keys to the car, and it was going to take him some time to find them. Those old cars needed the key to unlock the trunk, there was no central locking.

  I was twisting my wrists against the cable ties, the recliner chair giving me a centimetre or two to play with. The cable ties didn’t though. They were pulled tight, cutting into my skin.

  Freeing my hands was not an option. The key was in my legs. They were tied together but could still move forward and backwards. For the best odds, free hands were necessary. But time was running out.

  I had to get Lillynn away from Danielle. “What do you want from me?” I asked her in a shaky voice. “I brought you the Doctor, your son. Untie my daughter and do the swap.”

  “Are you stupid?” she asked me. “You and I know that you are not walking out of here alive. You killed my lover and the father of my son.”

  She moved towards me again. I didn’t have the power to try to stand up whilst tied to the chair. My right leg was still slightly numb.

  But I could create a diversion for Kwinzee to do his magic. I hoped he was not still lying in the woods, waiting for a clear shot on Lillynn.

  I started jerking my upper body as if in a spasm an at the same time, I pulled my legs to the left and as close to me as I could. I had to create a diversion. This woman was a snake. She was a snake when in Angola, and nothing had changed since then. If you put a snake in a jar, twenty years later, it will still be a snake.

  Lillynn stopped a metre from me and waited for me to stop with my spasms. “It was not only Luis who waited for this moment. It was me too. Today I will avenge his father’s death, and also inform him who his real mother is.”

  She moved closer and raised the taser again. “I could hurt you,” she said. “You understand that now, right?”

  I nodded and gasped. I was still in a lot of pain, and I know she could see it.

  “You understand that, right?” she asked again.

  I forced another nod.

  “Say it, Coetzee,” she said. “Say I could hurt you.”

  “You could hurt me,” I gasped. Her calling me Coetzee sent a burst of renewed anger through me.

  “But I won’t. That’s not how I like to play the game.”

  I stared at her, unblinking.

  “I prefer to hurt your daughter,” she said with a sadistic smile.

  It was now or never.

  I lashed out with all of the power left in my body, kicking out with both legs together, hitting her on the side of her right knee. I could hear something snap when
both my shins hit her on the side of her knee, and she went down screaming. I was bellowing “Kwinz!” at the same time, as hard as I could.

  I was still tied to the chair, but Lillynn went down on the spot.

  All three of us were screaming as Kwinzee burst through the open front door, his pistol in his hand.

  Lillynn was lying next to my chair with her right leg at an awkward angle. Her face was contorted with pain. In her eight to five job from Monday to Friday, she didn’t have to deal with the unexpected or surprises.

  “I will kill you, you dog,” she screamed and swung the muzzle of the revolver my way and pulled the trigger at the same time.

  It was the second time today that someone tried to kill me. Luckily, this time, the shot went into the chair next to my head, as she pulled the trigger a moment before the sights were fixed on me.

  Her shot was immediately followed by another loud bang.

  This time it was Kwinzee who fired the shot. And he didn’t make a mistake.

  Lillynn was not as lucky as I was. Kwinzee’s first shot hit her in the torso and threw her backwards. She was struggling to get upright when his second shot hit her squarely between the breasts.

  And she was not wearing a Kevlar vest either.

  Kwinzee rushed forward and kicked the gun away from her body. She was still jerking slightly and coughing up blood on her Persian carpet.

  What a mess, I thought, as Kwinzee flicked a knife from his pocket. He cut the rope which bound me to the chair and then sliced through the tie downs around my hands and ankles. We reached Danielle together and untied her from her chair.

  “Do you have your Leatherman with you?” I enquired from Kwinzee while hugging Danielle.

  He produced a Leatherman from a pouch on his hip, and pulled the one prong from my side, but the second one was lodged into a rib. He used the pliers to cut the prong, and then assisted us to the front door. There was no sign of Louis.