by Emme Rollins
“Lookee what we find here,” says a voice behind us. “A white boy and white girl.”
I whirl around.
A black man stands there, pointing a rifle at us.
Oh fuck.
The fact that this doesn’t look good is an understatement.
REBECCA
The man grins, showing white teeth as he points the black barrel of the rifle at us. He is flanked by another black man, his companion, also holding another rifle.
Oh shit.
We are sprawled on our tummies, and we slowly rise to our feet. My heart is palpitating at a hundred and forty beats a second. Kurt raises his hands and I follow suit. It seems like the only wise course of action.
The other man barks something in another language to the first man, and he replies.
“You.” The first man gestures with the butt of his rifle to Kurt. “How you get here?”
His accent is Jamaican, I think. But I can’t be sure. The people who live around these islands may speak in the same patois.
“We were lost,” Kurt says carefully. He has shaven, and his beautiful auburn hair flows wild and free over his shoulders. He is now clad in the dead man’s khaki clothes and resembles a romance book cover version of a Great White Explorer. “We fell off our ship in a freak accident and we were swept here to this island.”
The two men contemplate this by inspecting us as if we are insects. The first man’s eyes roam up and down my body, sending little shivers through my spine. I don’t like the way he is looking at me, as if I’m something edible to be savored.
Kurt sees this and tenses.
Stay your ground, Kurt, I beg him. Don’t do anything stupid.
The knife is in the backpack, which is strapped behind Kurt’s back. I know he is thinking about it, but there’s no way a knife can take down two rifles.
The first man jerks his rifle. “Come with us. Go this way. Now.”
Great. Now we are prisoners. So much for finding civilization.
With our arms held up in the universal gesture of surrender, we slowly make our trek downwards to the beach. There, the other men are waiting for us. They are all black, all probably local. Crates are stacked on the shore. They watch us like predatory hawks, as if we are goods to be bartered.
Our captors prod our backs with the butts of the rifle.
“On your knees! Now!”
We sink down to our knees, hands behind our scalps. I am really scared now. Somehow, this is all going wrong, wrong, wrong. I remember the dead man up on the promontory, knife embedded in the back of his neck and body placed so that he was staring into the sea like a sentinel. Or as a warning to those who would chance this island.
“Let me do all the talking, please,” Kurt murmurs to me.
I don’t say anything.
A man comes forward. He is tall and very commanding, with a black bristly beard and with his head in a skullcap. Our captors brief him in patois on the details of our capture.
“What are your names?” he asks.
“I’m Kurt,” Kurt says, “and this is Rebecca. Please don’t hurt us. We mean you no harm. We don’t know where we are and we just want to go home.”
“Kurt,” says the man. He strokes his short beard. “Missing off a ship, you say?”
“Yes.”
His eyes narrow. “Kurt Taylor? The famous singer? The newspapers are all over with news of you.”
OK. Now we are getting somewhere, but I’m not sure if it’s in the right direction.
Kurt visibly swallows. I can see his Adam’s apple moving down his throat.
He decides to go for broke. “Yes, I am Kurt Taylor.”
I cringe. I’m not sure where this will lead us, but with men like these, I can tell from the sudden gleam in their eyes that there would be money involved. Major money.
Kurt rushes on, “If you see my companion and myself safely to the nearest town where we can find passage back to America, I will see that you are paid handsomely. Very handsomely indeed.”
A broad smile spreads across the man’s face.
“I am Jai,” he says. “Perhaps we can come to a negotiation then.”
KURT
You see, I always had this stinking suspicion that this island we are on holds a lot more secrets than water. We are still Jai’s prisoners, as evidenced by the way they make us march down the stretch of beach with our hands clasped behind our heads.
There, around the bend, is a wooden house on stilts. An honest to goodness wooden house. It has several sections, from what I can see of it, and it is sturdily made. The bottom halves of the stilts are dark with moss and seawater, and it is apparent why the house needs to be elevated. The tides must wash in a lot here.
“Get in there,” Jai says.
The narrow steps to the entrance creak as we ascend into the interior. My pulse is pounding against my neck – tic tic tic. I’m not sure what I’ve gotten us into, but I sure as hell am ninety percent sure Jai wouldn’t order us killed now.
The other ten percent is for bad behavior.
Inside, there is a spartan sitting room with a surprisingly clean sofa set and a table and some shelves with audiovisual equipment. There’s a TV, a laptop computer, several cellphones which I am sure are hooked up to satellite connections and several guns and bullet cases. More crates line the walls. One of them is split open at the top, and I can see some packets of white powder being stacked inside.
Shit.
We have literally walked into a drug runners’ den. Unless they are pirates, of course, in these pirate-infested waters. Or smugglers. Or white collar criminals evading tax.
“Sit.” Jai gestures to the floor.
OK, we don’t merit any chairs.
Two men approach us. They seize our arms and tie our wrists behind our backs with tight ropes. Only then are we allowed to sit on the floor, right in the middle, without any support. Rebecca is quaking. I can tell she’s very scared.
To be honest, I’m scared for her as well. The men – ten, eleven of them – are all staring at her face and breasts and bare legs. Rebecca has lost a lot of weight, and she would not be considered plus-sized anymore, though she was perfectly delectable when she was bigger as well.
Jai pulls a chair and seats himself in front of us, like a warlord.
“So how much compensation are we talking about here?” he asks.
I actually don’t know my net worth. I left it all to my accountants to handle, and I suspect it’s increasing by the minute. One of our albums has just gone platinum.
I say, “Uh, how much are you looking at?”
Jai smiles. “That would depend. I need some time to confer with my partners.”
I nod. “OK.”
What else can I say? He has partners in this line? Whatever floats his boat, in a manner of speaking.
Jai leans forward. His eyebrows are ferociously bushy and he smells of tobacco. At least it’s only tobacco and not the weed he is obviously smuggling.
He smiles again. His teeth are perfectly white against his dark face.
“You must be hungry. Perhaps you would like to eat and change out of those clothes.”
Perhaps it’s the way he says it, but there is an air of menace around his words. A prickle of unease makes the hair on the back of my neck rise.
“Uh, thank you. When do you think you can arrange for our transfer back to mainland?” I ask.
“When we are good and ready. And when we have gotten the money you promised us.”
A thought strikes me. I would give him the money, he would bank it into the Cayman Islands or somewhere, and he’d still opt not to release us.
It is a very distinct possibility.
Jai claps his hands. “Fetch them some food, drink and new clothes. Then get me Faora. She would want to see these folks for herself.”
Faora. I wonder who that is. I dart a glance at Rebecca. She has calmed down a lot, and she does not say anything – to her credit.
Two of the men
seize us both up by the arms and march us to another section of the house.
REBECCA
“You know, I don’t trust them an inch,” I say to Kurt.
We are locked in a small room with a table and two chairs and little else. There is one window that looks out to the jungle side of the island but it is fortified by rusted iron bars. I can’t help staring outside it. I’m not sure if we have exchanged one sort of nightmare for another.
Sometime during the hours we spend in there, idle – not daring to make love or show too much affection with each other because we don’t know who might be watching – we hear the sounds of motorboats out on the coast. Plenty of activity going on out there.
At least they have untied our wrists so that we can eat.
“I don’t either,” Kurt says.
We have been fed a meal of rice and beans and some sort of mystery meat. Although it is very far from burgers and fries, we fell onto it like rabid hyenas.
“Most delicious thing I’ve ever tasted,” I declare, wiping my mouth. Our plates are scraped clean.
“I know.” He stares at his shiny empty plate longingly. “Since we’ll be paying through our nose, I wonder if we can ask for seconds.”
I reach out to take his forearm across the table. “Hey, you don’t have to do all the paying. I’m involved here too. I will pay you half of it back.”
He shakes his head. “We’re talking ransom money here.”
I know. The thought of it makes me rueful. We may be talking millions and millions of dollars. I’m not sure what Kurt is worth, but this is going to cripple him badly.
The bolt outside our door shoots open. We tense and look up. I quickly take my hand off Kurt’s forearm.
The man who very first stumbled upon us in the jungle stands there with his rifle.
“Jai wants you,” he says abruptly.
*
What Jai wants, Jai gets. We are ushered to the living room again. This time, in addition to the same motley crew, a tall black woman awaits us. She is seated on an armchair, and she has an imperious air about her. Her hair is done up in a carefully wrapped scarf, and she wears a long, flowing caftan. She seems, for all purposes, a Caribbean queen.
I take it that this must be the infamous Faora.
Jai is there as well, arms folded, grinning like a cat who has just snuck into the creamery.
“Faora, meet Kurt Taylor and Rebecca Hall,” he announces. He turns to us. “This is my sister, Faora.”
Faora’s eyes light up as soon as she sees Kurt. Me – not so much.
“So this is the famous Kurt Taylor,” she says. She has a musical lilt. “I must confess to be a fan.”
A fan. Great. This is what we need.
“Uh, pleased to meet your acquaintance,” Kurt says. I suspect he must be feeling as much at a loss as I do.
Faora turns her gimlet gaze to me. “And are you his girlfriend?”
I glance at Kurt. He licks his lips, not knowing what to say. We are damned if we confess to one thing and damned if we don’t, I suppose.
“Yes,” Kurt says.
I don’t know why, but my heart soars to hear that. And to hear his declaration for the first time in such dire circumstances.
Still, Kurt Taylor has openly declared that I am his girlfriend!
Inside me, something joyous squeaks and explodes.
I don’t know who has the upper hand – Jai or Faora – but he seems to be deferring to his sister here.
Jai says, “We have discussed it, my sister and I. And we have come to an agreement.”
Oh good, we’re getting somewhere. I cringe. I’m not that attractive, but I have seen Jai and the guys eyeing me as though I were a piece of juicy horseflesh. I hope my putting out doesn’t come as part of the ransom deal. I like being desired as much as the next female, but by guys like Kurt, thank you very much. It isn’t as exciting as it sounds to be a drug smuggler’s object of desire.
Jai and Faora both focus their entire attention on us.
Faora says, “We think your freedom is as important to us as it is to you. How much do you price your life? That is not the only question. The bigger question is: how much does the world price your life?”
Huh? I squint. What the hell exactly does she mean?
Kurt is just as apprehensive as I am.
“I don’t understand,” he says.
“How does the tune of one hundred million dollars sound to you?” Jai says, grinning.
My eyes go round.
A hundred million? He has got to be fucking kidding.
“Kurt doesn’t have a hundred million dollars,” I blurt out. I toss a look at Kurt. Uh, does he?
He shakes his head.
“I don’t have a hundred million dollars,” he says desperately. “I just started in this business, for Chrissake! Look, I’ll give two million dollars, a sum I can honestly say I have if my agent and manager haven’t taken their cut from it already. Two million dollars is a tidy sum for you to build a bigger wooden house on stilts, if you want to, and buy a retirement home.”
Faora laughs. “Two million dollars is chump change to us. Is that your American expression? Chump change?”
“Chimp change,” Jai argues.
“No, I’m sure it’s chump change,” his sister replies.
I don’t believe they are arguing over the semantics of two million dollars, a sum I will probably never see in my entire life.
“Chump change or not,” Kurt says, “it’s still all I can spare.”
“Oh, I’m sure your friends can spare a lot more than that.” Faora smiles. It is not a pleasant smile.
“I don’t think my friends are going to shell out any money for me. Not that much anyway.”
I’m certain Kurt doesn’t know how much his friends are worth either. They are probably worth more than him, seeing as they have been in the business for a longer time. But one hundred million dollars? That’s Britney Spears type of accumulated earnings! (Or maybe a fraction of what she has.)
“Not only the friends you know and have on your private Facebook,” Faora explains. “But all the friends you have in the world.”
She’s really got me stumped.
Huh?
“You got where you are through a reality TV show,” Jai adds. “Then let a reality show decide whether you will live or die.”
KURT
The next few days are surreal. The whole devious plan unravels before our eyes.
This is how it works, in a nutshell:
1. Jai and Faora set up a website using a proxy server, and have it maintained by an associate from Barbados
2. They then record me, hands tied up behind my back and wearing artfully torn clothing. I am kneeling and staring at the camera aperture of the laptop. They have purposefully cleaned me up and left my hair flowing wildly around my shoulders. They want me to look as appealing as I possibly can.
“Speak,” Faora orders.
I have no choice but to say the words they want me to say, especially since they have a gun trained at my head. The black barrel of the gun is very obvious in the screen shot, and it is pointing right at my temple.
I say: “Hi. I’m Kurt Taylor. I have been missing for twenty days together with my girlfriend, Rebecca Hall, ever since we both fell off a cruise ship. As you can see, I’m still alive after being stranded on a deserted island. But I have now been kidnapped.”
I pause dramatically. It would have been farcical if I weren’t convinced they would pull the trigger on me. Or if not on me, certainly on Rebecca.
“My abductors want me to raise a hundred million US dollars to set me free. If I don’t raise that money in ten days, they will blow my head off live on YouTube.”
The muzzle of the gun lowers to my cheek and caresses my skin. I wince. The gunman squats and lets the camera capture his masked face. He is wearing, perhaps aptly, the mask of The Joker from Batman.
“The clock is ticking for me,” I say with feeling. It’s true. I’
m every bit as desperate as I sound. “They have set some milestones for the money to be raised by intervals. Every day, ten million dollars will have to be raised or they will begin cutting a part of my anatomy off. Beginning with the little finger of my left hand.”
And I’m guessing they will actually go through it.
“So please . . . if you want to set me free to walk amongst you alive and well so that Red Velvet can be a full quartet again and make more albums, please donate to the ‘Keep Kurt Taylor alive’ fund at the ‘PAY’ button you see on the website. You can donate by Paypal, Visa, Mastercard or any means you like. All currencies will be automatically converted.
“If you want to see how I’m doing, please check in periodically on this website again to see the Livecam.”
There is a close-up on my face. My pleading eyes. The Joker behind me grabs my hair and thrusts my entire face into the camera. My throat is spread wide open and he lovingly runs the muzzle of the gun down it.
“Please,” I say as a final word.
And then we wink off.
After that, it is pandemonium.
*
They let me and Rebecca watch the proceedings unfold on a monitor without a keyboard. So we can only observe whatever is playing on their laptop outside the room, but we are not given the opportunity to Facebook or email or Twitter anyone.
In a matter of minutes, someone uploads the video from the ‘Keep Kurt Taylor alive’ website (www.keepKurtTaylorAlive.com) onto YouTube. Thereafter, it rapidly becomes viral. The video is embedded in a million Twitter and Facebook feeds overnight, and the number is growing by the second. The news portals like CNN and Fox and Al-Jazeera take it up and start reporting it around the world.
With the technology we have today, it is very possible to go global in a matter of hours.
The interviews and debates start.
“Should we allow kidnappers to dictate to us what to do?” a newscaster is saying. “What if it’s all a bluff?”