Lies, Lies, Lies

by David A Max

  “Kevin is a man of few words,” said Gina, “I doubt if you will get much out of him.”

  There were night robes laid out on the bed for them, so they changed and had some tea and snacks and got into bed to rest since they couldn’t sleep.

  3:30 a.m., and they had managed to sleep after a long day, when suddenly there was a barrage of gunshots coming from outside. Jake and Gina jumped out of bed and ran towards the door, but before they could open their door it was flung open and a man with a pistol ran into their room. He told them to hide under the bed and that they mustn’t leave the room under any circumstance unless told otherwise, then he ran out and shut the door. At this stage Gina broke down in tears, “We might die,” she sobbed, “what have I gotten myself into?” Jake mustered some courage and came out from under the bed and grabbed the TV remote control. Gina screamed at him, “What are you doing? Why do you want to switch on the TV, do you want to get us killed?” Jake ignored her; he switched on the TV, reduced the volume to zero, and flipped through the channels until he saw the one that had the CCTV feed. He could now see what was going on outside.

  About fifteen of Kevin’s security men were shooting at two men running towards the main building; the men were running quite fast in a zigzag way, so they were not hit by the bullets. The men running were obviously not worried about the bullets flying close to them, as they just kept running towards the house. One of the CCTV cameras captured a close-up of one of the faces of the men running towards the house, it was the same strange man that had been stalking them all day.

  Jake screamed, “Oh my days, it’s the same guy and he has a partner!” Shock followed by sweat covered Jake’s face, and at that point the man looked into the camera and for a moment Jake felt the man was looking directly at him. Jake fell back and sat on the bed and in that instant one of Kevin’s men shot the strange man in the chest, the force of the bullet throwing him back as he fell to the ground. Immediately he fell, the other man that was with him turned and ran towards him. They kept shooting, and the barrage of gunshots had now caused a lot of smoke and everything was covered with smoke. The gunshots stopped because nobody could see anything clearly any more; about a minute later the smoke dissipated, and everything was clear again. Kevin’s men couldn’t see anyone running towards the house again; they walked towards where one of them had fallen after he was shot, but when they got there, he was nowhere to be found, he had simply vanished. Kevin’s men agreed amongst themselves that the man that wasn’t shot must have carried him out, they walked around the whole compound and outside the compound and there was no clue of the men anywhere.

  Jake and Gina were now really concerned about their safety. Jake turned and looked at Gina, “Are you sure your husband didn’t send assassins to kill both of us? These men are relentless.”

  Gina just kept silent, she was trying to figure out if it was a dream or reality. Jake kept watching what the men were doing outside; a corner camera caught Kevin standing and looking at his men. Jake was surprised, so Kevin was outside the whole time in the midst of all the gunshots and strange men running towards the building. ‘This guy isn’t scared of anything,’ Jake thought to himself.

  The guards were now trying to clear up all the flowers and leaves that the bullets had caught off and also trying to pick up all the bullet shells. While Jake was watching them, there was a knock on their door; Jake got up and opened the door.

  “Hello Jake,” Kevin said.

  “Kevin, this is getting out of hand,” Jake replied.

  “It’s not safe for you and your friend to return to your houses until we figure out what is going on, but you aren’t safe here either. Tomorrow morning we’ll fly out of the country and go somewhere safe. I’ll take care of all your expenses from now on.”

  “You actually want us to leave California for another country? We can easily move to another state like New Jersey or somewhere quiet,” Gina didn’t like the idea of leaving the United States.

  Kevin said, “It’s only going to be for a short time, like a month or so, just until the dust clears. I have a chateau in the south of France, I think we’ll be safe there for some time. Listen guys, we are all in it together, the strangers I saw today will go to any length to get us, this is for our own safety. Try and get some sleep.” Kevin turned around and shut the door.

  Gina was perplexed, she started sobbing and held Jake. Jake tried to calm her down, “Take it easy darling, it’s only for some time we need to be safe.”

  “What will I tell my husband? He’s going to start looking everywhere for me.”

  “Gina, we will think of that later, we need to be safe for now,” Jake replied, “we’re in danger, like Kevin said we need to find out who is behind all this.”

  They climbed into bed, cuddled and slept; “This is the longest day of our lives,” Jake said before they both fell asleep.

  11:30 a.m., Jake struggled to open his eyes, he stretched his hand to touch Gina but she wasn’t there. He got up from the bed, looked around the room but she was nowhere to be found, and at this point he was a bit worried. He rushed into the bathroom to have a quick shower and brush his teeth, which he did in a hurry, and looked for his clothes which he threw on the floor yesterday before putting on a robe. Then he saw his clothes neatly ironed and folded on a couch, ‘This is like living in a hotel with a twenty-four hour butler,’ he thought to himself.

  He got dressed and left the room, immediately he opened the door one of the maids was waiting by the door. She said, “Good morning sir, your breakfast has been served in the dining room,” and she showed him the way to the dining room where the dining table was like a conference table adorned with ornaments, it was just so grand. At the head of the table was Kevin with Gina sitting next to him, she looked really pretty that morning, she wasn’t hysterical anymore but she was smiling and it seemed like she was being a bit flirtatious with Kevin. Jake felt jealous, and at the back of his mind he knew he was no competition to a billionaire, all Kevin had to do was show interest.

  Kevin said, “Morning Jake, hope you slept well? Please join us, we’ve been waiting for you.”

  Gina smiled at him, the ‘I have missed you’ smile, and Jake felt a bit relieved, ‘she still wants me.’

  “I’ve been talking to Gina,” said Kevin, “and she told me you work together.”

  Jake pulled up a chair and sat down, “Yes we do, she’s my boss and owner of the company; you could say I’m her poodle,” Jake joked.

  Gina smiled and said, “On the contrary, I’m his poodle, Jake is my colleague and also my lover, the best lover in fact,” as she stretched to give Jake a peck on the lips.

  While they were having small talk at the dining table, the maids served all sorts of fruits, different kinds of eggs, toast; you name it they were all on the table.

  “The two of you are going to be off work for some time,” Kevin said, “so I told Gina that I was going to invest fifteen million dollars in her company and I hear you make one hundred thousand dollars a year. I’ve discussed this with Gina and it’s been changed to three hundred thousand dollars a year; like I said, we are in this together so I can only make the situation a little less stressful for all of us.”

  “That’s wonderful!” Jake exclaimed, “I only just met you yesterday and you are doing all this, thank you. Do I call you boss now or is it too early?”

  Kevin smiled and said, “Nothing changes for now. I have arranged new passports for both of you, we leave for France at 4 p.m., and it’s a twelve-hour flight. Everything you are going to need will be waiting for you by the time we get to my chateau in France.”

  By 4 p.m., three black SUVs pulled up on the airport tarmac of John Wayne airport in California. Kevin, Gina, Jake, and a security guard wearing a black suit, came out of the first SUV; in the second SUV was Kevin’s personal assistant, one of his lawyers, his chief financial officer, and one of his senior vice-presidents; the third SUV contained four security guards. They were all about to board th
e plane when Jake looked up, and saw that it was a Boeing 747, a 747 was Kevin’s private jet! Jake shook his head and thought to himself, ‘I’m on a different planet right now, this is planet earth for the super-rich,’ he had only seen things like this on TV. At this stage Gina was completely speechless.

  They climbed the stairs into the plane, where air hostesses were waiting at the entrance to welcome them. Inside the plane it felt like they were in a very large well-decorated apartment, with TVs, meeting tables and couches. Kevin told one of the air hostesses to show Jake and Gina their bedroom, so she took them to their bedroom and told them if they needed anything they should let her know by using the intercom next to their bed. They both sat on the bed and just marvelled, “We are in a bedroom on a plane, how interesting is that!” Jake took up the remote control and switched on the TV, all sorts of movies came up on the screen, “Gina, which one should we watch?”

  “I think we should watch a romantic movie,” she replied.

  They both decided to choose an old movie and chose Casablanca, an old classic. Relaxing on the bed, they watched the movie until they both fell asleep.

  Chapter 2

  The turbulence woke Jake and Gina up. Jake got up and looked out the window, the plane was approaching the runway for landing. “How long were we asleep?”

  “I don’t know,” Gina replied.

  “We are about to touch down, we slept throughout the 12-hour flight, that’s a first for me.”

  “Well there is a first time for everything,” Gina said laughing.

  The plane landed and taxied to the terminal and made a final stop, the door was opened and all the security guards, Kevin’s assistants, Gina and Jake came out of the private jet. Three black SUVs were already waiting on the tarmac; they all got into each one like they did when they got to John Wayne airport in California.

  The three black SUVs drove out of the airport in a convoy, they drove through the countryside and the scenery was beautiful, France could make you forget all your troubles. The ride from the airport to Kevin’s chateau was unusually quiet, there was no small talk in the SUV. When they arrived at the chateau, it was another beautiful masterpiece, the building was huge, with big lawns, a fountain, it even had its own lake.

  “Kevin, I could get used to this lifestyle,” Jake smiled.

  “Yes you should get used to the lifestyle because we are a team now, don’t forget that.” Jake nodded in acceptance.

  The SUVs parked in front of the building, where several maids were waiting at the entrance. Jake and Gina were now accustomed to meeting maids and workers around Kevin. “I’ll have to take you guys on a tour of this property, I am particularly proud of it.” Kevin called Jake and Gina and he showed them around the grounds, there was so much to cover, they strolled around until they got tired; it started getting dark, so they decided to go and rest in the house.

  Jake and Gina were shown their room. The cupboard in the room was huge, it had two sections, one for Jake and the other for Gina; the cupboard was filled with the nicest clothes and they were their sizes. “Someone has gone shopping for us,” Gina said as she admired the clothes in her section of the cupboard.

  By 11:30 p.m. Jake and Gina were worn out and they fell asleep, the bed was so comfortable and it just made them sleep. At about 2:30 a.m., Jake woke up but couldn’t move, he could see around but couldn’t move any part of his body, ‘this is sleep paralysis,’ he thought to himself. He looked up, and walking towards his bed was the strange man that been stalking them; ‘the strange man was shot,’ Jake thought to himself, and when the strange man almost touched him, Kevin appeared as if from nowhere and started to wrestle with him. Kevin grabbed his hands and they pushed and shoved each other around, Kevin wasn’t going to let him touch Jake, they wrestled for about a minute. The sleep paralysis started to wear off and Jake managed to turn his head and called Gina who was fast asleep, but no sound came out from his mouth; he tried again and nothing; the third time he said to Gina, “Gina wake up!” she woke up.

  “Jake are you okay?” Jake turned his head for her to look in the direction where Kevin and the strange man were wrestling, but although she looked in the direction she told Jake she couldn’t see anything. At this point, Jake could move his whole body, he turned and didn’t see anybody again, “Where did they go? I just saw the strange man and Kevin.” Gina rubbed his shoulder and told him it was probably a dream, “Try and sleep darling,” and she went back to sleep. Jake was shocked, ‘I know I wasn’t dreaming,’ he thought, ‘this is strange.’ Jake sat up for thirty minutes, deliberating whether he was dreaming or not, until he fell asleep.

  The next morning Kevin took Jake and Gina to his farm, he had a large Barbarossa grape farm, where the grapes were planted and fermented to make red wine. The wine the grapes produced was robust and aged well. Kevin said, “This is my hobby, I enjoy coming here to forget about my worries, it helps me relax a lot.”

  “It’s a really big farm,” Jake replied. “Sorry to digress, but were you at any time in our room yesterday night?”

  Kevin was shocked at the question, “No I wasn’t.”

  “My apologies,” Jake replied, “I must have been dreaming, never mind.”

  “The farm is huge,” Kevin continued, “it’s about four hectares, I sell the wine we make here and store a lot for myself, I’ve been doing this for over ten years now. Both of you should try and get into it while we are in France, it helps.”

  “We definitely will,” Gina replied.

  A week later Jake and Gina found themselves obsessed with going to the farm, they felt fulfilled and it kind of made them forget about their worries. By the second week Jake and Gina had become fully-fledged grape farmers and wine makers, they worked at different ends of the farm, Jake was usually part of making the wine, while Gina enjoyed picking the grapes in the fields.

  That evening they all met at their meeting point where they got into the cars that drove them home, but Gina was nowhere to be found. They waited for another thirty minutes and she was nowhere in sight. Kevin sent two of his security officers to go and look for her, but after about an hour when it started getting dark, the security officers went back to Kevin and told him they couldn’t find her. Jake was now really worried, even Kevin had worry written all over his face. “This is unusual, did she mention to you she was leaving the farm at any time?” he asked Jake.

  “No,” he replied, “I haven’t seen her since this morning.”

  Kevin sent four more of his security officers to go and search the farm, “Please make sure you fine-toothcomb every nook and cranny of the farm, we must find her or at least have clues of where she might have gone.”

  Three hours later, two of the security officers came back and told Kevin, “We think we’ve found some clues to what happened to her, there was a struggle close to Gate C, it was evident by looking closely at the ground and plants around the area. We also saw a couple of shoe prints, it all happened at the edge of the farm, we think some people must have dragged her off the farm forcefully.” Kevin sighed, he was now really worried. Jake at this point had become hysterical, panting profusely and murmuring inaudible sounds, Kevin held his shoulder to calm him down, “We will get to the bottom of this, and we must find her and bring her back.” They all got back into the cars and left the farm.

  Gina woke up after her head hit something like metal, she couldn’t move her hands, she could feel that they had been tied up, her feet too were tied up, and her head was covered up with a black cloth so she couldn’t see anything, but she could feel the car or van moving, so she decided to try and talk her way out, “Maybe you guys have the wrong person,” she explained, “I don’t owe anybody any money, I have no enemies, you guys must have made a mistake.”

  A voice shouted at her and told her to shut up, “Do you think this is a question and answer session? Keep quiet before I shut your mouth up by force.” The threat felt real, so Gina decided it was best if she kept quiet. The vehicle came to a stop,
she heard a door slide open and she was dragged out of the vehicle; she could tell after about a minute she had entered a building and had been made to sit down on a chair.

  As the cars sped to the chateau, Kevin got his phone and dialled Monsieur Antoine, who was a police commissioner. Kevin spoke to him in French, “My friend is missing and I can confirm she has been kidnapped from my farm. I need your assistance straight away before the kidnappers’ tracks go cold.”

  “Oh my, that’s upsetting,” Antoine replied, “I’ll come to your house right away and send some men to your farm.”

  “Thank you,” Kevin replied, “I’ll be expecting you and your men.”

  When the cars pulled up at the chateau the police commissioner was already at the entrance waiting. Kevin got out of the car and shook his hands, “Thank you Commissioner for coming at short notice,” they went in hurriedly and Jake followed. They sat down and discussed it in French, Jake had no clue what they were saying but waited for them to ask him a question. After a few minutes the commissioner turned to him and asked him in English, “What time did you see her last?”

  Jake replied, “About 10 a.m. in the morning when we arrived on the farm, she normally likes to pick the grapes.”

  “Okay I’ll get my guys to work on the CCTV around the farm so we can at least have a clue of what happened.”

  The commissioner got up and left. Kevin looked at Jake, “I will make sure we get this sorted out, my security men are well trained, once I get some information from the police we can go after the kidnappers.”

  Kevin and Jake waited anxiously for the commissioner to call back; at 1:30 p.m. which was about two and a half hours after he left, the commissioner called Kevin and they spoke for about fifteen minutes. After their conversation Kevin looked at Jake and said, “The commissioner just told me all the CCTV cameras in the area and within one hundred metres radius were jammed, and none of them recorded anything for about thirty minutes, which must have been the time the kidnappers took Gina and escaped. The commissioner said they must have sent some kind of virus into the cameras, because they were all only replaying the same video prior to the kidnapping.”