Chapter 5
Garrett drove back through his own dust. Before he got to the highway he passed a big white van coming the other way, on the side written in red, Mister Sweets Food Wholesalers.
Soon the Jeep was on the main road heading towards Krugersdorp. Driving on the rumble inducing concrete highway. But the cheap sunglasses were doing their job and Garrett had worked out how to plug his iPod into the sound system so the seven speakers were pumping out one of Berwalt’s overtures played by the Gavle symphony orchestra. Garrett liked Berwalt, considering him to have been a composer well ahead of his time. Even now unjustly ignored. Brian could never understand why Garrett listened to classical music, and the fact that he favored such obscure composers irritated him all the more. The Dentist was more of a German heavy metal fancier. Bands like Rammestein and Totenmond. Vicious, grinding music. Every bar a call to arms. Whereas Garrett found his classical music a balm for his soul, cool and comforting. They both, however, agreed that all other modern music was shit. Three and a half minutes of over-composed triteness vomited up by whoever the next Bieber clone was.
The Gavle orchestra started the second movement. And the road rumbled beneath him, drawing him closer to the next Sunlight Orphanage.
The Krugersdorp branch of the children’s home was built on a steep hill, so from the front it seemed small. An average three-bedroom house. But when Garrett pulled into the driveway it became apparent that the house continued down the hill in a world war two concrete bunker style. This home had a different feel to the last one. Empty soda cans crunched under the Jeep’s tires and plastic supermarket bags festooned the barbed wire fence in a post apocalyptic version of Christmas. Flapping in the breeze like colorful birds caught in a multitude of snares. Blues, reds and yellows, beating out their lives as they tried to free themselves from the rusty strands of steel.
First he tried the doorbell, a small steel button recessed into the door. But when he didn’t hear a corresponding ring inside the house he knocked as well. A plump middle-aged man with a large round, fleshy face and a tiny retrousse nose answered the door fairly quickly. The effect was entirely disconcerting. It was as if someone had stuck a doll’s nose onto an adult size human being. He had a heat rash or perhaps simply a large crop of pimples on the right hand side of his face. And the hand that he proffered in greeting was limp, flabby and lifeless as an old slice of microwave pizza. But his voice was liquid gold. A light tenor, pleasing to the ear and soul alike.
‘Good afternoon, good sir. I am father Cornelius. Is there any way in which I may assist you?’
Garrett nodded. ‘I am a friend of sister Manon. I wonder if we could have a quick chat, father.’
The father nodded. ‘Follow me,’ he said.
The house was badly lit and smelled institutional. Boiled cabbage and harsh antiseptic.
‘Come. We shall talk in the common room. The children are in a prayer meeting with sister Dorcas while I was taking time to catch up on some of my paperwork.’
The priest led the way to a room that hosted a haphazard scattering of threadbare armchairs, cushions and blankets. In the one corner was a small old-fashioned television set with a makeshift set of bunny aerials sticking out of the top. A wire coat hanger and some aluminum foil. Round face sat down in an old wingback and gestured towards another. Garrett sank into the chair that had been indicated and started his tale immediately, not wishing to spend longer than necessary in this depressing place.
The priest listened intently while Garrett spoke, his hands steepled together as he leant forward in his chair. At the end he nodded, his look thoughtful, his face round, pink and porcine.
‘Yes. We have had a few children go missing.’
‘More than a few. Twenty or so in recent months.’
The priest shrugged. Weary. ‘I wouldn’t know about that. Whenever one of ours goes missing we wait for twenty-four hours and then we inform the police.’
‘Do the police ever find anyone?’ Asked Garrett.
‘Not really. But sometimes they return of their own accord or I assume that they find a life elsewhere.’
‘Or they die.’
The priest lent forward even further. ‘What was that?’
Garrett stood up. ‘Or they die. I’ll show myself out, father.’
As Garrett strode from the house he knew that he shouldn’t be blaming the priest for his frustration. The father was doing a job few others would. But how, he wondered, could people accept the loss of these children so easily. At what stage did they become meaningless? Mere numbers in the balance sheet of life. Present. Not present. Dead. Alive.
He slammed the door behind him and stood breathing deeply for a while until he noticed the five men grouped around his Jeep. He could see straight away that this was trouble and his body immediately jumped up a level, raising his adrenaline, restricting the flow of blood to internal organs and flooding the muscles. Step one; scan the rest of the area to determine if this small group was the only threat. Step two, approach the source and ascertain the level of threat.
Garrett walked up to the group. Hands by his side. Expression confident but not aggressive.
‘Can I help you gentlemen?’
One of the group, a black man, six foot, stood forward.
‘Reckon you can, boy. Give us the keys for the Jeep and then we’ll take it from there.’
Garrett ran his gaze over the man. He was obviously the leader. The leader always speaks first. He was armed. Garrett could see the butt of a semi-automatic pistol sticking out of the waistband of his shorts. A quick second glance confirmed it to be a Government Issue 1911 colt 45. The hammer was down so it wasn’t cocked and locked. Of course it may still have a round in the chamber but Garrett would bet against it. The rest of the group clustered behind the leader in a V formation. Like flying ducks. The analogy brought a smile to Garrett’s face
‘What’s so funny?’
Garrett shook his head. ‘Nothing. Look, I’m very busy. Could we move this whole thing along?’
The leader drew the Colt and pointed it at Garrett’s face. ‘Give us your keys and then we will decide what to do to you.’
Garrett had been shot a total of eight times before. All of the incidences occurred in the first few years of combat. Since then he had experienced only minor injuries. That was because his body had learnt. Reactions had been honed, scalpel sharp. Thought was no longer involved. Muscle memory was everything. To think was to die. His reaction was instant and complete. No holding back. With his right hand he grabbed the top slide of the weapon and pushed back hard. At the same time he grasped the bottom of the pistol and ejected the magazine before depressing the slide stop and whipping the top slide off the receiver. This left the leader with a handful of wood and metal with no discernable function whatsoever. Garrett, however, had a weapon. The top slide was six inches of hardened steel weighing in at a little over half a kilogram. He held it gripped in his fist, a half-inch nub of steel protruding out each side to strike with. Using an overhand right he smashed the tip of the slide into the bridge of the leader’s nose, shattering the bone. He sank to the floor like a corpse.
Spinning hard, Garrett struck the man to the left of the leader in the hinge of his jaw, the blow striking with enough force to splinter the lower mandible and detach it from the skull. He then stepped back and to the right and jabbed the end of the slide into the third assailants Adam’s apple causing him to drop to the floor, clutching his throat in panic as his airway closed up. A quick front snap kick to the head ensured that he stayed where he was.
Then Garrett stepped back. Reassessing. Thought catching up with action.
He stared at the remaining two men and shook his head. ‘Go home. It’s finished.’
Neither of them moved. And then the one reached behind his back, lifted his shirt, and drew out a machete. Twenty-three inches of high carbon steel with an eighteen-inch blade.
The force of memory brought on by the sight of
the weapon made Garrett take a step back. … the children lay on rush mats on the floor, their foreshortened arms wrapped in bandages…he held up a hand towards the man with the blade, his face white as a shroud. ‘Stop. Go now. Please.’
The assailant mistakenly took Garrett’s reaction as a sign of weakness. Fear.
The blade glinted in the sun. Blood, thick and purple dripped off the handle. Around him, screams of agony. Gibbering. Begging for quarter. But there was no quarter. There was no mercy. And the blood sprayed high…retribution.
The man raised the machete above his head.
And the beast roared and smashed down the gate. Garrett simply stepped forward. Pushing up against the blade-wielder and thereby negating the man’s advantage. You cannot swing a machete at someone who is close enough to you to dance.
He grasped the arm holding the blade and then whipped his head forward in a vicious head butt. Ordinarily Garrett would have then stopped there, but the beast was howling. With the steel slide still grasped in his fist Garrett hammered a series of short punches into the man’s ribs. Every strike accompanied by the sound of bone cracking and splintering, puncturing lungs and internal organs. The fifth man turned and ran. But Garrett cocked his arm and threw the steel slide at him, hitting him on the back of the head and knocking him down. Then he wrenched the machete out of the unconscious blade-wielder’s hand and walked over to the prostrate fifth assailant. He stood above the man for a while, chest heaving with emotion as he stared down at him. His green eyes wild, untamed and terrifying.
And, as the beast slunk back into it’s cage, Garrett returned to the Jeep, opened the door, threw the machete onto the back seat and drove off. But the memories had been shaken loose and his whole body had been flooded with their poison…and the little girl smiled at him and raised her arm. A bloody stump wrapped in a dirty bandage…he would never be free.
Choice of Weapon Page 5