by Steve Reeder
The rising sun made its appearance in the east and touched the faces of the two young white men. One of them rolled onto his side, coughed several times and opened his eyes. The second man hadn’t moved since midnight when he’d been set down on the sandy strip besides the road.
Reece stood up slowly and tried to stretch the aches and pains from his filthy body. Bomber looked, if possible, even worse than he had last night. Kneeling besides his friend, Reece searched for signs of life. The fluttering pulse was still there, but weaker than before. Reece knew that getting Bomber to a hospital as quickly as possible was the injured man’s only chance at life.
Reece carefully lifted Bomber onto his shoulder, looked for the briefcase before remembering that he’s stashed it on the far side of the Zambia/Angola border.
“I hope I can remember where the bloody thing is when I come back for it, Old Buddy,” he said. “I also hope that you will be with me.” Although he refused to voice it, he was not hopeful that his best friends would survive the day.
“You really didn’t think that I would survive?”
“Bomber, I had no idea how you’d stayed alive that long. I mean, being carried over my shoulder for nearly twelve hours must have been pretty rough. Frankly you were lucky that you were unconscious at the time.”
Bomber didn’t reply, his eyes hooded, staring straight ahead, trying to remember something, anything, from that day. “You know,” he finally said, “I remember the last thing that Franz said to me, just as I started off, driving around that bull-dozer.” He stopped of a moment and Reece waited patiently. “He was talking about the diamonds and his sisters. He said that he was going to keep three of the best stones and have them made into rings for them.”
“Then that is what we’ll do,” Reece said.
“Do you think that Cole gave any of the money to the families?”
“Yeah, I think he would have. It was his idea in the first place, so - ”
“But we can still do those rings?”
“For Franz’s sisters? Sure, I’d like that. Maybe we’ll go visit the once we’ve got the stones sold?”
Bomber nodded, picked at some dried blood on his hand, wondering how he had scratched it. “So . . . what happened when you got into Zambia?” he finally asked.
“I’m not sure whether I should call it damn good luck, for you - or damn bad luck for me,” Reece grinned. “I got us up to a tarred road, and it was in good condition so I guessed that it would have some traffic on a regular basis, and in fact we had only just got there when I saw a police car coming. Naturally I didn’t really want to talk to the police just yet so I hid behind a thorn bush that was growing next to a large rock. They would never have seen us except that one of them wanted to stop for a piss, and I guess he just had to piss against that particular rock!”
Bomber laughed for the first time that day. “Whatever happened to the famous Sean Reece luck?”
“Had to run out sometime, I guess.”
They lapsed into silence. Bomber didn’t want to discuss his time in hospital and was afraid to talk about Reece’s time in prison.
“Do we have enough money to get to London?” Bomber finally asked.
“Yes. I have sold seven of the stones to various businessmen.”
“And passports?”
“No problem. I have developed a contact in the Zambian Home Affairs department and he’ll is sorting us out birth certificates and passports.”
“In our own names?”
“Sure, why not?”
“When?”
“I can pick them up day after tomorrow. I’ll go into Lusaka and book two tickets to London at the same time.”
“And when we get there we sell the stones and live the life of the idle rich? Because I’m not sure that I fancy that.”
Reece grinned broadly. “Ah, but my good man, I have not been idle while you were sleeping for three years! I have an idea.”
“Am I going to like it?”
“Cellular telephones!”
“And what the hell is that?”
“The next big thing, Bomber, the next big thing. And I think that we can find some very good investments, and you know, get in on the ground floor of this thing. There is a Scandinavian firm – a lumber company believe it or not, called Nokia – that they think is going to be huge in the cell phone market.”
“Right . . . we’ll see.” Bomber Harris did not looked convinced. “I mean, what the hell was a cellular telephone, and who was going spend money buying the damn things anyway?”
A bit about the author:
Steve Reeder was born in England and raised in Africa. He has lived in Zimbabwe, South Africa, England, Ireland, and Spain. Currently living in the Garden Route of South Africa where he has interests in several businesses.
He has worked as; a salesman, sales manager, marketing manager and even did three bouts of commentary on national motorcycle racing for the Top Sport programme; Owned several businesses including a golf tour & events company. Now he spend most of his time in Knysna and Durban with trips to Spain and home to England when the weather there is pleasant and he can afford the airfares. Steve is a combat veteran with South African army – combat in Angola. He survived two fire fights with the enemy and having vehicle blasted out from under him by an anti-vehicle mine. Several years later he competed in national and provincial motorcycle racing championships in South Africa where he won the 1989 provincial 400cc championship. Other notable challengers that Steve took on was to bungee off Victoria Falls Bridge (over the Zambezi River between Zimbabwe and Zambia), and to parachute naked at 4000 feet over Moroccan desert (it was a dare from a friend!)
Steve owns a publishing firm based in South Africa where he publishes and helps to market novels by local authors, as well as a film production company, a marketing consulting firm and has just started an advertising agency too.
Soon to be released novels:
December 2014 will see the release of ‘Turn Killer’,
During July 2015 ‘Bad Moon Rising will be released,
And The ‘Moonbeam Revolution’ is expected to be in print early in 2016 and ‘A Nightmare of Diamonds’ is due in December 2016 and then Steve says that he’s going on along holiday!