by T. M. Deans
“It hurts, but I’ve developed a pain threshold.”
“That’s because the painkillers you’ve been taking have been masking it.”
“I’ll be glad to lie around if you promise to lie around with me when we get out of here.”
“You know you’re completely incorrigible.”
“It’s interesting that you mentioned that. I have heard that before.”
I told her we needed to get to the airport. I thought it would be better if I went alone. By now I was sure they knew we were alive and had teamed up. I believed I was less noticeable than she was.
“Jack you wouldn’t leave me would you?”
“No. Would you leave me?”
“No. Then that’s one thing we don’t have to worry about. Here is $1000. It’s part of the money I was paid by the Arabs for introducing myself to you. Just get us on a plane to anywhere, preferably north.”
I walked a few blocks and grabbed a cab to the airport. By the time we got there, the cabbie had let me know there were no regular airlines flying in or out of this little city. There were however, two charter companies based here. Most of their business was due to the mining companies. I could see there were whites moving around. Seeing that made me feel a little more comfortable and less obvious. I told the cabbie to park behind the small terminal and paid him to wait for me. The offices for both charter companies were next to each other. I didn’t see any planes sitting on the tarmac, which wasn’t reassuring. I went in to the first office. The clerk told me they only had two planes. One of them would be back in four days probably. Then it would be ready to be chartered, or I could reserve it now. I told him to let me think about it, and come back. Next door looked more promising. The man told me they only had one plane flying, but it was due back any moment. I asked where his regular flights went heading north. He said anywhere that was in fuel range, as long as it wasn’t restricted.
While I was waiting I asked if anyone in the city owned a private plane. He told me only the Muanda family did. They used their own runway. They owned the mansion outside of town and just about anything else of value. I said I’d heard of them. I asked if the old uncle what’s his name was still running the show? He wasn’t. He passed away some time ago. The son was now the big boss man.
“How long before the pilot can take off again?”
He said, “Usually they like at least to wait overnight, but if you wanted to pay…. Where is it that you want to go?”
I didn’t really know. I needed a map, but surely as far away from here as possible. I thought I’d wait until I could talk to the pilot directly, I would pick the destination and then once we were up in the air, I would bribe him or whatever it took to set down someplace else.
Just about then, the captain of the plane radioed in that he was making his approach. The radio was right there in the office and I could hear everything being said. The pilot was defi nitely a white guy with an English accent. The office manager told him that he had a customer here who might want to fly out today. The pilot dropped the bomb. He said he couldn’t take a flight, because he was bringing in 10 passengers and then turning around immediately to go pick up some more. I asked the manager where he was going and who were the passengers? The pilot came back on and said he had picked them up in the town north of the little village where we had our gun battle. It was the one with the airport where we were originally trying to get a flight. I asked again a little more directly this time if they were mining engineers? He said no they were Arabs that had pulled in on a ship and had some kind of business here. They didn’t say what, but he could only take 10 of them at a time, over and out. I thought to myself, “No shit over and out.” I told the manager thank you. I’d be back in a few days. I high tailed it out of there, and got back to my cabbie who, was thankfully still there.
I asked him who in town rented vehicles, preferably four-wheel-drives. He said there were three different places and would take me there if I wanted. I had my cabbie take me to the first one and then cut him loose, I had been with him too long already. That wasn’t good especially now. I had no luck at any of them. This wasn’t going well. I found another cabbie and had him take me a block from my hotel. I walked the rest of the way. When Lana let me in the first thing she said was, “I can tell by your face. No luck.”
I told her everything that had transpired.
“I can’t believe that they want me so badly they would go to all this trouble. They have a whole army looking for us. Hell, it would almost be worth getting caught, just to find out what it is they want from me. If I only knew, I would know better how to handle this.”
“Well then maybe it’s time we change tactics. Maybe we should bring the war to them, take one alive, and question him.”
“You might be right. But no, we can’t be sure they actually know we’re here. Besides, this isn’t like that little village. We can’t just start playing high noon here. They probably have some resemblance of law and order. I’ve seen uniformed policemen on the street.”
We had been re-outfitted with clothes back in the village, but it would do to have some nicer threads. I had stopped in the pharmacy on the way back, and purchased more bandages and antibiotics.
“We need to buy a vehicle. This time you better come with me. Leave everything here but the weapons and what we can carry easily. We shouldn’t come back to this place. The first thing they’ll do is to start checking hotels.”
Lana went to the window that overlooked the front of the building on the street, and said, “Jack. Trouble.”
A car pulled up. Two Arabs got out of the front seat and came into the hotel. There were two more in the back seat, but they remained in the car. Well this was it. If the old lady told them we were here, they would be coming up. We had two advantages. One was I hoped they still wanted me alive. The second was we had seen them coming and were ready for them. There was no back exit on our floor and it was too high to jump out a window. We would have to make our stand here.
I told her, “The guy in the black shirt is the driver. He will have the keys. If it comes to a shootout with all of them and we survive, we will take their vehicle. Go into the bathroom where you will have some cover. I’ll go behind this dresser. That way we will have them in a cross fire. Lana don’t get shot. You’re my nurse and I need you. I do like you too, even though you have caused me a lot of trouble.”
She smiled and said, “Likewise.”
Two of them were still sitting in the car. That meant they were just checking the place out and hadn’t been tipped off that we were here. Otherwise, all of them would be out of the car. It also meant they had already been in town before the plane landed with more Arabs. There wasn’t enough time for them to get out of the plane and go rent a vehicle I couldn’t rent. We were surrounded by Arabs everywhere. If it looked like the two guys in the backseat started heading for the door of the hotel. I could probably take them out in the middle of the street dropping the odds. I was listening for footsteps and at the same time very carefully peeking through the curtain. The black shirt guy and his partner suddenly appeared walking back to the vehicle. Their body language didn’t convey to me that they had found out anything. They got back into the car and drove off. We grabbed our gear and went downstairs.
48
HELP FROM THE OLD LADY IN THE HOTEL
The old lady at the desk asked, “Are you checking out?”
I said, “No,” and handed her enough cash for another two nights.
“I think you should check out.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that you had friends asking for you. We should not talk here. It’s better that we talk in my room.”
She led us out of the office.
“I’m just an old woman, but I did not think you would want me to tell them that you were staying here. So I didn’t.”
Lana gave me a look like this might be the only friend we have.
“All right. We thank you. Yes you are correct. We
do not want to be found by them. They are bad people and they will try and kill us if they find us. We need to be able to buy a vehicle and leave town as soon as possible. Can you help us find one?”
“I will help you, but I think it’s best that right now you hide here. There is a small apartment with a bathroom in the courtyard in back. It does not face the street and the entrance to it is through a utility room. It has been used to hide people before. We have had many wars in this country and will probably have many more. Those men did not realize it, but I speak Arabic. I heard them say that a plane would be landing at the airport with more of them to help look for you. They spoke freely in front of me. I’m sure they thought that I was just an old foolish black woman.”
“You’re kind to help us. We accept your generous offer, but I would not want you to be hurt. We also can pay. We have money, but this is a life-and-death situation. Can we trust you?”
“If you could not, they would have already been to your room. I would not want a shooting in my hotel. She looks like a warrior, is she your bodyguard?”
I said, “Yes, she takes care of my body.”
The old girl smiled and then got serious again, saying, “There is a reason why I helped you and I will tell you what it is. When I was thirteen years old my father sold me to an Arab businessman. I was supposedly only to help in the house, but he raped me every day when he wanted me. If I resisted, he would beat me. This continued until I was old enough to kill him. It was a long time ago, but I have never learned to like Arab men since then, even though I know not all Arabs are like that. I am a Christian. I do not care for Moslems who are rude and arrogant. So that is why I will help you.”
She led us to the hideout. I asked her if I gave her money, could she find us some new clothes.
She said, “Yes. My son will help you. He can be trusted I assure you. I will ask him about finding a vehicle and what is going on with the Arabs. He will bring you clothes and I will bring you food later.”
When we were alone Lana said, “Once again we have been helped by a kindly local.”
“Yes my little bodyguard. Let us hope that we do not have to rid this city of all the bad gangs as we did the last time we were helped. I fear there may be too many this time around, even if you discount a whole army of Arabs.”
“Oh Jack. You shouldn’t feel slighted because that dear woman thought you needed me to take care of you.”
“Well actually I do need you to take care of me. I’ve been on some form of probation since let’s see, Cape Town.”
She was a very aggressive lover, as could be expected from such a warrior. Nevertheless, she was being extremely soft and gentle. I hadn’t experienced this with her before when we were making love. I suppose in part it was due to my wounds. This was another side of her.
When we first met in Cape Town before she abducted me, making love to her was like being thrown naked into a pit with a she panther. She bit, clawed, scratched, and used all of her considerable lean muscles and strength. I had never been with a lover this ferocious before, but I can’t say I didn’t like it. Either way she was a very accomplished lover.
It was good to be able to release the stress of the last few days, and just rest. I hoped we were not being too trusting, but we both felt safe here for the time being. By early evening the old woman had come back with food and her son. He had brought us a new wardrobe.
He told us, “I’m working on finding you a vehicle. Nevertheless, I think you should consider just hiding out until they get tired of looking for you. I didn’t want to take a chance asking too many questions, but I can tell you there are Arabs all over the city looking for you. There has to be at least 25 of them here. They have bought vehicles, and are sending teams out on all the roads leading from the city.”
“You’re probably right. We thank you for the help.”
He said, “I live here in my mother’s hotel. I will see you in the morning if I have found out anything more.”
“Lana, I was thinking. It’s strange that all of the events, even from the beginning in Cape Town, seem to be leading us to this place. Do you believe in things like that?”
That night I lay in bed wondering how it would be to be with a woman like Lana. She was certainly a lot of woman in every respect. I was starting to become more and more fond of her. I suppose it was a natural feeling considering all the things we had gone through together. Really, what was there not to like - good-looking, an incredible body, smart, funny and could handle any situation I could, if not more. I didn’t know what her feelings about this would be. I did know women well enough to know that last night she made love to me, whereas before she fucked me. I also knew something about myself. I was a man who needed to be with a woman. There was always the big but, and here it was. There was no way I would want to enter into her lifestyle, nor accumulate more people who wanted to put the hurt on me. I had enough of those already. She seemed to really like her profession. I doubted she would want to give it up, even though I had enough money to take care of her. Of course, that is if we both survived our present difficulties. I wondered if she’d ever really been in love before. A man would have to be extremely careful to never cross the line with her, or he might find himself in a body bag. I guess it was all part of the excitement about her.
Even though I had slept with more women than I could remember, there were only three who were really important to me. Sophia was a fantasy against all odds, but I was in love with her and probably always would be. Misha was the real thing. I was in love with her, but before I could allow myself to tell her, I lost her, by either a week or a year depending on how you looked at it. I really blew it. If I had put in a tenth of the energy with Misha that I had with Sophia trying to convince her to be my woman, I would not have lost the one and only woman who made any sense. Now I was having thoughts about Lana. She was even more of a fantasy in regards to lifestyle than Sophia was. I wondered if I really wanted to be a one-woman man. Maybe I was sabotaging myself by choosing women who were against all odds. I would have to think about this more someday.
When morning came, I started to get out of bed and felt an extremely acute pain in my side. Lana said, “Lie down and let me check it out. This might hurt a little Jack be brave.”
She started pressing on the entry wound. It didn’t feel good but it didn’t really hurt. When she had me roll over and did the same thing, I jumped like I had been given an electric shock.
“Jack I think I know what’s wrong. The bullet either fragmented before it exited, and has left a piece of lead in you, which is rubbing on sensitive parts. Or it is a piece of bone that got chipped off and is floating around. That’s causing it to fester as well as your not being able to rest and let it heal. If I had removed the bullet I would’ve examined it carefully. It needs to come out. I could do the surgery. It wouldn’t be too hard, but I would need the proper tools of the trade. Then you would need to rest.”
“All right that does it. I’ve been thinking about this. We are running out of options. I need medical attention and a place to rest. Even if the old lady is agreeable with us staying here, we are putting her and her son in danger. More importantly I’m putting you in danger. We are outgunned by a group of Arabs who are intent on capturing or killing us and we don’t even know why. If they track us to this place there’s no way out. It would come down to the last man standing. If we can find a vehicle to leave, there’s still my wound and all those Arabs on the road to deal with.
“That leaves the Muanda family on the hill. They run the town. They are probably already aware of the Arab invasion and don’t like it. I did a little checking on them yesterday. The old man’s been dead for sometime. The son runs the show. It’s all about making money, plus they’re all Christians. They might not want to cozy up to a bunch of Moslems. If they were involved with hiring you, we’d already know about it by now. I told you how I killed the sergeant. They must’ve known that one of our men did it by the shotgun wound at close range. If I have
to, maybe I can make them believe me that I tried to save the woman and children. That’s why I had to kill the sergeant. Maybe I can even buy our way out of it. The final thing is, they have their own plane and runway on the property. Last resort, maybe we could hijack it. So unless you have a better plan, that’s what I think we should do, and soon.”
“Well my darling Jack it might take us out of the jungle and put ourselves into the lion’s jaws, but I’m with you. How are we going to go about doing it?”
“I’m not sure. When our host brings breakfast we will discuss it with her.”
When the old woman came with breakfast she said, “May I ask you why you want to see Mr. Muanda?”
I told her about my wound and that he was the only option for us. I didn’t want to put her in danger any longer either. We needed him to help us.
She nodded her head and said, “It’s possible. He is a good man. My son works for him part time as a driver, and I worked for the family for years before I bought this place and retired.”
“Do you think he is there now?”
“I don’t know but I could find out easily enough. I will call him. As a favor to me he might want to see you, but what would I tell him?”
We had been thinking about this. The best thing we could come up with was the truth.
“Tell him the truth. You have the two of us here. We are being hunted by the Arabs who are running around town. We need his help. We have information that is very important to him.”
“I would not want to tell him anything that wasn’t true.”
“I understand Madam, but it is true. I’m not at liberty to tell you or I would.”
“But you wanted to find a vehicle so you could leave.”
“Yes that is true. But it is also true that I needed to speak with him. We thought it would be better if we were clear of the Arabs first. Now that is not possible.”