‘Help, please, Scott, I need to go to the toilet!’
‘Surely, they cannot expect me to go to the toilet in this cage like an animal,’ he thought.
But then it hit him. ‘That’s exactly what they want. They have no intention of letting me out to use the toilet.’
With this realisation he grabbed the bars with both hands and began shaking the cage — shaking it violently and shouting at the top of his voice. He was sure the men would hear him now and come to see what all the noise was about. But nothing. Even the woman lay still, not moving a muscle, despite all the commotion he was generating.
Although he was now at bursting point and his bladder felt so full it was getting painful, he still found it difficult to let go and relieve himself in the cage. However, in the end the urge to go was so overwhelming, he simply had to give in. He tried to direct the urine to the outside of the cage, which would keep the floor of his temporary new home dry.
As he relaxed his bladder, he had a sudden urge for a bowel movement, too. This surprised him, as his body had let his bowels go automatically when he had been faced with the lions. Directing his urine out and away from his cage was relatively easy, but to do the same with his faeces would not be. He would have to do it to one side of his cage, so that he wouldn’t have to touch it.
After he’d relieved himself, he felt totally degraded. The room smelt of his faeces and urine. Now he hoped that the person across from him wouldn’t wake up, as he’d feel extremely embarrassed about what had just happened. Totally frustrated and angry, Graham decided to yell out, and the only word that would come out was ‘Help!’
He kept shouting and shouting at the top of his voice, knowing that his kidnappers would eventually hear him. He didn’t really care right now what they would do to him. And he was right: The door to the building shot open as he continued yelling, and in came both men he’d seen before.
They were holding a gun and another implement which he’d not seen before. As they approached the cage, one of the men shouted at him, ‘Shut the fuck up!’
Scott was holding the gun, whilst his colleague was carrying a long, metal, pole-like implement. He continued with his shouting, ignoring what Scott was saying and stared at his kidnappers in defiance. Then suddenly the rod-like implement was thrust in through the bars of his cage and, as it touched his bare skin, he jerked backwards in pain. The implement was a stun gun, which shot out a huge electric charge.
Graham cried out in pain as the charge hit his skin, and then the man jolted him again, which resulted in him bouncing back and hitting himself on the bars at the back of the cage. ‘Stop!’ he cried.
‘Please stop!’ he pleaded, as he lay there in shock.
‘Well, shut the fuck up, or we’ll keep prodding you until you do, and I mean it, you little shit!’ Scott snarled at him.
He cowered in his cage, looking up at the two men, as he writhed in pain from the two jolts of electricity he’d just received.
‘Why are you doing this to me?’ he said weakly.
Scott turned to his colleague and said, ‘Blimey, he stinks! You get the hose, Ken, and I’ll keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t start shouting again.’
Ken handed the stun gun to Scott, turned away and walked towards the door of the building. Graham could see that he was walking towards a hose reel and watched as he grabbed the hose and brought it towards his cage. Within seconds he was being fired at with a powerful jet of freezing, cold water. The whole cage was being blasted. The food remains and dirt on the floor were flicked up onto Graham and then washed off again as Ken fired the jet at him over and over.
The water on the floor and all the effluent it carried was washed away into a small trench that ran across the back of the building. The two men were laughing and jeering as they fired the water at him. He huddled in the corner of his cage, covering his genitals with his hands so they wouldn’t be hurt by the forceful stream of water. The ordeal seemed to last for an eternity. The two kidnappers enjoyed it every bit as much as Graham hated it. Although it was good to have his cage cleaned and his legs finally washed off, it wasn’t how he would have wanted it to happen.
Finally, as the hose was turned off, Scott said to Graham, ‘Now, let that be a lesson to you. The next time you start yelling, we’ll not be so lenient. You got off lightly this time.’
The two men left the side of his cage. Ken returned the hose to its holder and then left the building, following his colleague, who’d already gone out. They closed the door behind them.
Once again, he was plunged into semi-darkness, only this time in a bit more pain and feeling chilly, despite the warmth of the building. He was shivering now and had nothing to dry himself nor to keep himself warm, so instead he wrapped his arms around his knees as he hunched up as small as possible. The emotions of anger, helplessness and frustration swirled around in his head, as he sat there in his cage, not sure what he should do next.
It was then that he heard the faint sound of a woman’s voice: ‘Hello, where am I?’
He realised the woman who had been brought in earlier had woken up.
Despite being wet and a bit ashamed of how he looked, he got up from his curled-up position and whispered, ‘Hey, you! Are you awake?’
With the sound of his voice, the person in the other cage stirred and sat up, turning to see where the voice was coming from. Realising that she was totally naked, she covered her breasts and genitals as best she could and replied, ‘where the hell am I and who the hell are you?’
He replied in a whispered voice, ‘We are in Africa.’
‘Africa?’ the lady exclaimed.
‘Yes, Africa, and I’m a bit lucky, because they’ve already put me out into the wild, only to be rescued from being eaten alive by a pride of lions,’ he replied.
‘What are you talking about? Rescued from a pride of lions? Are you completely mad? I live in Chelmsford. I can’t be in Africa. I only came home from the shops a short while ago,’ the lady protested.
‘She lives in Chelmsford, which isn’t far from where I live,’ he thought before replying.
‘You might think that, but think a bit harder and you might remember something that happened just before you fell asleep. I have some vague recollections myself about what happened to me and how I got here,’ he said.
The woman looked down to her bare legs. In the dim light she could see a large bruise on her right leg and, as she went to touch it, there were a few memories of a man in her house and her feeling frightened.
‘So, who are you, then, and what are you doing here?’ she asked.
‘Well, firstly, we must keep our voices down, otherwise our kidnappers will hear us and they don’t like us at all,’ he warned.
‘Why wouldn’t they like us?’
‘I’m not totally sure, but I know they really hate me and they have treated me like an animal or worse,’ he replied with venom in his husky voice.
‘Worse still, I tried to cry for help and they zapped me with this electric stun stick and then squirted me with a hose.’
‘Yes, I remember hearing the sound of water, as I was coming to,’ she said.
‘So, what’s your name?’ he asked, pleased to have the company of this lady, even though they were both caged like animals. ‘My name is Graham.’
She looked at him before replying, trying to summon up a little dignity.
‘I’m Carly,’ she said. ‘I’m feeling really woozy and my memory seems to be a bit blank right now, but I’m also really hungry and thirsty. Do we get food around here?
‘Well, yes, we do, but only dog food, and you get it thrown at you, if you’re lucky,’ he said.
‘Dog food? What the hell is this?’ she replied bluntly.
‘I told you we are being treated like animals, and if you make a fuss then you will be in for it,’ he responded.
‘I really need a cigarette,’ she said to Graham. ‘I haven’t had one for ages now and can’t survive without.’
/> ‘You’ll be lucky to get dog food, so to get a cigarette would be a miracle.’
‘But I need one!’ she said irritably.
Trying to ignore her plea for a cigarette, he began to tell her about the man with the blue eyes and how he remembered going to an interview and meeting him. He told her about how the same man had confronted him in his flat with another man who he thought had injected him with what must have been an anaesthetic. He also recounted his memory of waking up in what felt like a coffin and seeing the blue-eye man again, staring down at him.
Carly’s memory was still very fuzzy, but with Graham mentioning the blue-eyed man, this brought forward a similar memory for her of an interview in a newly painted office in Rainsford Road. They gradually pieced together their memories, as they both discussed their similar experiences.
After their talk she got angry. She grabbed the bars of the cage and started to shake them vigorously, like a monkey possessed. The sound reverberated around the building.
‘Shhhh,’ he whispered. ‘The men outside will hear you, and then you’ll be in for it. They really aren’t very nice. I found out the hard way,’ he said, trying to protect her from what he’d been through.
‘I don’t care! Let me out, you bastards!’ she started shouting, to his dismay.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Druker was in his office with Scott discussing the two new marks, one that they’d brought from the UK only yesterday, and Konner Hurley, who Joshua had found poaching on Druker’s reserve the day before.
When Druker arrived home with Scott, Joshua had quickly told him about his catch and what had happened out in the bush. At first, Druker questioned him about what had occurred, but he reassured his boss that he’d buried the body of the man he’d shot and that the tourist was lying unconscious in what was called the round house.
Joshua also said he had gone through the hunter’s wallet and found out his name.
Druker seemed to be pleased. His thinking was that this Konner guy would make up for only getting one new mark in the UK. He completely bought into Joshua’s idea of using this tourist game hunter as another mark, and to put him out into the wild as a lesson. Druker was angry that they’d come onto his reserve and had shot one of his prized lions.
Then he’d stopped and thought for a moment about Joshua’s report. It occurred to him that leaving the neighbour’s Land Rover out there on his property could cause problems with the authorities later.
‘Joshua,’ he said, ‘you and Ken take our Land Rover back to the scene of the lion’s shooting and get rid of the Land Rover you left there. It’s evidence we don’t need coming back to haunt us. Drive it into a deeper part of the Luangwa River.’
Joshua nodded and went off to get the deed done.
Back in his office with Scott, he asked, ‘Have we made the arrangements to put tracking devices into the latest marks’ necks?’
‘Yes, all arranged. We are just waiting for the vet to arrive later,’ Scott replied.
‘Excellent! We don’t want to waste time because we haven’t got trackers inserted in our marks,’ Druker said.
‘We want to make sure the next two are ready to go out as soon as possible, but let’s get the new ones out before we put Smith back out in the field. Let him sweat a bit longer in his cage and worry about it.’ Druker paused for effect. 'I bet he’s really pissed off by now.'
‘It’ll be done, sir, don’t you worry. The vet is due to arrive at 1:30,’ Scott replied, and as he did, Druker was thinking to himself how he enjoyed treating these dregs like animals, even to the extent of using a vet instead of a doctor to insert the tracking devices.
‘How is Konner now; is he looking any better?’ Druker asked Scott, as it had turned out the dosage of tranquiliser that Joshua had shot him with was enough for an animal the size of a lion. Konner was not well enough to be put into the usual holding cages, so Joshua had placed him in a bed in the round house.
‘Yes, he seems to be better this morning, and I’ve explained to the vet that we want him to look the guy over,’ Scott replied.
‘I hope he’s okay to have the tracker fitted today and that he’ll be fit enough to go out later on, too,’ Druker said.
Fitting the trackers was a relatively simple procedure. Druker had even considered having one of his men do the task instead of a veterinarian, in order to limit the number of people who knew about his experiment. However, in the end he decided that he didn’t want the operation jeopardised by a blunder on this front. He was determined to prove that if an urbane man or woman is put back into the wild, with nothing but their birthday suit, they wouldn’t survive.
With years of being pampered by society, with food, water and shelter being so easy to get, even if you don’t have a job, man had lost his ability to survive in the wild. So for his experiment to be real, he didn't want a stupid infection from a botched operation to jeopardise his live experiment; instead, he wanted nature to do its job.
In Africa, most things could be bought. If you offered the right amount of money, almost any person could be bribed. He had met Roger, his vet, in a bar in the local township of Kakumbi and got chatting about how in the UK there are so many spongers. He was explaining to the veterinary surgeon about how many benefit cheaters there were and how they needed to be taught a lesson.
He was pleased when the vet agreed with his argument, as he’d trained in the UK and then came to Zambia about 15 years ago. In the end he decided to risk telling him what he intended to do. At first he talked as if it were a joke and that it was something he would love to experiment with, but when Roger got really enthusiastic about the whole idea, he decided to tell him it was going to actually happen. The risk paid off, and after negotiating a tidy fee for each operation, the deal was sealed.
Each procedure, although only lasting around a half hour, cost Druker the equivalent of $50,000 US. The vet wanted the money paid in dollars, as this was a better currency than their local Zambian Kwacha. The funds were always transferred to an off-shore bank account, right after each operation.
The vet had been reliable by turning up when he was asked to and did a good job, but most importantly, he kept it to himself. He had only one simple request: He wanted none of the prisoners ever to see him, which Druker agreed to right away.
‘You said the vet is arriving at 1:30, didn’t you?’ Druker asked,
‘Yes, that’s right,’ Scott replied.
‘I would like to get these two out this afternoon.’
‘Okay, but that might be quite late, which means they will be out at night before they’ve had a chance to adjust to the wild,’ Scott said.
‘Mother nature never rests. She stops for no one,’ Druker said. ‘They’ll need to learn that survival is a full-time job.’
‘I guess so, Druk. I was just checking with you.’
The two men were suddenly interrupted by the sound of an alarm and a red flashing light on the desk. Both men looked at the flashing light and then at each other.
‘You had better go find out what that’s all about, Scott!’ Druker exclaimed. ‘And report back to me immediately with what you find.’
‘No problem, sir. I’ll get right on it and see what the issue is.’
With that, Scott hurried from Druker’s office, leaving him looking at his computer screens.
CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE
Scott joined Joshua, who was the one who had raised the alarm.
‘Hey, Scott, the new girl in the front cage has woken up,’ Joshua said in his deep South African accent. ‘She’s making a huge amount of noise, too.’
‘Then we’d better stop that right away, Josh, and I have just the trick,’ Scott said to his colleague, as he grabbed the stun gun.
If the truth be known, Scott quite enjoyed the idea of using it on the marks. This model of stun gun, when turned up to full power, produced 5,000,000 volts. When it was used, a focused electrical charge would fire through the body. The prongs on the end of the stun device deliver a sho
ck that causes the loss of balance and muscle control for the victim.
The device works by dumping electricity into the muscles, which causes them to overwork very rapidly and depletes the blood sugars needed for energy. The assailant can be out of commission for anywhere from five to 10 minutes and can be totally confused and disoriented after being hit. The effects are not long lasting and usually no permanent damage is done, except if the victim falls over after being hit with the voltage, and 'secondary damage,' as Druker would call it, occurs. So he had advised his staff to use it with caution and be careful not to damage the marks too much.
Most stun guns, especially those producing one million-plus volts, are designed to cut through clothes to ensure the assailant gets a full charge of electricity. However, as the captives were naked, the lower-powered guns were enough, meaning they would feel the full force of the electric shock.
Joshua was a broad-shouldered man who clearly worked out. He had the face of a man most would not think about messing with. He wore khaki trousers and a green singlet showing off his rugged body. His muscular arms showed off large biceps with well-defined cephalic veins. Both his arms were covered in tattoos, which ran into his shoulders, and he had a large tattoo of a fighting bull across his wide back. His face was clean shaven and it looked like he’d been out in the sun for the most of his life, as his skin was very dark and weathered.
Both men left the radio room, led by Joshua, and approached the main door to where the captives were being held. The door was double padlocked from the outside, and Joshua put the key into the first lock and pulled the padlock free, then slid the bolt back from its loop. He then did the same with the second lock before opening the door.
The two men walked in, this time led by Scott, and as they did the smell of urine and faeces hit them, like a wall of chemicals eating away at their sensitive noses.
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