Sundowner Ubuntu

by Anthony Bidulka

  The side door slid open and Johnning stood there with something in his hand. It was a bottle of water. “You must be thirsty,” he said, handing Cassandra the bottle, before pulling another from under his arm for me.

  “What’s going on?” Cassandra demanded to know with a steely edge to her already brassy voice.

  “As I told you,” he said, not bothering to hide a near-accusatory tone at our obvious earlier lack of attention. “We must now be processed through the Zambian exit station into Botswana.”

  Phew.

  I made a note to listen more carefully to Johnning from there on in.

  Minutes later, we were back in the van and preparing to head for Kazungula jetty—whatever or wherever that was. I was beginning to feel immeasurably better about things, until I saw another van, this one the colour of used straw—kind of a musty yellow—approaching the border crossing buildings. As the vehicle came closer, I could just make out the figure behind the wheel: Jaegar. His eyes found mine, and for an interminable second we stared at one another, conveying an unmistakable message of mutual dislike.

  And then it began to rain.

  Now where the blasted hell on this heat-soaked day of Lucifer had that come from? It always seems to rain whenever my cases aren’t going well. It wasn’t torrential or even pouring, just a dotty little rain that coloured the sky a fuzzy grey (like my mood).

  “Johnning,” I urged with desperation. “Can you please make this thing go faster? The man in the van behind us is dangerous, and he is after us.”

  “But we are already ahead, and he too must be processed by the Zambian authorities before entering the country,” he told me as we started off at a leisurely pace down the highway, as if heading for a picnic in the enchanted forest with a group of friendly elves and magical fairies. “And, once on his way, he cannot go any faster than we.”

  Huh? I did not know if Johnning’s van could not go any faster, or if he simply would not go any faster, but I was certain Jaegar wasn’t about to pay much attention to the posted speed limits.

  “Stop this thing right now,” Cassandra said, somehow knowing exactly what I was thinking. “I have to pee.” Her Southern belle’s accent had suddenly reasserted itself, becoming overbearingly insistent.

  The guide must have been used to this type of request from American women, as he immediately complied with the request and helpfully pointed out a clump of trees off the side of the road.

  “Not to worry,” he assured. “It is quite private.”

  But instead of Cassandra getting out of the vehicle, I did. I came around the van and yanked open the driver’s side door.

  “I’m sorry about this, Johnning,” I said, meaning it. “But I’m going to have to drive. And you’ll have to get in the back because I have no idea where we’re going.”

  After a bit of mumbling and bumbling, Johnning—not a dumb guy and very aware of the difference in the size of our biceps—took my place in the back next to Cassandra, and I took control of the little blue van. However, once I got us rolling, although appreciably faster than Johnning speed, no matter where I put the gear shift or how hard I pushed on the gas pedal, the A&K van indeed only went so fast. Admirably hiding my frustration, I turned in my seat and asked him, “So, where do I go?”

  He shrugged. “Just drive to the water.”

  “Water?” I knew a jetty is usually some kind of landing pier. Pier equals water; water equals boat; boat equals discomfort for Russell Quant. Oh crap.

  I’d taken a Mediterranean cruise a couple of years back and learned to make friends with the water. Oh yeah, we were real friendly-like. As long as the boat was a luxury ocean liner with handsome stewards and plenty of free-flowing champagne. I somehow doubted that was the kind of boat we were about to meet at the Kazungula jetty. But maybe….

  I checked the rear-view mirror for Jaegar’s van, but the rain had gotten thicker, sluicing over our vehicle like clear gelatin, making it difficult to see out. The front windshield wipers were barely keeping up, and there were none for the rear window. All we could do was ride hard and watch for a body of water somewhere in front of us.

  It was the longest, slowest car chase I’d ever been on. The trip to Kazungula took a tension-filled hour, and although every so often I thought I could see something yellow in our rain-blurred wake, I was never sure if we were being chased by Jaegar’s van or not. At least Johnning was right. Jaegar couldn’t go any faster than we could—something about how the vans were manufactured I guessed, or maybe the fuel they used didn’t agree with the engines—so whoever started out in the lead was the winner. Thankfully that was us.

  Throughout the journey, Cassandra was chomping at the bit to pelt me with questions about our bizarre and unexpected situation, whereas Johnning dealt with it by choosing to ignore it as if nothing untoward was happening—a nervous reaction I suspect—and did so by filling the time with more verbal exposition about Zambia, the local economy, politics, and religious beliefs. As I had no idea what to tell Cassandra at this point anyway, I encouraged Johnning by making appropriate sounds, like “Oh really?” and “Isn’t that interesting,” which kept him going and gave Cassandra little opportunity to butt in.

  Finally a clump of buildings—no Architectural Digest candidates here—emerged in front of us through the sheath of rain.

  “We have arrived,” Johnning announced, all tourist-guide-like. “This is the Kazungula jetty.”

  “Now what?” Cassandra wanted to know.

  I shot a glance at Johnning over my shoulder. Could I trust that he was on our side and wasn’t about to deliver us into the hands of whomever it was that wanted to get their hands on me?

  “At the river’s edge,” he said, unfazed by my look, “there will be a ferry boat and a speedboat. Get on the speedboat.”

  I decided that if I was going to have to get on water—given the circumstances (the whole escaping-a-madman-in-the-Zambian-rain thing)—I liked the sound of a speedboat versus a ferry.

  “On the speedboat,” Johnning continued, “will be a man. His name is Godfrey. His job is to take you across the river to Kasane.”

  “And then what?”

  “Godfrey will tell you.” He gave us each a curt nod. “My job is done.”

  We nodded back.

  I slowed and pulled into a lot made of mud juice, allowing the van to slip to a halt against a hunk of jagged concrete that jutted up from the wet earth for no apparent reason.

  Cassandra and I collected our bags, jumped out of the van, and raced towards the river’s edge with Johnning loudly repeating his instructions to get on the speedboat, not the ferry, and to ask for Godfrey, who would take us to the Kasane side of the river.

  The Kazungula jetty area was a mishmash collection of vehicles parked in no obvious order, varied groupings of rain-soaked people, and rundown buildings that must once have served an official purpose but were now largely ignored except by varmints and critters. There were tourists trying to figure out what to do, locals trying to help the tourists, business people and area residents simply trying to cross the river, and several shifty-looking characters who, no doubt, had nefarious purposes in mind. But we had no time to pay attention to any of it. Jaegar could not be too far behind, and if he caught us here, our options for escape were few.

  “There!” Cassandra yelled breathlessly, pointing to the banks of the sluggishly moving river, the Zambezi, where a large ferry boat (circa Huckleberry Finn) was moored. A couple of dozen people were aboard, expectantly waiting to depart. “Next to the ferry!”

  Wedged between a rickety wooden pier and the ferry, almost hidden by a thicket of wild grass and reeds, was a small boat with seating for six (very small) people. Standing next to the boat was a tall, rangy-looking fellow whose skin had turned ebony with the wet.

  “That must be Godfrey!” Cassandra called to me as she galloped toward the man and his dinghy.

  “Oh shit,” I replied.

  Cassandra glanced over her shoulder and saw
what I’d just seen: two vans were turning off the main road and heading for the river. Both of them were yellow. One of them had to be Jaegar!

  Hauling ass and our bags, we ran for it, never looking back. We reached the skinny guy and breathlessly told him who we were. He nodded and with frustrating carefulness arranged our bags on the boat, then told us to get on, one at a time, one on each side, and not to forget to put on our life jackets. Safety-conscious or preparing for the inevitable? Didn’t matter. We needed that speedboat to do its thing. Now.

  I kept my eyes on the yellow vans, which had pulled up near to where Johnning’s was still parked. A large figure was getting out of the first one. I said something to Godfrey about lighting a fire under it. He gave me an indulgent smile and joined us on the boat, which swooped a little with his added weight. My stomach did the same.

  Godfrey started the engine.

  “Russell,” Cassandra’s voice came out like belligerent ketchup from a bottle. “Look.”

  I turned away from shooting urgent stares at our captain and saw that the figure that had gotten out of the first yellow van was now leaning into the driver’s side window of Johnning’s van. Through the rain, and given the distance, it was impossible to see exactly what was going on. But I could make a good guess.

  “Godfrey!” I cried. “We have to go now!”

  Godfrey pulled down a lever, and away we went.

  To my great consternation, not unlike our experience with the van, the speedboat wasn’t so much a speedboat as it was a chugboat. The river was calm, which helped our progress to the Kasane jetty on the opposite shore, but the going was painfully slow. As we puttered along, Godfrey informed us that we were about to cross the exact spot in the river where four countries meet—Zambia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Namibia. Okay, I had to admit that was very cool, just as long as it didn’t also become the exact spot where Jaegar from Germany met Russell from Canada and Cassandra from the United States.

  Thankfully the rain was beginning to let up. Cassandra and I kept our eyes on the retreating shoreline, monitoring our pursuer’s progress. We watched as the A&K van pulled out of the parking lot (thank goodness Johnning was okay), and then, barrelling toward the river’s edge like an out-of-control locomotive, came the refrigerator-like Jaegar. When he made the bank he stood there huffing and puffing in all his Ho-Ho-Ho-Green-Giant glory, and I swore I felt malevolence reach across the waters, right into my chest, like a fist intent on palming my heart and squishing the life out of it. But ho ho ho, no boat for him.

  About then, halfway across the river, another pseudo-speedboat chugged by us, making its crossing from the Kasane side (where we were headed) to the Kazangula side (where Jaegar was waiting for a ride). Damn! I’d been hoping he’d have to wait for the ferry—which doubtlessly would be even slower than our boat and still didn’t look anywhere near ready to leave port—but now he had a better option. I knew there was no way he wouldn’t be on that next speedboat after us.

  Two minutes later—at roughly the same time the opposing boat had reached Kazangula and Jaegar—we were across the river and dumped at the Kasane jetty. I calculated that we had, at most, a five- to eight- minute lead.

  Godfrey directed us to Michael, who looked like his twin brother and was waiting for us behind the wheel of an open Jeep with a canvas canopy. I turned to Cassandra. I’d made a decision. It was time to extricate her from my danger.

  “You stay here,” I told her. “Catch the next boat across and get yourself back to Livingstone. You shouldn’t be here. It’s dangerous, and this has nothing to do with you.”

  She laughed. “And leave all the fun for you? Forget it, Mr. Mayor.” I think my cover was blown. “Let’s go!” And with that she tossed her bags into the rear of the Jeep and pulled herself up into a seat.

  I glanced across the water. Jaegar was getting on the speedboat. There was no time to argue. I hoisted myself up next to her and instructed the driver to move it, politely of course, but he got the idea. Off we went, zooming into the safety of African bush country.

  For about four hundred metres.

  The Jeep pulled into a clearing next to a set of buildings identical to the ones at the Zambian exit station.

  “Botswana customs,” Michael informed us.

  Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!

  So out we got. We entered one of the buildings and showed our identification to a squat woman sitting on a creaky chair on casters behind a long, glassed-in counter. She seemed much too busy talking to another squat woman sitting on an identical chair down the counter from her to actually pay us much attention, so it didn’t take long. Back outside, while Michael drove our Jeep through a shallow ditch of dirty-looking, amber liquid, we were instructed to step into a metal cake pan of the same stuff and then pull out every pair of shoes from our luggage to dip the soles in the solution as well.

  “Foot and mouth disease precaution,” Michael explained.

  Uh, yup, okay, but we’re kinda trying to escape the clutches of an evil madman who wants to shoot us.

  Just as Cassandra was putting a shockingly high-heeled pair of silver-toed, white leather boots (she had those in a duffle bag?) through their paces, I saw a dark-coloured SUV approaching the customs area. I couldn’t see the driver, but something about the angry-looking grille, the blacked-out windows, the roar of the engines, told me we did not want to come face to face with whoever was behind the wheel, and I didn’t need two guesses to conclude who it was. Jaegar was catching up!

  I had no time to figure out how he’d arranged for a new vehicle so fast; he’d just done it. We had to go now! We hopped into the Jeep and encouraged Michael to make like a rocket. He did his best, and we were soon beyond the customs area and back on a road that wound its way through a landscape comfortingly thick with bush.

  But it was no use. My heart sank as I faced the undeniable truth: our lumbering Jeep would clearly be unable to outrun the big, bad guy in the big, bad truck on our tail. Jaegar and his gun were going to catch us, and we were defenseless.

  I thought about it for about two-and-a-half seconds and whispered a plan into Cassandra’s ear. She gave me a surprised look but bless her heart did not question me. She simply grabbed hold of her bags. I grabbed mine. We jumped.

  We fell hard into a swath of tall grasses and rounded bushes that had looked like a soft landing spot but wasn’t. Keeping low to the ground, we scrambled to concealment and, we hoped, safety. From behind a collection of gnarled trees and shrubs, we watched in horror as our Jeep exploded into an angry ball of fire.

  Chapter 12

  Scalding bits and pieces of what was once the back end of the Jeep we’d just jumped from rained down on us like a crematory shower. For impossibly long seconds we crouched there in the relative safety of a stand of trees, aghast and overwhelmed by what had just happened and what had just about happened to us.

  As the incinerated vehicle rolled to an inevitable stop on its two remaining, flattened front tires, we watched for our driver to jump from his place behind the wheel, but he did not. God, no! I immediately tossed aside the piece of luggage I was still clasping to my chest as if it were a newborn infant and rose to run to his rescue. I felt a hand drag me back down, causing me to stumble gracelessly to the ground.

  “No, Russell!” she warned me off. “Stop!”

  I looked at her as if she were crazy. “I’m going to help him!”

  “Russell!” she said in an urgent but hushed voice, her eyes wild. “Take a close look. There’s no one in the Jeep.”

  I did as she suggested and saw that she was right.

  “But….”

  “He jumped too,” she said. “Just before we did.”

  “Before…?”

  We looked at one another and recognized in each other’s face the horrifying significance of that act. This was no accident. This was attempted murder.

  My gaze shifted to a dark SUV pulling to a grinding stop a safe distance back from the burning wreckage. It was the sa
me one we had seen at the Botswana customs station, with the ominous black windows and wicked-looking grille. The bad guys were here.

  A minute later, another vehicle, likely containing more recent arrivals from the Kasane jetty (or maybe more bad guys for all I knew), screeched to a halt behind the truck. The inhabitant or inhabitants of the first vehicle were not yet risking getting out, but soon they would, and when it was discovered that Cassandra and I—or rather, our burning bodies—were not there, they’d come looking for us. We had to make our escape now and put as much distance as we could between us and whoever was in that truck.

  “Come on,” I said to Cassandra as I gathered my stuff. “We have to hurry—and keep low.”

  “You know what?” she replied, her voice a little unsteady. “I’ve changed my mind. I think I do prefer boring old Victoria Falls. I’m going back.”

  I searched her face for any signs of jest but saw none. Cassandra Wellness wore a tight-fitting adventurer’s shell around her Southern belle interior, but enough was enough; she’d reached her limit. People with guns. Escape over water. Exploding vehicles. Stuff like that can take its toll, even on the toughest nut. An acrid smoke perfumed the air around us, and the ravenous fire that was slowly devouring our Jeep crackled like a million miniature firecrackers. This was not a pleasant environment, and I could understand her desire to go back to life the way it had been. I pulled a stray twig from her dishevelled hair, then took her hands in mine and met her eyes with my own. “I’m sorry, Cassandra, but it’s too late.”

  She looked at me, aghast.

  “Look,” I said with as much gentle reassurance in my voice as I could muster. “I think you should go back too.”

  “Good,” she told me. “I’m ready.”

  “But not from here.” I burst her bubble. “And not now.”

  I could see her back stiffen and her eyes glaze over with steel. “I don’t remember giving you permission to tell me what to do. I came on this stupid trip because I wanted to. And now I’ll go back because I want to.”