Sahara Dawn

by David F. Berens

  Chris looked up and saw a beautiful, friendly face. Tsu’s eyes were open. She was standing tall on her long, strong legs towering over the white-suited man. He had not noticed.

  But Chris had made a mistake. He allowed his eyes to meet with Tsu’s for a second too long. The reason for the error, which someone with his experience should not have made, was that he was desperate to see if she was okay...whether the chemical that had been used on her had done any serious damage. He’d let emotion get in the way.

  Tsu wound up an arrow-like punch that was targeted squarely towards the back of her opponent’s head. But due to Chris' lingering gaze, the man had turned to face his new foe and saw the strike at the last moment, just as Tsu was putting her trademark twist of the wrist into the shot for extra power. The punch glanced him, but he had managed to shift his shoulders and avoid most of its impact.

  But he was now outnumbered. Chris was quickly back on his feet. Tsu was ready to take another shot. She rarely missed twice.

  The plane tipped sharply to the left. The movement was much greater than the wobbles that had been happening throughout the entire flight. All three people in the cabin grabbed out for something, anything, to hold onto.

  Chris realized immediately what was happening. The pilot was trying to make them tumble towards the door that was still open. Tsu had been closest to the door and was most likely to be the victim of the trick. But any of them could easily have tumbled out. The most likely explanation was the pilot did not care if the man he was working with followed the two targets out of the aircraft as collateral. The pilot may even get a bigger share of a reward if he did not have to split it with anyone else.

  The aircraft tipped again; this time even harder. Tsu turned on her heels. It was clear that the door to the cockpit was open, as it was slamming around opening and closing with the movement of the plane. She yanked it fully open and strode into the cockpit. Chris trusted Tsu, but he knew that whatever was about to take place in that cockpit would be extremely dangerous. No pilot should be confronted while he is flying a plane.

  He wanted to join Tsu in the cockpit, but there was one major obstacle in his way and it was wearing a white suit.

  Chris decided he had had enough of this guy. He could see the bottle of rum rolling around in the aisle beneath the seat he had been sitting in. The cap was still on and there was still some liquor inside. He ducked under the table and quickly picked up the bottle. Then he stepped towards White-Suit. He raised his hand like a pitcher about to deliver a fastball and thrust his arm forward with the bottle aimed squarely at the man’s head. White-Suit covered his face with his arms. Chris stopped short of delivering a blow with the bottle. Instead, while the man was covering his head, Chris executed an immense kick right on the side of the kneecap. That chunky leg snapped like a twig. As the man dropped to his knees, he instinctively reached down and grabbed his leg, leaving his head exposed.

  The bottle came down. It shattered. A thousand shards of glass sprayed around the cabin along with the rum, some of which ran together with the blood erupting from White-Suit’s cranium. He slumped to the floor, face down.

  Chris knew he had given the guy a very solid blow to the back of the head. It was probably enough to kill him. He felt sick in his stomach. He thought his days of taking lives was over. But there was no time to dwell. He stepped over the man’s prostrate body and moved towards the cockpit.

  Inside, he could immediately tell that Tsu was unhinged. She was not her usual self. Normally, she was highly calculated as she carried out her duties. She was sometimes violent in such a cold, methodical way that it was disturbing to witness. Now, she was almost hysterical. She was trying to wrestle the pilot’s arms away from the controls.

  “Get off of me!” the pilot shouted in a thick Colombian accent. “We are all going to die!”

  “You killed my mother and my father!” Tsu screamed. “Your friend killed my husband! I have nothing to live for. I want us to die!”

  Chris grasped Tsu and put his hands around her biceps to stop her from attacking the pilot. He held her tightly, but she was struggling hard. She had wildness in her eyes.

  The wildness turned to hatred.

  “You killed my husband!” she screamed an inch from Chris’s face. “You bastard, you killed my husband.”

  “You’re not married, Tsu. You don’t have a husband!”

  “Because you killed him, you evil piece of shit. You killed Chris! The only man I ever loved!”

  “Get her out of here!” the pilot demanded loudly.

  Chris tried to pull Tsu towards the cockpit door. She was wrestling with him, trying to get away. He looked her in the eye.

  “Tsu,” he said calmly. “It’s me, Chris. I’m not dead.”

  Her body suddenly became less stiff.

  She fell into Chris's arms.

  “Where are we?” she asked, gazing into his eyes.

  “We’re on a plane over the Amazon.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ll tell you later. We need to get you some water.”

  “This is not a plane.”

  “Yes, it is.”

  Chris knew that chemicals like these often bring their effects in waves. Hallucinations and delusions that come and go among short periods of lucidity.

  “No, it’s a prison cell. You’re just imagining that this is a plane. You’re losing your mind. There is only one of the guards left. If we kill him, we can escape.” Tsu slowly rolled her eyes towards the pilot.

  Chris shook his head. He could not safely fly the plane. He knew the basics, but keeping a piece of shit like this in the air was well beyond his skills, and he hadn’t flown anything for years.

  If Tsu could fly an aircraft, then now was certainly not the right time for her to be doing it. In fact, there couldn’t be a worse time.

  “Tsu. We can walk out right now. He’s not stopping us.”

  Chris stretched his arm out towards the door. “Let’s go.”

  He put his hand on Tsu's shoulder and rubbed it gently.

  “Let’s go,'' he said again, very softly. Tsu nodded. Chris put his hand on her back and moved towards the door. Tsu followed.

  Then, she stopped. She used both hands to shove Chris away from her. She turned towards the pilot, drew back her arm, and with stiff and pointed fingers she jabbed her hand towards the pilot’s windpipe. She might have lost her mental faculties, but she had lost none of her physical strength and skill. Chris had no time to stop what was happening, and he knew what the result would be.

  The pilot choked and gargled, his throat now crushed. He was wheezing, desperate to catch a breath. Chris knew it would be almost impossible to save him. The priority was to keep the plane in the air. As Chris was moving towards the pilot seat, the man sitting in it slumped forward, his head and hands on the controls.

  The nose of the plane tipped forward sharply. The aircraft was now heading directly towards the ground.

  Chris and Tsu tumbled towards the windshield of the cockpit. Chris grabbed onto the pilot’s leg, ignoring the pain in his head after it had cracked against solid metal. He pulled himself up towards the seat and tilted the controls so that the nose wasn’t facing directly downwards. He was already pretty much at the limit of his flying ability.

  While keeping his hands on the control column, he unbuckled the pilot. He let the man’s body fall to the ground and replaced him in the seat. Half of the settings had been changed when the pilot slumped into the dials and switches.

  Chris did know what one of the displays was. The red light telling them they had to gain altitude immediately. The green blanket of trees was much closer beneath them than it should have been.

  Tsu looked up at Chris’s panic-stricken face. She was in a moment of clarity. And in that moment, she saw in front of her a man who she had been through many adventures with and who, no matter what, always stayed calm and used his abundant skills to find a way out. But he was wearing an expression he had never worn before. />
  Chris could not get the plane to gain altitude. When he pulled back on the controls, the plane moved up slightly and then dived down again so that it was rocking up and down like a tiny boat on a stormy sea. The experience would’ve been nauseating if fear were not the overriding sensation. Tsu now seemed to be regaining her senses. Too late, Chris managed to think to himself despite all the other thoughts going on in his head. Just a little too late.

  “What’s happening?”

  “We’re going to crash land! We’re going up and down but we are losing altitude. I have no idea how to keep us up.”

  “There must be something we can do. We won’t survive a crashing landing in this plane. We’ll plunge straight into the jungle.”

  “I know. There won’t be any clearings. We’ll go right through the trees and hit the ground.”

  The engine was screaming. The dipping became more violent.

  “No! No!” Tsu cried. “There must be something we can do!”

  “It’s too late. Go to one of the seats, buckle up, and get into the survival position.”

  “No. I want to stay here with you.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense. Go to one of the seats!”

  Tsu just stood there. She still wasn’t her normal self: decisive.

  “Go!” Chris shouted. Tsu turned on her heels and headed back into the cabin.

  Chris was trying everything he knew, his mind desperately throwing up anything it had hidden in old compartments. Pieces of information from video games played as a child, or documentaries about fighter pilots. He was flicking switches, twisting dials. He had no idea if it was the right thing to do. He was basing his decisions on instinct, and the balance of 50-50 probabilities. He was frantically trying his luck while the plane dipped violently up and down. The brief ascents were now far shorter than the terrifying plummets towards the canopy.

  Suddenly, the dipping stopped. The plane was on a true course, flying straight just above the treeline. An amazing stillness came over the cockpit. Chris praised his luck, then thought about Tsu a few meters behind him in the cabin, slowly lifting her hands from her head and raising her eyes to see that everything was okay.

  Chris tried to remember the last few things he had pushed. One of them must have saved the plane from disaster. He could feel his heart racing, but it was gradually slowing back to normal.

  The plane plummeted down. Panic gripped him again. He pulled on the controls, yanking them back hard. This time, nothing happened. The plane was headed straight back down to earth. The remaining short distance lasted only a few seconds. The aircraft plunged into the forest, engulfed in noise. Chris shoved his head between his knees. An almighty crunching sound was the last thing he heard.

  17 Washed Clean

  The darkness was total. Haley ran her fingers along the wall of this decrepit rural building and it seemed to crumble beneath her fingertips. It felt as if it had been made from mud. Either that, or the construction material was so old it was now just falling apart. Her fingers landed on a different texture. it was sticky and hairy. Her imagination could only come up with one solution. This was blood from when somebody’s head had been smashed against the wall. Maybe an accident, maybe an attack. Maybe somebody so desperate that they did it to themselves.

  She could feel that she was trembling, but she commanded herself not to cry. During the night, Lana had been taken away. It felt like a hole in Haley’s stomach. After crawling around for what seemed like hours trying to establish what her environment and situation were like, she realized there was nothing to establish. She was in a completely bare room that seemed to have no windows. She couldn’t even make out where the door was. It was all just a jumbled mess of textures.

  She was glad that she wasn’t chained or bound, but this level of freedom wasn’t enough to give anyone joy for long. She lay down on the floor with her hands behind her head.

  She tried to avoid the loudest thought, which was to wonder why she had been taken and, more distressingly, whether her own stupid decisions had led to it. The answers to both seemed obvious. She should not have come to this place at a time of conflict between her own country and Okapi, and no doubt she was now being used as a pawn in the game. At least she hoped that’s what it was. She would rather be loosely under the control of the government, no matter how corrupt a government, than to be in the hands of kidnappers or terrorists.

  It was more constructive to think about how she could get herself out of the situation. She had always thought of herself as a good talker, and someone who could build relationships. Even in the most difficult of circumstances. Could she persuade someone with influence that she was not the right person to hold captive?

  It then occurred to her that most people in this kind of terrible situation probably think the same way. Probably brought their confidence from the simple and easy outside world into a place where it is completely useless. She tried to dismiss these negative thoughts.

  The next three days went on in the same vein, being alone with her own thoughts and staving off the fear of being stuck in this crumbling space with no idea what would happen to her next.

  The only break in the routine came when food and water were passed through a tiny window towards the top of the room. She would see a small patch of light and a hand would drop down a bag of food and a plastic bottle of water. The food bag contained a mushy substance that Haley could not identify. It tasted of almost nothing, but it had a gritty texture that made it difficult to eat. Not that her appetite was up to much, but she did her best to get some of this gruel down her. She was determined to survive. Not only to survive, but to be strong and as mentally alert as possible to face down whatever was looming in her near future.

  Finally, after more torturous hours, the door was flung open. A man she had not seen before, not one of the supposed ‘minders’ who had delivered her, was standing there taking up the whole doorway.

  He walked in and put his hands on her gently. She flinched.

  “Okay, okay,” the man told her. “No hurt.”

  She didn’t believe this man had any kind intentions towards her, but trying to resist him was futile.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “We need to go.”

  Haley allowed him to help her out of the room without a struggle. Wherever they were going couldn’t be much worse than here. The man took out what looked like a dirty towel and tied it around her eyes.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  Haley started to believe that this might actually be someone who had come to help her. Had she been rescued? She did not allow that thought to continue. Hope, right now, was dangerous.

  She felt her hands being tied behind her back. Then she was shuffled along an uneven floor until soon she felt fresh air against the skin. Fresh, but very, very hot. Her head was moved downwards and she could tell she was being put into a car.

  “Lie down,” the man instructed. She lay down on the seat. It stank like human shit.

  The journey was so bumpy that she was sometimes lifted fully off the seat. Unable to steady herself because her hands were tied, she almost tumbled behind the front seat more than once. If this was a rescue, the rescuers didn’t show much concern for the comfort of the person they had saved.

  After a while, she could feel the vehicle slow down. It came to a stop. The surroundings were quiet and she knew she was not in the city. Next to her ear, the handle was pulled with a clunk.

  She felt hands under her armpits and she was dragged out of the car. She was quickly moved into a building. It smelled fresh and clean.

  The blindfold was removed. Haley squinted briefly to remove the stars from her eyes then took a look around. There was nobody else in the room. She heard the door closing, presumably the man who had removed the blindfold just leaving. The door was locked. This room was very different to the place she had been kept previously.

  It wasn’t ostentatious; it was square and compact and looked like a staging area or small meeting room. But th
e carpet was new, the walls were painted pure white, and the minimal furniture was in good condition. Again, the hope that she had been rescued crossed her mind. What kind of hostage-takers or criminals would bring her to a place like this?

  She stood right in the middle of the room for a painfully long time. There was a clock on the wall, and the second hand hammered with every tick, the noise reverberating around the room and beginning to sound like Haley’s own heartbeat or a tortuous countdown to the revelation of her fate.

  Finally, the door clicked open. The woman who entered looked like a maid or some kind of servant. She was buxom, with enormous breasts beneath a perfectly pressed black-and-white uniform. She was smiling.

  She pulled a cushioned chair away from one of the walls and placed it next to Haley.

  “Please, sit,” she said. Her heavy accent elongated the vowel sound in “sit.”

  Haley sank into the chair.

  The maid filled up a bowl with water from a small sink in the corner of the room and put in some soap. She wiped Haley’s face clean. She was smiling the whole time. When they were face-to-face, Haley smiled back. The woman brushed Haley’s hair.

  Then, she said:

  “Stand.”

  Haley stood. She didn’t think there was any benefit at all to trying to be defiant or brave with this woman. This was far more kindness than she was expecting from anyone.

  “Take off your clothes,” the woman said.

  Maybe there was some benefit to defying her after all.

  “But,” was all Haley could manage.

  “Take them off,” the woman instructed again. “I will wash you.”

  Haley definitely needed a wash. She would much prefer to do it by herself, but she wasn’t in a position to check in to the nearest hotel.

  Slowly, she unbuttoned her shirt. At the same time, the woman began to take off her pants. She was now completely naked and felt very vulnerable. As the woman had promised, she proceeded to clean Haley. She placed a towel under her feet to stop water hitting the carpet.