Aruba Mad Günther

by T L Yeager

  ‘Are you okay? We’re here in Aruba. Worried about you two.’

  The voicemail from Chuckles was short. “What’s your situation, Mad? I checked the flight tracker and it looks like you landed after this shit broke loose. I’m here for you, sister. Give me a call.”

  Thirteen minutes later they pulled into the congested parking lot of Kavita’s Cafe. Schools and businesses had been ordered closed for the day, but Kavita’s Café was more than a business. It was a gathering spot, and the men and women of San Nicolas had filled it to capacity.

  Maddie remembered Kavita telling them how she had three parts to her day. The locals filtered in early on the way to their jobs. The tourist wave ran from ten in the morning to four in the afternoon. Supper time was again limited to locals, the tourists having left for the 40-minute trek back to their resorts at the opposite end of the island.

  In truth, Kavita’s might never have succeeded without Baby Beach. Its address along the confusing route to get there played a part in making the restaurant the legend it had become. The out-of-the-way beach was a tropical paradise with silky smooth sand and a naturally protected bay. The circuitous route required to get there took nervous tourists through neighborhoods that appeared run down by American standards. Kavita’s Café was a beacon, an oasis amidst the uncertainty.

  Maddie followed the lanky Dutchman into the restaurant. His jeans were frayed along the bottom and his once blue License to Chill t-shirt was faded to a misty gray.

  Inside the door, Geert curled fingers into his mouth and sent out a whistle that shook Maddie’s eardrums. He turned to her and Charlotte and lifted his leathery brown hand above their heads.

  “Listen up. This woman’s husband and other daughter are at the Surfside. The police wanted to send her back thuis,” He occasionally substituted Dutch words. “They may come looking for her. You never saw this woman. This woman and her daughter were not here. Do you understand?” The room full of patrons shook their heads in affirmation. They leaned into one another talking as they watched Maddie and Charlotte follow Geert across the room.

  Kavita came running from a door that led back to the kitchen. Her braided hair was as black as her dress, broken at the top by pink and white flowers. Gold hoop earrings and jingling bangles caught the light, making her coffee-colored skin seem even darker.

  She wiped tears from her eyes, grabbed Charlotte and puckered to Maddie who leaned forward, accepting the kiss on his cheek.

  “Lotte! Esmie! Come, girls,” Kavita called toward the kitchen. Her daughters emerged, hurrying to their mother with smiles of recognition that helped calm Maddie’s nerves. Kavita lifted Charlotte and sniffed her butt. “Where are the diapers?”

  Maddie un-slung the bag over her shoulder and handed it to Kavita’s eldest, Lotte.

  “A fresh diaper and some food… Mash an avocado for her.” She turned to Maddie. “Is this okay?”

  She nodded. “Thank you, Kavita. Thank you, girls.” Then she reached out and touched Geert’s shoulder. “Thank you, all. I’d be lost without you.”

  “This is no problem.” Geert reached out and placed his hand on Maddie’s shoulder. Their arms were aligned. “We are here for you. Together we get through this.” He nodded and turned. “Family first.”

  Geert dropped to a chair that a patron had vacated a moment before. As he sat, the man next to him rose.

  “Sit.” The stranger motioned Maddie into the chair.

  Her fall to the chair was heavier than normal. It felt good to unload the weight. Pulses shot through her ankles and the acid in her legs drained from the thighs toward her hamstrings. There was a tone ringing in her ears. It seemed to pulse subtly with the beating of her heart. Stress, Maddie thought. The autopilot that had driven her body to the table had switched off. She stared transfixed at the TV, the gravity of the situation closing in on her.

  In that moment, with the news streaming down from above, Maddie was unable to hear a word. She was hit with the realization that she was facing the worst possible trauma life had to offer. She thought she’d already crossed that bridge, but now her daughter and husband were prisoners.

  Her innocent six-year-old and her perfect husband were caught up in a web of terror. Caught up, not while traveling the Hindu Cush or pressing their luck in Indonesia, but here in this gentrified paradise where safety had never been an issue. Terrorism and Aruba didn’t mix. This place was about sapphire water. It was about restaurants where patrons sit with their feet, not just in the sand, but literally in the water, being lapped at by folds in the ocean’s edge. Here in this paradise she faced a grotesque violation of the order of things—a nasty wrinkle in the fabric. A war that was often so hard to find overseas had found her family.

  30

  Surfside Resort, Aruba

  Fazul strode up to the camera and held the sheet of paper in front of it.

  ‘The Aruban Police have attempted an attack with heavily armed troops. Four hostages will pay the cost of this mistake.’

  He let go of the paper and moved behind the row of four blindfolded hostages. There were three men and one woman, each chosen at random from the game room.

  They’d been in the shade of a palm for most of the day, but now they were illuminated by the full strength of the equatorial sun. Their hair was damp and sweat rings soaked the collars of their shirts.

  Fazul said nothing before he pulled the trigger the first time. He pointed the pistol at the base of the skull. It only took one shot if you hit the brain stem.

  He had killed the second hostage before the third and fourth had time to start screaming. Two beats later, they both had been thrown face forward to their deaths like the others.

  31

  Kavita’s Café, Aruba

  Kavita came out of the kitchen carrying two plates, each drafting steam around her arms as she walked.

  “Geert!” she yelled. He was at the bar leaning in close, talking to a patron. Kavita motioned him to the table where Maddie was sitting.

  “Spicy goat curry. House special for today.” Kavita slid the plate in front of Maddie, stirring her stomach to life.

  She’d gone with Kavita and her daughters up to their house. It was walking distance from the Café. Lotte had pulled pieces of a crib from the shed and they’d put it together in the living room. Charlotte had grown fussy and Kavita had made the plan.

  “She needs quiet and rest.” Charlotte had taken a bottle from Kavita and fallen asleep without finishing it.

  “I can’t thank you two enough,” Maddie said. “I don’t know where we’d be without you.” She’d given up worrying about walking out of the airport. It was over, and she needed to turn her attention forward. Maddie had watched Geert talk to patrons who took turns by the door monitoring the parking lot. She was sure they were there as advanced warning so Maddie could be shuttled out the back if police pulled up.

  “You were like family before. This just makes it official,” said Kavita. “Now eat!”

  It was no wonder that Kavita’s Café felt so comfortable. It was the embodiment of her soul. She deserved everything she had built. Kavita had started the café in a building further up the hill on the other side of the intersection. She had an enormous sign erected in the front parking lot so that tourists knew which way to turn to get to Baby Beach. The right-hand turn was not obvious. Before the sign was erected, about half went the wrong way at the intersection. After it went up, there were no excuses and many bound for the beach stopped at the restaurant on their way in or out from Baby Beach.

  The owner of the building where Kavita started became envious of her self-made success. His intentions had started out gracious enough. After sitting idle for many years, he agreed to let Kavita start her restaurant in the building free of charge for six months. It had been a restaurant before and didn’t need a full restoration. Kavita scraped away the layers of dust and sand that had settled. Friends and family helped restore the cooking equipment.

  Once they were open, she harne
ssed the internet to spread the word. She asked everyone that came in to write a review. If they wrote a review and showed her the next time they came, Kavita gave them half off their already reasonably-priced meal. Things were already humming when Geert put up the sign, but the business soared after.

  Kavita’s following blossomed. As it grew, so did her ability to help the local community. She became a staple of employment in town and contributed funds for improvement projects at the local school. There was nothing not to like.

  But then, “Damien Salazar,” a name Kavita was quick to advertise, decided it was time to triple the rent. He dropped the contract off without explaining his motives and returned the next day to a furious Kavita. She had posted a sign near the entrance that read, “We are closing at this location. Please come to our home for food until our next location is opened.” Kavita handed Damien Salazar a check for the final rent she owed. She never came back.

  Geert constructed a patio in front of his shop. He used the structure not for its aesthetic qualities, but because it provided a stable foundation for one side of the roof. It was in their side yard, next to the house and had enough room to accommodate 20 people around an L-shaped table. The family cooked in the house and brought the meals out to the patio to feed the dedicated flock of locals and tourists who wouldn’t do without Kavita’s food.

  It took three months to purchase the property, a parcel to the right of the intersection this time. It took Geert and his friends 13 months to complete the building. Kavita tells everyone how she reopened the new restaurant one and a half years to the day after Damien Salazar had the nerve to triple her rent.

  Mr. Salazar attempted to run the restaurant for a time after Kavita walked away. Salazar’s Café was open for a month.

  The new building was a cleaner, more inviting space. Tourists were more apt to stop for that reason alone, but its real value was firmly grounded in the fact that it was to the right of the intersection. The new sign told tourists to, “Turn this way for Baby Beach, Cold Beer, Bollywood music and the best food on the island!” Business doubled again.

  Across from Maddie, Geert pulled out a chair and sat. His bald spot was ringed by a salt and pepper donut that was still thick and would be with him until the grave. The TV burned on above his head. There was little new information to report and the BBC was rehashing the original stories from different angles.

  “What are you thinking?” Geert asked, with draculin flair.

  Maddie was surprised by the question. She felt numb, unfeeling, not thinking about anything.

  “I could see you thinking from across the room.” Geert motioned to the bar. “We were talking about how you must be feeling. The man I was talking to has three children.”

  Maddie moved the curry around in the silver bowl. It sat in the middle of the plate flanked by a homemade tortilla on one side and brown rice on the other.

  “You try and figure out how to fix it,” Maddie said. “That’s just what we do. Us parents.”

  “Yes, of course. But fixing not always possible. No?” Geert lifted a spoonful of curry to his mouth.

  “Easy to say. Hard to accept,” Maddie replied.

  Geert asked her about the girls. Was Isabelle reading yet? How about Charlotte? Was she beginning to walk? The questions were genuine comfort conversation to go along with the island comfort food.

  “I was in the military also,” Geert said, the change in topic jarring Maddie up from her meal. “Front line infanterie for eighteen months and then training as an electrician.”

  Maddie thought for a moment. “You never told me that before.”

  “Kavita told me about you being in the service. I missed the conversation,” Geert said.

  Maddie nodded. “What was your specialty?”

  “Rifleman. First and always. Electrician second. The second one ended up paying the bills, though.” The two of them laughed.

  “We feel your pain, Maddie,” Geert said, turning serious again. “Kavita and I both.” He pulled up his cheeks, creating a pentagon of empathy that ran from the sides of his nose, down around his mouth and flat along the chin. “We’re here for you. You are welcome to stay as long as this takes, my friend.”

  “Thanks Geert.” The words had just left her lips when breaking news flashed on the BBC channel. Someone whistled from a corner of the room and the crowd grew silent.

  “Breaking news coming to you now.” The silver-haired commentator adjusted himself in his chair. An earpiece that would have otherwise gone unseen, became evident when he touched it. “Okay, we’re going to roll video now.”

  An image of the terrorist webpage was brought up on the screen.

  “What you’re seeing is the recently updated website. The update was pushed just moments ago, and was choreographed with the delivery of an email to our news agency. We assume others have received it as well. The group says they are looking to raise two hundred and fifty million dollars, in what they call capital.”

  The news anchor listened silently for a moment before continuing. “While two hundred and fifty million sounds like a lot of money, the website points out that it’s only half the cost of a single B-2 Stealth Bomber and equivalent to the combined salary of just the top five or six players in Major League Baseball.”

  “I’m being told that the total is being spread across six countries and one organization. The United States, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands and Sweden. As well as Wincopia International, which owns the Surfside Resort. The amount each is being asked to pay appears to have been selected using different metrics.”

  A table was pulled from the website and displayed on the screen. It listed three columns— the names, a dollar amount and a column titled, ‘Why?’. Beside the United States, the number read, $138 Million. The, ‘Why?’ column said, ‘The cost of a single F-22 Stealth Fighter seemed reasonable.’ Wincopia International was listed second. $15 million. ‘The cost to construct a mid-sized hotel.’ Germany was being asked to pay $37 million. ‘Germany represents 38% of the remaining countries’ GDP. $97 million x .38 = $37 million.’

  “We’re still working out the math ourselves, but you can see the ask here,” said the anchor.

  After that, silence fell over the broadcast. The graphic was left in place for viewers to absorb. Twenty-one seconds of dead air was an eternity for television. It likely set some type of record for a major news organization.

  The table disappeared and the anchor was put back on screen.

  “Bear with us as our teams are working to gather information. It’s coming to us in real time here.”

  Seven more seconds of dead air reigned. During it, the news anchor looked to the side of the camera, his hand to his ear, listening.

  “What we’re learning now is that a second page was also pushed to the web. We’re going to roll some actual video here in a moment. Oh my...” The anchorman closed his eyes and shook his head. “I’m sorry, folks. What we’ve got is seven videos that have been posted. The group is identifying these as the hostages that will be executed if the ransoms aren’t paid. They’re setting the deadline at 72 hours. This is all per the website. Here’s the first video.”

  “My—My name is Ross Günther.”

  Madeline shot to her feet and raced to the television.

  “This is my daughter, Isabelle. We are from Maryland, in the United States. The bruise on my head happened from me trying to escape. Since…” Ross hesitated on the video. He looked left at his daughter seated beside him. “Since then, we have been treated well. They have provided water, blankets and food. Oh, and medicine. So, please give them what they want so Isabelle and I can come home safely to Maryland.”

  Part III

  Rout

  32

  Surfside Resort, Aruba

  Consciousness had returned before Ross was fully awake. Soft fingertips stroked his forehead.

  “Shhhh, Daddy.” Izzy repeated the words. She switched between rubbing Ross’s forehead and adjusting the b
lanket pulled up beneath his chin.

  Ross retraced the events that led him into the fog. Carpet on the face, masks, guns—the thoughts streamed by, out of order.

  After several minutes, the stroking hand seemed to burn his skin. He swatted, the swing enough to rile his senses to the enormous headache hiding inside his head.

  “Daddy! You’re awake!” Izzy cried out with excitement.

  “My head,” Ross cried, reaching blindly for his daughter.

  “Shhhh, Daddy. You have a boo-boo.” Izzy leaned down and kissed his cheek. “Shhhh. Mommy’ll fix it.”

  With his eyes still closed, Ross felt for his daughter’s hand. He held it for a moment then let go and outlined the knot above his own ear. Half of it was inside the hairline. It was tender and warm to the touch.

  He tried to open his eyes but the sliver of light that entered triggered a pain deep within. If movement had affected the perimeter of his gray matter, the light went straight to its core.

  “Are you okay?” Ross asked with eyes closed.

  “Shhhh, Daddy. I’m fine. You want water? The man gave me water.”

  The next 15 minutes had been an exercise in tedious, deliberate movement. Ross had always felt for migraine sufferers. He’d never had one himself, but he’d seen the devastating effects they reaped.

  He shielded his eyes from the fluorescent lights. His world was blurry. The lack of focus seemed to drip through his vision.

  Izzy was sitting with her back to a wall. Once Ross righted himself, she did the same. They were in an aisle. In front, Ross saw what looked like the panel of an office cube space. It opened to their left. There was a calendar with cats on it tacked to the fabric.

  Izzy’s calming shush was the only sound at first. Sobs and English accented whispers eventually filtered in.

  “Who’s talking?” Ross asked.