by M A Moore
She tried to turn the conversation back to lithium mining with little success. He became more evasive when she asked about lithium battery technology. Dinner was over. She made certain he understood his post supper plans were not going to include her. He didn’t press her. He even volunteered to escort her to the nearest public transportation when she refused a ride. She couldn’t very well turn him down without appearing rude and suspicious.
The area around the bus stop was poorly lit and she wasn’t sure as to where she wanted to go. She would just take the first bus that came along and figure that out later. Jesse Groton said good night and gave her a peck on the cheek before he walked off. Amy followed him with her eyes until he turned the corner. She let her facial features relax into a more normal configuration. Her smile muscles were worn out.
Three men in the shadows came towards her.
“Hello, cuz.”
Amy suppressed a cold shudder. “Hello, Robert. I thought you’d be back home in the States by now.”
“Change of plans I’m afraid.” Robert’s two companions moved to out flank any attempt Amy might have to run for it. They took an arm each, led her to a black SUV, and stuffed her in the back seat. It all seemed so familiar and Amy had a very bad feeling about all of it. It wasn’t only her smile muscles that were tired.
Chapter 29
Table Mountain is arguably one of the most well-known tourist spots in Africa. It provides a magnificent backdrop to cosmopolitan Cape Town and now boasts the accolade of one of the New 7 Wonders of Nature. Famous for the tablecloth of clouds that pours endlessly down its slopes when the south-easter blows, this is a mountain of many moods and offers walkers and hikers a range of routes that vary from light strolls to rigorous hikes. –www.sanparks.org
When the SUV stopped a half hour later Amy had no idea where she was. The adrenaline coursing through her sent her heart racing. Only her training kept her from complete panic. She tried to keep track of the turns the vehicle made. Her sense of direction failed her again, and she lost her bearings not long after the trip began. It was an industrial area and from the sounds she thought she was near the shipyards. Cape Town had started as a port city where ships could re-supply themselves with fresh food when making journeys from the Spice Islands of the Indian Ocean back home to European shores. Outside the van the winds had picked up. She felt the change in weather approaching. They secured her in an office of a nearby warehouse overnight. There were no windows and the door was impervious to any lock picking skills she had.
She felt fortunate that she had used the bathroom at the restaurant before she left there with Groton. She searched the room for a tool that might aid in her escape. Finding none she passed the time doing yoga stretches. She couldn’t calm herself enough for meditation. She heard the voices of Robert’s two companions outside the locked door. She had excellent hearing, but she was only able to pick up a few phrases here and there. She prayed that the dawn would bring her some means out of this mess, but her expectations for a miracle were not high. She reached in her backpack and retrieved the cell phone delivered by Ed Brown. They had neglected to take her bag or even search it. She replaced the battery and turned it on. There was no signal. She had no better luck with the second one. She had no explanation that made any sense to her. Now all she hoped was that a signal would return when she got out of here.
Robert and his two thugs led her and her purple bag outside the next morning. The winds were blowing cold and icy rain spritzed her face. A southeaster’ winter storm promised another raw day in the Cape Town area. They stuffed her back into the SUV and drove south for about twenty minutes. When let out Amy looked up and saw the flat top of a mesa that she knew was Table Mountain, the UNESCO World Heritage site. The famous landmark on the south end of the crescent that formed Cape Town rose over a half mile above its base. Robert and his two associates brought Amy to the cable car station that would take them up to the top of the Mountain. There was no line at the ticket office.
“See that nice young man selling tickets,” Robert whispered in her ear. “My associate here will have to shoot him if you show any signs of distress. Do you understand?”
Amy nodded. If Robert was capable of murder she didn’t want to find out about it here.
“I don’t know how much longer we’ll be open,” the young man told Robert as he purchased their tickets. “If the winds get stronger we’ll have to close the cable service. If we do, a horn will blast to warn you to get back to the station at the top for a ride down, or you’ll have to walk.”
“My friend here is visiting from the States and has to leave tomorrow. It’s today or never.”
The four of them were the only ones in the cable car besides the operator. It could hold up to sixty-five. It rotated about its center axis designed to give each passenger a panoramic view of the surroundings. Cape Town would have been a spectacular sight, if Amy had any interest in looking at it. Amy listened with half an ear to the taped commentary that prevented conversation between Amy and her captors.
Table Mountain was one of the oldest formations of its kind in the world. Six times older than the Himalayas and five times older than the Rockies the mesa rose over a mile above sea level. The ocean was its birth place. Whether the sea subsided or the land rose was unknown. Ice sheets flattened the top and its flat face resulted from the constant battering of the Atlantic's waves. The flora surrounding it was the most bio-diverse in the world. The fynbos covered five hundred square kilometers and held twenty six hundred different species of plants. Seventeen hundred of them grew on Table Mountain.
Being a thousand meters above sea level the winds ripped at Amy’s hair and jacket as soon as they exited onto Table Mountain itself. Robert led their party along a trail to the eastern end of the mesa, as far from the cable station as possible, and sat on a stone wall. A cloud layer was beginning to blow in and blot out the sun.
“You couldn’t leave it alone could you, Amy.” Robert began. “If you only had identified the body in Livingstone as mine you would be safe back at home now."
Amy maintained a stony silence. The two men stood on either side of her awaiting instructions. She could break away, but there was no place to go. She would never make it to the cable station or down the mountain before they got her.
“I just want to know why, Robert.” Amy stated without emotion.
“Why not? I'm paid very well for my trouble, and the arms business is lucrative. Demand is high in this part of the world.”
“If you’re making so much selling munitions why bother with the mining scam?”
“Sowing seeds of distrust between governments keeps things out of balance here. A peaceful Africa is not good for business -at least not the arms business.”
“Did our government hire you?”
“Hardly.” Robert laughed. The sound bubbled out of him like a deep maniacal cackle. It made Amy cringe.
“Do you really think that governments control a country? Economics drive the world. Whether it’s a politician giving special interest groups favors in return for past patronage, or the poor sucker in the ‘unplanned settlement’ who is just looking for a way to feed his family. It’s all economics. My job is to stir the pot -keep the ‘have nots’ angry enough to do something about it, and the ‘haves’ afraid of them so they buy arms to protect themselves.”
“Do you dabble in poaching as well?” she asked. This might be her only chance to get answers out of him –even though they might go no further than to satisfy her own desire to understand him.
“No need, but weapons are expensive. Those wishing to buy arms need to come up with the cash somehow,” Robert replied flippantly.
“But the innocent lives, the children’s’ lives you destroy.” Amy was thinking of the baby elephant left to die in Kruger and the human orphans in Kenya.
“I didn’t invent human greed, Amy. I just use it to give me and my employer an economic advantage. I get a greedy government official to buy a technology t
hat in ten years, if implemented wisely, could create enough jobs to pull a region out of poverty. This will not happen. Instead these men will line their own pockets and have a fine nest egg ready for when it’s time to flee the country -when the ‘have nots’ begin their revolt.”
“But why the fake lithium sample?”
“Distrust and false information are the tools of my trade. Who is cheating who? I sell the arms to give the disenfranchised a bit of an edge. I feed competing industrial interests bad data and they make poor business decisions. The right people profit. I keep everything off balance.”
Robert Widdon seemed to have no emotional investment in his work, just a drive to make money.
“The blood shed will be terrible.” Her cousin's evil intent shocked her. What happened to that sweet boy she knew as a child?
“But the unrest will be good for business. As I said, a peaceful, an economically secure Africa does not profit my kind of enterprise.” Robert sat there sneering at her.
“But it would be good for its people.”
“You are such a bleeding heart, Amy. You can’t undo hundreds of years of tribal law with a few arms, but you can make a considerable profit from it.” Robert grinned maliciously and Amy suppressed the urge to slap his face.
“I have a shipment of guns coming in down around the coast in the next few days. Some malcontents in one of the settlements outside of Cape Town are waiting for delivery. It has been pretty quiet in this area of Africa for a while. It’s time to stir the pot here.”
The horn blasted from the cable car entrance. Robert stood up.
“Time for us to go -not you, Amy. The temperature is going to drop below freezing up here tonight. They'll find your body in the next couple of days when they reopen the mountain.”
Amy didn’t give him the satisfaction of begging for her life. She despised Robert and mourned the loss of the sweet child she remembered from decades past. She embraced that quiet place inside her that she reached while meditating, and accepted the inevitable -if it actually came to that.
Robert nodded at his associate to Amy’s left. He took a white cloth out of his pocket and put it over her nose and mouth. Amy struggled as the other man held her still - the will to live stronger than the grace to die without a fight. Robert had his associates leave her body where it fell. He removed his watch from her wrist and attached it to his own. The purple backpack he tossed over the side down the mountain. It was a sheer drop from where they stood.
Robert looked down at her without an ounce of regret. ”Sorry, cuz. You’re just a causality of war.”
Robert and his associates returned to the west end of the mesa. The employees from the gift shop and concession area had already entered the cable car for the last run of its day. Amy lay on the cold ground aware of nothing.
Chapter 30
Table Mountain-You decide whether you want to reach the summit and revel in spectacular views of the city or simply stroll along in the cool shade of indigenous forest – which ever you choose you won't be disappointed. The ancient Afromontane forest has a fairy charm as vines and canopies create a magical atmosphere. However please remember that even though it is in an urban setting it is still a wild mountain that offers challenging climbs and sheer cliffs so be aware of where you intend to walk and always ensure that you stick to the path and are kitted out for cold weather. –www.sanpark.org
Amy’s return to consciousness was slow and tortuous. It felt as though a herd of elephants were stampeding in her skull and a cloying sweet smell of chemicals filled her nose. She fought nausea as she sat up and surveyed her surroundings. She had instinctively held her breath, not taking in a full dose of the chloroform. It was still enough to knock her out. For how long she didn’t know.
A shroud of fog enveloped the top of the mesa. She staggered her way to the cable car station and was not surprised to find it barred shut. She would have to walk down. Amy found the beginning of the trail not far from where she stood. She leaned on the short stone wall and looked over the side to a path that crisscrossed down the flat face through the fynbos.
At least gravity will be in my favor, she thought without much optimism.
She was already shivering with the cold. She needed to move while she still could. Waves of vertigo assaulted her as she half fell down the trail. It was steep and icy winds tore at her clothes. Precipitation from the fog bank was freezing on the rocks making her footing even more precarious. She slipped several times bruising her arms and knees, but not feeling any pain. She was numb with cold.
She doubted her ability to descend all thousand meters to the bottom, but she would get as far as she could. One step at a time, she encouraged herself. I need to stop Robert and the guns. Nothing else matters.
That was all that drove her now. She forced her recalcitrant body to obey. She had managed to reactivate both cell phones. Maybe there was a signal. She dared to be optimistic for a brief moment. They were still in her purple bag. This bubble of hope burst as she realized that her backpack was gone and so dwindled her courage. Despair threatened to overcome her determination.
She knew she shouldn’t stop, but the cold and nausea had become unbearable. Her stiffening muscles made each step a struggle. She found a sheltered spot in a switchback behind a large boulder that shielded her a bit from the wind. She leaned against it and closed her eyes.
“Move, Amy. Move!” she commanded herself, but her body wouldn’t obey. I’ll just rest for a minute.
She retreated to the quiet place in her mind and found herself transported to the gazebo on the hillside.
The placid setting was no more. The warm breeze was now a cold wind that tore at her clothes. The sky was ominous and dark. She turned around and the wind stung her eyes. Stephen faced her, his demeanor grim, but composed. The change in weather did not have any effect on him.
“The choice is yours, Amy,” Stephen began. “You may move into this plane of existence or stay and fight another day.”
A distant light grew brighter encircling Stephen’s head like a beacon summoning her. She wanted to follow it. The winds seem to die down and the cold relented. She sighed in resignation.
From a far distance she heard a voice calling her name.
“Amy. Amy, wake up!”
The command tugged annoyingly at the edges of her awareness. Then the shaking began, and the voice was closer, more insistent.
Stephen nodded slightly and the corner of his lips turned up in a pained, but knowing smile. His image faded, but his words lingered on the wind, “I’ll always be here for you, Amy.”
She tore her attention away from the waning light. She opened her eyelids and looked into the steely gray eyes of Mike Stone.
“We're almost half way down. You are going to have to walk. It’s too steep for me to carry you.”
Amy nodded. Together they fought through the howling winds and ice pellets pummeling them. When she slipped, he was there to catch her or get her back on her feet. She stumbled and half fell down the mountain, impelled on by Mike’s constant bullying and encouragement. When they reached flatter ground he put his arm around her waist and led her to his car.
She shivered uncontrollably as he maneuvered her into the passenger seat of a small white Honda, and fastened the safety belt across her.
“How,” she whispered clenching her teeth together to stop them from chattering. “How did you find me?”
“We followed the GPS signal on your cell phone.” Amy leaned her head along the side window. Cold rain and a few ice pellets rattled against the pane of glass. She closed her eyes. Her last thoughts were-Which cell phone? and -who exactly is ‘we’?
Chapter 31
Cape Town has gone by many names. In Afrikaans it is called Kaapstad. The indigenous people called it Xhosa. It is the second-most populous city in South Africa, after Johannesburg, and the provincial capital and most sophisticated city of the Western Cape. As the seat of the National Parliament, it is also the legislative capital
of the country. The city is famous for its harbor, for its natural setting in the Cape floral kingdom, and for such well-known landmarks as Table Mountain and Cape Point.
When Amy woke up she was in a bed, in a room she didn’t recognize, wearing clothes that weren’t hers. She drifted from semi-consciousness to full awareness. First the pain in her head assaulted her, then her whole body began to throb.
Mike waited impatiently for her to wake up. He knocked once on the open door, and entered without ceremony. He sat in the rocking chair next to the bed. “How are you feeling?”
“Half dead,” she replied in a hoarse whisper.
“You weren’t far from it when I found you.”
Amy tried to sit up, but her head spun around so violently that she closed her eyes and let it fall back on the pillow.
“Where am I?” she asked.
“My house in Cape Town. We couldn’t risk taking you to a hospital. We thought it would be safer if they assumed you were dead.”
Amy’s head cleared a little from her chloroform-induced hangover. “Exactly who is ‘we’?”
“You’ll meet them later this afternoon.”
"When I saw you last, you were heading to Cape Town to see Francoise. Is she here?”
“No. I had to go to France. Francoise and I talked. She sent me away.”
Amy said nothing. What could she say?
“Your head is going to hurt for a while I'm afraid. So is the rest of you. It was a rough hike down the mountain. The drug will need time to work its way out of your system.”
Amy tentatively opened her eyes, but kept her head down on the pillow beneath. At least the room didn’t spin this time. Mike stood to leave.
“If you feel up to it later, there’s a shower through that door. Help yourself to any clothes that fit. Francoise is not coming back here.”
