Thomas Prescott Superpack (71 page)

Come join us for a spectacular 11-day cruise as we voyage around the Middle East. With stops in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, and Iran, you’ll think you died and went to sand heaven. Brush up on your Farsi as we travel to one of the beige-ist places on earth. Don’t have a nice camera, don’t worry, there’s nothing worth taking a picture of here. Scared of harmful UV rays, well then this is the cruise for you as you will be forced to wear a burka at all times. And don’t miss out on the world famous falafel in our Weapons of Mass Destruction cafe. With three mosques and even a tiny chapel for you infidels, the
Oceanic Ali Al Salem Harijjibad Mesahieed
is
the ship for you.

All kidding aside, Gilroy was an oilman and in his world, everything probably did come down to oil. But I’d been around enough narcissists, present company included, to know that Gilroy was simply trying to swing the conversation into his area of expertise.

He added, “There’s more oil in Africa than anywhere else in the world, they just haven’t found it yet.”

“Doesn’t matter to me,” I said. “I just bought a Chevy Volt.”

He flipped me off.

Lacy shook her head and said, “No, I’m pretty sure it’s about AIDS and whoever this girl is that they’re looking for.”

All the ladies nodded.

“Any idea who it could be?” asked Berta.

No one had any idea.

“Did he look at your teeth?” asked Lacy.

“Come to think of it, he did,” said Reen.

Berta shook her head and said, “Not mine.”

“I wonder what he was looking for?” asked Lacy.

He was looking for a diamond set in the left bicuspid.

Reen and Berta left soon thereafter. And soon after that, the doors to the show lounge opened and two men in white—they looked to be the cruise ship cooks—pushed in three room service carts brimming with covered silver trays. The cooks disappeared and the pirates flocked to the carts, pulling off the silver tops, unleashing a barrage of steam. The three looked at one another, breaking into smug smiles. They probably hadn’t seen such beautiful food in their lives.

Little Wayne grabbed a turkey leg and tore off a large bite of meat, the juices running down his chin.

“Now that’s just cruel,” quipped Lacy.

“Do you think they’ll share?” asked J.J.

The comic was
not
joking.

“Why don’t you go ask them,” said someone named Thomas.

J.J. raised his eyebrows, stood, and headed in that direction.

Lacy slapped me on the shoulder and said, “You’re going to get him killed.”

“Hopefully they just remove his larynx so he can’t tell anymore jokes.”

She gave me a look. The same look she’d given me when I’d said it wasn’t fair the guy in the wheelchair was allowed in the limbo competition.

J.J. Watkins started up the incline. The pirates stopped eating and stared at him. I don’t know if they were shocked or mystified by this idiot. I saw J.J.'s mouth move. The pirates laughed. Seconds later, almost in unison, all three began throwing food at him. Fruit smashed him in the face. Potato salad rained down on his head. The pirates were nearing hysterics.

J.J. started back, head down. He rejoined our group, flopping back down in his seat. He said quietly, “They don’t want to share.”

Lacy leaned over me, picked a couple pieces of potato salad and a piece of errant pineapple out of his hair, and popped them in her mouth.

SOMEWHERE OVER THE ATLANTIC

N/A

G
ina wiped the sleep from her eyes, then flipped on the small light above her. She wondered how long she’d been out. Five hours? Six? She knew tomorrow, or
today
, was going to be long and she needed to be rested. She checked her watch. It was 11:01 p.m. in Bolivia, but she had no idea what time it was in whatever time zone the plane was moving through. She hadn’t been able to sleep on the three-hour flight from Santa Cruz to Sao Paulo, nor the two hours while she waited to board the ten-hour flight from Sao Paulo to Johannesburg.

She pulled the folder from the seat pocket in front of her. The folder had been waiting for her at the check-in desk of South African Airways. Gina had thumbed through it quickly. It contained a series of faxes from Paul; a handwritten note, a couple maps, a couple pictures, and a few internet downloads on various subjects. Knowing she had a ten-hour flight ahead of her, she’d decided to leave the reading for the flight, but once aboard the plane, her eyes had grown heavy, and minutes after the plane leveled off, she was out.

Gina placed the red folder on her lap and opened it. The top sheet was a handwritten letter in Paul’s neat all caps script.

If you are reading these words, I trust you made it safely to Sao Paulo. Sadly, this will have been the easiest leg of what lies ahead. When you reach Johannesburg, there will be a satellite phone and twenty thousands USD waiting for you. I have set up an e-mail for you; [email protected]. Your password is: Bolivia (I Know, it’s stupid, but it’s all I could think of.) The phone is state-of-the-art. It will work anywhere on the planet. Very cool stuff. Very expensive. Do not lose it!!! Make sure you exchange at least five thousand USD for South African Rand. You might need to shop around, make sure it’s trading above 10. Below and you’re getting screwed.

Gina shook her head. What a tightwad. She remembered once when they’d taken a trip to Mexico and Paul had spent three hours at the airport looking for the best exchange rate. He’d found some guy at their hotel who’d gotten a little bit of a better deal, whereby, Paul had taken a taxi back to the airport, exchanged the pesos back to dollars, then hunted out the place the man had spoken of. Gina had found this annoying, albeit, refreshing, and somehow, she had come out loving him even more.

Anyhow, as Paul had said, “That was a long time ago.”

Gina continued reading the letter.

The name of the village is Ptutsi. I have attached a map. (The map isn’t very good. FYI…I could not find any listing of the village, but I made a couple calls and it does exist.) The village is in the South African state of KwaZulu-Natal. We have hired a guide to take you to the village. He does not know why. Only that he is being paid handsomely. (Do not tip him. He has already been paid.) His name is Timon (Like from “The Lion King.”) I told him that if he gets you back alive he gets a little bonus, so don’t be alarmed if he is a bit protective of his cargo.

Ptutsi is a Zulu village. I have downloaded some info on Zulus from the internet. Please Read. I have also included some AIDS Demographics for South Africa. Very depressing stuff. Most people in the area speak Zulu, but most have a passing understanding of English. I have attached the photographs of the three children. They are still-shots of the video close-ups and they aren’t perfect, but they should be distinguishing enough. When you find the children, take pictures of them with the Camera (There’s one on the phone) in front of the Airport. E-mail them immediately. Best of luck. I will call you.

Regards,

Paul.

Regards?
She scoffed.

She turned the page. It was a map of South Africa. And he was right, the map did suck.
How about a map with roads?
There was a thick red line that led from Johannesburg southeast though a town named Ladysmith, then east towards Ptutsi. She used the key at the bottom and decided the trip was somewhere around 450 kilometers.

She flipped the page. There were three pictures. A small black girl. Braids in her hair. Most of her top teeth were gone. She reminded Gina of Dominga. Then, there were pictures of two little boys. Both at that adorable age around five.

She flipped the page. It was a Wikipedia download for
Zulus
. She read the opening paragraph, “The Zulu (
isiZulu
) are the largest South African ethnic group of an estimated 10-11 million people who live mainly in the province of
KwaZulu-Natal
,
South Africa
, fairly distributed between urban and rural areas.”

The article went on to talk about the Zulu’s origins, conflict with the British, the Apartheid years, the KwaZulu homeland, the Inkatha Freedom Party, their food, their clothing, and their religion. It was information overload and Gina decided she would have to read it a couple more times before she took anything in other than, “The women wear lots of beads and their attire is very revealing,” away from the article.

The two following pages were far more interesting. They were downloaded from a book titled
The Zulu of Africa
by Nita Gleimius. She read, “The typical Zulu village has between twenty and fifty family groups, or anywhere between 200 – 600 persons. The Zulu village is round or oval. It has two fences, one inside the other. The Zulu build huts between the two fences. Traditional Zulu huts are beehive shaped huts called
iQukwane
. The roof is made of strong branches and its walls are built using bricks. The largest hut is built opposite the entrance to the village. This hut belongs to the mother of the chief. The chief’s hut sits to the right of his mother’s home. Unmarried teenage girls live together in a large hut on the left side of the entrance to the village. Unmarried teenage boys in a hut to the right. Small huts sitting on poles serve as watchtowers. The chief’s two eldest sons work as the village gatekeepers. They welcome important visitors and send unwanted visitors away.”

“The Zulu like to build their villages on large hills. They build the entrance to the village at the low end of the hill. That way, rainwater will run down the hill through the cattle kraal, cleaning it quickly without soaking the ground and huts. The cattle kraals are located in the center of the village, within the inner fence. The cattle kraal is the safest and most important area in the village. It is used for religious ceremonies and sometimes a burial place for chiefs.”

Gina said quietly, “I can’t wait.”

She turned the page and looked at the first of four pages detailing the AIDS crisis in South Africa. Being with the WHO, Gina was well aware that the AIDS crisis in South Africa was bad. But for some reason, she’d been under the impression the blossoming epidemic had been quelled. That the rate of new infections had been dropping exponentially for the better part of half a decade. And for most countries of Africa, this was true. But according to the statistics in her hand, this could not be said for South Africa.

There were ten provinces that made up South Africa; KwaZulu-Natal, Mpumalanga, Free State, Gauteng, North West, Eastern Cape, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Western Cape, and National. Five provinces had an HIV prevalence over 10%. KwaZulu-Natal had a prevalence of 16% for the general population. That meant that one out of every six people living in the providence of KwaZulu-Natal was infected with HIV and over 40% of people ages 15-49. Two out of five.

Gina shook her head, turned to the next sheet and began reading. She stopped and reread the downloaded paragraph from AVERT.org,

“It is thought that almost half of all deaths in South Africa, and a staggering 71% of deaths among those aged between 15 and 49, are caused by AIDS. So many people are dying of AIDS that in some parts of the country, cemeteries are running out of space for the dead.”

Gina shook her head. No wonder these guys took over a cruise ship. Someone had to do something.

DAY 2

SHOW LOUNGE

8:02
a.m.

I craned my head over my shoulder and opened one eye. Lacy was lying on her back, using the
natural
curves of my butt in place of her orthopedic pillow. I wiped the sleep from my eyes and turned over, Lacy’s head slipping to the soft carpet.

“What are you do—” she murmured, but feel back asleep before finishing the thought.

Late last night, Lacy, Susie, Frank, J.J. and I had made the move to the carpeted floor near the men’s bathroom. Susie and Frank—their chubby limbs intertwined, looking like two felled redwood trees—were ten feet to Lacy’s and my right. J.J. was perpendicular to the four of us, curled up near our feet. He was in the fetal position, his hands steepled in prayer and wedged between his knees. He looked like a three-year-old. All that was missing was the Batman pajamas. Gilroy and Trinity had remained in their seats, and they were both fast asleep. I noticed a spittle of drool running down Gilroy’s chin and into his chest hair. Two rows behind them, Marge and Walter both sat upright, both eyes wide open. I doubted if they’d slept a wink. As for the other 130 hostages, a few other couples had decided to make the move to the floor, but it appeared the majority had fallen asleep in their chairs, or hadn’t slept at all.

I didn’t wear a watch, but Frank did, and as I’d started to drift off last night, I remembered him saying something about it being, “Ten after two.” Or maybe he said, “Ten till two.” But, I guess in the grand scheme of things, when you haven’t showered in a couple days, haven’t eaten in nearly two, are in desperate need of a toothbrush, your contacts feel like little shards of glass, you could pole vault 17’3” with your morning wood, and you are a hostage, then I guess it doesn’t matter the exact moment you fell asleep.

But I was curious what time it was now. I crawled over to the snoring Campers and tried to ferret out Frank’s left wrist in the aforementioned fat pretzel. I finally located it and read the time on his watch, 8:05 a.m.

Hmmmmm, what to do today?

Maybe I’d get a massage, or a bite to eat, or a smoothie, or maybe I’d just hang out in a chaise lounge by the pool all day reading
The Game of Thrones
and knocking back Coronas. Or, I suppose I could just sit in the show lounge for, oh, I don’t know, until I got shot.

Anyhow, I was going stir crazy.

I spent the next twenty minutes doing some push-ups, sit-ups, and light stretching. And after splashing some water on my face in the bathroom and grabbing a long drink from the faucet, I felt almost human. As I exited the bathroom, I noticed the doors to the show lounge were open. Little Wayne and Common were each holding a big cardboard box. They looked at each other, then heaved the boxes. They crashed to the floor, their contents spilling out. Bottled water. The water bottles rolled down the incline, some coming to a rest behind chairs, others rolling down and crashing into the stage.

The people who were still asleep—including my four friends—stirred, while the mass of people already awake, found their way to a water bottle. Another box of water bottles was thrown, followed by three white cardboard boxes with plastic wrap. One of these boxes cartwheeled down near the stage and I noticed it was one of those Frito-Lay variety packs. From my golf course snack-cart driving days, I knew these boxes contained Doritos Nacho, Doritos Cool Ranch, Ruffles Potato Chips, Fritos, Lays Potato Chips, Lays Sour Cream and Onion, and Cheetos.

Cheetos. Yum.

I’m not going to say I sprinted to the stage, but I did. I didn’t want to get stuck with some fucking Ruffles.

A bunch of people beat me to the pack, mostly men. Some of the men took one bag, or two—which I presumed was for their better half—but I noticed a handful of men leaving with a third or even a fourth bag. Which as you could imagine, irked me. There were 50 bags in each box, so a total of 150 bags of chips, and at last count there were 140 of us. At this rate, there wouldn’t be enough chips to go around.

I watched as Sour Cream and Onion and Doritos Nacho and my good friend Cheetos were pulled from the bag. As I was about to stick my hand into the box, myself and two other individuals were pushed aside by the hulking frame of Gilroy Andrews.

I should point out that I am by no means a small individual. I had lost a considerable amount of weight the months following the wolf attack, but when I was finally able to start rehabbing, sometime in late April, I had done so with gusto. For the better part of the last four months, I had spent at least an hour a day lifting weights, and I was the strongest I’d been since college, so I was no slouch. That being said, Gilroy had me by six inches and fifty pounds, and the guy’s bicep was the size of my thigh, and if we went toe-to-toe, my money would be on him. So, for the time being, I let the jerk slide.

The three of us watched in utter disgust as Gilroy dipped his hands into the box repeatedly.

“Hey, why don’t you leave some for the rest of us?” complained one of the guys behind me.

Gilroy turned. He was holding six bags of chips in his hands. He smirked and said, “Survival of the fittest.”

“Then I suppose you need all the help you can get,” I said.

He cocked his head to the side. I think he was trying to figure out if I had insulted him or not.
Finally, deciding that my comment had in fact been an affront to his manhood, he replied, “I can assure you, that if and when this situation turns ugly, I will still be standing.”

And he sauntered off.

I was pretty sure that if you looked up
dick
on Wikipedia, right under male reproductive organ would be a picture of Gilroy Andrews. In all truth, I hoped when this whole thing was over, Gilroy was left standing, because if that shithead survived this mess, then I had a feeling all of us would survive. But, I had an odd sense of foreboding that Gilroy’s superiority complex was going to rub one of these pirates the wrong way and possibly get us all killed. And I sure as shit wasn’t going to allow that to happen.

When I made it to the box, there were seven bags left. Miraculously, there was one bag of Cheetos. The other six, Ruffles and Fritos. I grabbed the Cheetos, two Ruffles, and two Fritos.

I walked over to where my four friends were beginning to show signs of life. Susie, however, was still lying on the ground. She didn’t look good. Her face was a pasty white and drenched in sweat. Her breathing was heavy, labored. Susie looked at the bags of chips in my hands and her eyes began to water.

She leaned up and I said, “You get first pick my dear.”

She took Fritos.

Frank took Ruffles.

J.J. took Fritos.

Lacy took the Cheetos.

I looked down at the bag in my hand. Ruffles.

Man.

One of the male hostages was walking around with one of the boxes of water and we each dipped our hands in and grabbed a warm
Afrikaans
Spring Water. There was a picture of the cruise ship on the front. I could see the bright red lifeboats hanging off Deck 6.

We’d been so close.

I watched as Susie took a chip from her bag and took a small bite.
Savoring
is the word that comes to mind. Lacy caught my eye and laughed. Then her face dropped. I followed her gaze over my shoulder. She was staring at the Kohns. Both dinosaurs had a water bottle in their hand, but no chips. They looked around at the people eating around them. Why hadn’t I thought to get them any?

Lacy looked at me.

I nodded and handed her my unopened bag. She knew my affinity for Cheetos and opened her bag and handed me two. Then she walked over to Walter and Marge and gave them our chips. At first they wouldn’t take them, but Lacy talked them into it, probably told them she’d already had a bag, and walked back. I handed her one of the Cheetos. We touched them together and threw them in our mouth.

Lacy threw her head back and let loose an orgasmic moan. Meg Ryan would have been proud. She tossed her hair. Then she stumbled, using the wall to hold herself up.

My breath caught. “You okay?”

“Yeah.”

But she wasn’t. I could tell. Something had her scared.

“Dizzy?”

“It was just from throwing my head back,” she said with a shake of her head. “It was nothing.”

I knew when my sister was lying. And my sister was lying.

I said, “Let’s go sit down.”

She nodded.

I led her back to our chairs—it’s funny that they had become
our
chairs in such a short duration—and sat next to her. I kept giving her little glances. Trying to see something in her eyes. I had been shot twice, I had lost my parents, and I had seen terrible things as a cop with the Seattle Police Department and far worse as a Special Contract Agent with the FBI, but nothing was even remotely close to the pain my sister’s disease caused me. It gnawed at my insides. A hive of yellow jackets stinging at my heart.

My sister stuck out her hand and she said, “Paper, rock, scissors.”

“You’re on.”

I did scissors. She did rock. I stuck my arm out. She licked two fingers and swatted me on the forearm. It was a good one. It would leave a mark. We did it a couple more times. I won one. Then Lacy won the next two. We played for fifteen minutes, until both of us had raised red welts covering our forearms. At one point, J.J. leaned over and stated that he wanted to play.

My arm was tingling and I switched seats with Lacy.

I could hear her explaining the rules to him. At one point he asked, “Can I do a tornado?”

Moron.

I took a deep breath and let it out. What would the day bring? I could only imagine. I looked out on the stage where the Professor had videotaped his rant. What was the United States doing? If anything? He’d said they had three days. Until noon two days from now. Were we supposed to sit here and wait? Wait to die? Waiting wasn’t one of my specialties. And dying. I wasn’t good at that either.

I thought back to my last close encounter.

I could see the other wolves standing around, waiting for their turn. I only had a second. Half a second. I pushed myself up with a grunt. My left leg and right arm were useless. I took one step and three of the wolves came at me. One hit me on each arm. Another went for my
ankle. They dragged me down. I let them. The fight had drained out of me. And then I saw him. The big black wolf. He was jetting forward, about to sink his inch long daggers into my throat and rip—tear—the life out of me. I saw his eyes. Saw him zeroed in, just like that first day I’d seen him. I could feel his breath. I could feel him run his nose on the back of my head and sniff my wet hair. I felt his teeth scrape my neck. His jaw open, the joint stretched to its absolute breaking point. And when his brain sent the signal to those muscles to clamp down. Then I would be dead.

My reverie was broken by a small movement in the curtains. If I hadn’t been staring at them, I never would have noticed it. I leaned forward. Where the curtains met in the middle, there was a small black finger peeling back the curtains a half inch. Just above the finger was an eye. The tiny eye swept across the room, then settled on me. The lone finger was joined by another and the curtain was peeled back another inch. A tiny black nose peeked out.

I turned to Lacy. She was still playing with J.J. I looked at Frank. He was holding Susie in his arms. She was still pulling chips from her bag. Still savoring.

I wanted someone to corroborate what I saw. Tell me that I wasn’t seeing little black children. That I wasn’t crazy.

I looked back at the curtains, but the fingers were gone.

SUITE 319

11:11
a.m.

T
here was less than a foot of clearance under the bed, but it was still light years more comfortable than her spot behind the TV. Rikki slid herself from beneath the box springs and lifted the bed skirt. Light cascaded through the windows, painting hot white rectangles on the plush blue carpet.

Rikki tiptoed into the bathroom. When she was finished, she instinctively reached to flush, then caught herself, thinking better of it. She looked down at her bright yellow pee. At one point when she was young, Rikki and her mother had taken to sleeping in a series of run-down motels. The toilets rarely worked and there was always urine left over from the previous guests. That coppery yellow pee that always seemed to be a trademark of the poor. Ever since, Rikki couldn’t stand urine. Even her own. She couldn’t stay in this room, knowing her pee was only a few feet away. She would either have to flush or move rooms.

Rikki walked to the door and cracked it open. She listened for a good minute and heard nothing. The door across from her was open and she scampered across. She pulled the door closed and turned around. Sitting on the end table was a trashy gossip magazine and a box of Wild Berry Gushers.

Jackpot.

Rikki picked up the gossip magazine and two packs of gushers. Then she climbed over the TV and settled into her little nook.

The gossip magazine was
OK!
In the top right corner it read, “UK Edition.” Rikki decided her new boarders were from the United Kingdom. What luck?