Chapter 22

Plettenberg Bay Airport, Plettenberg Bay.

With the sun dipping towards the western horizon, so did the cool of the evening drop in temperature. The breeze turned towards the sea in its ever land-down attitude. This due to the land mass quickly radiating its heat, becoming cooler than the warm sea, causing the breeze to blow from the land’s high pressure towards the sea’s low pressure. This always fascinated me. During the day the wind blows from the sea, and at night from the land. A land breeze it is called.

It was still light enough on the patio to not get up and switch on any lights. Through the kitchen window the golden-orange glow of the sun still shone.

The 17:30 twin turboprop shuttle from Cape Town whistled overhead in its procedure turn towards the east and lined up for its final approach to runway 20. CemAir’s last inbound flight for the day had arrived, and soon the cabin crew and pilots would take the other open cabins along the same row that Jeff and I occupy. I just hoped that they would be tired and fall asleep early. Some of these youngsters could cause quite a racket while on a layover away from home.

Twenty minutes later, a burned-orange coloured 4 × 4 pulled up and Bobbie got out, still dressed in her “I’m a schoolgirl” uniform. The tie was loose around her neck, and the top button of the blouse was unbuttoned. The ponytail for school was gone, and her ginger hair cascaded over her back and shoulders, ruffling slightly in the breeze.

I got up and went down the three steps of the patio stairs to meet her at the bakkie.

“Hello Louis, been missing me?” She preened while tilting her head sideways.

“I last saw you yesterday afternoon! Of course, I missed you!”

“Then show me how much you missed me,” she giggled while still standing on the side step of the bakkie, with the driver’s door still open.

I opened my arms, and she leaned forward to hug and kiss me. Her arms wrapped around my neck and her hands intertwined, holding on while her body pressed hard against mine.

“Hmm ... You did miss me lots...” escaped her lips as we kissed. “And I missed you ... School is getting boring.”

It was then that a minibus labelled with the CemAir logo rumbled by on the little gravel road, whistles and catcalls flowing from the windows.

“Ah, I think we better take this more private,” I suggested, as I broke the kiss.

“They’re just jealous,” Bobbie replied. “But let’s get out of the public eye. I’m in need of major cuddles, and lap-time.”

Hand in hand we walked from the bakkie to the cabin, Bobbie swinging our hands between us.

“My feet are killing me in these school shoes.”

“Then take them off.”

Yeah, when we get to the patio.”

“Your socks too. Else you’ll get those white socks black with the dust around here.”

Giggle. “Must I take off only my socks, or is there something else you want to see me without?”

“Now that you mention it...” I chuckled.

“Beast!”

“Why am I a beast? I appreciate beautiful things.”

“Oh, now I’m a thing?”

“Don’t twist my words.”

“Giggle.

By this time, we reached the patio and Bobbie pushed me down on the couch.

“Now. Lap-time and cuddles,” She instructed.

“Don’t you want something to drink first? You must be dead of thirst in this weather?”

“Nah ... Later. You’re my number one thirst quencher!” And she pulled off her shoes and socks, dropped them in a neat pile at the back of the couch, then slipped onto my lap. “There. That’s better!”, and her arm went around my neck.

“Kisses?” I asked.

“Plenty!” She replied.

I drew her face closer to mine, and our lips met. She placed her other hand behind my head and kept my head from moving, pressing her trembling body to mine. Her lips were soft, almost like silk, and pillowy against mine. The soft tickle of her breath beneath my nose sent an electric sensation through my body. The kiss was passionate, her lips hungry on my lips.

I leaned back on the couch, drawing Bobbie on my lap without breaking the kiss. I smelled her perfume, and the clean peachy scent of her hair shampoo. We both were lost in each other’s nearness.

Eventually, we had to come up for air.

“Wow!” Bobbie huffed. “You did miss me lots!”

From about six inches, I looked into her sapphire blue eyes.

“Let me go get you something to drink. Then afterwards we can pick up where we left off.”

“Nope! You sit and relax here and build up your strength. I’ll go get us each a Coke,” and with that she slid off my lap and skipped into the cabin, leaving me to wonder at her unbridled energy. Unbelievable!

It was then that my day turned to shit. A car pulled up, and a guy got out. He looked vaguely familiar, but I could not place him. With an easy stride he walked up the patio and stopped a few feet from me.

“And here he is. The most elusive and resilient man in Plettenberg Bay and Cape Town.” He stated as he stood on the patio, facing me and half turned away from the cabin front door.

“You murdering, kidnapping, psychopath!” I said as I recognised Aaron DiCaprio. “What do you want?”

“Right to it then? You don’t waste words, do you? Okay then, Where’s the redhead bitch?”

“She’s not here!” I tried to hide that Bobbie was inside the cabin and hoped that she would hear the exchange and call Dawson.

“I’m just going to ask this one more time: Where is the bitch?” And he pulled out a mean looking gun and trained it on me.

“If you are hoping for a reunion, it ain’t going to happen. Bobbie’s not here.”

“Well, her car is here...” he replied, and I was relieved that Bobbie had dropped her shoes and socks at the back of the couch, out of sight.

“She left her bakkie here and took off with her mom.”

“Nice! Then I’ll get rid of you and wait inside for them to return.”

“You can turn around now and leave the way you came.” I spat. “It’s the end of the line for you, but not the way you imagined it.”

“Says the man without the gun.”

“DiCaprio, turn and leave ... before you regret it.”

“Dammit! You are persistent. But I must give you credit, it’s the way a lover should act. Protecting his sweetie. That’s the way I’d be acting if I was in your shoes...”

“For the last time, DiCaprio, turn and leave. Now!”

“Or what?”

“It’s not too late. Stop. Turn around and leave. You have that option. Few people can say that option was offered to them. One of these days you’re going to get your head blown off, for just barging in here like you did.” I fibbed, trying to stall and hope that Bobbie overheard and was calling the cops.”

“You’ve got guts and determination, and that’s admirable. But you are in over your head in ways you can’t possibly comprehend,” he tried to unsettle me. “Hmph. Pal, I’m just a puppet like you. My stage is a little bigger, that’s all. Now where is that McGee bitch?

I suddenly realised that DiCaprio was not acting on his own. I remember what Ash told me about the five Mafia families out in the USA, trying to get in on DiCaprio’s business. Were they trying to get to Bobbie’s share of the oil industry too?

“You open the closet, it’s just a closet. You can never find the monster that hides inside. Not until it jumps out at you. Look. You’re pissed off. I get it. I do. But whatever you hope to achieve here today is not going to go your way.” I smirked.

“Talking of things going my way ... I think we’ve been talking long enough. We both know how this has to end. So ... are you ready to die?”

“I don’t think I so. The question is: Are YOU ready to meet your Maker?”

He lifted his gun higher and took aim at me. I felt a cold icy hand grab hold of me, and my heart started pounding in my chest. There was a light drumming in my ears, and I knew I was in for it. I had no way of defending myself.

Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw a movement in the shadows inside the cabin doorway.

DiCaprio opened his mouth to say something, but no sound came out. His words were drowned out by a thunderclap from inside the cabin. The sound of a nine-millimetre parabellum firing crashed out and DiCaprio stood stunned for a moment, realising to late that Bobbie was indeed inside the cabin.

He turned towards the open front door of the cabin as a second, and then a third thunderclap assailed my hearing. But DiCaprio was dead as the first bullet struck him under his left armpit, splintering his ribs and exploding his left lung and heart.

The second bullet struck him full in the chest, puncturing his right lung and exiting his back in a mist of red blood and bone fragments. The third bullet harmlessly missed him, scraped against the steel patio railing and ricocheted off the railing into the shrubs on the north side of the cabin.

For a moment he looked at Bobbie in the shadows of the front door, standing wide-eyed with a smoking pistol in her hands, still trained on DiCaprio. His brain was shutting down, but he still registered that he had gambled and lost. In those last terrifying moments for him, he turned back to me. There was a froth of blood bubbling out his mouth, tinting his lips red.

Then his hand opened as his body relaxed, and his gun clattered to the slate and wood floor of the patio. Slowly his eyes glazed over. He tried fruitlessly to reach for the patio railing, but his body followed the gun, and hit the patio floor with a sickening thud, like a slab of meat hitting a butcher’s block, upending the patio coffee table and raising a cloud of dust where he fell.

I jumped up and rushed to where Bobbie still stood just inside the doorway. I took the nine-millimetre pistol from her and made it safe, removing the magazine and ejecting the one-up cartridge from the chamber, then placed the safety on with a flick of my thumb. All this was done automatically from memory. I opened my arms and caught a terrified Bobbie as she ran to me. I folded her up, trembling and sobbing, into a hug, drawing her tight against me.

“Bobs?”

“Did I kill him?” She asked, looking up at me with blue eyes swimming misty in tears.

“Well, Sweetie, he won’t be going anywhere soon. Maybe to a fridge at Maitland State Morgue.” I replied. “Come, let me get you something to drink, then I must call Colonel Dawson...”

“We’ve been supplying that State Morgue with much business lately,” she nervously giggled. “I don’t suppose they’ll pay us a finder’s fee?”

I realised that Bobbie was in shock. I had to phone Jenny to come and help me. Then another thought struck me: Where did she get hold of my nine-millimetre? And how did she know how to shoot it?

The sound of the gunfire attracted attention, and soon a few of CemAir’s cabin crew and one pilot were on the scene.

“Get the police!”, a blond girl shouted.

“On it!” I reassured her, “I just called them now!”

Bobbie was shaking and trembling, clinging to me. Two of the other CemAir female cabin crew gently pulled her from me and started to soothe her, trying to take her over to their cabin. She protested, and they just sat her down on the grass in front of my cabin.

“What happened?” A guy, still in his uniform of Senior Pilot, asked.

“Guy came here, waved a gun at me, and Bobbie here somehow got hold of my nine-millimetre, and shot him...” I summarised for him.

“Bloody good shooting! I heard three shots being fired, and it looks like she got him with two...” He said while looking at the body of DiCaprio on the patio floor. “You know this guy?”

“He tried to kidnap Bobbie before and lost. He even tried to kidnap her parents.” I said, and the pilot guy got a far-off look in his eyes, so as if he was remembering something.

“Plettenberg Bay ... Red hair girl ... PC12 crash ... I know of that incident! A week or two ago.”

“I flew that PC12.”

“But the wreckage? You crashed into the sea!”

“Another unfortunate aircraft wreckage from a scrapyard, painted to look like the one we flew. Ours is safe and sound in North West Province ... The crash incident was to draw the kidnappers out in the open.”

“Damn! When all this crap is over, I’ll buy you a whisky. I want to hear THIS story!”

“Thanks, but let’s get old stinky out here first, and the cabin cleaned up.”

“When the cops are done, we’ll just hose the patio down. There’s not that big a mess.”

With protesting tyres and a spray of gravel, John and Jenny pulled up and parked next to Bobbie’s 4 × 4.

“Baby!” Jenny shouted as she rushed to Bobbie’s side.

“I’m okay, Mom!” Bobbie put on a brave face.

John came up to me. “Are you okay, Louis?”

“Fine. I’m more worried about Bobs,” I replied.

“You got the slime-ball?”

“Nope. Bobbie did.”

“How?”

“She was inside the cabin when DiCaprio pulled up and heard what was going on. She somehow got my nine-millimetre and fired at DiCaprio just in time. She struck him with two out of three shots.”

“Thousand dancing devils! Bobbie shot him? Fired three times? How did she know how to use a firearm?”

“My question too.”

“On the farm ... out in North West? Tracy showed me, like the Angels taught her ... We used the same guns the same as the one you have. She showed me close range firing on a target like a human form...” Bobbie spoke from where she sat on the grass with Jenny still hugging her. “That day we had fun ... Today it was for realsies...”

“But, Sweetie, where did you get the gun from?”

“I took it out of the sideboard drawer in the dining room, where you put it the other day. I was not going to let him take me again!” Bobbie stated, got up from the grass and came over to me. She placed her arms around my waist, looked up at me and continued. “Or let him hurt you ... I just did like Tracy told me, to not see the human, but imagine it as a paper or cardboard target ... I just took a deep breath and pressed the trigger. He was so close ... I could not miss him anyway...”

I placed my arm over her shoulders and pulled her tight against me.

“Thank you, brave girl...” I said and kissed the top of her ginger-red head.

Both John and Jenny just shook their heads. The pilot guy next to me looked at Bobbie and said: “Way to go, girl! That was brave of you!”

“I could not have done it,” the blond cabin crew girl said. “But what I can do is go make us all some coffee next door.”

“Why don’t we all go over there?”, the pilot guy invited.

“Yeah, you all go with them, and I’ll wait for Colonel Dawson and his team,” I replied.

“You know the police guy?”

“Yeah! He’s been running this case from the start,” I said. “Maybe it’s over now once and for all...”

“I’ll wait with you. Maybe you need an attorney...” John joked, breaking the stress of the moment.

It was a more experienced police officer of the Plettenberg Bay Police Service who arrived on the scene. He, his crew, and a detective arrived. They came over to where John and I stood, waiting on the grass in front of my cabin.

“I’m Warrant Officer Peters of Plett SAPS,” he introduced himself. “This here is Sergeant Wallace and Lieutenant Van Schalkwyk. Now what happened here?”

I recited the happenings to Peters, and he told John and I to wait on the lawn, while he and the detective went to look at the scene.

Lieutenant Van Schalkwyk came up to us a while later and announced: “Okay, from what you told us and what we saw, I concur with Peters. This is a true case of self-defence. We will just safeguard the scene as I believe Colonel Dawson from Organised Crime will be here shortly.”

“Thank you, Lieutenant. May the two of us go next door, or do you need us here?”

Just then the unmistakeable deep throaty rumble of a AS350B3 helicopter sounded, and it came hurtling over the airport fence.

“Oh, the cavalry is here! I better stay, and you can go, John.”

“No. I’ll stay with you.” He replied.

“It is going to be a long night,” I surmised.

A few minutes later Jonah Dawson and his team of four entered into the scene.

“You keep on supplying me with bodies,” He chuckled. “You said Miss McGee shot him?”

“Yip! Must I retell the story again?”

“For me and my team’s benefit, please.”

“Okay, once upon a time, long, long ago...”

“Save it! Start at the juicy part!

It was around 20:00 when the last of Jonah’s team left the cabin. DiCaprio’s corpse had been taken away and Bobbie’s and my statements taken down.

Jeff heard about the incident, and he arrived with Sue in tow.

“Now what is this about you going around and having fun while I am not here?” he chuckled.

“Damn! Bad news spreads fast,” I replied.

“Yeah, and tomorrow you’ll be in the newspaper again.”

“For all the wrong reasons...”

“Don’t worry, in a day or two some silly stupid politician will do something scandalous, and you’ll be forgotten,” Sue remarked.