Chapter 6

Bringing the Puma in to land, I dropped in low over the airport boundary fence on the north side and slowed down the craft to twenty knots. Far to the right, just past the threshold of Runway 12 and more towards the north gate of the airport, I noticed a few vehicles parked at the emergency gate number two. I let it slip to the back of my mind and kept my eye on the landing spot.

As soon as the rotors slowed to a lazy turn, my cell phone rang. Jenny. I was busy with the shutdown and pressed the “end call” button, but she immediately called back. I answered.

“Hi, Jen! Are you looking for us?”

“Bobbie is gone!” Jenny exclaimed, the worry and distress in her voice clearly evident.

“What you mean, gone? Gone where to?”

“Louis, she’s gone, disappeared!” Jenny shouted into my ear.

“Whoo there, Jenny! Calm down! Tell me what happened!”

“Bobbie took the bakkie back to Sue, across the road, but did not arrive. The airport security found the bakkie just outside gate number two, the engine still running, and the gate still halfway open...” her voice shaking, near tears.

“Where are you now?”

“At the gate!”

“Hold on there! We’re on our way!”, and I disconnected.

“What’s up?” Jeff asked.

“Bobbie disappeared. They found the bakkie with the engine still running just by the number two north gate.”

“The bird is safe; let’s go!” Jeff instructed, jumping out the left-hand cockpit door and closing it. I followed suit and ran to my bakkie, parked next to the prefab office.

I fired up the truck just as Jeff shut the door on his side, and pulled away while he was still buckling in.

“We’ll find out just what is cooking in a few minutes,” I said.

“Yeah, just keep calm. She can’t be far.”

Driving the five hundred metres to the end of the runway and around the runway end never felt so long. At the juncture to our cabins and the two-track leading off to the gate, I sped up around the left-hand curve. I saw Jenny’s car parked to the back of Sue’s white bakkie. Braking to a stop in a cloud of dust, I ran towards where a group of people were standing. Jenny, four security guys and two cops.

“The cops found Bobbie’s one shoe!” Jenny called and held out a white and blue sneaker to me.

“That explains ... NO, never mind.” I replied and took the shoe from her.

“If only I had gone with her...” John moaned while pacing up and down.

“Okay everybody, just calm down,” Jeff interjected and took out his cell phone. “Let’s just stay calm and try to figure out what happened.”

“Who are you phoning?” I asked.

“A friend...” Was all he said and turned around, walking a few paces away out of earshot.

Okay, Jenny, John ... what happened?”

“Well, Bobbie said that she wanted to take the bakkie back to Sue. She said Sue will bring her back, and that she will be gone about twenty minutes. That’s the last time anyone saw her. About an hour later Sue phoned to ask if Bobbie left because she did not turn up yet.”

“That’s when we got worried, and I took my car to drive the route she took,” John said. “As I came to the gate, security was already here and found the bakkie with the engine running, and the gate half closed.”

“Damn!” I muttered under my breath. “Bobbie would not take off like that...”

“Did you try to phone her?” Jeff asked.

“I tried, but her phone just rings and then goes to voicemail. I left messages, but she did not phone back,” John replied.

“John was at his office, and I was home. That’s how I found that Bobbie left her cell phone on the coffee table in the lounge! The little rascal!” Jenny said, folding her arms around her body.

“Here, let me see that sneaker...” Jeff said at my side and held out his hand.

“What?” I asked. Jeff had a stick of about a meter, and a half in length in his left hand. I could see that it was freshly cut from a bush next to us. It was then I remembered that Jeff was trained as a visual tracker.

“Hmm...” he muttered and walked off back in the direction we came: away from the gate. He was looking at the ground and stopping here and there, poking with the stick at some places, and continued on for about fifty to seventy metres.

“Cowboy!” Jeff called, using my call sign. “Come here!”

“What’s it, Jeff?” Jenny asked and started towards Jeff.

“No! Stay there! I don’t want you to disturb the signs on the ground.” Jeff instructed.

“Okay, Jeff, what have you found?” I asked as I got to him.

“Here was a scuffle. See the marks on the ground? Three or five pairs of footprints...”

“Yeah, I see...” I said, making out three pairs of footprints, but as trackers do, I assumed three to five persons were involved. Trackers always estimate two more. This much I have learned from Jeff.

“These are Bobbie’s prints ... She still had both her shoes on,” Jeff explained and held the sneaker turned upside down to compare with the prints on the ground. “See? The sole print is the same pattern.”

“Yes, I see it.”

“Bobbie is what? Five two, five three?”

“Nearer to five three,” I said.

“Now, if we back-track, you will see her footprints in the sand are far apart. She was running...” Jeff said and looked at me. There was concern in his eyes. “Then about here she was overpowered and forced back to the road. Some places it looked like she was dragged. That’s how she lost one shoe. I’m sorry to say, Louis, Bobbie was kidnapped!”

“Shit!”

“My friend will have the real cops here shortly...” Jeff said and placed a hand on my shoulder. “We’ll find her...”

“Who’s your friend?”

“A Colonel at the SAPS Organised Crime Unit in Cape Town.”

“And he will come here and start an investigation just by you requesting it?”

“Yes.”

“Shit! You have connections!”

“I do. And he better come if I call. He’s my younger brother!”

“Jeff ... Now, I say no more...” I said and chuckled a nervous chuckle, but I choked it down quickly. I was worried about Bobbie and what had become of her.

“Come let’s get back to the others.”

We got back to where Jenny sat biting her nails and John paced up and down. The one cop was still taking down statements from the security guys.

Jeff walked up to the one cop that looked like the senior of the two.

“Sorry to rain on your parade, Son, but Colonel Dawson of the Organised Crime Unit in Cape Town is on his way here. The kid was abducted, kidnapped, whatever you call it, and if you come with me, I’ll show you the signs,” Jeff told him.

“I saw you doing the tracking thing,” he responded and turned his right side towards Jeff. “Here’s my badge, I’ve also done the visual tracking course.”

“Good for you! Now, you could help me in preserving the tracks,” Jeff said.

“No sweat, Sir, I have my kit in the car. Let me get it,” and he headed to the police car. Jeff turned back to us.

“I suggest, Jenny, you and John go back to either the office or home. Louis and I will keep you up to speed on what is happening.”

“I can’t just go sit at home...” Jenny replied.

“GO!” Jeff instructed. “We need to keep this crime scene uncontaminated. So far there was plenty of movement and vital signs could be destroyed.”

“Crime scene!” Jenny exclaimed, and her bottom lip started to quiver. More tears were close.

“Yes! Crime scene. Sorry Jenny, John, all signs point to that Bobbie was taken forcefully: kidnapped.”

Jenny and John both went pale and without a word, a tearful and whimpering Jenny and a concerned John both went to John’s car and drove off.

In the meantime, the senior cop came back to Jeff with a backpack on his back and a mean-looking Nikon camera in his hands.

“Now, show me what you found, Sir,” He addressed Jeff.

I saw Sue coming across the road, so I went up to her.

It took more than two hours before Colonel Dawson arrived on the scene, but before his arrival, detectives of his unit in George were there, taking over the investigation on the presumption that a local syndicate was responsible for the kidnapping. I had my doubts.

Someone knew that Bobbie was using the gate and the bakkie. This was not a spur of the moment thing. This was premeditated. Colonel Dawson also thought so.

Leaving the professionals to do their job, I took my bakkie and drove to John and Jenny’s place. Sue joined me, and I thought it was good of her to come along. She would be better at consoling Jenny and John.

We were not at the Pienaar house long when Jenny’s phone rang. The display showed it was Dezz, Bobbie’s mother.

“Don’t let on that Bobbie is gone. Tell her Bobbie is taking a shower,” I advised. Jenny looked at me and then nodded, answering the call and putting it on speaker phone.

“Hi Dezz, what gives?”

“Where’s Bobbie?” Dezz asked without greeting.

“Taking a shower, why?”

“Taking a shower...? How long does she shower? I’ve been calling her number the last hour and there’s no answer. It only rings and then the stupid voice mail kicks in.”

Did you leave her a voice message?

“No!”

I’m not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but something in Dezz’s tone of voice triggered me. I looked at the coffee table and there was Bobbie’s phone!

“Well, Dezz, she went up for a shower about ten minutes ago.”

“Are you sure? She’s not with that pervert?”

“Of course, I’m sure. I saw her with my own eyes!” Jenny said, and I could see that Jenny was getting worked up. My eyes did narrow at the suggestion that Bobbie was with a pervert, but I recovered quickly.

I picked up Bobbie’s phone and looked at the display. NO MISSED CALLS! If Jenny called and got the voicemail, leaving a voice message, it will not show missed calls. If Dezz called, and left no voice message, there would be missed calls showing. Strange?

“I’ll ask her to call you the moment she is finished,” Jenny offered.

“Are you sure she is in the shower?” Dezz insisted and that made me think something was afoot. Sue picked up on it as well and got up, indicating to Jenny to follow her.

John sat motionless and looked a little flustered. Sue made washing herself signs with her hands and pointing up the stairs. Jenny caught on what Sue was indicating, and so did I.

Jenny got up and went up the stairs towards the bathroom on the top floor, Sue following. I just followed them to see what Sue was up to.

“Hold on, Dezz. Let me just tell Bobbie that you are on the phone,” Jenny proposed.

In the bathroom, Sue went in, took a towel from the towel rail and closed the door, making sure it latched silently without letting a sound get caught by the cell phone microphone. Jenny looked at me and realising what Sue was about to do, spoke to the door:

“Bobs! Your mom is on the phone. Are you going to call her back?”

A muffled girlie voice came from the other side of the door, “Sure! I’ll be just another ten minutes! I’m ... tell her ... drying my hair!”

I did not know what or how Sue did it, but I could swear it was Bobbie’s voice. But then again, muffled by a towel and the door, it sounded convincing.

“Oh, okay ... I ... I’ll wait for her call...” Dezz replied, obviously convinced it was Bobbie speaking. She sounded like she was a little disbelieving and flustered. She sounded distant, like she was thinking of something else. I had the distinct feeling that she was on drugs, as it sounded like that.

“Okay, Dezz. So, how’s life out in the desert?”

“Good! Let me go ... I’ve got things to do...”

“Bye, Dezz,” Jenny concluded but did not disconnect right away. She looked at me and at that moment Sue opened the bathroom door.

Dezz had also not disconnected the call, and the three of us was stunned as we heard Dezz shouting to someone in the room with her:

“Aaron! You moron! Your asshole buddies got the wrong girl...” Then the line went dead.

My mouth fell open as I could not believe what I just heard. Jenny went pale in the face, and her eyes shot fire. Sue just stood there, not moving, not saying a word.

Jenny lifted up her phone to call, but I stopped her. “No! Don’t call back!”

“Why? That asshole sister of mine kidnapped her own daughter! I’ll KILL her!” Jenny screamed.

“Jenny! Stop to think! We need to get Bobbie back safe. Now we know who got her, we can start to find them,” Sue cautioned and advised.

“Yes, Jenny, let’s go downstairs and get John up to speed as well, and get that detective to start the ball rolling.”

“I suppose you guys are right. Let’s go ... and get my baby back!” Jenny sighed and for the first time I realised that Jenny thought of Bobbie as her own daughter. The one she never had.

John met us halfway up the stairs. He heard Jenny’s high voice and thought something was wrong. I quickly and calmly told him what we heard. John just sagged against the wall, and I placed my arm over his shoulder.

“Come, let’s go down to the lounge, and I’ll call Jeff to bring that detective here,” I said.

“I’ll go make some tea,” Sue offered. “Jenny, come show me where you keep the makings...”

Rutledge Drive, Neighbourhood of Paradise, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA. 09:00 Pacific Daylight Time.

Desiree McGee sat on her bed on the top floor of the house she rented. Not far from her is McCarran International Airport. She could hear the airliners taking off and flying low over her rented house. Further out to the west, she could see the blue hue of the mountain range, some of the peaks sprinkled with winter snow.

To her right, just across busy Pecos Road, the Green Valley Park sprawled, covered in winter colours. But she did not take in what she saw. Her plan was falling apart, and she will not get a chance again.

The plan was simple. Get Aaron’s friends in South Africa to nab Bobbie and bring her to Las Vegas. The aircraft is on its way to Cape Town. Seventeen hours there, refuel, load Bobbie and fly back across the Atlantic Ocean, stopping only for refuelling in Angola, Cabo Verde, Salvador, Panama, and then on to McCarran International.

Once at McCarran, they would smuggle Bobbie out through the fence on the south side of the airport, over the railway tracks and on to her rented house a few blocks away. The house was rented solely to secure Bobbie in Las Vegas.

Bobbie will be with her. Her little girl will be at her side. Now it seems like Aaron’s contacts nabbed the wrong girl. How many redhead girls could there be in that little town of Plettenberg Bay? Damn! Only 2% of the world population are redheads! She has to stop the aircraft and let it turn around.

It’s costing her a pretty penny to get Bobbie here, and now those stupid assholes bungled it! She turned to Aaron.

“Call off the hounds! Let them drop the girl somewhere on the outskirts of Plett,” she instructed Aaron.

“It’s nighttime in South Africa. You can’t just drop a lone young girl in the middle of nowhere at night.”

“I don’t care!” Dezz shouted. “You blew it, and now we are having a problem. Well ... it’s your problem! Solve it!”

Aaron just kept silent and looked out the window. All the indications were there. The girl did drive that little truck from the airport and back for a couple of days. He was sure it was her.