Absolute Power and other stories

Kidnapped

KIDNAPPED T he schools had been closed all over the country for Christmas holidays. Many students were loitering in the town chatting and bickering. Occasionally, you could see students coming out and going into the national library. That early morning, I had been sent to the town by my mother to go and collect some items in the supermarket. The streets were busy, so I decided to walk on the pavement. Screech! The driver slammed his foot on the brakes, a brand new black BMW stopped a few metres away almost hitting me on my butt. I could not see who was inside the vehicle since it was heavily tinted. But I was angry. Very angry. The idiot almost ran over me. He was going to get a piece of my mind, I made directly for the driver’s side to confront him or her. But my anger immediately turned to horror, then a mixture of contempt and respect, when I found myself starring into the barrel of a gun! Contrary to my expectations, the hand holding the gun belonged to a woman. She must have been in her mid thirties. She hid her eyes behind the Absolute Power dark sun glasses smiling. My eyes quickly took in the scene and I realised that the car had three other occupants, all of whom were men, dressed in expensive suits and wearing an expensive cologne. They looked like triplets waiting to exchange marriage vows with their brides. On my side, I was rooted on the ground by the power and fear of the gun. The woman made a gesture to the two men in the back seat and before I knew it, I found myself sandwitched between the two perfumed men. I could also smell the oil shinning on their heads. They all looked serious, by their frowned faces. The engine roared back into life and the BMW slithered away leaving behind a black cloud of exhaust fumes. They all rode in silence for about ten minutes until I gathered enough courage to blurt out, “Where do you think you are taking me? Wait till my dad finds you. He will strangle you to death.” I regretted my outbursts almost immediately. The driver fished out a reefer from her brown handbag and lit it, drew a long puff, and turned round, blew the smoke directly to my small, oval baby face. Then her companion slapped me hard in the face. He hit me again and again and I began to cry loudly in pain. Tears trickled freely down my cheeks, and she could feel them rolling down. For the first time the woman spoke. “Be a good boy and you ‘II be okay. Just shut your mouth”. There was finality on the way the woman spoke. Judging from the tone of her voice, I could tell that she was not the kind of a woman to be joked with. She was not like the women at St. Augustine academy with whom you could play 62 and joke with. There was deadly silence in the vehicle. Deep down my heart, I could tell that there was something wrong going on. I was terrified. The woman pulled out her handbag and removed another two reefers. She lit them and puffed all at once. I was petrified. The other three men did not care nor bother about her actions. They were conversing in Tamil, Uzbek or Gujarati. I could not understand. But I could judge by myself that I had heard that language on the T.V. I could only decipher that they were hired gangsters. All this while, the woman kept throwing glances on the road and then on me. None of them noticed that bend on the road until they were almost there. The man in the passenger seat yelled out on top of his voice, “Britney look out!” A look of horror came across the driver’s face as she contemplated negotiating the sharp turn. She slammed on the brakes and fought hard to keep the car on the road, turning the wheels this way and that way. But the car got out of the road and rolled several times before landing on a ditch. Only groans of pain could be heard. As fate would have it, I survived the accident, with minor injuries. Britney also survived. The other three men died instantly having sustained deep cuts from broken...