London 2010
Getting this trip planned and executed took much longer than the group had hoped. The word ‘executed’ also described what happened to Chris Zacharius, when his wife Lu discovered the real plans for this trip. The men in the group convinced the ladies to go on an African Safari booked through Holland and Holland of London. All of them would ride in on elephants and stay at a lodge so plush most self-respecting wild animals would considered it unfit. They would take pictures, relax and generally be on vacation.
The devious part of their plan was going to be difficult to pull off. If it worked, the girls would not find out until they got back home, or at least on the plane ride back, since air marshals would be on the plane to protect the guys from being murdered. Mit Kruger, Modesto Tejeda, and Chris Zacharius had booked a side trip out of the lodge for three nights to go on a lion hunt to kill those deemed as “man eaters” in a Tanzanian village. They would fly in from an airstrip at the lodge and camp in the area where the lions were last seen (and had last eaten some tasty villagers.) Each of them would have a gun bearer, and a game warden would supervise. At least, that was the story told to the girls, Lucero Zacharius, Modesto’s wife Gretchen, and Mit’s longtime girlfriend, Angel Dominguez. The lion hunt would be something the men would look forward to, if they survived the task.
The girls wanted no part of this macho “kill-or-be-killed adventure” and made sure all the life insurance policies were handy, just in case. Their plans were to have drinks on the veranda and watch the leopards chase down monkeys. Afterwards, they would beat a path to various spas, go on photo jeep tours, and elephant rides. What the guys were really going to do was much more dangerous.
This scheme originated in the Dominican Republic, about three years before. After chasing down a tremendous treasure hidden by the tyrannical dictator Rafael Trujillo, they also found that his arch rival dictator from Haiti, Papa Doc Duvalier, had been sending huge shipments of gold from his northern Haitian mine, which he briefly owned with Trujillo, to Africa. The log from his ship recorded sixty-seven trips before Papa Doc’s death in 1971, and none after, suggesting that Baby Doc was not aware of his dad’s African connection. The secret gold shipments to Africa were uncovered when the three friends translated the log of the Afrik-Rev given to Chris by her captain, Plato Duvalier. Plato was a first cousin to Papa Doc and also a cousin to Baby Doc. Chris’ cousin in Memphis, Tennessee, who studied family trees, told him. Plato would be a first cousin once removed. She, however, also told him she traced Chris’ background to a rare tree ape in Borneo.
Since they had the money to spend, Chris and his pals hired private investigators who spoke both French and the local African dialects to poke around using the leads that were provided them from the log. They had been sniffing out clues and interviewing anyone in the vicinity of the Ivory Coast who was still alive, where Papa Doc’s gold ship docked every month or so. To ward off suspicion, they posed as historians and anthropologists studying African influence on Haitian society. It took almost three years of work to finally hit the jackpot—or as any sane person would say, it was a sure way to die. The bizarre discovery of the investigators was not what anyone expected. A trip deep in the jungles of the Congo would be required in an area that might be classified as unexplored.
Mit, Modesto, Chris and their companions flew to London for the connecting flight to Nairobi, but couldn’t talk the girls out of a brief layover in London to shop at Harrods. They just had to have the very best safari wear in the world, or at least the most expensive. Lu picked out a khaki short culotte skirt and a khaki long sleeved hunting shirt, with a matching vest with slots for large cartridge shells. She wouldn’t need bullets or a gun on her camera safari, but the outfit would look cute when she showed up at the spa for her hot rock massage. Modesto’s wife, Gretchen, and Mit’s longtime girlfriend, Angel, emerged from the dressing room with slacks and authentic bush jackets. If Vogue photographers had been there, all three ladies would compete for the cover.
While the girls were loading their credit cards with purchases for the trip, the three non-Vogue contenders headed to the gun shop. The men had made their purchases some time back and had the guns shipped to the lodge, but they wanted to see what was new. All three had their orders in for the 100th anniversary Holland and Holland .375 which was coming out in 2012, but for now, Mit and Modesto were going to use .458’s. Chris was going to stick with an older model .375 which many hunters declared to be the most versatile caliber for big game. Chris had watched videos of people shooting the new .577 T-Rex cartridge and decided that having his face smashed to pieces after the recoil of the first shot wouldn’t leave much enthusiasm for a second shot. Of course if he hit his target on the first shot, there would be no need to repeat. Holland and Holland made that cartridge model several years before. While they were looking at their guns, they saw a couple of the old relics.
Modesto, an avid reader of everything, pointed out something the others didn’t know.
“Did you guys know that Henry Stanley and two others in his party put five rounds of the old .577 in an elephant on one of his safaris in 1887? The elephant didn’t even slow down! They were not pleased, and one in the party, a Dr. Parke, actually traded his rifle for food during a bad time on the expedition. Stanley was used to shooting 8 and 10 bore guns which he said never failed. The old rounds may not have had the more powerful loads that are used today.”
“Where do you come up with this shit?” Mit said
“I read In Darkest Africa for this trip. Mit you should put down the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and read a real ass book,” Modesto said.
The appeal of Holland and Holland had to be the quality of workmanship and engravings. It certainly wasn’t the prices which seemed to start at over a hundred thousand pounds and go up from there.
They left Harrods carrying the girls’ new duds and headed up to Knightsbridge Road and over by Wilton Row. Someone had suggested dining on Beef Wellington at the Grenadier Pub. The group learned the pub was now a part of a chain and no longer served Beef Wellington. It was supposed to have a ghost. Maybe the ghost was someone waiting for one good English meal before they transcended to heaven. Although the guy drinking a beer wasn’t exactly a ghost, Chris noticed the young black man sitting at the bar watching the three couples in a casual sort of way as he sipped on a Guinness. He appeared to be strangely familiar, so Chris jabbed Modesto in the ribs and told him to sneak a look at the guy. Chris’s wife, Lu, glanced at the man at about the same time Modesto did. Both Lu and Modesto froze, turned back and stared at Chris. The color drained from their faces. He bore an unmistakable resemblance to the drug lord Lu killed on the night they were recovering the biggest gold stash in history, off the shores of the Dominican Republic.
“Chris, this guy has to be kin to Jon Jon Vieux!” Lu blasted in his ear. She meant to whisper, but in her excitement, she forgot the volume control.
Before they could look again, he was gone. Modesto rushed out the door of the pub and saw him some distance away in the parking lot aiming a pistol with a silencer attached. The gun made muffled sounds as three rounds struck the pub sign over Modesto’s left shoulder. The holes were spaced within an inch of each other and were meant only to detain, rather than kill him. It worked, and Modesto calmed himself. He walked back into the pub smiling, with no intention of telling the girls what just happened. A man with a firearm in London, where they were outlawed, spoke of a well-connected criminal. Modesto just said he couldn’t catch the man. Apparently, they were being followed by someone who didn’t believe in the safari ruse.
After drinks and burgers, they headed back to the airport for their flight. All of them had first class fares on British Airlines that left at 7:00 pm and got them to Africa in about six hours. They would arrive in the middle of the night, stay at a local hotel, then catch a flight to the pick-up area for their safari. Now everyone was keeping their eyes out for others who might not believe the group was on vacation. Their movements were always watched by those who waited like buzzards to cash in on anything the group of treasure hunters found.
Modesto broke out his computer and started to use his contacts to find all the living relatives of Jon Jon Vieux. Before his computer warmed up, a name came back from Interpol. Apparently, Jon Jon had a younger brother Barbos Marcel Vieux, cooling his heels in a Florida prison while the three couples were dancing around dodging bullets from his older brother. Barbos was released on parole a year ago. He hadn’t been seen since.
“Lot of warrants out for him now,” Modesto said.
The six friends felt certain there would be other interested parties waiting on them when the group arrived in Africa, but at least the three couples had the name of one of their admirers.
A few years back, Barbos Vieux’s brother, Jon Jon Vieux, had kidnapped Chris’s then girlfriend Lu, and attempted to rape her in front of a large crowd. She was rescued before he finished his crime, but he hounded the entire search and recovery of a fortune in gold uncovered in the Dominican Republic. While a final battle with the drug lord’s army raged on the ship Afrik-Rev, Jon Jon slipped on board and held a knife to Lu’s throat. She had a gun hidden on her and shot him several times, killing him before he took her head off with his knife. Now that she had seen Barbos at the Pub, she knew instantly this guy was a relative. Her instinctive fear was that she would meet the brother of the evil person she had shot to death. It would occur somehow, sometime, someplace and she would have to deal with him. Lu hoped she would be ready when it happened.