Alex rubbed her swollen eyes and temples to relieve the throbbing pain in her head. She looked around the poorly lit tiny apartment and found herself still sitting in the recliner she fell asleep in the night before. She stared at the empty couch where Ezra took his last breath. A pool of dry blood stared back at her. She sat up and skimmed the room around her and found the old lady seated at the tiny round dining table behind her.
“Where’s Ezra? What have you done with him?” she yelled out angrily.
The little Indian woman didn’t answer. Alex threw the quilt off her legs and walked over to her.
“Where’s my friend? Where’s your son?”
Still the old woman didn’t answer her. Instead she pointed her henna painted hand toward the stairs. Alex swung around and made her way down the dirty, narrow stairwell to the secret entrance into the fateful shop below where she found the shop owner scrubbing the pools of blood off the floor. The sight horrified Alex and she fought back the urge to run past him and out the front door.
The shop keeper jumped to his feet and ushered her away from the spot where Ezra was shot.
“What have you done with him? Where is my friend?” Alex asked with fresh tears streaming down her face.
“Patel he take good care of your friend. I’m too sorry for your friend. Come, sit, sit.” The shopkeeper’s English was poor but his condolences punched a hollow hole through her stomach as she sat down on the stool behind the shop counter. Alex found herself looking up into the overhead mirror where she watched the shooting play out the night before. Regret filled her once again and she buried her face in her hands.
“Calm, calm lady, please? Your friend he save my life. You save my life. I die yesterday but no, you save me. What you want huh? I give you all I got. Here, take for you.”
The Indian shop owner pulled a few hundred rand notes from his hidden drawer under his till and stuffed it in her numb hands. She pushed it away.
“I don’t need your money.”
“What I give you want, huh? Say, I give you anything.”
Alex wiped her face and looked up at the small Indian man whose desperate brown eyes pleaded for her forgiveness and a chance to repay her. It wasn’t his fault either, she thought. It was just an unforeseen event that neither of them could have prevented. He too will be scarred by this for the rest of his life.
“Do you have a car?” She asked softly, blowing her nose on a tissue he handed her.
“You want car? No problem lady, my pleasure!” The shop owner ran upstairs and a minute later appeared with a single silver key hanging from a gold and black plushy die.
“You keep, no problem.”
Alex took the key from his eager hand; his burdened eyes now filled with joy.
“Thank you for your help. I’m sorry too,” she whispered and allowed him to drag her by the arm through the backdoor of the shop past the apartment staircase into an adjacent gated alley where his car was parked.
When Alex settled into the rusty gold Honda that matched the die dangling from its key, she felt lost for the first time in a very long time. She missed Sam’s strength and found herself wondering what he would’ve said to lift her spirits right now. She had no means of communicating with him on the farm and she shot up a prayer for his safety. Hopefully by some miracle they had managed to repair their communications pack and had called for help.
In front of her the streets outside the city lay quiet. Evidence of vandalism from the night before stuck out its ugly head every now and again but for the most part, it was relatively peaceful. Her mind wandered to Volkov and if perhaps he might have caught on to her. She had lost a lot of time and he could already be hot on her trail by now. Her eyes scanned the rearview mirror every couple of minutes but thankfully, there was no one in sight for miles and she was relieved to have an opportunity to reflect on her own thoughts.
But, when Alex approached the tiny rural settlement en route to The Cradle of Humankind, she slowed the car down. Up ahead, the road was closed off by thick wooden poles positioned in a crossbar across the road. The horizontal pole was draped in wired fencing and large fires stood on either side. Armed men with bandanas covering their mouths, stood guard on both ends. She stopped a quarter of a mile away and took a closeup view through her binoculars. Her eye caught Ezra’s backpack on the passenger seat that the shopkeeper threw into the car last minute. Her insides felt heavy as she realized she couldn’t take the men on alone. She forced her mind back to the dire situation at hand and turned to look at the road behind her. There was no way around the barricade and the guards looked to be more hostile than friendly. She looked down at the map in her lap. The only way to the Cradle would be through them or through the field to her right, and she wasn’t sure this Honda would make it. As she contemplated her next move, her eyes went up to her rearview mirror and saw a black jeep fast approaching her from behind. She flung her head around and realized it was Volkov.
Unladylike words escaped from under her clenched jaw. She had no idea how he had managed to find her without deciphering the zoo’s decoy. Her heart raced under the pressure of finding a way to bypass the barricade in front of her while simultaneously escaping Volkov behind her. She shifted the gear lever into first gear and tightened her hands around the steering wheel. The Honda puffed a big cloud of smoke from the exhaust as she revved the accelerator. It was now or never, she thought and without another second to spare she pushed her foot flat onto the pedal and screeched the wheels of her gold chariot toward the barred road ahead. Much to her surprise the Honda performed under the pressure and bolted down the tarmac. Straight ahead the armed guards jumped into position and flung their rifles off their shoulders and in front of them. A succession of shots fired from their weapons rained down onto the Honda’s bonnet and through her front window. Alex hunched down into her seat and kept going. Behind her Volkov’s men fired back, but much to her surprise, not at her but the guards. A few yards away from the cross pole Alex pulled her hand brake up and yanked the steering wheel to the right. The car slid sideways across the road before veering off into the rough on the side of the road. She shifted gears and forced the steering wheel back to the left, pushing her foot flat onto the accelerator. Vaguely conscious of one of the guards being shot dead to her left by one of Volkov’s men, she forced the car into a forward direction and pushed the noisy Honda through the rough and around the barricade. The wheels hit several large rocks that sent Alex off her seat but she kept going; several times almost losing control of the car. Dirt clouds behind her car made it impossible to see through the rearview mirror what was unfolding behind her, but there was no stopping now. She had to keep going forward — for as long and far as the rust bucket would take her.
With her heart threatening to push through her chest and combat vest, and her legs feeling like jelly, she sped down the road through the rural settlement. A stray dog unexpectedly ran across the road forcing Alex to swerve hard to avoid it. Unable to maneuver the car back onto the road, she hit a makeshift street vendor’s tin shack, sending him diving out into the bushes to avoid being killed. Several bags of oranges hit her front window blocking her vision, so she pulled the steering wheel to the right in the direction of the road she was on prior to the incident. Two of the Honda’s wheels lifted off the ground as she fought to maintain control of the car again. Her hands ached under the strain of the steering wheel when all four wheels gripped the tarmac underneath her again. Somehow she managed to gain control of the car and found herself racing down the road. Frantic villagers scattered into all directions away from the road as the gold car sped past them. Adrenaline pushed through her veins and Alex looked back in her rearview mirror for the first time again. Behind her a truck with five or six angry hooligans on the back raced toward her. Volkov was nowhere to be seen. Her eyes repeatedly searched both sideview mirrors but the black Jeep was nowhere in sight. In that moment she wasn’t sure if she was relieved or worried that she’d now face having to fight the truck full of angry men behind her on her own again. She pushed on down the empty road away from the settlement and knew the road to the Cradle of Humankind heritage site wasn’t far down the road. She’d have to shake them off first though. Her hand went to Ezra’s backpack next to her and she stuck her hand into the front pocket. Unable to take her eyes off the road her hands identified the oblong shape of a hand grenade. Her strained mouth curled into a soft smile as she silently thanked him for his secret weaponry.
A sudden boulder in the middle of the road caught her off guard and she swerved out to avoid it just in time. The truck behind her followed suit and was closing in on her. She pushed the Honda harder, but to no avail. Her hand reached for the grenade in Ezra’s backpack and she knocked the shattered driver’s window to her right out with her elbow. Her teeth gripped the steel pin as she pulled it out and tossed the grenade through the window in the road behind her. Her timing was impeccable as the grenade exploded directly under the nose of the truck sending her assailants through the air. Fear made way for an exhilarated rush of success soaring through her every cell and she wished Ezra or Sam were there to celebrate her escape with her. Somehow she felt they both helped her; Ezra by means of a realm beyond her present one, and Sam through thought transference.
Still there was no sign of Volkov and his team. It was entirely possible they had been killed by the armed guards, but there was no way of knowing for sure. No body, no murder, she thought. She had to assume they were still alive and stay alert.
A few yards further the road to the heritage site came into view and Alex slowed to turn into it. She wriggled upright into her seat and leaned forward onto the steering wheel affording her a clearer view between the bullet holes in the front window. The long winding road leading up to the entrance was completely deserted. On either side of the road dry grass stretched out for miles in all four directions. It was as if she was in the middle of a barren land with nothing around her. In the parking lot an abandoned bus stood to one side and a couple of bicycles were still chained to a tree. Using the bus to conceal her car she parked up but kept her eyes fixed on her surroundings — just in case. Satisfied she was alone, she emptied Ezra’s backpack on the seat next to her. Aside from one wrinkled decolorized photo he had no personal effects in the bag. The faded image in the photo caught her eye. It was a young Ezra standing between his multiracial parents. Alex slid three more bullets into his gun’s magazine. Her thoughts drifted to her own parents and she wondered if she’d ever see them again. Willing her mind into the present she grabbed spare ammunition and tucked two grenades into her backpack. With his loaded gun in her waistband at the front of her pants and her gun reloaded and ready in her hand, she slowly climbed out of the car.