Switched (23 page)

The plane dropped from the sky in a free fall landing, pushing my stomach into my throat. We hit the ground with a bang and bounced twice. The brakes screeched for all they were worth, attempting to stop the plane before we slipped off the tiny runway and the sliver-sized island. 

“Welcome to the beautiful Simoros Islands off the coast of East Africa,” the flight attendant announced over the sound system. “Local time is 11:49 in the morning, and the weather is a balmy thirty-eight degrees.”

The door opened, and I shuffled my way up to the front of the plane. “Thirty-eight degrees, thirty-eight degrees,” I muttered, trying to remember the metric system. “That’s thirty-two degrees plus thirty-eight multiplied by something. No, that’s not it.”

I went through several equations but couldn’t make it out. Thirty-eight degrees sounded good, but I had no idea how hot that was in good old American degrees.

“The stairs! The stairs! Oh, sod it!” The perky flight attendant screamed out the door at someone below. The line stopped suddenly, and I bumped into the guy in front of me.

The flight attendant kept screaming. “The bloody, barking, sod it stairs!” she yelled.

She was getting pretty hot under the collar, and her hair started to escape from her tight little bun.

“Yes! Yes, that’s it! No! We need the—Oh, what the hell do you think you’re doing?”

She turned away from the door and straightened her blue polyester suit in an effort to compose herself. “A little problem with the stairs,” she sang out to the passengers. “You’ll have to do a little hop out of the plane.”

She smiled as if all was right with the world and hopping out of planes took place every day.

Panicked whispers of “Hop out of the plane?” rushed through the line. A few of the passengers tried to ask her what she meant exactly, but it was no use. The flight attendant was all business and surprisingly strong for her little frame.

With a smile frozen on her face, she tapped each man as he approached her, and sure enough, he hopped out of the plane.

Drawing near to the door, I could see they were hopping onto a metal staircase and not, thankfully, into midair. But the stairs had been placed a good three feet away from the plane. It was a long way down if one missed, and it was my turn to hop.

The possibilities weighed heavily on me. If I overshot my hop, I would fly over the stairs to my possible death and probable maiming. If I undershot my hop, I would fall between the stairs and the plane to my possible death and probable maiming.

“I’m not really good at heights,” I reasoned with the flight attendant. But her patience was at an end. Her hairstyle had fallen, and her lipstick leaked past her lips in small scraggly lines.

“Hop,” she commanded, her effervescent attitude and welcoming smile now a thing of the past. Her hands clenched into little fists, and fear overtook me. Hopping out of a plane suddenly seemed less scary than a small woman with bad makeup.

I closed my eyes and hopped. I sailed through the air for what seemed like forever and landed with a heavy thud onto the top stair. I grabbed the railing for support and held on as my feet slipped under me.

I was going down quickly, off-balance from my new Hermès bag and heavy carry-on, which hung from my other hand, pulling me to my doom.

I thought I heard shouts of “Let go of the bags,” from below, but I ignored them. Did they know how much a Hermès bag costs? No way was I going to get it smudged on the tarmac. For that matter, I didn’t want to get smudged on the tarmac, either. The thought renewed my strength.

I managed to get my feet under me and planted on a step. I straightened out my body, locking my knees and finally finding my balance. Shaken, I walked down the stairs—against all odds—unscathed.

The man behind me was not so lucky. Just as I reached the bottom, I turned to see a tall, bespectacled young man ride down the stairs belly first. The sound of his grunts reached all the way to me, as he made impact with each stair. He, too, kept a firm grasp on his bags, but they were a standard computer case and nylon bag. He landed in a heap next to my feet.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“I hate Africa,” he mumbled and stood up, his shirt torn and one of his shoes lost somewhere on the runway.

Standing on the tarmac, eleventh grade math came rushing back to me. Thirty-eight degrees Celsius was over one hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

“Hot,” I moaned. Beads of sweat erupted on my upper lip, and my shirt was becoming wet and sticky. The humidity was intense. It was almost as bad as New Jersey in July.

I followed the line of passengers, who walked from the plane toward the airport. The Simoros airport was tiny. Its terminal, or what was left of it, was unusable, lying in a mound of rubble, an obvious victim of war.

I was ushered around the destruction to the makeshift parking lot, a small patch of blacktop amid large potholes where a nasty battle had obviously taken place.

As if on cue, four men in uniforms wielding Kalashnikovs ran past me. I held my breath, waiting for the sound of gunfire. Then my survival instinct kicked in. I hightailed it away from the guns until I ran into a solid wall of muscle.

He was well over six feet tall with short hair and a scar that ran down the left side of his face from hairline to jaw. He looked like he ate nails for breakfast. He grabbed me by the arms and settled me away from him.

“Let go of me,” I sputtered.

As soon as the words left my mouth, his arms dropped from mine.  He stared at me, unblinking. His eyes were dark brown and fathomless. I had no idea what he was thinking, and I didn’t want to stick around to find out. Nevertheless, I was rooted to the spot, and my mouth wouldn’t stop moving.

“I’m with
High Life
magazine,” I said, importantly. I told myself to shut up, but the words kept coming.

“From London,” I explained. “Well, I’m not from London. The magazine is in London. And I work in London now. So, I guess I’m from London, too. But only for the past couple weeks. I’m new there. In London, I mean. Just a couple of weeks. I’m from New York.”

He arched an eyebrow and cocked his head to the side. He had a nice head. A manly head. I felt my throat constrict and sweat roll down my face.

The soldier in front of me was hardly
High Life
magazine’s demographic.  I doubted that he had ever heard of it and couldn’t care less about my travel piece. But I couldn’t shut up. My mouth seemed to have a mind of its own.

“I’m going to a hotel,” I croaked. “It’s very nice, and I’m writing about it. You know, to show the world it’s still viable after the—” I waved to the debris around me. “You know, the coup.”

He squinted at me, as if he was trying to understand.

“I see. You don’t speak English,” I said.

He grunted, and the corners of his mouth curled up ever so slightly in what could have been mistaken as a smile. My eyes were drawn to his mouth, and I felt my uterus contract. He had a fascinating mouth, and I was tempted to run my fingers along his lips.

Uh oh.

“Well, gotta go,” I said. “It was nice knowing you.”

He squinted again, but this time he fixed his attention over my shoulder and nodded.

I jumped when a small man tugged on my sleeve.

“Miss Williams? Miss Williams? I am your driver, Solomon.”

I turned toward him. He was much shorter than I was. The top of his head only reached my bra strap.

“Are you okay?” he asked, bending his head in the direction of the muscle-bound man, who had disappeared into the wreckage. I breathed a sigh of relief, but my body was a little sad to see him go.

“I’ll take you to the hotel,” he continued, uncertainly.

I was uncertain, too. Did the hotel look like the airport terminal? Was I walking into a firefight? I looked back longingly at my plane on the tarmac. I could swear it was beckoning me to come to my senses and hop back on board.

“I am the official driver,” Solomon said, overjoyed with himself. He had gathered my luggage and was dragging it away, his little spindly arms straining under the weight.

I followed, unsure if I should offer to help or not. He headed around the corner at a pretty good clip, and it was all I could do to keep up with him, the sweat rolling off me in sheets.

“You are here for our nice hotel, yes?” he asked.

I nodded just as Solomon stopped at an official-looking stretch limousine. It was black with white trim and a flag on the radio antenna. It was a beautiful car, except for the intricate bullet holes design, which peppered its sides like really aggressive polka dots.

It was hard to imagine that the limo could still run, being so much damaged. There was more hole than car. Solomon didn’t seem to take any notice. He busied himself with putting my bags in the trunk and opened the door for me.

Against my better judgment, I got in.

The inside wasn’t any better. The seat was originally black leather, but it had been washed with a strong detergent like bleach and was faded in big spots. The floor’s carpet was removed altogether, revealing the metal beneath it. It took my imagination one second to visualize the blood spatter that necessitated such a cleanup.

“This was the president’s car,” Solomon announced from the front seat. He looked at me through the rearview mirror as he drove. Somehow, he managed to steer clear of oncoming traffic while never taking his eyes off me.

I searched for a seat belt.

“The president before the coup?” I asked.

“Yes. He was bad, bad man.” Solomon spat for emphasis, hitting the dashboard with a nasty splat.

“He did horrible things,” he continued. Solomon explained that the former president turned out to be a real psycho. He ordered massacres, disappeared hundreds of people, and destroyed infrastructure on a whim. Simoros society broke down to complete chaos.

“He kill men, women, children. If he don’t like your dog, your dog die, and he die not in a good way,” Solomon explained.

“That’s horrible,” I said. I rooted around the seat for a belt. Solomon weaved in between cars, his hand locked against the horn, and his eyes never leaving the rearview mirror, watching me as he spoke.

“More worse than horrible,” he said. “But the new president was smarter, and he brought us
Les Terribles
, and they killed the old president. Killed him dead!”

I had no idea who the
Les Terribles
were, but I wasn’t about to ask, as the limo swerved past livestock and potholes. No problem. Solomon was eager to explain just who they were.

“The new president called the Frenchman, David Montou. He said, ‘Mr. Montou, please come help me kill our horrible president.’ Mr. Montou said, ‘Sure,’ and he brought his eighteen friends, and they kill him dead. Now we have the new President Ahmed and we have all
Les Terribles
to help us.”

“
Les Terribles
are Mr. Montou’s eighteen friends?” I asked.

Solomon nodded and smiled big. “Very good fellows. They like how I drive,” he said.

I didn’t know much about the coup, but I remembered reading that the new President Ahmed hired western mercenaries to take over the old government. According to Solomon, they did a good job, and he gave glowing reports about Ahmed’s leadership skills.

Africa, coups, mercenaries, and a despotic tyrant added up to a juicy article, I had to admit. But those days were over for me. I had a new job as a features editor for a glossy magazine. Now all I wanted was to survive the trip with Solomon and survive my all-expenses-paid vacation, which I was quickly realizing was no great gift.

“Here we are,” Solomon announced.

The Simoros Intercontinental Hotel greeted me with the sound of water splashing from marble fountains. The pristine building was a sprawling two-stories in shades of pink with a meticulously landscaped exterior. It had escaped the violence of the old regime and the coup. The normalcy and outright luxury had me feeling much more confident and ready to sit out by the pool.

Inside, I walked through the lobby, which was decorated with abstractionist masterpieces. The manager greeted me personally. “Ah, Miss Williams. We were expecting you,” he said. “I’ll have your bags sent up to your room.”

It was finally the real start of my vacation, and my mouth watered at the prospect. “That sounds wonderful,” I said, truthfully. “It’s been a long day, and I want to rest awhile, head out to the pool, and get a daiquiri.”

He nodded. “Of course. But first you have the press conference. You’re just in time. It’s beginning now in the Gold Room.”

“Actually, I’m just doing a travel piece,” I explained. I didn’t need to attend a press conference to report on the hotel’s poolside service.

The manager grinned at me like I was a child asking for dessert before dinner. “I would hurry in so that you can get a good seat,” he said. “We have a lot of journalists with us today.”

“Now, see,” I pointed out. “
They’re
here about the coup. Great story, but I’m writing about the hotel, you see, not the politics.”

“Right this way,” he said, his jaw set, and his expression grim. He held out his hand in the direction of the Gold Room. I took a deep breath.

Just a necessary evil, I told myself. My luxury vacation would start right after the conference. Besides, since I wasn’t really there as a journalist, I wouldn’t have to take notes or ask questions. I could sit and relax and decide what kind of daiquiri I would drink.

The Gold Room was set up with about fifty chairs facing a long table. The leadership sat at the table, answering journalists’ questions. It was a full house. Sleep-deprived reporters chomped at the bit to get their story.

If Solomon was anything to go by, the Simoros citizens were overjoyed with the coup. Ahmed was now president, and his hired mercenaries—
Les Terribles
, and their leader, Montou—were put into positions of power to maintain the peace.

Montou, after doing a bang-up job overthrowing the former president for the current president, was enjoying his title as Minister of Defense, and his lieutenants were enjoying their titles of Minister of Culture, Communication, etc.