96. Taste your own medicine, Hunter!
Joss is standing in the centre of the camp viewing the three towers one by one while talking over his radio: “Towers, confirm that you can hear me, over”
One by one they confirm and he continues: “Keep your fucking eyes open! We want to know in advance whether the enemy is on its way. Over.”
They assure him they are wide awake and ready. All Joss’s men are alert after he has hammered in the urgency of the situation. It simply must be the Eastwood Estate that discovered their camp and who now, soon they might attack with the superior force of Colonel Morrison. Soldiers are now manning the towers and not the farmworkers. Joss acknowledges that it was a fault to use such amateurs but now it is spilt milk. No use crying over it. Regret always comes too late. Now all his soldiers’ weapons and ammunition are at hand to be used in any emergency.
“Tower one. Joss, come in. Over.”
“I’m listening, over.”
“Your brother is back and on his way to the main gate. Over.”
“I’m glad to see you are wide awake, Tower One. Over and out.”
He starts to walk to meet Leo at the main gate and then sees Yolandi coming quickly from the farmhouse. He stops and, eventually, she joins him.
Friendly he greets her: “Good afternoon, Yolandi. I haven’t seen you today. Joice delivered my breakfast to my room. Something the matter?”
Yolandi smiles and he imagines he sees something of admiration in her eyes when she looks at him. “We’ve only got a week’s rations of some supplies, Joss. You told me I should warn if we don’t have supplies for more than seven days.”
Joss first admires her sensual, full lips while she speaks and then looks straight into her eyes: “Yolandi, I am really impressed by you. Good work. You do all the washing, keeps everything neat and tidy, and handle our supplies. It is hard work and I appreciate it. Thank you.”
Shyly Yolandi smiles and blushes blood red. “I have many workers helping me. In any case, it is good to keep them busy while we are entrapped here behind the wired fence. They don’t lie when they say an idle brain is the devil's workshop, Joss.”
“Doesn’t matter. You manage everything fantastically. What are we short of?”
“Long life milk, tins of vegetables, tins of fish, and toiletries like …”
“Now, go and make a list.” He stops talking when she hands over a list she already has compiled. He looks at it.
He hands it back to her. “Take this list to Marco and Rasta. We’ve left items like these in the last store in town so that we can pick it up any time. We locked places like these with our own locks so that healthy people that might visit the town won’t discover it. The cannibals are not interested in ordinary food. They are only after human blood and keep in the shade out of the sharp rays of the sun. Tell Marco and Rasta they must depart immediately, while the sun is still shining brightly, take a cab and bring a full load back. Tell them the rest of us remain behind because the defense of the camp is now our priority. They can take those useless farmworkers with them to do the uploading. Yolandi, tell them they must move their asses and depart immediately after lunch. They must finish the job while the sunlight keeps the monsters in their hideouts.”
Yolandi nods, turns around, and walks back to the farmhouse. Joss advances to the main gate.
He gestures at the guard: “Open up! Leo is on his way.”
After a while, Leo emerges from the woods. Joss smiles. “I can’t wait to hear what you can tell me.”
While walking back into the camp the guard closes the gate. “Did you make contact with Paola?”
Leo nods. “I did, and it seems as if it is not the Eastwood Estate. They know nothing. The colonel must take a difficult decision on how many soldiers he can send out as a search team to look for the two helicopter groups that hadn’t returned. No strange activities took place over there and no one joined them.”
Joss frowns deeply. “What? It doesn’t make sense. Are you dead sure?”
“Hundred percent. I couldn’t believe my ears and checked again.”
“Then who in hell came and stole our guests? We followed their tracks and someone removed them with only one cab! I wonder, if it isn’t our neighbors, could it maybe be the Saviors?”
Leo shrugs his shoulders: “I wouldn’t know. Maybe it is possible but it doesn’t make sense. I think it must be someone else.”
“Who?” Joss reminisces for a while and then it strikes him out of the blue. He suddenly screams out loud so that Leo jolts.
“Hunter! I’m telling you. This is Hunter! The colonel chased him away like a dog. Remember Paola told us and we have forgotten about that pest but he somehow discovered our camp.”
Leo’s eyes widen: “Yes, I think you are correct, Joss. Our old enemy. It is his style. If you are correct, it is him and he didn’t deliver our guests to the Eastwood Estate. So, what is his plan?”
“The fucker wants to manipulate us and the colonel by stealing the most important person, the professor, from under our noses and where do you think will he hide the guests?”
Looking at each other, they smile before Leo put their thoughts into words. “The same fucking place where he arrested us! I bet you he is hiding all of them at that spooky smallholding in the blue gum woods.”
Joss grins. “He thinks he is clever but he’ll taste his own medicine. I hope we are correct, because it means we aren’t threatened by the colonel’s superior force. Our base won’t be attacked by the colonel and Hunter had played his ace and we are now ready for him. We must make sure tonight that we are right and get a team together and go and surprise him at the smallholding and take back what belongs to us.”
Leo nods. “I can’t wait to see that pest’s face when we finally square with him. Promise you will hit him to pulp with your bare hands in front of everybody, Joss.”
Joss grins happily and wants to agree but then something else comes into his mind. “No, Leo. I won’t like to upset these farm folk by showing them that side of me. They are scared out of their wits of me. I will destroy him there at his own place. Thinking of it, Yolandi has warned me that we are running low on some supplies. I sent Marco and Rasta with those useless farmworkers to stock up with the supplies she put on a list. Shit, Leo, that woman makes me horny. I must contain myself not to grab her and devour her from head to toe, that long blonde hair and soft, slender body is just too much for me. It is a pity that she is married to Deon. I wish they were rather a brother and sister.”
Leo smiles. “You are so right, Joss. I know she is the reason you don’t want to show your cruel side here, old bull!”
Leo slaps him against his rock-hard shoulder laughing: “It is because she is the only beauty here. Those lesbian soldiers are so butch they could as well be men.”
They burst out laughing and Joss wonders: “Speaking of the lessies. I wonder how Tania and Lesley are coping?”
Leo takes him by the shoulders and looks into his eyes. “Why don’t you get rid of Deon? I have noticed how Yolandi looks at you. She has the hots for you, Joss, I’m telling you.”
Joss frowns. “No, shit man, you are imagining things.”
“I’m telling you, Joss, that girl is yearning for you. She’s never seen a strong giant like you. We take out her husband and she’s all yours. I’m telling you.”
“No man, are you mad? She’ll never forgive me. Leave it!”
“Simple. You must be totally innocent. Look now, for example. You sent Rasta and Marco into town with those three workers. You could just as well have sent Deon with them and told them to take him out and come back with the story that the cannibals got to him.”
“She will blame me forever.”
“It is only an example of how easy it would be. What if I order them and go with and then get rid of him out of sight of Rasta and Marco? It will be our secret. Just give me the chance and I will make a clever plan to get rid of him and in a way that not only let you look innocent but even let it look as if you were trying to save his life.”
Joss shakes his head. “Leo, what came over you? I was the one who had to convince you when you were madly in love with Chloe and you wouldn’t make a move. Look how badly it turned out. Now you want to make a devilish plan for me!”
Leo frowns. “Don’t remind me of her, Joss ...”
Leo looks away and stares into the distance, suddenly immersed in a dream world of his own while they are strolling towards the homestead.
Eventually, Joss breaks the awkward silence: “Sorry, Leo. Each time I mention that woman’s name, I can see, after all the years in jail, she is still sitting deep in your soul.”
“There is only one Chloe ...”