Hearts' Desires (25 page)

             
He stood up and paced in front of his old friend. “What the hell am I going to do now?”
             
“First of all, eat some breakfast!” Jake commanded.

             
Noticing a tiny movement in his field of vision, he looked up and discovered a huge butterfly. The insect flew around them, and then landed gracefully on Vance’s right foot.

             
“This guy shouldn’t be here,” he said. “Normally they can only be found in the Western Cape.”
             
“Perhaps he got trapped somewhere in our luggage and we relocated him. – Seems to like you, anyway!”
             
As amazing as it was, the frail little butterfly had managed to haul Vance up quite a bit from his moody pit. And the two friends watched in awe, how the insect flew up and landed again, on his other foot, then his hand and finally on his head.
             
“Do I see you smile or am I mistaken?” asked Jake, gri
n
ning himself.
             
“Don’t know why this guy hangs around me, really. There are plenty of flowers over there! He’s going to starve that way.”
             
“You’re going to starve yourself, if you don’t eat your
sandwich!”
             
Finally, Vance grabbed his breakfast. The butterfly moved up with a last wide circle and disappeared in the leaves of the tree.
On the set, Lauren took her position, blinking against the mi
d
day sun. She hadn’t slept for a minute last night. And not sleeping was something she considered absolutely disastrous for her appea
r
ance – and an imperfect appearance was worse than… well… a
l
most everything else she was angry about. And at the moment, she was angry about a lot of things. Al
i
son’s commands reached her faintly, and she complied di
s
tractedly. It was the scene where Camilla expressed her wo
r
ries about her father to Luis and finally convinces him to i
n
itiate a search party. At least she sounded stressed enough without much effort!

             
“But his friends already came back, Luis! Let’s look for him. I have really bad feeling about this!”

             
Luis, standing in front of her, grimaced uneasily and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “You know your father. He’s probably just gone somewhere to sleep off his hangover.”

             
“Nobody cares about him!”

             
“He doesn’t care about anyone!”

             
“If you don’t help me, I’ll go alone!”

             
Camilla pushed Luis aside and marched off; the camera focu
s
ing on the boy’s eyes.

             
“Cut!”

             
Lauren sighed in relief, but only a moment later, she cursed, when she heard the camera assistant saying: “Aw, crap!
Got a bird in front of the
lense
during the last seconds!”

             
“Is that a re
take
?” Alison asked, sounding annoyed as well.

             
“I’m afraid so.”

In the afternoon, Vance and Jake joined the team. When they arrived, they could easily sense the tension and agitation, b
e
fore they even got out of the car. Everyone had gathered around the bus, where the radio had been turned on.
             
“Some rebels from Zimbabwe have crossed the border,” Max explained. “And border patrol hasn’t caught them so far. No one knows what they are up to.”
             
“Maybe they just want to go into hiding in one of the townships,” Vance suggested, while the make-up-team pr
e
pared him for the scene.
             
“We should pack our stuff!” Lauren said.
             
“I would rather be miles away back in the studio in Cal
i
fornia, too,” replied Alison. “However, the producer gave us a deadline. We cannot shoot this one anywhere else. It’s not up to me – so please spare me any further complaints and arg
u
ments, okay? The more you all focus on your work, the soo
n
er we are done and on our way home!”

Silently she agreed with the crew, but she had to stand firm for the sake of the project. The sake of the project… the thought echoed in her mind, while she gave the instructions for camera positioning. Wasn’t it always the project? Before the inevitable next thought about what she would do when THIS project was finished could make a claim on her, Alison stepped over to Vance.
             
“I assume you are ready?” she asked, her eyes hidden behind her sunglasses.
             
Vance nodded.
             
“Good!” She gave Jake and the lighting team last orders. Then she turned to Vance again.

             
“Just like we talked about, you’ll walk past these two trees, and then turn around, where the marker is. From there
you will spot Camilla and Louis. I want to see some emotional struggle in that scene! You feel betrayed by life, by destiny; it's like a death blow - but then, love prevails. I absolutely need -- what is it?!"
             
“There was … a butterfly on your head.”
             
“Okay.” She ran her fingers over her hair, unsettled by this tiny, soft, almost unnoticeable interruption of her military speech. “Let’s get to work!
Ready now?”
             
She waited until Nora was finished with the background action layout. Seeing her assistant’s ready sign, she stepped back, and Vance couldn’t help but think how graceful she moved. 
             
Meanwhile, Thabo and Lauren sat at the camping table enjo
y
ing something to drink and a little snack, before it was their turn again. Uncharacteristically quiet Thabo crouched next to her and acted as if his cold meat roll was the most i
m
portant thing in the world.
             
“Hey, what’s up? Cat got your tongue today or what?”
             
Thabo shrugged. After some more chewing, he mumbled: “I figure you’re not interested in conversation with me an
y
more, now that you’re with him.” He gestured in Vance’s dire
c
tion and kept eating.
             
“What? That’s bullshit! I’m not with anyone.”
 

“Vance, now it was a bit too slow!” sounded Jake’s voice from the camera. “And don’t lift your weapon that high, or it covers half of your face! – Okay, once again!”
             
Lauren
observed Vance taking his position. She still felt bad, looking at him. But there was nothing she could do about that without making things worse.

             
This time everything
went perfect. Alison had just si
g
naled ‘cut’, when a series of shots drowned every other sound. Th
at wasn't a game warden’s rifle -
that was for sure!
The team froze. Someone whispered “Oh my God!”
             
“Pack up!” ordered Alison and turned to Max. “How far away do you think those shots were?”
             
“Hard to tel
l because of the echo.
I fear-”
Max started, but more shots, yelling and the sputtering of engines interrupted him. One of the sound crew boys climbed up a rock nearby.
             
“Get into the vehicles!” ordered Vance and ripped the c
a
ble out of the second camera assistant’s hand. “Leave this and get into the bus!”
             
“I can see them!” called the boy from above the rock. “It’s a military jeep! No, two… and another one is in pursuit! They’re heading –“
             
An explosion swallowed the rest of what he was saying.  There was an orange-red fire cloud and the pursuing vehicle was gone. The guy on the rock turned back, pale and frig
h
tened.
             
“Move!”
Alison commanded. “Leave everything; we’ll only take the cameras!”
             
Hearing her say that everyone realized how serious the situation was. While the first crew members ran down the slope to the bus and the other parked vehicles, the sound of the approaching jeep came closer. Thabo helped Nora, and Chang dragged another
stunned
team member along. While the make-up-specialist still made it, Thabo and Nora were too slow. The panicking bus driver started pulling away, leaving them and some other crewmembers behind.
             
“We still have my Rover and the other car!” Max pushed La
u
ren forward. “Come on!”
             
Jake was still trying to get his camera loose. In his haste, he had broken a little splint on the dolly and now it was stuck. Jake cursed, red-faced. Alison knelt next to him, trying to help. Vance sprinted towards them, taking her arm.

             
“Get in the car!”
             
She struggled. “Don’t patronize me!”
             
“Get in the damned car!”
             
“I don’t need your he
lp! Leave me alone!”
             
“I can-”
             
“Got it!” wheezed Jake, grabbing the camera as best as he could.
             
“Don’t move!”

             
All three of them froze in place, slowly turning their heads t
o
wards the voice. There stood two men in ragged uniforms, their machine guns pointing straight at them.
 

The rebels ushered Vance, Jake and Alison down to the par
k
ing lot, where they discovered to their dismay that four other team me
m
bers had been captured as well, right in front of Max’s Rover. They heard Lauren’s angry voice from a di
s
tance.

             
She was struggling against a young rebel who had just snatched the cell phone out of her hands. Of course she did not stand a chance. Thabo grabbed her with surprising strength and thus probably saved her from harm.

             
“Move faster! Over there!” the man next to them shouted, and another accompanied the order with a threatening ge
s
ture by his machine gun. A moment later, the three of them were reunited with the other crew members. Nora Mendez was shaking. Vance tried to stay as close as possible to Al
i
son, just in case. As far as he could count at the moment, at least 12 rebels were around them, some very young, barely more than children. But that did not mean they weren’t ready, willing and eager to hurt or kill people; he had no illusions about that.
They were
n’t criminals, but they were
de
s
perate.
At home, probably a drumhead court-martial awaited them, and South Africa would perhaps extradite them. So they had nothing to lose.

             
“What are they going to do with us?” Nora asked, so
b
bing.

             
“Try to keep calm,” said Alison, gathering all her strength to sound calm and in control, while her thoughts raced and her body begged for a tranquilizer.
“Don’t irritate them. We are-”

             
“Over there, I said! Into the cars!
Move!”

             
Lauren murmured a not-too-ladylike curse involving the man’s genitals. Jake reached out to steady Nora and the movement e
x
posed his precious watch. The flash of sunlight reflecting on the metal caught the eyes of one of the kidna
p
pers. The man grabbed Jake’s arm and ripped the watch off his wrist.
Bertoni
did not resist or struggle. Expensive jewelry didn’t matter much right now.

             
That gave the other rebels ideas, and they started to co
l
lect watches, rings and cell phones from the other prisoners. Even N
o
ra’s wedding ring vanished in a green uniform pocket.

             
The rebel commander, who wore a distinctive red scarf around his neck, hurried them forward, into the Rover and their own Jeep, while some of his men took over the remai
n
ing car. Getting split up was an additional problem. They could only hope they would be reunited at the next stop. Otherwise, the police would have even more trouble rescuing all of them.
If they were going to be rescued at all…