On the run after his wife, neighbour and an Irish agitator conspired to publish his private letters in The Ben Trovato Files, the author finds himself fleeing from Guantanamo Bay.
It was a pig on a spit that finally motivated me to escape from Camp X-Ray. Snared in Big George Junior’s dragnet while in deep cover in the Karoo, the last thing I expected was to be suckered by that tired old ruse used by Americans whenever they find themselves interrogating large numbers of Muslim terror suspects in an occupied corner of a Communist-controlled Caribbean island.
Well, it worked on me. I snapped before the swine had even made a full turn over the coals. There is nothing more degrading than a grown man in leg-irons bartering for a slice of hot pork in return for a full confession. I was so crazy for that pig that I made the mistake of admitting to having been the pilot of the second plane. A Marine sergeant wrestled me to the ground, ripped the manacles off and stripped me of the jumpsuit. Then I was deported to Cuba.
It was a long road to Havana. Well, it would have been if I hadn’t been picked up by a Miami coke dealer who had apparently agreed to take a shot at Fidel in return for immunity from prosecution.
Things got a little hazy from then on. The next thing I knew, a fast boat was whisking me across the Atlantic, through the Strait of Gibraltar, into the Mediterranean, down the Red Sea, into the Gulf of Aden, around the corner and up the Gulf of Oman, through the Persian Gulf and when we couldn’t go any further I was hustled on to a high-powered barge that took us up the Euphrates river as far as the Syrian Desert where we switched to camels and finally reached the West Bank. There, I found myself under arrest. Again.
As it turned out, the coke dealer was not a right-wing Cuban dissident after all. He was a Zionist agent. One of many sent by Sharon (Ariel, not Stone) to track Palestinian terrorists in the occupied territories. I suggested he use a map in future operations. He snorted loudly. Maybe he did have a coke problem, after all.
The agent slapped me hard and called me a Hamas thug. The sudden violence cleared my head and I took stock of my surroundings. Stocktaking ended when two men wearing moustaches and military uniforms grabbed me by the arms and marched me into an army tent.
One poked me in the ribs with his Uzi and barked something in Hebrew. Or Arabic. Hell, I was from Cape Town. I smiled and nodded. I thought I could smell another pig. But it was probably the rank odour of fear steaming from my armpits.
Another man was marched into the tent. More barking. He began taking his clothes off. Another poke from the Uzi and I got the message. This is it then. I had heard about it on the radio. The Gaza strip.
Slowly I peeled off my shirt. I began to feel like a lap dancer, so I picked up the pace a little. But I didn’t want to appear too eager. I slowed down again. And so it went until I was nude and sweating.
Within half an hour the tent was full of naked men. It was almost like Green Point on a Friday night. I glanced around. Nobody looked less Jewish than me. But that wasn’t going to get me out of there. If anything, it would add years to my sentence. Then a man in a white coat came along and wrote a number on my arm and told me I was a prisoner of war. I laughed and tried to give him a hug.
When I regained consciousness, I was informed that I had been marked for verification. This sounded promising. At last the truth would come out. And they would send me home. Even if it meant going back to Brenda and her comparatively feeble efforts to kill me through poisoning or arson. Even if it meant facing the wrath of Allan ”Wozzenme” Boesak, Hansie ”The Manager” Cronje and the ”Minke researchers” from the Japanese embassy.
But it was not to be. Before I could tell my story, a dark-skinned fellow snuck up from nowhere and smuggled me out of that foreign hellhole. Later, when we were safely on a plane, he told me he had recognised my accent. He knew I wasn’t Taliban. Or part of the Intifada.
Just then, the hostess with the candy-coloured lapel flag reached over with the drinks. ”Praise Bob,” she whispered. I smiled, hummed a few bars of No Woman No Cry. I had never been to Montego Bay. ”You’re Tony Blair, aren’t you,” said my saviour, cuffing me as I reached for the little Johnnie Walker.