Shadow Chase: The Hunt on Corita Jones

By Andre Beerwinkel

There are some parts of the Cape Flats that are hidden in shadow. The shadow of violence and corruption.

A dark shadow where only the strongest and fastest survive.

This is where we meet Corita Jones. A criminal who operates in the under-world of the Flats.
After she mugged the Chinaman that Friday morning, she realizes that she might have bitten off more than she can chew.
What she unknowingly took from the Chinaman is highly explosive and suddenly every gangster on the Cape Flats is after her. The dreaded Technicians and Chinese assassins now take part in the chase and Corita's world becomes hot with peril. She can expect no help from the corrupt police services or anyone in government. She is completely on her own.
Her pursuers soon learn, though, that she is not a kitten that can be handled without gloves.
And who is the mysterious agent who now suddenly contacts her? Will she at last find out the truth behind her father's murder those many years ago?
The Cape Flats explodes into violence and all out action as Corita flees before her pursuers to the only place of safety left in a corrupt country...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Andre Beerwinkel
• Release date: May 24, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311074997

Andre Beerwinkel

Andre Beerwinkel was born and bred on the Cape Flats in South Africa. With the Cape Flats being one of the most exciting places on the planet he has written thousands of short stories as well as two complete novels about the area. When he is not behind his computer typing out a new story, he is probably out on his bike or busy building wooden furniture in the garage…

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André Beerwinkel’s

Shadow Chase

The hunt on Corita Jones

Shadow Chase

The Hunt on Corita Jones

Copyright ©2015

André Beerwinkel

Published by André Beerwinkel at Smashwords

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She smiles as she thinks about that book she read many years ago, when she started high school. The first line of the book was: How fast will you run if the devil suddenly appear before you? In her current situation it would be: How fast will you run if the devil suddenly started chasing you?

This was something, she will find out this night.

Chapter 1

As her target reaches the foot of the escalator ready to go up, Corita attacks. Her movements are lighting fast and very determined. Her hand folds over the rubber handle of the briefcase at the same time that she kicks the Chinaman very hard behind his knee. The second that all his thoughts rush to the numbing pain at the back of his knee, his grip on the handle of the briefcase automatically slackens.

This is what she has been waiting for. She forcefully takes control of the slim, aluminium briefcase by violently snatching it from his hand. Then she grabs his jacket lapels and trips the Chinaman over her outstretched leg as she forcefully brings him down onto the shiny tiles of the shopping mall.

The man desperately tries to grab hold of her, while loudly screaming something in Chinese, but her long legs are already carrying her into the shopping crowd - who don’t even realized yet what just happened.

With the Chinaman down on the floor and she in possession of the very important briefcase, she quickly runs up the moving escalator, making it seems as if she is taking giant strides as she rushes away from the scene of her crime.

Anyone who saw the actual mugging won’t be able to give much of a description of it, because it was so extremely fast, that everything would have look like a blur to an onlooker. The actual mugging didn’t even take ten seconds. What took time was the two weeks of watching every move that the Chinaman made when he came to collect the money from the Chinese shops. Then today it took time to wait until he reached just the right spot for the mugging. But as the saying goes: Victory Loves Preparation.

As Corita arrives on the first floor a crowd of morning shoppers and mall security guards are already gathering at the side of the dazed and very upset Chinaman at the foot of the escalator on the ground floor. As she moves away from the excitement, she hears the previously subdued noise of the shoppers becoming louder as people start pointing and shouting now. It sounds more like a crowd at a rugby match now than people calmly shopping.

Corita wanted to be a ballerina since she can remember. But growing up on the Cape Flats, forced her into a completely different line of employment. To survive in a country gone mad, one has to do what is necessary.

Anyone who sees the beautiful twenty year old girl will never realize that she is the most successful mugger on the Cape Flats. A professional thief. Her brown hair is neatly cut with the front part always falling over her face giving her the famous ‘flick the hair out the face’ movement that her friends know her by. Her tall, supple body makes men’s eyes follow her involuntarily wherever she walks. The light brown of her soft eyes gives her face that overall look of the sun coming up out of the ocean early in the morning.

Her slender body hastily moves as one fluid, sexy unit over the shiny tiles of Gatesville Mall. Clad in a body hugging navy blue Levy jeans, black running shoes and a white denim shirt, she is both dressed to look ordinary as well as for any action that she might be involved in.

To be a professional mugger and thief, one has to be very fit and extremely agile. And she is all of that plus much more. She uses physical as well as mental energy to do what she has to do. This makes her more than a hundred percent more effective than most thieves in the townships.

For today the main part of her job is completed. She has the briefcase. All she has to do now is to swiftly move through the crowd of shoppers to her pre-planned exit. She knows it won’t be difficult to get out of the shopping mall. The mall security guards will be too slow to catch her, even if they know where she currently is and even who she is, both of which she seriously doubt.

As she moves towards the exit she notices many of the first floor shoppers gathering at the railing to look down to the ground floor to see what the racket is about. The noise is becoming even worst from the ground floor as people point and show the security guards where they think they saw the thief running to.

But Corita knows that she look like any other shopper here in the huge Gatesville Mall and will therefor not easily draw attention. She moves smoothly and easily through the crowd, knowing she is safe.

Then...

Just as the thought of relative safety floods her mind Corita suddenly feels someone grabbing her violently and powerfully from behind. It is a powerful grip from which she will not easily escape.

Chapter 2

For GT Klaassen it is just another Friday morning, doing what he enjoys most.

He sees the extreme pain registering in the eyes of the beautiful teen. He estimates her to be about fourteen - fifteen years old, but truth be told he doesn't really care.

Her eyes are the only things that she can communicate with at the moment, because she is tightly bound to a chair. Her clothes have been ripped from her and she is mostly naked. Her arms and legs bound to the chair with red and white nylon rope. The hand of her left hand has been bound tightly by the pulses, leaving the rest of the hand free for the treatment as he likes to call it. The other hand is tightly bound to the arm of the chair. He won't need that hand...for the moment, that is.

He holds the girl’s ring finger in the open jaws of the big pruning shears. There is a faint smile on his face as he looks up into her tear filled eyes - which are silently screaming for help. This is what he lives for. This is what he enjoys most in life. To put pain on someone who is completely helpless, with the knowledge that no one and nothing will be able to help her against his brutality. To feel their fear as they helplessly whimper before him.

He looks over at the older man that is tightly bound to another chair. The sun shines orangy and bright through the curtains, giving everything that coppery colour of hell. And hell is what this family, whom he is holding prisoner in their own home, is in for at the moment.

One of his men holds the older man's head in a secure position so that he cannot look away from what is happening to the girl.

GT speaks directly to the man.

How many times where you told to pay your dues, Parker? How many times? And how many times were you warned that THIS would happen? That your family is going to pay for your sins? And still you didn't listen. his voice is loud and obnoxious. This tone of voice is on purpose; to put even more fear into the heart of his victims.

Fear is what he lives on. Pure fear.

He sees how the girl shudders and shivers every time he speaks. The pain of her two fingers - already cut off - must be indescribable, but he knows that her anticipation of the finger about to be cut off is even worst.

You see, baby... he speaks nice and softly to the trembling, uncontrollably sobbing girl. All this pain was brought onto you by your very own father. He is the cause of all of this. He points with the bloodied shears towards the man, before he puts it over her finger again. Don't worry, once all your fingers are cut off, I'll take that gag from your mouth so that you can tell him how much you hate him...I'll give you that chance. he says with a bright smile on his face, his eyes shiny with viciousness.

The older man is crying out now, but nothing can come through the gag around his mouth, only an animal-like moan. And he is so tightly bound to the chair that he can hardly move.

GT tied him like that on purpose; to generate that feeling of absolute powerlessness in him. GT knows how this built up the frustration in a person, especially when your daughter is being mutilated in front of your very eyes and there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.

This is what GT likes.

To drive people to the extremity of what they can take. To drive them completely over the edge until the rest of their lives is just a grey darkness and they can only stare in front of them with a drooling mouth. To put the fear of...GT...as he like to call it, in them.

His whole life long people never showed him any compassion, so why should he show them compassion?

He can actually see the pain running through the teen's whole body - like a screaming, shiny red arrow - as he closes the pruning shears over her finger. There is a loud snip sound and her ring finger falls bloodily to the floor, where the other two fingers are already lying.

The pain must be unbearable. And he is doing everything very slowly, which makes the anticipation of what is to come, worst.

The girl's mother is also in the room, also tightly bound, but she was left on the floor with her back to her daughter. He only wants the father to see what is happening. He knows for the mother it must be worst, because the imagination can actually make things worse than what it is.

The blood is streaming from the three huge wounds on the teenage girl's left hand now. Her body shudders as her head limply drops forward and she falls into a welcome faint.

As an enforcer GT must enforce the policy of his employee on those who is hard of understanding

So for GT it is always important to talk to the part of a person's brain that he knows is going to listen…and is going to remember. Through the years of being very good at his job he learned that through pain and suffering the lessons - which he hands out - are remember forever. It is never forgotten by the recipient and it is also a object lesson to those who might even think they can outsmart The Circle.

He also knows the older man is very tough and would have easily withstood any torture given to him. Parker would have just laughed in his face, no matter what he did.

So GT figured that the only way to give pain to the old man - to talk to that part of his brain that would listen - was to torture his young daughter in front of him. That was the only way to get the older man's attention. And to make it worst to do it a few centimetres from the man and make it sink into his brain that there is NOTHING he can do about it.

He knows that any man would swim through a river of fire to save his child. Here the man is only centimetres away from his daughter and he can’t save her. There is no worst torture than that.

You see, Parker, I am only released in extreme circumstances. You made The Circle so angry that they had no choice but to release me to come and talk to you. And this is the way I prefer to talk. He holds the bloodied pruning shears up.

He gives a short laugh as he looks at the man's tear filled face, with his daughter now in a merciful unconsciousness as the pain and fear fills her body like molten lava. Even in the faint her body shakes like its getting a stroke as the incredible pain still course through her nerve endings.

You owe The Circle money, but refuse to repay. We asked you several times for payments, but you didn't comply. Then you had the cheek to hire GUNMEN to protect you and prevent us from coming to you. Are you retarded, Parker? When you mess with The Circle, you are messing with god. he stands up and screams now. WE ARE GOD AROUND HERE. NO ONE CAN HELP YOU AGAINST US. WE DON'T CARE WHAT ARMY YOU HIRE AGAINST US, WE WILL DEFEAT THEM AND THEN WE WILL COME AND SHIT ON YOU. THE CAPE FLATS BELONG TO THE CIRCLE.

The man, Suleiman Parker, made the big mistake of borrowing money from The Circle, knowing he will be able to pay the primary amount with its interest back within a short time. He did this and actually repaid the original borrowed capital amount long before the dead line But The Circle didn't tell him that they calculate the interest on a daily basis. Because interest was added to the interest, he immediately realised that he would never be able to pay the interest back, although the full loan amount was already repaid.

He went to talk to the people whom he borrowed the money from.

They agreed to accommodate him, but they asked that he do them some small favours through his company. Their promise was that with each favour the amount he still owed would be reduced bit by bit until it reached zero.

But it was clear to Parker that doing these favours would put him within the power of The Circle forever and that there would be no way that he would ever get rid of them. He gave them a further amount of money and then he declared that he was done with them. At that point he again repaid the full amount he borrowed, plus three times the interest he originally owed them. Even though that still didn’t cover the money he owed them now.

He anticipated an attack and therefor hired a security company to protect his family and premises.

In a case like this The Circle sent in its special enforcers. The Technicians as they are called inside The Circle. The Technicians are specially trained urban soldiers, who can