The Waiting Room

By Gideon Marx

Thirty years! Five continents! The CIA – Special Operations Group had certainly kept Mitch busy; and well-travelled. Who would have thought a South African could rise to lead one of America’s most secretive units?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Gideon Marx
• Release date: Feb 3, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005481247

Gideon Marx

Born in Durban, South Africa, on the 26th of May, 1968. Spent my formative years in Benoni, east of Johannesburg. In 1986, attended law school and quickly established myself as one of the top ten underachievers to ever set foot on campus. Displaying commitment and focus far beyond my years, I used my time at varsity to become proficient in scuba diving, martial arts, the wild places of Botswana, and reading everything I could get my hands on, BUT lawI worked variously as a bouncer, construction worker, scuba diving instructor, vacuum cleaner salesman, and amateur safari guide.After a spectacular dismal university career, I joined the South African Police and graduated top of my class of 1992. This coincided with the height of political violence, killing, and open warfare in South Africa. My eyes were about to be opened.I later completed my Bachelor of Law degree and hold an MBA from Bond University, Australia.Voracious reader on history, warfare, special forces. Written multiple short stories and articles

Book preview

Chapter 1 - March 2019, Hyde Park, Johannesburg

Life is often a waiting game. Waiting for Mom to feed us; waiting to grow up; waiting for Christmas; waiting for that holiday; and of course, waiting to be an adult.

Once adulthood arrives, waiting stays with us. In a reception before a meeting; a payment to clear; a text reply; a bond application. For some, it can become the defining force of life. Waiting to have this happen, so I can be happy; waiting for her to love me; waiting for my ship to arrive.

And finally, I can’t wait to go on pension. Waiting in its most tragic form.

We are perpetually looking forward, striving for tomorrow, the next great thing. Impatient and unsettled as we cast away today for the promise of tomorrow.

The Buddhists call it Monkey brain. A mind unable to settle in one place or on one thing for too long. Impatiently jumping from one branch to the next, to the next. Either worrying about the future or digging in the past and rejecting what it finds. Problem is there is no time to see clearly anymore.

The waiting room is the same as a million others. Chairs against the walls, tired pictures long past relevance, irritated people, really ill people, flustered front office staff and a table covered in magazines.

All waiting. Like a pit stop at a racetrack. The madness continues outside at full speed. The race. The fight. The battle. The broken ones pull into the waiting room. Awaiting repairs. Real or imagined. Waiting is time doing nothing. Waiting forces contemplation. Introspection. And if it’s not going as planned, contemplation can be unpleasant. Introspection, while we wait, adds to the anxiety of the waiting room. Much better to be going full speed around in circles. No time to think. Better.

The multi-level sales offering is a medical doctor, psychologist, dietician and physiotherapy. With the possible exception of the dietician, Mitch Lynch could keep an entire conference of each of the other disciplines occupied for weeks. His six-foot, three-inch frame carried little fat, but was compensated for the shortfall with muscle, scars and solid bone way beyond normal requirements. His oversized clothing hid most of it. Blue-grey eyes never resting, face neutral. His body became the chair in the same way a cat can contort itself. Muscle tissue firm, but pliable. Not fake bulges collected at the gym. Overly zealous gym types always reminded Mitch of a tree weighed down with too much fruit and about to topple over.

It won’t be much longer, Sir. After the lady who went in, you are third on the list. Doc Maria rarely takes longer than ten minutes per patient.

Mitch just nodded ever so slightly. Someone speaking to him in front of others was already too much attention as far as he was concerned. He tried harder to become the chair.

Across from Mitch and slightly to the left, Anthony rolled his eyes and exhaled passive-aggressively. Returned to his smartphone, thumbs flying. Millennials. What did they say to each other all day on those damn things? Generation gap? Try chasm. Mitch’s 50-plus years put him on another planet. He recalled with fondness his parents arguing about who had to answer the single phone in their house each time the thing rang.

I answered last time! his father would shout from in front of the television. You get the damn thing. Or just ignore it. I promise you on the end of that thing is someone from whom you don’t want to hear telling you something you don’t need to know!

Nurtured and pampered by parents who didn’t want to make the mistakes of the previous generation, millennials are confident, ambitious and achievement-oriented. They also have high expectations of their employers; tend to seek new challenges at work and aren’t afraid to question authority. And they LOVE phones. Love them.

Mitch had read that definition somewhere, on the wall of an opium den in Thailand, he thought. He just couldn’t see Mr Brand Man questioning his Central Intelligence Agency instructors from a lifetime ago, but it would be fun to watch. Mitch’s face remained neutral as he imagined this impatient, self-entitled, mommy’s boy seeking new challenges in some of the shitholes in which he had worked across four continents.

The SAC or Special Activities Centre of the CIA is responsible for covert and paramilitary operations. Within SAC are two groups: SAC/SOG (Special Operations Group) and SAC/PAG (Political Action Group). Mitch had no interest in politicians. In his view, the dead are the honest ones. Hence, he had fallen into SOG.

Generally, SOG recruited from within the American Special Forces community. People most suited for clandestine, covert operations, deny all knowledge, disavow. You do our dirty work! You get caught or found out, we deny all knowledge of you.

How’s that for high expectations of your employer? Tertia Optio (Third Option) was SOG’s motto. Mitch was not much for maths, but in his experience, three seemed to come before one and two in most instances.

Born Frees. The politically correct term sitting three empty chairs down from Google Boy and further to Mitch’s left. South Africa’s future generation. Next level shit. Born and grown-up after the end of apartheid. Full of grievances: poor education, systemic corruption, high levels of unemployment and a lack of basic services in the country’s townships and rural areas. This particular specimen of the Born Free Genus looked marginally older or outside the post-1994 starting date (April 27 to be exact – the day on which South Africa had held its first democratic elections), but Mitch had never really grasped the skill of aging people by look alone.

The Greeks gave the world democracy; Mesopotamia (Iraq) gave us maths and the earliest multiplication tables along with the sexagesimal numeral system. Those stupid, ignorant Arabs.

The Romans gave us roads and aqueducts, the Chinese gunpowder. Each country or culture leaving something for the future. Some political, social, medical, engineering or cultural improvement that remains long after that country leaves centre stage. The previous South African Afrikaner government contributed apartheid. Right up there with the Spanish Inquisition.

Clearly defined and legislated racial discrimination, protected jobs for idiots. The whole nine yards. A great contribution to history. Along with rivers of blood to prop up an illegitimate government.

Apartheid! A practical, user-friendly, baseless, step-by-step guide to hatred. Fits in nicely with my maths problem, Mitch thought. If I am 1/8 German, 3/8 (three great grandparents at 1/8 each) Dutch and 1/8 French plus 1/8 Celtic, 1/8 Viking and 1/8 English, adding up to eight great-grandparents creating one human being, how does the hating start?

Americans hate Arabs. They are the Devil. The Anti-Christ. The average American will in their lifetime speak to maybe 15 people of Arab ancestry. That’s 15 out of 427 million. Give or take. A scientifically sound base on which to form an opinion. No argument there. Arabs come from largely ignorant places like Iraq. After all, the best they could come up with was maths! America has eight crunchy and delicious flavours of Chucky Cheese!

It is no different with the Afrikaner tribe of southern Africa. Hatred born from war with the British. Twice. December 16, 1880 to March 23, 1881 and again from October 11, 1889 to May 30, 1902. In the first round, the Afrikaners vanquished the world’s superpower. In the second round, Her Majesty’s government applied a new strategy. Stalin and Hitler will argue for eternity over which of them fathered the concentration camp concept. Slightly off from centre stage, the Spanish General Weyler from the Cuban War of Independence in the 1890s would stake his claim. The honourable British general Lord Kitchener will sit innocently sipping tea. After all, an English gentleman would not abide such things...

The Empire buried 42000 non-combatants in those camps all in the name of the Queen. Mostly women and children. But they had not chosen their enemy wisely. Their own Sir Arthur Conan Doyle pointedly raised the error. He published The Great Boer War and declared:

"Take a community of Dutchmen of the type who defended themselves for 50 years against the power of Spain at a time when Spain was the greatest power in the world. Intermix with them a strain of those inflexible French Huguenots who gave up their name and left their country forever at the time of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. The product must be one of the most rugged, virile, unconquerable races ever seen on the face of the earth. Take these formidable people and train them for seven generations in constant warfare against savage men and ferocious beasts; in circumstances in which no weakling could survive; place them so they acquire skill with a weapon and in horsemanship, give them a country eminently suited to the tactics of the huntsman, the marksman and the rider. Then, finally, put a fine temper on their military qualities by a dour fatalistic Old Testament religion and an ardent and consuming patriotism. Combine these qualities and impulses in one individual and you have the modern Boer."

But gold trumped all. And evil deeds and ruthless men planted hate. And it grew. And if maths makes no sense, as it doesn’t, better to teach hate. Hate creates opportunity. Maths after the Greeks in 600BC and their deductive reasoning is just a crock of shit. Hate is better. Hate them. Hate those. And hate if they have a different imaginary friend than you. And a different manual for that imaginary friend. Then hate with vigour.

Most importantly don’t ask questions or think for yourself. We must hate the blacks. We must hate the English. The Bible tells us so. But, if my maths problem is sound, I am partly English. And if the real history of Afrikaners was allowed to surface – as it did briefly in March 1981 before being suppressed again – it’s clear no white person with family roots going back in South Africa before 1900 is without at least some black blood.

Let’s ignore such trivialities and HATE.

The door behind reception swung open and a patient walked out without paying attention to the receptionist. For a moment, the noise subsided in Mitch’s head.

Mr Jacob Gouws, please, Mitch’s earlier conversation partner announced.

***

The South African Border War was fought predominantly on the South African side by conscripts. The government introduced compulsory conscription where all white men from the age of 18 years were forced to serve. By 1980 conscription was two years. The National Idiots, or National Party as it was officially named, had no formal definition of white men much past Fear God, fear us and don’t have too dark a skin. This was not a government elected for its thinking!

That said, these conscripts took to warfare like it was in their blood. The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale was fought intermittently between August 14, 1987 and March 23, 1988, south and east of the Angolan town of Cuito Cuanavale. South African conscripts and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) on the one side and the People’s Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (Fapla), Cuba and Russia on the other.

The battle was the largest engagement of the Angolan conflict and the biggest conventional battle on the African continent since World War Two. The greatest carnage happened along the Lomba River. The two armies met and the South Africans and Unita repulsed several Fapla attempts to cross the river. They destroyed most of Fapla’s vital bridging equipment. Repeated counterattacks by the South African 61 Mechanised Battalion Group resulted in the annihilation of Fapla’s 47th Brigade, sending the remainder of the Fapla units reeling back towards Cuito Cuanavale. Jacob Gouws had been a section commander of 61 Mechanised Battalion. His 189cm had not a scratch on it from countless battles of the campaign, but his mind was broken.

He closed Dr Carter’s door behind him and took a seat on the couch without waiting for an invitation. Carter carried the psychology can for the team, his office next to Dr Maria, the GP on call.

Carter’s full head of light hair, healthy tan and green eyes spoke of a man in his prime. Few would put him at his 52 years at first glance. Jeans, collared shirt not tucked in and comfortable trainers, his preferred work attire.

How are you, Jacob?

A smile to warm the Arctic. Rewarded with a muffled growl as Gouws sat down.

Black hair that simply wouldn’t conform to Jacob’s attentions, dour face, big nose, bigger ears, black beard, brown-black eyes, good teeth, no smile, lots of lines. And a darker than normal skin. Sat atop a lanky frame. No bulging muscles. Long legs, longer arms, size 12 shoe. Gouws’s action of sitting reminded Carter of folding up a ladder. Contortion like.

"Can we get this fokken ¹ over with?"

Gouws had not yet come round to the benefits of therapy. Like most of his contemporaries, he viewed it at best as a waste of time, at worst a sign of weakness. But if he wanted to keep his job at Delta Security he had to show up; another four times.

"Before you start with did my mom breastfeed me and how am I feeling in my heart, let’s skip the bullshit! I’ll tell you a story from the war and you can fill in your fokken report while I talk. How’s that?"

Carter agreed with a smile. Any conversation was better than the last few sessions of endless questions, endless attempts to draw out this man, zero results.

If Jacob was this grumpy at 54 years, Carter wondered what he would be like when he hit his sixties. He kept his face neutral and his you-have-my-full-attention look on Gouws. Please proceed when you are comfortable. I would like to hear about your time in Angola.

Gouws glared at Carter like a cat would a cornered mouse. His relaxed, or normal, fall-back facial expression looked like he wanted to commit murder. No wonder human resources at Delta Security had insisted he see Carter. Jacob scared the crap out of the new generation just by looking at them. His killing of three would-be car hijackers with nothing more than his briefcase six weeks ago was the official reason for the visits to Carter.

"About two years after we fucked those Commies up along the Lomba River, I was invited on patrol one morning by an infantry captain. It was about January 1990. We climbed into two armoured personnel carriers (APC) and set off to cover the captain’s back yard, as he called it. The only reason I went along was the infantry had a habit of searching local villages and confiscating any liquor. To protect the locals from evil doing.

"We stopped at one of the shithole villages. Snot-nosed kids running around. Women’s tits all over the place. Mud huts, flies and goats. Most of the troops stayed on the vehicles, too lazy to put out perimeter defence. Myself, the captain and two troops kicked in the door of the local chieftain’s cave. The old fokker² was humping away in the corner. His bony ass pumping up and down atop one of the young bitches of the village. The captain kicked him in the asshole and the bitch ran out kaalgat³.

"Cases of local beer and home-made grog all over the place. It was going to be a huge party tonight in camp. The captain turned to call the troops to load up when the shit kicked off. Those heathen fokkers had set a trap. They had let us into the village and then about 30 of them kicked off with rocket propelled grenades (RPG), AK-47 machine guns, hand grenades, everything! Including the kitchen toaster.

"The armoured vehicles started up, turned and raced straight toward the in-coming fire. We didn’t run away in those days. Those assholes asked for a fight, the infantry would fokken give them one. But that left the four of us in the stinking mud hut. Bullets coming in from all over, bottles exploding, booze everywhere. A proper kill zone. We fell on the deck. I pulled the old table over us. For what it was worth.

"We heard our team engage. The 50-calibre machine guns on the front of each vehicle were chopping down trees. The troops R4 machine guns raining on those fucking ambush bastards. The fire into our little piece of hell subsided a bit. On the ground next to me was a small tin case, about the size of a box of matches, cross on the front, on the back the name Matthew. I grabbed it and put it in my webbing.

"We fucked off there. It was only later that night in camp I had a good look at it. I opened it and found Bible quotes. Each note the size of the box, each with God’s word on it. About 16 of them. Neatly stacked.

"I carried that box with me in my chest pocket for three years, through hell and back. Many, many times. Without a fokken scratch on me."

Carter had never heard Jacob speak a full sentence up to now. He kept his expression neutral, held eye contact with his patient and held his tongue. Where to with this story?

Silence. The two men looking at each other. Gouws opened his mouth twice to speak. No sound emerged. He glared at Carter, rage across his face. He broke in that instant. No sound, no snivelling, but tears. A river of them.

When my wife couldn’t take my shit anymore, she left and took my darling daughters with her. Four years now. My babies growing up without me. I can’t even see them anymore. Her new husband Pelzer is a smartass advocate. He got the court to tell me I’ll go to jail if I come near them.

The tears were now running down Jacob’s chin on to his collar. Carter would usually reach for some Kleenex at this point, but he didn’t dare move. He didn’t want to break the spell. Gouws was far away, lost between the horrors of warfare and the devastation of his broken family. The tears would have to wait.

I gave my little Sandy that box. I made her promise to always carry it with her. She kept it in her Ice Age lunch box.

It’s the eyes Carter thought. It’s the eyes. Gouws seemed to harden into something beyond human. Eyes black, the rage rushing out and hitting Carter like some physical thing. Terror. Blind terror. A psychologist always needs to maintain the emotional upper hand, they say. Not this time. Carter was intimidated, scared shitless. He sat there like some blinded animal caught in the headlights of a truck.

"That mother fucker found my little case in the lunch box. He told her the real world hasn’t a place for fairytales and pretend friends and threw it in the dustbin. My Sandy cried for two nights. Bastard. It’s all she had of mine. And now he’s taken that away!

"The morning I spoke to Sandy on the phone after that piece of shit took my box was the same morning those animals tried to take my car! I just didn’t fokken care when they came running into the garage. The idiots had no tactical awareness. Two ran in, one in front of the other on my side of the car. One kept their car running and another stood on the other side of my car with his gun pointed at me.

I hit the first one on my side with my briefcase and at the same time stepped towards them, but also to the left. The two fuckers ended up between me and the dumbass on the other side of the car. As the first went down from the swing of my case to his empty head, I grabbed his pistol and shot the one on the other side. Double-tap to the head. The second idiot on my side had no gun, so he grabbed for the one in my hand. I let him take it and with all his concentration on the pistol, had time to stab him with my Parker Pen in the throat. He bled like a pig at an abattoir. Mother fucker! His hero mate in the car raced away.

***

Anton Pelzer didn’t do waiting. He was an advocate, after all. One of the best in the country by his estimation. He strode into the waiting room like he owned the place, treating everyone with the contempt they deserved. People are so stupid. So ignorant. And so damn annoying. Making up fairytales to give their miserable lives some sort of direction, some significance. Unlike his Afrikaner brethren, Pelzer had no time for religion. A lie to placate and control the masses. A political tool. Nonsense.

He stood in front of reception, his eyes on Dr Maria’s door. Ignored the receptionist completely. The door opened. An old dear came fussing out. Pelzer steamed right past her, kicking the door closed behind him. The old gran lost her balance and toppled, fear on her face. Another broken hip. Another six weeks in hospital.

She had just watched Maria remove the drain from her left hip. Gran was too slow to react, too slow to correct the fall. The receptionist glaring after Pelzer, distracted. Gran took in the room as she went down. Her eyes fixing on the young man folded over the chair in front of her. He hadn’t moved a muscle, seemed caught in his world. Missing the drama