Prisoner of Fate

PRISONER OF FATE
Another Thriller-Novella
By
AKIN AKINGBOGUN
Copyright © 2021 Akin Akingbogun
All rights reserved

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any
similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended
by the author.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or

transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission
of the publisher.
ASIN- 9798538654413
Editing, proofreading, cover design and Amazon publishing by: The

Roaring Writers NG
(234)7081054502
theroaringwritersng@gmail.com
www.theroaringwriters.com.ng
Prisoner of Fate | AKIN AKINGBOGUN
To everyone I call Family
Page | 3
CONTENTS
1 Strange Things 5
2 The Long Road 11
3 Stranger Things 19
4 The Mind’s Unrest 28
5 Wild Goose Chase 41
6 Love and Life Are Fickle 50
7 Four Years in Lieu 58
8 Ties that Bind 64
9 The Unknown Enemy
10 Cliff Hanger
11 On the Loose
12 Death’s Porch
13 You Can’t Kill a Dead Man
14 The Missing Piece
15 The Undead
CHAPTER ONE
Strange Things
The rain stopped. After eight gruelling, long hours of downpour from dusk
till dawn as heavy as Benjamin had ever seen in a long time, his home was
now more of a refuge than a companion. The electricity supply had been
turned off the moment spiralling winds announced the arrival of the rain.
The wind blew through the window of his two-bedroom apartment with a
powerful passion, ruffling his well-mannered curtain, scattering his
manuscript as if they were leaves of fall and with the rain, came the doors
that banged and the contrasting freshness of clean air amidst the rouse.
Benjamin loved everything about the rain; the whispering hum as sheets of
precipitation plummeted to the water-forsaken ground, the often-
unanticipated flashes of lightning and the rolls of ominous thunder. It
liberated his work-beaten body, affording him a well-deserved rest.
The continued raindrops struck the roof of his house, pitting the surface
relentlessly like bullets from the sky. The noise, almost deafening, making
Benjamin long for nothing more than the comfort of his bed which he
embraced, drifting into sleep immediately he touched it.
On and on the rain splattered on the earth’s surface until it was noon.
Then, Benjamin shifted on the bed and shut his open mouth, putting an
Page | 5
end to the snoring sound that proceeded from his lungs and filled the
atmosphere.
Now awake, he scowled into the dark of almost a perfect mirror of the
clouds at night. The electricity distribution company on his side of Lagos
was yet to restore power; the downpour was their perfect excuse this time.
He had been in bed mostly during the rainstorm, drifting into short naps
and snapping out enough times to break the sleep into unrefreshing
chunks. His mind, a hurricane of thoughts as he sat up on his king-sized
bed slowly gazing over his once perfect magazine cover room, now
littered with papers and his clothes by the wind.
His rasping throat was as parched as a dead lizard in the desert sun and his
stomach growled loudly as he squirmed on the bed trying to silence the
rumbling.
A quick glance at his wall clock; it was only a few minutes past two
o’clock. He had missed breakfast and lunch and was already getting set to
take a flight. At that moment, hunger was his only obsession.
His Saturdays were typically an orderly routine, but today, he craved for
nothing more than to lazy about, lost in his thoughts. He had struggled last
night with the manuscript of the new novel he was working on. It was a
lifelong passion of his to write a story on love and betrayal. He had dilly-
dallied on it for many years. Now torn between midlife crisis and a lull in
his career, he opted to complete the book.
He printed the pages of the first few chapters he had written out, so he
could spend time proofreading them again in bed. But he would have to
pick up all the pages from the cold tiled floor of his bedroom.
From nowhere came the sound of his cell phone, so authentic and loud,
piercing through the quiet room in a shrill combination of electronic
techno beats and rumba. Irritated, he scanned through the room in
momentary stupor before finally rummaging through his ruffled bed
covers for the noisy object, hoping it was either his girlfriend, Linda or his
close buddy, Taiwo calling.
It turned out to be Taiwo, his friend and colleague at the IT firm where
they both managed its blog—a job they detested passionately but managed
to keep up with for salary sake. Taiwo was requesting for log-in and
access details to a story he had written and published months ago.
The call was barely fifteen seconds and he tossed the phone away, like a
worthless piece of junk, into the duvet.
He reached out for the half full bottle of water by his bedside stool and
took a huge gulp, feeling the chill of the water run down his oesophagus
with a numbness that made his body stiffen and his eyes roll into his skull.
That was the moment he noticed the notification lights of his phone
blinking amidst the rumpled white sheets on the bed.
He reached for the phone again and then, opened his SMS inbox to see a
‘call me back’ text from his former boss. First, he looked at the date, then
he checked the phone number again for correctness. But it was the same
one he remembered. The problem was that the number used to belong to
his former boss, now deceased. He died four years ago!
“This has to be some joke,” he muttered to himself.
By instinct, he dialled the number and alas, it rang! Pulling the phone
away from his ears, he looked at the screen in horror, watching as the
phone was being answered on the third ring.
Slowly, like in slow motion, he placed the phone back to his ears and
waited with baited breath as he heard the unmistaken voice of his dead
boss.
Page | 7
“Hello…hello…hello,” the raspy voice of late Mr George bellowed
through the canals of his ears, hitting ominous notes of dread directly into
his brain.
Scared stiff and shocked, he suddenly felt dread creeping down his spine
like a careful spider leaving a trail of silk. He sprang to his feet instantly
with the phone now away from his ears and smack in his hands.
He stared in complete disbelief at his phone as though it were a strange

object he had no business with. His body started a series of instantaneous
responses. With quivering fingers, his heart started beating hard and fast
like it was about to explode.
With the rising of his adrenaline levels, he started to hyperventilate. Goose

pimples formed on his skin in a coordinated reaction and sweat broke out
all over his body. It felt like his skin had another hot skin on the outside
and his small eyes were now wide open in utter shock!
His brain started to fire out negative thoughts like a machine gun.
This is impossible! This man has been dead four years! His phone should
not be ringing, let alone hearing his voice.
And more thoughts crept in.
He is dead! Dead men don’t receive phone calls.
And if by chance this is a prank, it is a silly one. Whoever this is must be a

bloody joker.
He started pacing about his room irrationally as he disengaged the call.

His cellphone still in his right hand while he contemplated the situation.
With sleep well and truly murdered now, he was just as stunned as though
he saw a ghost.
“What the hell is going on? Oh my God!”

Now panicky as he walked towards the window facing the street, he

opened the aluminium glass panel to let fresh gush of air into his room
with one fierce push. Then, he looked out of the window, first tilting his
head towards the sun, feeling its gentle warmth and noticing the sky was
darker blue the higher his eyes wandered.
He took a quick peek at the street, noticing the receding flood on his street
which was now filled with brown water, rising and twisting with raw
power and without conscience. The street had gorged itself on the floods,
and its skin had swelled and burst in many places. The makeshift tables
and stalls of the street market littered the asphalt-bare road, torn and
broken, as if there was a bar fight.
Though the rain had stopped, the air still felt just as damp and the clouds
that brought the rain were yet to depart.
Benjamin watched the receding flood carry away an upturned umbrella,

swirling in the eddies, moving haphazardly over the surface down the
street. It didn’t do much to distract his thoughts though. His fright, still
palpable, hung like the sword of Damocles over his head.
Suddenly, the public power supply was restored and the unmistaken hum
of his refrigerator and fluorescent lights jolted him back to the moment.
The void, momentarily filled with the blinking fluorescent lights around
his apartment, fizzled away just as fast as the lights turned on. His five-
year-old 32-inch television, sitting on the wooden console in his room,
flickered to life in a barrage of noisy montage of adverts and voice overs,
startling him.
He looked at the TV in disgust, reaching out for the remote control and
promptly silencing the voices and images with the tap of the power button,
saving space in his head for just the voice of Mr George that he had just
heard a few minutes earlier.
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CHAPTER TWO
The Long Road
In 2010, when Benjamin started out his career in journalism, fresh from
school and eager to secure a good paying job at his favourite and most
popular celebrity magazine Glitterati, in Abuja—the Nigerian seat of
power, he had thronged the streets of Asokoro, Wuse and Garki for many
weeks on end hoping to work as a freelance journalist at the least, if he
couldn’t secure a good paying job.
He had a lifelong dream of publishing a thrilling story about love and

betrayal, a theme he was convinced would be a bestseller. And he was
hoping to learn the ropes from a well-established publishing outfit as soon
as he could secure one.
Benjamin grew up in Lagos, a city bursting at the seams with a population

of over 20 million residents. The Lagos cityscape was unapologetically
urban. Unlike the new capital in Abuja, Lagos was a city initially well-
planned to serve as the cynosure of West Africa, with skyscrapers attesting
to the strength of its trade and bustling economy.
Monoliths of concrete, jostling out into the skies competing for heights in
patterns similar to the west, adorned the Lagos skyscape lending credence
to its urbanization and political valour.
Having shed the vestiges of imperialism five decades ago, the city had
completely lost its direction and its growth-- stunted, with roads looping
and weaving with less organisation than a natural river. Every year,
housing estates sprouted out like young plants without a plan amidst
inadequate infrastructure to support its integration into the larger city. So
was the chaotic growth of this sprawling city.
In razor sharp contrast and amidst the grandeur of the city, lay swaths of
squalor settlements in every other conceivable space. Growing up in the
city could easily mean watching the neon lights from the fringes of Lagos
where filth competed with clean air.
Here in the suburbs, everyone was scared of having nothing.
The rich hoarded their money to preserve not only themselves but their
descendants. The middle class aspired to be rich, either hoarding or
spending money they don’t have in order to maintain the appearance of
wealth. While the poor lived for each day hustling and bustling to tie the
two ends of the survival rope under the chronic stress of never having
enough.
Benjamin really didn’t grow up in the nest of opulence. His father was a
factory worker in the industrial district of Oregun whose pastime was
changing jobs every other month as his temperament was legendary.
His temper was a slowly filling glass. There was no problem, no outward
sign of fury until the liquid reached the top, then all bets were off. He
changed jobs like the diapers of a week-old baby. He had a reputation for
doing a fine job, but his albatross was his short fuse and lack of respect for
constituted authorities.
Page | 11
This meant that the family relied most times on his mother, Agnes, who
was an astute trader. She was a true businesswoman who travelled around
the country trading in farm produce. Agnes had the gracefulness of a
model, tall and lanky with a beautiful shape to die for.
Agnes wasn’t beautiful in the orthodox way, no fluttering eyelids or sexy

lips, no sonorous voice or long fingernails, but in her ordinariness she was
stunning. Burnt melanin never looked so beautiful and flawless on a
woman. She was truly African and like many of her kin, her features
oozed the richness of full lips, brown eyes, dark hair and high cheekbones.
She led a retinue of traders who banded together to keep the market of
staple foods in Oyingbo flooded with fresh produce from the green farms
upcountry. Perhaps, it was her height or her husky voice. Without doing
much, she commanded respect from every trader in the market.
She was also a great mother and housekeeper. She had boundless energy
and desired nothing more than giving her three boys the same
opportunities available to the middle-class children in the adjoining
neighbourhood. It was a struggle to raise money for school tuition for the
kids, especially with their father spending half the year on the threadbare
couch in their two-room boys’ quarters.
She had to join groups of monthly collaborators to raise lump sums of

money for her children. Many times, the money arrived later than the
school resumption dates, and the kids would have to spend school days
helping her at the market during this time.
Ben was her favourite child, always willing to lend a helping hand and
was a great companion in the market. He was a good negotiator and much
better than his siblings with the figures. Not once did he miscount sales
money or short-change the customers.
“BEN.” That was how she called him; a sharp, abrupt call.
Benjamin was a mouthful. And when she found herself screaming his
name through the throng of bodies in the market to get his attention, ‘Ben’
was handier on her tongue.
It sounded like “BE-EN!” A little further stretch of the sharp, abrupt call
on a louder pitch.
He was sometimes a handful, preferring to hang around kids Agnes feared

would toughen him up in the ways of the street. Lagos was a mean place
to raise a child if you lived in the suburbs. Each child would have to fend
for his destiny, she always thought.
There was something about Ben that drew people to him. Of course, it
didn’t hurt that he was a good-looking boy with a half-moon smile; it was
more than that. He was quiet and naturally calm, but not out of painful
shyness. It was a reservedness, like a conscious choice to observe
situations before he got involved. This would later become an incredible
skill in his chosen career.
Yet, he wasn’t stand-offish; he remained friendly faced and welcoming in

body posture and was one child with a hearty laugh. Ben missed two years
of school and therefore, finished secondary school older than his
classmates. Those two years he spent working as an apprentice with a
fashion designer, shoemaker and a curtain trader at the Yaba market. This
didn’t deter him as he secured admission into the university almost
immediately for his first degree.
His journey through the university was laced with multilateral learning.
He survived; armed with the vocational skills he had learnt while out of
school years earlier. He made and sold leather sandals, sold draperies,
helped other students paint their rooms for a fee, made bespoke shirts in
his spare time and sold scores of his most popular designs during his four-
year stint at the university. His personality played a big role in his initial
Page | 13
success in business through the sale of his merchandise coupled with the
natural business acumen he had inadvertently inherited from his mother.
The moment he waltzed through the school emblem off the busy highway,
he never looked back. Aside from occasional phone calls to his mother
and his siblings, he was nothing but a native of the campus.
He stayed behind during the holidays running errands for his professors
and helping with tutorials for freshmen who paid a token to stay ahead of
the class. At other times, he worked at a piggery outside the campus
cleaning dirty pens and earning a fair wage while at it.
It was an incredibly hard life. He had no time for leisure activities and
barely even had a girlfriend. But he made it through school on his own and
he wanted more than anything to work in a respectable firm to practise his
new academic skills. He was curious to see how with less effort he could
earn a decent pay and perhaps, much more money than he did using the
dexterity of his vocational skills.
He had suffered too much, enduring all sorts of insults and name calling,
all in a bid to break free from the circumstances of his birth. He had
watched too often the glam of the middle and upper class living in Lagos
and convinced himself that it was only a matter of time before he joined
the elite club.
He had moved to Abuja after his one-year compulsory National Youth

Service where he interned at a print journalism firm in the neighbouring
state of Kogi—a couple of hours away. When he heard of opportunities
that lay awash for youngsters like him in the city, he was convinced his
future lay somewhere in it and there was no harm trying out his luck.
With a few thousands of naira to his name, he took the ride to the nearby
city of Abuja accompanied by his friend, Deen whom he had grown fond
of during the service year.
Deen had an uncle who was willing to accommodate both of them in his
three-bedroom apartment on the outskirts of Abuja, on the condition that
they helped him with his sugar business during the weekend. Deen would
handle the account books and Ben would manage the customers’ sales and
delivery while his barely literate uncle travelled to Kano to replenish his
stock. It sounded like a fair deal and their journey to Abuja was more
purposeful than they had imagined.
His search for a job in Abuja was fruitless for the first couple of months
and he resigned to the weekend arrangement with Deen’s uncle for many
months. They practically worked for free; after all, they were not paying
rent whilst sleeping in the living room with cockroaches and rats playing
‘hide-and-seek’ on the tiled floor of the house.
When Ben finally got the chance for an interview at a rival publishing
firm, it was undeniable that he had the sterling qualities that Mr George,
the publisher and Owner of the UrbanCity Magazine, always wanted in his
writers. They were also the ones he admired and prided himself in for their
intelligence, courage, discretion and common sense.
The interview was quite intense, and the conversation was curt and yet
engaging. His questions fired in quick succession in an attempt to see
what’s under the veneer of Ben’s persona. Silence settled like a blanket in
between Ben’s answers and the relentless scribbling of notes in his pad,
until it was punctuated by yet another question.
Ben observed the well-manicured fingers of his interviewer as he wrote

and couldn’t help but notice his attention to detail. His mildly starched
shirt clung to his body like it would on a mannequin, almost glazed and
undisturbed while his well-polished black oxford lace-up shoe peeked out
of his desk like a rat waiting for an all-clear to dash through the tiled floor
of his office.
Here was a man who cared a lot about his looks.

Page | 15
Ben also had enough time to look keenly at the interview room. It was
tasteful in a corporate way—nothing interesting enough to cause offence
no matter what a person’s preferences might be. It was Mr George’s
office. It had a dozen award plaques neatly arranged on mahogany shelves
at one corner of the office and large prints of several front pages of the
UrbanCity Magazine adorning the wall opposite his desk. As though a
constant reminder of the insane drive to fight off competition and to
remain amongst the best in the industry. A 32-inch television hung on the
wall to his left, completing a kaleidoscope of views; whichever way you
turn.
You could sense the finesse and personality of the occupant of the office
from a cursory glance at the office. Despite the well decorated walls, there
was nothing cluttered about the arrangement. Everything was just in its
rightful place.
Mr George’s voice jolted him back to reality with a frown, suggesting that
the wandering of his eyes didn’t meet his approval. With a flush of
embarrassment, Ben sat upright with his back straight and braced up for
the next question.
It had been almost 25 minutes since the interview session started and it
looked like the session was nowhere near its end.
“How soon can you start work?”
That was it! The big moment. He couldn’t hide the excitement as he just
landed his first job in paid employment. He flashed a smile when he
replied that he was ready to start immediately.
Something in Mr George’s expressionless face assured him that they were

going to be really good friends.
Friends that transcend the toughest times.

CHAPTER THREE
Stranger Things
Page | 17
Benjamin felt the panic begin like a cluster of spark plugs in his abdomen
the more his mind replayed the strange phone call. The tension grew in his
face and limbs and there was nothing more he wanted than to talk to
someone that very moment.
At some point, it appeared as though the room was spinning and he was
left without much choice than to squat on the floor, hoping that by so
doing, it would make everything slow down into something his brain and
body could cope with. He suddenly felt so sick.
In his mind, he couldn’t shake the feeling that something just wasn’t right.
The silence that enveloped him at this time was the kind that fell right
before you got knifed in the back. It sent a shiver down his spine as he felt
his blood chill in his veins. Instinctively, he looked around the room as
though there was someone else there.
Spooky didn’t quite cover it and eerie was indeed an understatement. In

the shadow cast by his window blinds, he sat lost and stunned. One thing
was certain: he had to get out of the house at that moment.
He jumped into his jeans and hurried out through the doorway grabbing
his mobile phone and wallet along as he buttoned his shirt with his other
hand. That house was the last place he wanted to be.
The fresh cool air welcomed him as he jumped right into the untarred
street with both feet, watching the newly released spheres of muddy water
fly as he hurried through the miniature canyon carved by the rains on the
road.
Everything seemed the same and yet different. The trees stood naked as
they had before, but their twigs curled in a distorted way as if the tree
itself screamed in pain. The sky was a mass of grey cloud with the
brilliance of a new page upon a sky canvas of such consistent hue, but
instead of letting small shafts of light through, they emitted an ethereal
glow.
It was eerie. The street should be thronged with commuters by this time of
day, but it stood as empty as the Sahara Desert. With the sort of rain that
kept everyone indoors for hours, it was unlikely that anyone was in a hurry
to get anywhere.
Benjamin hurried into the adjoining street and quickly hailed a yellow cab.
He was grateful that he found one as soon as he arrived at the bus stop and
did not suffer the indignation of waiting in his thoughts. He was off to see
Taiwo, his workmate and tribal marked close friend. He dialled his
number and on first ring, his friend answered the call with his voice
babbling happily like a mountain river.
“Dude, tell me!”
“Are you home?” he asked without recourse to their usual pleasantries. He

didn’t wait for a response either before he followed it up with “I am on my
way to you. Just stay where you are.”
Taiwo sensed that something wasn’t quite right. His friend was usually the
calm and calculated one, and not one to speak with a cracked voice stained
from panic and fear.
“Dude, are you okay?” and the phone call ended with the insolence of a
disengaged tone.
Taiwo was an ex-investigative journalist just like Ben, but with amazing
IT skills to die for. He was also an unrepentant workaholic. His life was
devoted to nothing but writing, first for his firm as a ghost blogger, and
then personally, as many stories as he could mentally muster while hoping
for his big break in the industry. It was this fixation that spurred his juices.
The journey to Taiwo’s house was typically about twenty-five minutes,

but it felt like forever as the movement of the car wheels over the potholes
on the Lagos Road jerked him back to reality sooner than he would have
liked.
Page | 19
As the cab followed the curves of the stretch of the road, meandering
through junctions and roundabouts, Benjamin tried very hard not to fiddle
with his phone lest it rang again. It was a necessary evil he had to carry
about.
By the time the cab driver killed the engine right at the entrance gate of
Taiwo’s self-contained apartment, Benjamin had tossed a handful of cash
over the driver’s shoulders and was out of the back seat in seconds. He
barely heard the driver thank him as he approached the steel entrance gate
of the residence.
He walked briskly towards the rear of the property where Taiwo’s

apartment was shielded by a dwarf fence and hurriedly opened the
entrance door, shutting it behind him along with the indistinct chatter and
a jabber of voices from Taiwo’s neighbours.
He leaned on the door, catching his breath as though being chased and for
the first time since he woke up that day, it felt like he had found rest in a
safe haven while a gale raged outside. That moment in itself became
calmer.
Taiwo’s face was buried in worry lines, and he was even more concerned
when he saw his friend looking like he had seen a ghost. Seemingly
lifeless as he leaned on the door.
“What’s this about Ben? Come sit down.” He ushered his friend to his
small and familiar parlour that was now strewn with dirty laundry. Smack
in the middle of the room sat a clothes horse, almost buckling under the
weight of wet laundry.
Embarrassed by the sorry sight of his unkempt apartment, Taiwo offered

an unsolicited apology.
Sorry, was doing a quick laundry.

Benjamin blurted out the sequence of events that had transpired earlier at
his house the moment he hit the only couch in the room. Sitting at its edge,
he tried to explain to Taiwo that not only was he certain that Mr George
had passed away four years ago, there was no way his phone could be
functional and active.
Taiwo listened intently and then suggested that perhaps, a family member
was still using the phone or someone else was already assigned the SIM
card number and this new owner coincidentally had a voice match with Mr
George. There had to be an explanation.
At first, it sounded plausible as Benjamin considered the possibility. But

he had thought this over several times and this explanation was too weak
to shake him off.
“Listen Taiwo, that voice is the same one I heard for many years before
his demise. I know that voice even if I am deep in sleep.”
Taiwo thought about it and lamely suggested that it was possible that
voices and sounds may be distorted over mobile phone networks.
“Don’t take this too seriously. It could be nothing.”
Looking at his friend’s unconvinced stance, Taiwo asked that he hands his
phone to him. He confirmed the phone number in dispute and instinctively
dialled it in his mobile phone.
They both waited with bated breath as they watched the screen.
“The number you have dialled does not exist,” the automatic voiceover
responded.
“Dude, are you sure about this phone number?” Taiwo asked derisively.
Page | 21
Benjamin began to sense that his friend was considering him a nut case.
He threw him an I-don’t-blame-you gaze, noticing the thin-lined, dark
tribal mark on his left cheek that screamed his Western Nigerian ethnicity.
“Taiwo, please check the call records to see the call duration,” he snapped
back, “You will notice that something is amiss here!”
Taiwo rummaged through Benjamin’s phone, confirming that the call

logged a ten-second duration.
“Strange!” he muttered thoughtfully.
“I’ve got a friend at one of the network provider’s office. Perhaps, he can
clear this confusion so that you can put your mind at rest. You look so
worried; I was beginning to think you could be suicidal,” Taiwo tried to
ease the tension off his friend.
Benjamin sighed and then, offered to help his friend with the laundry to
distract himself from the quagmire he seemed to be slipping fast into.
The next morning, Benjamin headed over to his house, now convinced
that as soon as Taiwo’s friend at the network provider’s head office
reverted with a position on the status of the SIM number, he would put
this confusion to bed.
When he left Taiwo’s house, his friend was shirtless, sleeping deeply with
serenity plastered across his face. That moment, he wished he could find
such peace. His lower eyelids bore the weight of his insomnia like the
amateur makeup on a crying child.
He shut the door behind him and headed into the street. He had to take a
short walk before he could hail a cab. In his haste the day before, he had
forgotten his phone charger and he was now well and truly out of battery.
Turning the corner into the bus stop, he inadvertently noticed a green
Toyota Corolla drive past with a lone occupant. He caught a glimpse of
the side view of the driver as the car picked up speed past the bus stop,
and he could not believe his eyes.
Incredible! It was Mr George behind the steering wheel or so he thought.
“This is impossible!” His heart began to pound as adrenaline rushed

through his every vein.
But he was now spurred on by anger and determination rather than fear.
“Whatever this is, I am going to get to the bottom of it,” he determined.
He tried to catch a glimpse of the car registration plates, but his view was
obscured by the passing trucks and pedestrians as the Lagos Road came
alive with the usual hustle and bustle of traffic.
He quickly hailed a motorcycle that was thankfully available. As he sat

astride the motorcycle, he pointed at the green Toyota Salon Car that was
cruising steadily just six cars ahead and charged the rider to catch up with
the car. He didn’t care to negotiate the fare with the rider who was starting
to protest.
“Move quickly!” he laboured amidst his anxiety.
From his vantage position, he could still see the back view of the car
driver. Distance was all that was stopping him from getting a clear
glimpse of the driver and perhaps, halting the vehicle.
As though on cue, the motorcycle rider ducked in between cars and

cleverly manoeuvred within two cars to the green car. Benjamin was now
getting really anxious as he still couldn’t make out the registration plate
number.
Page | 23
Then, the driver in the green car made a sharp turn banking the car to the
right, almost as though he suspected that he was being followed and then
picked up some speed leaving the motorcycle in a hail of dust.
Undeterred, Benjamin urged the rider to move faster, just as the traffic on
this road was a bit lighter. The engine purred as the rider stepped hard on
the throttle while both their knees skimmed the road as the motorcycle
took the road bend. Still, the green car edged farther away.
Benjamin was getting agitated as it was becoming obvious that this chase
had ended before it even began!
The green Toyota Corolla cruised down the road, driving south and all that
Benjamin could see was the brief instances of the car shuffling between
traffic and then, finally getting lost in the sea of vehicles.
His motorcycle rider laboured on in futility until he advised him to take

him home.
Now, he was determined to solve this mystery; first the strange phone call
and now, this mysterious sighting.
When he thought about it deeply, he was convinced even more than ever
that it was Mr George he saw driving that green Toyota.
This was certainly more than a coincidence!
Could his mind be playing tricks on him?
When he fetched his phone from his pocket to call Taiwo about the latest
sighting and road chase, it welcomed him to a blank and lifeless
unforgiving stare.
CHAPTER FOUR
The Mind’s Unrest
The time was 4 am and Benjamin had been in front of his desktop
computer since midnight. Sleep had eluded him, and he found solace in
front of the crystal screen as it reflected his now unshaven face with
sunken and glum eyes. There was no better time to channel his energy into
his collection of romantic short stories than now.
With his back hunched over his computer, his fingers did the rest.
The manuscript
Adaora had enough time to select a dress for her date night with Mike.
She had three hours to kill and she was yet to figure out how much of her
skin to show. The last time the two met, Mike’s eyes were practically
dancing about her low neck dress all evening. She imagined him drooling
and could sense lust written all over his face.
There was something about Mike that made her feel so young inside, but
not in a childish way. He had awakened the pure side and best side of her
personality. Every moment spent with him felt like a never-ending
evening.
The energy between them both vibrated in such a unique way; each the
perfect complement of the other; or so it seemed. They met only a month
ago and she was content with just being around him, close enough to
smell his cologne and sinking into serenity while in his warm company.
Page | 25
His smile alone burnished her soul into a beauty it could never have
achieved on its own. Mike could do no wrong. She had to admit that she
wasn’t simply ‘in love’, she was ‘well and truly smitten’.
Adaora was determined to make this budding relationship work although

she was yet to consent to Mike’s torrent of sexual advances. He made
‘sexual’ comments, jokes, and gestures so often during their dates and she
intercepted signals that were subtly sultry, directed at her. He made no
pretence about his desires. His eyes would turn into a cold stare while he
would ‘accidentally’ brush up against her, or linger his hand longer than
it was usual when they shook hands. The sexual tension was now very
palpable, and she could sense that her defence was ebbing away faster
than she had hoped.
Adaora was a huge romantic, and her intense sexual nature ensured that
she was vulnerable, noticing every move, never missing a hint. She hadn’t
been with a man in months and Mike came the closest to her ideal sexual
partner.
At the last date, he had hugged her, not a perfunctory gesture mandated
by social etiquette, and it lingered long enough, allowing time for his
hands to travel the distance from her shoulders to her buttocks, glazing
over her butt cheeks in a gesture mixed with sexual innuendos. There was
no way she could miss that. She thought it was inappropriate, but then she
liked it. In her head, she imagined herself saying “Stop it, I like it.”
She had only started dating again a couple of weeks after her marriage of
six years crashed following her husband’s arrest, subsequent trial and
public disgrace for alleged corporate fraud.
The pressure of his fraudulent activities was telling on their already tense
and loveless marriage where the centre could no longer hold. She had
stayed faithful and invested her energy in her career hoping that he would
sort out his finances with the banks and get their relationship back on
track. But it wasn’t long before the fault lines in their marriage turned
into gaping holes they could no longer suture. Holes large enough to
consume them both.
Adaora was an On Air Personality at the local radio station in the city.
She had a degree in communications and hosted her own radio talk show
every week. Her strong voice, excellent public speaking ability, and
positive attitude endeared her to many, making her quite popular in the
entertainment circle. The news of her broken marriage was therefore in
the media and gossip columns for a few weeks before the wind of the
Intercontinental World Cup overshadowed the scandal offering her some
respite.
Occasionally, updates on the trial featured in small columns on daily

newspapers, but other than that, her husband was now confined to her
past. He was somewhere languishing in prison.
That was a difficult period for her and she struggled every day to stay
sane amidst the pressure of work and life. She longed for company and
her body in particular, yearned for love.
Mike offered a different kind of friendship. He had a listening ear and

barely interrupted her during their conversations. This feature made him
handsome from the depth of his eyes to the gentle expressions of his voice.
With him, she could voice her fears, concerns, frustration and hopes and
his eyes told her that he was not judging.
For Adaora, it took courage to walk into the light after a marriage of
semi-shadows and in Mike she could see the chance for that kind of love
they say didn’t exist anymore. The type that spans far longer than one’s
lifetime.
She found the dress. It was a black, lacy and clingy short gown and was
all shades of sexy. It could easily pass as deliciously indecent as it left
very little to imagination. She was absolutely certain that if Mike was on
Page | 27
the fence about their situationship, this sexy gown was about to turn the
pressure up a notch. He was going to get crossed-eyed no doubt!
She looked herself up in the mirror and she liked what she saw. Her soft,
ivory shoulders were exposed and her hair-- black, long and fluid, laid
gently over her shoulder bones, kissing her soft skin till it reached down
her back. Her lips were carefully tinted red, and her skin looked flawlessly
ebony.
As though on cue, her phone rang. Mike was outside the street waiting for
her. She pleaded for a few minutes and would join him in a bit. In reality,
she was done and ready to go, but preferred to linger a bit rather than
give a hint of how eager she was to see him.
When she stepped out of her gate and approached his car, Mike’s
overwhelming smile, revealing a perfect set of dentition, welcomed her to
an evening she would never forget. His eyes lit up like the sun the moment
he saw her in that dress. He simply couldn’t hide his excitement. He
wasn’t sure what to look forward to when he was driving over to her
place, but seeing her now, there was no doubt in his mind how the night
would end.
They shared an intimate hug the moment she sank into the passenger seat
of his SUV while he made a comment about how beautiful she looked and
how irresistible her perky lips were.
Adaora was content that her message was well received and hoped that
the evening would go as planned.
She looked Mike over as he manoeuvred the SUV into the street. They
were driving across the town to a nice Lebanese restaurant that he had
talked about the whole week. She admired his well-shaven and almost
symmetrical face. He had a slim, muscular body to die for and a warm
and loving personality. Wherever he went, everyone loved him. They were
simply drawn to him just as she was.
If he wanted to, he could have more friends than hours in the day; it
wouldn’t be a challenge at all. His personality was so magnetic that
anyone in his company would feel truly honoured and privileged that he
chose to be with them. He could have had almost anyone; he could have
had someone with a bigger bust, a smaller waist, prettier face and with
more self-confidence, but he chose her.
When her eyes wandered to his thinly shaped lips, she snapped out of her
lustful stare into the empty street down the road.
But in one swift move, Mike turned the car into the sharp bend, navigating
into a quiet and dark street with houses gated on either side. A ray of
panic flashed across her face as she turned to look at Mike.
***
Benjamin got off his chair in one swift move. He had been sitting down,
hunched over the computer for hours. His eyes were sore from lack of
sleep and inundated constantly by the brightness of his computer screen.
He had to take a short break. He looked up at the wall clock; it was 6 am
already. He had been up the whole night, but he wasn’t done yet. He had a
story to finish, and he wouldn’t want to leave this one half-done.
His mind raced quickly through the events of the previous day, and he
wondered what he had to do next. He had decided to call Taiwo in the
morning to find out what his friend at the telco could find on the SIM
number of his former Boss. If the result turned out to be positive and that
the number indeed exists, then he would be hundred percent convinced
that Mr George was not dead as had been erroneously touted in the last
four years.
And then, he would be keen to find out why this is so. His mind was now
made up to uncover this mystery no matter how long it took. But first, that
phone call from Taiwo was all he needed to get into overdrive.
Page | 29
He grabbed a cup of water from the dispenser and walked back to his
computer. For now, he had a story to finish.
***
Adaora’s fears were drowned just as quickly as they appeared the moment
Mike turned to her, leaned over and planted a kiss on her lips. One touch
and it was over. It was always that way with Adaora. That singular lip
locking act sent Adaora into a sensual state of intoxication. She couldn’t
hide her smile. How nice, she thought. He couldn’t even wait!
They closed their eyes with both their breaths shaking while the still air in
the car offered no respite. It started first as a casual non-invasive kiss.
Adaora then gently leaned in and kissed Mike’s warm lips allowing her
tongue explore the depth of his thirst.
They pulled apart taking shaky, shallow breaths and with hearts skipping
dozens of beats, she said, “Thank you” in barely more than a whisper.
“For what?” he replied in a low and husky voice.
“For being you.” Her voice wavered, exhilarated from the tension
between them.
Unable to contain themselves anymore, Mike held Adaora’s head in his

hands and pulled her into a fiery, more intense, and passionate kiss. It
was a full, open-mouthed, almost sexual kiss. And caution was soon
thrown out of the car.
That moment, it felt as though their lips fit like two puzzle pieces. No
spoken words could break the intimacy at this time and Mike’s roving
hands were beginning to explore the skin around her neck and bustline.
Adaora’s hands weren’t idle either; they worked their way around his
shirt, feeling each crevasse, each line along his perfect physique.
When they managed to break away after what seemed like ages, she
looked at him with eyes full of pure lust and dizzy from the intensity of the
kiss. They stared at each other in an odd way as if it were a silent

argument while their glances battled each other. That kiss held promise of
realness and a primal desire that looked to cut their evening short.
Mike turned the car back on the road and drove slowly until they
approached an abandoned field within the quiet neighbourhood, and it
looked like a perfect spot for their spontaneous moonlight tryst.
Adaora’s silent protest—if she could muster one, was drowned by the
sound of her own heartbeat and she loved how the evening had turned.
Driving off to a motel or back to her house could easily kill the raw,
uncouth and passionate moment they just shared. She had to trust Mike on
this.
The moment he killed the car engine, they were up in each other’s arms.
In that split second before his touch, every nerve in Adaora’s body and
brain was electrified.
She felt electricity in her skin and hormones shutting down her higher
brain and the rise of her animal self. From there on, it was all intense and
intoxicating passion. It was her release, her escape, her drug…not that
she was easy; she knew well enough to avoid letting a man lay his hands
on her. Yet with chemistry, with real love, too many of her switches were
flicked for a reverse gear to be possible. All she could do now was to go
along for the ride and pray her instincts were right.
Out of nowhere, multiple flashlights peered into the car revealing their
naked bodies. It was accompanied by voices of men dressed in black.
Their voices, thick and brash, muffled across both sides of the door, jolted
them both to mother earth. It looked like they had been busted.
“Hold it there! Don’t move!”
“If you move... Open the door!”
Page | 31
Adaora scanned both sides of the car in frenzied panic and was convinced
there were at least 6 policemen around them, knocking and hitting the car,
all speaking at the same time as though in a military drill.
“Oh dear, what have we done?” Adaora muttered.
“Don’t worry I will handle this. I got this,” Mike assured her.
Mike calmly buttoned his shirt while Adaora pulled her dress closer to her
bust to cover her shame.
The moment Mike opened the door, the police officers pounced on him as
though he were a criminal. One grabbed his pants while the other started
taking pictures with a mobile phone.
“Stop it!” Adaora yelped as they opened the door on her side of the SUV.
“What’s this about?” she heard Mike say, clinging to the last string of
ego he had left.
The police officers immediately started off with questions in quick

succession. Questions that Mike opted not to answer. But they asked,
nonetheless.
Adaora had heard some people say there are good cops and bad. But the
scenario playing out suggested that that was oversimplification. True, the
police can be honest, courageous, corrupt, devious, malicious, cunning or
stupid. But these ones here looked to have passed judgement even before
they could offer any form of defense.
“We are going to the police station!” declared one police officer.
Mike did not object.
“It’s okay, let’s go to the station and don’t manhandle the lady,” his voice
had an edge to it, even the police officer next to Adaora winced.
“No, she goes in our van over there and you will drive after us. We don’t
want either of you playing smart.” The police officer calling the shot
wasn’t mincing words either.
Mike beckoned to Adaora and asked that she joins the police officers.
“It’s okay, I will be filing a report myself of this nonsense.” His voice now
with a hint of anger.
Adaora was disappointed with the way the evening was playing out. Her
plans for the night had no police disturbances and certainly no random
make-out in an open field. For once in her life, she gave in to her moment
of weakness and now this was going to be a public shame by the time
news hit the stands in the morning.
She could see the headlines.
‘Popular OAP Caught Pants Down’ or even worse, ‘Popular OAP Caught
Having Sex in the Rayfield’
“Oh dear.” There was no telling how bad this could get.
Quickly, she scanned her head for a quick solution to this messy
quagmire, but none readily came to mind.
She walked gingerly to the police van just parked a few meters away.
“How didn’t they notice the van?” It was cleverly parked in the dark so it
would appear unnoticeable.
She shook her head more in disgust than disappointment.
She could hear their sultry and unguarded remarks as they were just a
breath away from calling her a prostitute. She opened the door and sat in
the van smelling like urine and sweat and waited until another police
officer joined her in the front seat, sandwiching her between the driver.
Page | 33
“Let’s go! Let’s go!” yelled one police officer.
Let’s Go! Let’s Go! Let’s Go!
Benjamin had to use the bathroom. He was loving the turn of the story.
His wrist ached and he needed a break.
As he opened the toilet door, his mind wandered to his girlfriend. He

hadn’t spoken to her since the day it rained. Linda had returned to campus
for the new semester and was too serious a student to call Benjamin every
other day. Somehow, they had both got used to not speaking often and he
wondered if they weren’t already drifting apart.
The few times she sent a message, it was a request for some cash. He was
getting frustrated at her nonchalant attitude and he could tell that their
relationship was hitting the rocks in a few months. Perhaps, she had found
herself a school boyfriend. He could care less.
He needed to find a lady as passionate and smart as his fictitious Adaora.
He took his seat at the computer, rubbed and twisted his palms together
excitedly.
“It’s time to finish this story,” he mouthed loudly.
***
Mike was joined by three police officers. The one in front asked him to
follow the police van ahead.
The officer in front started a small talk, but Mike was not having it. He
kept his face grim while his mind raced to his next line of action. He
picked up his handset and dialled an old friend of his, James.
James was an excellent and highly respected senior police officer with an
impeccable track record in the criminal justice system of the country. Just
as the phone rang, Mike placed it on his ear to speak with his friend. The
police officer in front slapped the phone off his cheek in a well calculated
move that barely avoided hitting him physically.
A brief tussle ensued as he and the police officer went into a fistfight in
between swear and curse words. The two police officers at the back
intervened, holding Mike’s hand and restricting the officer in front.
“You are in trouble! Now, you have assaulted a federal police officer. No
oga-at-the-top will save you today,” ranted the police officer in the
passenger seat just as Mike got a grip of the steering wheel and edged
closer to the police Van where Adaora was being conveyed. His lips bore
the sting of the tussle as he licked them to ease the pain.
They had only driven a distance of 500 meters on the main boulevard
when the police van suddenly pulled up to the curb in Gestapo style with
all its four doors opening at the same time.
Mike’s eyes opened wide, wondering what was going on. He watched as
two police officers hurriedly carried Adaora out of the police van. They
seemed to easily pull her out of the door, lifting her into the arms of one of
the other police officers who walked briskly to the sidewalk, roughly
dumping her down.
One other police officer walked briskly to his SUV and quickly beckoned
to the other to get out of the car.
“Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Quickly!”
Bewildered, Mike watched as the officers hurried out of his SUV and
chased after their van as it made its way back to the boulevard getting
away from the scene.
“What’s going on?” Mike muttered as he wheeled the SUV to the

sidewalk before getting out of the car to find Adaora lying on her back
with her eyes half shut, wriggling on the floor as though in epileptic fit.
Page | 35
He had never dealt with an epileptic person before and so, he was clueless
about what to do. He looked around to find the police van far off and
disappearing into the night traffic with no one else in sight.
As though on cue, Adaora’s eyes opened up as she suddenly sat upright,

looking to both sides of the road and then settling in on his face.
“Have they gone?”
***
When Benjamin checked the time, it was 9 am. time to call Taiwo.
CHAPTER FIVE
Wild Goose chase
It was a grey slow morning as twilight melted away fading into a glorious
morning sunrise, the perfect recipe for a day that held so much promise.
Ben had spent the whole night writing his fancy love story for his new
book and that kept him distracted long enough till the first streak of
sunlight bathed his curtains in an orange glow.
But just as the morning was as assured and unstoppable as the tides, the
traffic was just as horrendous and unforgiving. It wound its way down the
road like an angry curly snake sandwiched between impatient
motorcyclists and a throng of pedestrians. All heading to the commercial
nerve of the city.
The city lay closely clustered, glittering in the clear air with its flat roofs,
domes and square towers adorning the morning sky. The calm stillness of
intricate concrete skyscrapers was sharply contrasted by the labyrinth of
noisy streets, avenues, lanes and alleys. Every conceivable street corner
had a dozen street traders jostling for the attention of commuters who
looked forlorn into the morning rush. For melody, the incessant honking
Page | 37
of the vehicles and the unbelievably loud chatter of street trading rented
the air.
Ben had just one goal in mind: he needed to get an explanation for the
mystery that had taunted him in the last few days. Taiwo’s contact at the
Telco had requested that they meet up at a café down the road by 10 am.
The café was only a few meters away from his office. He wanted to be as
discreet as possible without drawing attention.
Ben was running a few minutes late and was left with no choice but to
complete the journey on foot. He weaved swiftly between cars that were
slowly hopping down the road like hog-tied frogs, clutching his leather
waist bag. He always liked the complement of a pen and notebook, and the
waist bag kept his secrets.
He found Taiwo sitting alone at the café as soon as he opened the door and
slid into the seat right opposite him while catching his breath. Ben had
rarely seen his friend ruffled, and today was no exception. That’s just the
way the man is, born calm, can’t change him and wouldn’t want to.
“Is he here yet?”
“He will be here shortly. I just spoke with him,” Taiwo replied.
As he caught his breath, his heart was hammering hard, almost ripping his
ribcage apart, but his poise was as casual as they come with no hint of
agitation.
His mind flickered back and forth trying to pre-empt the logical reasons
Taiwo’s friend would offer to his dilemma.
His gaze sauntered to Taiwo’s coffee on the table. It was dark, hot and
bland. A close semblance to the black hole in his head and deep inside his
soul that was slowly swallowing up his well laid out plans, hopes and
dreams.
Just that moment, Taiwo’s friend walked in. He first looked around the
café as though checking for spies. Then, he moved towards their table as
soon as he sighted Taiwo, his big boots making a rhythmical noise against
the tiled floor, solid and regular like a soldier. His face, stern and anxious
as though about to commit an illegal and criminal offence. He said a brief
hello to the two friends and started to whisper.
“I really do not have much time to spend here. I have to be back at my

desk in fifteen minutes.” He paused as though trying to recollect his lines.
His brows, collapsing into a wrinkled valley.
“I looked up the mobile number and there has been no activity on that
number for over four years. That number really isn’t active.”
Ben and Taiwo held a cold stare. Nothing he had said was startling. At
least up to that point.
“But there is something strange though,” he continued and now had their
full attention.
“Typically, when a phone number is inactive for up to a year, the telco re-
allocates the line to other users. But this line was not allocated to anyone. I
am not sure why. All the numbers within the inactive period are
functional. Well, except this one.” He paused again. This time, long
enough for the implication of his words to sink in.
Ben broke the silence first.
“Do you mean that it was deliberately left out during the reallocation or
was it in use by someone else without any record of it?”
“Not quite the case. The number is inactive and not functional. There is no
way it can receive or make calls through any of our networks. In fact, the
number cannot be geo-located. It is just not active.” He unfolded a piece
of paper in his hands with lots of fine prints and handed it over to Taiwo.
Page | 39
“There,” he said. “It’s a dead end. What do you need the information for
by the way?”
“It’s only a lead for one of our stories—investigative journalism. You

know how it is. Nothing serious.”
With this, he took his leave, walking briskly away from the table and lost
quickly in the teeming sea of heads along the very busy pedestrian
walkway.
That was it! Dead end. No trail to follow.
This left a bad taste with Ben. He had seriously hoped that technology
held the key to solving the mystery of the phone call.
He suddenly felt dead inside, his tongue dry and his throat felt as though
someone thrust a handful of itching powder inside. It was a massive let
down for him.
Lost in thoughts, his face turned into a deep grimace, contorting into a
painful expression as he pondered his next options.
He could as well just let this whole thing go. But the thoughts of chasing
the green Toyota Saloon car some days past flashed through his eyes. So
real, so undeniable. Something still wasn’t quite right.
He tried to avoid Taiwo’s stare, but when he looked, it was blank and
expressionless. Beneath the veneer, he could see the questions in his eyes.
“So…what next?” Taiwo said in between slurps of his hot coffee.
Ben was staring blankly into space, beyond Taiwo and into a world
unknown. His mind was lost in thoughts. The situation was pretty much
against the run of his expectations. Taiwo must surely think he is a nutcase
right about now, he thought.
“I don’t know. I honestly do not know. Let’s get out of here. I need to
make a phone call.”
***
He tried the doorknob into his apartment and the heavy iron-bound door
swung open much too easy. Its creaking noise sounded like some dying
animal, crying out its pain and sorrow with its last breath. He instantly
noticed a familiar footwear on his welcoming mat. The air was wafted
with the heavy scent of lilies, her exotic perfume, with its sweet, savoury
aroma wafting through the air-conditioned room.
Linda’s sonorous voice could be heard, as she was singing to herself in the
kitchen, oblivious of his arrival. He walked into the house, collapsing into
the sofa like a broken man. He started to knock off his shoes when Linda
realised, she had company.
“Hello darl’, I can’t believe you forgot my birthday. I got in this morning
and was surprised to find you had left even earlier.”
She wiped off her wet hands on the kitchen napkin and walked towards
Ben’s open embrace as he managed to hurriedly get off the sofa.
“You smell like skunk,” she winced. But Ben tightened his grip on her in a
feeble attempt to assault her even more with the putrid smell of his sweat
stained body.
“No text, no calls, no gift, no messages. Ben, what is going on?” she
continued while still in his warm embrace.
Ben made faces while apologising. “I am awfully sorry baby. I have been
terribly busy lately.” But it was more than that. He did not feel her sparkle
anymore like he once used to. Maybe it was just him. Or her.
Linda was a strikingly pretty lady. At 21, she was everything a young
dashing man—like Ben, would desire. She wore her hair natural and low,
dyed into the rich and deep brown of aged mahogany that accentuated the
shape of her head. She was the kind of girl that women loved to hate; so
Page | 41
young and flawless that she had the exuberance of youth in every way.
Her shape already had the morphings of womanhood. Another year, and
her curves would fill out just enough to give her a full adult shape.
She had the trappings of womanhood already with small perky breasts,
beautiful flawless skin terminating into her calloused hands, and a nose
carved into the finest Nubian shape with freckles sprinkled across it. Her
eyes were dark brown, open and honest as that of a child, offering warmth
and safety, yet illuminating the soul.
Her smile shone like the stars in the sky, with no bright city lights to dim
them whilst always accentuated by the way her one dimple crinkled. It
was like the sun opened its eager light to shine about her, only brightening
her perfectly aligned teeth.
But Ben had a lot going on and her ravaging beauty was the least of his
worries. His restive soul had been stirred by the recent happenings. Until
he found a logical explanation for it, he wasn’t really going to do anything
else.
He barely looked Linda in the face as he turned away from her.
He reached out for his phone and dialled Mr George’s phone number
again. He was met with the salacious voice of the operator.
“The number you have dialled does not exist.”
“Crap.” he muttered
“Crap! Crap? Is that all you have to say? Crap. After all we have been
together? Crap!” she blurted out in one breath. “What is wrong with you? I
can never be good enough for you. That’s just it. You are not happy I am
here. You would not show me any care or love. What is this about?”
“I wasn’t…” Ben started.

“No please! Don’t even start with your lame excuses. I am sick and tired
of this situationship. Yes, that is what it is. A situationship. I am alone in
this one. Loving myself. Just me.” Her voice broke into sobs with tears
bursting forth like water from a dam, spilling down her face.
She was a pitiable sight.
One could feel that her walls, the walls that held her up, made her strong,
just…collapsed. Moment by moment, they fell with salty drops rolling
down her chin, leaving smooth edged trails as they drenched her shirt.
Ben walked towards her in an attempt to placate her.
“Linda, please don’t cry. Let’s talk this through.” He held her as he spoke.
She sobbed into his chest unceasingly, hands clutching at his shirt. He held
her in silence, rocking her slowly as her tears soaked his shirt.
When she turned her face to look at him, she saw a man whose emotions
had been walled off behind a mask of worry. He was distant and aloof.
Amidst the muffled sobs wracking against his chest, she had felt her spirit
sink into nothingness and her aura turn monochrome. Linda knew before
she spoke next, that the sparkle of love had been well and truly
extinguished.
“What did I do wrong?” she asked.
“It’s not about you,” Ben started. He suddenly realised it wasn’t really
about her. It was his life as a ghost blogger which he so badly desired to
get rid of, his manuscripts which he had been working so hard to get to the
hands of recognised publishers for a big break, and his desire to get back
his life as an investigative journalist with another reputable firm, or at
least, a journalist without the ‘investigative’. The problem had basically
been his career.
Page | 43
But now, it was more. It was with his recent encounters that had seized his
peace. He had to let go of this baggage he concluded. And now is the time.
“I am off to Abuja tomorrow morning. I have to meet up with an old

colleague before he leaves the country. I need to start packing now. We
will talk more when I am back. Okay?”
***
When he left the café at brunch time, dejected and disappointed, he called
one of his old colleagues and friend at the Abuja office where Mr George
had worked to share the recent and strange happenings. Perhaps, with the
hope that he could find some clue or explanation of some sort.
His former colleague, Peter, had suggested that there was more to the
happenings than he had previously thought. He suggested he flew down to
Abuja as soon as he possibly could as he did not feel safe enough to share
the details over the phone.
Linda and her theatrics weren't going to deter him. He had a mystery to
solve. And now he was going all out!
CHAPTER SIX
Love and Life Are Fickle
It was morning already. Benjamin woke up to the beeping sounds from his
mobile phone. Linda had sent a torrent of text messages all night. Her
heart, as she claimed, was broken into bits. He squinted his eyes to read
another of her emotional outburst as his eyes took in every ray of light
from his bedside window. One text had an edge to it:
Thank you for breaking me. You broke me and watched me bleed. After all
that, what can there be left underneath but the untouchable part of me, my
soul -- the girl you can never hurt.
He thought about it only for a moment as he had a flight to catch and it

was the first out of Lagos. He rolled to the left side of the bed and slid
Page | 45
down the space between the bed and the wall. His first few steps unsteady
and wobbly but enough to get him to flick on the light switch and catch a
quick glimpse of his own puffy eyes from his reflection in the mirror as he
walked slowly to the shower. He hadn’t slept much in the last few days.
Sleep was beginning to be a luxury he could barely afford.
He didn’t have to pack much; a duffle bag was all he needed, his laptop,
basic supplies and a few shirts to complete his travel kit. His pair of blue
jeans was going to be his new skin.
His usual cab was waiting outside ten minutes after his bath and the driver
wheeled the car into the train of other vehicles as they followed the red
taillights along the busy highway to the airport. From his point of view,
they formed a near perfect river of tin and flesh.
That morning, everything was the same and yet different again. As the car
sped through the winding black ribbon of asphalt, his mind wandered
again to Linda. Only a lover can wound so deep, cut to the very core. That
level of trauma had to be an inside job. It takes an inside job to attack one
so resilient to emotional injury. He thought about their situation in third
person wearing a crooked half-smile. He was the inside job. Linda may be
hurt emotionally, but he had to admit his incapability of reciprocating her
love. Not until he finds answers to the nagging mysterious phone call that
has haunted him for days.
The silence in the car was only occasionally disturbed by the creaking
noise of the suspension of the car as it manoeuvred its way through the
bumpy roads and potholes. The world outside the car held promise but
none of it included any form of silence. It was as though silence ended
with the night. The sun was still resolutely below the horizon and the
streets as dark as some old-school black and white movie.
Soon enough, the airport was within view. He instinctively checked the
Fitbit wearable watch strapped to his wrist and heaved a sigh of relief
knowing his timing was impeccable. He had some time to kill.
At the time he arrived at the airport, it was as serene as it ever could be.
Other passengers moved about with ease like quiet rivers of humanity
freshly roused from their slumber. The floors were clean and white,
reflecting the early rays and the manmade light the same.
He paid off his cab driver and hurried to join the sea of faces moving in an
unseen current, flowing like water to their destinations like a wide river
down the aisles. Small groups would sometimes stop and cause a small
eddy, but the others would flow around the outside and continue on their
way.
When the plane finally took flight after an hour delay, he watched as the
wing sliced through the clouds and observed as the hue of light through
the clouds slightly changed from pearl white to a calm yellow, warmly
glowing in the rising sunshine. His mind drifted but this time, to his love
story. It was time to distract himself again. He turned on his computer to
continue the perfect love story in his new book. A perfect contrast to his
crashed and broken relationship. At least, he had the liberty to write his
story as he pleased.
***
Mike still couldn’t understand what just happened as he drove Adaora

back home. That night felt as though it would never end. While it had a
comic sense of relief, Adaora’s theatrics was quite an ingenious solution
to a very difficult situation. He thought about her differently now. She
wasn’t just that lady who appeared to live in a cocoon shielded from the
real world. She was the warped tour of femininity. Soft yet, tough and
exuding beauty in sharp contrast. There was so much beauty in the
uniqueness of just one individual.
Adaora couldn’t find her handbag. She figured it was in the police van.
Page | 47
“Crap...” she muttered under her breath, breaking the silence as they
approached her apartment.
Thankfully, the bag had just a few impersonal items and a few paper
receipts from her last shopping at the mall, which ironically included the
bag itself.
“My handbag is with those buffoons.” Her voice sounded ice cold and
emotionless.
Mike paid no heed to her comment. His mind was disconnected from the
present and his attempt to articulate his train of thoughts punctuated his
own rhythmic breathing. His ego, beaten and defeated, he was still
contemplating a comeback from his failed attempt to wrestle an officer of
the law.
When he spoke, his voice was soft and distant. “I can’t believe it’s taken
so long to meet someone like you. I guess there is so much more I need to
learn about you.”
Adaora offered no response. She wondered if he would see her differently

now and how much this would affect their sizzling romance.
“I have got a question though. How on earth were you able to swing that
whole seizure thing to fool the police officers?”
Adaora sighed. Her sigh was like a softly deflating tyre; it was as if
tension had lifted yet, left her with a melancholy instead of relief.
“So…” she started as the SUV parked right in front of her apartment.
“When I was 8, I watched my younger brother convulse on the floor,
shaking, unconscious, almost hitting the chair and table legs in a
restaurant during a Christmas celebration.” She paused for effect. “I
stood transfixed and horrified as waves of uncontrolled muscle movement
ripped through his body. It was a sight I would learn to get used to over
the next few years. He was only five years old at the time.”
Sadness enveloped her face as she stared blankly into the windscreen. The
car engine was all that stood between quiet and both of them.
“He got worse as he got older, but my parents tried everything they could
to give him a semblance of a good life. He met with several neurosurgeons
and experts in the field and popped pills like his life depended on it. That
day at the restaurant changed our lives forever. His fits had a knack for
happening during very important milestones in his life. He would have
severe seizures during his final exams, sometimes during public events.
His triggers always seemed to change as the years progressed. His
condition was difficult for my parents to understand. They fought all the
time.” Her eyes glimmered with tears and she turned her face away from
him.
Mike was already a bag of emotions himself and nothing on earth

prepared him for the sort of night he was having. “You don’t have to talk
about it if it hurts so much,” his voice betrayed his own emotions.
“It’s fine,” she managed to reply him. Adaora had always been so self-
conscious, but she could only manage to stifle her sobs until the shutters
came down walling off her emotions behind a mask of coping.
“His condition broke my parents,” she continued. “Their relationship was

already strained. They were too far gone on the road to divorce before his
seizures started.”
Then in her arrogant triumph, she smirked—just a small pouting of the

lips, a narrowing of the eyes and a tilting of the head.
“But my little brother would sometimes feign a seizure to avoid going to

school,” her voice suddenly animated.
And they both started to laugh heartily. It was a laughter that Mike could
feel in his lungs, so hard that it took his breath away. The lack of oxygen
Page | 49
didn’t matter. It was a relief that felt like they were decompressing from a
tensed emotional chamber.
They were soon jolted to reality with the pounding of her side window by
a huge fist that caused them both to freeze at first.
It was only the gate man asking if she wanted him to open the gate.
There was no energy left in her to scold him. She tore him a look that said
all it could, and they both watched the gateman scurry away like a dog
with its tail between its hinds.
Their truncated laughter then broke into a chuckle as Adaora continued

her story.
“I learnt to fake his seizures too in the hope that it would get me some
attention from my parents sometimes. But it earned me some heavy
punishment. And that is how I mastered the skill. I never knew it would
ever come handy.” she concluded.
***
The airplane meal was like a band aid on a severed limb. Ben could have
eaten the meals from his entire row and still had enough room for dessert.
The hostess had stirred him from his love story, and he suddenly realized
there was something about hunger that robbed the spirit as well as the
body. The meal didn’t do much to help him. He looked at his watch and
realized the airplane had started its descent. The occasional bumps as the
plane cruised through the clouds reminded him of his fear of flying. If
there was one way to distract himself, it had to be his writings. He had to
finish the story before they arrived at the Nnamdi Azikiwe Airport, Abuja.
His friend was waiting to pick him up already.
Back to his story.
***
He watched Adaora walk into her apartment, and couldn’t wait to get
back into his cozy apartment to the soft comfort of his pillows. He honked
twice as he drove off into the midnight.
The lights were a bother but Mike wasn’t stopping for anything and he
sure as hell wasn’t taking his foot off the gas pedal as the hiss of the tyres
over the smooth tarmac was lost under the pounding bass of the music
from the car stereo.
He noticed a piece of glittering stone from Adaora’s dress on the

passenger seat and instinctively leaned over to pinch it up. In that instant,
he lost the opportunity to evade a newly broken-down car with its lights
off. Even if he’d been paying attention, he would have been hard-pressed
to make the manoeuvre.
As it was, he barely had time to scream before the airbags knocked him
back and sideways. The car tumbled over and over into the central barrier
before coming to an absolute stop. He tried to move but he was pinned by
the collapsing roof and the steering column.
Mike could taste the coppery blood pooling in his mouth. He could feel it
grazing his teeth and soaking his tongue. He felt the aches and cracks in
his bones. Each crack felt like rocks were burrowing into his skin. He
sucked in cramped air, feeling his lungs caving in on themselves.
His head felt like the only thing inside of it was static. He heard a buzzing
noise, filling his ears. It felt like he was there for hours, fading and
waking and fading and waking. And then from a distance, he heard the
unmistakable sound of the siren and his eyes shut themselves.
Page | 51
CHAPTER SEVEN
Four Years in Lieu
Benjamin had drifted into a cat nap when he heard the wheels of the
airplane kissing the bumpy tarmac leaving intermittent screeching sound
in its wake. The plane bounced repeatedly on the tarmac and was
accompanied by the hysterical cry of a toddler that was only interrupted by
the child’s need to draw breath. The child cried so hard as if the ferocity of
it would stop the plane from bouncing as hard as it finally screeched and
wheeled to a stop.
He looked at his laptop screen, his eyes tired from its glare, impressed at
how much of writing he had achieved within forty-five minutes. He
watched the airport terminal come into his view amidst the tail fins of the
other airplane on the tarmac right from his plane window as the engines
hummed lazily. He couldn’t wait to alight. As soon as the doors opened,
he packed up his laptop and grabbed his backpack from the overhead
locker.
He was glad to replace the waves of nauseating stale smell of human

breath and stench that reeked through the cabin with the damp air outside.
There was a freshness to the air that invited the feet to run and jump and
his craving to take deep breaths was only momentarily replaced by
nostalgia as familiar sights welcomed him.
It is time to solve the four-year mystery!

He found Pete, his old friend and colleague, as soon as he walked through
the waiting lounge at the airport. He looked unwashed and unkempt and
when they hugged, it was far from reassuring. It was more of a
perfunctory gesture mandated by social etiquette not out of excitement at
seeing his friend. Ben only released his breath after they had taken in his
friend’s obvious loss of weight and lean body.
“Hey Pete, are you okay?”
“You’re the only person I know I can discuss this with,” Pete replied
hastily, his voice somewhere between a whisper and mumble. “I am
leaving town first thing tomorrow,” he continued, ignoring Ben’s
questioning stare. He looked scared and worried and with every new
passenger coming through the arrival lounge, his head glanced either side
directed at anyone who walked by as though expecting to see someone he
was hiding from.
Ben wasn’t finding this comfortable, and they started walking towards the
restaurant along the busy aisle. Pete wouldn’t stop looking backwards and
his steps were just as unsteady. But his arms were locked in with Ben’s
right hand as they found a solitary corner in the restaurant.
When Pete spoke again, Ben knew he would have to endure the whiff of
bad breath all morning, but it was the least of his problems. His friend’s
behaviour was erratic and strange enough to start a mini panic deep inside
him, but he masked the feeling with calmness. He had to be calm to get
information out of Pete.
They had both worked together at the UrbanCity Magazine and were
employed within a week of each other, losing traces of boyhood while
they cut their teeth in investigative journalism working for Mr George.
They lived from paycheck to paycheck, but enjoyed competing for the
boss’s attention, chasing down stories like their lives depended on it and
Page | 53
sometimes working at cross-purpose in a bid to be crowned the employee
of the month.
Twist, turn, fall, stretch, arc, ache and fight, but their rivalry was good
enough for the business as they churned out breaking news, strong
headliners and feature articles amidst the chaos.
Mr George played the mediator occasionally and would say that when
others present arguments based on only emotions and prejudices, reply in
such a manner that acknowledges the legitimacy of their emotions and
pulls the legs from under their prejudices.
They never stopped learning from Mr George; he meant everything to

them, and they worked hard for him.
As they listened to the flight schedule and announcement over the public
address system, Pete unzipped his bag and handed over an envelope to his
former colleague. It had Ben’s name written in scrawly handwriting which
was unmistakably Mr George’s.
“The envelop was delivered to me two days ago by some scruffy looking
guy who was the picture book stereotype of an old fisherman. His
weathered face bore the weight of his long journey from God knows
where. He barely said anything. He asked if I was Pete Ahmed and when I
answered in the affirmative, he thrust the envelop into my hands and left
just as fast as he had appeared.”
Pete was speaking so fast that Ben was having difficulties catching up. He
looked at the envelop. His stare, only broken by a tap from Pete on his
shoulders.
“Then, I opened the envelop out of curiosity…” His voice trailed into
silence as he looked at a strange guy walking past quizzically as though he
had seen him before.
“That guy…” He motioned with his head.

“What?” Ben looked up for signs of something amiss.
“Dude, he is just a passenger. Tell me what is going on Pete. I don’t like

where this is going man! I think you need to take some rest. Your eyes are
puffy and you smell like skunk.” Ben couldn’t help himself.
“Don’t open!” the stern voice of Pete warned as Ben fiddled with the
envelop.
Ben wondered if his old friend was dealing with some mental illness like
Psychosis or some sort of crazy illusion causing him to lose his mind. He
started to look at him keenly. The crease on his shirt started to look
obvious and unsettling while his hair hadn’t had the pleasure of a clipper
in weeks, maybe even months. If he only just got the envelop a few days
ago, it wasn’t responsible for his appearance.
“Is there anything…?” Pete cut him short curtly.
“I know what you are thinking, I am not crazy, Ben. This isn’t funny.”
He fiddled with his fingers for a moment and then continued.
“The envelop contains a document with Mr George’s initials signed on it.

What puzzles me is how the strange man got a hold of it. Listen dude,”
Pete’s stance was pensive at first, and then suddenly with some urgency.
“Although most of the documents had the dates scrapped off, the
information therein is pretty recent. There is something…fishy.” He
chuckled as he mentioned ‘fishy’.
“Have you heard from Mr George, Pete?” Ben wasn’t going to be caught
in the frenzy of some parcel delivered hurriedly without asking this one
question that had been on his mind the whole of his flight that morning.
Pete was silent.
Page | 55
“He is dead, dude. He had a car crash. You know that. Dead men to come
back to life? It’s been four years, man. Get a grip.”
Ben stared at his friend deeply as though searching for answers in his face.
“I got to go now, buddie. I am leaving town for good, first thing in the
morning.”
Pete stood to leave, adjusting his bag and then, walked away without
saying another word.
Ben sat transfixed for a moment and then, he asked above earshot, “Do
you still live off Badmus street in Wuse?”
Pete didn’t flinch nor offer a response. He just walked on until he was out
of the building disappearing into the sea of heads just arriving from the
plane.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Ties that Bind
Ben couldn’t remember much about the lobby or reception of the motel
when he walked into his room. He was sure grateful that the room was
clean, the beddings fresh and the colours of the wall bland. For a motel
around the outskirts of Abuja, that was actually a pretty decent deal for the
amount he had paid for the room.
The envelop he had received from Pete was safely tucked into his
backpack and there was nothing he would have loved to do than to take a
look at the contents.
But he was also hungry. Thankfully, the motel had a bedside telephone
with the access numbers to the restaurant and reception boldly inscribed
and taped on the phone keypad.
When he fetched the envelop from his backpack, his mind started to
wander.
***
Page | 57
George Maduka was somewhat too tall for his build. Were he a few inches
shorter, he would be all the more handsome for it. It was as if he stopped
growing only to be stretched on one of those medieval racks a half-foot
more.
His face was mostly obscured by a well-trimmed beard that clung to his
face like a continent on a map. No one feature made George so handsome,
though his eyes came close. From them exuded an intensity, honesty, and
gentleness that were accentuated by his strong arched brows and eyelashes
that were so thick, it could almost be illegal.
He had a prominent jaw curved gracefully around his mouth and the
strength of his neck showed in the twining cords of muscle that shaped his
body. He was an Adonis among men. His fine looks got him unmerited
favour. The people he met were willing to listen to what he had to say
simply because he looked attractive and young. This helped him during
the early years of his career and suited him perfectly.
He was a workaholic, and his job was always first with him; he couldn’t
stand it the other way round. He started his career as a young reporter and
built his reputation painstakingly over the decades. No one could say he
didn’t deserve to start his own gig when he decided to go far from the
shores of a fair paying job.
His disdain for junk journalism slowed his career growth. It wasn’t long
before he was unfairly treated, and a lot of his hard work never saw the
pages of the newspaper. He was done in by his own sense of morality. It
was utterly frustrating!
He would say to anyone who cared to listen that the media wasn’t
journalism anymore; it was a puppet show. The television stations gobbled
up the worst of the worst. The more violent the better, anything for the
ratings. Ratings meant money, lots of it. They had no ‘off-switch’, only
the most immoral were the victors in the industry and so it went on.
Morality was for losers; winners were the ones who pushed the envelope.
Soon enough, George found himself caught in between junk journalism

and the monster it had created, and his sense of morality and trite
professionalism. The rulers of the media were the politicians along with
the media moguls as their favourite tool of control. They controlled
everything!
“Look, George, if the media is your preacher, you need to leave the choir,”
his wife had advised him after he returned home broken with his
retrenchment letter in an envelope. “Use that heart of yours like it’s a gun.
Use that mouth of yours like it’s a megaphone and change the narrative.
Don’t give in to envelope journalism, you are much smarter than that.
Start your own outfit!”
That was it!
Although it took a couple of years to get the sort of attention he had

envisioned when he started out, his penchant for well and thoroughly
investigated stories was the anchor on which UrbanCity’s reputation was
built. Once it was published by Urbancity, then it was undoubtedly
reliable and authentic.
With time, other media houses verified their information from his before
they published. He was known to have a retinue of young, intelligent
journalists and reporters that were well-curated and worked their socks off
for him. Soon, he was the pride of the industry.
It was once reported that he had one of his loyal reporters imprisoned
when he discovered that he had moderately distorted the truth on one of
his assignments to protect a politician who offered him some cash in
return.
Benjamin and Pete were two of his younger journalists and he was
immensely proud of the quality of their submissions and reports. They
Page | 59
wrote like professionals, and they were not easy to control with fear and
greed—a virtue that George appreciated and held dear.
Benjamin in particular, enjoyed his attention the most. He was fond of the
young lad. After work on most weekends, Benjamin would drive George
to meetings with his clientele and afterwards, they would share a drink or
two, catching up on what was left of their social life. As time went on,
they spent an awful lot of time together and Benjamin ran all sorts of
errands on behalf of his boss.
George found Benjamin’s versatility as a beautiful resource and he let him

schedule his meetings, his car repairs, and sometimes, household repairs.
Interestingly, Ben still caught up with his breaking stories and weekly
targets. His street sense was immensely valuable as he easily blended into
the locals to find information without breaking character.
George soon learnt to trust Benjamin’s instincts and gut feelings about a
situation every time they had conversations about it during their weekend
parley. No doubt he was good. No! Damn good!
He was George’s most reliable investigator. The closest to him was Pete
who wore his jealousy on his sleeves like a badge. George managed to get
Pete to work even harder to win his attention and this paid off in the
quality of his work over time. When Urban City joined the online foray,
although much later than its competition, Pete managed their online
presence effortlessly. He was adept at it and it was his reward for his hard
work.
A rival outfit tried to poach Benjamin with a mouth-watering

remuneration and promise of his own office space, along with attractive
perks and benefits. He bought George’s absolute loyalty when he showed
the offer to him, and this endeared him to George even more.
That day, George offered Benjamin a gift he would never forget—a

notepad and a pen that had his initials engraved boldly as G.M. Those
same initials he had seen many times after a text message from him and on
his personal effects.
Benjamin was learning from the best and in return, George could focus his
effort on strategic ideas to improve the fortune of his business.
***
Those initials were staring Benjamin in the face when he opened the
envelop, he had received from Pete. His heart missed a beat when he read
the first page of the document. The document was only a few weeks old
from the information on it.
The pages of the document carried the letter head of a global agency that
had been working with the health ministry in the country for many years.
Each page had separate information. Not congruent as a whole body of
information, but just a bit here and a bit there. Some pages showed the
number of children, adults and infants with a number after each.
He simply couldn’t make sense of it. Another had addresses of different

offices or so it seemed, across Northern Nigeria. Another paper showed a
long list of names along with age and other personal information. The
letter head carried a telephone number—a terrestrial phone number.
The more he tried to make sense of the document the more confused he
got. The most confusing were Mr George’s signature and initials scribbled
at the bottom of each page. Barely legible, but certainly not deniable.
Now, this was beginning to fuel his theory. Perhaps, the man wasn’t dead.
He had to go fetch Pete right away. This couldn’t wait till the next day. He
also had to hide the document; he couldn’t be seen everywhere with it, at
least not until he made sense of its content.
Soon, Benjamin was out on the street again that afternoon. He needed to
get to Wuse. If Pete still lived there, then he was going to find him. He
Page | 61
flagged down a taxi right in front of the motel and joined other passengers
in the back seat.
At first, the journey started smoothly. Abuja was known for its good
network of roads, the kind that wheels floated so effortlessly along. The
asphalt—a glossy black, like a wet photograph. In that moment Benjamin
imagined the highway in nostalgic monochrome, especially the days he
spent driving around town with Mr George. As they approached the city,
they hit some gridlock.
The traffic was a stop-start with cars hopping down the road like hog-tied
frogs towards some unseen blockade of some sort. After some moments,
every car had turned off its engine and drivers wandered on the motorway
looking up and down for clues on the blockade.
Not far off, a ball of flame and a fist of grey smoke appeared to be the
centre of attraction. The gridlock was no longer moving. Ben alighted
from the car and joined the train of people walking towards the flame.
What on God’s earth could cause a vehicle to burn in the broad daylight in
Abuja? That was a rarity.
As he approached the scene, it was indeed a burning vehicle. Two vehicles

were involved in what looked like a head-on collision. When he looked
closer, he could see mangled bodies of the unfortunate passengers in the
burning car. One of the bodies had a familiar shirt with that which he had
seen on Pete that morning.
Fear gripped Ben. His breath stopped for a few seconds and he looked
away immediately. He was too sure it was what he was thinking. When he
looked again for confirmation, blinking repeatedly as if clearing his eyes
for a better view, the shirt told it all: same colour, same design.
He started to turn back to his taxi, his heart beating faster than he had ever
experienced. The thoughts were accelerating inside his head. He had not
just seen the shirt, but also Pete’s face from the broken windshield of the
car.
Although the car was mangled, the twisted remains of Pete could be
discerned amidst the fiery flame that had engulfed the car. He was dead.
Benjamin couldn’t breathe. His breaths came in gasps and he suddenly felt
like he was going to black out. His heart started to hammer inside his chest
like it belonged to a rabbit running for its skin. He started to feel dizzy and
his legs gave in as he dropped to his knees screaming as he watched his
long-time friend die the most horrific death helplessly.
CHAPTER NINE
The Unknown Enemy
Pounding, throbbing, like toothache in his brain, right between his eyes,
excruciating, debilitating—his head throbbed. The pain felt like someone
had taken a knife to his skull. He tried to open his eyes, but the rays of
light were a tad too strong for his pupils. Squeezing his eyes shut, he
willed the pain to go away.
The shock and numbness he felt were as though every part of him had
gone on pause while his thoughts played catch up. His consciousness
Page | 63
seemed to float through empty black inky space and his heartbeats
pounded hard echoing into his own ears.
When he managed to open his eyes, he noticed he wasn’t in a familiar

place. Certainly not his motel room!
And then the memories of the past events reeled through his
consciousness. Death wasn’t kind. Benjamin had to acknowledge. It
snatched where it could, taking people who were far too young, far too
good. It didn’t pretend to care; it didn’t pretend to distinguish. And now
Pete was gone.
When he thought about it further, he wanted to forget how Pete looked

when he last saw him walk away at the airport and how unkempt and
uneasy he looked. Was this just an unfortunate accident or some well-
orchestrated murder?
He heaved a huge sigh that came in splutters like a dying motor engine as
he rose unsteadily to his feet against his better judgement. His head
pounded even further. He searched and found his phone on the bed stool
and tucked it away in his pocket.
He was in a holding bay at the Traffic Emergency Response point on the

highway, not far from the scene of the accident. It was the frantic scene of
medical treatment being administered to injured persons from traffic
accidents and the strong stench of drugs that assaulted his nostrils when he
awoke. He had been taken to the bay when he blacked out. A nurse
entered the room in blue scrubs, po-faced, serious, washing her hands at
the sink while looking at Benjamin as he tried to get on his feet.
“You need to rest some more sir. Your blood pressure is pretty high.”
“Where can I get a taxi?” Benjamin’s voice was listless and distant. He
wasn’t in the mood to receive dos and don’ts.
Quickly, the nurse thrust a sachet of drugs into his right hand. “I would
take this right now, if I were you.”
“Thank you” was all Benjamin could offer as he popped the pills into his
mouth and then sauntered out of the bay.
The more he walked, the better he felt. The sun was unforgiving, but he
already had enough for one day. He had to get back to his room at the
motel! It felt like the only place he could find solace.
***
Ben was back at the motel and torn between fear and indescribable
sadness. What was left of his beaten body laid on the comforting and
warm bed in his room. The churning in his stomach did not abate and he
realized he had to eat something before he passed out again. From the bed,
he propped himself on his elbow and dialled the kitchen. Food will be
served in thirty minutes.
He picked up his mobile phone and dialled Mr George’s number

instinctively. It returned with the now familiar voice of the operator: “The
number you have called does not exist.” It sounded as though he was deaf
every other time it said so.
He noticed unread messages and found that Linda had sent him a couple.
“I have been trying to reach you on phone the last few hours. We need to
talk.”
He scrolled to the second message from Linda.
“Are you going to call me or not?”
He scrolled to the next message.
“I think I am pregnant. Two months gone.”
And then, he sat upright on the bed at once. His headache started to return
in mild beats.
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“Damn!”
He didn’t realize the words had escaped the gates of his teeth until he
heard them! There was a feeling in his gut that said, “Oh my God,” but
another in his heart that said, “Yes. I am about to become a daddy.”
He dialled her number. It rang. Unanswered!
He sent her a reply.
“We need to talk.”
Afterwards, he fetched the brown envelop that was his only clue from
under the bed where he hid it before he stepped out earlier that afternoon.
It was intact.
He pulled out one of the letterheads and punched the contact number on
the keys of his phone and then, dialled it.
It rang. And this time, it was answered.
“Hello, good afternoon. This is Lucy speaking. How may I help you?”
Voices babbled noisily in the background and the female voice appeared
to be struggling to speak amidst the rancour.
“Hello,” he replied.
“Yes please. How can I be of help?” her voice now punctuated by the
buzzer of extension phones as they went off like an annoyed rattlesnake.
“I am calling to make enquiries about your services,” Benjamin played

diffident, trying hard not to goof until he got some piece of information.
“Okay sir. Please, be kind to tell me where you are calling from and which
of our services you would like to inquire about.” The background noise at
her end appeared to have disappeared gradually like a church choir at the
end of a hymnal. Like the world stood still for that one moment.
Benjamin could hear his heartbeat and wondered if Lucy on the other end
of the phone could hear it too.
“Hello sir…where are you calling from please? Did you call earlier?”
Lucy continued.
Benjamin figured that if he didn’t assert his request quickly, he was going
to be brow beaten on the telephone by a faceless operator.
“I am calling from Abuja, and I would like to share details of a research I

am working on with your consultant if available.” He hadn’t thought about
his response very well. He wanted to remain vague while still sounding
serious enough to demand a response.
He waited with bated breath. He couldn’t hear anything. Lucy may have
put him on hold.
“Thank you, sir. My supervisor will call you shortly on this number.” The
phone call went tone dead!
That was it!
What did she mean by “Did you call earlier?” Had someone called them
already?
Perhaps, Pete called them when he got the envelop too? But he didn’t
mention anything about making a call to the number. If he did, he should
have mentioned.
He was jolted out of his thoughts by two distinct taps on his room door.
“Room service,” yelled the voice at the other side.
“Phew…” he muttered, heading for the door. His meal had arrived.
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He started to eat and was halfway done when his mobile phone rang. He
stared at it like it was a strange object out of the blues. He looked the
number up and it was from the agency. They were calling back!
He took a bite from his grilled chicken as he answered the call.
“Hello,” the voice on the other side wasn’t Lucy’s and the baritone of the
speaker reverberated through his ear bones.
“My name is Anderson and I understand that you have some research that
may be of interest.” The voice had a rich, silky tone and his diction
sounded as though he controlled the world. Every word laced with
authority.
The chunk of meat in Benjamin’s mouth was pushed to his cheek so he

could match the energy on the other side.
“Thank you, Mr Anderson. I indeed called earlier. I have a few things I

would like to discuss with the consultant…if…”
“Oh yes, Benjamin, we can meet at the restaurant not far from your motel
if you will.”
Motel? How possible? That sent a signal straight from his central nervous
system into Ben’s brain. In his head, Anderson’s voice sounded like a low
roll of thunder. Trouble was written all over it. A look of shock was
plastered on his face. He started to panic.
“Please do not be alarmed. We track all calls made to this line and have
pretty much basic information about the caller to protect the ongoing
research. I will have a member of my team available at your motel in a
few minutes.”
Benjamin was not taking chances; he was already packing every bit of
personal effect into his backpack with his free hand as he took a spoonful
of his jollof rice.
He terminated the call, tossed the phone on the bed and headed out
through the window.
Now, the puzzle seemed to fit. Pete had called, they had tracked him and
possibly killed him. He sounded paranoid, but he had been paranoid since
he received a call from the dead a few days earlier!
What has Mr George got to do with this?
CHAPTER TEN
Cliff Hanger
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It happened so fast. His SUV swerved out of control. The two on-coming
cars tried to avoid it—and failed. Both of them were hit in a three-way
head-on collision.
His body jerked to the dashboard, his forehead colliding with the window.
His face hit the air bag and his nose crumpled and broke spluttering blood
everywhere.
The impact was violent and unforgiving. Shards of glass rained into the
car as the smell of petrol welcomed his nostril. Steam rose from the back,
the smell too intense for words. And then, there was an explosion, a ball of
flame and a fist of grey smoke. A moment later, there was another
explosion.
The third car had been travelling too fast. It ploughed into the burning
wrecks, flipped over and continued, screeching along the runway on its
back before it too burst into flames.
He couldn’t do anything as his car started skimming along the surface of

the road, the impact already knocking him out cold. His two feet had
thumped his brake pedal so hard, but there wasn’t a thing he could do—
accelerating, braking, hand-braking, and the car was going too fast to jump
out. He was trapped in a steel prison.
The seatbelt tugged on his skin with every lurch and the airbag was
already deflating when he first opened his eyes.
When everything stopped there was only the sound of the rain on the
underbelly of the car. His car had been flipped over. In that state, he tried
to discern his position. He hated inertia and this felt like he wasn’t on
ground.
His view looked strange, his eyes blurry from the impact, crimson red
blood coloured his cornea. But he strained his eye and then looked
intensely till his brain could figure out the image.
He was hanging at the edge of a cliff! His view was of the jagged edges of
rocks jutting out ominously along the steep slope before terminating into a
river below.
At that moment, he heard the cry of pain from the other victims of the
ghastly accident.
“Oh my God, help me!” was the scream from a lady in distress.
He panicked! Shifted his body on his seat and his life flashed right before
his very eyes before the car tilted on the seesaw position facing downhill.
There was nothing more he could do to stop the car falling off the cliff.
Absolutely nothing! All he could do was to brace up and hope for the best.
The car was a wreck when rescuers found it. The mangled remains of the
car were found half drowned in the Benue River. No human can survive
the impact of such a fall, it was reported in the news the next morning.
The driver of the car was the publisher of the UrbanCity Magazine—Mr
George Maduka.
***
Sleep was murdered the day the news broke. It was reported that 14 people
had died in the multiple accident and some of the mutilated bodies could
not be fully recovered.
The news started filtering in, first as a bland unfounded rumour. When it
broke, it was reported that a ghastly multiple motor accident had occurred
on the highway during a heavy downpour.
A few hours later, it was reported that 50 people had died. And then, gory
images flooded most social media platforms of corpses and badly injured
victims of the wreck. Some poor-quality videos recorded by ‘first
responders’ showed one vehicle completely damaged from the impact of a
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fall from the cliff along the road. The car colour was difficult to discern.
The length of the ensuing gridlock was reported to be 12 km long. It was a
major highway and rescue efforts took forever to clear the wreckage and
recover bodies.
Still no cause for alarm or panic!
The next morning, emblazoned in large print headlines was the picture of
George and his mangled car in the front page of the daily newspaper. He
was the only high-profile individual reported in the aftermath of the
accident. It was reported that his body was too mangled to survive the
impact of the accident and the subsequent fall down the hill.
Rescuers also confirmed that it was near impossible to attempt to rescue

anyone down that part of the cliff and an attempt was not even made.
The news broke Benjamin! He cried his eyes sore. That was the first day
he blacked out! For weeks on end, the news was a talking point on
television breakfast shows and radio talk shows, and tributes poured in
from all corners of the globe.
Endearing words were dished out generously in honour of George

Maduka. He had touched many lives with his professionalism and
uprightness. There were calls from some quarters to honour him post-
houmously.
Only a few commentators mentioned anything about the conditions of the

road, insurance for travellers or better response to road traffic
emergencies. And a few media publishers were pleased to have their main
contender in the industry out of their way.
Death is inevitable, but why does it have to be violent and cruel?

Benjamin thought.
He left without saying goodbye. His mentor, his boss, his life coach.
Where was he to start from?

Questions he had no answers to littered his head.
His death was a huge blow to the UrbanCity Magazine—a growing outfit
with less than 30 employees. With the dearth of leadership and a
continuity plan non-existent, the outfit withered away like a dying plant
and all the employees dispersed to restart their careers elsewhere.
Benjamin returned to Lagos three months after the incident to start afresh.
This was four years ago!
***
Distance was all that mattered. Benjamin wasn’t stopping for anything
until he could get as far away as possible from the motel. When he jumped
out of the only window in his room, he landed awkwardly and almost
sprained his ankle. His first few steps were gingerly. But the adrenalin in
his head wouldn’t let him succumb to the hurt.
He converted the physical pain into miles ran and he allowed his feet to do
the rest. It was twilight and darkness had started to envelop the city. He
couldn’t afford to get caught by Mr Anderson and his agents. Whatever
they were up to, he was now more than determined to find out.
He had no mobile phone as he had abandoned his phone on the bed in the
room for fear of being tracked. And so, with no means of communicating
with anyone, he was now truly on his own. He hadn’t spoken to Taiwo
since he arrived Abuja that morning. He made a mental note to call his
friend as soon as he could find a breather.
He was going to be a dad! For some strange reasons, that thought graced
his mind despite the initial panic. A bit odd bearing in mind the
circumstance. But he only had to be alive to be a dad.
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When he was out of breath, he sat next to a kiosk owner who was at first
startled before composing himself to ask what was chasing him.
Benjamin slumped and crashed into one of the wooden benches set out for
customers and asked for the local snack of hot noodles and fried eggs. He
wanted a vantage position to look around before he decided on his next
move. With his eyes darting in every direction, he assessed his options. He
would have to change his shirt certainly and possibly disguise a bit. He
needed a new phone—he would need to take notes and records of
whatever he finds on his next move.
His next move?
He was going to be audacious. He would have to visit one of the villages

he had seen on the envelop which, by the way, was safely tucked in his
backpack. He started to quickly rummage through his bag for the large
brown envelop. He found it right at the bottom of the bag. He looked
through one of the sheets with the incandescent light from the kiosk stand.
He was going to a village called Bagaji!
CHAPTER ELEVEN
One on the Loose

It was dawn and Benjamin stood at the bus park with a handful of
passengers impatiently waiting for the first bus out of the bus park. He had
spent the night with the kiosk owner where he had late dinner the night
before along with his small community.
Thankfully, his fluency in Hausa, the major local language of the North,
was the pass that earned him a corner space just behind the kiosk to rest
his head. He barely slept; he had a lot going through his mind. Questions
whose answers he had no inkling.
That morning, he looked like what he had been through; his eyes were
bleary, his reactions slow, and tiredness was running through his veins like
his blood.
A couple of minutes later, a half-full bus trundled into the bus park and
stopped with a jerk as its engine let out a deep sigh as though reminding
itself of the heavy weight it was about to carry. The driver pulled open the
sliding door using both his arms and stood to take money. Crinkled notes
were offered randomly from the waiting passengers as there wasn’t a
queue. It looked like the preference was for the females first.
Benjamin’s attention shifted to the bus. The bus was a clanker. It was
anything but luxury. It was dirty and the seats were dulled by grime of
many years. The paint work was barely a hint of white under the thick red
dust of the region. The windscreen had only a section clear to see through.
The rest was baked on dirt. Ben made a note to look at the tires before he
paid—they were threadbare and bald.
“This clanker is older than the driver and they look just about the same.
His dusty hair and dirt filled fingernails tell only half the story,” Benjamin
thought. He shook his head as he handed his fare to the driver and then
Page | 75
climbed into the 14-seater bus. He was the last passenger going that route
and he took a cramped seat by the window right at the back of the bus.
Inside it was a curious mixture of bored and anxious faces. It was a two-
hour trip according to his electronic map and he was itching to get off the
bus already.
The journey started and soon they left behind the monotony of the smooth
highway for the bumps of the untarred roads as the bus rocked from side
to side.
Then, he thought through his plans. They were sketchy at best. He had to
get the village to mine as much information as he could to provide some
clarity into the clandestine activities of the agency.
Clearly, they weren’t a bunch of people to mess with. Everything about

them seemed sinister.
He picked up his low-end mobile phone. He had purchased it off one of

the mallams the night before who was gracious enough to sell it along
with the SIM card. There was no need to register a new SIM. He figured
that it would leave digital footprints that would make it easier to track and
locate him.
By now, he could imagine that ‘they’ had his old phone. He had to be
discreet.
He dialled Taiwo’s number—one of the few he had committed to memory

from constant use. It rang twice.
“Dude…where have you been? I have been trying to reach you since
yesterday. Are you okay?” His opener was laced with genuine worry.
“I am fine mate. Got a few issues to handle,” Ben assured, his voice
echoing through the bus, causing a stare from the few that were awake.
“I’ve got some bad news. Your apartment was gutted in fire yesterday and
it was completely razed down. It is so unbelievable. No one could tell
what actually happened, but I hear someone broke into it late last night.”
“What?” Now everyone in the bus was startled. “Oh My God!” That
moment, words left him. His mind went blank, and his eyes were wide as
he stared out of the window in horror. First, he felt a cold shiver down his
spine that was soon replaced with burning coals of anger.
“Everything is gone bro, everything! Everyone called your phone late last
night but couldn’t reach you. I will handle the police reports and all from
this end, but you need to come in person soon enough. Have you heard
from Linda?”
He dropped the call. He needed both his hands to hold his head, grabbing
his skull in a vice-like grip as though preventing it from expanding and
exploding. His fingers combing through his hair as though caging all the
rage that was building inside and yearning to come out faster than molten
magma erupting from a volcano.
He held his head firmly, gritting his teeth from effort to remain silent, his
hunched form exuding an animosity that was like acid—burning, slicing
and potent. He was livid with suppressed rage.
Now, he has got nothing to lose. All he worked for in the last decades
have been reduced to ashes and he was all he had. If this had anything to
do with this investigation, then he was going to get to the bottom of this
even if it cost him his life.
He turned to his phone and then, opened one of the search engines to
download a picture of Mr George. He would need this for his
investigation. He downloaded a couple of images and then, looked up the
map to situate his location on the journey. They were only a third of the
journey gone.
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He woke up to an animated ambience in the bus about an hour later. He
observed the other passengers keenly through hazy eyes. There were those
who chattered away, their voices rising and blending together in the sweet
ritual of friendship. Some were absorbed in music through the earphones
plugged into their ears, others drifted into worries that will erase
themselves on arrival when their bodies re-join the world of moving and
speaking to others.
It looked like they had arrived in Keffi town—his destination. From there,
he would need to board a motorcycle to the Bagaji village, his first port of
call. He was glad to come off the bus. He looked back at the bus as it
laboured away on its journey to the North. Its exhaust dangling loosely
and spluttering out thick black fumes as it revved through the crowded
junction.
“Did he just get off that object? It sure belonged to the museum,” he
wondered.
His body already felt beaten and worn, yet it was only 9 am.
***
Forty minutes later, the motorcycle meandered its way through the dusty
visage of a solid track that left a vortex of dust plumes into the previously
stagnant air as it sped through. The air had a musty smell which had one of
Benjamin’s hands over his nose and mouth throughout the journey.
The track followed the curves of the earth, sometimes up on a crest and at
other times, through foot beaten paths competing with the locals, trudging
the dusty plains on their feet.
It was also welcoming to the softest of soles when he alighted the

motorcycle and paid the fare. The dust laid so thick, it seemed to wrap
around his feet. It was a depressing dirty brown. To think that it was
ninety percent dead skin cells was just revolting.
The heat was almost unimaginable. It was so devastating that Benjamin

initially thought he was going to shrivel up on the spot. He hadn’t realized
that the winds, as he rode on the motorcycle, had given him a false
impression of the intensity of the heat.
He walked briskly to the nearest shade—a leave-bare tree that was an

undisputed evidence of the dying foliage. He felt parched and longed for
water. He was certainly unprepared for the sort of weather in Bagaji. He
had no hat to protect his head, no sunglasses to salvage his eyes, and not a
drop of water to keep him hydrated.
He quickly scanned the village. A hug of small mud huts was dotted
sparsely with trees serving as meeting points for traders or the elderly. The
trees that offered a bigger shade had more people underneath them.
A handful of children loitered the place. A few young ladies scurried past
with some wearing just a headscarf to cover their head and hair while
others wore a burka to cover up their faces. None dared to look directly at
him.
There was something eerie about the village. The quiet was deafening and
it felt unwelcoming even to the humblest of visitors.
He beckoned to one of the playing kids. He couldn’t tell his age, but he
guessed he was smart enough to communicate in Hausa or English. The
boy joined him under the tree.
“How are you, boy?” he managed to ask in English.
“Good morning, Sir,” the boy replied in fairly good diction coated with
northern accent.
Okay, Benjamin thought. This shouldn’t be so difficult.
“Please take me to the village head.”

Page | 79
***
The village head was as old as Benjamin had expected. His eyes were so
heavily lidded and weighed down with wrinkled folds that it was almost
like talking to someone asleep, yet he was quite alert and calm.
His forehead told of worries past and worries present. He didn’t look very
impressed after Benjamin was done introducing himself and telling him of
his mission. But when he spoke, his English was unbelievably flawless.
No doubt he had the look of a life well-lived.
“You are welcome, my son. We have had a lot of visitors in the past and
we welcomed them openly, but we have paid dearly for our foolishness.”
Only his bearded mouth moved. Not one muscle moved while he spoke.
“We have come to look at visitors with scorn ever since our children
started to fall sick and die. We thought they came to help us, but we
realized late that they came instead to steal our joy. Three years they lived
amongst us caring for our needs, providing water, food and medicine. We
were blinded by our needs. We thought God had come to rescue us from
the sufferings of many years.”
He paused as though to take in some air. But instead, his moustache was
the visual cue of the pain he was masking as he spoke those words.
Then, he stopped talking. Silence enveloped the still air, competing with
the oxygen for attention. That moment Benjamin fetched his mobile
handset and offered the image of Mr George to the elderly man.
The Village head looked at the phone screen, squinting his eyes as
recognition dawned on him.
“I have seen this man. Four years ago…”

CHAPTER TWELVE
Death’s Porch
Benjamin’s heart skipped a beat the moment he heard those words.
I have seen this man. Four years ago.
Fearful thoughts looped around his mind so quickly until there was no
room for anything else. While he indeed was on the lookout for any
credible information about the whereabouts of Mr George, nothing could
prepare him for his own reaction when he got some.
He could barely hide his apprehension and the Village head easily
discerned his body language right across the room.
“He came here asking about Mahmud Jaguda—one of our most successful
exploits from the village. You know Mahmud don’t you?” Below his
unmoving eyes was a grin that spread through his face. Pride lingered at
the corner of his mouth as he turned to face the wall across the room.
Benjamin followed the old man’s arm as he pointed to a framed image on

the wall conspicuous enough for everyone to see. He also did not fail to
notice how the old man’s arm looked as though the bones had grown
faster than the flesh could keep up.
Benjamin recognized Mahmud without moving closer to the portrait.

Mahmud was a once celebrated and award-winning actor who was graced
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after he was enmeshed in the murder of his love interest and partner.
During his best years, he was often slammed by the critics and loved by
the punters, yet he never failed to dazzle on the movie set. He was the
darling of the film industry—Nollywood, renowned the world over for
churning out a new movie every twelve hours.
Even amidst the chaos and the melting horizon of his career in the wake of
the murder and subsequent public trials, he showed no remorse and was
unapologetic. He had a chip on his shoulder, the weight of which crashed
his famed career into a bottomless abyss where stars never recover from.
After the murder was uncovered, several other ladies he had dated in the
past came forward with scathing horror stories and evidence of physical
abuse which underscored his history of violence against women.
He was first judged in the court of public opinions, then social media,
before the law courts found him guilty and sentenced him to spend the rest
of his life within the cold walls of the federal prison in Ilesha.
Sad end! But to this hunched old man, there was no question or doubt that
Mahmud would always be their hero. Despite his attempt to dissociate
himself from his very humble beginning in the rustic village of Bagaji, his
picture hung on the wall proudly in the village head’s hut welcoming
every visitor to the modest abode.
Mr George was investigating Mahmud’s background and had made a trip

to Bagaji to investigate and interview his parents and friends so he could
get an idea of how he grew up during his childhood years. Mr George
would go that far to scoop information.
Benjamin was lost briefly in the moment as sweat trickled down his face.
The air was suddenly thick with silence as waves of sweltering heat from
the mid-day sun descended on the hut. He looked around the room for
windows or anything to help with the heat. It was completely empty
except for some benches and a wooden door to the corner.
Just that moment he heard the small gagging noises he had heard before
when he first got to the hut. But this time, a little louder and with it the
sour scent of puke adding to the already discomfiting smell that lingered in
the hut. It was more like a muffled cry of children, the kind that comes
from those drained of all hope.
Somehow, the noises filled the room and Benjamin could no longer think.
It felt like scrambled logic mis-wiring all the synapses in his brain. He had
to find out what the noise was about.
“The noise?” The old man asked quizzically. “Let me show you.”
The next few minutes would either pass as a blip in the course of his life,
or they would be the final trauma that broke him. Sweat trickled down
Benjamin’s face as waves of grief and despair, the kind that can take one’s
mind prisoner and never give it back, flushed through his whole being.
As the wooden door swung open, his sight beheld children of all ages with
various forms of deformity, crying, sobbing, whimpering and muttering
gibberish, looking helpless and lost. Some had enlarged and bald heads,
others had limbs in awkward postures with mouth agape and spittle
drooling uncontrollably.
Some children had distended lower abdomen and gorged eyes popping out
of their skulls. It felt so unreal, yet the uncoordinated movement of the
children lying face down on threadbare mattresses on the earthen floor
was a jolt back into reality.
The unmistakable stench of urine, puke and sweat assaulted his nostrils
and his hands were starting to shake badly the longer he stood in that
room.
He had seen enough. The old man’s wrinkled hands guided Benjamin out
of the room just before he uncontrollably retched the contents of his
stomach onto the floor. He suddenly felt sick and weak. He was heaved
Page | 83
onto the nearby bench outside the hut and supported with his back to the
wall.
***
“The man on your phone didn’t faint when he saw the children in that
room. He was angry. Very angry. He took pictures and left in a hurry,” the
old man started to say when Benjamin had filled his lungs with clean air.
“He visited the abandoned camp before he left. We didn’t see him again. I
remember him because he was the only journalist who visited the village
to enquire about my son Mahmud during the crisis that ended his career.”
The old man later explained to him that over 80 children in the community
had died over the last six years after a well-coordinated mass vaccination
exercise was conducted in the community by a foreign health agency in
conjunction with the local health care providers.
The agency had set up a camp in the community and lived amongst them
for over six months combing all the neighbouring villages for children not
older than three years and administering vaccines in measured doses with
follow up booster doses weeks later.
However, weeks after the children received the vaccines, a strange illness
ravaged the communities and they started to die in droves. It started first
as a shivering fever before the children started to say delirious gabble and
then, the fainting spells and seizures. It was a health crisis they had never
witnessed. It happened so fast and all efforts to provide adequate medical
care ended in futility. The children started to die.
The mortality rate of the girl child was predominantly double that of their
male counterparts. The toddlers who survived the debilitating illness were
deformed badly and never remained the same again.
At first, the agencies started to care for the kids by administering drugs
and other palliatives, but soon it got out of control and the natives started
to revolt. They left in a hurry abandoning their camp and never returned.
It’s been some years gone now since they left.
The sight was so sad and heart wrenching.
When Benjamin managed to stand on his feet, he asked, “Can I see the
abandoned camp?”
As they walked the distance to the camp, Benjamin was beginning to fit
the pieces of the puzzles together. The papers in the envelope Pete handed
over to him at the airport now made complete sense as clarity on the
document dawned on him.
The document in his custody had a list of names; they must be that of the
children who received the vaccines along with their ages and addresses. It
also had a list of all the villages where the trials were ongoing at the time.
If Mr George knew about this travesty, then he must have started some
sort of investigation on his own, no doubt. But he never mentioned
anything about mass vaccination to him before his death. Has this got
anything to do with his death? Perhaps.
The camp was a group of six tents; three on either side that blended with
the brown dusty soil in the arid village. Its hue of casual green-grey was
lost to several thick layers of dust and mud from the seasonal weather
cycle. It was built with fine mesh that allowed for stargazing at night and
was still pegged into the soil firmly awaiting the return of its occupant
who may never arrive.
He walked closer and approached the entrance into one of the tents. He
peered in, coyly scanning the tent in 360 degrees. It was some sort of
military tent. The decaying remains of a paper calendar dyed by the dust
still hung loosely flapping as he opened the tent. So did the remains of
papers cluttered in a dump at one corner of the tent. A couple of foldable
Page | 85
steel chairs and tables that once served doctors and nurses laid broken,
upturned and in disarray in evidence of their hurried exit from the camp.
There was a cabinet sitting pretty in regal presence as the biggest furniture
in the tent. The drawers were open and empty. Three lizards scampered
the floor of the tent as the unwelcome visitor kicked at the beddings on the
bare floor.
He started to recreate the scenes in his head: the children lined up right
outside each tent and a pair of a nurse and doctor taking their vitals and
recording same before each child got a pinch of the syringe in their
forearm. He wondered where the vials were stored. He dismissed the
thought quickly as he figured they would have come in the storage boxes
with dividers and ice to keep the vials and its content at ultra-low
temperature.
This is a criminal activity and it appears to have been swept under the
carpet, Benjamin thought.
“They left in a hurry and we opted to keep the camp the way it was before
they left.” The old man punctuated his thoughts with his words. “They
promised to come back. It’s been three years now.”
“Have you any idea which of the villages they set up a camp in?”
Benjamin asked desperately, hoping for a lifeline.
“They are currently at the fisherman village in Burukutu. My brother just

got back from that village yesterday. It’s two hours away.”
Benjamin scanned the document in the envelop in his care to see if

Burukutu was on the list. That moment, Benjamin knew where his next
stop would be.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
You Can’t Kill a Dead Man
By the time Benjamin got to the bus park in Keffi, he was starting to feel
the physical burden of the journey. The exerting run away from the motel
the night before, the bus trip at dawn to Keffi, the exhausting ride through
the dusty plains to Bagaji and now his onward trip to the unknown village.
Although he started the day with a strong heart, he soon realized that the
journey was not about a destination, nor arrival point or finish line…for
there was no such thing. He had no idea what laid ahead of him, but he
was determined not to faint. It just wasn’t the time.
Twilight was starting to fade into discomforting blackness of the night

with the disappearing daylights. His legs were starting to wobble. He
knew he had to get into a bus fast despite the fatigue. He needed a catnap.
He was in luck. He found a bus after walking half the park. It was the last
bus heading that direction. When he stepped into it, it was unbelievably
packed to the rafters. He scanned quickly for an empty seat and he
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resigned to standing, although he had no clue how he would stand for two
hours on his wonky legs.
He knew he didn’t have a choice; he had to keep moving until he found the
answers he sought.
He quickly noticed the handles hanging down the roof of the bus, made,
perhaps for the probable event of crowding. He got hold of one of the
handles just as the bus jerked into life as soon as the doors closed with a
gasp of air.
He bought a loaf of bread at the bus park right before he hopped on the
bus, being famished and needing a refill. He munched with reckless
abandon and in quick successions several morsels of bread—all etiquettes
ditched, as he struggled to find balance on his feet with one arm paying
the price as the bus swayed.
He wondered how many kilograms he had lost already. His pair of jeans
was starting to sag at the waist. He heaved a sigh and looked ahead.
***
Two hours later, the bus engine purred violently and then rattled to a stop
on a dirt road off the highway. He was grateful that the journey had come
to an end. He had endured the most obtrusive smell of sweat coming from
the underarms of a pot-bellied man who, like him, held a high handle
throughout the journey. But then, no one made any attempt to get off the
bus.
The bus had broken down in the middle of nowhere!
By now it was pitch dark. When he turned on his phone to geolocate the
position of the bus on the map, a low battery alert peered at him—almost
mockingly. They were only a few meters away from the Burukutu village.
He could see bright lights ahead. His heart skipped half a beat.
He carried his beaten body off the bus and continued his journey on foot.
He was the only one who got off the bus. After all, they all had different
missions, he thought. He didn’t even bother listening to the entreaties of
the driver who half-heartedly hoped he wouldn’t ask for a refund as he
fought off hot steam from the engine outside the bus.
He had sent a short message to his best friend, Taiwo, the moment he got
on the bus. It read thus:
“I am headed to a village called Burukutu. If you don’t hear from me by 9

am tomorrow, please get Uncle Pat involved. It’s life and death. I beg of
you. Benj.”
Patrick Nwoke was one of the long-standing Deputy Commissioners of

Police in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja. He was Taiwo’s uncle
whom he held in high esteem as they grew up sharing a room in his
parents’ house. Taiwo had turned down several opportunities to join the
police force because he abhorred violence and any semblance of it. Patrick
had gone on to make a name for himself and had a blistering career
successfully fighting crime in the nation’s capital.
Benjamin never met him but relied on several stories Taiwo shared about
Patrick while they both got drunk on his couch in his apartment in Lagos.
He was desperate and hoped that Taiwo had the whole night to read his
SMS and to make sense of it.
The evening had a hint of frost and the cold air made Benjamin’s lungs
feel chilled just to breathe it in. The temperature in this region alternated
between the extremes; running through the mercury thermometer faster
than a burning cigarette. The slope downhill towards the village made his
strides quicker and lazier. He trudged on as the lights from afar became
slowly brighter on his approach.
A few minutes later, he was soon joined in the walk by four young men,
possibly returning to the village from a nearby farmland. They had the
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steel blades of their hoes and cutlasses glimmering in the faint light from
the village.
As he approached the access road into the village, he noticed two soldiers
standing sentinel with their guns—the soulless clunks of metals, hanging
loosely by their shoulders as they casually paced the road.
His heart skipped a beat again!
The minute they were a few metres away from the soldiers, Benjamin
started an animated conversation with the farmers. They were at first
stupefied. But Benjamin went on to explain some gibberish in Hausa
pretending at the same time to show the farmers something from his
backpack. They looked befuddled but ambled on till they had all walked
past the soldiers who appeared to care less about a bunch of sweaty
farmers. They had seen the approach of a city bus and were more
interested in its passengers.
When Benjamin looked up from his backpack, he casually asked the

farmers where he could buy some ‘burukutu’—a local drink that the
village was named after. They hesitated for a moment, still trying feebly to
make sense of the drama that just played out with this stranger before
pointing him further downhill.
***
Burukutu was an old Hausa town nestled amongst an appealing range of

rolling hills and bounded to the south by the majestic River Biam, a major
tributary into River Benue teeming with fish and an immensely rich
farmland to its East.
River Biam was a fast flowing and turbid water body from where
hundreds of fishermen enjoyed the fortunate bounties of all kinds of
fishes, making Burukutu the hub for commercial fishes.
Most active fishing took place during the dry season (January to April)
while during the wet season months (May to September), fishermen
engaged in farming and did fishing part-time.
Burukutu was also famed for its excellent leather work, making the small
river town stand out like a paradise of opportunities in the dry arid north.
As Benjamin made his way through the dirt road—that appeared to be

only recently graded, fireflies danced in the night as if choreographed by
every joyous memory around, flickering makeshift streetlights that lined
the dirt road.
Up above, the sky was black tranquillity married to a poetry of stars and
down below, it laid a happy hug of houses that had expanded over the
years as the town grew in influence. The houses looked identical in shape
and size but no two were the same shade of colour. They were brown,
yellow, lilac, blue, red, orange and every shade in between, each house
with the insignia of the paint company that donated the colours.
Lungs of fresh air and the sounds of nature, all set in as much space as any
heart could ever ask for, was quickly getting replaced by development that
appeared to be happening rapidly in the village. He could easily perceive
the smells of fish guts festering in the cold of the night, and the gulls cry
overhead, coming for whatever they could get.
He looked towards the direction of the bright lights he had seen on his way
into the town; it had to be the new vaccination camp set up by the health
agencies.
“The frauds,” he muttered.
The camp stood out like Eldorado in the midst of the rustic plains of
Burukutu. He would have to follow the light when he was ready. But he
desperately needed to rest. His legs felt like they were not under his
control. They ached from his thighs to his feet.
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As he walked on, he imagined that the dirt road would terminate at the
riverbed. The road slope was getting steeper and the changing flora, as he
walked on, provided a fresh smell of cool untainted air from the water.
A middle-aged man who appeared to be dressed like a cleric approached

Benjamin with an inquisitive but helpful stance. Clearly, it was not
unusual to see strangers wandering far down the road.
“Salam Alaykum, do you need some help, son?” The calmness of his
voice was disarming.
Benjamin stopped and rummaged again through his pockets for his mobile
phone. The lights flickered and he showed the cleric the old picture of Mr
George he had downloaded.
The cleric looked closely at the phone, arching his neck as his eyes
blinked rapidly. His gaze was fixed on the phone screen until the low
battery beep came off and it went blank.
Panic stricken, Benjamin looked the phone over before asking, “Do you
know where I can find this man?” his voice coarse and his breath
laboured.
“Follow me,” the cleric said and started the walk uphill with no further
word exchanged between them.
When they approached a house ten minutes away from where the cleric
had initially stopped him, the cleric asked him to wait outside while he
walked into the house.
Benjamin didn’t know what to think. He looked the house over. It looked
more modern than a lot of the houses and huts in the village. The external
walls of the house were painted green and it looked like some high chief’s
country abode with small gardens and flowerpots.
He started to rehearse his opening line to tell whoever the chief was when
the cleric appeared with a younger man from the house.
“Good evening, who do you ask for?” the young man asked as he
approached Benjamin.
Benjamin looked helplessly at his phone whose battery was now dead and
then up at the young man.
“Mr George Nduka,” he replied.
“No such person here.” That was it. And the young man turned to walk
back into the house.
The cleric pulled the young man by the arm and an exchange of words in a
strange language ensued for a few minutes. The young man appeared to
resign and then, gave in to the voice of reason afterwards. He beckoned to
Benjamin, “Follow me and please remove your shoes.”
Benjamin mouthed a quick ‘thank you’ to the elderly cleric and then
hurriedly knocked off his shoes but clutched onto his backpack as he
followed the young cleric through the front door.
The cold concrete on his feet was soothing for a moment. Ahead of him,
the young man was no more than a silhouette as the house was in pitch
darkness. He could discern only his fluid black out-line from which to
guess which way he went. His tired eyes struggled in the dark and then he
heard the squeaking sound of an opening door into what seemed to be a
room. And then the young man stood aside beckoning with his head that
he should go in.
Benjamin hesitated. He wasn’t sure what to see behind that door. If he

lingered any longer, his heart would be bursting out of his chest. He was a
bag of emotions that he couldn’t define as he took gentle steps past the
door into the poorly lit room.
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In that poorly lit room, there were shapes in monochrome, but now the
silhouettes were already more discernible than they were only a short time
ago when he entered the house.
Tucked away at a secluded table by the corner of the room, one man sat
alone on a wheelchair. He might have been handsome once upon a time,
but his otherwise delicate features were ruined by an odd-looking nose
that had clearly been broken and reset several times in the past, and a
heavily bearded face that barely concealed a good part of jagged scars
across his chin and lips. He was dressed in a cleric’s attire just like the
middle aged one that had brought him to the house.
“Welcome Benjamin. I have waited so long for this moment.”
If the face was far from the George Nduka, he had always known, the
voice was exactly the same he had heard for many years.
It was a tad too much for Benjamin’s tired body. He slumped onto the
concrete floor with a thud as he blacked out again!
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The Missing Piece
The dawn sent shimmering rays of light through the only window in the
room, but it was the dawn declared by the cockerel’s calling that woke
Benjamin up. And with it came the freshness of his muscles and body. He
woke up as though it was an emergency. Waking up was no longer the
pleasure it was as his memory needed a moment to shed sleep from his
brain. He had no clue how he got into the bed, let alone in a clean room.
With his sight still in the clutches of the night’s glue, Benjamin hesitantly
rubbed the dreams away from his eyes as he sat upright on the bed. The
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smell of warm clean sheets welcomed him as he took in the ambience of
the room. It had a bedside drawer on top of which sat a digital alarm
clock. It was 7.35 am! Other than that, the walls had no story to tell. It
carried no artwork nor pictures nor calendar. The concrete floor was clean
and devoid of dirt. The room had no electric fan or any modern gadget
except that alarm clock.
The last he remembered was seeing a Ghost! Or was it real?
Promptly, he got out of bed and walked briskly to the only door in the
room. He turned the handle gently and it opened silently. He was
barefooted as he walked across what seemed to be the living room towards
the entrance door into the house. The same one he had used the night
before.
There he found Mr George, smack in his wheelchair in an animated

discussion with an elderly couple, trading banters over a cup of what
looked like a local tea of some sort.
Mr George adjusted his spectacles gingerly over his badly deformed nose
while exuding a majestic and yet, calm poise. To Benjamin’s horror, his
limbs were conspicuously missing and what was left of the stump was
wrapped in a fresh bandage delicately pinned in place.
The petrified look on Benjamin’s face bore the semblance of someone

denying the reality for a moment. Nevertheless, he quickly embraced his
former boss in a swift hunching move, not minding his hot cup of tea on
one frail hand.
It was an emotional reconnection. In that instant, he felt alive again! The

whole trouble was suddenly worth it. He would have hated himself if he
had simply ignored the obvious all the while.
But now, he had tons of questions that needed answers. Too many
questions he didn’t know where to start from.
The young man he had met late the night before offered him a bench to sit
on. But his gaze never left his former boss as though he expected him to
disappear without a trace. Again!
He was quickly introduced to the elderly couple—Amina and Abdul,

while their son, Abu, was his chaperone. His response was genial and
polite, but he would rather just catch up with Mr George.
There were four years’ worth of his experience to share.
He handed over his mobile phone to Abu, asking him politely to connect it
to electricity. He needed it charged so he could communicate with Taiwo
as soon as he had the necessary information.
When Mr George started his story, his deep voice was devoid of emotions
and pain. He told it as though it was some folktale story passed on to the
younger generation.
“It was a difficult experience, Benjamin. My life as you know it indeed

ended four years ago and I belong here now. This is all I have, and I owe
my life to this family that nursed me to good health. I have lived in the
shadows for a long time here in this village and for as long as I remain
here, physically impaired, I may not fight the battle to rid our country of
these opportunists carrying out unapproved vaccination and trials on
innocent children in rural communities.” He paused and looked at the
stump of his limbs, as though reminding himself that he could never use
them again.
“I travelled to Bagaji village on the outskirts of Keffi in my SUV to

investigate and add flesh to my story on the rogue Nollywood star—
Mahmud. I was interested in the story because people don’t just get
violent in relationships suddenly. It is often deep rooted in their
upbringing and childhood. They could easily just be victims of domestic
violence themselves while watching their parents or guardians batter each
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other. I was convinced that having a strong background to that story will
shed another perspective on the murder case.”
He took a sip from his now warm tea.
“And so, I arrived at the village to meet chaos. Wailing mothers, teary-
eyed elders and angry young men brandishing all sorts of weapons. I was
almost attacked, not until I showed them my identification card. I was
merely a journalist coming to investigate one of their own. But the scene
was pitiful. Children laid dead on the dirt road naked and contorted in
awkward positions. They looked deformed with disproportionate heads
and limbs. It was clear that this was an experiment gone wrong. Children
don’t just grow over-sized heads with gouged eyeballs! I counted 26 of
them that morning. I was mortified with anger.”
“I asked for the local leader of the village. That was when I met with
Imam Bala—the village head. He is Mahmud’s father.”
“I met him too,” Benjamin found his voice.
“Bala was conducting the final burial rites for the children in unmarked
graves when I met him. Apparently, the young men in the village had
violently chased away the health vaccinators from their camp. They asked
them to leave and never return. Their exit was unplanned and so they had
little time to take away their tents and other equipment which would
become evidence of their intrusion into the community years after. The
community wanted it so. I visited the camp site, got a note of all the kids
that had received doses of the vaccination. 130 children were unfortunate
beneficiaries of this untested and inhuman doses of god-knows-what.”
“Do you still have the list, Boss?” Benjamin interjected quickly.
“Yes, I do.”
George took a mouthful of the tea and passed the cup to Abu for a refill.
But Benjamin’s eyes never left his former boss.
“I learnt that they moved to the adjoining villages too. And so, I stopped
over at three villages in close proximity when I left Bagaji. I found another
medical team at Dwagi Village. I was determined to find some sort of
information on the trials and if the Federal Ministry of Health had
endorsed such despicable medical experiments on its own people. I met
with the Chief Medical Examiner at the fourth village I visited. He is
German…erhh…I can’t recollect his name right now.” He went silent for
a moment as he tried to pull out a name from his checkered memory.
“Can’t remember now. He barely offered any helpful information.
Especially when I brandished my Identification card. He kept on speaking
German. I knew he was playing me for a fool and that instant, I suspected
that there was more to these trials than I had initially imagined. One local
member of the medical team referred me to the state commissioner for
health.”
He paused as Abu returned with a fresh brew of the local tea.
“Thank you,” he muttered as he received the cup and took a slobbering

sip. George’s wrinkled face crumpled as he rubbed it with his spotted
hand. The scars of his ordeal were in every cell of his body.
“And so, I returned to the Keffi town in good time before the close of
business for the day. I met with the health commissioner on his way out of
the office premises. He apparently recognized me instantly and gave me a
warm welcome. I was relieved to at least find someone to share the
horrific scenes I had witnessed with. He was empathetic but not alarmed.
And surprisingly, he denied knowing about any such trials. It felt like I
was drawing a blank everywhere I turned. No one seemed to know what
was going on, or they simply feigned ignorance.”
George adjusted himself on his wheelchair. It looked wobbly but stable

from Benjamin’s position.
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“By now I was convinced that whatever they were doing was illegal and
unapproved. When I left the commissioner’s office, I put a phone call to
my contacts at the Federal Ministry of Health to lodge a complaint. I was
put on hold for a few minutes and then the contact advised that someone
would get in touch with me. He asked for my exact location and promised
to revert. By now I was getting a bit worried. It was getting quite late, and
I planned to return to Abuja that night. But true to my contact’s word, a
certain Mr Anderson called me, when I…”
“He called me too, Boss. He called me…” Benjamin sounded like an

excited kindergarten that moment. He embarrassingly kept quiet when he
saw Mr George’s expression.
George Nduka continued. “He introduced himself as the medical lead for
the trials and that all the information about it was genuine and that he
could share if I wanted some. Of course, I needed proof. So, we decided to
meet at a local diner in the city by 6 pm that evening. He arrived at the
diner before I did, an impeccably dressed middle aged man and clearly
well-learned. He is Ghanaian too, strangely so, who worked for a global
pharmaceutical company trying a new vaccine for polio.”
He took another sip from his tea. This time, he took even more time to
catch his breath. All four of his audience waited patiently.
“We had a fierce argument somewhere during the meeting. He admitted

that the trials were not approved by the health ministry but denied that the
vaccines caused the death of 80 or so children in the Bagaji village. I
warned him about continuing the trials and advised him to shut them
down. He was defiant and claimed that their approval was in progress
anyway and that there was nothing illegal in the whole operation. I left
him at the diner in utter disgust.”
Benjamin was still listening with keen interest. The others, although
familiar with the story, listened too, like it was fresh to their ears.
“Since it was now clear to me what they were up to, I started my journey
back to Abuja. I planned to take it up with the Ministry of Health the next
morning. The Mahmud murder story would have to wait. And then the
rain started midway into the trip. Out of nowhere, a car rammed into my
SUV from behind. It was so sudden I couldn’t figure what happened at the
time. The car started hydroplaning dangerously till I hit a bad pothole.
When I stepped on the brakes, it suddenly went out flat and unresponsive.
I was practically helpless. I watched that blue sedan that hit me drive
away. Two other cars hit me one after the other recklessly till my car
turned over. I had a good chance of surviving the wreckage when
everything stopped. But my car went over the edge of the cliff and
plunged headfirst into the rocky terrain below. My legs were crushed
violently and I was thrown off the car as it bounced ominously along the
cliff.”
A pause here. A sniff there.
“Of course, I was unconscious at the time. I was lucky to be rescued by

fishermen from this village who had gone farther away from the shore to
find more fishes. They had seen the car fall off the cliff and watched in
horror as my lifeless body was tossed into the river. They heaved my
bloodied body into their boat and carried me off to Imam Abdul who was
kind enough to attend to me.”
There was a welcomed silence. Unease filled the vacuum created.
“I was in a coma for weeks. When I regained consciousness, I had lost

both my legs, had two badly damaged vertebrae removed from my back
and a partially blind eye. I was confined to the bed for months. It was a
long tortuous journey before I regained the use of my arm, let alone to
write. I could barely feed myself. My limbs were severed to save my life.”
He took a sip of his tea whilst his audience looked on still.
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“I was only able to regain my motor skills almost three years after the
accident. A local traditional practitioner visited every day of those three
years and Amina and her husband provided all the support I needed
including purchasing this second-hand wheelchair a few months ago. And
so I started to take evening walks with Abu. He was my companion and
confidant.”
Abu smiled when he realized George had mentioned his name and then
turned his face away.
“I started teaching at the local primary school. I needed to make sense of

what was left of my life. I made good friends with a lot of the fishermen
too. They often brought me a lot of fresh fish in the evenings. One month
ago, during my evening walk, I stumbled on the medical camp of the same
pharmaceutical company right here in Burukutu.”
This time, Abu helped George to get his mug so he could take a sip.
“They had recently set up camp and I knew right there that I was not going
to let the same thing I witnessed in Bagaji happen this time, now that I had
a second chance at life. I was livid, but I no longer had the physical
strength to pursue my desire. Then, I thought to get a message through to
you and Pete somehow.”
“Pete is dead boss,” Benjamin chipped in quickly.
“Yes, I am aware.”
“Huh?”
“Oh well, I asked Abu to sneak into the camp and pick up any official
papers he could find in any of the tents. Abu had helped run errands
around the community for the officials on a number of occasions when
they first arrived, so it was easy for them to be unsuspecting of his faux
wandering about the camp. After three attempts, we found a couple of
papers. I scribbled my signature and initials on each document with the
hope that if you see the encrypted message, it will lead you somehow to
any of the towns where the trials were actively going on. I wasn’t hoping
that you would find me at the time. I pleaded with one of the fishermen—
Joe to deliver the envelop with the documents to you. But he returned after
a week saying that you had relocated from the address I gave to him in
Abuja. Joe later returned to find Pete.”
“Did you make a phone call to me or send an SMS?” Benjamin couldn’t

wait to ask the burning question all morning.
“I sent an SMS using my old SIM card which was surprisingly functioning
the first time I tried it. I had switched the SIM card into Amina’s phone.
But the SIM card was apparently blocked afterwards, and it was of no
use.”
“Right,” Benjamin heaved.
“After I waited a week and no response from Pete, I again pleaded with
Joe to visit Pete’s address to find out if there was any update. But he came
back with news of his demise. I instantly knew that they had gotten to him.
Now, I was leaving trails of death with whomever I contacted. I feared for
your life especially if the document got into the wrong hands because I
addressed it to you.”
At this point Benjamin narrated an abridged version of his story.
The whole story left him enraged. “The atrocities committed against the
people of the region had to stop,” he affirmed.
“Do you have any more documents I can scan and send to the media?”
Benjamin asked with a determined look.
“Yes, Benjamin, I have got lots of it. Abu’s trips to steal documents at the
camp was always a success.”
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“Can I have my phone now? It’s time to put an end to this.”
It was already 10.30 am by the time they were done.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The Undead
Deafening blast from the police siren rented the air as plumes of spiralling
dust darkened the mid-morning sun amid the lukewarm and quiet
demeanour of the Burukutu village. The Gestapo-styled entry of the police
tactic team was heralded by multiple gunshots. Twelve police cars
screeched down the bumpy road into the village, black tires squealing on
the dusty brown dirt surface as they skid to a halt in different directions
with fully armed police officers jumping off the vehicles and racing into
the direction of the camp.
Villagers scrambled for their lives, abandoning their wares, baskets,

fishing hooks and shoes in return for their safety. No one was in doubt
about what was to happen. Up in the bright blue sky, a chopper hovered
ominously over the village with fully armed police snipers well
positioned. Right on the dusty streets of Burukutu below, the police
cruisers, vans and motorcycles parked around the camp with the red and
blue siren lights flashing brightly in the gathering gloom. The day of
reckoning had arrived!
Benjamin’s eyes lit up in excitement.
Taiwo pulled it off. Uncle Patrick heeded the call. Even though it was two
hours late!
Panic stricken medical personnel at the campsite scurried into the inner
confines of the tents while others headed for the farmland adjoining the
camp in a crazy sprint. In all directions they went—Blacks, Germans,
British, Ghanaians and the locals. Some knocking the slower ones over
while others scattering like ricocheting bullets. Confusion set in so fast
and shockingly so.
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But the police team had the entire site covered. As they ran into the yam
ridges in the farms, the police crack team fired warning shots ordering the
runaways to lay face down on the ground. They obliged without
hesitation.
It was going to be a record crime bust. Thirty-six medical personnel were

arrested that morning. Their faces portrayed fearful apprehension and
sadness. They had a good run while it lasted, but as everything in the
world, nothing lasts forever. And in their trail, they left hundreds of
toddlers dead or maimed for life with untested experiments and uncertified
vaccination.
As tons of incriminating evidence were heaved into waiting police vans

and trucks, more medical personnel were rounded up from other hideouts
around the camp and returned to join the others as they laid face flat on the
dusty ground.
A good many of the villagers stood at a safe distance behind the police
lines, watching in awe. Many of them will never again see the blue and red
siren lights of the police cruiser again and many would never see as many
armed police tactic teams in their village as they had witnessed that
morning. They spoke in hushed tones as they listened to the police lead
question the medical chief. For the villagers, this was the closest they ever
got to the campsite. It was always guarded by two fully armed and
dangerously-looking private military personnel.
But they didn’t look so dangerous in handcuffs cladded only in their boxer
shorts and singlets.
“Their lips appear swollen,” an elderly villager wondered. “They must

have been reminded that they are just as human as the rest of us.” There
was a chuckle here and there before derisive laughter echoed through the
crowd.
***
The newspaper headlines the following morning were awash with pictures
of the camps, the arrested personnel from one of the world’s biggest
research-based pharmaceutical companies, and gory images of deformed
children who had received both oral and intravenous doses of the trial
vaccine.
One newspaper headline screamed, “Corruption of the highest order!”

suggesting that top government officials in the Ministry of Health were
complicit in the preliminary investigations.
Another headline read thus, “180 children dead or maimed in failed

clinical trials.” Exaggeration is a part of journalism. None of the media
outfits were immune to it.
The investigations led directly to evidence of corruption against key

government officials, and they were promptly arrested in a nationwide
bust to rid the health ministry of the evil elements.
In the coming days, five more camps were discovered in other remote
parts of the North. But by the time the police crack team arrived, most of
the medical personnel had absconded.
The social media lapped up every image from the bust. Pictures of the
arrested medical team lead and the infamous Mr Anderson littered the
online space. He was arrested in an outbound aircraft at the Murtala
Muhammed International Airport in Lagos. It must have been painful to
get arrested when he was within a few minutes of taking off. For many
days, there was always something new to share or to update about the raid
and subsequent arrests.
***
Two days after the bust, Benjamin was seated at the boarding wing of the
Nnamdi Azikwe International Airport, Abuja for his flight out. He had
spent five days in all solving the mystery of the ‘undead’.
Page | 107
He had found peace. His mind was finally at rest. He was no longer the
prisoner of his own mind. Fate had led him to Mr George, and he had
uncovered one of the most talked about crimes in recent history. He was
the whistle-blower whose reward was the satisfaction enjoyed in stopping
the experimental and clinical trials in Burukutu village.
His mind replayed the events prior to the raid.
When his fully charged phone was handed over to him by Abu, he scanned
several images of secret documents that Abu had been able to steal from
the camp to his phone. He then shared an email, outlining the ongoing
atrocities in Burukutu and Bagaji to a good many media houses in Abuja
and to Taiwo his friend for onward delivery to the police chief and his
uncle—Patrick.
The tons of evidence were overwhelming and within a few hours, the
camp was as empty as a graveyard.
He had spoken to Linda. The conversation was a difficult one. Taiwo had
done a good job narrating the travails that Benjamin had gone through
since he first received the phone call a week earlier. After Benjamin’s
house was razed by fire, the import of Taiwo’s side of the story finally
dawned on Linda.
After all, she was with his child, and she was determined to keep it.
However, she never got to find out the other part: him earlier feeling bored
with their relationship.
Benjamin was going to be given cover at a private lodge protected by the

police as soon as he arrived in Lagos, until everything was over. Deep
down though, he wished to start a life with Linda right away and put
behind him the current happenings. He had played his part, and
excellently, already. It was time to focus on his life and that of his unborn
child. Somehow, the news of the baby had brought back strong feelings
for its mother. It was like he now loved Linda afresh.
Just then, the shrill static from the airport public address system jolted him
back to the boarding hall. It was time for his flight out of Abuja.
He had an unfinished story to complete. He would write about Adaora and

her beau—Mike as soon as he boarded the plane.
A wry smile flashed across his face as he relished the thought.
***
Sitting on his wheelchair outside in the open air, newspaper in hand,

George smiled wryly as he consumed the recent report on the arrests of the
health vaccinators and their allies. It gave him satisfaction to know that
they had been taken down; he didn’t suffer for nothing.
Abu came from behind with a cup of local tea. He received it with a warm
smile and a nod of his head, but his mind was barely in the present.
Thoughts of his wife flashed through. It was best she never knew he was
alive, especially now that he was a liability. Burukutu was his new home.
As far as he was concerned, he was dead to the world. There was no life
for him out there. He had no legs to walk with and the scars on his face
would startle the bravest of men and frighten kids of all ages.
Years later, he earned a Chieftaincy title as one of the prominent leaders of

the village for sharing his knowledge with the kids in high school and
turning around the business fortunes for the fishermen in the dusty village
of Burukutu.
None of the media outfits discovered the truth about the undead and it
remained so.
***
The plane began to soar in the cloud. Benjamin re-opened the Word
Document software on his laptop. The manuscript he had been working on
seemed new in his eyes after quite some days. He placed his fingers on the
Page | 109
keyboard and began to tap swiftly, from letter to letter. It was time to face
his dream of being an author.
BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR
Waste of Sin (A Thriller-Novella)
“Two men, ‘one woman and half’, and a secret.”
Julia and Stephanie live in two different worlds but stem from a single
past, and are controlled by a medical condition; each woman springing
up when the spells occur. Julia is just fine with her bland relationship with
Danny. Stephanie is enlivened with her erotic affair with Alex.
Danny knows about Stephanie and Julia, and Alex finds out shortly. But
one revelation sets both men on the same mission: Alex to rescue
Stephanie from Danny; Danny to rescue Julia from Alex.
Page | 111

Prisoner of Fate

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Prisoner of Fate

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PRISONER OF FATE

Copyright © 2021 Akin Akingbogun

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or

Editing, proofreading, cover design and Amazon publishing by: The

To everyone I call Family

2 The Long Road 11

4 The Mind’s Unrest 28

5 Wild Goose Chase 41

6 Love and Life Are Fickle 50

7 Four Years in Lieu 58

8 Ties that Bind 64

9 The Unknown Enemy

13 You Can’t Kill a Dead Man

14 The Missing Piece

“This has to be some joke,” he muttered to himself.

He stared in complete disbelief at his phone as though it were a strange

With the rising of his adrenaline levels, he started to hyperventilate. Goose

And more thoughts crept in.

He is dead! Dead men don’t receive phone calls.

And if by chance this is a prank, it is a silly one. Whoever this is must be a

He started pacing about his room irrationally as he disengaged the call.

“What the hell is going on? Oh my God!”

Now panicky as he walked towards the window facing the street, he

Benjamin watched the receding flood carry away an upturned umbrella,

The Long Road

He had a lifelong dream of publishing a thrilling story about love and

Benjamin grew up in Lagos, a city bursting at the seams with a population

Here in the suburbs, everyone was scared of having nothing.

Agnes wasn’t beautiful in the orthodox way, no fluttering eyelids or sexy

She had to join groups of monthly collaborators to raise lump sums of

He was sometimes a handful, preferring to hang around kids Agnes feared

Yet, he wasn’t stand-offish; he remained friendly faced and welcoming in

He had moved to Abuja after his one-year compulsory National Youth

Ben observed the well-manicured fingers of his interviewer as he wrote

Here was a man who cared a lot about his looks.

“How soon can you start work?”

Something in Mr George’s expressionless face assured him that they were

Friends that transcend the toughest times.

Spooky didn’t quite cover it and eerie was indeed an understatement. In

“Dude, tell me!”

“Are you home?” he asked without recourse to their usual pleasantries. He

The journey to Taiwo’s house was typically about twenty-five minutes,

He walked briskly towards the rear of the property where Taiwo’s

Embarrassed by the sorry sight of his unkempt apartment, Taiwo offered

Sorry, was doing a quick laundry.

At first, it sounded plausible as Benjamin considered the possibility. But

“Don’t take this too seriously. It could be nothing.”

Taiwo rummaged through Benjamin’s phone, confirming that the call

“Strange!” he muttered thoughtfully.

Incredible! It was Mr George behind the steering wheel or so he thought.

“This is impossible!” His heart began to pound as adrenaline rushed

“Whatever this is, I am going to get to the bottom of it,” he determined.

He quickly hailed a motorcycle that was thankfully available. As he sat

“Move quickly!” he laboured amidst his anxiety.

As though on cue, the motorcycle rider ducked in between cars and

His motorcycle rider laboured on in futility until he advised him to take

This was certainly more than a coincidence!

Could his mind be playing tricks on him?

The Mind’s Unrest

Adaora was determined to make this budding relationship work although

Occasionally, updates on the trial featured in small columns on daily

Mike offered a different kind of friendship. He had a listening ear and