“Why on earth did you call the police?” Kelvin asked. “Believe me, I didn’t call anybody, there is no phone one me and no means of communication, I think they are here on a rescue mission or what do you think?” Mike explained. This time the police team had already alighted from their vehicles and were taking position at strategic places. “Isn’t that your new commissioner?” Kelvin asked pointing to the man who was dishing out instructions to the other police officers. “Yeah, that’s him.” Mike replied, his mind wandering to a different thing. Mike thought about his chances of taking out Kelvin single-handedly, but with what? The gun he managed to get off one of the Khal corp boys was lying a few metres away from him and a feet away from Kelvin. He knew he hadn’t established the best of relationship with Kelvin because the reason for their partnership is yet to be known. Maybe he wants them to go against Khal corp which is the most evident or to support Khal corp which is impossible, considering the fact that the Khal corp are after him(Kelvin) because he betrayed them and he(Mike) on the other hand is on the wanted list at khal corp just because he shot Abdul Maleek. “Why don’t we alert the police team that we are here?” Mike asked the only question which seemed to favour him but on the other hand is a great disadvantage to Kelvin. “No way. I am not getting help from the police, I’ll kill Maleek myself and Clement with my bare hands.” Kelvin replied producing a baf from only God knows where, he unzipped the bag and revealed the contents of the bag which includes, guns of different size and makers, dangerous weapons such as knifes, daggers, grenade bomb still in its pack to mention a few. “What do you want to use this for?” Mike asked when he saw Kelvin remove a rope from the bag. “You just watch me and what I want to do.” Kelvin replied knocking him hard on the throat such that he went blank for ten seconds, eyes open and breathing hard, by the time Mike came around, he has been bounded tightly with the rope and before he could find his voice, Kelvin had placed a tape over his mouth therefore making it impossible for him to speak. “This is where you’ll be until I am finished with your colleagues out there.” With this, Kelvin hung the bag accross his shoulder and crouched out of the pipe leaving Mike behind. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ Clement is getting tired of the hide and seek game he has been playing with his father’s security details. He was the only one playing the game while the security are not interested in playing with him. Mere thinking about it was amusing on its own. Clement was patroling the side of the house with a gun in his hand, just as he wanted to take the bend into the back of the house, he heard footsteps which he knew unmistakably belonged to another security, he quickly stopped in his tracks, made a sharp U-turn and returned to the deserted front of the house with only the commander seated in the living room very close to the window, Clement could see the outline of his father seated somewhere inside the living room. Just then a car honked in front of the gate. Clement knew who it was and he didn’t want to rik being spotted, he tried to disappear from the front of the house before the car honked for a second time, but the commander was quick to call his attention. “You can check who is at the gate.” He said in english, after which he said in French, Xulu and Spanish. Clement decided to open the gate and by the time he opened the second one, he used it to hide himself and the CSO drove in just intime when the commander was outside to meet him. Clement tried to walk away, but the last glance he took at the CSO, he was spotted. “Please, I’ll be back in a minute.” The CSO said and hurried after Clement who by now was by the side of the house near the generator house. — Clement had hidden inside the generator house by the time the CSO took the bend into the sides of the house and from experience, Clement is not to make any sound because he expect the CSO to be coming with a full men. But maybe his foolishness is overriding his expertise or he is trying to take the glory of stoping Clement. Just when the CSO passed the generator house which was built with close knitted blocks with no opening like the common built, Clement dragged the CSO inside and with one swift moment he had taken the CSO out with the butt of his gun. He allowed the CSO to fall to the ground and he removed the generator belt which he use in tying the man’s hands and legs together. Clement didn’t know what the CSO had told the men out there, but he knew he told them he would be back in a minute and by all standards, a minute had passed meaning they would soon come looking for him which could spell doom for Clement. Without giving it a second thought, Clement walked out of the generator house, walked accross the compound and turned the door knob which opened the kitchen door silently, he walked in after fastening the lock and silently pushing the refrigerator which stood just beside the door post to behind the door, thereby making it impossible for anybody from outside to open the door even after unfastening the lock. He silently headed towards the door which he guessed connect to the living room and to his dismay, three armed men were standing at strategic places, one behind the front door, one behind Chief Obi Patrick who was reading a outdated magazine and the last armed man standing just at the entrance of the hallway which linked the living room and the kitchen. “There is a problem here.” Clement whispered into the ears of the man who was standing at the hallway and after recieving the go ahead from the man standing behind the entrance door, they both walked back into the kitchen where Clement took out the man silently and carefully laid him to the ground silently. He walked out of the kitchen so fast that his next action suprised him, from the hallway, he jumped at the man closest to him who was behind his father and in the process, he shot the man standing behind the door and caughting up with the man behind his father, he was hit in the face by the man. Clement spat out blood and shot the man in the leg and he hurriedly ran to the front door which by now was almost down as a result of the frantic pushing from outside. Clement pushed the three seater couch nearest the door to provide more defence to the door, he turned back to see the man he shot in the leg pointing a gun at him. ++++++++++++++++++++++++++ After taking out the men guarding the underground, Ngozi led her team past a small lake which flow accross the underground and by the time they reached the other side, they came face to face with a door which they opened with the use of an explosive and on entering, they found themselves in a very big hall which was lite brightly, there was no wondow, the only source of air was the air condition which stood at one side of the hall. “Where do we go from here?” Ngozi asked and her voice echoed around the room. “Is this also another underground?” Sylvester asked. “What does it look like? We didn’t climb any staircase from inside the tunnel, did we? We just opened that door and found ourselves here.” Captain Sanni replied. “That’s a door over there.” One of the soldiers pointed at the supposed door which bore great resemblance to the wall itself, save for the door knob which stood somewhere on it. The team which comprises of over twenty five men when they entered the dark tunnel had drastically being reduced to fifteen and they all walked towards the supposed door, Ngozi turned the door knob bravely, she is yet to forget her experience at the underground room where she was electrocuted by mere stepping on the underground cover. Suprisingly, the door open and as if waiting for the door to open, gunshots were rained at them one of which hit Sanni who was the first to walk out of the door. “Who notified them of our presence?” Ngozi asked after shutting the door very fast. “Isn’t that obvious?” Sylvester asked.Kelvin crawled his way out from the pipe and headed for the Khal corp building his pistol held at a shooting length, eyes darting from left to right, right to left, front to back, every of his sense organs were at alert that even the mere hearing of a billowing wind, he stopped dead and corked his gun ready for action, he knew what he intended to do was a herculean task, but by all standard, he needed to kill just a few people, but to kill those people he’ll have to kill those that tried to block his way. Abdul Maleek, Hakym are the main target even though he still had Clement in mind, but as things were, Clement is somehow far away from him, but if by chance they should meet, he would definintely sqeeze life out of him. His sights were set on Ngozi too, the lady he intended to have a short fling with, but ended up getting struck with her all because of her stupidity, as things were, she was the first person to know who he really was, the first person to know he had a mark that stood for Khal corperation and was likely the one who alerted her colleagues and the reason why Mike came after him at Sandra’s residence, the reason why the police team are there and most importantly, the reason why he is on the run. He hadn’t forgotten about his long time friend and accomplice, Jay, he knew Jay did a lot in turning him in for the police, even if Ngozi saw the mark, she didn’t know what it stood for, she wasn’t sure of what she was thinking, but by all standards, Jay knew him in and out and he had turned him in to the police. He would have loved to go after him, but so many things in his mouth to chew, if he was able to handle his closest enemies, the police will definitely handle Jay like he deserved, even though he would have paid all he had to watch life drain out of him. He quickly took cover behind a nearest tree and he watched whats was causing the type of disturbance in the forest, he raised his head up and saw and antelope scrambling of the danger area, from the look of things the animal has been shot and whoever shot it would be out any minute to pick it up, now that the animal is dead. He waited in anticipation for the hunter who shot the animal and before long, two police officers ran accross the bush towards where the antelope now laid lifeless, Kelvin wanted to laugh out really hard because he couldn’t fathom why policemen who are on a search to arrest a criminal will be hunting animals. He attached the silencer to his gun and took them out with two quick shots. He continued towards the side of the building still looking around for any lurking danger and by the time he reached the fence, he heard a very loud explosion which he didn’t know what caused it, but he knew it had to be one of the underground doors. By now he could hear quick footsteps running around the compound to take care of whatever caused the explosion before it escalates and from what he could hear the men saying, it seemed a police team had gained access into the building through the underground. “I always knew Ayo Okorie would be the cause of Khal corp downfall.” He muttered a little too loudly and to his suprise, someone replied. “Definitely, he would be the cause of your death.” Mr Ayo Okorie was approching him from the side, his gun pointed at him. “How did you get out?” Kelvin asked. “That’s not the issue, is it? Bloody traitor!” And the gun went off. — A seasoned television reporter and veteran presenter once dwelled on the past and did researches or better still put as interviews with retired Nigerian soldiers who were lucky to be part of the civil war and were lucky to live after the war. When the asked presenter asked them what decision making was in the Nigerian army and the war front, the old soldier numbering up to five who were now into the present day politics said there was nothing like the present day politics and when they were asked to explain the reason why they said there was no decision making at the war front, one of them took the mantle and gave a detailed explanation which an excerpt of it would be written below. “I was the commander of battallion 5, platoon 3 during the civil war in the late 60s, as a commander of a battallion, I am entitled to a hundred soldiers and on the 18th of February, 1968, I led my full battalion at exactly 4am from Ogbede, an area in the present day Enugu state to Otupko in the present day Benue state, thousands of kilometeres and embarking on such journey requires no planning or decision making, it is totally a risk. You take risk, you think once, you think about the result and not the procedures. In millitary, the journey of a thousand miles doesn’t begin with a step. No no no, it will always begin with a step no matter what, but right from the time you took the first step, you should be thinking of the last step already, so all other steps are useless and without a major significance. And did I tell you all other steps are the risks involved? They are. Such was the situation which Ngozi and he team found themselves when they were hooled up inside a room which on the outside stood over ten gunmen waiting for them to come out which is not really and option because no one is ready to die, while the other option they’ve got was to clamber back into the tunnel and return to the earth surface without a major success, meaning they had failed in a task they had been preparing for for months, even the spirits of those who died in the struggle won’t forgive them and most especially Ngozi who most likely would be the one to call for a retreat. She needed no soothsayer to tell her what to do as they all watched as captain Sanni bled to death right in front of them and this seemed to bring out the beast in her team, everyone became wounded and they are all ready to fight even with the last drop of their blood which was why the last explosive was placed against the door and twenty seconds later, it exploded, throwing off the men who were standing behind at against the nearest wall while Ngozi and her team who had all moved back were able to walked out of the room and one after the other, they took out the men. “Sylvester, you, you, you and you, go in search of Sergeant Mike, he should be somewhere at the first floor. I’ll lead the team that will take out Maleek, Danger-Kelv and the other who I supposed stays in this underground.” She instructed and as if being controlled with a remote, Sylvester set off with the four men attached to him without question while Ngozi, desperate to kill every single soul inside the building set off accross the hall way and entered the room that stood directly opposite the room which they had just exited. And from the look of things, the hall seemed to be their meeting place judging from the appliances that stood at strategic places in the hall and the big chair which she guessed belonged to Maleek. One after the other, they destroyed all the computers, the large screens that were hung on the wall and a few other communication devices in the hall. Ngozi and her team set out of the hall when they were sure that they had destroyed the means of communication within the compound meaning, the Khal corp members won’t be able to communicate unless they are closeby. “This way guys.” She said as she hurriedly ascended a stairs and shooting sporadically at the men who tried to preven her entry while her men handled the men who were coming from behind and the interchanged periodically taking covers and allowing them the time to reload their guns. “Get him.” The soldier whose sharp eye discovered the wall door shouted at Ngozi pointing his gun towards a man who just walked out of from one of the room. Ngozi recognised him at once as one of the men who had attacked her home for the map, he was their leader, Hakym. And without thinking, she skidded off the gun battle scene jumping the staircase to block Hakym at the landing of the staircase, with one swift tunr, Hakym had disappeared before the landed whith gunshots trailing her from above which she ducked expertly. –to be continued–
