NewStats: 3,264,123 , 8,182,687 topics. Date: Monday, 09 June 2025 at 07:02 PM 2z88

These are two of my books, please check them out.

https://selar.co/m/minke-oyo-okoi1

The drive back to the Apo District office of the DSS was unnerving for the two agents. They drove in silence for most of the journey except for the few times officers in the field radioed in situation reports as they patrolled the city.
Bassey seemed a little perturbed. He needed to get back to the office fast to start the process of moving the two witnesses into the safe houses. He already had a plan in place.
Amami, on the other hand, didn’t seem particularly interested in getting to the office quick considering how slowly he drove. He meandered leisurely through city traffic, making sure to stop each time a traffic light turned red.
Bassey was getting more impatient. Each time a light turned red, his face turned redder. He was tempted to turn on the siren but thought otherwise and relaxed a little. Monachi’s last words had unhinged him and made him cagey.
The fact that whether Monachi continued as Director-General of the DSS or not depended on his case made him uncomfortable. Even worse, the Bruno case being a litmus test of the president’s capacity to keep his promise to Nigerians on security weighed heavily on him.
Bassey knew that if anything went wrong, many people were going to be impacted negatively. So much was at stake and he had to make sure that there were no more slip-ups like the one that got Aaron McCarthy killed.
As they drove through Area 11, past the traffic light at FCDA, Bassey turned on the radio. He changed the dial to Raypower FM and listened as Tuface Idibia’s African Queen played in the background, sending splinters of delightful tunes through the car speakers.
He thought about his wife and experienced a kind of momentary amnesia that got his mind away from the troubles of the day. He enjoyed a melodiously tranquil state for a while.
Then the music stopped abruptly, forcing Bassey to float out of his ephemeral slumber.
“We are sorry to interrupt this music with breaking news,” announced a luscious female voice on the radio.
The muscles in Amami’s arms twitched. He grabbed the steering wheel a little tighter and braced himself for whatever was coming next. Cop instincts, sharpened by years of criminal investigation work, gave him the uncanny ability to smell bad news from miles away. He looked at his partner and saw a hint of apprehension on his face.
The voice on the radio continued. “We just received the news of a twin bomb blast at a Maiduguri market in which twelve people have been confirmed dead. Our correspondent reports that men of the bomb disposal unit of the Nigerian Police Force and other emergency first responders are onsite to control the situation. It is not yet clear if the Islamic militant group, Boko Haram, is behind this attack as the jihadist group is yet to take responsibility for this latest bombing. More details to follow as events unfold.”
Bassey was all too familiar with such reports emanating from the northern parts of the country. He had served for a combined period of seven years in the DSS regional offices of the two northeastern states of Yobe and Borno. He had seen, firsthand, the devastation caused by this violent jihadist group. As he tried to make the connection between this news and his case, thoughts of Aisha flooded his mind.
A sharp pain tugged at his heart as distant memories filled his mind and with them came a wave of dark and unpleasant emotions. He could never come to with the way Aisha was cut off in her prime.
Aisha was a boisterous twelve-year-old girl with a pure heart and big dreams. She was a budding young girl who wanted to become a doctor someday to save lives. She was the smartest kid in his old neighbourhood in Maiduguri.
Aisha’s father was an illiterate farmer who loved his daughter deeply and did all within his means to give his daughter the best education he could afford.
When Bassey moved into an apartment at Idriss Aloma Street, Old GRA, as a young DSS officer, everyone was suspicious of the stranger in their midst. He, in turn, was content to stay out of their lives. No one knew what he did for a living. They only saw him go in and out of his apartment, sometimes at odd hours.
Because the neighbourhood was a purely conservative Muslim one, women warned their children, especially young girls to stay away from the very handsome southerner. They somehow managed to convince their children that he only meant trouble.
Bassey understood the nature of the society in which he dwelled and blended in perfectly. He was unmarried at the time but stayed away from the ladies. He did not feel the need to empty his gonads as often as he did during his school days at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology. Unlike his ESUT days, he lived a quiet and celibate life in Maiduguri. Quite uncharacteristic of him, he also stayed away from the young men who were too suspicious of him to get to know him.
Bassey was a very friendly fellow without friends in the alluring yet strangely reticent city of Maiduguri. He was a man trapped within the walls of his extroverted nature. With no one to indulge his effusive propensity, he lived his desolate days in Maiduguri perfunctorily.

When he met Aisha, it was a relief from his lonely life.
He had used up the last of his beverages in the morning and forgot to replace them on his way back from work. The next day, which was a public holiday, he wanted to prepare breakfast but there was nothing in his refrigerator. He decided to go to a small provision shop nearby to get what he needed and there he met Aisha.
She perched precariously on a small table by the cash counter when he walked in. Tall for her age with large, piercing, dark eyes and a complexion that made her look like a mermaid, she reminded Bassey of his little sister, Ima.
“Good morning, Mr?” She made a face as if they had met somewhere but she somehow couldn’t his name.
“Bassey,” he came to her rescue. “Good morning to you too.”
“What do you need, Mr Bassey?” She asked with confidence unusual for girls her age in the northern city of Maiduguri.
“Oh! Just a tin of milk, some cans of sardines and a crate of eggs.” He was intrigued by her politeness and the fluent way she spoke English. Most girls her age or younger only spoke their native Hausa Language but this girl was different. She spoke English with a mastery that evoked his iration.
While Aisha attended to him, her mother walked in. Bassey introduced himself and got to find out that she taught English in one of the government secondary schools in their neighbourhood.
It all made perfect sense to Bassey now. He became one of their loyal customers from that day.
As time went on, he got to meet Aisha’s father and became very close to the family. For a conservative Muslim family, they were very receptive to him and he reciprocated their love with more love.
Soon enough, he became very popular with all the kids in the neighbourhood and not long afterwards, parents invited him into their homes and with each visit, he gained access into their hearts.
This marked the point at which the southerner, convicted by his neighbours of an unnamed crime he was yet to commit, became the darling of the entire neighbourhood.
Each evening, after the rigours of the day, the farmers around him welcomed Bassey from work with baskets full of fresh fruit and vegetables, making sure he had more food in his kitchen than he was able to eat in months. He sometimes had to beg them to stop bringing him food. For the first time in his life, Bassey felt loved and accepted.
The kind of love he received in Maiduguri gave him the hope of a better world. It caused him to believe in a world without limits in which everyone was accepted and loved unconditionally. He dreamed of a world where kids were protected from all hazards and young ones were encouraged to follow their dreams.
But that was not to be. That world only existed in his insipient utopian dreams.
In the real world, there were lots of evil people devouring and tearing apart the fabrics of morality. Monsters ruled with their fists of iron, stuffing out the tiniest embers of hope for a better future. He got to find out soon enough that too many bad things happened to good people in the real world.
One day, he came home to the most devastating news of his life. Aisha had been killed in a school shooting by the dreaded Boko Haram insurgents. She was shot in the head and died on the spot. That day, a part of him died with her.
After a protracted period of mourning and deep sorrow, Bassey picked up the pieces of his life. He chose to always do all within his power to root out evil from society. That was the point he chose to become a field agent. Because he wanted to make a difference by being the change he wanted to see in the world.
Otherwise, he would have been content with his desk job that entailed routing intelligence reports back and forth between the NIA, the DSS and the office of the National Security Adviser.
Bassey never fully recovered from the pain of Aisha’s death. His emotional state impacted his job negatively. After a series of high-profile blunders due to loss of concentration, his boss decided that Bassey needed a fresh start and transferred him to Abuja.
Now, after enjoying perfect peace with his beautiful wife, Amara, someone has resurrected the dry bones of the past. Shadowy demons are rearing up their ugly heads to torment his soul again.
The news of the Maiduguri bombing triggered a surge of emotions that Bassey thought were dead and buried. He hated the system for not protecting the weak and vulnerable of society. He loathed the political class for all the years they’d fed fat on the collective wealth of the people and for how they’d cheated and neglected the people they were meant to serve.
He needed to do something. He became even more determined to put people like Bruno away for life. People like him didn’t deserve to share the same society with the families of the countless innocents they had killed.

Amami pulled into a vacant parking lot, put the car in park and turned off the engine. Both men came out of the car and took the elevator to their offices on the fourth floor.
Bassey entered his office, shut himself in and started making the calls that will authorise the selected DSS agents to move the two high-profile witnesses to the selected safe houses.
It was now settled in his heart. He would put Bruno Obeten in a dark hole or die trying. Nothing will stop him. He owes that much to the memory of Aisha and other victims of violent crimes perpetrated by men like Bruno.

CHAPTER TWO

The death of Aaron McCarthy reverberated within and outside the walls of the maximum-security wing of the Kuje Prison. There was a general feeling of sombreness in the air. The inmates were all in a melancholic mood. Most wondered when their day will come and how it was all going to end.
46.2 kilometres away, at the Three Arms Zone headquarters of the Department of State Security, it was a beehive of activities. The usually serene office at number 1 Maitama Avenue had today been rattled by the sudden demise of a key witness in the case against Bruno Obeten, an egregious crime boss who sat on the throne of a dark criminal empire.
Grant Monachi, the Director-General of the DSS, sat behind his large desk picking at his heavy moustache with his forefinger, something he usually did when he was worried. He had a 9 o’clock appointment with Chief Inspector Bassey Larrymore and his partner. Larrymore was supposed to brief him on the Obeten case.
He checked his watch for the millionth time and found to his displeasure that the meeting was still twenty minutes away. He thought to himself, “Time is running painfully slow today of all days.” Monachi shifted uneasily on his chair and continued the wait for the two detectives.
After what seemed like forever, the shrill buzz of the intercom startled Grant, bringing him back to the reality of his predicament. He hurriedly picked up the receiver.
“Yes!”
“Bassey Larrymore and Amami Bryce here to see you, sir,” said a delightful female voice on the other end of the line.
“Send them in.”
A few seconds later, a gentle knock on the door preceded the appearance of the two detectives.
“Good morning, sir,” echoed Bassey and Amami in unison.
“Good morning gentlemen.”
Monachi shook hands with the two men and asked them to take their seats facing him. There was no time for unnecessary banter. He went straight to the business of the day.
“Where are we on the Bruno Obeten case?”
“We just lost one of three key witnesses in the case this morning, Aaron McCarthy.”
Bassey spoke with a calm demeanour for a man given the unenviable task of putting away the most devious criminal in the country.
“What happened?”
“The details are still a bit sketchy but from what we’ve gathered so far, he collapsed outside his cell and died before a medic could get to him. One of the correctional officers was walking him to the visitor’s room when it happened.”
“Is it a coincidence that he died a day after Bruno is released on bail?” Monachi knew the answer to his question but asked anyway.
“I don’t think so. Bryce and I both agree it’s too much of a coincidence. We think Bruno got to him.”
“How’s that even possible? I thought the circle of people who knew about the deal was small,” Monachi said angrily.
“Yes indeed. But from what we know so far, there appears to be a leak from our end.”
“A leak!” Monachi found that hard to swallow.
“That’s the only explanation that makes sense,” Bassey added coyly.
“You mean there’s a mole within the DSS working for Bruno?”
“That’s what it looks like. Aaron McCarthy has served three years of his sentence without incident. In fact, the Warden of Kuje Prison described him as a model inmate. Then, a few weeks after we offer him a deal to testify against his old pal, he winds up dead.”
There was an uncomfortable silence in the room as the three men brooded on Bassey’s allegation.
Bassey continued. “There’s something else you should know. Bruno wasn’t supposed to make bail but the judge granted him bail on some flimsy health grounds. I think the judge may have been compromised.”
“Yes. I think so too,” said Monachi. “The Attorney-General’s office is looking into that as we speak.” His words were reassuring to both Bassey and Amami.
Amami spoke next.
“If there’s a mole in the Department, then we’ve got a serious problem on our hands and I suggest we move fast.”
Grant nodded for him to go on.
“We can still build a rock-solid case on the testimony of the remaining two witnesses but we need to move them to two of our safe houses rather than leave them where they are exposed. If Bruno could get to Aaron McCarthy in the most high-tech maximum-security prison in the country, the rest of the witnesses will be sitting ducks. If he knew about Aaron McCarthy, it is safe to assume he also knows about the other two witnesses.”
Grant seemed pleased with the idea. He nodded in approval.
“What do you two have in mind?”
“Suleman Ade is being held at Afokang Prison in Calabar. We plan on moving him to a safe house within Calabar where he will be more protected. Nathan Osas, the second witness, is being held at the National Intelligence Agency detention facility not far from here. He will be better off in one of our safe houses too. Their deals have both been signed by the president waiting to be delivered. With the pardon in place, they are both free to go but we’ll rather move them to the safe houses.”
Bassey spoke like a man in complete control and he enjoyed the opportunity to dazzle his boss. He wanted to say something else but was interrupted by Grant.
“But if we are talking about a mole in our ranks, would it not be better to let the NIA keep Nathan Osas?”
“I thought of that too but to be honest, after what happened this morning, I don’t trust the NIA agents any more than I trust our people. Moreover, this is our case and we need to place him under a twenty-four-hour watch by our people who can be trusted. I’ll personally vet all the agents that will be on guard duty at the safe houses.”
“How soon can we move them?”
“As soon as this meeting is over, I’ll set the ball rolling,” Bassey answered.
“In that case, I should let you two get back to your jobs. But before you go, I would like to let you know that I was at the Aso Rock Villa earlier this week and the president wants this case wrapped up as soon as possible. The president agreed to pardon three convicted criminals because I convinced him that to get the big fish, we need to cut those three fries loose. Now it’s down to two. He wants to keep his promise to the Nigerian people to end violent crimes, insurgency and banditry. He wants to make an example out of Bruno Obeten. My job is on the line here. Give me results.”
Amami wanted to say something but thought better.
Grant continued. “You’ll be reporting to me directly. Do whatever you have to and get this mess cleaned up.”
The meeting was over. Both detectives shook hands with Grant Monachi and left his office hurriedly.

Bennatalks:
Good job,keep it up!

Thanks.

CHAPTER ONE

Since he made a pact with the devil, as he liked to think of the deal, Aaron McCarthy had been unable to sleep for more than a few hours each night. Last night was no different. His tiny bed didn’t make it any easier.
He looked around his small enclosure nervously and for the first time in a long time, he was scared. The thought of what he was about to do troubled him a lot.
He reflected on the events of the past few weeks and his neck stiffened, sending a wave of tingling sensation down his body.
He had minded his business and kept his mouth shut until the whole talk about the deal started. There was no doubt in his heart that he was threading a dangerous path by agreeing to the deal.
Suddenly, Aaron was pulled out of his deep thoughts by a strong feeling that he was being watched.
He looked in the direction of the toilet and his eyes met with Tom’s. For a moment, they stared at each other. Tom gave him a conspiratorial smile.
“Rise and shine, sleeping beauty. It’s a spectacular day full of life.”
“Yeah, but not in here,” Aaron grumbled in response.
“Look on the brighter side, Aaron. Be positive for once. Makes it a lot easier when the time comes.”
“Time for what?” Aaron asked, perplexed.
“I saw you die in my dream last night and my dreams always come true.”
Aaron was horrified but tried unsuccessfully not to show it.
“Listen! There is no bright side here. I’m sharing a prison cell with some bozo who doesn’t like to keep his nose out of my business. How’s that for the brighter side?”
Tom ignored his pessimistic rants, preferring to hum an unfamiliar tune with a baritone voice as he went about his business in the loo.
Aaron laid in bed for a while thinking about the offer from the Department of State Security. The DSS had cut him a deal that looked like a five-star meal straight out of the devil’s kitchen. Accepting it was the last thing he wanted to do.
“But how the hell were they able to convince me to testify against Bruno Obeten in the first place?” he asked himself. On the surface, it looked good but something wasn’t right about the deal and he knew it in his guts.
They offered to exonerate him of all his crimes in exchange for his testimony in the prosecution of Bruno Obeten.
“You don’t have to be put in the witness box,” Pierce, his lawyer, had told him. “All you have to do is sit in front of a camera and tell your story.”
They also offered to help him disappear into the sunset with his dying wife through the witness protection program. Pierce had promised him that everything was going to be fine but his assurances fuelled Aaron’s scepticism rather than made him feel good.
He thought about his last moments with his wife before his incarceration three years ago and promised himself that he would do whatever it took to be with her during her final days. If it meant ratting out Bruno, then he was ready to do just that.
He missed his wife very much. They had not spoken in a long time because he found it hard to hear the pain of cancer in her voice. Listening to her frail voice on the phone was a type of cancer, killing him a million times over. He wanted desperately to be by her side, helping her fight on to the last moment.
The sound of stiff boots on a hard surface tore Aaron away from his deep thoughts. He glanced around suspiciously and found that Tom was back in the upper bunk.
Clack, clack, clack. The sound got louder until it stopped somewhere close to him. Then came a loud banging on the iron bars that almost caused him to jump out of his bed.
“Get up, McCarthy,” echoed the hoarse voice of officer Brown.
“Good morning to you too, officer. Hope you slept well,” retorted Aaron.
“Your lawyer’s here to see you.”
“I don’t have an appointment with my lawyer today. Tell whoever it is to get lost.”
“He doesn’t need an appointment to see you. Now move your ass.”
Aaron sat up reluctantly. He tried to get on his feet but fell back on the bed. Suddenly, he felt dizzy. Everything spun around at an alarming speed. He closed his eyes briefly to clear his head.
There was a horrible pain in the back of his head, almost like the migraine from a terrible hangover.
He braced himself and got up very slowly this time, a little surprised he could stand on his feet considering how weak he felt. He took a few steps to the door, standing face to face with the correctional officer on the other side of the bars of iron. He made a mental note to request a visit to the infirmary later in the day.
Officer Brown observed him suspiciously like one would a lab sample analysed through the lens of a microscope.
“What the hell is wrong with you, McCarthy?”
“I’m fine officer,” came the insincere reply.
“Open on seven,” officer Brown spoke loudly on his walkie.
The whizzy sound of the motor came alive as the iron bars rolled open. Aaron stepped into the age with officer Brown following closely behind.
He walked laboriously, each step intensifying the pain in the back of his head. Again, he was hit by a shockwave of dizziness, this time more severe, accompanied by weakness of the ts. He took a few uneasy steps with a discordant gait and fell to the ground.
Officer Brown sprinted to his side as he spoke hurriedly on his walkie.
“Inmate down! I repeat, inmate down! I need a medic in cell block B.”
Aaron felt weirdly weak. His breathing was out of sync and laborious. He started to doze off. But right when he was about to close his eyes, he felt the officer’s hands pressing down on his huge chest in a desperate bid to keep his heart beating. He tried to look at officer Brown’s eyes but everything was blurry. He tried to speak but his lips felt so heavy they wouldn’t move.
Aaron McCarthy knew instinctively that he was a dead man. The realisation hit him hard. He had been beaten at his own game. He wondered how Bruno was able to get to him so fast before he got the chance to snitch on him.
With that realisation, his heart stopped beating. He blacked out, slipping into a deep sleep from which he will never wake.

About the Book.
A blind thirteen-year-old girl has a series of visions that changes her life and her entire family. Raised by atheist parents, Sharon struggles with the pains of blindness and a troubled family until she finds redemption.

On the other side of town, a crime boss is about to be sentenced to life imprisonment without parole for his crimes. He unleashes his most effective assassin to eliminate critical witnesses in his case.

Shortly after Sharon’s sight is miraculously restored, she crosses paths with the ruthless assassin who is determined to kill her in a pulsating twist of events.

A Story of Crime, Corruption, Healing and Redemption.

CHAPTER SIX

The drive to Asokoro was both uneventful and smooth. Not that Alpha expected any trouble. No one knew who he was. No official record of his existed anywhere. As far as government records were concerned, he was a ghost and he liked to keep it that way.

He never took pictures or let anyone take pictures of him. One time, a young lady mistakenly took his picture as he ed by a group of teenagers taking a photograph by a public swimming pool. He went to the young lady and charmed her into believing that he was a professional photographer. Under the pretext of taking a photograph of the group, he deleted the picture he was in.

“In this era of social media madness,” he often said to himself, “I don’t want my picture turning up in the wrong place.”

Alpha lived in a world where the tiniest error often caused him a great deal of trouble so he chose to rather err on the side of caution.
One of the ways he stayed unknown to the authorities was by having multiple identities. His driver's licence had a fake name. His bank s were all linked to a fake national identity number.

An electronic safe in a hidden cellar in his apartment had fake ports from seven different countries, all with different names. One of those countries, Ghana, the country of his birth and one he plans never to go back to except it becomes necessary.

He didn’t like Ghana, not because it was a bad country, but because of the bad memories he had of Ghana. His late mother took him out of Ghana because she was running away from something horrible.

As far as he could , he was born into a troubled family. With an ill-tempered father that spent more time at the bar than he did with his family, Alpha grew up not knowing a father’s love.

His father came home very late each night, having drunken bouts of anger. He had lots of horrible memories of his father abusing his mother.

It all started with verbal abuse. His father, at first, called his mama names and even threatened to throw her out of the house whenever he thought his food was salty. It got worse when he thought his food was undercooked. Alpha ed a time his father threw a plate of hot sauce at his mother who was fast enough to duck under a chair. The verbal abuse progressed to physical abuse.

On bad days, he hit his wife or shoved her aside when she did as little as look at him the wrong way. Alpha watched all of this happen. The only time he tried to defend his mother, his father kicked him around like a football. He woke up the next morning feeling like a cargo train had moved over him.

Occasionally, Alpha Gricks thought about the day his father almost killed his mother.
He was sound asleep in his room that night when the voices of his parents arguing woke him up. He didn’t want them to know he was awake so he listened through the keyhole.

His father complained about how bad the food was getting and asked his mama for an explanation. When she said nothing, Alpha heard the sound of a slap on his mama’s face followed by a scream and a heavy fall to the floor. He impulsively ran out of his room only to be greeted by the sight of his father throwing punches at his mama who lay on the floor motionless. He begged his father not to kill his mama and papa screamed at him to get lost. It’s a miracle she survived that beating.

His mama ended up in the hospital with a cracked skull. His father, on the other hand, left the house never to return. Alpha never forgave him for that.

A few weeks after mama was discharged from the hospital, they got to find out that his father had moved in with his mistress in a nearby town. The fool abandoned his recuperating wife and his son to their fate. Life became a lot harder for Alpha and his mama.

Things only got worse from that point on. Mama was unable to get a job. They found it very difficult to feed, let alone pay for his education.

At the age of ten, Kujoe Mensah, as Alpha Gricks was known then, started to learn how to live like a man. He roamed the streets of Accra doing menial jobs to his mama. From working on construction sites as one of the many unskilled labourers to hawking ladies' second-hand shoes, he did all he could to take care of his mama. Sometimes, they even had to go to bed hungry because there was nothing to eat.

But things didn’t quite work out for Kujoe and his mother in Accra.
A few months before his twelfth birthday, Kujoe Mensah emigrated to Lagos with his mother. “Lagos offers better opportunities,” mama had told him. And she was right.
Life in Lagos was radically different from the quiet life they knew in Accra. The traffic was always painfully slow and if you ever got unfortunate enough to be trapped in one of the bad traffic, you were forced to spend a substantial part of your day sitting in the same spot.

Another thing Kujoe didn’t like about Lagos was the way everyone seemed to be in a hurry. With lots of yellow mini busses and taxis filling up the streets, people got easily upset, especially when traffic was slow. The drivers got upset with the engers for urging them to break a few traffic rules. In turn, the engers got upset with the drivers for delaying their journey. Everyone seemed to be angry at the next person for no reason. Because of this, street fights were common. It was in Lagos that Kujoe learnt how to throw punches.

As Kujoe experienced the rigours of life in the most populated metropolitan city in Africa, he came to realise that there were too many mad people in Lagos. But then, the madness in men was much more easily brought to the surface because too many people were cramped in a tiny space. That had always been the reason why the population in zoos was carefully controlled. Overpopulation was always a recipe for disaster because it bred unhealthy competition that made it almost impossible for the weak to survive.

In Lagos, there was so much anger emphasized by the need to get things done fast. But what Lagosians lacked in patience, they made up for in the way they treated strangers. They seemed to be more hospitable to foreigners than their own kind and that puzzled the young Kujoe.

Alpha had many times relived their first night in a cheap hotel in Lagos. Mama ordered two plates of yam porridge cooked with beans. The meal was hot and spicy but he devoured every piece of it like a starved elephant foraging through jungle vegetation.

They stayed in the hotel for about a week and when they were on the verge of running out of money, mama got a job as a maid in a rich man’s house. The job came with accommodation so they moved quickly to the man’s house somewhere on Victoria Island.

Mama worked very hard to satisfy her new boss, Oga Paul. He was a very difficult man to please and nothing mama did was good enough.

It didn’t take long for the young Kujoe Mensah to realise that he was, yet again, trapped in a world that made it practically impossible for the weak to thrive. He felt like a prisoner living in a prison, not of his creation.

He could not go to school because that would have exposed their status as undocumented immigrants. But Kujoe found a way around this problem.

While other kids went to school to learn, Kujoe sat at his table at home and read. Every morning, the moment mama left for work, Kujoe would pick up his books and read. He read all the books he could lay his hands on. With time, his appetite for books grew exponentially and mama made sure there were enough books to read. He loved American crime thrillers, especially Hadley Chase novels.

Kujoe Mensah dreamed of becoming a writer someday. But to achieve that, he first had to be a reader and a good one at that. So, he read tons of books. From Robert Greene to Mario Puzo and everything in between. He also loved American movies, especially ones with a lot of shooting.

When other kids played around with their toys, he either read a book or watched American movies. He considered playing a luxury he couldn’t afford so he spent all his time doing useful things. It was easy for him to fall in love with guns just by watching American films because he liked the way guns gave their wielders power.

With time, mama started to come back home with complaints about the family she worked for. “The kids are just like their father,” she told him one evening during dinner. She described them as temperamental and erratic. No one else knew that Oga Paul’s family was as messed up as any other one.

Oga Paul was known to the world as a bleeding-heart philanthropist with a heart of gold. But he was indeed a sadistic misogynist with a psychotic hatred for women.

The few times Kujoe visited mama at the house, he worked very hard at getting along with every member of the family. He was careful to stay out of their lives and out of their troubles. He kept to himself and refused to make friends with Oga Paul’s kids that were about his age.

Mama did not have to spend much of her salary because all the food they ate came from the family she served. She wanted to formalise their stay in Nigeria so she saved up for that. Also, she had plans of putting her son in school as soon as their stay was official. She had other big plans for her only child so she saved up almost all her earnings.
For about two years, Kujoe Mensah lived a peaceful life until one of Oga Paul’s kids came to him one evening with the worst news of his life.

Alpha ed it vividly, almost as if it happened yesterday. The memory was just as fresh in his head as the day it happened.
He was reading like he always did when he heard a gentle knock on the door. He thought it was mama because it was close to the time she usually came back from work. He opened the door, shocked to see Dami standing in front of him, looking at him like he was some alien species.

Dami had been crying and Kujoe could see that from his eyes. Instinctively, he knew something was wrong. There was no time for pleasantries. He cut right to the chase.
“What’s wrong with you?”
Dami stared blankly at him, trying to find the right words.
“Hey! Talk to me.”
“My dad wants you to come over now.”
“What’s going on? Why does he want me at the house now?” His curiosity was at its peak.
Dami looked away from his gaze. Tears welled up in his eyes as he appeared deep in thought.
Kujoe held him by the shoulders and shook him back to reality.
“Tell me, Dami, what’s going on?” He commanded in a voice that shook the fear out of Dami.
Dami had been instructed to tell Kujoe that there’d been an accident involving his mother but not to go into any more details. So, it was a shock, even to Dami himself, when he blotted out the truth of what happened without thinking.
“My dad got mad at your mum for something she did and pushed her off the upper floor balcony. She fell to the ground and I think she’s dead.”
Like a lightning flash, Kujoe was at the house in a moment.
Even though his brain was flooded with myriads of emotions, he managed to maintain a calmness that surprised even him.
The family was not aware that the cat was out of the bag - and this cat was a giant one with razor-sharp retractable claws and big shiny teeth.

When he got there, they took him to the kitchen and offered him food which, of course, he refused.
Oga Paul then took him to a corner in the kitchen and tried to explain that there’d been an accident.

Kujoe's sharp, intuitive mind worked like a computer and within seconds, he already knew what he should do.
He grabbed a pointy kitchen knife on a tray close by and thrust it into Oga Paul’s fat stomach. He pulled out the knife and thrust it in again and again in three quick jabs. It happened so fast that Oga Paul had no time to recover or defend himself.

His wife and two younger kids were horrified.
With three big holes in his belly, out of which gushed blood and other fluids too disgusting to describe, Oga Paul fell to the floor and breathed his last.

Kujoe ran out of the house with the murder weapon still in his hand. He breezed silently back to the quarters with light footstep like a ghost. He thought for a moment, got up the fence and dropped the murder weapon in a hole between two bricks where no one will ever find it.

He went inside, picked up the sack of money that was his mother’s life savings and fled the Paul residence. He ran out of the gate, hailed a taxi and went as far away from the scene as possible.

That night, he couldn’t sleep. He laid on the hard concrete embankment under the Oshodi bridge thinking about his life. He had just taken a man’s life for the first time but instead of feeling horrible about it, he felt an odd sense of satisfaction in what he did.

It wasn’t the murder he committed that kept him awake, it was the murder committed against his mother. He couldn’t bear the thought of never seeing her again. He wept bitterly knowing that he had no one else in the world. The knowledge that he was all alone in the world made him wish to kill Oga Paul ten times over for taking the life of his dear mama.
That night, the few times he tried to sleep, he had horrifying nightmares. As soon as he closed his eyes, he saw evil creatures like birds with talons as sharp as the knife he thrust into Oga Paul’s belly, trying to claw his heart out. Each time he’ll wake up shaking violently, feeling a slight pain in his chest.

With the death of Oga Paul, fourteen-year-old Kujoe Mensah became the most wanted teen in Lagos. The police combed the streets of Lagos looking for him without success. They couldn’t find him because no one had a picture of him nor was there any record of him. The only thing the police had to work with was a poor sketch of him from the description Oga Paul’s widow gave.

For months, he lived under the bridge. He endured the cold and the mosquitoes until the police decided they had better things to do with their time.

At fourteen, it would have been suspicious if he had tried to rent an apartment with the money mama left him. Since he didn’t want to stand out, he made his home under the bridge.

He knew he couldn’t live off mama’s money forever so after a few months, he started menial jobs that came rarely. He did his best to augment his fast-dwindling inheritance.
With time, he got to meet other homeless kids that made the bridges of Lagos their home.
Life wasn’t easy for Kujoe Mensah but he made the best of his situation. Once again he had to be a man and fend for himself. This time, without his beloved mama.

Later, a few other homeless kids ed him under the bridge and as their population increased, fights were inevitable. It was in one of such fights that Kujoe met Bruno Obeten.

An older teen had tried to bully Kujoe into handing him his meal. Kujoe refused to be bullied and a showdown ensued. Blows were exchanged and within a few minutes, Kujoe knocked out his much bigger opponent. The other boy lay on the ground panting, his face covered with blood.

Bruno was driving by when the fight started. From his car, he saw the two kids arguing over something and then pushing each other. He had lived long enough in Lagos to know what would come next.

Something prompted him to stop and watch the inevitable showdown about to take place. He parked his car by the side of the road and watched as Kujoe threw fast punches that landed with impressive precision, inflicting maximum damage.

There seemed to be something special about the way the smaller kid fought. The pace, the determination, the accuracy, but most importantly, the courage to take on a much more formidable opponent. All of these caused Bruno to applaud the champion.
He waited until the cheering crowd, composed mainly of homeless kids, dispersed. Then he came out of his car and strolled casually to where the champion sat resting.

They discussed for about thirty minutes after which Kujoe followed Bruno to his car.
Bruno took him home that day, transformed him from Kujoe Mensah to Alpha Gricks and put a gun in his hand. Since then, Alpha has been Bruno’s top assassin.

Ruthless, brutal and highly effective, Alpha Gricks became Bruno’s deadliest killing machine with a talent for making people disappear without a trace.


Alpha Gricks thought about all of this as he circled the backstreets of Asokoro three times just to make sure he wasn’t being followed. After he convinced himself that no one was watching, he parked his car in a back alley, about four blocks from the hidden entrance to the secret tunnel.

He walked back to the bridge and stood by a corner. He looked around a few times careful not to arouse any suspicion. Very few cars were usually seen on this road during this hour. When no one was around to watch him, he slipped out of sight, following a rarely used footpath that led under the bridge.

He went on along the path shaded by tall trees, hidden from the sight of any prying eyes that may be above the bridge or around it. As the dry leaves crackled under his feet, he paused occasionally to look out for any indication of someone hidden in the bush.
The path led him to a flat concrete structure covered with dry leaves. He picked up a piece of wood nearby and used it to rake off the dry leaves to reveal a round metallic lid at the centre of the concrete structure.

He held the lid by its handle, turned it in the anticlockwise direction twice and pulled it open, revealing the steps of a ladder securely attached to the body of the concrete tunnel.
Alpha brought out a tiny torchlight from the inner pocket of his jacket, stepped in and quietly closed the lid. He began the walk through the underground tunnel to a hidden room somewhere inside Bruno’s big house.

CHAPTER FIVE

It was a beautiful sunny morning in the capital city of Abuja. A large orange ball lit the east side of the sky, casting a bright orange colour over the city. As much as the morning sun beautified the skyline of the city, it was also an indication of another hot day. Traffic in the city centre was beginning to thin down because most workers were already in their offices.

Those still stuck in traffic were anxious to get to their places of work before their bosses got mad at them for coming to work late.

One man particularly was in no hurry to go anywhere. He had all the time in the world and didn’t seem to be in a haste to do anything.

Alpha Gricks lived in a palatial mansion in River Park Estate, close to the city centre. His house was equipped with state-of-the-art facilities, including an indoor workout room and a game centre. He spent most of his time playing PS5 games on a large-screen HD television. He installed infrared motion sensors and fibre optic cameras that gave him a good view of his property at all times.

Even though his neighbours at Samuel Nlemoha Street were not aware, he watched them through his cameras very closely. The cameras were also connected to a mobile device he carried everywhere. So, even when he’s not around, he’s always watching.

Alpha did all his cleaning and laundry by himself. The only thing he never did was mow his lawn. He hated the sound of the lawnmower so much that he contracted his gardening job to a kid in the neighbourhood. The kid came in once every week to mow the lawn and trim the flowers. He always paid cash each day the kid worked. Nothing documented. The kid was happy about his steady tax-free income, Alpha was happy to have his lawn mowed without questions. It was a mutually beneficial arrangement that was perfect for both parties.

But while the kid did his job outside every Saturday morning, Alpha was always inside watching very closely.

Today, he woke up feeling good about himself. His life has been a remarkable journey from nauseating penury to affluence. He thought about the uneasy journey of his life and the things he had done to rise from the ashes like a phoenix. Smiling to himself in self-satisfaction, he turned on the treill, stepped into it and began his daily two-kilometre jog on the treill.

Midway through his workout session, he heard his mobile phone ring from somewhere nearby. He turned off the treill and stepped out of it carefully to take the call. He walked slowly to where he kept the phone and picked it up. When he noticed that the caller ID did not show up on the screen, he wasn’t surprised. He pushed the call button and placed the earpiece on his right ear without uttering a word.

A clear but familiar voice spoke from the other end of the line. “Jesus is calling you now but before you answer his call, read Matthew chapter seven verses thirteen and fourteen. While you’re at it, watch the gate of your heart with the eye of an eagle.” The caller spoke quickly and hung up. It was a coded message from Bruno’s Asokoro home.

Alpha had never read the Bible except to decipher a code usually hidden in a cryptic message disguised as a scriptural age. Messages like this came very rarely from Bruno but when they did, there was always very sensitive information being ed on. It was the only way Bruno gave him information whenever he suspected his telephone line was being monitored by the police.

Alpha picked up his King James Bible, dusted it up and opened it to Matthew 7:13-14. He read it out loud and the instruction was clear. He was to meet with Bruno in his house but not to go in through the main gate. He was instructed to enter through a secret tunnel that only five people know about.

Alpha knew Bruno Obeten to be a very smart man that was highly intolerant of error. When he gave an order, he expected it to be carried out just the way he wanted. Their relationship had worked out this smoothly partly because they are more alike than they seemed to realise.

Alpha liked to think of himself as being as smart as his boss, if not even smarter. He knew he had the same perfectionist disposition as Bruno so Bruno never had any reason to complain about the way he did his job. Whatever needed to be done was always done with pinpoint accuracy. Because of this, Alpha was Bruno’s most trusted associate. Alpha always carried out Bruno’s instructions to the letter without asking questions. In return, Bruno rewarded him with more money than he could spend in a lifetime. Alpha, in his own right, was a very wealthy man with little to spend his money on except indulge his few lusts occasionally.

He believed in saving for the rainy day so he hid large chunks of his money in offshore s controlled by shell corporations within and outside the country.

He had been following the news since his boss was released on bail but never tried to him directly or anyone close to him. It wasn’t safe to do so. He kept his distance because he knew Bruno will find a way to him if he needed him. And he was right about that. He was anxious to see Bruno after three years.

Three long years were enough to get a man agitated but not Bruno. Alpha felt like he went to prison with Bruno. Throughout the time Bruno was away, he lived a bland, inconspicuous life, hiding like an animal in hibernation. With literally no activity, he felt like he too was in prison. Bruno could have been able to control his vast empire from his prison cell but chose not to. He was a very prudent man who had learned the virtue of patience.

But while he stayed quiet in his cell, his lieutenants roamed the country watching and waiting for their boss. No one understood why their boss refused to rule his kingdom from the place of his captivity. Some even thought he had gone soft. Even Alpha had misjudged Bruno by entertaining the thoughts that life in prison had made him grow weak. But the gentleness of a lion should never be mistaken for timidity. When everyone thought he was weak, he carefully orchestrated the events that led to him being granted bail on frivolous health grounds.

“You have to give him that,” thought Alpha. “He’s patient and calculating.” He wondered how a man could be that patient. But perhaps, Bruno’s greatest strength was in his uncanny ability to detach himself emotionally from all situations, no matter how terrible. That way, he stayed on top of every situation and by extension, on top of all his enemies.

Alpha learnt a vital lesson. Discipline makes a man and a man in control of his emotions is always able to carefully control his circumstances.

He got in the shower, took a cold bath and dressed up in one of his most expensive suits. He stood in front of the full-length mirror and ired himself. Then he entered his garage, got in his Innoson G80 and drove out of his compound.