A short Story, written in times of inertia, unedited.

STORY 1

She walked into the office without knocking. It was a few minutes to the good lord’s birthday; Ralph Azu was in his office. He sat in his chair and put both his legs on the leather surface table in front of him. He had a bottle of esplendido brandy in his hand, one would not be totally wrong to say he was slightly loaded. She walked to the table and pulled out a chair. Ralph put his legs down and shamefully put the bottle of brandy away. He looked at the quartz clock on the wall the time was 11:31 pm. He had never had a client come in that late, apart from the time Elaine Scot chose to come calling, the only other things he noticed was that she was a foreigner. She said, “Good Evening Mr Azu”. Ralph looked at the name plate on his table; it had his name in bold characters in Gold. “Good Evening he responded”.

She walked out of the office fifteen minutes later. Ralph did not only see her proposal as strange but also as profitable. All she asked him to do was to wait until 8am on Christmas day and if she failed to show up, he should send by DHL a small envelop she had handed over to him. It was addressed to a church in Miami, in the United States of America. To do this, she gave him thirty genuine one hundred dollars bills. He looked each note thoroughly and they all checked out just fine, all kosher. As he followed her to the door, he gave her his card. He would really love to do more business with this type.

Born in April of nineteen seventy six to middle class parents he went off to university at the age of eighteen. Though not an only child, he was the only son of the parents. He had an elder sister who was married to an importer of second hand shoes in the South-Eastern commercial town of Aba. He had two younger sisters, one, Esther at the university of Calabar and Chichi also at the same institution. Barely two years ago and fresh out from National Service, he set up RA-Consultancy, his private business outfit. Early during his undergraduate years he made up his mind to be his own boss from day one, set up his own structure and makes his own money. He was into sport like opinion polls, campaign strategy and management, market survey, research and analysis. Armed with a degree in sociology and a quarter of a million Naira he raised in his service year, he got himself a two-bedroom flat at the state housing estate on Ndidem usang Iso road in calabar. He personally supervised the conversion of the sitting room into a reception room come library. One of the two bedrooms he made his private office and he took up residence in the other.

By the time he concluded registration procedures at the Cooperate Affairs Commission he had exchausted all of the cash including and extra thirty thousand his elder sister raised from him. Luck came smiling his way a little whine later in the form of a sub-contract from a Lagos based from that made him three hundred thousand richer. Such jobs came three or four times in a year but he made the most of it less that a year into business he acquired from himself a second hand Honda Car and took up residence in a three bedroom flat at eta-agbor road close to the university.In the practical sense, there were no women in his life. He only took them when he saw them or had them around. At twenty-five, he had never even given as much as a second thought to marriage, like a real hustlers, he had money on his mind. Five-feet eight and with a very handsome face and an averagely built body, he was most of what any young woman wanted.

In a hustler’s world, things could really get droughty at times. Ralph was broke for three dreadful months before Elaine Scot came into his table and the bottle of esplendido in his hand, he had absolutely no idea where he was going to get funds to pay salaries to his staff of two, per day was only three days away. His flat on Eta-agbor road was tastefully finished but at the close of work on that day he lacked the inspiration to go home. He was flat broke, there was no fuel in his car which explains why in recent days he came to work on commercial motorcycle of` course he had no money to go to any of the numerous night spots that dotted calabar, and as he had no steady girlfriend there was neither one to go home to nor visit. He chose to sit in office and get the load off his feet. He did that every time he was really broke. RA-Consultancy occupied one of two flats on the first floor of a two story building on Ndidem usang Iso road in the state housing Estate. Though his staff had both left at the close of work eight hours earlier, the lights in the reception cum library was still on and the door sight still showed “open” to indicate that the premises was still open for business even at 11:31 pm.

Elaine Scot was American, she was young adventurous and beautiful. She worked for an international detective agency known as Trackers Network or TN. The TN through their website recruited and trained young intelligent graduates for intelligence gathering pertaining to missing or wanted persons. In a manner of speaking, the TN was a glorified bounty hunters network. She was recruited from Miami three years earlier. What she loved most about the job were the thrills, the adventure, the freedom and the pay. A few months ago, Al-Qaeda an international terrorist Network based in Afghanistan but especially active in all Middle Eastern Countries went off it a turf and delivered a very destructive blow on the mind of the American. Predictably, the Bush Administration went with a vengeance after the al-gweder and its Taliban protectors. The Taliban were the rulers of Afghanistan. Al-qaeda of course did not imagine that the Taliban could with stand the ware of the American onslaught.

Therefore, while all the noise about grave consequences in event of an American inversion was being made, senior AL-Qaeda and Taliban figures were busy planning their escape and refuge. When the Americans finally flew into Kabul, most of the ‘most wanted’ and dangerous men of the AL-qaeda and Taliban were scattered all over the world. The Americans failed to kill all in one swoop as they hoped they would; now they knew they were in very bad trouble. That devastating terror attack on America changed Elaine view on many things in life; it also affected the focus of the organization she worked for, the TN. The US government put various mouth watering prices on the heads of all known and unknown AL-qaeda related terrorists. One could then say that it was a mixture of Nationalistic fervor and financial inducement that set the TN on the trail of terrorists.

In the jungles of Africa, the wisest hunters always lay in wait close to watering hole. All animals must surely come for a drink one time or the other, and the hunter’s job would be made much easier. President Bush followed this amount rule. He went after the terrorist source of existence; they were financed through elaborately concealed channels under the guise of charitable organizations. A number of such charities had their funds frozen and investigated. The TN towed President Bush’s line and in a very short time hit pay dirt.

When Elaine walked into her supervisor’s office three weeks ago in Miami he told her in simple and plain language “you’re going to Nigeria”. She was thrown aback. She had her reservations, she had never been to Nigeria and she liked nothing of all she’s heard about the country. Simply, Nigeria was not a place she wanted to visit in her life time. When she was told why they needed her to go to Nigeria, she would challenge the devil to a duel for the same reason. “All you hear about Nigeria is not entirely true, that countries aren’t that bad. Been there myself couple of times. Always the Nigeria lets you take the first shot, if you play a clean card, that the way its gonna be all through. If you play dirty, you’re gonna wind up in a phony multi-million dollar deal and you’ll be sent home broke. That’s how it is over there”.