STORY: FRANCIS IS ALIVE - EPISODE 18 [BY LORD EBAY]

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It was Sonican’s boat that took everyone to Tin Can Island from where they had set out for Majeed’s apartment before the Soul Lounge’s. When they left Soul Lounge in the middle of the great brawl, they didn’t leave for Majeed’s place in Lekki, Sonican rather took Majeed and Olawunmi to the boat. They were followed but Sonican changed cars thrice.

Francis couldn’t be followed, nobody saw him leave, not even the almighty James Bond. Majeed’s wound ached and so he was tended to first, and Sonican was just done with the treatment when Francis arrived in the company of Anatoly and other two of their men, the rest were to meet them later after carrying out what they were tasked with as soon as the bounty hunters dispersed.

“Are we good to go?” he asked as he yanked off his torn dress.
“Aleksandr, let’s get moving,” Sonican wailed and the engine started, the boat departing slowly.
“Sonia, what was it with the fuss outside?” Francis asked as he collected a new shirt from one of the men.
“Just a little movie starring a Chinese bitch and our infantry.”

Francis nodded.

“Did you notice any markings on her?” asked Anatoly.
“I’m not stupid, she’s League. I don’t need to see her tattoo.”
“That’s embarrassing. They’re sending girls after me now?”
“She’s not any girl, boss. She’s Xia. I saw her.”
“Who the hell is Xia?”
“We used to date.”
“Wow! How small the world is!” He faced Olawunmi. “The man who took you to dance, what was he telling you?”

She looked up swiftly like they just woke her from a bad dream.

“What was the man telling you?” asked Francis again.
“I—I—d—d… I don’t…”
“Relax, love, oh what have I done? Come here!”

He drew Olawunmi up and hugged her briefly. He brushed her eyebrows with his fingers, put his hands on her cheeks and looked straight into her eyes. “You are strong,” he told her. “Don’t let this shake you. You’re safe now.”

Olawunmi nodded frantically.

“He told me… he said… casual stuffs. I’m beautiful. If I don’t mind, he would seek me out sometime for dinner. He asked for my email address too. That’s all.”
“And you gave him?” asked Sonican eagerly.

Olawunmi nodded in the affirmative.

“There’s nothing he can do with it,” said Francis. “Majeed, can that email be hacked?”
“It can, but there’s nothing there. I deleted everything in it.”

It was originally Majeed’s email, only opened in Olawunmi’s name for the cyber rackets.

“Sonia, Anatoly, Charles, Mike, hope you’re all good.”
“Positive,” they chorused.
“Never been better,” added Anatoly.
“Majeed,” Francis faced Majeed then, “there’s something you need to understand right now. You and Olawunmi can’t go home now and you know why, people that are looking for me would use you as bait to draw me out. They’ll take you even if you’re under police protection. You know they took Bade Adebanjo from a police station, right? So, you’re left with two options, stay with me, not necessarily following me around, you know, I could, huh… drop you with a friend nearby, probably in Cameroun or Cotonou. The second choice is, you go to a relative’s, anywhere but Lagos and stay off the internet. They won’t know you’re there and when all this is over, you can follow me to the United States and live with me.”
“We’ll take the second choice,” responded Majeed.
“Yes, that, relative’s,” mumbled Olawunmi.
“As you wish, but you do understand you must stay away from the internet and stay indoor always? We’ll get you new phones, new SIM cards, and you mustn’t call any of the contacts you frequently called with your old SIM. After everything, you can—”
“Don’t bother yourself with such worries. We can take care of ourselves,” snapped Olawunmi.

“Our neighbours, they were kidnapped because of… you. What do you want to do for them?” That was Majeed.
“He doesn’t have to do anything, we’ll report to the police,” said Olawunmi.
“No,” responded Majeed. “We can’t. You don’t understand still?”
“She’s right about me not doing anything,” said Francis. “Those who kidnapped them thought I care about them, when they realize I don’t, they’ll let them go. The part where she’s wrong is going to the police but I guess you’ll just guide her through that.”
“Can you help them?” asked Majeed persistently.
“I can but I’m not going to.”
“Collateral damage,” whispered Anatoly.
“Are you serious? They were friendly to you!”
“It is police’s job to find kidnapped people, not mine.”
“Then send us off this boat and don’t bother to tell us where we must go or what we must or mustn’t do. You don’t care. You can’t even pretend to be.”
“I don’t care about them but I do care about you two. But if I advise you and you refuse to heed and you end up kidnapped again, I won’t…”
“You won’t come for us. Good, just let us go already. We can take care of ourselves. We refuse to be arrested with you anyway. We’re not…”
“Criminals like me, uh? You talk to me as if I’m a bad person, uh? I knew you’re fraudsters but I still sent money to you, didn’t I? You’re lucky I came down here to make friends and not kill you.”
“We’re fraudsters, thank God, but we don’t kill people.”

Olawunmi was astonished to see Majeed talk to the man that way and she was scared he was going to kill them after all. She was gesturing for him to keep quiet but he wouldn’t yield.

“You don’t kill people, really?” Francis scowled. “You really do think you don’t kill people, don’t you? The people you swindle, has it ever crossed your mind that they might commit suicide on the bitterness they suffer from loss of their money? Sorry to announce to you, I changed my mind, you’re not going anywhere.”
“Coup d’état eventually,” Sonican giggled.
“Indeed,” said Francis frankly. “Sonia, why’s the boat this slow? You should know slow stuffs irritate me.”
“Aleksandr, speed!” Sonican wailed and the boat gained speed.

Soon enough, they got to Francis’s boat and individual got busy with what he was supposed to be busy with. Then Francis told Sonican he was feeling dizzy and Sonican led him to her boat.

“How do you mean?” she asked.
“I don’t… know. Someone must have drugged my—” he fell on the ground, gave a long hissing sigh and passed out. 

Sonican smiled because she was the one who drugged him. “Aleksandr, let’s get moving,” she instructed and Aleksandr ran off to start the boat.

When Anatoly and others saw the boat moving away, they were alarmed and impetuously followed in pursuit. Their boat’s engine, unfortunately, stopped working shortly after, someone had drained the fuel tank.

“God damn it, it’s Sonican!” screamed Anatoly. “I saw her put something in his drink.”

They could’ve shot at the boat but Anatoly said they shouldn’t, that Francis could take care of himself. Mike blamed Anatoly for allowing Francis take the drink after he saw it drugged and a great quarrel began. Olawunmi and Majeed watched with a refreshed bewilderment; they couldn’t be sure if they were supposed to be angry or scared then.

“I’m going to kill that bitch!” Anatoly swore. “Get the life raft, we’re going after her.”

So Sonican took Francis away but to where, they couldn’t speculate.

* * *

John Penn stood before the TV with an active call on his phone. Someone had phoned to inform him about a certain newsfeed and there he was before the TV, dumbfounded. It was a club in Lagos, Nigeria. It was on fire and it was being reported that terrorists or probably foreign crime gangs had fought there, over what the police had not been able to find out. But the police did know for sure that it was the popular American, Michael Livingstone that hosted them in celebration of a friend’s birthday; a birthday which was announced by the recently reported missing Nigerians who had shown up in contrast to general conception, Olawunmi Oni and Majeed Akintola.

It was reported that bodies of about fifteen persons had been recovered from the debris, nine of them being yet to be identified white men and six Nigerians. The survivors who were Nigerians were being taken to the hospital but neither Michael Livingstone nor his friends had been located or heard of.

“Thank you,” John had finally told the caller and ended the call. Then he dialed a set of numbers and spoke calmly, “Okay, what about now, Johnson’s Tavern?”

The person he called was an FBI Deputy Director who he had earlier refused to meet. While he sipped his cuppa, another call came through and he was directed to watch NTA, a Nigerian federal television station and see what was being shown there. He grabbed the remote control and there on the screen was a video of how the brawl had gone down. A Nigerian blogger had recorded everything. Mysteriously, the club itself did not have its CCTV working that night. The owner of the club said it was unusual and they were still looking into why such was the case. That someone amongst the staff must have meddled with their coverage right before the birthday party started. There were many questions erupting in effect to the Manager’s speech but what John Penn was interested in was the blogger’s video.

Many videos must have been recorded but the blogger’s was the only one that survived or probably had the best coverage. TheCHNGBlog dot com became popular right after the incident and a lot of viewers were logged on it. NTA only showed a censored fraction of the video, John went to the blog to download the full video and there he saw how it went down. Even after the blackout and the shootings, the young man who owned the blog, Yimika Ifede had been stupidly bold enough to take a safe angle to record everything without fearing for his life in the torrent of tense firing, and that had bore a good fruit anyway, there Michael Livingstone was vividly seen, fighting like a hero from a Chinese film, indeed, John realized, they had been fooled by this man, he was Francis Whyte.

He crashed into his couch, recollecting the whole ordeal of how they had arrested him and he had behaved so unlike Francis Whyte. The video came, the DNA analysis results also came, he was cleared but everything was a lie. And the Nigerian government had fallen cheaply for this and forced them off their country. He had been beaten.

He put on his jacket at once, his gloves and shoes. He picked the car keys and off to Johnson’s Tavern where he was going to meet the FBI Deputy Director, Steven Grey he went. He didn’t wait long before Grey arrived, and he joined him at the table where he sat, flanked by the glass wall through which the street was visible.

“You’ll give us all the intel on the case,” said Steven sharply.
“Yes, I will,” John nodded.
“Good then. His name is Dave. Dave Strong. He used to be a bounty hunter before we… huh, took him into the system. He had played biggest roles in different feats we have recorded, finding Osama Bin Laden, shutting the Curare Gang in New York down, lot of other derring-dos but he works off record. He’s a special agent, one man squad. However clever Francis is, if we join arms and put this man on him, he’ll put him away once and for all.”
“Michael Livingstone.”
“The guy you—”
“He’s Francis Whyte.”
Steven furrowed his brows. “Michael Livingstone? How? I mean, what the—really?”
“TheCHNGBlog dot com. You might want to check that out later and see the video, if it’s not deleted by then.”
“He is, for real?”
“He is. I saw him fight like a pro, a real pro. If he’s not Francis, then he’s definitely something close to him, not at all the portrait he had presented to us. But I know he is, I’ve always instinctively known, and now I’m very sure.”
“Okay. Strong is the right man for this clown, but you do know the operation’s not gonna be in the Nigerian government’s knowledge?”
“Certainly.”
“And we must do this my way.”
“Whatever, but do let this sink down too. We do it your way but he reports to me. It’s my hunt.”
“It’s our hunt, and… Strong doesn’t report, John. He just delivers.”
“I can live with that. The end would justify the means.”
“Deal?”
“Deal.”

They shook hands.

...to be continued!

Written by: Lord eBay (and his action series, 2017)

Twitter & Instagram: @lordebay

Email: dearlordebay@gmail.com

ABOUT AUTHOR:

Lord eBay is an Author with a taste for Romantic, Political and Paranormal Fictions. His goal is to join other writers in resurrecting Reading/Writing culture in Nigeria. 

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