12.The criminal empire
Angela entered the conference room her head held high and took her seat at the table. A voice filled the room immediately she had made herself comfortable, "Thank you for joining us Phoenix."
"Forgive my tardiness I was unaware of the meeting," she said. The voice did not chastise her instead it went on ahead to explain to the five people occupying the room why the meeting was called. The voice filling the room had no name or face as far as the occupants of the room were aware. All they knew was that once upon a time the families had not been organised until a group of people called the Elite showed up. The Elite basically controlled the country, the president, the economy, the politics and the government. They organised the families gave them rules to follow and promised them non-interference as long as they followed the code and rules. All the families had been intelligent enough to see the profit and perks to be gained so they had agreed. The code and rules were law if broken the family that breaks them suffers. "You are all aware the importance of being head of a particular family. Each of you holds the reigns to one particular booming crime business. You control your business and everything runs smoothly. Heirs are of the utmost importance. For those with children you are requested to name one as your heir and submit the name to the elite for those without children you are expected to write down a member of your family you trust. The elite has been informed that the Phoenix family has not named its heir as expected," the voice concluded and waited for Angela to answer.
Angela stood, "As you are all aware, I have no children of my own but that does not mean I have not chosen an heir. I will submit my heir's details to the Elite as soon as possible. Forgive my delay."
"If you indeed have an heir then we are sorry to have wasted your time in convening an emergency meeting. I will leave you as the head of your respective families to discuss business or anything else you may wish," the voice said.
"I believe you are all aware of our mutual problem. Someone is ignoring the code of conduct and conducting human trafficking in Kenya," Stanley the head of the Tiger family said. The Tiger family dealt with drugs in the criminal underworld. They managed and restricted the illegal drugs sold in the country. They used their pharmaceutical companies to do it.
"My people stopped a shipment last week in my territory it was full of young women and children. I was not impressed," Angela said softly and they all turned their attention to her. The fact that the traffickers had been so bold as to use one of the five families' territory was alarming. It meant they wished to take over a territory including an all-out war. "Since none of the men captured were willing to talk I sent their heads and tongues to whoever is in charge. Separately of course."
They laughed at that amused, "You are the one woman in this country I respect, admire and fear at the same time," John the head of the Lion family said with a chuckle. The Lion family dealt exclusively with bank frauds. That was their territory and they controlled everything to do with it including all criminals in the business. Angela's family was the Phoenix family and it dealt exclusively with money laundering. The Jaguar family dealt with illegal gambling and bookmakers. The final family was known as Dragon and they were the most dangerous, they dealt in illegal weapons and assassinations. There was one thing all the families agreed on and that was human and child trafficking was the one thing they could not lower themselves to commit and if anyone was found committing it the family will be abandoned and destroyed immediately by the rest of the families. "We need to find the person in charge of the trafficking," the head of the Dragon family stated.
"I believe we should all investigate the matter individually. During the next meeting we will discuss our findings in detail," Jaguar joined in. Amongst all of them he spoke the least but whenever he spoke his words were always carefully thought out. "I also wished to suggest our heirs should meet, interact and know each other. They have already been trained and groomed to take our positions when the time come. If they form bonds and interdependence on each other like we did then they would be able to work well together and watch each other's backs." The conversation stopped and they all lapsed into a contemplative silence. "It will be easier when the time came and a small amount of trust will be cemented in their interactions," Lion added contemplatively.
"We do not have to make a definite answer now. Let us all go home and think about it and we can make a decision by the next meeting," Tiger joined in. With that the meeting ended and one by one left the room for their respective cars and left the premises.