CHAPTER SIX

" ...Don't forget to grab as much cash as you can, the whole UFC are depending on you right now! " I said. The major thing on my mind now was how to get Nisi out of there. How must he be feeling now?.trapped in a prison full of money,... mixed feelings; that of pleasure and more of fear. The walkie-talkie went cold. I drew out my chronicle and began to sketch out an extraction plan: the guards were on standby now after Dorcas had distracted them earlier. At first they were amused by her cute inquisition but Dorcas got mesmerising comfortable and they got talking, it was then I realised the security men weren't as tough as they seemed to be. After their lengthy juicy conversation, they decided they had to 'get rid' of Dorcas and they told her they would continue another day. Dorcas nicknamed them 'Hobbs' and 'Shaw' and based on their display of character, the nicknames were fitting. The next obstacle was the automatically-controlled gate. Mr Collins uses a remote for the gate and I had no idea if the gate could be opened manually, even though it could be pushed open manually, the gate looked sturdy and heavy for us. The fence wasn't even an option, the danger sign kept staring at me in the eye and the height wasn't helping matters. If I was to come up with something, it couldn't be something that involved climbing the fence: the risk of electrocution was very high and I couldn't push anyone there. I needed another plan....something that didn't pose too much harm for any of us and there wasn't any other entry; no smaller gate on either flank of the mansion, the drainage system that looked like a possible route was also a hard nut to crack, there wasn't any weak spot in this house; it seemed it was built to perfection . I decided on something, I was going to work with something that had a heart and a reasoning brain, something that had feelings....I was going to talk to Hobbs and Shaw and try to convince them to work against their boss. I know it's going to be tough but I'm willing to take that risk for Nisi, for everyone. I would start with them truthfully, picking the speech right from my heart, narrating our present predicament to them stating that our solution was caged in a money vault right inside the duplex of their boss. I thought, should I involve the discovered cash in our discussion?, the mention of hard currencies should make them re-consider their options, turn against their boss and work for the UFC. It's dollars we are talking about here, I had earlier gone gaga when Nisi broke the news, they should be beyond excited, how much could their salary worth?, we could double it . What's even the worst that could happen?, little scolding or worse still strict warning or intense monitoring after the incidence and then they would just shrug it off, forget like it never happened...it's just some random orphanage kid spewing nonsense right?, what could he possibly know or do?.

"How's the plan coming on Tony?, is he safe?, please do your best to bring him back home Tony, I'm depending on you!", that was the voice of the person that cared so much about Nisi than any of us. Her name...Mary and her story?... it came with a touch of adventure and a little bit of action. During the good times at the orphanage around four years ago, when we still had the fortune to take excursions and tourist trips to anywhere we chose within the country, we happened to visit Port-Harcourt, the capital city of Rivers state, Nigeria. What took us there?, I can't remember precisely but at first, it turned out to be a fascinating trip: the weather, the serenity, the landscape and of course, the delightful delicacies all proved to be worth travelling miles to experience. Then two nights before our flight back to Lagos state where UFC was located Nisi and I decided to do some personal sight-seeing. So when it became a little bit dark, we strolled out of the hotel we resided temporarily in without anyone noticing and wandered aimlessly into the busy streets of the city looking for anything to satisfy our interest. We came across a tall building with the words 'MOTEL' glowing on a big advertising board hanged right on top of the roof, then I didn't realise the meaning of the word, we slept in a hotel, what do they do in a motel?, or did the designer of the sign board make a mistake when he was doing his work?, he had only one job, I thought, and he blew it. The motel was quite lively: music, bright lights, vibing people and cheerful laughter characterised this place, no dull moment for the denizens of this motel. We passed through the reception corner on the down floor of the building, the receptionist, a woman of fair height with a lovely staple smile placed on her face. She glanced at us as we strolled down the hallway leading to the elevator when one man with a huge body build shoved past us, beer-in-hand and pushed us right against the wall.

"You guys lost?....", he started, his breath reeked of beer, he must be drunk, "this place ain't for the weak or for kids, I would advise you turn around and ask Linda they way to the door!", his voice now louder than normal.

We looked at him in disbelief, who still drinks to stupor these days?, "we have business here, an appointment to be precise, is he home?", I said, Nisi stared at me, confusion printed on his face. I just wanted to play a game of adventure, nothing much. I signalled at him to play along though I knew Nisi, he won't say a word.

Staggering and managing to stay on his feet, he struggled to voice out a response, "you know him?!...", he let out a loud guffaw, "you can't possibly know the guy that runs this place and even though you do, he can't possibly do business with spoilt kids like you two!".

"Wanna find out, I'll show you", the game was moving faster than I planned, I liked it. We approached the elevator, pressed a button and waited for it to reach the ground floor. Meanwhile, our new drunk friend was busy gulping more beer from the half-full bottle, spilling it on his shirt in the process. The elevator finally came down and we all entered, just three of us and we waited for the next action. If truly I was who we claimed to be, I should know the floor we were going to and the button to press to take us there. I looked down, fully aware of the eyes that were staring at me and when I looked back up, the elevator was already in motion. Nisi later told me he was the one that pressed the elevator button since he saw I was already lost in calculation. He reasoned accurately that since the motel was a eight-storey building, the 'party' should be on the last floor so he did what he had to do and saved our faces that moment.

When the elevator opened at the eight floor, the most despicable sight of all time: we saw arms and munitions like never before placed carelessly on tables and counters, alcohol that were never to be seen outside, hard drugs littered the whole space and stained the faces of their ignorant users and worse of all, youngs girls of about my age, dressed in skimpy outfits that looked loose on them being ordered around by some pimp. That's was when it all dawned on me: this motel was no ordinary motel, it was a obvious hideout of arms, drugs and human trafficking. What have I gotten myself into?. The look on Nisi's face said it all; it translated as 'Anthony, well done, once again, you have tried to kill the both of us because of your crazy adventures...thank you!. We stood transfixed to the ground, when our new friend dragged us both by the hands across the room straight to a obese man with a scary tattoo on his neck sipping a glass of alcohol, whiskey, I guess.

"Sir, these boys said they have business with you, I saw them down the hallway asking of you, I guess it's serious ", he looked down at both of us, smiled gleefully and left us in the hands of the scary obese man that looked like the owner and manager of this den.

"Have your sit boys", he motioned for us to sit on a two-seater leather couch right opposite him, "rum?", he asked but before we could appreciate his gesture, he poured us a glass of rum from the half-empty bottle into two glass cups and shoved the tray towards us. We had to look tough to him so we took his offering and sipped it slowly. That was the first time we tasted alcohol and it wasn't pleasant to both of us; Nisi's mouth was twisted in a funny way, mine was still better, I managed to put on a bold face.

"Cigar?", he brought out a large brown cigar from the side pocket of his suit alongside a lighter.

"No thanks", we were quick to turn down his offer this time. Smoking was not part of the deal. "The rum's okay sire", I added.

"So let's get to business", he dragged himself up and sat up straight, "no doubt you must be the Devil's Twins, now which of you is Dracula and which of you is Bogeyboy?, I've never set my eyes on you two before, only my estranged manager dealt with you before and that was two weeks ago. You doing business in PH now?".

We looked at each other, amazed by what we've gotten ourselves into and who the hell bears those ridiculous names, 'Dracula and Bogeyboy'.

"I'm Dracula", Nisi claimed, "he's Bogeyboy and no, we are not here for business, we are here on vacation". Why did he get to claim the fancy name?, and vacation?, nice cover. We will treat the choice of name later when we get out of this mess.

"Alright, that's perfect, now...", he was interrupted by a man that looked like his personal assistant who came near and whispered something into his ears and left. "As I was saying, who among you is delaying my shipment of coke?, it was supposed to be delivered today and my money, I hope you've put it together, the ultimatum has almost expired, if you refuse to pay up, you know the rules, you will be hunted by my finest gunmen and you know what that means, don't you?, so let's get serious, get me my coke and my cash latest tomorrow or I can't guarantee your safety anymore the day after ".

Things were already looking ugly, this was a case of misidentification. Who were these Devil's Twin and what did they do to annoy this man?, it seemed they had absconded with his money and he wasn't pleased with them. It looked like they ran business with this man and they supplied drugs for him and on this occasion, they decided to cut ties with him and run away with his money and his drugs and now, we had to pay for their sins, or we weren't.

"Sir, it was a mix-up, things got heated at the port and your shipment was seized. We were present there and we've assigned our own finest gunmen to take down the officials involved. Harry, our man in the service wasn't around that day to cover us so things got messy but we've got things under control and about your cash, we are working on it, we will get back to you tomorrow", I assured.

"Alright boys, cheers to that", he raised up his glass and we clinked our glass with his. The man seemed like a man with multiple personality disorder;one moment he is threatening us, the other moment, he's cheering to my speech. I just wanted to get out of here, enough games.

After a bit of forceful rum-drinking and uncomfortable sight-seeing that was offered here, we decided to head back to our hotel; it was way past our bedtime and the matrons would soon get worried sick about us.

"We would love to take our leave sir, we have other business to attend too", we dropped the glass of rum on the glass table and stood up, "Bigger fish to fry I guess. We see tomorrow", I said, with the toughest voice I could make up.

"Very well then, my men would love to escort you to your hotel, it's not a suggestion, it's a gift from the kindness of my heart. Besides, you aren't here with security, I perceive you might need them so accept my kind gesture", he said coldly, there was something about this man I couldn't lay my hands on, offering us security?, now that's strange.

Before we left his presence, he signalled to two huge men behind him and pointed to both of us. I guess the men understood immediately, they closed in on us and pointed to the elevator door: they weren't friendly at all.

As we advanced out of the motel, near the busy road, we witnessed a young girl run across the street, screaming loudly being pursued by a violent guy, belt-in-hand who used it as a torture instrument on her. Immediately, before I knew what was happening, Nisi charged towards him and pinned him to the ground and I followed suit, giving the bully a taste of his own medicine. I knew Nisi to be timid and peaceful but this was another dimension of Nisi I was seeing. We were seperated by our two escorts and the girl whose name turned out to be Mary decided to join the escorts and follow us to our hotel. She told us she had earlier seen us walk into the 'room of vice' from the elevator and she was among the new girls that were to be 'inaugurated' into the world of under-age prostitution. She along with the two unfriendly-looking escorts followed us to the entrance of our hotel after which I assured her secretly we were coming the next day to save her, the way we would do that, I did not know, yet but I was sure that she wasn't spending the rest of the week as the toy of the multiple personality disordered obese freak that ran that den. We saw the two men, talk to some person over the phone in hushed tone before they cast one last look at us, the hotel and Mary before they disappeared into the dark ...with Mary. They would of course have some reporting to do.

I drafted out an escape plan for Mary and to implement it, it would mean one thing; returning to the place that we were now seen as wanted criminals in possession of some drugs we didn't handle and some cash we didn't spend. This time, we were more cautious: we avoided Linda, the smiley receptionist and did not go straight to the elevator. We waited outside of the motel till the girls came down for their 'night shift' and sighting Mary, she understood what we came here for. So we followed them, their fitful pimp unaware of our plans but as we moved out of the motel, we saw the two men that escorted us the previous day move out in the opposite direction; the route that led to our hotel and this time, they were looking more dangerous and unfriendly than the day before. Then it dawned on me, when the obese freak was talking to us yesterday, he talked about sending his 'finest gunmen' after us and damn.....the ultimatum had expired, he said, in his words, "I won't be able to guarantee your safety the day after". Oh.....they were after us and we weren't at the hotel...the rest of the UFC were in danger. If they didn't get to take us out, they would take out their anger on the unsuspecting matrons and innocent kids. That was for sure. As the group of girls took another turn, Mary did not follow them, instead she slipped out of the line and joined Nisi and I who were right behind them. Sighting us, she went straight to where Nisi stood and hugged him firmly before she spoke a word.

"Thanks for yesterday, I really needed help that moment...what's your name?, I'm Mary"

"Nisi,...I'm Nisi and you're welcome. I don't fancy bullies, that's all, besides you don't fit in the group"

"I'm Anthony, just telling you... 'cos you haven't asked yet", I added causally. We were already strolling towards our hotel, we needed to warn the UFC and we needed to do it fast.

"Thanks for saving me Tony, where are we headed to now?", she asked.

"Our hotel, we need to warn the rest of us, those two guys that escorted us yesterday don't seem to..."

"Gabriel and Gideon..", she cut in, "those were the guys that followed us to your hotel yesterday. They weren't there ordinarily. They are Boss's best henchmen and I saw them report straight to the Boss when we got back to the motel, they were probably sent there to spy on your whereabouts so as to take you down today if you failed to come up with his things. You guys played a deadly game yesterday, why did you pretend to be Dracula and Bogeyboy?, you don't look like them in anyway. I was privileged to set my eyes on the Devil's Twins right before they absconded with Boss's stuffs and so I know them when I see them. The Devil's Twins were born in vice, bred in vice and survived on vice and so as young as they were, they managed to strike a deal with the Boss's ex-manager some weeks ago at the motel that led to where we were now; things got so fast and the manager lost his job and your lives may be the next thing that could get lost if we don't act fast. Anyways, thanks again for risking your life for me...both of you. Let me return the favour and let's take down Gabriel and Gideon ".

We arrived at the hotel and made straight for the security house to alert them about the impending danger and put them on standby and as we entered, guess who we saw there waiting at the securtiy room?, Gabriel and Gideon!.