Helen stood there dumbfounded, for a moment her thinking faculty died, she was totally unsure of the next step to take.
She started to wonder how Uche's men got to Bode and managed to plant a bomb on his body. She then realized that Uche must have sent information to his men when they discovered Dennis' hideout.
"Where did you leave Bode?" She asked to confirm.
"I left him at my house in Main City, no one else knows about the place, not even my Mum" Dennis replied, deeply saddened about the situation.
"We know about the place" Helen stated, she brought out her phone. "5/6 Flora street, is that not the address?"
"Yes, how do you know that?"
"We traced you when you called" she replied as she dialed a number on her phone. "Hello Inspector, please monitor Inspector Uche's phone number. Converse with his network bearer, we need a recording of all his phone calls henceforth and also try to trace every phone number associated with his name"
She turned back to Dennis, "I need your car"
"Okay" Dennis handed the keys to her, "but I need to take something there first"
He picked something in a dark nylon behind the car seat and gave way for Helen.
"I'll trace Uche with two other non uniformed officers, you should go back to that your house with some of the boys and inform me about whatever is going on"
She gave orders to some of her subordinates before leaving with two others, she took the opposite direction Uche and his men took. Her strategy was simple, it was past 7 already and the route Uche took was one which would experience a lot of traffic jam at that time. If she was lucky enough, she would get to a major roundabout before them and follow them wherever they went.
She got to the roundabout with the other men in fifteen minutes time and luckily for them she found Uche's car just escaping from the traffic.
She quickly tried to follow them but unluckily, the link to the road Uche and his men took was blocked by several cars and it took over a minute before they could pass by. By the time they got through, no trace of the car was seen.
"I guess they're on their way to the Island or maybe they'll just pass through" Helen said as she brought the car to a halt.
"Yes ma, I ..." An officer was saying when the car was suddenly invaded by bullets from different directions
Helen quickly bent her head as the rains of bullet continued. She managed to start the car and drove away speedily, bullets still hit the car's booth as she escaped. She looked back to find the officer at the back dead already, the one by her side also had a bullet in his side and was already gasping for breath.
She tried to increase her speed, but not too long after she began to feel pains on her left arm. She looked at her arm and she was bleeding, she had been hit too.
****
"I don't know who they were, I don't know how they came in" the doctor explained as the officers removed what was used to cover her mouth and untied her from the chair.
"Do you have an idea where they took him to?" Dennis asked
"No, I don't. They just took him away while he was asleep"
"He should be awake now"
"No, I gave him a drug that would make him sleep for long"
"Wow, so no clues to where he was taken" Dennis stamped his feet on the ground, frustrated. He regretted the actions he had taken, he should have secured Bode more.
++++++++++++++++++++
* *Wednesday morning * *
Ini arranged a few of her clothes into her bag carefully, she was careful enough not to pack too much load as her Dad had told her not to. He already assured that she would have enough clothes waiting for her when she arrived at the states and if she didn't like the clothes she got or if the clothes were not enough, she could go out the next day to get more.
The excitement that she had when her Dad told her about traveling diminished as she prepared to leave the house. She suddenly began to feel as if she was leaving something very important behind.
Memories of time spent with Kelvin raced through her mind, during those times she had thought she already found the person with whom she'll spend the rest of her life with but the dream suddenly ended. The dream gradually began to end when she started to listen to Bola and it finally ended when she met Sandra. Little did she know that Bola and Sandra were friends.
She picked up her phone and searched for Kelvin's phone number, she dialed it but ended it before it could go through. She laid back on the bed again, deep in thoughts, she felt like asking her Dad for more time but she discarded the thought and stood up hesitatingly.
She carried the bag and walked slowly out of her room, right in front of her was the door to the room she assigned to Amarachi, her childhood friend who she loved dearly. From loving her friend she had gradually progressed to detesting her, was it caused by Bola alone? No, Amarachi too didn't love her enough or why would she try to implicate her if she did, why would she have the police arrest her if she did.
"Has my Dad called you?" Ini asked the driver sent to pick her up by her Dad as she approached her sitting room.
"Yes, but he can't see you now. He's gone for a meeting and would be joining you in the states from there"
"Okay, let's go" she ordered the driver, who stood up immediately and grabbed the car keys.
She looked back once again as she approached the main door, she felt uneasy, one of her legs was outside the door and one of in.
"Madam, we'll miss our flight this way"
"Okay" she answered and turned forward, a sudden breeze of dizziness blew on her as she took one more step.
She didn't take more than four steps when she collapsed.
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Bode opened his eyes to find himself on the floor in a very dark room, he could see anything in the room, the only trace of light was from the door hole. He sat up properly and rested his back on the wall, he felt more strength in his bones and his body now. He could move without too much struggle anymore.
He tried to figure out where he was, the last thing he remembered was the Doctor administering some drugs to him. After some minutes of listening carefully without hearing voices around him, he began to hear some low voices approach the room where he was kept.
He crawled close to the door and peeped through the door hole, he saw two well built men approaching slowly They stopped at the middle, some distance to the room where he was and continued their discussion.
"We will all vacate this place by tomorrow evening and we might not use this place for sometime, make sure we moved every of our tools from here" the first man gave orders.
"Okay, and what should we do with him?" The other one asked, looking towards the room where Bode was kept.
"He's useless to us once Uchman is out of the country. After Uchman does final assignment for Chief today at the airport by dropping that minister of information, he'll travel at once to Russia and won't be back for a long time" the man explained. "Once Uchman's plane takes off, we can dispose this guy off to the lagoon"
Fear surged through Bode's body as he heard them mention lagoon, it suddenly dawned on him that he had been captured by the enemy and he was in great danger.
A shadow blocked the door hole obstructing Bode's view, he heard footsteps approaching the room. He hurriedly crawled back to his former position and laid back without making any noise.
The door opened and the one of the men stepped in.
"He's still unconscious" the man informed the one outside.
They walked away without closing the door properly. Bode sat up and deliberated on what to do. After few minutes of silence, he stood up and walked to the door. He was about to open the door when he heard some footsteps approaching, he quickly tiptoed backwards and laid back.
One of the two men returned alone this time, he opened the door widely which allowed light into the room. He sat on a chair and started typing something on it, whistling as he did.
Bode watched him carefully, there was a gun in his left pocket and a rod under the chair. Bode carefully stretched his hand to picked the rod.
The guy turned backwards immediately on hearing a sound but Bode was fast, he landed the rod on his enemy's head continued the attack until the guy stopped moving.
He took the gun and the phone and walked carefully out of the room. Luckily for him, no one was in the other rooms he passed to get out of the house, it only remained how to pass through the gate which was guarded by two other men.
He hid inside the house for a moment thinking of what to do, an idea came to him. He walked back to the room he was in previously and dragged out the body. He placed the body on the verandah and shot in the air. He carefully hid himself in the house and watched through the front window as one of the men approached the house.
The man examined the body carefully before making his way into the house; he was taken down silently immediately he got into the house.
After few minutes of waiting, the man remaining at the gate anxiously left his post after. He padlocked the gate without removing the keys, he walked hurriedly but carefully as he got closer to the house, his suspicions grew when he called out to his friend several times without getting any reply. The body laying on the veranda confirmed that someone as attacking them inside the house. He brought out his gun and slowed down his steps as he walked inside, looking carefully at all sides.
Bode spotted him coming closer and thought of gunning him down but he discarded the thought; he needed to get more information from the man, he needed to know the airport that Uche planned to use and also the time of departure.
He held the gun in his hands and waited for the man to come into the house and attacked the man. The first thing he did was to kick away the gun held by the man; he left the man sprawling on the floor and took his gun.
“Move like this” He directed the man who had not yet recovered from the kick.
“Where are the others?” Bode questioned him, pointing his gun at him.
“Who the hell are you?” The man shouted
“Answer me or?” Bode threatened with his gun.
“Bastard” the man cursed, he made an attempt to bring out something from his pocket but Bode was fast in sending a bullet into his arm.
“Answer me fool” Bode slammed, dipping his hand into the man’s pocket to bring out the gun.
“Damn! I’m the only on left, you killed the others already” The man replied, wincing in pain
“What about Uchman? When is he leaving the country?”
The man stared at Bode, not willing to answer until Bode pointed the gun at him again. “He will be at the airport by 11am to carry out an assignment before his flight which is by 11.30am”
“His assignment to kill the minister right?”
“Yes” he answered hesitatingly.
“How does Uchman intend to go close to the minister or won’t there be guards around the minister?”
“I don’t know, he has his way of doing it”
“You don’t know?” Bode queried.
“Yes, I don’t …” he didn’t complete his statement as Bode sent a bullet right into his left leg.
“Awwwww!” the man cried in pain. “He’s going to carry out the assignment in the airport, that’s all I know. I swear"
“Which airport is that?”
“Beng International”
“Okay, and where are we now? Where is this place?”
“GRA”
“Wow, GRA? That’s fifty minutes’ drive from here” Bode replied, he looked at the time on the phone, “this is 10am already. Tell me, who is the real Boss here”
“Ermmm…” the guy stammered, frowning his face greatly until Bode pointed his gun to his chest this time around.
“Don’t lie to me”
“Chief Pedro Fayemi”
“Hmmm…” Bode nodded his head slowly, trying to take in the information. “Where is the minister travelling to?”
“London”
Bode took a quick look outside of the house through the window and turned back to the man, “Where is the key to the car outside?”
"Any news yet?"
"No, none yet" the junior officer replied Helen, feeling pity for her as he saw the bandage on her hand and round her neck. "We've not been able to trace him"
"That means he hasn't made or receive any call yet?"
"Yes ma" he replied.
"Okay, just make sure you monitor him and give me any information as soon as you get it" she said and turned to leave.
"Ma, sorry about your arm and the other two officers" he consoled his boss.
"Oh thank you" she turned back, trying to put on a smile.
"I hope your arm doesn't hurt much?"
"Not really, the bullet has been removed"
"Okay ma"he continued. "I think we should keep more information to ourselves, there might be more people working with us who are our enemies right now"
"Yes, that's true. Who would have thought that Uche was a murderer?" She agreed.
After more investigations, they had got to find out that Uche swapped the Knife used for the murder with thee one found in Amarachi’s room before he took it to Dele for the test. What she was still trying to figure out was why Uche would be a murderer or do the job of an assassin
She walked out of the office and walked to the reception, she met the junior officers carrying out her order; handing over seized items to Amarachi and Kelvin.
“You guys need a lot of rest” She said to Ama and Kelvin, trying to console them. “We are sorry for any inconvenience that we’ve caused you people; just make sure you learn from this”
Kelvin looked glanced at her as he switched on his phone for the first time in weeks, he didn’t know what to say to Helen; he believed that she was the one supposed to learn from the situation. He felt like insulting or pouncing back on her for all the torture she had put them through for the past few weeks.
Helen’s phone rang and she walked away.
"Bode just called now" Dennis' voice came through.
"He just called now?" She replied the caller.
"Yes, he did and he's on his way to the Beng airport”
“Beng airport to do what?”
“That’s where Uche is, he’s trying to leave the country after killing the minister of information who also has a flight today”
“Okay, thank you. The police would take control of the matter immediately” she said and dropped the call.
She dialled another number, “ Hello… Get in touch with the authorities at Beng International Airport and make sure they stop any flight that has Uche Okafor’s name on the passenger’s list"
She dialled another number, after ending the call. She dialled another number. “The minister of information is in danger right now, get some men to secure him, he has a flight in your airport this morning”
