MYSTERIOUS DISAPPEARANCE

AMBUSH ON THE EXPRESS.

4:50am. Leaving Yaba for Falomo.

The rain hadn’t let up. Tunde drove with one hand on the wheel, the other gripping the Glock Ayo gave him under his jacket. Kunle was in the passenger seat, re-watching the Ikoyi footage on his phone.

“We should’ve told Dad,” Kunle said.

“We did,” Tunde replied. “He told us to stay low. This is low.”

They hit the Third Mainland Bridge. Empty. Just streetlights reflecting on wet asphalt and the occasional danfo crawling home.

Halfway across, Kunle sat up.

“Bro. That SUV behind us. It’s been there since Ojuelegba.”

Tunde checked the mirror. Black Prado. Tinted. No plates. It kept the same distance.

“Don’t panic,” Tunde said. “Could be coincidence.”

It wasn’t.

As they came off the bridge into Ebute-Metta, the Prado sped up. Pulled alongside. Window down.

A man leaned out with an AK 47.

“Down!” Tunde shouted.

Glass shattered. Bullets ripped through the passenger door. Kunle ducked, covering his head. Tunde swerved, tires screeching.

Another car cut in front of them. Roadblock. Two more men with guns.

“We’re boxed in,” Kunle said, voice tight.

Tunde made a split-second call. He yanked the wheel hard left, off the main road, down a service lane toward the rail tracks. The Prado followed.

For 10 minutes it was a chase through dark Lagos streets. Gunfire. Horns. People scattering.

Finally Tunde spotted an opening - a truck unloading at 5am. He drove straight through the gap, scraping both sides of the car.

The Prado couldn’t follow.

They thought they’d lost them.

They hadn’t.

20 minutes later, on Ikorodu Road heading toward the express, another SUV rammed them from behind. Hard.

The car spun. Tunde fought the wheel. They ended up facing the wrong way, smoke coming from the hood.

Doors opened. 4 men.

Leading them: Tafa Bello. The animal handler from the golf tee.

“Chief Martins says you boys don’t listen,” Tafa said. He had a long stick in his hand. Not a gun. Worse.

He whistled.

From the back of the SUV, Eku slid out.

Tunde fired. Missed. The Glock jammed from the crash.

Kunle grabbed a tire iron.

The fight lasted 40 seconds but felt like an hour. Eku went for Kunle’s leg. Tunde hit it with the tire iron. Tafa swung the stick. It connected with Tunde’s ribs.

Last thing Tunde saw before the chloroform rag hit his face was Kunle going down, and Tafa saying:

“Chief wants them alive. For now. Take them far.”

When they woke up, it was dark.

And they were nowhere near Lagos.

6:30am. Chief Adeyemi’s house, Ikoyi.

Chief Adeyemi hadn’t slept.

His phone had been ringing all night. First from DSP Ayo: “Sir, the boys didn’t show at Falomo.”

Then from the DSS tracker team: “Last ping on Tunde’s phone was Ikorodu Road. Then it died.”

Now it was silent.

He stood in his study, in full uniform, staring at a photo on the wall. Tunde and Kunle at 10 and 8, holding fishing rods in Abeokuta. Before the military. Before the enemies.

His aide, Captain Sule, entered. “Sir. We found their car. Dumped near Ikorodu. Bullet holes. Blood on the passenger seat. Not much.”

Chief Adeyemi closed his eyes. “Type?”

“Human. Small amount. Could be Kunle’s. From the scrape.”

For 20 years Chief Adeyemi had faced insurgents, kidnappers, corrupt generals. He never flinched.

But this... this was different.

He picked up his secure line. “Get me the IG. Get me the EFCC Chairman. Get me every DPO from Lagos to Ogun. I don’t care whose toes I step on.”

“Sir, protocol—”

“Protocol is dead!” he slammed the table. “They have my sons!”

For the next 6 hours, Chief Adeyemi moved like a storm.

He grounded flights at MMA. He put APBs on every black SUV in Southwest. He called in favors from 1998 that he swore he’d never use.

He even called Martins Adebayo directly.

“Where are my boys?”

Martins laughed on the other end. “Chief. Relax. Maybe they ran away. Teenagers do that.”

Click.

Chief Adeyemi threw the phone. It shattered.

That night he didn’t go home. He slept on a cot in the DSS command center, maps of Lagos, Ogun, and Benin Republic spread across the table.

Red pins everywhere. No pattern.

“Find them,” he whispered to no one. “Before I burn this country down.”

Day 1. Somewhere near the border.

Tunde woke up first. Hands bound. Mouth taped. In the back of a moving truck. Kunle was next to him, laying unconscious but breathing.

They were driven for hours. Through checkpoints. Through bush roads.

Since the news of the disappearance of the two investigators, the security system of borders have been on high guide. And due to the influence of Chief Adeyemi on the case, the security system has been ten times stronger than before.

At one checkpoint, the police officers on duty checked the truck thoroughly for any sign to link up with k********g but to no avail. This was only possible because Tunde and Kunle were kept in the last big wooden box at the rear end of the truck. And without search warrant, the officers can't search deep into the truck.

When the truck finally stopped, it was night. They were thrown out onto dirt.

A voice: “Welcome to Idiroko.”

Tafa.

They were kept in a shed for 2 days. Little food. No water. Martins wanted them broken before he “talked” to them.

Tunde had occasional called out, shout, even tried to talk to the masked men that brought food to them but to no avail.

Kunle thought of attacking them but push it aside as it seems suicide. "What could we two do against these many with guns," he sighed in frustration.

On the third night, Tafa got drunk. Left the key on the table.

Kunle got it.

They ran.

No plan. Just bush. Mosquitoes. Rain. The sound of dogs behind them.

They followed the stars west, guessing toward Badagry.

On Day 3, dehydrated and cut up from thorns, they collapsed at the edge of a small fishing village.

An old woman found them. Mama Seli. 70. Widow.

She didn’t ask questions. She gave them water, garri, and hid them in her hut when she heard motorcycles in the distance.

“Those men have been asking about two boys,” she said. “I told them nobody here.”

Tunde looked at Kunle. Both of them had lost weight. Had bruises. But they were alive.

Kunle whispered: “We have to get to DSS. We have to finish this.”

Tunde nodded. “First, we get to Falomo. And we end Martins.”

That night, Mama Seli gave them her son’s old motorcycle and ₦5,000.

“Go. And don’t come back this way.”

They rode all night. Back toward Lagos.