FicStorm's The Chase

Chapter Fifteen

21:04

Both of them had their shower separately, changed into fresh clothes and then they joined the smooth traffic to Lekki and came to a halt outside a massive nightclub. Richard was surprised he still remembered the way. He had taken a few wrong turns, but he had finally found his way. After all, his father had brought him here only once and that was over a year ago. He began to imagine that his father knew this day would come.

Richard apologized to Essy who sat in the front passenger seat as he reached past her for the glove box and brought out the handgun.

“I’ve been looking for a way to get rid of this and this is just the best place to do that.”

“I think it would be better if we held on to that. We have no idea what’s coming our way or what we’re heading to.”

“We can do better than this.”

“How do you plan on getting rid of it now?”

“Watch and learn.” Richard said and winked at her as he tucked the gun under his waistband. He reached for the backseat and grabbed the backpack. He had transferred the bulk of naira notes to Essy’s bag and left it at the hotel room. All that was in the backpack now was his clothes and the dollar bills. He opened the door and got out. Essy did the same and the together they marched away from the parking lot and headed for the entrance for the club.

As they walked, Richard found himself thinking about his father once more and to his own surprise, he was asking himself how well he knew the man. His father was a molecular geneticist and there was no doubt about that. There were notes in the house that spoke of the field. Notes that Richard could barely understand. But what kind of geneticist knew more about guns than the average policeman? His father, during their hunting expeditions, showed much prowess with firearms. He and Henry Paul Senior had been the guide and they always knew that they were doing. Richard during those times would watch them talk about the game they were hunting. He would listen to them talk about the easiest way to get the elk, how to track it and every weakness it possessed. He would watch them complete each other’s sentences. Back then, it was fun but now it didn’t make sense. The way they held their guns with professionalism, the way they knew how to dismantle, clean and couple their guns without breaking a sweat. Neither of them even had military training. It was not too late for HP Junior to find out the truth. But for him, he would never know what kind of geneticist had the idea of introducing his son to someone who knew how to make people disappear.

These thoughts ran through his mind as the heavies guarding the entrance came into clear view. He had already explained to Essy that they would be searched thoroughly, but she already knew. She had been to a lot of big nightclubs to know what to expect. He also made it clear to her that they were only going to see a man called John Okigbe. A man who, like his father had said, knows how to make people disappear.

“Stay close.” Richard whispered to Essy as they got closer to the two burly men that reminded him of the guards at his own estate. One of them stretched out his hand and placed it on Richard’s chest to stop him from getting any closer. There were four others like him in sight and they all had their eyes fixed on him.

“I’m here to see the boss.” Richard said maintaining a straight face. One passed his hockey stick to the other who held a baseball bat and began patting Richard from head to toe to search him. He pulled out the gun from Richard’s waistband and flashed it in his face.

“I thought I should bring you a gift. You like?” Richard said and winked. The man said nothing but passed the gun to his partner and moved on to search Essy. Richard looked away. He wasn’t sure if he would like what he saw. When the searching was done he eyed the bag hanging loosely in Richard’s arm by his side.

“It’s for the boss.” Richard said gripping the bag tightly. The knife was still in the bag. Not as a precaution, but because there was no better place for it to be. It had to stay hidden from Essy and the police.

The man said nothing. Richard would have assumed he was mute, but he could never tell. The guards at his estate were always like that too. They never said anything other than “Show your pass.” and “You’re welcome.”

Satisfied, the man collected his hockey stick from his partner and gestured for them to follow him. He opened the door and led the way into the club. Richard turned to Essy, gave her a slight nod and together they followed.

The soundproofing was very perfect, Richard observed as he stepped into the club. The music was extremely loud and the strobe lights kept dancing and changing color to the rhythm. The dance floor was vast and it was filled to the brim, Richard could barely breathe or walk. They had to push their way through.

***

21:17

The door opened and Bright stepped in with a dull torchlight. It looked like it hadn’t been charged, but that was not the case. He had reduced the brightness so as to avoid drawing attention to himself. The sound of murmuring reached his ears. He listened for a moment, and when he discerned where it was coming from, he closed the door carefully, noticing in the process, that it was really heavy. There on the other side of the door was the man he had expected to see. He was taped heavily to the door with his legs way above the floor. A long piece of tape stretched from the door across his mouth so that his head kissed the door. Whoever did it had been careful not to block his nostrils. The man tried to speak through the tape, but the sound that came out couldn’t be described as speech. Bright turned away from him and swept his flash across the house. The only sign that something had gone wrong was in the dining area. It looked more like a crash site. Behind him, he could hear the man’s muffled screams but he didn’t care. It made him angrier than he already was. The crash site told him everything already but he needed to know the full details and so he doubled back and stretched high enough to yank the tape from the man’s mouth. A yelp escaped the man’s throat accompanied by a thousand swear words. Bright looked around the house and spotted a gun lying on the floor.

“What happened here, James?” He said as he walked slowly for the gun.

“What took you so long to get here?” James screamed.

“You better start talking.”

“Let me down from here, you asshole.”

“When you’re done talking, I’d let you down.” Bright said as he bent to pick up the gun.

“Tega was here before me.”

“Did I hear you say Tega?”

“The daredevil, yes.”

“I thought the bastard was hiding.” Bright said settling into one of the sofa chairs in the parlor that allowed him stare directly at James. “So Tega let you live.”

“He wants you, Bright. Not me. He left me to give you a message.”

“Oh. This is about Jane. I wish I was here myself then. I would have set things straight once and for all and then you wouldn’t have screwed this up.”

“I didn’t meet any Richard Chase here. It was only Tega. I didn’t screw anything up.” James yelled.

“Why was Tega here?”

“He wants Richard Chase too.”

“Why?”

“I didn’t get to ask the questions, dummy!”

“I should have come here myself.” Bright said examining the gun. It was loaded. He c****d it loudly.

“What are you doing?” James asked. The fright was patent in his voice.

“Admiring your gun. How long have you had it?” Bright asked raising the gun to eye level and caressing it.

“It doesn’t matter, Bright. Just cut me down.”

“Cut is a good word.” Bright said. And in a swift movement, he put a hole right between James’ eyes with a bullet. At the same moment, Bright’s phone rang and he tapped a button on his Bluetooth hands free to pick the call. He listened for a moment. It was Blackhawk.

“…I’m making good progress, sir…I know, sir, that this is very important…So John has her in his club… I’d head there right away.” Bright waited for the call to end with a click while he thought of how doomed he was. He looked up at James’ lifeless form with the knowledge that soon he’d be gone like that.

As he stepped out of the house, finding more difficulty in opening the door, he made a call for sweepers, and gave them the address with the details of the scene and how he wanted it to look like. There was no time to take care of it by himself. He had to go after the girl.

Tega wasn’t surprised that Bright had pulled the trigger. It was just the kind of thing he loved to do. He killed without remorse. Without second thoughts. He had been the one who planted the bomb that took out Jane at the square. A video surveillance tape that had survived the explosion had showed Bright entering the square two hours before the explosion with a thick briefcase and leaving ten minutes later without it. Tega had been lucky to have a friend in the DSA that had a friend in FAC-Ops who gave them access to the video. Tega closed down the surveillance video and brought his laptop back to the home screen, and then he focused his attention on the cereal he had been eating before he spotted Bright in the feed. He was seated conveniently in his dining, but he didn’t feel convenient at all. He knew where Bright was headed. It had something to do with John Okigbe’s nightclub and a lady, but he was not sure if it had anything to do with his quest. Blackhawk had a network of business moguls in his pocket and John was definitely one of them. Tega was contemplating on going to the club-as he had a better chance of getting there before Bright who was still on the mainland-when his phone rang. Private Number was calling.

“Let me guess. You’re trying to play games with me. I hate games and I guess that’s one of the things they didn’t tell you about me. Let’s cut this crap and why don’t you tell me what this is about.”

“I heard taking care of problems is your specialty.”

“You’re working with Blackhawk, aren’t you? Or maybe you’re working against him. But someway somehow, Blackhawk is involved. Who the hell are you?”

“Have you found the boy?”

“Stop dodging my questions and answer me!”

“I guess not. Well, I’m going to track him down for you in a couple of hours. Just stick to your phone.” The call ended and Tega swore loudly as he slammed his phone on the table in rage. He was about to get up and go after Bright when the phone rang again. He glanced at the caller ID. It was Steve, and it was a call that was already overdue. He sat down back and picked the call.

“Are you getting slow or what, Steve?”

“Man, I’ve been really busy all day and that’s why I told you to wait for me to call you and not the other way round.”

“I hope you haven’t given anyone this number?” Tega asked. He had called Steve earlier because he needed his help and although he had been careful to make his call impossible to trace, Steve had cracked it in a matter of seconds.

“What do you take me for?”

“What do you have for me?”

“The number you gave me matches to a red Toyota Venza owned by a Miss Essy Boyle.”

“You can do better than that, Steve.”

“I got an address. Take it down.” Steve spilled out the address and Tega wasn’t surprised to find out that it was familiar. The crime scene. Richard had been there with someone.

“Anything else. I need more Steve.”

“I’m sending her dossier to your mail right now, and trust me, Tega, you’re going to love this.”

Tega moved his focus to his laptop as he heard the loud clacking of Steve on the keyboard. The fellow was really fast and Tega had to admire how the DSA always had the best of everything. His PC notified of a new mail and he opened it.

“Thanks, Steve.”

“Don’t hang up yet. Go through the damned thing.”

Tega sighed and clicked on the attachment in the mail to download it. It was just like the one he had received in the morning from his anonymous client. A typical DSA style of profiling.

“So, she’s the daughter of a doctor who once worked at the popular Zyberdine laboratories.” Tega said reading from the screen as Steve urged him on.

“Her criminal record is quite big. Is this real? Possession of drugs, possession of illegal weapon, arson, aiding and abetting, DUI, assault and battery, impersonation... Lord, what has she not done? How often do children of doctors turn into rogues?”

“Give or take, two in a million.”

“What about her father?”

“That’s it! That’s the interesting part. Just scroll back up. I think you skipped it or something.”

Tega did as Steve suggested and was mystified by what he saw.

“That’s a lie. It’s totally impossible, Steve” Was all he managed to say.

“I don’t just know, but it makes sense to me.”

“Alright, Steve, this was very helpful, you should get some rest. Wait! Are you still at your desk?”

“Yeah. They’ve turned me to a twenty-two hours operative. I only get two hours for meal, rest and shower.”

“What happened to Christiana?”

“She’s been moved, and until they find a good replacement, I’m stuck with this.”

“Okay, Steve, you’d survive. I’d stay in touch. Just don’t give anybody this number.”

“What number? I don’t have the number.”

Tega smiled and ended the call. He went through the dossier again and viewed the girl’s picture. He could see the resemblance and this time he was certain that the dossier wasn’t telling a lie. She had taken after him in everything. Her crime record was a proof. But what about Richard? What was his business? Only a suicidal person would have gotten mixed up with such bad blood. They were obviously together now and if it was possible that Bright was going after her, then Richard…

“Alright, Tega. Less thinking, more action.” He said and pushed his chair back to rise up. John Okigbe’s nightclub would be a nice place to spend his night.