Twisted Times: Son of Man (Twisted Times Trilogy Book 1) (11 page)

Carol was a national security reporter at the IMS. She had a degree in journalism and broadcast journalism from the Kenya Institute of Mass Communication. She had joined IMS from the Nairobi-based
Miss 24
radio station where she had worked for two years. She was a professional reporter in addition to being a video editor and camera
man,
a very versatile journalist.

While at
Miss 24 she
had been voted twice the best radio presenter and the most promising broadcaster. When she got tired of sitting behind amplifiers and microphones she broke hearts of the many of her fans and admirers, but in a matter of time she proved to them that her versatility can make her the best in wherever she ventured.

Through her keen interest in security issues, Carol cultivated an enviable list of contacts within all categories of people in the country. Both the well-known and obscure knew her, and even the security forces gave her first-hand info, anonymously, whenever she wanted it. Among the celebrity circles she was one of a kind, none other like her.

Her reporting embodied all the police crime scenes, too intricate and conspiracy stories that hit the country by storm and left everybody wondering where the hell she had pulled that, thus she was appointed the
Moonbeam’s
chief crime reporter and editor. She was known as the
reporter of organized chaos
because whenever and whatever she reported she sent shivers down many people’s backs. She could easily bring about a political coup with her journalism tsunami.

One of the big stories she covered and left the country wondering where the security system was lazing was the secret Mungiki undercover workings. She unearthed the outlawed sects’ working details, financiers, how the members have penetrated all sectors of the economy, security forces and their stratagem. The exposé left those in the government who were involved and their secret lives had been exposed in turmoil with nowhere to put their masks. Careers were lost, but just for effect.

It was feared that she was treading on dangerous grounds and that her life was in danger, but she herself seemed to fear not. She was trying to expose the evil that would otherwise be buried forever and if she died accidentally while doing her job then she would be crowned the diadem of martyrdom. After all she was not going to be the first and the last – journalists die daily for the true lies they expose.

Just when she was about to cover another big story that was to ripple the tranquillity of the whole country there seemed to be a glitch somewhere. She learned that her contact had been killed at his home, at his gate, the night before. For the first time in her career she felt something she had never felt – fear.

The dread of the whole thing, of everything going on a rampage, and then finding herself a victim of organized crime almost tore her apart. Over the years she had been threatened but she had given no damn. But this time round she felt that all hell was breaking loose.

The editor-in-chief had warned her of such reporting especially when she did not have the cold hard facts. She always had them. She did not know where it had gone amok in her last reporting about the First Lady’s crime of passion connection with some reporter.

It was true, but Carol had covered something totally different from what the other journalists reported about the slain journalist allegedly killed by his fiancée. The crime had tentacles all the way to the first family. Hell, the first family was in the middle of the imbroglio. Her source was from State House and a close friend of the President, and when it was out, the first family went berserk. They wanted to sue IMS. IMS apologized to the first family and the whole country for the mistake, promising that such a mistake would not be repeated again. She was supposed to lose her job with the IMS, but she was given another chance. She was now writing another big story and she was ready to stand her ground.

Once upon a time, she lost a cousin to drugs when she was in college, and she vowed to do whatever it took to see that those who ruined other people’s loved ones’ lives through drugs were exposed and known to the world. The world would be their judge, jury, and executioner.

Now, Carol thought, it was just weeks after it was all over in the news that some Kenyans had been sentenced to death in China for drug trafficking. Another story was to be in circulation telling Kenyans who the kingpins were, the ubiquitous Mexican drug lords making a kill in Kenya under the tutelage of the government.

Her article went deeper to expose how unsuspecting citizens were paying for the drugs through Value Added Tax by purchasing products, unbeknownst to them, laced with the drugs right from the manufacturer; the untold story of how the drugs were being produced without anyone suspecting and how those involved were getting away with it. 

She was in journalism trance when the call came.

She punched the connect button and listened.

“What?”

Job’s friends said he was drinking late, that they warned him about driving at that hour. He was barely to himself; maybe the case was taking a toll on him. Nonetheless, his records were clean, they were sure of that. The drug trafficking case was affecting him, stressing him.
They
suspected somebody was behind Job’s death because they did not want the truth to come out.
They
said they too had received death-threat notes warning them against involving themselves in the case, had been told to leave the courts to do their work. They were damn sure Job’s death was connected to the drug trafficking case in court.

They said that it was such an untimely demise for their friend. Whoever the killer was ought to die, burn in hell, be brought to the book.

However, they did not hesitate to ask the government to look into the increasing cases of insecurity in the country.

*

“It’s done,” Samson said. “We must get moving.”

“But it’s already in the news. He must have realized he was being set up.”

“Don’t worry about that. Everybody has a price tag.”

“What do you suggest we do?”

“We shall let them do their investigation, but be sure we shall come out of it clean as a weasel.”

“Our names are all over the media…”

“Does that worry you? They would actually apologize not only to us but also to the public for tarnishing our names. Patience pays, David.”

There was long silence; time which somebody was thinking, weighing the odds.

“I have some calls to make,” Samson said. “Would you please excuse me?” he reached for his home wireless phone and dialled a number his friend from the Imperial Media Services had given him.

It rang five times before somebody on the other end picked up.

A female…

As usual I took the
Saturday Nation
newspaper that was in Urbanas’ Madonna Hostels room and went straight to my favourite page – ‘Leisure’. It was the first stopover before proceeding to the obituaries page to check the moguls who had died, because not everyone pays over fifty thousand shillings for the space on the papers. Urbanas himself was reading the
Moonbeam
, the second largest and fastest growing newspaper after the Nation Media Group’s
the
Daily Nation.

I filled the simple crossword puzzle and the code-word grid puzzle, and when I was done I proceeded to the obituaries. There were no victims who worth our nocturnal visits, they were all from out of town, out of Nairobi. .

I don’t know why I decided to go through the whole paper this day. Maybe I still ought to know something about the living too. As usual the sensational stories took the front page. It was another illegal drug haul at the Coast -
Cocaine Seizure at the Coast.
I had glimpsed a similar headline on the
Moonbeam
:
Mexican Drug Lords Thrive at the Coast.

Urbanas’s words the day he was trying to enlist me in the gang came back to me: “
the best place to hide is in people’s hearts, let them trust you
,
build and fortify that trust, speak against human fears and tragedies, promise a plausible paradise knowing that hell is real. Even Satan was party to heaven before God feared He might lose His power to Satan…”

I continued to the second page to scan through other headlines.

I never read further than page three partly because I was not interested and partly because I was shocked. The second page had the headline of a person I knew, right from home, his story continued on page three.

It was Uncle Job. It was quite ironic he was to make headlines while he was not there to know that he had. It was his dappled looking face and eyes like those of a cat that caught my attention otherwise I would not have wasted my time on some businessman who had been shot dead at his home, just another mogul who was due to give us another wad of cash.

I read his story.

I couldn’t say it was touching. I felt nothing. He was just like the others who died daily; others who died and were buried without the whole world knowing. The emphasis of Uncle Job’s story was the increasing insecurity in the country. Some of his business friends had implored the government to do something to the rising insecurity in the country.

Now that was news.

Friday, 13
th
June;

At exactly 1830Hrs – I too had become accustomed to this military timings crap like Urbanas – I changed to a cream suit and an ecru shirt with a marching stripped tie. My black leather shoes were perfectly polished as though I too passed through cadet school in Lanet, Nakuru like Urbanas. I put on a pair of specs and completed my face of deception.

This day we gave the dead a break, a hiatus I’m sure was very much welcome. Since our graduation to hired goons business had been booming. Hijackings and kidnappings were our new
modus operandi
meant to convey a certain message to the victims who ranged from business rivals, political bickers (whom we called poli-ticks), a vengeful wife, fiancée, girlfriend – anybody who paid the right price. Urbanas was many a time hired to do lone assignments, precisely to kill and that’s why he wanted us to graduate to be with him.

The strategy was that we act like highway robbers and hijackers, but the actual job would be to kill somebody important, a sanctioned murder, and obviously insecurity would be to blame. The police would be sent on a wild goose chase looking for phantom highway robbers. Killings and ‘police’ extrajudicial executions along most roads in Nairobi and her outskirts ensued. No one, even to date, has ever been nabbed.

There were other gangs too and in order to avoid running into each other, we mapped the entire Nairobi area and respected the territorial integrity of each gang.

This day my destination was to Lavington.

Traffic was heavy. Everything seemed to move at a snail’s speed – an advantage to me. My victim’s car was just three cars ahead. I had made sure that I did not lose him. Our intelligence reports indicated that he took his family – wife, their preteen daughter, and seven-year-old son – to outings on Fridays from four o’clock in the afternoon and then have the whole weekend with his wife at some resort in the city. The happy family returned home at around seven in the evening. They did not have a gateman to open the gate for them, so the wife usually alighted to go and open the gate.

That was the right time to strike, just before the wife got out. There was need for swift action.

My task was to hijack and commandeer them to an agreed chosen place. The rest would be on the other Mavis guys. 

Hardly had she opened the car door when I got to her. “Just stay right inside the car, madam.” I talked like a plainclothes police officer.

The sight of my Mauser C96 machine pistol told her all – it was not some kind of a sick joke, or a request. I got in the back seat beside the pre-pubescent girl and issued my orders.
Just be calm, no emotions, and no feelings
– that’s what Urbanas had told me.

“And please, do not make me do something I don’t want. Just do as I say. Don’t try to be smart,” I told the fat daddy.

I already knew that the Track-It device was not working. It was all over the news that the company that was claiming to be able to track stolen and hijacked vehicles was bluffing and defrauding innocent, unsuspecting vehicle owners. The devices were not working at all, they never worked. 

“Would you please give me your phones? Just pass them over to me.” So far I was enjoying my false confidence and gusto.

Good. They did as I said.

The destination was our operating room in Nairobi’s Kileleshwa. From there the horror of running into Mavis would be experienced by the victims and then we would dump them somewhere else. I was just doing my work. After all everything they owned was ours, and Pius in town got a job of working on their car once we repossessed it from them.

Darkness had already crept in when we reached the destination. They were scared shitless, as Americans say, but what could I do. I was earning my living.

“This is Melik Wholesalers, the goods you ordered have been delivered,” I told Urbanas when he picked up the phone. “Just as you ordered.”