Twisted Times: Son of Man (Twisted Times Trilogy Book 1) (25 page)

Nairobi, Kenya;

Denise Mwajuma was about to leave the Imperial Media Centre early this day. At least it was early for her. She drove her Subaru B3 Auto that she had bought, without a loan, three years ago after six years of saving.

Her house was at the Nairobi’s Westlands locale. She clenched and unclenched her fists hitting the car horn hard as though she were the only one on the road at this hour. She was caught in a boot-to-bonnet traffic jam which was caused by a minor accident involving a family saloon car and a KEBS bus near the Kenya National Museums. She hated procrastinations, especially now when she was hurrying to finish up her article. The article had to be presented by the following day to the editor so that it could be published on the Monday’s paper. It was one of her best – she had taken too much risks to come up with what she was about to tell the world. Apart from her secret informers no one else knew about it.

Two hours later she climbed out of her car outside her house. She unlocked the front door and went inside. She couldn’t wait to be inside her study where she worked from while at home while sipping her favourite beverage – coffee. She did not bother to cook. She had no appetite today. She always lost appetite when she had work to do of which she did not like having unfinished work lying on her desk.

Before she locked herself in her study she checked that everything was okay – whether the windows were all closed and locked, the kitchen door and the security lights in the foyer. When she was satisfied and had turned on the security alarm, she lost herself in the final re-editing of her article before she handed it over to the editor
Moonbeam
the following day.

As she typed on her CQ60 Compaq Presario laptop she listened to the neighbourhood preparing to sleep, others to go out to party and others to lose themselves in the most romanticized shenanigans she did not want to think about for long lest she found herself calling her Friend with Benefits, her oh-so romantic fuck buddy she was tempted to promote to boyfriend.

In the dying cacophony of the night she was aware of a strange creaky whine nearer than the frail guttural sounds of the dark night. She was in some kind of a trance, journalism trance, the rare and special creative writing state where the environment has no impact, time no meaning and mind’s engaged in the fluency of writing; every word falling in to place poetically and logically.

‘The Secret World of Black Market’ was a story with incredulous truth, political implications, religious insinuations and life repercussions. It was going to affect many people, and change the lives of many still. She was sure she was to take the world by surprise. In her inner eye she saw careers being ruined – politically and religiously, an explosive exposé of the secret government dealings and the big names behind the illicit trade, of secret cartels, organised crime, criminal cabals and the intricate and complex world of black market that, according to her, led to economic dwindling by almost fifty percent, precisely 48.9875% in the country, and above all, expose Carol’s killer.

It was her story.

No one else had been closer to this but the slain Carol. Denise imagined it being read by nine people out of ten as the Imperial Media Services boasted of the readership of their newspaper, the
Moonbeam.
She imagined striking a bargain with
The Standard
and the
Daily Nation
and perhaps going freelance, working for the highest bidder, just for the mere fact of selling her earth-shattering story; and then the book, her book, ‘Black Market Turns White’ and the sequel ‘Government Criminal’. Perhaps Hollywood would see potential in her books and make her the first African to sell her work’s movie rights to Hollywood.

She drained her umpteenth cup of coffee. It was almost two in the morning and she did not seem lethargic in the least.

She heard as though her front door was being attempted to be jimmied. But she always, like a ritual, left the keys in the key lock so that nobody would be able to jimmy the lock while she was inside. She decided to go and check. She was already late.

“Be quiet, Denise. Do exactly as I say,” said a man’s voice. An unmasked figure stood at the door of the study with a menacingly fierce looking gun. Denise Mwajuma exhaled the air she had breathed in a moment before. All her muscles went slack. Although she had basic taekwondo training for self-defence in close quarter battle nothing had prepared her on how to deal with a situation like this when the enemy was armed with a Glock 18C machine pistol, looking at you as though you were an alien and smiling as though the whole world belonged to him.

She squelched the compulsion to scream. She decided to play by the rules and maybe she would live through this. Something told her that she was not going to, though. Her story will never be published.

She stared at the man. He had the most beautiful face she had ever seen. But one thing bothered her – the intruder had let her see his face. Bad omen! And... She had seen him, she knew him.

“You can take everything you want, please, but don’t kill me please. I won’t say anything.”

“That’s quite romantic of you, Denise,” the man said. He had the deepest, hoarse voice she had ever heard. Her name was like music to the ears as he said it. “But I do not think I am here for money, sweetheart, though I will take what I have come for. I can’t leave it here for police to find.”

Fear shot through her. Were adrenaline rocket fuel she would have been halfway to mars.

“I’m I supposed to know what you want?” she tried to hide her fear as much as possible.
Show no fear, co-operate.

“No, Denise, but you know. Only that you don’t know I know what you know. It’s nothing important but
‘The Secret World of Black Market’.”

Now that got her heart thumping to the point of bursting her whole body. How was she discovered? For Chrissake, who had blabbed? But that was not important at this minute. She had to live.

“You know more than you’re supposed to. You leave
us
no choice,” the intruder said. “And you figured out who Carol’s killer was. Three years down the line, you should have let sleeping dogs lie.”

“Please….” Denise tried to say something, but nothing came out of her mouth.

“What use is justice for the dead? Do it for the living.” The intruder was toying with his gun, not the way they do it movies.

She heard no sound but a soft whisper. The Glock had a silencer, but she saw the bright flash behind her eyes and then everything dissolved in the flash. All her fears, thoughts of how to tackle the intruder, fears of bodily violence, defilement and assault; all her fantasies, dreams of the implications of her exposé – all, the whole caboodle – came to an abrupt end.

The national security reporter never knew that a bullet blew her brains away and shattered all her intellect and knowledge to nothing but dust and worms.

“I hope that didn’t hurt, Denise,” Urbanas said to the already lifeless body. “Try journalism in hell, it’s not a promising and safe career in the world.”

Friday, 5
th
February;

Within a fortnight I was fully at home with the Shaloms. I used to accompany Hanan when he made his rounds of the estate every once in a week checking on the orchards and the flower gardens, the wheat and corn fields and workers.

As it had become the custom of Hanan and me, this day we made the familiar circuit of the estate and when we were done he told me that there was going to be a dinner party in an hour’s time.

“Dinner party?” I asked. “Don’t tell me I’m supposed to be there.”

“Dad has invited some of his old political friends. Ariel Sharon and Shimon Peres would be there, so would be the Minister for Defence and other key members of the Knesset. We’d be whole family, too; Shamir is coming over with his wife and my sisters have already come.”

“Oh God,” I groaned.

“A stimulating conversation for a change, don’t you think so? Plus a chance to interact with Israel’s who’s who.”

“I don’t think…”

“There is no absconding this, my frien’. Dress for the occasion.”

I did not argue. There was no need to. “OK then, see you in an hour’s time,” I said.

“I’ll pick you up ten to the hour. Is that OK with you?”

“Yeah, it’s OK. I’ll be ready.”

At my house, I shaved quickly, took a cold shower and dressed. Yitzhak, my valet, had laid out dinner jacket in the dressing room and put golden cufflinks into my dress shirt.

When I was dressed I crossed the wide corridor strewn with oriental carpets to the parlour downstairs. At the head of the staircase I came to an abrupt halt and drew in a deep breathe like a diver. I had a guest, the last person I expected to see. Shirli was there, seated on one of the two-seater sofas sipping wine as though she had no worry in life, or was in her house. Well, technically she was. I gathered my nerves and composed myself, ready to pounce on her like a lion.

She was much better value than I had expected. She had changed in those several days – her hair was now bob-ish, long enough to reach her shoulder blades, and benign, and she had decorated her face with a fade
bindi
giving her an Indian face. I had not expected this visit from Shirli. She was this catch-me-if-you-can kind of a woman I wondered why the hell she had decided to come to my house.

“Have you ever killed anything in ya’ life, sweetie?”

“Can’t stand the sight of blood, Mr. Flirt,” she said indignantly and before I could say something she continued, “Is that how you talk to strangers? I thought I was meeting the opposite of what Shirli said. She’s right after all.”

Shirli... said?

“Wait a minute? Am I missing something here, Shirli? Stop this miss-tough-lady bullshit. I just meant to lighten the moment before dinner, Shirli. Furthermore, you look as though you can kill. You look more beautiful than...”

She stopped me with a wave of her hand. “My goodness! I now see. I’m sorry; it’s not your fault. You’ve met my sister, Shirli, but you haven’t met me.” Holy crap!

“Shifra, nice to meet you.” She offered her hand for me to shake. I took it nonchalantly.

I was astounded.
I need an explanation, or something of sorts.
She offered one.

“I am sorry, but Shirli and I are twins. No. We’re actually triplets. We look alike. It’s hard to differentiate us from each other. I am Shifra, but wait and see Meira; you’d actually think she’s my clone.”

“I’m sorry then,” I said shamefacedly.

“For what? It isn’t your fault,” she said and took a sip of the wine she had served herself with. “Shirli told me about you. I decided to come and say hi before dinner. I don’t like surprises.”

“Neither do I.”

“Then you and I are going to be friends.”

She told me about herself, that she was a Computer Science master’s student at the Tel Aviv University and had a part-time job at her father’s IBM Software Company in Tel Aviv where Hanan was the Managing Director. She was born, no, they were born, on 14
th
February 1988, attended the state’s religious school the three of them and on completing their Bagrut matriculation exams in 2007 she decided to do computer science. Her sister Meira chose to be a medical doctor and was a student at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem while Shirli was doing her MBA at the Tel Aviv University. They were studying together, and Shirli worked part-time as the internal auditor of their father’s businesses.

Exactly ten minutes to the hour, Hanan was there ready to whisk me away from Shifra’s get-to-know-each-other banter.

“I’ve been dying to get you alone all evening,” Shifra said when she saw her brother. “You’ll never guess what I’ve broken through this time round.”

“Another of your inventions,” Hanan replied with a benign smile.

“I developed this program that will render all zombie armies in the whole world incapable of breaching our systems for whatever it takes. No more shutting down of our accounts by the ISP. If it goes through, it would be the program all software companies will be killing each other for, and Microsoft have already send me a junk email requesting my attention. I am going to make you the richest man in the world very soon, brother.”

“You know what lil’ sis, you amaze me. I am a businessman for God’s sake. Your computer language that you speak as though we’re part of your zombie army commandos makes me want to apply for a curia job in Vatican.”

“That’s why you can’t, and you won’t, because you’re the MD Tel Aviv IBM Software Company.”

“Smart,” Hanan said resignedly, but changed the subject. “Are you guys ready for dinner or you gonna keep the others waiting for you.”

Shifra gave me a furtive wink and said, “Let’s go, shall we, brother?”

A small group comprising a man and two women was straggling over from the already filled parking lot, and Hanan and Shifra rushed to greet them. Of all of them but one were strangers to me. Since now I had seen Shifra I couldn’t mistake Shirli for somebody else. Shifra had told me that Meira was a clone of herself, so I expected to see another Shifra and know that the other was Shirli.

I stayed in the background throughout the greetings, and there was the obvious clue that what I was witnessing was a family reunion. Hanan introduced the strangers.

“Ken, meet my brother Shamir. Shamir, Ken, my friend, the one I told you about.”

Shamir stood six-two tall, slightly taller than Hanan, big, broad shoulders, a square jaw, thin beady intelligent looking eyes and a disgusting moustache. Talk of Goliath.

His grasp when he shook my hand was strong, warm and soft. “Nice to meet you, Mister. It’s good having you here. I hope Hanan here has given you a nice welcome.”

“He couldn’t have done any better,” I said. He turned to a thin, almost scrawny to the point of starvation, beautiful woman beside Shifra. My eyes, though trained on Shirli behind her, shifted to the scrawny figure. If she wasn’t of Chinese, Japanese or some other related blood; she was then a perfect resemblance of them.

“Meet my wife, Kim,” Shamir said.

“Pleasure meeting you, ma’am,” I said. She shook my hand noncommittally.  Her hand was silky soft. I could easily pull her to me like a rope.

“Let’s go inside, everybody is there,” Hanan said turning away.

I let myself fall to the back of the entourage when I heard a familiar voice say, “How do you do, Best Friend?” It was Shirli.

“How do you do, Miss Hard-to-get-to?”

She ignored me and stepped up to be beside Shifra who was in an ear-to-ear chat with Shamir’s wife. I was left with no one to talk to as Hanan paired with his brother.

I wished I could get an opportunity to talk to Shirli, but I realized that was unlikely and insidious. I knew very well how to treat my hosts with respect and courtesy, and how easy I could lose the respect they had for me. I did not want to be a player in a grotesque game where my odds of winning were depended on how I conducted myself. So, I kept away from sensuous thoughts, but I observed her for the rest of the evening. I was not just observing Shirli alone. I was watching everybody, kind of watching my six o’clock.

Everybody, I mean every
body,
in the house. I was the only alien and I did not rub shoulders with the Israeli political might. The old seemed to be congregated around Ben Shalom, while the rest, mostly the women, were with Jonina Daliah.

Hanan engaged me in a never ending narration of his life in Kenya, the nostalgia of the places we went all the way from Nakuru to Turkana, Mombasa, Lake Victoria, and all of the tourist spots that made him keep on going back to Kenya.

Shamir was in an I-don’t-like-jokes conversation with Shifra, while whom by now I knew for fact was Meira was with his wife.

Hanan’s phone rang and he strutted out to answer the call, and eager to hear something from Shamir, I made my way to where he was.

When he saw me going to where he was he placed his heavyset hand on Shifra’s shoulders.

I stopped beside him and before I could say what I wanted, he said, “You haven’t met my sister. Meira, this is
our
friend, Ken.”

“I’ve heard of you,” Meira said. “I’ve heard a great deal about you. Nice meeting you.” I was not surprised. She was truly a clone of Shifra except she did not have Shifra’s
bindi
on her face.

It was as though Shamir was waiting for a chance to get rid of his sister for he excused himself and made his way to his father.

Meira and I engrossed ourselves in conversation – she asking more about me and my country, I asking more about herself and her choice of career, what really made her tick, what made me go to Israel and why I was in their home. As we continued to talk, she noticed my expression had changed and she followed my gaze behind her. Shirli stood close behind her. She dropped one hand languidly over Meira’s shoulder and leaned one hip against her, akimbo. She too was watching me. Gracious me! She was driving me crazy.

“M, I’m going to bed, see you ‘morrow. Night,” she told Meira and turned to go after giving her sister the custom girls’ kiss on the cheek.

Why don’t you sit down and bring sunlight, no, moonlight, to my drab existence, Shirli?

“Do you spend your time ogling at women?” Meira asked me, bringing me back to earth.

Ouch! That was pretty direct.

I inclined my head and said, “Not always, Meira. May I have the pleasure of enjoying this time with you?”

“There’s time and place for everything.”

“Don’t get dirty
M,
you little gorgeous hunk of beauty.”