Gwarimpa, Abuja, Nigeria
Wednesday 17th April, 2018.

Eesh went up to her room and snatched her phone off her bedside drawer. She was tired of people going in and out of her house every bleeping minute. She had tolerated it for long enough. Even she didn't know how she kept cool for four days but she had had enough.

Going straight to her speed dial, she tapped on the first contact there and put it on speaker then dropped it on the bed. She heard it ring thrice before it went blank and her father's voice came through.

"Baddon daddy." Alhaji Muhammad said and Eesh almost cried. She missed her father, a lot. She liked to show she was a hard girl but she was not even close to that.

"Daddyn baddo." they exchanged pleasantries.

"Daddy, what's the reason for people coming to a newly wedded couple's house?"

"It's called ganin gida and gaida amarya. It's to show their happiness for the wedding."

"It's not necessary koh? Honestly speaking, I don't like the way I can't have peace of mind for few seconds without someone pressing the damn door bell." Eesh rubbed her temples.

"Aishatu, mind your language." Alhaji Muhammad warned.

"And don't worry, I will tell them to leave you alone." Eesh thanked him and they ended the call.

Walking out, she went to check on Abulkhair. She fed him too much of the hot spirit that he fell unconscious after going for the seventh round in the bathroom. She had called her doctor and Abulkhair was put on drip. No one was aware though, she made sure of that.

Entering the room, she saw that he was asleep. She checked the drip and saw that it was almost finished. It was his last drip.

"Hello doctor..." The man cut her off.

"Just Fu'ad." Eesh rolled her eyes.

"The drip is exhausted."

"Okay, I will send a nurse to check on him because..." Eesh cut him off.

"You don't owe me an explanation." Eesh deadpanned.

"I know." Fu'ad sighed.

"But he can eat anything he wants right?"

"Yes."

"Okay thank you." Before he could reply, Eesh ended the call.

°°°

Café du mondé, New Orleans, Louisiana.
Wednesday 17th April, 2018.

"Alhaji..."

"Don't call my name. And since when do you call me Alhaji?" The older man raised a greying brow.

"Sorry... But who would even know you here? Just because you're famous in Nigeria doesn't mean you are going to be famous here too. The whole world doesn't revolve around you you know." The older man leaned forward to the table and narrowed his crinkling eyes to slits.

"This should be the first and last time you speak to me like that. Incase you're forgetting, I'm almost as old as your father, if not even older." The younger man rolled his eyes. He couldn't believe it was that particular man who was talking about respect. He adjusted his starched cream jalabiya then leaned forward too such that his face and the older man's face were mere inches away from each other.

"Don't forget, I was sitting in my father's house when you called me and asked for my help. And for your kind information, I can walk away at anytime." The younger man leaned back and picked a fry from the paper cup in front of him and popped in his mouth to emphasize his point.

The older man smiled, the smile looked sinister with a pinch of darkness. The younger man looked at the smile suspiciously. It spelled doom and dare he say, death too.

"Okay then, walk away. I'll find someone else to work with. Muhammad Umar Jalingo definitely has more enemies out there. After all, he is a politician." The younger man narrowed his eyes but shrugged and stood up.

He was walking away. He knew he was threading on thin ice. And he was shocked that the older man didn't stop him. They both knew too much about each other and could expose the other at any time in any place. He couldn't believe the older man was willing to take that dangerous risk but kept on walking anyways.

Soon, he reached a small alley and all of a sudden, he started sweating. He knew it was fear, he had heard someone say people easily got attacked in that particular alley so he definitely had to be alarmed. His hands were getting clammy and sticky from sweat mixed with the oil from the finger foods he ate and cold sweat was trickling through his chest hair, to his waist and down to his cleanly shaven legs.

Shuffling movements from the front and a sound that was as though a beg of plea made him want to turn back and run for his dear life. When he turned around, he realized he was more than halfway through the alley and turning back would be a waste. His will to turn back was thrown into the mud when he saw silhouettes of large sturdy people coming from the entrance of the alley.

He gulped in fear and held unto his jalabiya, feeling more than ready to run and push through even the thickest of crouds if necessary and at the same time, bow down and surrender. He knew he couldn't fight. While growing up, he was the one of those few boys who steered away from violence. He feared anything violent and never involved himself in them.

The silhouettes were getting closer and he could feel his bladder getting full because of fear. The sound of plea was gone, but he could hear footsteps from that angle. He rose his head and closed his eyes in submission to his creator, knowing that only a miracle was going to save him.

The feel of cold metal against his temple and his then throbbing groin which was as a result of the accumulating waste he needed to pass out immediately made him to hold his breath, as though he was told he would be killed if he breathed. He slowly opened his eyes, laying his eyes on a dark skinned man with a beanie over head by his left, and another man with a similar look on his right. They were both holding guns and both guns were held against him. He needed no soothsayer to tell him that if he misbehaved, either his brain, groin or even both would be burst by a bullet or bullets from those guns.

"You think I'd let you go alive? So sorry to burst your bubble." An evil cackle followed. The person speaking was the older man he had left at the café. He didn't know where he was and he actually didn't care to an extent because that was the least of his problems as at then.

The younger man mentally slapped himself. He should've known.

"I'm sorry. Please, don't let them kill me." The two goons laughed and the older man said something to them in a language the younger man couldn't decipher. They replied and soon a ping was heard and that was when the latter realized it was a phone call.

"You have been given two choices; either you go back to the café and finish what you started or we burst your brains out." Without thinking twice, the younger man chose the first option.

"Let's go." One of the thugs said pushing the younger man's head a bit with the tip of the gun. The younger man realized he was going to pee at any moment.

"Please, I need to relieve myself." The two men looked at each other.

"There's a restroom in the café." The younger man shook his head. Not able to hold it in anymore, he turned, giving them his back and let it out. He involuntarily let out a sigh of relief.

"Ew!" The men said in unison.

"You Nigerians are disgusting." One of the men said.

The younger man turned to them and they instructed him to walk in front of them, the feeling of cold metal was still there. Immediately they reached an open place, he felt the feel of the gun on his back disappear and when he turned, the two men had disappeared as though they were never there to begin with.

Confused, he walked to the café and the older man was still sitting there with that same sinister smile on his face. The younger man went and took his seat in front of him skeptically.

"You are stupid, do you know that?" The younger man opened his mouth to retort when he remembered the feel of cold metal against his head and groin so he closed his mouth and swallowed whatever it was he wanted to say.

The older man laughed haughtily earning the attention of a few people around.

"Now, the wedding has been completed. The next step is to lay low and look out for the perfect opportunity to strike. Now, how do we look out? By sending them a spy." The younger man furrowed his brows.

"But why do we need to keep an eye on them? First off, who are we keeping an eye on?" The older man shook his head, the man in front of him was so naive. He didn't understand the ways of life.

"Do you need to be spoonfed? You should know we can't do everything ourselves if not we'd be caught easily. And you know Alhaji Muhammad is no ordinary man. He has eyes everywhere. One mistake and we'd be taken down. We need to strike when the iron is hot. And if the iron isn't hot, we heat it up."

"Can you please stop talking in parables? My time is getting finished and I don't want this trip to be a waste." The younger man rolled his eyes. The older man smiled and ignored his tone.

"Look what I found." The older man pushed a frost hard covered book to the younger man. The latter opened it and his eyes widened, he read the first page and after flipping through, he saw something that caught his eyes. A smile marred his face.

"How did you get so close to the Classical Muslimah to get this?" The younger man asked.

"Well, do you really think a wedding can happen without anything going missing? Moreover, I was at the house and I have never gone there and left empty handed." The younger man nodded appreciatively.

"Now I want you to open the last page and read it. It was written on the day her lefe was brought." The younger man read it silently.

"I knew it! She doesn't love Abulkhair. Haba! Abulkhair has a girlfriend ai. I even saw her page yesterday, she's married now." The older man rubbed his grey-haired chin at the new found information. It was useless to him.

"Since she's married, she can't be used. We should just let her be. Now take a look at this." The younger man collected the piece of newspaper and read it. It was an article about a Nigerian who moved to the states and became a private FBI.

"Now look at this." The younger man collected the second piece of newspaper. It was the same man but this time he was being accused of releasing information to bandits that were once a huge threat to a particular part of the states. He was deployed to Nigeria after being rid of his license and Identity card as punishment for treason.

"He is a really good asset but we can't afford to have a leach in our midst. He has managed to curb seventeen cases in less than two months, making him the fastest FBI agent to uncover cases in a short period of time." Said the FBI head.

"He's going to be working for us because after making my research on him I realized he's in need of a job that offers a lot of money."

"Have you contacted him?" The older man smiled.

"He's on his way to Abuja as we speak."