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In an instant, Musa’s sleep-fogged brain cleared. That was the spot he had placed his laptop bag. What was Dare foraging through his things for? But he remained still and continued watching, not wanting to jump into the wrong conclusion.
In an instant, Musa’s sleep-fogged brain cleared. That was the spot he had placed his laptop bag. What was Dare foraging through his things for? But he remained still and continued watching, not wanting to jump into the wrong conclusion.
As he watched, Dare brought
something out of the laptop bag. He shone the light of the torch on it
momentarily as though to confirm it was what he wanted and Musa saw clearly
that it was his external hard drive. What did Dare want with his external hard
drive? He was paralyzed to the spot, unable to make sense out of the situation.
At that moment, Dare waved the light of the torch in his direction, as though
to make certain he was till sleeping and Musa quickly shut his eyes. When the
light swung away, he opened them again in time to see Dare tucking the hard
drive under his sofa, the one he had been sleeping on.
At that instant, Musa jumped at
him. A squabble ensued. The phone fell out of Dare’s hand and clanged with a
light tinkle to the tiled floor before splitting open and vomiting its battery
and SIM card. The struggle between both men did not last long. Small-bodied
Dare was no match for Musa, never had been. In a brief while, Musa had his diminutive
fried pinned beneath him in a stranglehold.
“What are you up to? What do you
want with my hard drive?” he interrogated him in a whisper, not wanting to wake
up Safiyah and the kids.
“Up to what? I heard a rat moving
about your bag and was searching for it,” Dare lied, his voice muffled by
Musa’s grip. But Musa was having none of those lies.
“I saw you very clearly. I saw
you search through my laptop bag, bring out my hard disk and hide it under that
sofa. I repeat, what are you up to? Tell me now, or I will kill you. I don’t
care if you are my friend, because you clearly mean me harm with your actions.”
Of course he had no intention of
killing him, but he was going to do whatever it took to ensure he spilled the
beans on what his motive was for this shady act. He tightened his hold till
Dare’s hands flailed erratically, then released it just enough for him to
squeak out some sounds.
“They asked me to do it,” Dare
confessed.
“Who asked you to do it.”
“The same people that sent those
guys to you this morning… I guess. I don’t know how they found me or knew you
were with me. Maybe they traced the call you had made to me earlier. They said
if I can get my hands on the hard drive and send it to them, they will let you
live. They will stop hunting you. I did it to save your life, I swear.”
“Indeed! What were they going to
give you? Tell me the whole truth,” Musa scoffed.
“They were also going to give me
five million naira. But I didn’t do it because of the money, Ore, even though God knows I need it. I
did it because I FELT it would get them off your back once and for all.”
Musa was weak. Five million
naira? His good old friend was going to sell him out because of five million
naira?
He released Dare and pushed him
away from him contemptuously, then he set about searching for the phone that
had dropped earlier. He found it and the battery but not the SIM card. He fixed
the battery back in and switched on the phone, then when the light came on, he
used it to retrieve his hard drive from underneath the sofa.
“Tomorrow morning, my family and
I will leave your house and you will never hear from me again.”
As early as 6.30am the next morning
as he had promised, Musa packed his bags and left Dare’s humble home with his
family.
He had not been able to sleep a
wink the whole of the night and had kept watch on Dare even when the betrayer snoozed
off, not sure if the man that had tried to steal his hard drive and sell to his
persecutors would not still do something to harm him before morning. He also
kept wondering what those people could not do to ensure they silenced him
forever. To have gone as far as reach out to Dare and try to get him to snitch
on him, to have even been able to do it, showed how ruthless and formidable
they were. How indeed had they managed to trace his call? Did they have people in
telecoms working for them too? More importantly, who exactly was he up against?
Was it the politician or his bank or a combination of both? If they had been
able to find out he was with Dare so easily, there was no doubt that they knew
the location of his house and might be on their way to do what they had asked
Dare to do themselves, and even more. He had to get away as fast as possible.
As they walked away from Dare’s
house, trying to locate a bus stop or at least a taxi, Musa could hear Safiyah’s
unasked questions in the worried looks she kept shooting at him. He knew she
did not know the details of what the issue was between Dare and him but knew
something was not right. Yet, she asked no questions, trusting that at the
right time, he would open up to her fully on everything.
It proved to be a long walk, so
much so that Musa had to carry their son and luggage while Safiyah carried their
daughter, because the kids were tired. They finally found a taxi. That was lucky
for who knew how further ahead the bus stop was? Musa told the driver to take
them to a good hotel on the mainland, negotiated the fare and they were soon on
their way. He had chosen the mainland because he wanted to be as far as possible
from the Island and Dare in case the people after him tried to trace his
whereabouts.
Once they were settled in the
hotel room, Musa told Safiyah he needed to go in search of an apartment as they
could not stay in a hotel for long.
“Apartment?” she questioned. “Does
that mean we are not going back to Kaduna?”
“No, we are not any time soon. We
need to start a new life in Lagos now.
“But…”
“Don’t worry, Safiyah, I will
explain everything to you soon.”
And he had hurried off into the
streets of Lagos. He was able to locate a couple of estate agents and checked
out a couple of apartments but did not find anything that fitted into what he
had in mind. He then went to a cyber café to search online and contacted a few
more estate agents and set up appointments with them. Then he searched for jobs
and sent his CV off to a couple of companies that had put out relevant vacancies.
By the time he was through, it was 2pm. He headed back to the hotel.
Right from the moment he entered
the reception and was told he could pick up his key at the counter, he knew
something was wrong.
“My key? But my family are in the
room, so the room key can’t be here,” he told them.
“Madam has gone out with the
kids. She dropped the key on her way out,” he was informed.
Safiyah had not told him she
would be going anywhere, in fact she knew nowhere in Lagos, so where could she
have gone off to?
With a growing sense of
foreboding, he collected the key and strode as fast as he could without running
up the hotel stairs to the room. He opened the door and met an empty room. Safiyah
and the kids were gone and so were their luggage. His spare shirt that had been
in it had been left on the bed for him.
Face contorted with panic and
confusion, he rushed down back to the hotel reception.
“But where did my wife say she
was going?”
“She did not tell us sir, just
asked that we help her call a taxi, which we did. Maybe you should call her
sir.”
But he had no means to, having broken
his SIM card last night after the episode with Dare, to prevent anymore tracing
of his calls. “Can I use your desk phone?”
“Yes you can, sir, but at extra
charges…”
He did not wait for the
receptionist to complete the sentence before picking up the phone receiver and dialing
Safiyah’s number. It took him re-dialing 3 times before she finally picked.
“Safiyah! Where are you and the
children? Where have you people gone to?”
Silence met his frenzied query.
“Safiyah!”
“We are on our way to the airport. I don’t
care how much I have to pay for flight tickets but my children and I leaving
you and all this madness today.”
“What do you mean?”
“I gave them the hard drive. You
haven’t noticed it is gone yet? Dare called me this afternoon and told me everything…
that these people are very dangerous and the only way they can stop hunting you
is if they get the hard drive. He came over to pick it up for them and they
sent five million naira into my account in return. But I didn’t do it for the
money, they said that is the only way my family can be safe. I don’t believe
them completely though, and that is why I am leaving right away with the kids.
We are going back to the States, thank God our visas are still valid and the
kids are citizens.”
“What…?” Musa’s brain found it
difficult to accept what he was hearing.
“How could you, Musa? How could
you endanger our lives like this? You think I am so dumb as not to know what
has been going on? I have picked up bits and pieces of your conversations here
and there. I know what you have done, the hot mess you have gotten yourself,
and also me and the kids, into. Yet I kept quiet. But today when Dare called me
I really understood the magnitude and how dire the situation is. And I have to
save my children, Musa, they come first. So I have to get them out fast. At
first, after I gave them the disk and they paid the money, I was going to wait
for you so we can all leave the country together but I saw on the News that you
are a wanted man. Do you know that? They have declared you wanted. That was
when I realized that you cannot leave Nigeria with us, they will be looking out
for you at the airport. So we have to leave without you. Please do not try to stop
us if you truly love us. The people looking for you might follow you and harm
us too. Please.”
After telling him all these in
very rapid Hausa, Safiyah cut off the line.
Musa rushed back up to his hotel
room and went straight to his laptop bag, truly the hard drive was gone. He
evaluated the situation quickly. His first instinct was to go after Safiyah and
the kids, but she was right that would mean endangering their lives. His second
instinct was to go after Dare and wring his neck. How dare he still go after
his wife and convince her to help him get what he had failed to get? But that
would also worsen his situation; he needed to disappear as quickly as possible.
Safiyah said they had declared him wanted and they would also know where his
location was from Dare by now. His priority now was not getting caught.
He picked up the laptop back,
hurriedly settled his hotel bills and rushed off into the busy Lagos streets, a
man stripped of all he had, confused and at a loss on what to do next. He had
lost his security, stability and now his wife and kids? He would never be able
to see them until he cleared his name and become a free man again.
There was only one thing left to
do. They felt they had rid him of all evidences to protect himself, leaving him
bare to the unjust hands of the law? But he still had an ace up his sleeves.
He took a cab back to the cyber
café he had been at earlier and connected his laptop to the Wi-Fi. After the
incident with Dare last night he had backed up the contents of the hard drive
on his laptop, knowing that that hard drive could go missing at any moment now
that there were people desperately trying to get their hands on it. And he had
been right, only he hadn’t expected it to come from Safiyah.
Even if he could not defend
himself in court, he would defend himself in the cyberspace. He would send the
information he had, the truth about the false data surrounding the hundred plus
false accounts that shrouded the politician’s embezzled funds, the fake
addresses, phone numbers, passport photographs and fingerprints to as many
newspapers and bloggers as he could. They would be his voice while he remains
in hiding till his name is cleared.
He typed out his message, signed it
‘Embattled Whistleblower’ and attached the evidence to it, then sent to all the
online newspapers and news bloggers he could think of.
Afterwards, he exited the cyber
café and disappeared into the crowded streets of Lagos, not sure of what to do
with himself next, but hopeful that his name would be cleared and his life
would be returned to the state it had been before he decided to become a
whistleblower.
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