Spy

Badlands

It was drizzling and a bit dark. There were men around four. Sitting under the tent. Why was she being blindfolded, gagged and tied as if she was a slave and no ransom or she had not been asked for any of her details. Annabel was already getting nervous as these men were doing nothing to show she was kidnapped.

Apart from the smoke that kept choking her every time they lit a bonfire she was relaxed. She assumed this guys were doing all this to make her speak about her family and past. She was no longer tied to them.

She couldn't tell if it was day or night. They had not collected any of her personal items and she could hear her phone vibrate in her bra but she couldn't pick. She knew the callers as not many people called her on this line.

One of the guys who had identified himself as Aaron Scarface, walked up to her and asked her if she was hungry. " Msichana unasikia njaa?" She knew less swahili so she pardoned him and he translated it in broken English " hungry are girl you?"  She nodded in agreement. He brought a bowl of unfermented gruel and ungagged her before removing her blindfolds.

Light hit her eyes before she recollected and noticed they were in a jungle. The tent they were sheltering in looked old and tattered. She gulped the gruel and threw the bowl on the floor. Angrily Scarface walked to her and slapped her. She screamed loud enough to wake mother death. The guys ran in and started raining blows on her.

She passed out. Scarface got surprised and worried at the same time. This was not part of the deal. He wasn't supposed to batter or kill her. He warned his boys before walking out into the drizzle. The boys walked out too and there was silence in the tent.

Mr Isoe was not in any way bothered by the new case that was dropped at his office as he was now retired and all cases were supposed to be handled by his daughter.There was a missing girl whose past was a mystery and she seemed to have spent a good part of her life in the nursing and mission school.

Why would a nurse disappear and no ransom asked on her head. Who is this working like a retired member of the special forces. Looking at the descriptions he also noticed that she had been last seen at the mission premises. This startled him. He had to work on this. The missionary was well protected and the guards there had a military training and could easily detect normal thugs.

He lit his cigarette and walked to the window overlooking town. He had never worked on any mysterious case that involved such smart kidnappers. Where might they have held the girl for three days?What might have happened to her?

Looking at his watch he threw the cigar into his black diamond coated ash tray and walked out. He had to catch the seven pm news. There were things he was going to collect and add some light into this mystery.

Annabel got back to her senses three to four days later. She found herself untied ungagged and the tent was nowhere to be seen. The moon was high up on the sky and she could tell it was almost midnight. Sounds of crickets and insects were the only thing that confirmed to her that she was alive.  She searched and fished out her phone but,it was off,it had run out of battery.

She cursed the poor battery life of imported phones. Rising up she walked towards a big mugumo tree and decided to wait for dawn before embarking on finding her way out of the unknown jungle.