THE NEXT TWO DAYS

Part Sixteen

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

There was something she planned on asking Major Ahmed if she ever meet him. One of his criteria for this Special Force people must be their handsomeness. The person staring at her through the camera she never saw at the empty room was freaking handsome. He was fair, his hair was cut short, he had those side beards that looked as if it was artificially installed making it neat and properly aligned and arranged. He had a straight face with pointed cheek. She had never seen him before, not that she had seen any of the Special Forces apart from George and recently that Dark Prince. She did not even know anything like that even existed before now. All she knew was that George and Jason were Nigerian Soldiers. George had followed Jason back to Benin one day, and it took time for them to believe that Jason really had a friend. He had stayed with them for a week and somehow George became her only male friend. Then after Mum and Dad died in a ghastly accident, she had packed into a hostel in Ekosodin because it was closer to Faculty of Law, which was her faculty. She only went home whenever Jason and George were coming to visit. They hardly discussed anything about military and found a way to avoid it anytime she had asked about their training. Her most lonely period was when they had travelled to America for a special training. Only once was she allowed to visit them, for just a day and during that time, she never had contact with any other soldier or any other Special Force soldier.
How long was she lost in thought? He was saying something but she could not hear. He placed his left hand on his mouth, then on his ear and on his hand. She immediately understood what he was trying to say.
There was something to press that would make her communicate with him. She studied the remote for the first time. It was not like a normal TV remote not that she was surprised. There was a button with a volume symbol. She pressed the button but only the volume increased but still no sound. There was another button that had voice and V written on it. She pressed it and that worked. She could hear him. She moved closer to the TV, maybe there was something there that would transmit her voice to him.
"Hello, can you hear me?" the handsome guy asked.
"Yes" she answered.
That was not actually what she wanted to say. She wanted to say more, but she felt a bit entranced by his voice. This guy had it all, beauty and great masculine voice.
"I'm Nick, you must be Cynthia."
Wait how was he speaking as if he could see her?
"Can you see me?"
"Yes. You switched on the TV. I have been here for long. What took you so long?" he asked smiling.
He even had dimple cheeks. It should be a sin for guys to be that handsome. Only God knew the number of girls that had fallen for those dimples.
"I am Jason's new backup. I'm sorry about George."
She felt that pain again. She would mourn George properly when all this was over. She rubbed her chest subconsciously.
"I'm sorry too, you also lost a comrade."
"Yea, it's very sad. Can you open the door? I can see Jason changed the password to protect you. I need to pick up some weapons."
"But how where you able to communicate with Jason?"
"Through our secured line, we can only send texts and call" he answered still all smiles.
That dimple was really a distraction, she thought as she moved over to the box. She had almost placed her thumb on the circle but stopped once again. Jason said there was no communication and he never mentioned a secured line. Could it be the line he contacted using that driver's phone? Again she felt sad remembering the driver.
"I'm waiting" he said.
"Oh, wait, the password. You are supposed to give a password" she said remembering.
"When did Jason give you the password?" And he was still smiling.
"Before he left."
"The last time I communicated with Jason was yesterday in the morning."
She was right, that was the phone call Jason made but how did he know to come to the underground house in Asaba? He had also called her Cynthia which was her official name. George had called her Cindy from the first meeting.
"You must be Cindy" George had said.
And when she later asked him why he called her Cindy instead of Cynthia, he had said that was what Jason wrote in her picture in Circle house. She had never understood that statement until now. Nick was definitely not among The Circle team. And Jason had said he only trusted his team.
Her gut told her something was wrong. What she was very sure of was she would never open the door without that password. Jason was very meticulous and he wouldn't have forgotten those details.
"Jason told me that you have this kind of house in every state capital. Onitsha is not far, you can take the weapons you need there."
"Cynthia, I don't have time, I need to take those weapons as reinforcement. Just open the door."
"Sorry I can't" she said taking the remote to switch off the TV.
"You could have chosen the easy way Cynthia" he said all smiles disappearing.
She opened her mouth to ask for an explanation, but stopped midway. Someone was pushed in front of the camera. It was Osamagbe her course mate and hostel mate. She was the person that was almost her friend. Her face was swollen and there were black dots on her left eye. For it to be showing on someone as dark as Osamagbe, it meant it was bad. She was visibly shaking.
"What is going on?"
It was not Nick that responded but Osamagbe. She raised her head to look at the camera.
"Is that you Cynthia...please help me... they took me on my way to the Police station.....I..I."
"Sssh" Nick said placing a knife on her lips.
She immediately stopped speaking but her shaking increased. She did not know how to react to what she was seeing, somehow she was beginning to feel headache. She wished she could go back to sleep and become six years again.
"What do you mean by police?"
Maybe she should have asked something else but her mind was not okay. It was Nick that answered.
"How can you forget the disaster Jason left at your doorstep? Your best friend here wrote about it on her Facebook account and declared you missing. She wrote she will be visiting the police station to report you missing. My men and I picked her up. We had already taken care of the disaster. We did not want the police involved. I never knew she would be my backup plan."
He was smiling and his dimples were still visible but it was no longer beautiful. How come she had never thought about the aftermath of the shootings on Wednesday night? She had not even thought about school nor lectures she must have missed. She never thought that somebody would care to notice she was missing. They were not that close. She was not close to anyone and her hostel made closeness almost impossible. There was no corridor connecting the rooms. Each room was independent of each other. Osamagbe had always been the one to initiate a conversation. She was in trouble because of her. The death of that driver was enough, she would do anything to save her.
"What do you want Nick?"
"Now we are talking. We need you to take back the documents your boyfriend stole from us."
Boyfriend! Nick thought Jason her boyfriend. What did Jason tell them about her? Just then, she remembered what George asked when he came with Jason for the first time. He had also thought Jason was her boyfriend, then she had no feelings for him. She had corrected George.
"There is absolutely no sibling resemblance" George had responded.
Again her mind had deviated from the issue on ground. Nick also mentioned the document. It meant they were not aware Dark Prince had the document.
"You have ten seconds to open that door or I will slit her throat" Nick said lowering the knife to her throat.
"Cynthia, please help me, please just open the door" Osamagbe was now crying.
"Five more seconds."
She could not open it, she had faith Nick wouldn't kill her. There must be some humanity left in him.
"Time up."
She watched as Nick cut into Osamagbe's skin, enough to bleed but not to kill.
"Stop it" she screamed.
"I'll open it. Just promise me you will let her go. She did nothing to deserve this."
"Deal. You are the one I want. You for her."
She felt tears flowing from her eyes as she placed her hands on the circle.
"Command accepted" a female voice said.
Next came the sound of a door being opened. It was coming from up, where she had climbed down from. She watched as a ladder touched the floor.
"Let her go."
"Not after you come over."
Her head was screaming a big no but she found herself climbing the ladder. When she got to the top, she saw two men that were not visible to the camera. Nick was holding Osamagbe close to his chest, the knife still on her throat. He was smiling and she hated that smile.
"Wow, you are prettier in real life. Pleased to meet you."
She ignored him and took a closer look at Osamagbe. She had bruises on her hands, her legs and mostly her face. The top of her gown was torn exposing a part of her breast. Her hair which looked like she did a packing gel was scattered and some dried blood was stuck on the left side of her hair. She was looking at her. Her lips were moving, she was past the stage of fear, she was now hysterical.
"Osamagbe I'm sorry, it's okay. You will be fine now."
"Search her" Nick told the two men by the door.
"What do you mean, I don't have anything with me."
But they were already on her, one held her down, while the other used what looked like a bug detector to rub on her body. She knew what it was because she had watched it in movies. He was very meticulous. She felt harassed but her worry shifted to something else when the detector picked up an interference. It was the hair packer Jason gave her. He roughly pulled it out of her hair.
The pain she felt made her believe he must have pulled a hair along with the parker. The man threw the hair packer to Nick who caught it.
"I am always right. I knew he won't leave without bugging you." His smile now looked like a smirk and she wished she could wipe it off his face.
Nick placed the hair packer on the ground and smashed it with his foot. One of the beads had something red blinking on it. One of the men went and picked it up.
"Destroy it" Nick said.
The man nodded and left with the tiny device.
"Now he knows I have you. I've always wanted to beat Jason in his own game. This is fun."
"Let her go, she is bleeding" she said trying hard to avoid thinking of how Jason would be feeling now.
"Okay sweetheart" Nick said.
She felt relieved, at least one more person wouldn't die for trying to help. She raised her head to reassure Osamagbe but gave a piercing scream. It was not real, it was horror. She saw everything. Nick had opened Osamagbe's throat with his knife. Blood was gushing out, her face will torment her forever. Her eyes were wider, her mouth was opened, her face was stretched as if pulled up. Nick pushed her away from him. She watched as Osamagbe fell backwards, her hands holding her throat, trying to stop that river of blood. She did not know how but she found herself joining Osamagbe's hands with hers. Maybe they could stop the bleeding. Osamagbe's eyes were still opened even after there was no pulse. The lifeless eyes were staring back at her. There was blood everywhere, her hands looked like she dipped them in a drum of blood. It must be a nightmare. She screamed hoping she would wake up but nothing happened. Anger she never knew existed before took over her body. She rushed at Nick, hoping to gouge out his eyes. She could not even land any strike, not even one. Nick held her but she fought, she tried to use her feet, her body anything to fight but she was so powerless. He was still smiling when he easily overpowered her, twisted her and forced her back to rest on his chest. She could no longer see him but she could still feel his ugly smile. She became furious and used all her strength to try wriggle her body from his grasp but Nick was not affected, she was not sure he knew she was fighting him.
"Sshh, as much as I like your invitation I'll rather have you in one piece for now. But don't tempt me further" he said, his voice becoming husky.
Suddenly, she understood what he was saying. She became aware she was on her night gown and she was not wearing bra. Nick's right hand was already moving. Fear replaced her anger. She tried again to get free.
"Looks like you don't get it Cynthia. Oh you like it rough" he said grasping her left breast.
It felt repulsive, like tiny bugs were moving all over her body, she was going to throw up. She tried holding it back but could not. She threw on the ground. Nick released his hold on her with such force that she fell. She remained down even when she had emptied her stomach.
"Party time is over. Let's get moving" he heard Nick say.
She raised her head to look at him. She wished he could see all the hate and anger she was feeling towards him.
"Jason is going to slice you limp for limp and for once I'm going to enjoy watching everything."
Nick came to her back, knelt down and forced her to turn. He raised her jaw so she could look at his face.
"There is something you should know about Special Force. Every single soldier is a killing machine. Each of us have been trained based on everything about combat and how best to kill an opponent but what is great about us is we are made to also develop more of our skills, what we are good at. Major Ahmed calls it honing. Jason is best when he is up with his sniper, I also know he would beat me in combat but I'm the strategist. They fear me because I can kill without throwing a punch. That's why I'm never going to meet Jason. We kill using anything possible, and right now you are the only one that will make Jason reveal his current location. Once he shows his face...you can fill in the missing link. We don't need him alive. So get it into your head, your wish will never come through. At the end  those with wit survive more than the strong." he said smiling.
He roughly pulled her up and dragged her outside, not that she was resisting, her fighting spirit was dead. He took her to a black Toyota jeep parked exactly where Jason had parked his car. The back door of the jeep was opened and she was pushed inside. The car was in motion seconds later.
"Where are you taking me to?" she asked not sure why she asked.
"To meet Faceless. Trust me, it's a man you should never wish to meet and right now he's pissed."
She did not need to look to know he was smiling. If he was the reason Nick was smiling, then she did not want to meet him.
She felt empty. She should have listened to Jason, she felt guilty. Jason was going to die because of her. At least Nick was not aware Jason was no longer with the documents. That was it; there was still hope even if Jason died. But only the thought was tearing her heart. She could not imagine a world without Jason, she would rather be dead, which she was already sure of. At least she would not be alive, she would not feel pains of loss. Suddenly, a thought came to her mind, or maybe a face. The dark prince's face. She remembered what Jason had told her about the dark prince. Then, she could not picture what Jason would do if she died, but now she could picture it, there would be many dead bodies. Jason was no ordinary person, she had seen him loose control when his autism had shown his ugly head. When she was seven, she fell and scratched her palm while attempting to capture a bird that was perched on their corridor. That day many birds died and she had feared Jason. Now she would be glad if he lost control again, for George, for the driver, for Osamagbe, she was going to make it happen.