THE NEXT TWO DAYS

Part Twenty Four

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR
            They had been walking for long with nobody saying anything. That was after Ebuka had brought out a torchlight from his bag and switched it on before entering the tunnel. Even though she hated enclosed places, she had followed Ebuka when he entered the dark tunnel.
“I don’t like enclosed places” she said after few minutes of walking.
“This is the only way Cynthia, you have to try”
“Okay” she stammered rubbing her hand band.
The tunnel was beginning to come closer to her as if it was going to compress her. She could no longer breathe. She was beginning to hyperventilate. She found herself bending down.
“Cynthia are you okay” Ebuka asked.
He must have discovered she was no longer following because he came back to her.
“The wall is compressing me. I can’t.”
“It is in your mind Cynthia. Okay if you stand up I promise to tell you things about your Uncle.”
It worked because she found herself standing up.
“What do you know about my uncle?” she asked after they had resumed walking.
“What do you want to know?”
“How long have you known him?”
“More than twenty years now.”
“That should be before I was born.”
“I guess so. But it was about few weeks after Abacha took over office. My uncle was a retired Biafran soldier. He fought with Ojukwu during the Civil war. Faceless had come to him for refuge. He had said his life was in danger. He later showed my Uncle the documents Emeka, your dad discovered. I was just sixteen then and Nnamdi was eighteen. He was my uncle’s son.”
So Emeka was her father’s native name.
“What did he tell you about my mum?”
“I got to know of your mum seven years later after we became brothers. Then I just graduated as a medical doctor.”
“You are a doctor!”
“Yes but never practiced.”
“Why are you with Biafra? Why did you join them instead of practicing?”
“Because there is no relationship between Biafra and Nigerian. Our culture, system of government is different. We are always being marginalized. There have never been any Igbo president and they won’t allow it. Biafra can stand on its own. We are continuing from where Ojukwu and my Uncle stopped.”
“Why was my uncle crying?” she asked the most disturbing question.
“Only Faceless can answer that” he answered after a long pause.
It was as if he was thinking of the right thing to say. She was now feeling better and could see the tunnel clearly. It was looking old. The wall had green moss. The ground and wall roof also had the same moss. Never in her life would she had been able to predict what she was experiencing. Ahead was a gate.
“Is that the end of the tunnel?” She asked pointing at the gate.
“No, we just started. The gate was made by Faceless. It was part of his precautionary measures” Ebuka responded.
“This tunnel must be very old.”
“Yes, nobody can accurately point the date the tunnel was created but my uncle said it had been there before the civil war and it was used during the war. Faceless brought the idea of building an underground house which will be connected to the tunnel. That was ten years ago.”
They were now at the gate and it was obvious the gate was not too old like the walls. Ebuka brought out a bunch of keys from his bag and with one of the keys, he opened the padlock of the gate. She was not expecting to see sunlight but she was still disappointed that the tunnel was still endless.
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     He was comforted for the first time since George’s death. This was because George was still active. The gun magnet whose name he would change later, was on course. The bullet Andrew fired did not get to him. It landed on the water and exploded but he was not affected. When George had designed the gun magnet, he had made sure it had the four basic forces needed for flight.  Andrew fired again but instead of him being the target, it was the gun magnet he fired at. He was applying what they were taught. Major Ahmed had said most of the gadgets weakened faster when they were pressurized. That was going to be a very big issue because from what he could read from the tool box which was connected to the gun magnet, the battery wouldn’t last up to eight minutes if Andrew continued firing at it. He wished he was in one of the Niger Delta Rivers which had trees and tall shrubs covering someone on the run.  He stirred the boat with one hand and operated his tool box with the other. He could not fire back because the gun magnet would repel it. If he survived this war, he was going to manipulate the device to have a part that did not repel, that part would be facing him. Right now he only needed to get to Obe and use a car they had placed there. But that would take more than eight minutes even with his speed. George had been crazy about fighting while cruising the river that he had forced him to go with him in the middle of the night to place ammunitions and cars in different locations close to the river. There were two boats in different locations at River Niger and also they had buried weapons in many places. He checked his tool box to find out the closest. There was one at the center of Obe which was about twenty minutes run from the river bank of Obe. He could not fire from where he was because of George’s gun magnet, but he could fire at Andrew using their hidden weapons. It just had to follow a different trajectory. Andrew was still firing at the gadget with a sniper rifle. He used his tool to open their hidden weapon at Obe. George had studied  ballistic missiles and had suggested they created one that could be operated from afar but instead of a weapon that could cause massive destruction, they could limit the effect to that of their laser bullet. They had built it in the shape of a cruise missile jet and it was loaded with enough laser bullets. Of course powered by solar. One could shoot the bullet from afar using their computer which they called tool box. It would remain dormant until activated. They had planned on removing everything after their mission was over. Thanks to Major Ahmed’s brother in law who was their major sponsor. He had donated most of his building in different states to The Circle. And he also gave money to The Circle to add to what the government made available. It had been easy to purchase weapons and raw materials as a result of that. They had a lab house in Lagos where majority of their weapons were built. Every hand had always been on deck to help them create or recreate the perfect weapon.
As he opened up their small jet riffle, he remembered how George became his friend. He had always been on his own and many did not talk to him after many failed attempts. George had given him a paper asking for his phone number. He had always ignored him but gave up after George continued persisting.
‘Heard you are dumb. Let’s talk like this’ George had sent as his first message.
He had replied that he just did not like talking. George had asked him to talk through chats. And that was how their friendship started. They had spoken more with each other with text message than with their mouth. With time, he discovered they had the same interest in technology and weapons, and that had sealed their bond.
            Just when he was about to target his missile at Andrew, he heard the sound of an approaching helicopter. If they joined Andrew on his mission, the gun magnet would not last at all. He changed his target to the helicopter.
“Fear is for the brave, cowards can never stare it in the eyes. Identify it first before you face it, cowards never know that” he remembered Wild’s statement when he was welcoming the qualified candidates to The Circle.
Right now, the biggest threat was the helicopter and not the others that had joined Andrew to shoot at his gadget. It looked like BlueAI gave them sniper rifle and from what he could see with Flight 10, one of them in each group had something that looked like his XM25 rifle containing laser bullets.
Their bird was very visible and was following him. There was a possibility that they could connect their bird to their weapons, but he disregarded the thought almost immediately. They would have done that earlier and it was difficult because theirs navigated using the networks available. Although it seemed to be powered by solar it was not almost independent. It could dodge weapons like Flight 10 because he was seeing the same bird he had shot. His bird was linked to his mini WIFI only, which was his tool box and every equipment was linked in a chain like network and could be operated within three hours driving distance. But he knew if that bird continued on his tail, they would send their missile from their control room using the bird to know his location. BlueAI had sophisticated weapons but they did not know The Circle had more.  He used Flight 10 to focus on the helicopter. Since all his weapons and gadgets were connected, with his tool box being the channel, he quickly created a link between their jet gun and Flight 10. Flight 10’s work was to send the images of targets to the camera of the already active jet and its bullet. With the network link and the camera, the missile would locate the target even if Flight 10 flew away after the missile had been launched. The tool box alerted him that the gun magnet had four minutes left. He would have been in a worse situation if the boat had been located in the open river where his enemies could have followed suit after hijacking a boat. The shooters where just three and it would have touched him even with the distance he had given them, because the river was too open and the people shooting could hit a target at six hundred to eight hundred yards.
      Four minutes was enough for his puzzle to be solved. The jet had been opened and the images of the target had been sent, the only thing remaining was the launching. One bullet was enough because he was just going to hit the pilot and he was going to make it count. Laser bullets were very expensive and there were future battles to be fought.  He launched the missile and as his tool started its ten seconds countdown, he powered more bullets, his next target being Andrew and teams.
      The helicopter was already on him, one of them had fired at Flight 10. They were up to five in the helicopter but none of them was familiar. Either Nick was being careful or he had used up all the defectors. Immediately they were close enough, they opened fire on him. The bullets were all repelled but the gun magnet battery’s reading went down to two minutes almost immediately.  The shooters were concentrating so much on him that they did not see what hit them. It took the missile fifty five seconds to hit target. And the trajectory was from the opposite side. It was not repelled because the path was different. The helicopter exploded few seconds later, and he sped up the boat to avoid debris from hitting him. Flight 10 was already by Andrew and the other teams, and as the images connected he launched. The battery of the gun magnet had exactly one minute, thirty seconds left when he launched four laser bullets to locate Andrew’s teams. With the aid of Flight 10, he saw Andrew run into the river, it was fifty seconds after the missile was launched. Before the others could figure out what was wrong with Andrew, it was already too late as the bullet missiles found its target at exactly sixty seconds.
He had no time to watch the destruction the missiles caused because the gun magnet just repelled a bullet. It did not come from Andrew’s team and the helicopter and occupants were in the water. It could be only one way. They had shot him using their bird. Just like he predicted and he had just twenty seconds left. He knew they will fire again and it would hit its target. It was obvious because the bird was very close to him. It was as if Nick was trying to make him aware he was the man behind it.
“I don’t need to face you before I kill you.” He remembered Nick’s statement.
If only Nick knew that bringing that bird close to tout him was a big mistake. His tool box could jam any interference within five yards. He quickly clicked Jam on his tool box. It was not something he had to set, it was already set. The second missile hit the water a few distance away, same time the gun magnet’s battery died. He quickly navigated the boat so the gun magnet could land on it. They wouldn’t be able to send anything. And he was not going to stop there. The solar battery helped the bird stay in the sky but all the intelligent work needed network. It was like a phone, it could be used without network, but to browse, a network connection was needed. It would not be able to dodge any bullet.  He was not going to waste his laser bullet on the bird. He took George’s black and shot at the bird. The bird fell and landed on the boat. He brought out a laser knife, which could cut through metals and slice the bird in pieces. He brought out the controlling chip. At first he wanted to take it but changed his mind. It would have a tracking device and there was no time to figure it out. He dropped it into the water. He just knew the rest of his journey would be peaceful. Nick had lost too many men and he would need reinforcement before he came for him again. He navigated towards his destination with Cindy on his mind.