Scarred For Life

Chapter 76

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Hafsah grew rapidly. It was almost as if one day she went to sleep a baby, and woke up the next day with a vocabulary of over five hundred words. Her growth spurt happened right around the time that Afrah and Adnan moved to Kano.

Amina called it their migration, while everyone else called it a relocation. Like birds which migrated south for the winter, Amina told everyone who listened that they'd migrated north for The Long Winter, one which would stretch on for years if care was not taken.

Adnan was much too happy to move. Knowing they were leaving the danger of Abuja behind was the only thing which finally made him able to sleep. That, and the knowledge that Zainab was serving a life sentence.

The charges leveled against her would have easily amounted to culpable homicide punishable with death, but an unknown party was said to have bribed the judge and reduced the charges to culpable homicide not punishable with death. Adnan had been ready to appeal, but Afrah assured him that the best thing to do would be to let it go.

And so Zainab was locked away for good, and Adnan never went to see her even once. Of course she hadn't said a single word ever since she was arrested, and so they never got to find out where Yusuf was hiding. But Adnan was confident that the worst was behind them.

Five years went by, and in the space of one thousand, eight hundred and twenty six days, the little family had adjusted fully to life in Kano. Adnan opened up a branch in the city, and thus kept himself busy. Twice a month however, he traveled back to Abuja to oversee the affairs of his company in his absence.

Afrah got a job at a private hospital in Nassarawa, where she worked as a senior nurse. Hafsah was enrolled in Crescent International School, and life went on as simply as it should have from the beginning.

All the while however, their enemies plotted in the darkness. Neither one of them ever suspected anything, assuming the worst had come to pass. But not too far from them, the plotting and scheming continued.

Yusuf had come so close to failing once. He wouldn't make that mistake again. Now that his informant was locked away, he was back to square one. But he was a resourceful man, having made do with less. All it took was some cautious planning, and soon everything was in place for the final strike.

Getting out of Abuja wasn't easy. Yusuf spent months planning it meticulously. It took him six months in total, but the moment when he drove past the checkpoint, relief flooded his entire body.

It happened this way.

For three whole months, he would drive up to the nearest U-turn and park his car there. Then, he would throw on a hoodie and walk up to within a few yards of the checkpoint. There was a little wooden shed not too far from the spot from where he could clearly watch the road. What he found was a small window of opportunity not more than three minutes long. It happened usually around 2:15pm, right around Zuhr prayer, when the shifts were rotated. The best day was a Saturday, because the soldier on duty always took a full ten minutes before he would take over. Yusuf spent a while watching them, learning how they coordinated themselves when the shift was about to happen, how they related with one another, and which man was the most likely to look away. There were three blockades in total, and it had to happen when all three men happened to be the most negligent of the group. That opportunity always came on a Saturday, right before they all clamored to the mosque nearby.

He noticed also that the men usually stopped only the high-end cars to check them, mostly ignoring cheaper, pathetic looking cars.

Like he would make the same mistake twice.

He bought a cheap old Peugeot 406, with the headlights damaged and the exhaust billowing with smoke. Not too much though, as that would draw attention. He drove off at a steady 45mph from Kubwa right around 1:56pm, having calculated that he would reach the checkpoint right around 2:15pm, traffic notwithstanding.