Dirty Diamonds Of Boko Haram Part 1 (10 page)

“Done” said the colonel without hesitation.
“One of our people will be on the plane to hand everything to you
along with any other necessary information”

“How do I I.D the person?”

“Don’t worry yourself about that, you will be
approached” said the colonel and turned back again to look out the
window in a way that indicated the conversation was over.

Alex suddenly realized they were heading back
to the hotel again. Soon they pulled in through the big gate,
dropped him off in the parking lot and drove off.

Alex felt easier within himself as he walked
back to the hotel and entered the lobby. He got his keys from the
lovely receptionist at the front desk, dropped a meal order for
room service and headed for the stairs, he hardly ever made use of
elevators. The eleven story climb had his thighs and calves aching
but the exercise was good.

Alex walked down the wide hallway to his
door, checked and saw that the invincible bit of thin wire he had
put in a crack of the door was still in place, no one had entered
his room in his absence. He got the door unlocked and went in.

By the time Alex finished packing up the new
suitcase and changing into a track suit, room service was at the
door with his dinner, a big bowl of fresh salad, roast turkey and a
bottle of wine, Alex put everything away in the fridge then got a
towel and headed down to the gym.

Alex spent the two hours until midnight
working out. He pushed himself well over his physical limits until
every muscle in his body ached. Finally, tired and very weak, he
still took the stairs up to his floor instead of the elevators. On
very week legs, he staggered down the hallway to door of his suite
and went in.

After a refreshing cold shower that brought
back some of his strength, he ate up the cold food then went off to
lie down in the massive king of kings-sized bed.

Sleep came swiftly.

*******

The flight from Abuja took roughly an hour
and so much delay but they were at the Kano International Airport
by 10 a.m. that morning.

Getting through the unusually tight security
at the airport had been easy enough for Alex. Hooking up with the
taxi driver in the arrivals’ hall had been even easier but
communicating with him, that was the hard part.

Alex tried a few times before he realized
that the smiling, head bobbing, middle aged Fulani man who gave
‘yes’ as reply to every question, really didn’t understand a word
of English. Alex’s Fulani wasn’t so good so he tried Arabic which
didn’t work either because the man wasn’t a Muslim but one of the
rare Fulani Christians. Using signs and Hausa language which he
spoke fairly well because it was the second official language of
the Army right after English, Alex finally managed to convey to the
man that he wanted the windows rolled down completely to allow more
of the fresh late morning air come into the hot interior of the car
as he drove.

The taxi was an ancient car that looked a lot
like a pre-1990 model Passat with mixed body parts. It was nicely
painted on the outside but its interior was a write off held
together by loose screws and glue. Nothing worked, the dashboard
was obviously for fancy and the engine sounded like it hadn’t been
serviced in twenty years. The driver had to pull over by the
roadside where he spent nearly ten minutes using a spanner to fight
down each windows before getting back in behind the wheels and
re-starting the car with a vigorous pumping of the accelerator.

Alex was no stranger to rickety vehicles,
they were all over the place up here in the northern part of the
country. He forced himself to relax in the backseat and remain calm
while the crazy driver took him to ‘heaven only knows where’. If
turned out to be the wrong place, he would have to get himself out
of there somehow and call Rufai or Basil fast.

The flight had been smooth and uneventful,
that was what the rest of the passengers would call it but not
Alex. He had seen Rufai and Samuel; they had all been in first
class together, pretending not to know each other. Alex had tried
hard but never spotted Samuel’s other two men. He would see them
soon enough, he thought as he unhooked the dark sunglasses form the
front of his shirt, put it on and stared curiously out of the
window at the ancient city laid out under the late morning sun. He
had never been to Keno before.

In a minute his mind went back to the plane
and he idly wondered where in the city she could be now and with
whom.

The Military Intelligence contact who had met
him on the flight had also been in first class and her identity had
been a big shocker. Alex had spotted her so easily because she was
none other than Captain Sylvia Brown, one of the four ranking
female staff officers at Defense headquarters, a woman with whom
he’d had one hell of an affair not too long ago.

Sylvia Brown was a tall, light complexioned,
elegant beauty who possessed a plumpish curvy body that was
wonderful to look at even in an Air Force officer’s uniform. Alex
first set eyes on her during one of his first visits to Defense
headquarters two years ago and was hooked from that moment on. She
had been a lieutenant like himself then but senior in service years
and at thirty, was a clean three years older than he was. But, none
of all that changed the fact that she was one of the most
attractive woman he had ever seen in his life. When months later,
Alex got stationed temporally in Abuja, he had ample opportunity to
woo her which hadn’t been easy because of her superior status and
the several senior male officers after her too. Alex could hardly
believe his luck when he eventually became the ‘chosen one’ but the
relationship that followed lasted only two months before the cracks
began to show. Their sex life had been wonderful but the trouble
was that Sylvia, like most female military officers used to issuing
commands and being obeyed, was a possessive and controlling woman,
and then there was the other troubling issue, she was too expensive
a woman for him to maintain. In the third month of the
relationship, Sylvia got the promotion to Captain and it came with
a new office, new car, new accommodations and new responsibilities.
She promptly dumped him without ceremony and took up with a rich
Major from a wealthy northern family. Barely a week after the break
up, Alex was ordered back to the warfront, far to the north-east,
and that should have been the end of everything except that Sylvia
Brown had somehow managed to get into his iron fortress of a heart
so forgetting her hadn’t been easy at all until the fighting and
bloodbath took his soul completely.

Alex hadn’t seen or heard from Sylvia since
they parted ways a year ago, and then, suddenly, there she was on
the plane, looking even more attractive in a fine yellow skirt suit
with matching high heels…
apparently his contact
!

She had been among one of the last passengers
to board the plane and she had definitely seen him clearly but
never gave a single hint of recognition as she came walking right
past his seat, heading towards the very rear of the first-class
compartment where her own seat was. Not even a secret blink of the
eye, that was how Alex knew for sure that she was there for him. He
got a bit confused when, barely a few short minutes into the
flight, a pretty airhostess arrived to serve him a drink and there
on the tray she carried lay a small white card, carefully set so he
easily saw and read the boldly written code words, his brain
translating swiftly…
’toilet, five minutes’
.

Two minutes after the airhostess had walked
away, looking into the round mirrored surface of his digital
wristwatch, his customized rear review mirror, Alex saw Captain
Sylvia Brown abruptly got up from her seat and head out towards the
rear of the plane where the toilets were.

No one else in the compartment moved, no one
noticed her go.

Alex waited the full five minutes before
following. He found one of the toilet doors ajar, pulled it open
and there she was, standing and waiting coolly in the confined
space.

Alex went in, closing the door behind him and
as he faced her, her lovely rosy perfume filled his nostrils and
lungs, instantly awakening in him a deep sexual hunger, the old
raging desire for her he hadn’t felt in a long time. It suddenly
became a struggle to keep control of his senses and keep his hands
from reaching out for her.

Standing barely three feet apart in the
confined space, the old lovers stared at each other.

“Hello, Ninja” she said, smiling and looking
so damned lovely.

‘Ninja’ was the pet name she often called him
and it had a lot to do with his deadly fighting skills and
abilities which she was well aware of.

“What are you doing here?” he asked
coldly.

“It’s nice to see you again too”

“What the hell are you doing here,
Sylvia?”

“Well, I think you already know the answer to
that” she pointed a long red tipped finger at the hand wash
crucible in which was a white package and a black file folder.
“These are all the things you requested. The maps, the drugs, the
tracker, the explosives and the detonator, all present and in the
pocket lining on the light bulletproof vest. Just put the vest on
under your shirt and you’re good to go, nothing will show. The
folder contains special document for you to sign”

Alex glanced at the items. He hadn’t seen her
with anything like the package at any point and she had certainly
walked out of the first-class cabin empty handed which meant there
must be another agent on the plane, a backup. Captain Sylvia Brown
was a very smart woman, a very smooth talker too.

Alex shifted his back her. “Since when did
you start delivering packages for Military Intelligence?”

“Since a particular civilian with deadly
skills started making strange demands that require high level
approval” she said coolly. “Technically, Military Intelligence
cannot give you the immunity you want but Counter-Intelligence can.
Colonel Iyang reached out to us last night and once I heard your
name I decided to handle things myself” she picked up the black
file folder, opened it and held it out to him. “Just sign these and
you have your immunity as well as license to kill”

Alex dragged his eyes off her lovely face to
the open folder. He reached out slowly to take it. There were two
sheets of paper, important looking documents, and a pen stuck in
it. He read the documents swiftly and saw that everything was in
perfect order. He pulled out the pen and signed them then handed it
all back to her.

“Thank you” she said politely then handed him
a white envelope. “The code name of this operation, your code mane
and that of your special contact at the regional command
headquarters in Bornu state. Colonel Iyang himself will be
coordinating things on this and your number one priority is El
Soldat. Open the envelope, memorize all that is on the paper inside
and destroy it, you know the routine. Things have already been
fixed with security at Kano airport so you won’t be searched or
bothered at any point” She placed the folder on the lid of the
toilet seat. “Leave this and every other thing you don’t need
behind when you leave. The airhostess that served you a drink
earlier will be right in to take care of everything, she’s a
Counter Intelligence agent”

Alex tossed the envelope on the package in
the crucible and fixed her with his full attention. He was all too
conscious of her powerful sexuality, the availability of her lush
body in the confined space, less than an arm’s length away. He was
suddenly aware of how long he had been without a woman. Too many
months.

Sylvia met his eyes fully and the tip of her
red tongue touched her luscious full lips, glossy red with
lipstick.

Alex felt the last of his self -control begin
to evaporate.

“Why are you really here, Sylvia?” he asked
in a dangerous low voice.

She stepped very close to him then, put her
hands on his chest and shoulders, running them slowly over the
ridges of hard muscles.

“I want a reconnection” she said softly.

“Last I heard you were well connected to a
Major with lots of money to splash on you”

She looked into his eyes. “That was over with
months ago. I’m just alone by myself now and its rather
depressing”

“There isn’t a shortage of high ranking
officers with fat salaries, is there?”

A small smile touched her lips. “No, there
definitely isn’t, but none seems to fit my standards of the perfect
man like you so completely did. I was beginning to find life very
discontenting and then you showed up again on the scene with a big
salary of your own” She fixed him with her lovely big eye again and
her arms slid around his neck. “Having me at your feet and having a
meaningful relationship, isn’t that what you always wanted?”

Alex stared at her even as his arousal levels
rocked upwards. “I’m not even in the military anymore”

She shook her head slowly. “I never really
wanted a man in the military. I don’t even want to be in the
military anymore. I want a home and children of my own, I want a
family”

Alex didn’t know what to say. He searched
desperately for words, and then she was kissing him. He stopped
trying to think and pulled her tightly against his body as he
kissed her back with all the hunger in his entire being.

The kiss was deep and long. When, finally,
their lips parted, they stared deeply into each other’s eyes and
she touched his face gently.

“When you return, we will start over again”
she said softly. “Please, take care of yourself for me”

She pulled gently out of his arm as she moved
towards the door, got it open and slipped out, closing it gently
after her.

Bewildered, Alex took several deep breaths to
lower his blood pressure a bit then picked up the envelope and tore
it open. He got out the paper inside, unfolded and read it quickly.
He read it again then a third time and the information was
rewritten into his memory. He tore the paper to shreds and flushed
it down the loo then turned his attention to the package. He tore
open the tough nylon container and checked the vest carefully to
make sure everything was in place. Satisfied, he took off his blue
long sleeved shirt and put the vest on. He put his shirt back on
over the vest then checked carefully to make sure that nothing
showed. When finally, he opened the door and stepped out of the
toilet, he found the airhostess waiting patiently close by.