DELIVERY SERVICE
EPISODE 11
We all returned to the house, the leader was so angry at everyone. He ordered for me to be returned into the room and tied back to the chair. I was sweating and shivering all throu-gh the moment, something in me was telling that the end is near for me.
The look on every one of the guys’ face was telling me that I won’t survive the Sunday night. They all went out and were all angry and pas-sing blames on one another in the other room and I could hear them clearly. The leader was furious and shouting on the guys who were positioned at the road ends why they didn’t pu-ll a sh0t, the guys were yelling back at the leader saying “you told us it was a capturing mission and not an as-sas-sin mission”.
The yelling and arguments continued for the next 30 minutes until they were all silenced by the leader who shouted at all of them.
They all settled and started conversing.
LEADER: Fine, we lost the target, I intended capturing him first to extract some items and data from him before elimination as instructed by chairman. We all knew how long we had been looking for this guy before today, he keeps changing locations and calls with hidden numbers. Fine, we lost him today, but at least we still have the delivery guy and the parcel.
GUY1: Fine, we have them, but the bad omen is that, this Femi of a guy is a threat.
GUY2: Threat as how?
GUY1: Yes, he is a threat. He would find out that he was given a fake envelope, he would find out that he was being monito-red by guys who had the delivery guy in custody, and you know what that means?
GUY3: Hmmmm. It means he would hunt us to get back to the delivery guy.
GuY4: And also to take revenge on us and retrieve his parcel.
LEADER: Brilliant idea guys. So let’s br@instorm on what to do next.
GUY5: I think I saw the delivery guy raising up the envelope while on a call few moments before the bike rider c@m£ in. I think we should find out what it was.
LEADER: Cool. **calls on 4 of the guys to follow him**
They were approaching the room where I was kept and tied. I could hear the increase in volume of their foot steps and my heart was beating heavily and I was getting scared the more as they were approaching. I bec@m£ uncomfortable and covered with sweat as they all entered. They took their positions and surrounded me in a kind of a semi circle position. The look on their face was shouting “DEATH”. I bowed down my head and started begging for mercy.
LEADER: **pu-ll-ed out his gun and pointed at my head** Mr delivery, you failed me.
ME: **Bowed my head down in fear** I’m so sorry sir, I never knew he was coming. I didn’t recognise him, that was why I couldn’t signal you sir.
LEADER: Cool. **pu-ll-ed back his gun into his trou-ser** So why did you raise up the envelope on the call?
ME: When I told him I had the parcel, he told me to raise it up for him to see.
LEADER: And what did he say after then?
ME: He said he had seen it.
GUY1: Hmmmmm. It’s one of these things. Its either he lived on the street, or he had some boys doing visual surveillance for him. He couldn’t have seen the parcel from a far.
LEADER: **Sighed** Let’s go guys. Make sure the delivery guy is well tied with no room for escape.
They all went back to the other room and resumed their conversations after monitoring me that I was well tied.
LEadER: Guys we have to retrieve this parcel before Femi and his boys does.
GuY 1: So boss, how do we go about it.
LEADER: That is what I want us to br@in storm on.
GUY2: I have an idea.
LEADER: Bring it on.
GUY2: Since the delivery guy said the parcel is in the office, let’s storm the place on Monday and retrieve it.
LEADER: I don’t think that would be nice, we can’t just go in there blindly without proper information about where exactly the parcel is. There are thousands of parcels in there, we would be spending the whole day searching each envelope.
GUY2: Yeah boss, you are right.
GUY3: I have an idea.
LEADER: Bring it on.
GUY3: I don’t trust this delivery guy. Our surveillance told us he left with the parcel. He even signed a home delivery schedule before leaving. I don’t believe the parcel is in that company.
LEADER: Nice thinking. I also thought of it. But since we couldn’t get it at his house, neither could we retrieved it from his girlfriend’s house. Where else could it be since he didn’t go elsewhere on Thursday?.
GuY3: I think it would be with Labake. Remember she was telling us she knew about the location of the parcel? Maybe we should extract more facts from the delivery guy.
LEADER: **sighed** Alright, let me go.
GUY4: We don’t nee-d to stress ourselves about the parcel of a thing, let us try another approach.
LEADER: OK guy, bring it on.
GUY4: Since the delivery guy said he knows the location of the parcel, let’s use the emotional approach.
LEADER: What is the approach?
GUY 4: To get hold of someone he cares about. Let’s use his emotional weak point. The people he loves.
LEADER: It’s still not ma-king any s-en-se to me.
GUY4: Let’s kidnap and capture someone he loves and make a bargain. He goes out on his own to retrieve the parcel for us without complications and compromising and he gets the person re-leased with no harms. If he does otherwise or inform the police, the person he loves will be sh0t dead instantly.
LEADER : What a brilliant approach. So who is the best match?
GuY5: I think his girlfriend. That’s all he has in this town, and I heard they would be getting married soon.
LEADER: Cool. I think we should go along with this idea.
GUY6: Yeah cool. But I think we should take more safety measures.
LeADeR: How?
GUy6: We can’t just re-lease him to go out there alone while we sit back here waiting. I think someone should follow him to his work, disguise as an intending client and stay close to him so as to prevent any foreign attachment. And whenever we get any signal of compromising, we put the trigger into the girl and vacate the premises before we are raided by police.
LEaDER: Alright, you guys are all brilliant. Tomorrow morning, we strike, we find a means of capturing the girl first before “operation retrieving the parcel”.
All the guys: OK boss.
LEADER: Meanwhile, switch on his phone. Who knows, we could get more ti-ps from it while we arrange for dinner.
They st©pped conversing and my mind was beating fas-ter than ever before, I thought of Adenike, I thought of how I had lost a woman I once loved and how I’m about losing the second one in the hands of same guys. I thought of how the parcel wasn’t even at the office, I thought of what would happen if they find out that I lied. Would Adenike be sh0t the way Labake was killed? OMG!!! where on earth is Shandy? Why wasn’t her name mentioned all this while? Where had she been? I began to ask myself questions until I heard my phone ringing. I heard foot steps as someone was bringing the phone to me, the louder the ring tone, the fas-ter and ha-rder my heartbeat. Finally, the door was opened and the leader with 3 of the guys c@m£ in. The phone st©pped ringing and the leader pu-ll-ed out his gun and said, “you know the rules, you compromise, you are dead”. I nodded in fear as the phone began to ring again. The screen was shown to me and I saw that it was Adenike calling. The green bu-tton was pressed, placed on loudspeaker.
ME: **Stammering** Hello dear.
ADENIKE: Hi, I called you thrice today in the afternoon, you refused to pick up.
ME: I’m sorry dear, I wasn’t with my phone the other time.
ADENIKE: OK dear, I just wanted to inform you that I would be back to Akure tomorrow night. Prepare dinner for me because I will be coming to your place first before going home on Tuesday morning.
ME: **Scared and my heart almost pu-ll-ed out of my che-st** OK dear, I will be waiting. I love you.
ADENIKE: I love you too dear **hanged up**
The leader smiled at the other guys and said “things are getting easier than we thought”
Monday morning, I was given breakfast. The look on their eyes was scary as usual. At 9am, the leader called on his boys and mobilized them into the other room. They were discussing how to carry out today’s mission, how to arrange the kidnap, how I would be re-leased and who would follow me to get the parcel. After about 50minutes of their discussion which I overhead, the leader c@m£ into the room where I was tied. I was so scared to look into his eyes. My eyes were soa-ked in tears and fear. I bowed down my head as he walked closer to me after shutting the door. He pu-ll-ed a chair and sat in front of me and started a conversation.
LEADER: **pu-ll-ed up my head** Mr delivery, I have a good news for you and also a bad news at the same time.
ME: **Scared** Sir.
LEADER: Yes. The bad news is that Femi called on your phone and threatened to kill you at sight.
ME: **p@n-ting** I’m doomed.
LEADER: And the good news is that we will re-lease you and capture him before he makes any attempts to hurt you.
ME: Thank you sir
LEaDER: But there is one last task you would have to do.
ME: OK sir.
LEADER: **He told me the same thing they planned behind me, about how my girlfriend would be kept in custody, about how I would go to work on Tuesday with one of them and hand the parcel over to him then my girlfriend would be re-leased. He told me how adenike would be killed if I compromised him** Do you un-derstand?
ME: **Nodded in fear** OK sir.
LEADER: **Patted me on the back** Good boy.
ME: Thank you sir.
LEADER: If you fail us again this time, you will loose another girlfriend and eventually your own life.
ME: OK sir. **In fear**
He stood up and went out to chat with other guys while a guy was left inside with me.
Before 4pm, I had picked 4 calls from my colleagues at work and from my neighbours at home. They enquired about my disappearance and I told them I travelled, my colleagues even told me that my boss had threatened to sack me if he didn’t get any call from me.
At few minutes past 3pm, I was getting more scared, and my heart was beating fas-ter as the whole team were inside the room with me and prepared for Adenike to call me about her coming. I overheard the leader telling one of the guys to compose a text from my phone to Adenike telling her I wasn’t at home and that I would s£nd a friend to pick her up from the garage when she reached Akure.
I began to think of the risk I was getting myself into. I began to think about the lies I told concerning the parcel, I began to think of what would happen if they all found out that I lied to them.
At few minutes to 5pm, Adenike’s number was dialled from by phone by the guys, but when she picked, she said she hadn’t dep@rted from her home town but she would be in Akure that night. At around 6:00pm, her number was unreachable, only for her to call me at 7:05pm, the green bu-tton was pressed, placed on loudspeaker as usual.
ME: Hello baby, where are you? Why has your number been unreachable?
ADENIKE: Hi dear, I’m sorry, I just wanted to surprise you by not calling so as to find out if you aren’t keeping any girl at home. I’m now in Akure and in your room pres£ntly.
ME: My room? **I remembered she had a spare key.
ADENIKE: Yeah, so where are you? I was told you had been away since Saturday afternoon.
ME: **I raised up my head to look at the guys** It’s true. I went to hang out with my friends because I was scared to stay at home after the robbery incident. **stammering**
ADENIKE: Which of your friends? Are you sure you are OK?
ME: **I looked at the guys in their faces. They all frowned at me** You don’t know him, he is a new friend. I’m fine dear, just feeling sick.
ADENIKE: Anyways, come back home, I’m waiting for you. I have missed you so much dear. That reminds me, I also brou-ght the ENVELOPE you brou-ght from your office on Thursday and left at my place.
ME : **Mouth opened wi-de. I couldn’t talk as the guys looked at one another’s face.**
The phone was hanged up and the leader looked at me with a very scary look. He pu-ll-ed out his gun and walked closer to me. He placed the gun on my forehead and he said, “so you lied to me abi? Mr delivery, you are alre-ady a DEAD MAN!”
To be Continued…