Chapter 2

“Are you ready to listen now?” my caller rasps. “No more tough guy sh!t?”

I hesitate for only a moment before whispering with trembling lips, “Yes.”

“What’s that? I didn’t hear you clearly.”

I swallow. “Yes,” I repeat, “I said yes.”

“All right, then.” I hear his low sigh of satisfaction. “You’re more correct than you realize, sha—about why I’m doing this. I truly am trying to turn a new leaf, but it has nothing to do with religion. It’s just that, well, for personal reasons that I cannot go into right now, I don’t feel I should complete this assignment. Not that I can’t, mind you—I’m very good at my job and I’ve been doing it for a long time…”

Beyond the Branch Manager’s office, the door to the conference room—actually a closed off construct of translucent plastic and wood partitioning—slowly opens and a bespectacled head protrude from it. It’s one of the visiting auditors. He spots me, grins and waves a friendly greeting before beckoning me over.

For two seconds, I stare back, unsure what to do. Then I return a solicitous smile and nod earnestly while making the universal be-right-with-you gesture with one hand and waggling the receiver with the other. He stays in place, calmly waiting.

“Please…” I lower my tone and speak with appropriate gravity. “Please listen, you have to hold on for a few minutes, I beg you. I promise to get back to you, but my boss needs my immediate attention.”

“Have to keep up appearances, ehn? I understand, I understand. Tell you what, I’ll drop until you’re done. Make it quick, then come back and redial.”

I take a deep breath that does nothing to calm me before walking over and into the cramped square of space. There is a mess of files and papers atop the rectangular tabletop before the Branch Manager and two other occupants, one male and one female. Usually a picture of composure, Mrs. Okoye looks a little harried, while the others have their faces buried in paperwork.

She looks up, recites a brief list of customer files to fetch her from the customer service desk and reminds me to ensure I sign the register for everything I collect. She also asks me to locate the office assistant and send him over. Acknowledging my understanding, I turn to leave but she stares at me quizzically instead of resuming her work. Asks if I am all right.

I bare teeth in a false smile and say why, yes. Her eyes stay on me as I walk, back straight, out of the office. It is only after I have shut the panel door behind me that I realize how noticeably sweat darkened that my shirt front and armpits have become despite the floor’s chilled temperature.

It takes about twenty minutes to complete the tasks for my boss. I waste another ten sitting at my desk and staring at the two phones on its neatly organized surface. The mobile phone weighs like an anvil when I drag it up and redial with stiff fingers. Answering before the first ring has died down, the voice is mild, affable.

“Good man,” says the voice, now infused with a camaraderie that sickens me. “Look, let me assure you I don’t want to be a burden on you, okay? I know this is a lot to deal with on a Friday morning, but don’t even fear—do as I say and everything will be all right.”

“What… what exactly do you want from me?”

“Ah-ah, I already told you, now. I’m doing you the great service of not letting anything bad happen to you or your loved ones. I think it’s only fair that I’m compensated.”

“I’m a junior accounts officer. How much do you think I have to give?”

“Not much, I know. I’ve done my research. The current balance in your salary account is about sixteen thousand. You have a fixed deposit, revolving for 30 days, to the tune of… let’s see, two hundred and fifty thousand, and your special savings account with Trust International Bank, Isolo has just under fifty-eight thousand. So… the short answer is no, you can’t pay me off.”

The sober tally fails to register under my current weight of jumbled emotion. I raise my ballpoint pen; begin gnawing on its tip.

“I know you won’t believe it,” it goes on, “but after watching you over the past few days, the honest truth is that I’ve developed a kind of liking for you. You remind me of someone close to me that I lost a long time ago. That reason, among… other things, is why we are still talking; why I haven’t already done the job. Trust me, when it comes to wiping, I’m not only effective, I’m efficient.”

He pauses for another beat before going on. “Efficiency. Heh, this our country, you know—I love and I hate it at the same time. You are a smart young man, right? Ever wondered why so many intelligent, rational men die nowadays while the real idiots thrive. They lose, and they die while the fools and madmen rise to become our leaders.”

I listen, my breathing unsteady and shallow.

“Of course, it’s the idiots that are killing the intelligent ones and it’s all part of deliberate efforts to spread ignorance—like the conspiracy between the power generator importation barons and the fuel importation cabal. It’s all to ensure that we never see steady public power provision as long as they can line their pockets from selling low quality generating sets and adulterated petrol to us masses. I’m not joking, my friend—it’s real. I’ve read write-ups on the matter.” A bright, sardonic chuckle comes across the phone earpiece.

Not done yet, he continues: “Do you know that for the hundreds of billions spent till date we could have established small nuclear plants to provide cheap and very affordable power? People say we can’t be trusted with such technology. They cite those disasters at places like Chernobyl, Fukushima, and Three Mile Island, but look at the sort of countries that since this time have successfully established enlarged nuclear power supply for their population: India, Iran, Malaysia, and so on.” The man’s voice wavers between strident and quavering. “Now tell me what makes these countries better than us, ehn? Sh!t…!”

Just as I’m beginning to fully accept that I’m dealing with a complete lunatic, his tone modulates, slows down, then steadies. “Sorry again. My wife says I talk too much sometimes. I guess it’s what comes from not having people to discuss my work with… nobody except my victims.”

He falls quiet, so quiet I believe I can hear his breathing—slow, even.

Then he says, “But wiping people isn’t like driving them in a bus, or counting their money, so it’s not your fault. I know you don’t have the kind of money I want, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get hands on it. I can help you.”

“What? How? I don’t…”

I hear a sharp exhale—exasperated, patronizing. “You know, you haven’t even asked me who wants you dead. Don’t you care? Na which kin’ person you be sef?”

“You said you don’t reveal your clients…”

“Haba, is this a Nollywood movie? Anyway, that’s not important right now. What is important is how you answer my next questions. Are you listening, Steve? Are you listening very carefully?”

My throbbing heart echoes in my ears. About two metres away oga Folly had gone over to the big Xerox copier next to the fireproof filing cabinets and is placing sheet after sheet of A4 papers covered in words and comparative tabulation on its copy panel. Aside from a brief glance when crossing my line of sight, he pays no real attention to me.

I swallow again—dryly, this time. “Yes – yes, sir.”

“Okay then. Tell me, do you want to die?”

“Ha… N–No.”

“Do you want any of your family to die today?”

“No sir, of course not.”

“Understandable. Now, do you wish for any of your friends or colleagues to die as well?”

“What? What’s that got to do with…?”

“Relax,” I hear before a liquid giggle starts, only to quickly end with an abrupt throat clearing. “Forget that last one; I was just testing. A good sense of humour is very important in the middle of the sad lives we all live today, I tell you. In my line of work, you soon learn a simple but life affirming belief: people spend so much time chasing the supposed ‘good things’ of life that they forget that they forget the simple pleasures of real smiles, genuine laughter, peace of mind, you know—the unbiased joy of giving to your fellowman, stuff like that. People just confuse acquisition of material things for growth…”

The lapse into silence that follows lasts for so long that I am about to mutter a ‘hello’ to confirm he hasn’t hung up when he suddenly says,

“I learned all this from a lifestyle seminar I once attended, you know.”

Before I can respond, I hear the sound of a car door opening, followed by street noises. An image fills my mind of Bolaji Avenue, where Bibi’s shop is located, and shocks me into realization of how much of my wits have settled over the past minute or so. A random, increasingly desperate variety of options and actions that could help foil… whatever this is, clash together in my thoughts’ deepest recesses.

I hear, “Okay my friend, this is what you will do. Let me start by saying that I like your composure so far—that and your… cooperation. I also know that you are currently at your office desk and that there’s only few people left in your section at this time of day. I’m not calling you at this hour without good reason…”

My chest warms and I begin to perspire anew. A fast rising paranoia adds to my mental anguish, and I find myself scanning the banking hall expanse as if expecting to find someone watching. And pointing.

“I need you to go to the nearest computer—a stand-alone terminal, preferably. Log in there using the following username: D______ T_____. Have you taken it down? Good. Tell me what you see on the screen.”

I follow the instructions after switching from my seat to one of the three networked computer-bearing desks lined up against a side wall in the open hall. In this unit, our daily functions don’t always require logging onto the bank’s customer database, so staff don’t have to keep individual machines on our desks at all times. Still, expediency demands there exist a means to access the network so as to quickly address customer enquiries or confirm account balances information for analyses and account performance tracking.

I follow a set of input instructions provided by the voice on my phone. The figures that finally scroll down the dialogue box that then springs open don’t appear to come from a customer’s account and instead seem to be sub-ledger entries that only bank Financial-Control administrators should have any access to. On first scrutiny, there isn’t any clear pattern to the entries—a random series of debit groupings periodically swept into other arcane ledger to create a final nil balance at the end of every business day.

I lift my head, glance around and confirm that no one is around, watching. Save for the hubbub of voices from the conference room, and old Folly, I’m alone.

“Done,” I whisper into my phone

“Okay,” comes the response. “Now click on the icon on the top left side of the screen.”

I do. Like a minor magic trick, an accounts entry dialogue box blooms onto the screen. It’s a basic entry module but I gape at it like it’s an invitation from the devil.

“Done?” As the breathing in my ear grows more laboured, I get the impression the caller is moving, walking rapidly. The outdoor sounds in the background wax and wane as he threads through pedestrians and road traffic.

“Yes,” I mumble, lips slack. The ghastly, waxen look on my sister’s face—so far from the usual bubbly cheer with which she helps out my fiancée at her boutique during the holidays—seeps into my mottled thoughts.

I try not to imagine her absolute terror while being abducted by a stranger, bound, photographed and then dumped in some dark and unknown place with little or no possibility of being found.

My nausea crests with the thought that her life is forfeit even if I did find a way to save Bibi and my mother, as no one besides her abductor knows her precise whereabouts.

New tremors originate from my fingers and spread up to my forearms.

My caller remains all business: “Okay. Now post the following entries as I read them to you…”

“What? Wait, I can’t just make entries into the system. I’m a customer relationship manager, not an operations officer…”

“And so?”

“I’m not authorized to do anything beyond checking customer balances and account histories. I can’t have any other kind of access, not to talk of posting or moving balances from one ledger account to the other. The system will flag and reject it.”

The voice turns instantly cold, menacing. “I thought you answered my questions honestly when I asked them. You want to be my victim instead of risking computer fraud? You want that choice? Steve, I can still complete my assignment. I can easily terminate your family. Is that what you want?”

I am stiff and motionless, my trembling fingers poised over the computer keyboard. My chest is experiencing a series of sharp pains—fishhooks digging into my ribcage.

“Besides, what the h£ll are you afraid of? You didn’t log on with your password. I don’t see what the…”

I'm starting to speak in a breathless rush but stop. I gulp ineffectual saliva and then start again. “Look… look, about–about eight months ago we had an incident here—entries were fraudulently passed over a customer’s deposit account, after which an accomplice outsider was to draw down from same account at our Onitsha branch…”

“And so…?”

“Th–there’d been a power outage where the accomplice had gone to present a forged cheque to draw the funds, so the instrument was kept until the following day. The account owner had been involved in a serious vehicular accident just before that time and had given his wife the password to his online account. It was her who noticed something wrong when she checked it with her tablet. She then called the branch. Luckily, we hadn’t released the cash as yet…”

“Hey, I’m sure this is very interesting, but I don’t have the time. Neither do you, I might add.”

Sudden tears prickle my eyes. “Please sir… please, listen! Even if I could somehow complete the entries, final verification will require two separate senior level staff—one here, and one at Head office—before it’s approved!”

“Oh? Not just one anymore? When did that happen?”

“Branch-wide systems upgrade four days ago!” I nearly shout. “Head office dispatched Internal Control specialists to install the new protocol.”

Pause. Beyond the sweat, I am panting now, my nostrils snorting wetly, my mouth billowing in hard, short gasps. Despite all that I can almost sense the caller’s quiet thinking before his subdued voice returns:

“My information seems to have fallen slightly behind the curve—I confess I don’t have any solution to this new hurdle.”

His tone rises, crackling with fresh menace. “My friend, you’re going to have to figure out a way around that or I’ll just take the road more travelled and kill everybody on my contract. You have two hours from now, not a second more.”