₦airaland Forum

SOLID MONEY, INTIMIDATING MONEY that pummels poverty into submission can only be snatched from the jaws of a lion or better still, the belly of a female shark.
The heavily-built, heavily armed crime honcho popularly addressed as Ten Gear thought with a half-smile on board a speedboat mounted with two M2HB.50 Caliber (12.7mm) machine guns in the front and rear, leading twelve other speedboats moving in a single row, conveying armed-to-the-teeth militants on the high seas at about 00:45 A.M on a Monday morning.

Even before the execution of the highly lucrative assignment, the $5.5 million which was the final bargain sum, down from the $6.1million he had quoted, had been fully paid in cash by his clients.
Each of the thirty-five men on this current mission of destruction had been paid $50,000 upfront and will smile home with another $60,000 after its successful complexion today.

With logistics for the mission gulping as much as $300,000 notwithstanding, he should still smile all the way to the bank with a personal profit of nothing less than $1.3milion as the main contractor.

The planned vacation in the Bahamas, Monaco and Turkey, later in the year promises to be very exhilarating and awesome.
He would stroll leisurely, bare-chested on the breezy, sandy beaches all day, sipping fresh juice and exotic wine, gazing at fresh white ladies and maybe frolick with some in the night clubs, he thought with a wide grin as the Detroit Speedboat propelled by 2x220HP (164KW) 6V53N Diesel engines thrust forward at about 30 knots on the Atlantic ocean, gunning towards the Lagos Harbor.

“We are approaching the target! Target is about fifty nautical miles away,” the fugitive better known as Chin Chun announced in a slightly anxious voice.
“Which target? The jetty or depot?” the big boss asked in a deep authoritative tone.
“The depot,” Chin Chun retorted crisply.
“You are doing well.”

The priority targets of the audacious attack were the gigantic Premium Motor Spirit (PMS) Tank Farms 12, 31 and 32, with a combined capacity of 58,000 cubic meters of the Atlas Cove Oil Terminal, Nigeria’s largest platform for the storage and distribution of petroleum products.

The very strategic depot receives sixty percent of the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation’s Petroleum Products, stores and pumps it to Ejigbo satellite, Mosimi, Ibadan, Ore and Ilorin depots, all along the vital system-2B pipeline network.

According to the clients whose main objective was to create acute PMS scarcity, panic buying and chaos in the country, it is expedient to attack PMS Tanks instead of the 20-inch subsea 16km pipeline connecting the Jetty offshore to the terminal onshore for the crucial reason: it takes only days to repair damaged sections of pipelines, while it will take several weeks or years to repair or reconstruct a damaged Tank Farm.

“Anything worth doing at all is worth doing well,” the Don of the clients had said with a mean grimace and an emphatic nod at the meeting the treasonable contract was awarded to the Infinite Group.

The operation should and will proceed seamlessly, Ten Gear thought with surging confidence as the powerful rays of the speedboats’ headlights bounced off the Jetty’s platform, sparkling brightly several nautical miles away.

The raid should be over in less than twenty-five minutes and they should be long gone before the Airforce’s Alpha Fighter Jets are scrambled from the Sam Ethnan Airforce Base in Ikeja, Lagos. Even if they are scrambled, the S-125 Surface-to-air anti-aircraft System mounted on the largest speedboat in the fleet can effectively shoot them down.

Sufficient firepower featuring ten rocket propelled grenades launchers and two hundred grenades was onboard the speedboats.
All thirteen speedboats were fitted with machine guns loaded with thousands of 12.7mm ammunition. The thirty-six men on the mission wore body armor and were armed with the high capacity magazine military rifle, the AR-15 which has the capability of firing a hundred rounds in a minute and the AKS-74UN assault rifle with extended magazines.

“Drivers, switch off your headlamps and assume the column assault formation. Machine gun operators, prepare to open fire. Over!” Ten Gear barked authoritatively into the tiny microphone in the collar of his buffy B-4 ballistic level windbreaker immediately Chin Chun announced they were within ten nautical miles of the Jetty.

A high intensity beam of light suddenly flashed at the speedboats moving in a column from the Jetty’s control tower less than two nautical miles away. Five seconds later, a very loud, ear-drum bursting alarm triggered off at the Jetty.
“Open fire on the Jetty. Now!” Ten Gear screamed in intense fury, rapidly operating his speedboat’s front machine gun, slamming it into automatic firing mode.

The distinctively loud bursts of automatic machine gunfire buoyed by the sea waves, echoed several kilometers away onshore, as the speedboats coasted to a halt in a single column about a hundred meters from the Jetty Platform.

At least five mild blasts went off at the Jetty amidst agonizing screams from some of the Jetty workers hit by the massive 12.7mm rounds or caught up in explosions in the over ninety seconds the militants spent unleashing relentless fire on the Jetty before taking off toward the main Atlas Cove Terminal onshore.

Multiple alarms bells were shrieking cacophonously when the speedboats pulled up close to the harbor shoreline. The terminal’s front exterior was completely deserted. Everyone had scampered to safety to preserve their dear lives.
Two of the targets, Tanks 12 and 31, were in open view from their position at the shoreline, while Tank 32 was out of view farther behind.

“Who’s ready to waste his life here!” Ten Gear roared at the top of his voice, moving the huge barrel of the M2HB machine gun discharging a hundred rounds per minute in an arc.

“Where are the security guards? Are they all on leave?” the dreaded hoodlum was screeching, bursting into a scornful grating laughter when he suddenly heard a loud, whooping sound quite different from the deafening staccato of machine gunfire.
The high pitched whop, whop, whop noise increased in tempo rapidly as a big helicopter emerged from behind the terminal’s only five-storey administrative complex.

Ten Gear was mildly ruffled. With his field experience at this stage of his career, nothing really scares him anymore. His operational motto has always been: prepare for anything. But he was quite startled because his ‘reliable’ mole who boasted of having the mastery of the Terminal’s security network in the palm of his hands never told him there was a stand-by helicopter that could be deployed. No doubt about it, he will pay for that unacceptable negligence with his life. Sooner rather than later!

“Helicopter gunship!” Ten Gear yelled lustily, gazing at the aircraft through his powerful night vision binocular system as the huge barrel of one of the light machine guns onboard the gunship pointed in his direction.

Greetings to all Nairalanders present here

We are bringing to your reading pleasure, an action packed excerpt from ‘The Showdown’. The excerpt features two of the most wanted gangsters in the country.

Main Characters

Ten Gear- An hybrid of Godogodo, the most wanted robbery czar in the South-west, recently arrested by prolific Ikeja SARS operatives and Osisikankwu, the dreaded kidnapping kingpin shot dead in the evil forest by Army snipers in 2010.

Chin Chun - Big Fear’s deputy. A notorious gangster par excellence.

Synopsis

An elite oil cabal that declared war on the federal government is trying to cripple the country’s economy and shut down the country by attacking critical infrastructure and assets. Big Fear’s group was awarded the “contract” of taking out a key oil facility.

Enjoy!

Decent and promising writing skills. Work harder, and you will get there.

Mesmerizing short story. Seamless and fluid writing style that deeply engages the reader. Simply advice; don't stop writing, you have a great future ahead in it.

More adulterated diesel to ur petrol engine. On a serious note, keep ur literary gun smoking. You are doing well.