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Chapter 4

He wondered why she hadn’t asked him anything about Lilly, then he remembered her saying she didn’t care if he saw other people the first day they met. Where is she taking me to anyway, he thought to himself but was too tired to ask. He sat there, thinking of the mission at hand and how it was going to change his life forever.

Being an expandable mercenary was getting more and more dangerous in the country, and he was hoping this was going to be their last operation. He had already hinted Mr. O about their intentions, and although the man didn’t seem happy to hear that his elite team wanted to quit, he had promised to organize some sort of retirement package for them.

Abdul couldn’t believe he and his friends had been working for the man for three years now; it felt like yesterday when Wole first told him and Lawrence about the arrangement. He still had nightmares from some of the missions from the early days, but their occurrences weren’t like when he first started out. They had all grown so accustomed to the life, and found ways to fit into the society as regular citizens after every mission. While he had women to thank for helping with his internal demons, Wole buried that part of him with humor; Lawrence just lived it every day.

His phone beeped twice and it jolted him back to consciousness. He pulled it out of his jeans pocket to see a message from Lawrence; it read- ‘Her Dad is a great asset. I’ll tell you more when we get back.’ Just then, the car slowed down, and he looked up to see an electric sliding gate opening in front of them. She drove in slowly, and stopped by the two military officers that had appeared from a security post by the gate. One of them had an AK47 Rifle hanging from his shoulder. He walked forward, leaned into the car window, and said something to Mariam in Hausa with his eyes fixed on Abdul. They exchanged a couple a few words before he leaned back, and Mariam drove off.

He wanted to ask her what they had discussed, but he was left in awe at the sight in front of him. The driveway was about 50 meters long, with well trimmed gardens on both sides, and a monumental building up ahead. Abdul had only seen a building of such magnitude in movies. It was painted in white, except for the all glass penthouse.

She took a right turn, just before the house, and it took them on a path around the house to an underground area. There, he saw about a dozen cars parked under bright fluorescent lights. Most of them were cars he had seen her drive before, but some were vintage cars. She parked next to an old black Mercedes Benz that resembled the one Murtala Ramat Muhammed had been assassinated in back in the 70s.
After turning off the car engine, she shifted in her seat and faced him, but said nothing. “What?” He asked with a puzzled look on his face.
“Follow me.” She said and got out of the car. Abdul looked around the quiet car garage, wondering what she could be up to. He shrugged and got out the car. She was dangling the bunch of keys in her hand, heading towards what seemed like an entrance to the main house, but instead of going through the door, she went down a dark corridor by the side. She turned on the lights from a wall socket, and the buzzing sound of fluorescent lights coming on filled the air. From behind her, he could see a door ahead of them; the bottom half was wood and top half glass. The inside looked like a bowling alley. It wasn’t until she opened the doors that he knew what the place really was.

As they stepped in, she walked over to the extreme left, picked up an earmuff and goggles from the top of a cabinet, handed them to him, and then picked up another set. She slowly put the protective gear on, opened the cabinet, pulled out a stainless steel 9 MM pistol with a rubber grip and placed it on top of the cabinet. She adjusted her earmuff, picked the gun back up, and removed the cartridge to inspect it. She reinserted it into the bottom of the gun, released the safety, and pointed the firearm at the cardboard shooting target in the distant. A few seconds of silence went by before the first deafening shot rang out, then the second, then the third. She stopped after the fifteenth shot was fired, dropped the gun on the cabinet, and pulled a liver by her side that started moving the cardboard man towards them.

The place was quiet now, except for the sound of the cardboard target moving towards them. When it was in front of them, she turned around to get his reaction, and he had a smile on his face. All the fifteen shots had hit the same region around the chest area of the target.

Chapter 3

“Sorry, I should have knocked.” Mariam said and walked backwards out the room. The door closed gently and the room went silent. It was funny to Abdul when he looked to his side and saw how far Lilly was from him on the bed. She must have really jumped out of his hold when Mariam walked in.

She had her back to him now, but he could make out a little smile on her face. “I’ll be right back.” He said and walked out of the room. He caught up with Mariam just before she made it out of the gate. She had on a white mini gown that made her curvy figure very pronounced. “Hey! Wait up.”He called out to her.
She stopped and turned around to face him. “She’s cute.” He was surprised to see a smile on her face as she said that. He tried to read her mind but he couldn’t tell what was going on in her head. “Sorry once again, Lawrence didn’t tell me you were with someone.”
“Oh! You spoke to Lawrence?” Abdul said and a frown appeared on his face. “What have you guys been talking about?”
“Well…”
“Mariam, I don’t know what got into his head that made him tell you about…about the thing, but…”
“I can do it, Abdul.” She said, cutting him off.
“We…” He was saying, but stopped when he heard the room door open. Lilly appeared, and walked towards them. “My mom called. I have to go.” She said when she was a few feet away from where they stood. Abdul looked at Mariam with a face that said, we still have a lot to talk about, and then turned to face Lilly. “Hello.” Lilly said to Mariam.

“Hey! Hi.” Mariam responded enthusiastically with a genuine smile on her face. Lilly and Abdul walked out of the gate. After a few words were exchanged, he hugged her and she crossed to the other side of the road. She got in her Peugeot, fired up the engine, and honked the horn twice before driving off.
He watched the car speed off into the night for a few seconds, lost in thought, and then he turned around and walked back into the compound. Mariam was still standing at the same spot she had been earlier, head bent, staring at her phone screen. She looked up when he got a few inches from her and the lip gloss she had on shone in the moonlight. “So, what’s up?”
He took a deep breath before responding with, “Let’s go and talk in your car.”

……….

Inside her Toyota Camry, Abdul tried to explain to her why she had no business knowing what he and his friends were up, but she wasn’t having it. He caught her off every time she tried to tell him why she would be great for the job. It wasn’t his choice, but he felt he had to tell her everything about them since Lawrence had taken the step of letting her in on their upcoming operation without first informing him.
He started out telling her how the Government had recruited Wole first to a special unit of the state secret service to help hack and monitor phone calls and internet use of suspected terrorist. It was a ghost unit set up by Mr. Ramon Raji, a government contractor, who went by the code name- Mr. O. After most of the intelligence was gathered about the inner workings of the terror group, Desert Boys was compiled by Wole and a couple of computer geeks, Mr. Raji needed muscle to do the field work, and Wole let him know he had some friends that could be brought into the fold.

Wole, Abdul, and Lawrence were flown out to the northern part of the country, where they underwent weapons training, bomb detonation training, a crash course in Judo and Aikido, and some other forms of martial arts training for the next 3 months. They were still in college at the time, and Wole was to have an extra year from missing too many classes, but Mr. Raji pulled some strings to have that disappear. That was 3 years ago, and ever since then, they had been used for top secret ops, not the types that make the news.

Revealing all these to her didn’t make her understand how dangerous the whole thing was and chicken out; instead, it made her more interested. “I just don’t get why Lawrence told you about this in the first place, we already had a fourth guy we were going to use.”
The car got quiet for a few seconds, and then Mariam sat up and turned the key in the ignition. He had a curious look on his face when he turned to look at her. She let out a sigh before saying, “I think I need to show you something.”

Patotelli:
Like seriously oga kay08 don suffer most of we his loyal fans, pls inspiration fall on you so you can come finish this...

Lol! Inspiration really needs to fall on me. Lol! I will complete it soon sha. Sorry guys.

mercyymai:
Next WK snc sept?

Bros pls don't murder dz story.

Lol! Sorry. I'll finish it soon.

Where is the daughter?

Great one. SheWrites really writes. She has so many books. I wish you more exposure and success SheWrites. There are so many talented female writers on Nairaland...I love it. Nice one Divepen1. You are doing a great job in this section.

Nmaglit:
guy how far u na r u not updating any more because is been long and is not funny

Sorry...I will start again next week.

Chigold121:
Boss hope all is well,

All is well. Thank you.

toyhin123:
Kayo80 please don't tell me u re nt going to complete this story...... please please nd please,try as much as possible to complete this story

The Lord will crown ur effort

Sorry, I have just been dealing with some personal issues. I will complete it soon sha. Most likely I will start working on it again next week, but I can't say the exact date. Sorry once again.

Tobillionaire19:
Yes, Robert Greene (Art Of Seduction)

Cool.

Tobillionaire19:
I have something new bro, check it out.

Yea...i am already reading it. Lovely story. I like the last chapter...where you were talking about the art of seduction. I wanna ask...did you read any books on seduction?

Hmm! See as this guy put me for suspense o! I now know how my readers feel when i abandon a story. It ain't cool. Lol!

Lovely. You got great writing skills...your words come to life like i am watching a movie.

Hmm! I guess majority aren't really interested. It's all good.

Creeza:
THIS Guy plays bet9ja. Lol!!

Lol

We can also do a testrun without money involved...no entree fee and no cash prize.

Frankenstein:
Good idea. It needs to be properly planned. Especially, the registration fee part.

Yea. We need a trustworthy person to handle that money part. I believe Divepen1 is a good candidate for that, but anyone can come up with any other names. I wish we could kick this off this week.

What do you guys think?

repogirl, divepen1, evajael, creeza, fiyah, LarrySun, KimberlyWest, Chumzypinky, Oyinprince, ghostwritter, bibijay123, OluwabuqqyYOLO, Lilyjoe567, Souloho19, DarkRebel69, shewrites, Lleigh

Hey guys, I was thinking of why we don't have our own Nairaland writing competition. There are so many talented writers in this section, and thousands of readers; why don't we start our own writing competition. This is just a suggestion though.

I would love if it could be a weekly competition; we come up with a theme/topic to write on by Monday, and people have 24 hours to write the story. It will be a short story of between 2,000-3,000 words. And also, to participate, each writer has to pay a token fee of N500. Entry will close by Tuesday night, and the rest of the week will be used for voting.

The winner will be chosen on Sunday. There will be a cash prize for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd individuals in the competition, and the cash prize would be based on the cumulative entree fees of the week.

Divepen1 and some other people will be on the committee board to collate the votes and oversee things, but all the people on the board won't be able to participate in the competition.

What do you think guys! Let's make this section more interesting. LET'S DO THIS!!!

This is just a suggestion...anyone can add or subtract to what I have written above.

Thank you.