She Dies - Season 1 - Episode 54

Episode 5 years ago

She Dies - Season 1 - Episode 54

The plane landed in Nnamdi Azikiwe
International Airport, Abuja at exactly 9:15AM.
In the next five minutes, Musalam was already
talking to a driver.

“Take me to St. Thomas Catholic church
Gwagwalada.” He spoke as quickly as
possible, his face uncannily alert and his eyes
wide.

The driver, a middle-aged man with lips
turned all black from years of wafting cigarette smoke, regarded him suspiciously, looked him in the eye and saw something that told him that Musalam was a man whose words must always be obeyed willy-nilly. He nodded, “Two thousand naira.”

Musalam grinned, “I’m giving you one
thousand.”

The driver thought a minute and said, “A
thousand five and that’s the least I can take.”

Musalam didn’t respond. He opened the back door, got in and said, “I’m already late for the mass. Do me a favour,” he glanced at his watch, “rev up the engine. I’ve to be there in thirty minutes time. I don’t want to disappoint the priest.”

The driver who was contemplating whether he
was a new convert nodded and engaged the
gear, his foot gradually moving down on the
accelerator. He inserted a cassette in the
radio and said, “Is this your first time in
Abuja?”

Musalam caught his eyes in the rear-view
mirror and grinned.

The driver read he wasn’t ready for a
discussion, fixed his eyes on the windscreen
and then started humming Tiwa’s Eminado
playing on a moderate volume over the radio.

Musalam, though looked older, was born
twenty-four years ago in Damascus and was a
citizen of four countries: Syria, Egypt, Tunisia
and Genna. His father was a billionaire who
had an oil well in Saudi Arabia and owned two
refineries in Libya with an oil conglomerate in
Egypt. When Musalam was thirteen, the Syrian
Government accused his father of engineering
internecine killings in Syria, confiscated his
assets within and outside the country and had
him executed. Two days later, Musalam’s
mother had a heart attack and the following
week, she died. After the death of his parents,
Musalam afraid of the government, fled to
Egypt and after some months, he ran into Ali,
one of his father’s business associates in
Egypt. Within few weeks, Ali introduced him to
Rasinki Mohammed Tanzanki and the course
of his life was automatically changed. He
became a terrorist and the first country he
struck when he was barely sixteen was the
Syrian Embassy. He detonated a bomb there
and killed 100 people as was reported by CNN,
though the BBC and Al-jazeera gave their
official death toll as 145 and 150 respectively.

Since after that strike, Musalam continued to
rise in prominence in terrorism and like the
other terrorists under Tanzanki, he was ready
to lose his life for the sake of the group
whenever called upon. When Tanzanki called
and told him what he wanted him to do in
Abuja, he gladly obeyed.

As he sat in the back of the taxi with the
windows rolled down and the wind whizzing
through, he dwelt his mind on Tanzanki’s
instruction.

“Allow the security to arrest you.” Tanzanki
had said slowly and distinctly, sitting in his
apartment in Genna’s capital. “This will be
your first strike in West Africa and I want you
to deliver as you’ve always delivered.

Remember, the president is responsible. Hope
you understand?” He smiled.

Musalam smiled back and said, “Very well
Pater.”