The Escort: Profile of an Uncommon Sleuth

By ISAAC EZENWA UMELO

The 50-seater commuter is the transport of choice for the middle class in Nigeria. It cris- crosses the country night and day. Its comfort and security were threatened by a gang of dare devil robbers who shot at fast moving vehicles, maimed and robbed passengers.
The operators met to marshal out a defence for their enterprise. They engaged a super sleuth, Captain Joe who had to match his wits against that of a vicious gangster based in Chad. After a long harvest of blood and terror, the two grand masters had to meet. Nothing was same again. This is a story romance, blood and brawn.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris UK
• Release date: Jan 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781499090956

ISAAC EZENWA UMELO

Isaac Umelo is a 70year old Electrical Engineer, a former staff of Unilever and an Alumni of Haggai Institute Singapore. He started writing in High School contributing articles to Christian magazines and national newspapers. He has written four novels. The author was a chapter President of the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship International in Lagos where he led the Prison Welfare committee to impact on Prison conditions. He is a Deacon of The Redeemed Evangelical Mission Lagos and a Co-Author of the “Gratitude Book Project 2013: A Celebration of 365 days of Gratitude,” a NY Best seller edited by Dona Kozik. Isaac Umelo is a father of 6.

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Copyright © 2015 by Isaac Ezenwa Umelo.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-4990-9094-9

                eBook           978-1-4990-9095-6

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/08/2015

Xlibris

0-800-056-3182

www.xlibrispublishing.co.uk

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER ONE   ONITSHA

CHAPTER TWO   OWERRI

CHAPTER THREE   LAGOS

CHAPTER FOUR   CALABAR

CHAPTER FIVE   VICTORIA

CHAPTER SIX   KANO

CHAPTER SEVEN   KIDNAP IN N’DJAMINA

CHAPTER EIGHT   DACKO’S DEN

CHAPTER NINE   KIDNAP IN KANO

CHAPTER TEN   BACK TO ROOST

EPILOGUE

INTRODUCTION

You can use the sleeper coach by night, John’s sister advised, it is as good as your intercity in the UK and the interior compares favourably with the Boeing that will fly you to Port Harcourt. With luxury sleeper bus you’ll fall asleep in Lagos and wake up in Port Harcourt. It’s goodnight Lagos, good morning Port Harcourt.

Mr John Obuye and his family returned from England for a two-week holiday in Nigeria and needed to travel from Lagos to the southern city of Port Harcourt, six hundred kilometers away. The lush green foliage and tall mangana trees that shaded the port were parched by harmattan. The airports wore a hood of dusty particles of haze and low cumulus cloud.

The day they flew in from Heathrow airport, their British Caledonia plane, a DC380 WIDE BODY waited at the tarmac as workers removed the wreckage of two planes involved in a collision. According to reports in the Aviation Times, the Tower gave conflicting directions to the pilots.

In the absence of operative radar equipment, the Tower uses human eyes to locate craft positions. The controller cleared a plane to taxi for take off while another was inbound. Almost at impact, he realized his error. Frantic signals were sent out and only the expertise of the pilot on ground who careered into the bush saved lives.

Another aircraft, a Boeing 707 from Frankfurt could not see through the blanket of mist. It overshot the runway. One of it’s tyres raced off but a high-tech pneumatic brake system brought the airplane to a halt.

These and many other such reports persuaded John to patronize the popular commuter bus.

John arrived at the bus terminus with mixed feelings. He didn’t want to risk an air crash with his family but the jump into the unknown, as symbolized by the night journey frightened him.

The bus station was stretched by an overflow of travelers. Men and women hauled themselves over mountains of luggage to get to the ticket counters. At a corner, a few feet from where he sat, a three year old child cried off her head for a missing mother.

John and family didn’t have to hustle for tickets. His dutiful sister purchased them earlier. From his sitting position John watched the long ticket line crawling like a millipede towards the target. He saw the glee on the faces of those who celebrated a unique success of securing tickets.

At 9pm the loud speakers blared.

This is to announce the departure of bus number three two four to Port Harcourt via Owerri. All passengers holding tickets to this bus are requested to board the bus.

John’s wife picked up her child and lifted him to her shoulder. John pushed a hand luggage. But there was chaos along the way. Many of the travelers sprinted to the bus at once. No one believed his numbered ticket was good enough to secure a seat because the buses were notorious for excess booking.

Inside the bus, John began to believe his sister’s promotion. The chilly air purring from the central air conditioner hit him on the face as he climbed the stairs into the bus. The voice of Ce Ce Winna singing her chart busting Christian number King of Kings and Lord of Lords filled the air. As he walked to his seat, he felt his feet sink into the rug. He pressed a button by his side, the seat flew into a recline. He sat down, and then settled his wife and child. It was time to say goodnight to Lagos.

The sound of screeching tires and a pungent odour of burning rubber jolted him. John woke up with a start. He stretched his hand to feel the presence of his wife and child. He stretched himself and looked at his watch. It was 1am. They have travelled for four hours. The lights and music were switched off. He looked out to a wall of darkness. Then the first shot rang out. Then a barrage of shots sang a deafening song of death in the distance. Their son began to cry. Most of the passengers jumped to their feet and crowded towards the rear door.

The driver put the bus on the reverse gear and attempted to turn back. But he had no chance. The road was too narrow and other desperate vehicles hedged him in.

Inside the bus, passengers were falling over themselves as they rushed to the doors. The shooting became a staccato getting closer by John’s imagination.

Armed robbers! some one screamed.Driver! Open the door.

John slid his window open and looked out. A sea of heads and scrambling feet silhouetted in the dark. People were scurrying into the bushes. He grabbed his wife’s hand and tried to silence the weeping child.

Just as it started, the brouhaha stopped. A police jeep came through the opposite lane to announce that the robbers were dislodged and the road was clear.

When he walked into his family house in Port Harcourt, John didn’t wait to hear more of the highway robber’s adventure or to listen to his sister. He took the first London bound flight to Heathrow and back to their Hampton court residence. Six months later, the attacks on buses became countrywide, and fatal. Those who own the buses had to do something about it.

Chief ABC looked at his cell phone… A text message was on it. We will meet as planned, the four of us. The message came from Chief Ekene Dili Chukwu. He scrolled back to contact. There were two others to invite. He began to dial.

Operators of luxury buses are few. Only men with bulging bank accounts venture into the business. Think of a twenty million fifty seater bus. Add to that the cost of constructing terminal buildings and transit stations. If it was a coat, it isn’t one a little child can take out of the hanger. Yet, there were men with the purse and passion for the risk.

In the exclusive class of major transporters who operate a number of long, thirty-ton soft furnished buses covering several cities, names like Ekene Dili Chukwu, De Young, ABC, Chisco, and Ifeshinachi are on everybody’s lips.

So, when there is a sudden upsurge of banditry along the routes, these are the names that absorb the losses in passenger lives and buses. As reports of unmitigated attacks came in from areas in the far North where such activities were seldom heard of, the operators of luxury Bus Transport met at Onitsha to marshal out a plan for combating the menace.

They reviewed every option and decided to seek the services of a super escort, a former kingpin of the underworld, a veteran of several scams from the seashores of Calabar, to Victoria in the Cameroons and to the Northern cities of Nigeria.

Captain Joe and his boy Johnson arraigned their wits against the awesome arsenal of a Chadian based gang leader, Dako. The gangstar cut his tooth in crime while serving under Capt. Joe. When Master and his boy eventually met, it confirmed a fact that few things change in the nature of men.

Chief ABC of the ABC Transport coordinated the efforts of the Transport owners, ably supported by Chief Ekene, Chisco, and Ifesi. At the other end of the scale was Dacko’s point man in Kano, Col. Mohammed. He pulled the strings for the many foot soldiers who steal into Nigeria to rob the buses, kill, and maim the passengers.

CHAPTER ONE

ONITSHA

The two transporters arrived together. The arrangement was meant to attract little attention to these doyens of the Luxury bus business in Nigeria. The proprietors of Ifesinachi Transport and Chisco Transport were known to be cousins and childhood friends. Seeing them in the same car or eating together in Onitsha spurts no surprise. They had the financial muscle to possess whatever met their fancy but people often see them together in pants and bare chest, with greasy hands, getting under a broken down bus to effect repairs. They were still young men in their late forties looking forward to years of prosperity.

They arrived the premises of the People’s Club in a black down beaten Mercedes Benz 300D driven by Ifesi. The car cried aloud for paint. The body was as patchy as a leper’s. A 1980 model imported as used car from the junk yard of Cologne in Germany. But the owners were master mechanics who are able to turn dead woods into racers.

As they approached the club house, they exchanged banters with taxi drivers and cyclists. They could have driven over the ramp to a private car park behind the main building, but they chose to stop at the public park. Leaving their car, they locked their palms together like lovers in a holiday beach as they swaggered toward the club house. They walked in between trimmed hedges of burganville plants. Lush green Bahama grass, recently wetted by early morning dew lay prostrate in a field that was dotted by dwarf palm trees.

Any observer will notice the striking semblance between the cousins. They stood 5ft 7ins with broad Chests and biceps that would do proud to a champion Wrestler. Lines of varicose veins popped out of a sturdy neck, a heritage of years of lifting engine blocks and pushing trucks.

When they stepped into the public lounge, it was brimming with traders who gather at the club for a weekend relaxation. They were all from the Onitsha main market reputed to be the biggest market in West Africa. The same noise and rowdiness that brought them patrons to their stores in the market, was recreated at the club house. Bottles of beer struggled for space with plates of pepper soup amidst the cacophony of arguments. They inhaled the aroma of nchanwu leaves as they threw banters at themselves mostly about their favourite football clubs.

Rangers for ever, a young man shouted. He wore the jersey and mark of his favourite football team. But he had opposition in the crowd. The voice of an elderly man was clear.

Rangers for nothing. We know you; good starters wretched finishers; Enyimba Foot ball Club of Aba, champions of Africa! He popped a champagne and let the wine spray over those around him

In the commotion that followed, Ifesi and Chisco sauntered into the bar. On seeing them, the twenty odd revelers froze in silence. The new entrants were founding members of this elite club. They raised their hands to greet the revelers. The hall came quickly alive with songs in praise of the pair.

Odogwu Nwannaya, one man shouted. He grabbed the helm of Ifesinachi’s gown.

Anaga Anelo, another addressed Chisco. The two men walked up to the barman, whispered into his ear and hurried towards the stairs, which led to the pent house atop of the Hall. Before the duo was out of sight, the voice of the barman boomed through the loud speakers.

Ladies and gentlemen, he said, our patrons have done it again. Chisco and Ifesi will pay for another round of drinks for those present. The announcement caught the revelers unawares. But it took them few seconds to realize the offer. Fresh arrivals hurried from the car park to benefit from the largesse. They turned over tables and knocked down chairs in the process.

God bless Ifesi! one man shouted, God bless Chisco, others responded. That, in essence, is the spirit of the people’s Club, otherwise called Onye aghala Nwanneya (let no man abandon his brother).

The jocular way with which the two famous transporters made their way through the crowd to the conference room, belied the critical nature of their mission and the tension that played itself inside them. The conference room received electric power from a generator. A split unit air-conditioner exhaled noiselessly to chill the room, while a giant refrigerator hummed in a corner. The furnishing was soft, so soft that one’s feet sank deep into the cozy carpet, which edged the wall drapes. The special rooms, serviced from their own kitchen, wore a different look from the scrappy floor below where carpets with gaping holes, often captured the shoes of patrons.

As soon as they entered the room, the two friends were caught up by the problem on hand. Their camaraderie suddenly ended. They sat opposite each other staring at the ceiling. The appetite to serve themselves from the stuffed refrigerator took a flight.

My brother, Ifesi said, our people say that the man waiting in his house for a guest never sprains his back. Let’s cheer up ourselves; it isn’t an offence to make money and to buy a bus. Why can’t we be as happy as those traders downstairs?

I wonder my brother, Chisco retorted. God knows we didn’t steal or kill. It is our sweat that enemies don’t want us to enjoy. Where were these robbers when we laboured as motor boys, slept in market shanties around Onitsha and washed plates in hotels for a meal? He took a bite from the ever present bitter kola nut in his hand, chewed and