Working Cases - Episode 19

 

Standing face to face with the man I'd been chasing for what felt like an eternity, time seemed to fade away. The concept of it was foreign to me, all that was I'm my mind was Duncan Ajayi. And I made damn sure all that was on his mind was me. 
We had played his game for long enough. And it had brought us to this—one man left on each side, one-on-one confrontation. 
He was wearing a smug smirk . His eyes twinkled dangerously, the only parts of him that seemed to be alert. The rest of his body was relaxed, droopy even. His expression and posture exuded the picture of a man who was bored of having to go through a dance routine one too many times. But his eyes were fire. They were alive, and they told me if I dared to let my guard down for even just a second, I'd be dead before I hit the ground. 
There were no guns. He seemed to really dislike them, preferring to use knives and his fists instead. His work on my tactical assault team I brought up with me was proof enough of that. To get to him, I'd had to stash away every detail that would give me away as a police officer. Get tagged as Nicodemus Onojah, and I'd have taken a bullet to the head as soon as I walked into his stronghold. 
Amelia had found it. "Eureka!" she had shrieked six days ago while poring over three computer screens, nearly twenty-four webpages, and a table covered with pencil-marked maps 'borrowed' from the library

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. Shed even used permanent markers on a few of them. However, shrieking 'eureka' and smacking herself on the forehead several times, all the while muttering 'of course!', 'I should have known...' and 'clever disguise!', were only the beginning. 
She'd gone on to give us a two-hour lecture on how Duncan had managed to evade capture. His stronghold wasn't in a forest, or a hill, or some deserted shack on the beach. 
"See, what does someone in hiding need more than anyone else?" she had said, beaming as the taskforce congregated around her. 
"Er, food?" Officer Evans offered. 
"No, dummy," another detective with curled brown hair and very big eyes said, "it's a good disguise."
I cleared my throat. "As good as your suggestion is, Matilda, that's not what someone on the run needs more than everyone else. The answer is information."
Amelia beamed at me, and Detective Matilda scowled. 
"Thank you, Nicodemus," Amelia said, "Duncan needs as much information as he can safely find. He can't go out to find it now that we know he's alive and we're looking for him,"
"So he needs the information to come to him." a tall and brooding dark-skinned officer chipped in.
"Exactly," she said, "so I was looking for a place with a subscription to the local newspaper outlet. Not many people do now, you know, with the internet and TV and stuff, but he needs local news about himself and until something too big to control happens, he can't get that on the internet. Only thirty-two people have newspaper subscriptions in the city. I now cross-referenced these addresses with the movement patterns of Duncan's most trusted associates who must be giving him first hand information."
"Did you find a match?" I asked. 
She frowned. "I was getting to that, if you would just shut up..."
Matilda stifled a laugh and Evans smiled broadly. The rest were a lot better at hiding their amusement. "Sorry." I whispered.
Her smile resumed position on her face, "Anyway, there were three locations with both subscriptions and regular appearances of Duncan's associates around the area. One of those locations was the secondary school where one of Duncan's henchmen teaches Geography to senior students—no surprise there, nobody does evil full-time—the other was a hospital, I crossed it off because our guys have already searched hospitals and bad guys get hurt a lot so it's understandable they'd be lurking there. Which brings us to the third and most unlikliest of places—which probably makes it the most ideal of places." She stopped, taking deep breaths to steady herself. She had been talking at a rush for quite a while. 
This time it was Matilda who got impatient. "Where was that?" she asked. 
"Bertha Compton's Home for the Elderly." she said. 
At this, everybody at the table began convulsing with laughter. Evans fell off his stool. I couldn't help turning my head down and giggling uncontrollably. 
"You're not serious." Matilda eyed Amelia, wide-mouthed with disbelief. 
Amelia was scowling at everybody. "Hey, I'm serious. Hell, if I was Duncan I'd hide there if I knew this was how you all would react to the idea. But guess who owns Bertha Compton's Hone for the Elderly." she said. 
"Bertha Compton? It says that in the name." Matilda replied. 
Amelia looked me in the eye as if expecting me to make a connection. I quickly sobered up and racked my brain. Did I know Bertha? What was that abou–– "Wait! Bertha Compton as in the Comptons?"
"Yes!" Amelia said. 
"The Comptons as in the Compton Crime Family." I said, half to myself. 
Everyone else had stopped laughing now, one by one coming to the realization of what that revelation meant. 
It wasn't unusual for crime families to indulge in charity now and then. They build hospitals, schools, and donate large sums to children's funds and I have no idea why. So, it was perfectly normal for none of us to suspect a Home for the Elderly. 
On further investigation, we discovered the Home was far bigger than it was supposed to be. There was an underground bunker and had too much security to be just a Home, no offence to the elderly. 
We got most of the team employed as security in the Home. And I got in, disguised, to see my aging mother who we managed to secure by paying a Home's resident. From there, we got to the bunker, had our insider security take out the real security and went underground to find Duncan. It was all very easy compared to what we had faced so far. The secret of Duncan's location was perhaps one of their more inspired strokes of genius and once we had gotten past that, it was simpler to tackle the rest. Thank God for Amelia. 
The moment we touched down in the bunker though, Duncan had knifed and punched through all eight of our attack squad before I could duck behind a small cupboard. He was fast. 
And so we stand facing each other, one-on-one, alone at last. And I was afraid. He had beat my father. Taken down eight highly trained assault officers in seconds. And was deadlier with a knife than I'd ever hope to be with a bunch of grenades and a semi-automatic rifle. And I didn't have a bunch of grenades. Or a semi-automatic rifle. I didn't have anything. 
"Why?" I shouted. "Why did you kill my father? Why did you fake your own death? What are you planning?"
He laughed. It was rich and full, soothing. The kind of laugh that would make you lower your guard if you didn't notice how much sharper his eyes had become, how much closer he had seemed to come while you were too busy watching his mouth move. 
Then he spoke. "My plan is to rule. To control this city once and for all so well that no poor man's reforms can threaten my hold over it. I faked my own death so I could do a few things some might consider unsavory, so I could freely remove those who oppose me. And as for your father," he paused, his grin widening, "which one?"
His words hit me like a freight train. I hadn't expected him to give me his whole plan that easily. I subconsciously became aware of the space around me, how trapped I was, in a big concrete box alone with a killer. And what the hell did he mean which one? "What do you mean?"
His grin widened even further. "You asked me why I killed your father. Which. One?"
Bile rose up my throat, and my blood began to boil, "You killed my birth parents?"
"Hmm. I see the senator never told you. How do you think you came to live with him? Your parents believed in the same things old Raheem did. They died helping him gain the power he's used to plague me so many years. And now he's dead too. And you, the poor little orphan boy will die here by the same knife that killed your birth parents, Nicodemus."
"Bastard!" I yelled and attacked. But he was expecting the uncoordinated attack of an emotionally overwhelmed child. But senator Abdulraheem had taught me better. He had always said the enemy is easiest when you are. 
I rushed at Duncan, ducked, and swept at his legs. His main attribute was the quickness with which he moved. If his legs were compromised, it would be a matter of overpowering and outsmarting the other. 
He saw what I was trying to do and recoiled immediately, giving me the opportunity to steal the knife from him and toss it far away. I couldn't risk using it. I knew from experience that while I was good at disarming people, I was far too easy to disarm by anybody with enough skill. Bashir had done it many times in our training. And I was shit with knives. 
Duncan was almost as strong as he was fast. I had barely tossed the knife when his fist collided with my temple, the impact throwing me off my feet and into the cupboard behind me. 
I took it in a roll, using the momentum to get me on my feet in a hurry. He was faster. Before my feet were square on the floor, he was at my side, driving his his knee through my left side and cracking the ribs. Two heavy punches in quick succession followed, throwing me back on the floor. I nearly blacked out.
Too dazed to take it in a roll, I settled for blindly slithering backwards, using my hands and knees to scamper across the floor. 
He laughed and turned away from me. My heart lightened for a moment before it hit me that he was probably going to find the knife. I had only a few seconds to ready myself for the two dozen stab wounds that were sure to follow his return. 
A small heavy metal pipe was lying to my right. I quickly took it, turned and chucked it as hard as I could. Luckily, it hit him across his unscarred eye, causing him to stagger back. 
I jumped to my feet and ran at him, once again taking the knife out of his hand, and chucking it so far I couldn't possibly find it even if I had ten minutes.
When he righted himself and turned to face me again, he had a new gash across his right eye nearly identical to the scar on his left. 
And for the first time, he looked absolutely furious. "Funny is it? The father scars the left eye and the son does the right. Hoping for some post-mortem bonding, eh?" In a split second, he was at my side, picking me up and slamming me against the wall. "I killed your father just after he gave me the wound that birthed that scar. It's only fitting that I kill you now."
He threw me halfway across the room. Crashing against the floor for the umpteenth time felt strangely like freedom even though the pain was torture. I preferred hitting the ground to hitting his fists anytime soon. 
He was advancing on me to finish me off, running in slow motion, and oddly, not one thought crossed my mind. My life didn't flash before my eyes, neither did I miss my family or Amelia and the fondness we had begun to share, and I didn't long to be with my parents either. I fell into pure reflex, which with all those broken bones and hurting muscles, was to lie there in a crouch, brace for death, and pray it come swiftly. 
Then out of the corner of my eye, I saw the light reflect off a metal object. I reached for the knife and before my brain realized what my hands were doing I flung it forward. 
The knife sank in with a muffled swish and Duncan fell. And in his eyes, just before they became vacant, I saw fear, and I knew his life had flashed before his eyes.