The Man From Lagos Page 4

  He’d never told his mother that they were in touch, as it would have caused issues with her, and he didn’t want to cause any distress. He was sure that Sade also kept this from their father, too, as any mention of contact with her brother would cause him pain, and he’d most likely worry she was putting Peters and his mother in danger; Baba was a man with enemies.

  Peters and Sade had kept in touch ever since, but not as frequently as he would have liked. His job kept him busy, so they both checked in at least once or twice a year.

  “I’m doing okay,” Sade responded. “I wanted to let you know that things are getting heavy here at home and some people are making trouble for our father. I wanted to warn you to just be careful in case they want to come for you in the States,” she added.

  Peters didn’t fully understand. This was not like their other calls. His sister was normally upbeat whenever they talked, but her voice betrayed that she was holding a lot back.

  “Sis, what is really going on?”

  “One of Baba’s businesses was attacked and they killed some of the workers. I just wanted to warn you to be careful—that’s all.”

  Peters was not concerned, as he was always on high alert due to his work with the Minneapolis Police Department and the high-profile cases he had helped close. Those criminals would be looking for revenge for a long time.

  “Sure, no worries, sis. I’ll be careful,” he said.

  His sister promised to keep him posted if she had more news but had to get off the phone—the line cut as he was about to add more to their conversation.

  This call was odd, he thought, but this was Nigeria. Things could turn sideways very quickly. That was the norm in a lot of African countries. One minute, things would be fine, but the next thing you know, people are in the streets burning tires and brandishing cutlasses, demanding something or other from the government or protesting a gross injustice. He figured he would call her back later, and things would be fine again.

  It was time to check on Sarah and see if she wanted to dine in or go out for dinner.

  Chapter 6

  Lagos, Nigeria:

  The Council

  When he last saw his sister, their father had just retired as a managing director of one of the largest investment banks in Lagos.

  Alhaji Abioye Peters, “Baba,” as he was called by all who knew him, had spent the thirty years of his career moving up at the bank. His first position was as an analyst, freshly returned with an MSc from the London School of Economics. And Baba hated it. Investment analysts were houseboys in a suit. He worked hard and was promoted to associate after two years. Baba was good with numbers and smart with detail, so he was assigned to the audit division. There he learned the bank’s regulatory practices and how to improve its internal processes. Nothing got by Baba. Eager to show his bosses that he wanted to move up, he accepted audit assignments all over the country and then overseas. The heavy workload and constant travel were exhausting, but he wanted his children to see how to better themselves.

  His calm demeanor and keen eye for irregularities earned him a spot in the bank’s future program, called Kaleidoscope. When he finally asked for a permanent position, his boss agreed. Baba could put his suitcases away. By the end of his tenure as managing director, Baba had the highest number of women-led departments, double-digit yearly profits, and also the designation of the most trusted investment financial institution in the country.

  *

  The other council members met in a secret location three weeks ago. They had all planned to meet to discuss their displeasure with Baba, the de facto leader of their group. Behind his back, they had been discussing how they would free themselves from his grip on their group. This was not an easy decision, but one that had to be made. It was not enough just to dissolve the group and all go their separate ways. They knew that the only way out was to kill him. Take him out, and also his daughter whom they didn’t care for and who they knew felt the same way about them. It was time to vote on the double assassination.

  The votes were three yeses and one abstaining, because Chioma thought it was a crazy idea and wanted no part in the vote. He implored the group to think about what they were doing. What they would unleash if they made this move.

  Chioma said, “Let the man just go, I beg.” No matter how many times he said it, deaf ears ignored him.

  The decision had been made. The council would take out Baba and his daughter. They had grown angry at the high fees they were paying Baba for managing and moving their money. Baba was old. They all knew the day would come when he handed the work over to his daughter, and they all knew she didn’t care for any of them. The feeling was mutual. They assumed that she was pushing all the buttons behind him, already. What else could explain how he was changing before their eyes? It had started when she first began showing up at their monthly council meetings. She didn’t have to say a word during those sessions. They all knew she had her hooks in the old man.

  This was not what they had agreed to when they first came together.

  The council as they were called, consisted of five families. There was Babatunde Dada. “Dada,” as he preferred to be called, was a quiet but observant man. His family was in the cement business. His father’s plan was for him to assume the family business after university, but Dada heaped scorn on the idea. Sell it and invest the money in technology, he’d plead—only to have his father remind him that all technology buildings were built with cement. Dada compromised; he studied computer science intending to introduce technology to his father’s business. He formed a tech company, and his first client was Dada Industries. Today his company had over fifty clients to whom he provided cloud services, staffing, fiberoptic wiring, and more. If his company was publicly traded, he would make the Forbes rich list.

  Chioma Chukwu was five-nine and dapper. He preferred handmade suits from Italy, black with gray pinstripes. He came from a real estate family in Imo State. Like his father, he had a knack for growing the empire. He was smart, calculating, but also paranoid—which made him unpredictable. The group was no longer surprised if he’d just get up and walk out of meetings because of “one of those nervous feelings.” He was young, eccentric, but utterly loyal, and he never broke a promise.

  Then there was Alhaji Suleman Kumari, in the oil business. He was so rich in government connections, going back so many administrations, that he managed to win every bid he ever placed on oil blocks without even having to relinquish any funds. If profits allowed, in a few years’ time, he might eventually pay up. His AK Oil & Gas was a monopoly. His wealth made him a constant target for kidnappers, so he went nowhere without a coterie of Israeli bodyguards who’d clear the building before he ever set foot in it.

  “Only the president sends advance men,” the group would joke.

  “I am the president of my company. What is the difference?” Kumari smiled. He enjoyed the attention.

  The last member of the group was Mama Kojo. Like Chioma, Mama Kojo was always well-dressed. Her Louboutins added a vital six inches to her stature. She chose a color for each day. Shoes, bag, dress—even her fingernail polish—always matched with precision. The gele (head wrap) was a different story. She chose that accessory to advertise her flair. Mama owned various businesses around the city, but her main source of income was her nightclub. Club Xpat was the trendiest club in all of Lagos, catering to people who came from outside Nigeria. It occupied the bottom level of her four-story financial district property, a beautiful building with arched stone windows: a former bank. Fitting, since it was where she met clients who wanted to wash their money. Mama was happy to provide this service for a lucrative fee. The second-floor offices were for the management team that looked after her other businesses in the city. The third floor housed her assistants and security personnel—she had grown tired of them complaining about traffic. And Mama herself lived on the fourth floor, a vast penthouse.

  So, in other words: the council was a group of decisive people.

 
And they had made up their minds. Baba and his daughter had to go. And fast.

  Dada said, “But what about his son in America? What should we do about him?”

  The members all looked at each other. No one wanted to speak first. Mama finally said, “We will take him out also.”

  The council members knew that they couldn’t take a chance that his son in the States was totally ignorant about what their father did. It could all fall apart if he got wind that they were responsible for his father and sister’s death. He would surely come for them, as it was customary for the son to seek revenge. They would all be in danger if he was not neutralized in the same deadly sweep.

  No one objected, nor said any word at all. Everyone stood up and left the room.

  Mama Kojo made the call from a secure line in the back seat of her Land Cruiser. For this call, she first closed the glass partition she had had installed. She gave the particulars to the person on the other end of the line. The cost of this job and timeline was agreed to without any hassle, and then she hung up. The payment would be wired in the morning. There was no going back now. Baba, Sade, and the son in the States would not be liabilities for long; Mama just had to wait for the confirmation via her private app and then confirm to the council that the hit was complete.

  Chapter 7

  America: Amends

  Last night’s dinner had reassured Sarah, as had the sex. Peters woke up before her and snuck down to make breakfast.

  Pancakes with chocolate chips—her favorite. Sarah always said he used ten pots just to boil an egg, so he offset the mess in the kitchen with Fela Kuti’s Beasts of No Nation album. It was one his father played when he was younger. “Fela is a troublemaker,” his mother always protested, saying the police would come and arrest him if anyone heard him playing that music. Baba always rejected that argument and said that any democracy should be open to criticism from its populous. “People need to be free to speak, and the day people are not, that is the end of the country.” It had been easy for Baba to talk that way—he was a powerful man. Government officials were on his payroll and enjoyed the garri he gave them when they came calling for favors and/or money.

  Peters lost himself in the good memories of his childhood as he flipped the first batch. Calm now, he let himself think about his sister’s call more directly. Why would someone attack his father’s business? He wondered what it had to do with him and why his sister would call to warn him, since he wasn’t involved in any way with his father or his work. Baba was not that sort of troublemaker. Not the sort to prompt anyone to send their assassins overseas to pursue his kin. No one back home knew where he was, much less what he could or would do if they tried to hurt him and Sarah.

  “Morning,” Sarah said from the doorway.

  “I was going to bring you breakfast in bed,” he said, putting a smile on his face as he leaned in for a kiss.

  “I heard the music and wanted to see you dancing before you noticed me.”

  But she knew that he used music to think, and an undercurrent of concern crossed her face. “Thinking of home?”

  He still hadn’t told her about the phone call. After sleeping on it, he felt she didn’t need anything in her life to add to her stress. The IVF process required calm. Any stress would change her body’s physiology and that would not be helpful.

  So, they sat there and ate breakfast and talked about the weekend. They made plans for a full weekend of shopping and antiquing. Maybe even make the drive to Jim’s Apple Farm in Jordan, Minnesota. A trip to the largest candy store would be a lighthearted way to spend a day together, despite it coming at the heaviest possible time. He knew how to play a role, though. He got the kitchen and himself cleaned up and packed up the car.

  He finally started to feel better, driving on Highway 169-S with its long stretches of cruise-control road. They didn’t care how long it would take. They just wanted to spend this Saturday together, and he could just focus on listening to Sarah.

  She talked about some of her cases. She mostly talked about the behavior of some of the prosecutors and the process. She hated to see so many kids have their lives screwed up by in-the-moment bad decisions, which the prosecutors hammered upon until the kids started to see themselves as criminals. She told Peters about the conversations she had with parents, the different ways she explained the process to them so they could be strong for their children. Most of her clients came from troubled homes and were destined to be in front of a judge sooner or later in their lives. All she wanted was to get to them before they became adults, before they believed what the prosecutors wanted them to believe about themselves, before they faced a prison sentence no one could save them from. So, she proposed community service more than any public defender on record. Prosecutors called her Community Service Sarah. No matter what the charge, they always knew she would ask for no jail time. Sometimes she got her way, at least when the caseload was heavy and they didn’t want to deal with her, so they just recommended an after-school program or picking up trash. She would always smile and said, “I owe you one,” even though everyone involved knew there was nothing a public defender could offer to pay them back.

  And then the World’s Largest Candy Store road sign appeared beside the highway.

  It had been hours. They found a spot in the packed parking lot and got out, a little dazed, a little stiff. But Sarah hustled toward the store like a schoolgirl, excited to hunt for all the kinds of candy she had wanted to eat as a child.

  Sarah had shared with Peters that as a young girl, she had never been asked to run to the store with her mom. Only her sisters were invited. Her mom always made the excuse that Sarah didn’t listen in the store, and managing three girls was too much for any mother. As a result, Sarah was vehement now about how she would raise her children differently—she would be the kind of mother who would find a positive way to manage as many children as she was blessed with. Peters knew this wasn’t all of it. There was more she wanted to share with him, but the stories were rare, and he never pressed.

  Peters went looking for his childhood favorite, Now and Laters. They wouldn’t have any candies from Nigeria, of course.

  After some aimless walking, he found Sarah with a basket full of sweets.

  “Stocking up for Halloween?” he joked.

  “For my clients, thank you very much. And colleagues. I said I owed them one, right?” She winked.

  As Sarah was heading for the checkout, something caught his eye. Something out of place. Peters noticed some customers who didn’t fit the environment. Two other Black men were walking around the store. Neither was carrying a basket nor looked much like they were here for candy or anything related to Jim’s Apple Farm. Looking without really looking, he noted their black jeans, white dress shirts, and what looked like Gestafe military boots. He calmly met Sarah in line and promised to be right back.

  “Restroom,” he said, with a smile and shrug.

  Instead, he went out and scanned the parking lot for anything out of the ordinary. He didn’t know what he was looking for but trusted he would know when he saw it. Strolling past some cars, there it was.

  The rental car, a Chrysler 200, stood out like a sore thumb. First, he noticed the barcode on the windshield, another barcode on the back passenger-side window, and also one on the back window. If that wasn’t enough to scream rental, there were no dealer markings on the back and the license plates looked new and had barcodes all over them.

  Peters wanted to kick himself for not driving his own car to Jordan today. He would have been able to grab a tracker from the trunk and discreetly place it somewhere on the car. But he and Sarah were in her Subaru today instead of his Santa Fe. He noted the license plate number, which he’d remember without effort, but it was pointless—the plate screws looked too new. Most likely a fake plate. These guys weren’t beginners.

  Sarah was already waiting at the cash register. She needed the bank card. He didn’t even ask where her purse was—just made himself laugh at their old
joke about how convenient it was, her hating to carry a wallet.

  “Thanks, hon,” she said with a cheeky smile.

  Even the cashier laughed. It felt like a performance, just like his own laugh. Keep everyone smiling; that was her job. And Peters’ job was to make sure the guys tailing them felt invisible. He took one last glance through the store and the two men were nowhere in sight. He made a mental note to check Sarah’s car at home. If they’d followed them here, they probably knew his home address. He was probably just being too jumpy after his sister’s call, but this one didn’t feel right.

  Could they be here already? Now, for the first time in years, Peters realized there was one more thing he wished he’d requested when he and Sarah were designing their house: a safe room.

  *

  It was late when Sarah and Peters arrived home. They’d lingered over lunch, ventured to the Mall of America in Bloomington, and navigated the insane crowds there, popping in and out of different stores as if having a good time. For Sarah, the enjoyment was genuine, as long as they both steered away from the baby stores. Keeping an eye over his shoulder, he casually bought some loafers, a nail kit, and a new reversible belt. Sarah picked up some flats, some playful earrings, and some hand towels with the letter P woven into the fabric. Then rode the Crazy Cars. Peters’ heart lit up watching Sarah steer through the scrum, laughing wildly. It was like they were both discovering fun again.

  “We need to do this more often,” he murmured, kissing her in the garage.

  Sarah nodded. “I want more days like this.”

  She was already upstairs by the time he came into the house from the garage. He’d combed her car for tracking devices. Then, because he couldn’t let it go even after finding nothing, took the time to review the house security footage. If those men in Jordan were any good, they would have been on an advance team watching the principals while another team headed to the house. He never saw them use their mobiles, but it wasn’t like he’d been free to stare at everything they did. Nothing out of the ordinary on the security footage. He added a tracker on Sarah’s car just in case. She would never know it was there and wouldn’t even know what it was if she saw it.