I felt Morgana legs clutch round my waist as I hung freely on the pipe, her scent was nice and her soft body sent a warm sensation round my body. I could tell she was a bit scared but I wasn't, I had pass through stuffs more than that during my training days, stuffs like the free rope hanging. I sometimes wonder how they manage to pass through trainings, I mean the girls. Morgana is a small girl, pardon me, a small bodied girl but older in age, about some years older than I am. I descended down the pipe until I was on the same level with the fence which served as the demarcation between perfect peace hotel and an abandoned land surrounded with bushes beside the hotel. "One,two and go" I shouted as I jumped into the bush , Morgana got displaced from my back and rolled on the floor. " Are you okay?" I asked standing up to her as I pulled off the overall. " Am fine" she replied dusting her white shirt. "Let's go" She said but I stood still. " What is it?" She asked. " How do you protect your identity, your cloth and your face might sell you off" I replied her. " True" She said as she took a look at herself. " What do we do now, this is 12:11, the school dismissed by 2:30 so we gat no time" I said. " I got this" She murmured as she took off her white shirt to reveal her inner armless singlet, she also took off her trouser leaving her with only a bomb short and a singlet, both black. " Would you please take your eyes off my body?" She said, I never knew I was staring at her. " I wasn't staring at you" I tried defending myself. " The fear of women, is the beginning of wisdom" She said. " What about your face?" I asked trying to change the subject, she looked around and saw a piece of charcoal, she picked it up. " You wanna design your face with that?" I asked her. " No" she replied and almost immediately, took off my Cap and handed the charcoal to me," Use this to draw lines on your face when we get there, that's to hide your identity" She said as she covered her face with the cap." What is the m…" She interrupted. " Let's go" she said. I abandoned the overall where her cloth was. " Make sure you come back here for your cloths" I told her and with that, we found our way to where my bike was parked. Love Avenue is a bit far from perfect peace hotel and its a long distance to royalty school, I found my way through some corners riding on high speed, in about 20 minutes, we were standing in front of the deserted, scanty street, Love Avenue. " The house as i heard, is the only mansion here" Morgana told me. " I know" I replied scanning the street with my eyes. There wasn't any individual moving in the street, the only people there were some rough looking boys who sat in the front of a house smoking and minding their businesses, they didn't see us as we stood in a tight corner of the street with my bike. " Don't you think we should alert the others?" Morgana asked me, " No, let just catch fun" I replied. " How do we get to the house?" She asked again. " From what I learnt, the house is in the middle of the street. Where are the keys?" I asked her and she brought it from the pocket of her bomb short. " Let's just walk like nothing is wrong" Morgana suggested. " Let's do this" I said and we started trekking in the middle of the street, we walked like lovers as Morgana clutched herself round me, the few people we met on the street showed no concern as they of course thought we were lovers, the only thing that could have arose stirs would be Morgana half naked dressing but no one paid attention to us, that's lagos for you, not like Atata where the old women will kill you with their stairs. It didn't take us long before we found ourselves in front of the big Sir Jude Ike's Mansion, there wasn't guards on the outside, but some rotating security camera. " See how those cameras are rotating, we are to move in anti of it" I said. " I can't code what your are saying" She replied. " I mean we are to move in negative of the rotation of the camera to prevent it from getting us" I said again as we stood some distance from the gate. " Okay, I can code now" she said smiling, just then her phone rang. " Hello my darling" She said over the phone. " Okay love" she replied after some seconds and hung up " Its Jude " she said turning to me, " Who is Jude?" I asked. " Sir Jude Ike" She replied almost shouting. " He said he will soon be home" She said again while I checked my wrist watch, it was 1:30. " We have less than one hour for this" I said while she nodded. " Let's play some games" She said drawing my hand to the side of the building, there wasn't any house in either side of the building , the house closer to it was about a distance of 200m from it, and it was an uncompleted house. A long fence was rounded the mansion, a kind of security. " You have to jump" I told her as I bent down for her to use my back as a stepping stone before jumping. " What about you?" She asked. " I will sure join you" I replied her. She advance backwards a little and with full speed ran towards the fence, she climbed on me and immediately, leaped and did a Summersault over the fence. I stood up and also went backwards,I first used the charcoal in drawing lines on my face, then With all the speed I could gather, I took off and jumped, my height gave me an advantage as I was able to hold the top of the fence with my two hands, I drew my self up and then landed into the compound. Morgana quickly drew me aside as if we were under attack. " What is it?" I asked looking around suspiciously. " Move against the camera gradient" she said pointing at a nearby camera. The house wasn't much decorated, what surrounded it were just pillars, on the pillars were cameras. There wasn't any kind of decoration like flowers and the likes. I drew Morgana and hid behind one of the numerous pillars, as we stood, we were watching the movement of the cameras which rotates every 30 seconds, they actually rotate in the same direction. I heard the front door open, I peeped and saw a guard looking around, he was in suit and was holding a pistol. He looked towards our direction and I quickly hid myself, I looked up and saw the camera already rotating towards us, " Time to play" I said to Morgana who was standing tight against the pillar and looking up at the camera. I took off my gun from my waist side, the camera was now very close to facing us, the guard was still standing by the door, the pillar was the only thing shielding us from him. I held Morgana into my arm and I turned sharply to the other side of the pillar facing the guard. Almost immediately, I released a bullet to the guard who fell down dead, at the same time I was able to shield myself from the camera as I now stood in the other side of the pillar which the camera could not see, I was standing and facing the door to the building. Morgana ran to the dead guard and took his gun as she had no gun.
AS NARRATED BY ADANNA
" How do you know it isn't drafted by him?" I asked Alvana who was still staring at the letter. " That's because I know" he answered weirdly. Alvana is a tall muscular guy with well trimmedd moustache, he is fair and well built, he is also gentle and handsome. " How are you meant to know?" I asked him. " Because I have once lived in the city, I know the ways of the city, someone else might have sent this letter" he said again, he was very confident. " Am confused here, how did that someone else know me?" I asked him. " That someone else might me some how close to Gabriel and maybe at one time, Gabriel had told him about you" Alvana said again. " How did you know it is a him?" I asked him. " Because we use him mostly , it is actually stressful saying him or her" Alvana said smiling. " Just promise me you won't tell him about this letter" Alvana requested. " Why?" I asked him. " Because it might make him start thinking over unnecessary things" Alvana added. " Okay" I said unwillingly. " I dont believe you, am gonna take the letter from you" He said as he folded the letter. " No, I want to show him as an evidence" I said forgetting my earlier promise. " You promised not to tell him anything about the letter remember?" he said while I breathed and allowed him have the letter. " Am sure he didn't send this letter, very sure " he said again. " Alvana, what about your family?" I asked him, he smiled and looked up to the sky. " I got none, my parent died long time ago in Bethlehem, I am their only child and I know no relations" he said in a funny manner while I smiled. " Am sorry about that" I told him. " About what?" He asked, " Your parents" I said. " You didn't kill them, did you?" He asked frowning his face. " I never knew you were this fun to be with" I said while he smiled making himself more handsome. " I heard Mbe has been beating guys over you, let me go before he catches me here" he said while I smiled. " Dont worry, he isn't over me anymore, Gabriel had beaten him once by the stream." I told him, his facial expression changed. " Are you sure? " he asked . " Yes, he punched him, carried him up and Mbe back touched the ground" I said trying to demonstrate with my body. " Gabriel isn't meant to do that" Alvana said more like a whisper, " Why?" I asked. " Because it isn't good to fight" Alvana replied smiling. " Okay, Adanna, let me run along now" He added and turned to go. " Dont misplace that letter" I shouted over to him, he turned to me and nodded as he walked away. I also turned into our compound, somehow I believed him when he said Gabriel hadn't written the letter.
°°
Together with Morgana, we entered into the open door, the inner house happens to be well decorated, it was full of glasses and fragile equipments. In a side of the sitting room is a portrait of Sir Jude, there wasn't any guard in sight but I could hear footsteps coming from the stairs, they seem to be running down, its sure were the guards. There were also some cameras in the room, all rotating like the ones outside. " Come here" I said pulling Morgana to a pillar in the house. They were about four guards with pistol each, they stopped when they saw the opened door. I took a slight peep and saw one of them advancing towards our pillar, he was fat and muscular. I held Morgana tight to the pillar and took a deep breath, I could hear the guard footsteps just some inches from us. He walked more closer to us and I quickly crossed my leg on his path. He fell to the ground heavily and quickly did a Chinese get up, I didn't allow him relax as I gave him a flying kick, the kick pushed him away some distance. The other guards took to actions as they started firing in my direction, I did a backward roll to the pillar to prevent the bullets from touching me. The one whom I had given a kick earlier made to get up slowly but Morgana released a bullet to him, the firing started again, they fired in the direction of the pillar. " one, two and go" I whispered to Morgana and almost immediately, we came out from our hidings and released fire on the other guards who were taken unaware. " What's next?"Morgana asked smiling happily. " Let's go up" I said and we headed to the stairs. " Shhhh" I said to Morgana as I drew her closer to a pillar, out of no where, a bald headed guy pass us. I removed one of my knives and crawled towards him, I stabbed him from behind and he fell down dead. I heard gunshot behind me, I turned, it was Morgana killing another guard. " This is real fun" she said to me. There were only two rooms upstairs, each room having an over head camera which rotates like others. " Let's go to the left room" She said to me and I concurred. We were just about pushing the door open when it opened by itself and two guards came out, One came to me while the other to Morgana. He threw a punch at me and I Dodged it with my left hand, I gave him a kick on his manhood which made him groan in pain and bent down holding the affected region. "Finishing" I shouted as I jumped and landed on his back neck with my legs wide apart, a splint. Morgana was still battling with her's, he gave her a kick in her chest region which pushed her backwards, taking him by shock, she did a forward roll and jumped on him, she didn't just jump on him, she had stabbed him with a knife on his neck. " You are bloody " I said to her as she removed the knife from his neck and slipped it into her black hill. " Its called being economical" she said smiling. We entered into the room, it was surrounded with all sort of electronics. At the end of the room is a glass window, I walked towards it and could only see the free lands beside the house demarcated by a fence, Morgana also came towards the window. " Stay here and watch" I said to her as I slipped my gun into my waist side and bent by one of the laptops. It was like it was being operated on before we badged in, it wasn't encrypted with passwords like the others. The laptop was on the mail section, they were reading some mails from it. The first mail was from an address, portagentmail. com, I opened it only to see the picture of a young lady. Below the picture is a message, Kidnap or kill?. I didn't understand the message and I closed it, the next message was from an address lagosportmail com, It had a message, we will be shipping them in two days time, we depart at exactly 9:00pm. " Shipping what?" I thought to myself, I closed the message also and moved to the middle messages, one email address caught my eyes, atataagentmail .com, I quickly opened the message, I saw the picture of a young man, a young man whose face seem familiar, I tried placing my hands where I had seen him, yes, he was the dead young man I saw in the igwe's palace the day I visited the palace after my arrival from the city, the guy who had the mark of the sword. Just then the door badge opened and about five guards entered, they started shooting aggressively towards us, Morgana tried shooting back at them. I ran towards her, I grabbed her up and broke through the glass window as we jumped over to the free land behind the mansion, I wasn't lucky as a bullet caught my left hand.