There was a strained silence in the van, but her anger was so palpable that it shocked all of them, and finally, Sir Lance sipped his coffee again and leaned back slowly.
"Effe, I'm sorry," he said finally. "I didn't know that about you. You've just given me a new look at you, and I must admit I do admire you for your stand and principles. I do regret holding back information from you, and I'm sorry. But listen to this, dear. I will give you the information I think you have to know. Prove to me that you're principled with information, and my trust in you will grow. Don't you dare come to me asking for trust when I don't know who the fuck you really are, do you understand? I don't work that way, and nobody makes me work that way. So, let's begin again. I'm sorry, and I do regret holding that information from you, but now that I've learned to trust you a little, I'll divulge that information to you. Is that understood?"
Effe sighed and scowled at him.
"I can choose to walk out now, sir," she said coldly.
"You're free to walk out, Effe," Sir Lance said as he sipped his coffee calmly. "But, by the time you reach that door, I'll order them to shoot you dead."
Effe gasped and looked at him with shock.
"You will kill me?" she asked in a dry voice.
"Yes, I'll kill you instantly," he said as he set down his cup. "You're SPF now, Effe. Here, the rules are a little different. We say sorry when we want to, and give information when we want to. Don't worry, you'll learn all about that soon enough. Now, with that little unpleasantness out of the way, let me tell you about Condor."
Effe nodded.
"I'm listening," she said softly.
"Good," Sir Lance said with a tiny smile. "Sit down, Paul. You're crowding me."
He waited until Paul Blankson drew up a chair and sat to one side of them, still sizzling with anger.
Sir Lance drank more coffee and then set it down gently.
"Ah, good coffee, good coffee," he said and looked up at Effe. "Chris Bawa should have been killed immediately we caught him, you know. An assassination plot against the King of the Kingdom of Eden is punishable by a swift death."
"So, why wasn't he killed?" Effe asked softly. "Still because of the Queen's wishes? Or because Princess Gwendoline loved him?"
Sir Lance sighed and rubbed his forehead warily.
"Prodigal wasn't killed because the queen didn't want him to die, yes," Sir Lance said with a cold smile. "And the princess didn't want him to die, yes. They were merciful to him because he had been a part of their family for a long time, and yes, they grew to like him. Chris Bawa is a very likeable fellow."
"And so, was that the plan? Keep him locked up for five years and then send an assassin to finish him off?"
"No, that was not the plan," Sir Lance said. "The plan was to keep him locked up forever and keep a strong eye on him. But it all changed when we picked up intelligence that his external partners were planning to break him out of prison and still go ahead with the original plan. The king was made privy to the info, and he finally agreed that Prodigal should die, but in an accident so that it wouldn't upset the queen and princess. So, we sent in Condor, one of our best agents."
"Best?" Effe said with cold disdain. "He was a GojuFist expert, according to the info I garnered! Did he know that Prodigal wrote your training manual of GojuFist as captured in the folder? You sent the servant after the master! It was a mismatch! Condor was dead from the word go, sir!"
"No!" Sir Lance said tersely. "Don't jump to conclusions, young lady. Condor was proficient in GojuFist, and he mastered other techniques too. He was a master of Wing Chun, Aikido and Kung Fu. We were sure he stood a pretty good chance against Prodigal if he could just nick his skin with the poisoned knife!"
"And we believe Condor succeeded," Paul Blankson said coldly. "He lost his life, unfortunately, but he succeeded in doing what he was sent to do! And that is the most important thing, isn't it?"
Effe looked at him with contempt.
"This poison that Condor put on the knife, was it the novel VX extract?" she asked quietly.
"Fuck!" Paul Blankson interjected acidly and glared at her. "How the fuck did you know that? Where do you get your damn information from, Effe?"
Sir Lance's face was dark too as he leaned forward.
"VX is secret and unapproved, Effe," he said quietly. "That is why the order was for the bodies to be cremated immediately and anybody who came into contact with them hurriedly vaccinated. It is contagious, and could cause a deadly outbreak if not checked!"
Effe put her head to one said as she looked at the Director of the Kingdom security forces.
"Chris has part of his training in Thailand, sir," she said softly. "Chris Bawa was there underground, on covert operations. My Thai source recognized a mugshot of Chris that I sent to him. According to him, Chris trained with a Master Thai fighter called Shah Ja. One of the training chapters was in making the body immune to most poisons. Apparently, over the years, Chris Bawa went through the process, and so he is largely immune to most deadly poisons!"
"Oh shit!" Paul Blankson said in a horrified voice. "Damn!"
"Are you sure of this?" Sir Lance asked in a voice that had become quite unsteady.
"Yes," Effe said warily. "When I spoke to Chaplain Danso inside the prison, he confirmed that Chris and Condor were pronounced dead when they were taken to the crematorium. Because both were going to be burnt, they were in the same casket. He was given the call about what had happened, and he left his quarters and came to the crematorium. It took him about forty-five minutes to get there. And he had to wait about forty minutes more because the electricity went off, and it took that long to get the power plant to work. The casket was in the crematorium unguarded for that long. When the power came on, he just went right ahead to push knobs that moved the casket through the process. At no time did he check if there were two bodies inside the casket because he had been told the bodies were contagious."
Sir Lance was looking absolutely sick now as he put an unsteady hand on his forehead.
"Make me understand!" he said gravely. "What does it mean?"
Effe shrugged.
"I believe Prodigal was too strong for Condor. He somehow managed to overpower Condor and killed him. Because Prodigal knew the knife was laced with poison, he could have nicked himself with the knife, and been rendered temporarily comatose or unconscious. They were taken to the crematorium, where he regains consciousness. Left all alone, he tripped the electricity, well aware that it would take some time for the chaplain to come along and the power plant to be switched on. He had about one hour twenty minutes. The ashes from the crematorium are usually left to drift down a seventy-foot chute to the culvert below which joins the sea."
"But the waters are electrified!" Paul Blankson screamed.
"You didn't just hear Effe say there was a power outage that day, did you?" Sir Lance asked acidly, and Paul threw up his hands in a resigned fashion.
Sir Lance looked at Effe with hard eyes and spoke.
"So, you believe that Chris made his way through the sewers to the sea? Those sewers are infested with crocodiles, and the exits to the sea have strong pillars welded into horrifyingly thick concrete, and short of heavy explosives, no one can make their way to the open seas from the sewers!"
Effe nodded and leaned forward.
"I examined the sewers, sir, and I know Prodigal knew exactly what he was doing," she said calmly. "There's a landing sixty feet down the chute and a narrow passage that links the drainage systems from the prison's parking lot to the sewers. If Chris was able to make his way through that system without falling into the crocodile cesspit, he could have worked his way back into the yard where there were several cars and vans parked. I guess that he chose the laundry van which carries laundry from the yard to the laundry building four hundred metres away, without any proper checking. If he entered the van and hid in the clothing, he could have jumped out as soon as he was out of the prison yard."
"So, you think Prodigal could have escaped?"
"No," Effe said calmly. "I don't think he escaped. I am certain he's out there now. Chris Bawa didn't die. He's out."
"Sir," Paul Blankson said in a staggering voice. "Fine, she is making a lot of sense, but we should proceed carefully from here. No need to alarm…"
Sir Lance fixed him with a very deadly look.
"Shut the fuck up, Paul," he said coldly and got to his feet as his eyes roamed the van. "What are you lazy cocoons waiting for? I want you to send out the Red Alert on Chris Eden Bawa! Wanted for treason against the kingdom! Splash his pictures all over the internet, social media, televisions, newspapers, every-goddamn-where! Very dangerous! Rope in the BKI, the police, the army, all the private security setups! Shoot him on sight, shoot to kill! A million Kichas for information leading to his arrest! Do to it now!"
There was a frenzy of activity as the operatives rushed into their seats, and a moment later, Chris Bawa's face was splashed all across the screens in the van as the alert went out.
Sir Lance removed his coat and looked at Effe with stunned eyes.
"Tell me, my dear, give me something!" he said gravely. "If that boy is loose, we're all dead! He's going straight to his plans, and the lives of the royal family and ordinary Edenites are in grave danger because he's a sick man! Can you narrow it down? Where do you think he will be?"
Effe licked her lips and leaned forward.
"I read a lot about him, about how he loves his son, and yes, I remember you telling me how dedicated he is in keeping to his promises," she said softly. "If that is right, then his first call would be to his son and the boy's mother, this Elsie-Mina. I'm sure he'll go to them first. Chris Bawa would be at his residence right now."
"Get me a chopper right now!" Sir Lance shouted. "Paul, get the Beachway police chief immediately! I want as many cops as he could get on the residence of Elsie-Mina! Go, go, go! Effe, come with me! We'll use the chopper! Where's my damn chopper, you bastards?"
"Four minutes away, sir!" an operative yelled out.
"Alright, let's get this started! And somebody get Carl Acquah! Tell him to haul his arse to Elsie's place because Prodigal is on the loose!"
Effe stood up and hoisted her bag.
There was ice in her heart!
If this beast that killed her brother was alive, she wanted to see him gunned down in the worst way possible, and she knew they would catch Chris with his family!