Success, Opulence and Power by Hebru Young (best novel books to read .TXT) 📗

that they had to leave right away. They jumped into the ice-cream van and drove off. After driving about fifty yards from the motel, they heard the explosion. An explosion meant the cops wouldn’t have any DNA to link the car to anyone—they had caught a break. The car had been assembled with parts from four other vehicles, serial numbers scratched out—untraceable. The mood was sombre.

Raphael dropped the boys off and told Eddie he’d be in touch. Raphael’s contact called to find out what was going on—he’d been waiting at the agreed location for thirty minutes. Raphael initially suspected that it was his contact who had set the entire thing up, but it turned out that his contact had nothing to do with it. Raphael thought to himself that perhaps one of the streetwalkers had something to do with it. His contact was still very interested in the product and convinced Raphael to go ahead with the deal. He even agreed to meet with Raphael alone to hand him the cash, trusting that Raphael would deliver the drugs. He told Raphael he would help him find the person who ordered the hit, and they would make that person pay.

Raphael contacted Eddie, asking him to get the product ready. Raphael turned up in his own car to collect the drugs, and shortly after he completed the deal with his contact, he came back to deliver Eddie his share of the money.

Chapter 28

Home Sweet Home

Where: AU Airspace, The African Union, Nigeria

When: 1635 hours, Saturday, November 9, 2041

Currency: AU credits

“Chris, please get Dahiru on the comms.”

“Sure, Dom.”

At this point, all sorts of thoughts were running through my mind. The shootout had me a bit rattled, enough that I was even more paranoid than usual for my safety and the safety of my guys. I started to wonder if the guys from the casino had been sent by Devin Carlsdale Jr., word on the street, was he’d been looking to expand. I also started to question whether it might have been the Russians; perhaps they felt I would cooperate with the enforcers about the weapons operation. It was difficult to tell where all this had come from. After a few minutes, Chris finally got hold of Dahiru on the comms.

“Hey Dahiru, what the hell happened out there?”

“So sorry for that, Eddie. This is my territory, and it was my job to keep you safe. Don’t worry, we have found out where this came from.”

“Wow, that was fast!”

“It was the Christians, and it was me they were after.”

“Christians—really? You’ve got to be kidding me, and what if I got killed, I would have been, what, collateral damage?!”

“So sorry, Eddie, I’ll make it up to you.”

“It’s okay man, at least we’re both alive right?”

“Indeed, my friend, indeed.”

“So, regarding the erratanite, I’ll be getting the first shipment next month?”

“Yes, twenty tons this month, then another twenty in January. I can probably get you a better deal if you decide to sign another contract that runs through the rest of 2042.”

“Yeah, that shouldn’t be a problem, who else would I go to in the AU?”

“Well, I just thought that after what happened tonight you would want to keep your distance.”

“Come on Dahiru, don’t be ridiculous. Why would I let something like what happened tonight end our friendship or doing business together? I would never react that way.”

What Dahiru suggested wasn’t far from the truth. I was thinking about severing ties after tonight’s ordeal. However, I still needed his business. With the hit my business has taken, I needed to keep the revenue flowing, and Dahiru was my way of doing that. Something told me that Dahiru knew this as well; he was a very intelligent man. My old man once told me that true friends in business were rare; people in business are always trying to find a way to maximize their profit and further their own agenda.

“Well, my good friend, I really need to get some rest now. I hope to speak to you soon, and I hope we get a favourable outcome from the trial. Let me know if there is anything I can do to help.”

“That’s very kind of you, Dahiru, hope you have a speedy recovery. Speak to you soon.”

As far as I was concerned, this was far from over. No one jeopardizes my life and gets away with it. I planned on getting to the bottom of this. I’m not convinced this job was carried out by some Bible-reading, church-going Christians, who for the most part do not have a history of extreme terrorism. Granted, there had been a few rogue Christian extremists, but that was quite rare. The guys who attacked us were pros: their attire and formation reeked of ex-military. Alex asked one of the flight crew to bring us our usual drinks, feeling that we all needed it, and he was right.

“Guys, that was way too close. We could have died out there,” I said.

“I know, Dom, those guys meant business,” said Alex.

“I took one to the suit as well,” said Chris.

“Sheesh, you too?” I said.

“Yeah. How about you Alex?” Chris asked.

“Nah man, they missed me,” said Alex.

“Alex, you’re the luckiest man I know, how did you manage not to get a single scratch on you?” I asked

“It’s the lucky linen handkerchief, Dom.”

“Oh great, not the damn handkerchief again,” said Chris.

“What? Chris, I’m telling you, every time I have this thing on me, and bad things happen around me, I’m never affected,” said Alex.

“Yeah, maybe we need to get a couple of lucky handkerchiefs of our own,” I said.

“Ha-ha, please don’t encourage him, Dom,” said Chris.

“On a more serious note, I want you guys to look into this. We need to find out who did this and shut