Chronicles Of A Runs Girl - S01 E65

2 years ago

Chronicles Of A Runs Girl - S01 E65

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 65

The drop off

If like me you’ve watched a lot of James Bond type movies, you’d be forgiven, as I should be, for believing the ransom drop off was going to go terribly wrong.

I mean, being woken up from an uncomfortable sleep on a sofa, by a man carrying a Ghana-must-go bag full of money, is not exactly what you’d call real-life. And when in the darkness he said to me ‘It is time,’ it sounded more like an intentionally scripted line in a mystery movie than just another day in the life of Amaka.

I was instantly awake, not that I’d been sleeping for that long anyway, or so I thought. The first thing I asked him, as my heart began to beat faster with adrenalin, was “What time is it?” You can imagine my surprise at learning it was almost 6:30am.

“There’s no time to take shower,” he said, as if that was even remotely on my mind. “They want you to take the money to Faloma roundabout and be there at exactly 7am.”

“Falomo,” I corrected him.

“And they want you to wait on the chapel side. Do you know what that is?”

“Yes.”

“Good. We have to leave now.”

“Is that the money?” I had seen the bag and I knew it must be the ransom money. Something in me wanted to see it, to see what twenty five million Naira looks like.

“Yes.”

“And you are just going to give them all this money like that?”

“What would you rather I did? Let them kill him?”

He knew that wasn’t what I meant. I wanted to explain to him that I was only concerned that there was no guarantee they would let Johnny and his friends go once they got the money, then I remembered the money was for Johnny’s friends, not Johnny.

“How will I know it is them?”

“What?”

“How will I know who to give the money to?”

“They will find you. You just have to stand there with the money.”

“And what about Johnny, his friends?”

“When they’ve got the money they’ll call to let us know where to pick them.”

“And you trust them?”

“Do I have a choice?”

“Ok. Excuse me, let me get dressed.”

He drove us to Falomo where he handed me the bag that had been resting on the back seat all throughout the ride. It felt heavier than I expected, but then again I’ve never carried twenty-five million naira before.

I stepped out of the car, struggling with the weight of the bag, and I had hardly closed the door when he drove off. I suddenly felt afraid. I was panicking. Were they here already? Were they looking at me? Did they tell him to drop me and get lost? Would they just take the money and leave me alone?

I stepped onto the pavement; it was already busy with foot traffic just as the road itself was already building towards a major traffic jam. What if someone saw that I was carrying money and stole it from me? What if the police ask me what is inside my bag? I looked down at the bag to see if the money inside it was visible from outside. I shifted the handles from one hand to the other and tried to rest my strained shoulder. I wanted to place the bag down between my legs but I was afraid to let go of it.

I looked into the faces of the people walking past me; with apprehension that they might want to steal the bag from me, and with anxiety that they might be the kidnappers. No big black van with tinted windows pulled up to me screeching with doors flying open and masked men inside pointing a sawed-off double barrel shotgun at me and shouting to me to throw the money to them – the way I had imagined it. Nothing happened. I just stood there with the heavy Ghana-must-go bag full of money waiting for something to happen, and then it did.

A man wearing a helmet with its visor pulled over his face stopped next to me on his power bike. He was blocking me from view of the kidnappers when they arrived I instinctively thought, so I stepped sideways on the pavement, but with his feet pulling his motorcycle along on the road he followed me. I couldn’t see a face but the helmet was turned to me.

He pointed at the bag then at me and motioned for me to get onto his bike. Then it hit me in a sudden awakening of all my senses that he was Mr Kidnapper.

I suddenly didn’t know what to do. I looked around, on instinct, then at the same moment I realised how dangerous it was to do so because he could think I had come with people waiting to get him. I quickly moved myself and the bag to him quicker than I would have liked to: I would have waited and asked him about Johnny and his friends; but I had, in my opinion, acted in a way to cause suspicion and lives were at stake.

I stopped next to him struggling to hold the bag up like I was offering it to him for him to take and just go away, but he nodded his helmet for me to get onto the back. I obliged. I got on to the bike behind him, balancing the money on my laps, then I tried to work out what to hold on to to keep me steady. With his gloved hands he pulled mine around his body. Okay.