“Tais-toi!” One of the soldiers said and put his rifle right in my face. Jesus! The last thing I wanted was to have my nose broken again.
“Listen to me! Écoutez-moi!” This was a Senegalese platoon, and my French wasn’t the greatest. The scene was getting more insane and out of control by the second. “He’s got two accomplices. Deux garçons, vous comprenez? They are all murderers!”
That last remark got me a punch in the gut. I doubled over, trying to catch my breath while the Tiger just stood there, mute, uttering not a word of protest.
Perfectly calm. Smarter than I was.
And in control? I wondered.
Chapter 93
THEY BROUGHT US both out of the alley at gunpoint and made us kneel in the dirt. A crowd had gathered, maybe a couple hundred people already.
There were only five AU troops on the scene, barely enough to cover us and keep everyone else back a few yards. Several people were pointing—at the Tiger. Because he was so large? Or because they knew who he was? Or maybe how dangerous?
“Alex? Alex?” I heard Adanne’s voice, and nothing could have sounded more welcome to me.
Then I saw her push through the crowd to the front. Her eyes went wide when she spotted the Tiger kneeling a few feet away from me. He saw her too.
“Let me through! I’m with the Guardian.” She took an ID out of her pocket, but a soldier shoved her back.
She called out to me again, and she kept yelling, risking her own safety. “Alex! Tell them that the Guardian is doing your story! Tell them the Guardian is here. I will write their story.”
But then my ears took in something else—the high-pitched whine of a vehicle traveling in reverse!
Was that right? Was I hearing it correctly? Who was coming now?
The crowd on one side started to stir, from the rear at first. Then people were scattering wildly, screaming or cursing.
Everything was turning to chaos, even worse than it had been.
I could see a black pickup truck now, backing toward us at high speed. It weaved recklessly along the very narrow street, taking out several shade canopies as it came. There were gunshots too, possibly coming from the truck.
The AU team scrambled back first. Then the truck stopped twenty yards away.
Houston Rockets was in the back, shielding himself with a young girl. She was maybe twelve or thirteen. He had one arm around her throat. His other hand—held high over his head—was holding a grenade for everyone to see
.
The Tiger wasted no time. He jumped up and ran for the truck. The passenger door opened for him and he disappeared inside.
I saw his huge hand come out and slap the roof hard.
As the pickup raced away, the young girl was thrown from the back. Thank God for that anyway.
But as we watched in shock, she clawed the air with both arms and hit the ground with her head. Then she exploded!
Houston Rockets must have shoved the grenade into the girl’s clothing. They had no reason to kill her. The murder was just for show—or maybe for my eyes.
Or Adanne’s?
Chapter 94
THE NEXT MORNING, we returned to Lagos, exhausted and with heavy hearts. Clearly, this kind of insanity happened often here. How could the people bear it?
Adanne insisted that her family put me up for a day or so. “Whatever you need, Alex. I want to get this killer as badly as you do. I’ve written about him enough.”
She had her own apartment in the city, but we drove to her parents’ house on a part of Victoria Island—to a side of this fascinating megacity that I hadn’t seen before.