Lieutenant Vee woke up dazed and confused with a cotton-mouth feeling. He suspected he had been drugged, probably via injection, to make it easier for his captors to move him around while he was unconscious. It seemed as though they were not reaching their final destination, not that lieutenant Vee was rushing. He knew whatever they had in store for him would be revealed later at their final destination.

He was still blindfolded and had no idea if it was day or night. He had no idea how long he’d been out for and couldn’t pick up anything from the carriage he was transported in. He tried fiddling with his fingers because his hands and feet were bound together. He couldn’t reach anything with his fingers except the surface, but couldn’t find the back so he can lean and attempt to stand up. When that failed, he tried using his feet and legs to reach the back but again failed.

As he laid there in his own disappointment, he heard chitter-chatter and it sounded like it came from a distance.

As he listened closely and more attentively, the sound got louder. He laid still and didn’t breathe and he could hear that it was one of his captors on the phone. It wasn’t a pleasant call because he was making a helluva noise, speaking in a language that he couldn’t understand. The captor then slipped up and spoke in English, and that’s when Lieutenant Vee got a bit of a jump on one of his captors.

“Yes sah! No sah! No sah! We are not carrying any drugs on us sah! I don’t know where those people got that idea from sah!”

Then the voice on the other side of the phone said, “Okay son, where did you stop for the night?”

Lieutenant Vee was sure he would at least get an idea of where he was.

“We stopped at our designated stop sah!”

Then Lieutenant Vee knew he may be screwed when the voice on the other end told the captor to turn back and find a place to hide for a while, or at least until they got another mode of transportation. The ride they were rolling in was tainted; it was in heat, meaning the police were looking for it so wasn’t safe to travel in anymore.

These Nigerian speaking Mofos must be the real deal, Lieutenant Vee thought to himself, real Nigerians from the cold heart of Nigeria herself. All the things Lieutenant Vee heard over the phone made him realise how dangerous and reckless these people must be.

If you get accepted on the streets of South Africa, you “pass” as one of their own or rather an extension or branch. But if you failed, you became an outcast and even the scum of the earth treated you like dirt. These Nigerians must have still smelled like home and that’s why they caught the eye of the public even at night. Or maybe it was their demeanour or the people of that town must’ve been pretty hard to fool and saw right through the Nigerian’s bull. But thanks to those people and the police, there was a road block looking for these Nigerians and luckily they would be found.

The carriage stopped moving and the captor who had now been speaking gibberish started speaking in English.

“Yes sah! We have stopped at the hideout sah!”

He cut the phone off and was quiet. It seemed as though Lieutenant Vee was looking at another night of thirst and hunger. It had been hours since he heard anything from his captors and hoped they had choked on their own fear and died. But unfortunately that didn’t happen because he heard a noise then felt a slight breeze, then he passed out.

***

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