Yoofi chose to spend the whole day in bed.
He had found out a long time ago that he operated well while in bed. It was while there that he made important business transactions. He made deals in the region of hundreds of thousands of Ghana cedis with the laptop pulled close to him whilst on the bed.
It could be because he really didn’t have an office or because he had no need for an office but the reality of the whole issue was that his mind was at its sharpest when close to the bed. He was good at making his money rake in more money for him because he understands how money works.
He made calls, gave orders for clearing of containers, kept track of cleared containers to avoid attracting penalties and made some donations to charities he was interested in.
He drank from a bottle of water and his mind went to the next item on his mind. He made final plans for Pam’s trip to the USA in relation to her education. Rose was to accompany her to help get her to settle in.
Even though he was the one who had arranged the scholarship in collaboration with an educational NGO he was a patron of, they had no idea of it. Pam actually believed that she was randomly handpicked based on her academic efforts, of which there was no question whatsoever.
The visas were ready, and the plane tickets had also been purchased and were to be collected at the airline’s counter at the airport.
He had also made arrangements for Ursula and her father to go to Dubai for a long vacation which proved to be hard to arrange as Ursula hadn’t wanted to leave her practice but he had used emotional blackmail by using her dad’s need for a vacation to get her to capitulate.
Thankfully, they all were leaving at the same time. Just three hours shy of each flight.
He sat on the bed and made all the final arrangements. He went over every tiny detail, missing nothing on how he was going to neutralize the Capo.
He was going to strike as soon as the planes took off and when he had achieved his aim, he was going to join them in the U. S and leave with Rose to Dubai to join his uncle and her daughter for their own vacation.
In making all those travelling plans, he still kept tabs on the movements of Jack Palance who led him finally to the Capo and to other men of interest.
FLYING TIME
Yoofi was at home on the day of his loved ones’ departure when he received a distress call from Rose.
”Yo love, two of my colleagues have been poisoned because of me,” Rose said as soon as he picked up, crying uncontrollably.
”Bur Ro love, how can you say it was because of you?” he replied, alarmed.
”He sent me a message that I was lucky for not eating the food he had delivered to me at the office which my friends ate,” Rose explained quickly with tears flooding her face.
He quickly went over to her and made her and Pam leave quickly for the airport even though it was more than ten hours before their flight. He got them lodged in a 4-star hotel near the airport and got them to promise not to leave their hotel room under any circumstance. He then left to attend to issues of similar importance, and that was the arrest of Jack Palance which was to ultimately lead to the busting of the Capo himself.
He called his men and asked them to prepare for the long-awaited operations. Just when he got out of the shower, he smelt some acrid scent that alerted him to the fact that there could be some sort of a gas leak in the house. His sharp brain told him that it wasn’t the Liquified Petroleum Gas (LPG) he was accustomed to. He dived into the bedroom, pressed a hidden switch in the wall and a metre square of the floor tiles slid open.
An identical switch got him covered up leaving no sign of his hideout. He walked down a staircase and entered a large room that had TV monitors screening images of the CCTV cameras that had been placed at vantage points around the house.
He stared at the images of heavily armed men who were going through the house in search of him, poised to shoot.
The one who was obviously the leader made a call, probably to the Capo to report his disappearance.
He watched in anger as the men detonated smoke grenades probably to smoke him out. He called the police to report an invasion of criminals to his home and within fifteen minutes he watched as the police arrived to overpower them in a standoff that lasted less than thirty minutes.
The criminals knew that it wasn’t going to be advisable to engage the police in a shootout so they surrounded with the hope that their well-connected boss was going to get them freed.
Without wasting any more time, he pressed yet another hidden switch and an escape hatch opened. He descended into a vault and crawled down a long and winding shaft which soon got him panting with exhaustion, with his whole body overwhelmed with sweat.
He emerged from the shaft into an unoccupied house fifty metres away.
He could hear the sirens of an approaching fire tender as he showered the grit from his body. All his movements were deliberately cool but he was as coiled up as a spring ready to spring out with devastating callousness. He was fuming so much that he was ready to deal with anyone who would dare stand in his way.
The Capo screamed and threw the bottle of beer in his hand against the wall. It shattered into smithereens and he cursed the incompetent nincompoops. As for that dadaba he is living on borrowed time, he thought. He was going to make him suffer so much that he was going to wish he was dead.
Meanwhile, Yoofi sent a long message to inspector Forson explaining everything that had happened to Rose and him; from the day they tried to abduct her, the threats, the burning of her home to the thefts of his shipments. Even though he now knew who the Capo was, he kept that to himself for the moment but gave out information on where Jack Palance could be found.
He went out astride a BMW motorbike and armed with a snub-nosed gun, in addition to his mobile phone which showed the location of Jack Palance.
He rode furiously towards the large house which was just out of town where he was having a celebratory drink with three men.
He parked the bike, secured it to a tree and walked silently through the wild grass and trees that surrounded the house. He paused from time to time to check his progress and to watch out for any opposition. He peeked from behind a large tree and was just in time to see Jack Palance say something to some armed men which got them laughing before he went into the large house. The men seemed to be sentries of some sort who were guarding the house.
Yoofi crouched as he went swiftly towards the clueless men.
All three men were shocked at the sight of the crash-helmeted apparition that suddenly appeared before them. He attacked before either of them could recover from the shock, and with devastating finesse, he soon had all of them writhing on the ground from different degrees of injuries without receiving a single punch in return. As quickly as he could, like the man on a mission that he was, he trussed them up and stepped into the house in search of his quarry.
He went in, gun aimed in readiness, went on in the house searching for Jack Palance.
He found him at last teasingly slapping a tied-up woman who was shouting defiantly at him. That voice sounded familiar. It was Rose and Pam, and they were lying on the dirty floor with their hands tightly bound behind them.
”You really shouldn’t have touched her, you know,” Yoofi said quietly, almost lazily from the doorway as he put his gun back into the hostler.
The hoodlum swirled around in panic, and as if with magic, a large knife appeared in his hand as he straightened up into a fighting stance with a wicked smile on his face.
Yoofi went straight at him, easily parrying the upward knife thrust away with his right hand while his left hand hit it in a sandwich.
Jack’s wrist snapped and the knife clattered to the ground. What followed was a drumbeat like a flurry of blows that beat into the body of Jack Palance so much that he was soon rendered senseless. A final blow, an uppercut took him off his feet and he fell backwards, hitting his head against the wall. He was out cold before Yoofi got to him.
He surveyed his handiwork for a split second and with the knife Jack Palance had so graciously discarded, he cut the ropes that bound the girls. Rose slumped with relief into his welcoming arms while Pam went to the unconscious man and stumped on his balls with such viciousness that even Yoofi was appalled and she struggled to inflict more damage as he pulled her away.
”I think there are more hostages in the house,” Rose told him when her sister had calmed down. He tied up Jack Palance tightly with no regard to his blood circulation before he left with the girls in tow in search of the other hostages. They found them in a stuffy room down the long hallway. He wasn’t surprised when he saw that they were his cousin and uncle who looked as if he was going to have a fit. He was so mad at the way he had been treated that he would have taken a swing at his captor, had he appeared in front of him.
”We received a call that your house was on fire and that you had been taken to the hospital so as we waited, as per instructions for the caller to lead us to the hospital, we were forcibly brought here at gunpoint,” Ursula explained when they were untied and were waiting for the police to arrive.
”What about you guys? How did you find your way here,” he asked the siblings.
”A policeman arrived at our hotel and told us the same story only to be brought here at gunpoint,” Rose explained in anger for allowing herself to be tricked.
”Don’t worry. They’ll pay for this.”
”Can I use your phone for a minute?” Ursula said.
”What for. To cancel your flight?”
”No. To call Kofi. He needs to know I am all right,” she explained tiredly.
”Well, well, well. Who would have thought that Ursula would ever fall in love? Ask him to bring a big car as I came with just a motorbike,” he said with a cunning look on his face as he handed the phone over to her.
The police arrived in no time and immediately took charge of the situation.
Kofi Aboabo arrived when the police were in the process of cuffing the criminals and went to give Ursula a comforting hug.
When the men had been taken away and it seemed they also had to leave in Kofi’s SUV.
”Ursula, please help uncle into the van,” he told her in a tone of voice that left no room for any argument. His eyes were sharp-looking, missing nothing.
She found the request strange but didn’t have the strength to argue with him so she disengaged herself from Kofi’s hand and went to stand with her father.
Yoofi then beckoned to Inspector Forson who was getting ready to drive away to delay his departure for a while.
”Inspector, please arrest this man,” Yoofi said, hoping that Forson was going to act smart.
The policeman’s eyes narrowed and he drew his gun and pointed it at the shocked Kofi Aboabo. To say that they were all shocked and confused at the turn of events was putting it mildly.
”May I please introduce to you all Mr Kofi Aboabo, the CEO of Proud Kokonte United Football Club, aka Capo, aka Capone, aka Kabo, depending on how you see him. He was the one who tried to kill Rose and I. He’s also the one who on many occasions stole my imported items amongst other criminal activities which are too numerous for me to say here. Take him away and I’ll be at the station to make a formal complaint.”
Inspector Forson was confused even though he and his men had drawn their guns. He was hesitant to arrest the man he knew was an engineer of high standing, a football personality and a member of a juvenile national team management committee.
”Don’t be ridiculous. Why are you doing this Yoofi? What are you trying to do,” Kofi said with indignation. He was outraged, to say the least, and picked a handkerchief from his pocket to wipe a speck from his face.
”Yoofi, you are wrong. Kofi is the most gentle and respectful man I have ever come across,” Ursula said and tried to go back to him but her father who beheld a shrewd look on his face suddenly held her back.
”Yes, Mr Baiden. I need proof before I make any arrest, I am sorry,” Forson said and made a move to turn away.
”You and I saw what the dying men wrote at the hospital. Capo, Capone, Kabo. Capo and Capone mean leader of a criminal organization.”
”What about Kabo,” Kofi who had now become very angry spat at him
” Kabo is a shortened form of Kofi Aboabo,” he shot back at him.
”You are crazy. What do I know about poisons in order to poison people.”
”Don’t try my patience, Kofi. Who said anything about poisoning here? Anyway, you know more about poison than anyone I know. The breeding farm you constantly boast of having worked on was a snake breeding farm. Don’t insult my intelligence. I know about the girls’ trafficking and the arm robberies too. I have a whole lot on you. With audio/visual evidence. Especially that part where you constantly referred to me as dadaba and a spoiled brat.” Yoofi ended with a wide cynical smile.
”You, you, compared to Yoofi would rather be the spoiled brat,” Rose said, beginning to see the light.
”Yes, you are right Ro love. I know about the warehouse full of stolen goods. Search his home and you’ll find all the fake Sim cards he had been using to torment people.”
”Kofi. Is it true? Are you the man he says you are?” Ursula cried, not knowing whom to believe as she came to stand closer to him.
”Don’t go close to him!” Yoofi screamed at his distraught cousin. ”The ring he’s wearing conceals a poisonous pin.”
What?” she cried nearly jumping out of her skin in fear.
”Yes. He wears a Borgia-like ring which when twisted exposes a poisoned needle which when he scratches you with gets you dead in no time.”
Inspector Forson, in a decisive move, handcuffed Kofi Aboabo, carefully relieved him of the dangerous ring and took him into custody.
ONE WEEK LATER
They were all present in the large conference hall of the police headquarters and Inspector Forson, looking sharp in a 3 piece suit, was briefing them and the press on how the police with vital information provided by patriotic citizens had arrested a dangerous criminal, Kofi Aboabo, aka Capo, Capone, Kabo and Kwamena Agogo who had eluded the police for a long time.
He spoke for a long time giving out the long list of crimes the criminal kingpin and his gang had committed and asked for patience for the police to tie all the loose ends for the eventual prosecution.
”Thank you all for coming.”
”I never knew his other name was Kwamena Agogo,” Ursula said sadly at the turn of events. She was amazed that she who prided herself on being able to instantly spot shady characters could be so mistaken about him.
”That man is a chameleon and all the credit goes to Mr Baiden for exposing him” Forson said as they sat down for a special lunch
”I have one more question, but for Yoofi this time. Was he the main reason why you wanted me to leave for a vacation in Dubai with Daddy?” Ursula asked.
”Of course. My nephew is a very astute young man,” Baiden Snr said and raised his glass to toast to the health of his nephew.
”I also have a question,” Pam raised her arm and asked ”Was Kofi Aboabo the reason why you arranged the scholarship, dear brother-in-law?”
Rose’s mouth opened with astonishment, having suddenly realized that her sister could be right.
Yoofi just nodded and hoped that they would understand his noble intentions.
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