Today was not going to be a good day. I had spent most of the night awake after having a bad dream at around 2am, and right now I was just staring at the ceiling waiting for my alarm to ring again so I can put it on 'snooze' or 'dismiss' depending on the time and my mood. I couldn't remember what the dream was about again, but I know it had left me with chills different from that of the dry harmattan air.

With just 2 days left to Christmas, today was one of those days where I didn't have any gigs lined up for the rest of the month seeing as I had made enough in the previous months from being a bouncer and graphic designer to coast me through this month. With the extra time on my hands I had spent most of it preparing to make Christmas special for a special someone. I had gotten the perfect gift thanks to a little help from her sister, and I had also designed a game activity that we were going to play with her friends and family to make new memories on Christmas, thanks to the internet. And now with thanks to YouTube all that was left was for me to perfect making her favourite dish of jollof rice and turkey seeing as cooking wasn't one of my strongest suits.

My alarm rang again and just as I hit the 'dismiss' button I noted the time was 7:20am and decided to get out of bed and start my day. I put on a white t-shirt and a pair of joggers and did my daily set of pushups. When I was done I made my way the little corner of my self-contained apartment that held my gas cooker and started preparing a plate of jollof rice for Angela-my next door neighbour-to help me taste it and give me feedback. Ever since I moved into this apartment building nine months ago, Angela has always been the one to help me with feedback on any dish I cook for a special occasion. The main reason I needed her to help me taste my food was because I happened to have been born with a condition called congenital analgesia, which is basically a term used to describe an inability to feel physical pain and one of the rare genetic mutations that gave me this condition also meant that my sense of smell and taste weren't very good, and as if that wasn't enough I also couldn't feel fear and anxiety cause I never got an adrenaline rush. My parents had basically known something was wrong with me when they gave birth to me and realised that I wasn't crying. It took a lot of time and money for them to find out what was wrong with me but when they did it explained a whole lot and my childhood took a very introverted turn. But with the exception of my dead parents, there were only two people in my life who knew of my condition and I couldn't risk making Angela being the third or anyone else for that matter, I was way too scared of how people will treat me differently and the invasive questions they might ask so instead I just told Angela that I couldn't taste or smell because of the COVID pandemic that had happened and so far that lie seemed to work.

When the rice was done I turned off the gas and made my way to my phone that was on my bed to play some music while I was in the bathroom. But before I could play the music or enter the bathroom, I saw thirteen missed calls and twice as many messages that I had somehow missed when I turned off my alarm. The missed calls and messages were from a good friend of mine called Janet Emokaro.

Janet worked with the foundation of investigative journalism and was one of the many reporters in the organisation who had devoted their life to doing the dangerous work of exposing the corruption within Nigerian institutions and in a sane society such work would've been applauded, but this was Nigeria where things worked backwards and the only reward they got for such dangerous work was getting a target on their back from the Nigerian government. There was no denying that their work had real impact and saved lives and I should know seeing as I was one of the people whose life had been saved by coming into contact with Janet and the foundation. Back when I was in the army and had worked with in military intelligence, I had been Janet's contact in exposing a major general who sent soldiers to fight bandits and terrorists with faulty weapons so that when they eventually got killed he could illegally take the money that was owed to their families. And that was just scratching the tip of the iceberg because he also got a cut out of procuring those faulty weapons. And in one of those rare moments where justice is served in Nigeria, we actually got him to go into early retirement. Now that's not compensation enough for all the heinous stuff he did, but it was a small victory nonetheless. All this to say, that Janet took down a high ranking officer in the Nigerian army and didn't scare easy despite the enemies it made her, so for her to call me this many times meant something had seriously spooked her.

I opened the string of messages she sent me and started reading through them and just as I was about to put the final piece of information together I received another call from her. This time I picked it up so fast like my life depended on it. "Where have you been? I've been trying to reach you for the past hour!!" Her voice was dripping with fear.

"I'm sorry. I was busy. When did they take her?" I asked.

"Sometime yesterday. It was late in the evening. They took her when she was coming into town. She was abducted right at the bus park. Like how does that even happen?"

"They probably posed as a cab driver…or used one. When did you get the ransom request?"

"This morning. They sent her picture holding up a cardboard with the amount they want written on it." She took a deep breath before she continued, so far she had managed to answer my questions without losing it but I could tell she was hanging on by a thread. "I really need your help here Briggs. I can't go to the police with this, they don't exactly like my guts right now and you're the only one I could reach out to for help. Besides you owe me."

She was right, that I did owe her. After we exposed the military general, he found out I was one of the people who exposed him and started hunting me down. And Janet was the one who had made me disappear. She used her contacts in other agencies to set me up with a new identity. A little bribe here and a little favour there went a long way in making sure I became a new person and it had been a while since I had heard my real name. Briggs. For some reason people usually referred to me by my last name but never the first which was Joshua and I had never bothered to wonder why, I just rolled with it.

"I'll get your sister back Janet. I promise. But I'm going to need you to get your hands on as much money as you can. There's no way we're going to meet their initial demand of 10 million naira, so we're gonna have to bargain and lower the price. Also did they say when and where you should deliver the money?"

"No. They just said they'll call tomorrow by 10am with instructions on where to deliver the money."

"Okay. You get your hands on as much you can and then get back to me by the end of today. In the meantime I need to get to ring road and get some equipment if we're going to find your sister."

"Okay. Thank you."

"Don't thank me yet. One last question, who else knows about this?"

"Just you and my parents. I had to tell them cause they're also in town for the holidays"

"Okay good. Keep it that way. And don't tell anyone else. Especially if they're family."

"Why not?"

"Because a lot of times when someone is kidnapped a family member is usually involved."

There was a pause before she said, "Okay. I won't tell anyone else."

"Good. Now I gotta go. I'll call you later once I get what I need. Okay?"

"Okay"

I cut the call, took of my clothes and made my way to the bathroom to take a bath. Once I was done I put on a black long sleeved shirt with navy blue trousers and a pair of black shoes. As I put on my watch and prepared to leave I realised two things. For starters, I was right that today wasn't going to be a good day and secondly Angela was not going to taste the rice I had cooked.

In Benin city, if you wanted to buy computers you made your way to mission road and if you wanted to buy phones you made your way to airport road, so I got into a bus from Ugbowo where I stayed to the centre of Benin city called ring road. Ring road was the Nexus of road transportation in Benin city, all roads literally connected to this massive roundabout. It was the transportation heartbeat of the city. Airport road was my first destination. I just needed to buy an android phone that was Google enabled. And once I was done getting the phone I made my way to mission road. Amidst the young men who were clamouring to me to check out their shop as I walked down the street, there was young man in his early twenties who wore a red shirt with a blue power button design on it. He stood beside a green story building who just looked at me once over while leaning on the building. I walked up to him and said the passcode. He smiled and turned around and led me down a path beside the building and we meandered our way through other buildings for a minute until we finally reached our destination which was just another store hidden in the midst of taller buildings and had only one entry point. We made our way in and to the left of the store sitting behind a desk working on a disassembled laptop was a face I hadn't seen in years. And the look on his face was also one filled with surprise.

"Hello Chuks" I said with a little smile.

"Briggs??"

"The one and only."

"I thought you were dead."

"You thought right." I said with another little smile. Chuks got the message and nodded his head ever so slightly and asked. "What do you need old friend?". I showed him a paper of the list of things I'd written. He looked at it and nodded and said. "Wait here." He made his way out of the store and 10 minutes later he came back with a black school bag and said "Everything you need is in here."

"Good. How much will it cost?"

"Nothing" he said. And I froze as my hand was on its way to my back pocket to get my wallet.

"That's not possible Chuks. Tell me what it'll cost. I can't take charity."

"It's not charity. It's a debt I owe and you know it. You helped me find my son's killer and this doesn't come close to repaying you for that."

"Okay but-"

"No buts. Just think of it as an early Christmas gift."

"Very well then. Thank you" I said and gave him a hug.

"Compliments of the season, Briggs. I wish you the best."

The young man I had given the passcode to escorted me back through the maze of buildings back to mission road where we had met. And as I was waiting for a bus to get back to ring road, Janet called me and delivered the bad news. They had called her and moved the timeline to today. They had sent her an address to deliver the money by 7pm this night. After receiving the news, I calmed her down, got in a cab and went straight to her family house at 1st Ugbor road in G. R. A.

When I got to their place, I spent about an hour and a half talking to their parents and reassuring them and calming them down because they were angry that they couldn't contact any security agency because Janet had managed to get on the bad side of the police since she exposed a branch of theirs for illegally detaining people and extorting them. Her parents eventually went into their room to pray and it was just me and her left in the sitting room. We still had about three hours before the deadline and so far they had managed to come up with half a million naira and that'll have to do given how the kidnappers wanted to rush things. I told Janet my plan to bring back her sister and when I was done she nodded her head and said "Are you sure this will work?"

"It'll have to. But will your parents allow me to deliver the money and talk to the kidnappers?"

"They'll have to. We don't have much of a choice." She sighed deeply as she sat on the sofa. I excused myself to go to the bathroom but instead I branched off into her sister's room and looked around a bit and when I had found what I was looking for I put it in my pocket and made my way back to the living room. "One more thing," I said as I came back into the living room. "I'm going to need your car and phone. In case they call you back, I'll need to be the one speaking to them." She hesitated a moment processing what I just said before she gave me her car keys and then she brought out her phone and her fingers tapped on the screen before she gave it to me and said "I just removed the password so you won't have any issues with it."

"Thanks" I replied.

"You know it's funny. My parents named her Carol because she was born on Christmas Day. They named her after one of their favourite Christmas carols 'silent night'." She paused. "If you bring her back in one piece you might just save Christmas for us this year." She said with a dry laugh. She looked tired and worn out and just on the verge of losing it. Today had been a bad day for her. "Everything will be fine Janet. I'll bring her back in time just for Christmas." And just in time for me to perfect her favourite dish that I cooked earlier this morning. But I didn't say that last part out, instead I just hugged her, carried the Ghana-must-go of money in the living room, got into her car and started driving towards ring road once again. And while I was driving I couldn't shake off the feeling that something was wrong. I thought it was a little strange that they had changed the time and they were rushing this. So i took out Janet's phone, checked her call history and when I found what I was looking for I navigated to her messages and sent a message to the kidnappers that said I had the money and was ready to meet. The kidnappers were using Carol's phone to communicate with Janet so it was Carol's name that showed as the contact. They messaged back almost immediately with a location for the drop off. I drove to the location. It was a shopping mall off sapele road, I drove in and parked but before I texted them that I was waiting I went into the mall and bought some change of clothes for Carol and some snacks and made my way back to the car. Once in the car I reached into the bag Chuks had given me on the passenger seat and pulled out a gun and checked that it was loaded before I tucked it into the waist line of my trousers at my back and concealed it under my shirt. Next I got out a tiny GPS tracker and synced it to the new phone I bought earlier at Airport road and reached behind the passenger seat where the Ghana-must-go of money was unzipped it and shoved the tracker deep down to the bottom of the bag where it wasn't very noticeable and then zipped up the bag. One could easily get one of these trackers from any e-commerce site like Jumia or Amazon but I had asked Chuks for it cause I couldn't wait for them to be delivered and right now I was happy I did. Cause it would prove to be very useful later on. I reached back into the bag and brought out a red coloured Alox Swiss army knife. I folded my sleeves on both arms and tucked it into the folded left sleeve. And then I reached back into the bag and brought out the last item. A smart watch. I removed my current watch and wore the new watch and dumped my old watch in the glove compartment. I put Carol's new change of clothes and the snacks I had bought in the bag and then zipped it back up. And then I put the new phone I had bought on airplane mode and shoved it into the glove compartment along with what I had lifted from Carol's room. And then I took out Janet's phone and texted them that I was at the mall and then 15 minutes later a big mean looking man wearing a black t-shirt and jeans with combat boots got into the front passenger seat with me and only uttered one word. "Drive". I started the car, kicked it into gear and drove out of the shopping mall. The man had a scar on his face, running diagonally from the top of his left eyebrow to his right cheek. He had a gun that was aimed at my midsection. And I laughed a bit on the inside cause unless that gun was aimed at a vital organ it wasn't going to do much to me if he shot me with it seeing as I couldn't feel any pain. We drove in silence, with him only breaking the silence to give me directions. We drove past the bypass leading into Benin and we were basically on the outskirts of town when he directed me to turn onto a dirt road and we drove down the road for close to an hour at which point we came upon an unpainted two storey building surrounded by really thick vegetation. I parked behind a white Toyota Hilux and turned off the engine. We got out of the car and I opened the back door and brought out the Ghana-must-go and the school bag with the change of clothes and the snacks and made my way towards the building with the man aiming the gun at my back and I took note of how quiet the area was and was happy that it was this far removed from society because no one would hear the sounds of these people as I killed them.

By this time it was pretty dark out and I heard the sound of a generator powering some of the lights on in the building. It was an uncompleted two storey building, there was light on the ground floor of the building. The building was yet to be fitted with doors and windows so it was just open for easy access. We made our way inside and I was greeted with the sight of four masked men and one man in the midst of them who was unmasked and looked like he was in charge. The four men were brandishing AK-47's and had pistols holstered on their sides. The unmasked man only had a holstered pistol and with his arms behind his back and an evil smile he said. "Welcome Mr Briggs. We've been expecting you." And that was the second time today someone had addressed me by my real name which confirmed to me that this was no ordinary kidnapping. I put the Ghana-must-go and the school bag down while they frisked me and found only the gun that I had put behind my back. They didn't find the Swiss army knife. They started unloading the money in the Ghana-must-go to start counting the money in it, and I just hoped they never found the tracker at the bottom of the bag by the time I was done with them. They checked the school bag and saw the change of clothes and snacks and zipped it back up and put it back down beside the Ghana-must-go. Before the unmasked man could say anything, I said, "The clothes and snacks are for her." And he just nodded. And while they were counting the money I asked, "Where is she?". The unmasked man nodded at the man with the scar who still had his gun trained on me and he nodded at the stairs at which point I carried the school bag and made my way upstairs. The building was still pretty much uncompleted so the stairs didn't have a railing and the walls were plastered in some places but not in others. I made my way up the stairs onto the first floor. The man with the scar nodded at a room to my right and I noticed it was the only room on the floor with a door. I opened the door and saw the woman that I had spent my morning learning how to make her favourite dish, was tied to the burglarproof iron of the window and had her mouth gagged. We made eye contact and our eyes both said that we were relieved to see each other and as I moved across the room to hug her, the man with the scar holstered his gun, closed the door behind him as he entered into the room and stood in front of the door. As we hugged with my back to the man, I surreptitiously removed the Swiss knife from my folded sleeve and held it in my palm as I removed the gag from her mouth and kissed her and then unzipped the school bag and brought out the snacks to feed her.

"What are you doing here?" She said

"Well I was passing through the neighborhood and decided to drop in and see if you needed help taking the trash out." I replied with a slight nod to the scarred man manning the door. She smiled and despite the conditions we were in my heart fluttered. I couldn't wait to kill these guys. So I got started on that plan and asked the scarred man if I could untie her from the burglary window and when he nodded his approval I leaned in to untie her and whispered to her the first step of the plan and when I was done untying her she kissed me. The kiss was to show me that she was onboard with the plan. I gave her the bag and said "There's a change of clothes in there. You might want to change before we get you home." She ate the meatpie and Fanta before she took the bag from me said thank you and made her way into the uncompleted bathroom to the side of the room and closed the door behind her. The scarred man looked at ease as all this happened. A few minutes passed and when Carol opened the door his eyes swivelled in her direction and in that split second I rushed towards him with the knife still in my hand and as his eyes moved back to me everything else that followed happened in slow motion. His hand was already on his gun and had brought it out of the holster but before he could raise it to aim at me, I grabbed that arm and held it there and in one swift motion I stabbed him with the knife in the neck with my other hand. He managed to shoot the gun while I still held his arm in place, which if I'm being honest wasn't part of my plan. So I left the knife in his neck, and using both of my hands holding the arm with the gun I turned around really fast and flipped him over my shoulder as his body made a loud thud on the floor. I spun around and placed a knee on his chest and knocked the gun out of his hand by slamming his arm into the floor and then I brought my hand back to the knife in his neck and dragged it across his throat tearing it open and killing him instantly. I heard the sound of footsteps bounding up the stairs so I quickly rolled over to where the gun had slid, picked it up and with one knee on the ground looking like I was about to propose I aimed it at the door just as it burst open and one of the masked men pointed the gun at me and we both shot at the same time, his bullet hitting me in my thigh and mine leaving a hole in his forehead. I couldn't feel anything in my left thigh, all I knew was that it wasn't working properly anymore but I managed to get up with my good leg, made my way to the man I had shot, tucked the pistol I had lifted from the man I had stabbed, I picked up the AK-47 from the dead man and then stuck my head in the hallway as I heard the unmasked man shouting at another person to pack the money and deliver it to their Oga and told the other two to come upstairs and deal with us while he called their Oga to let him know what happened. I went to check on Carol who had hidden in the bathroom once all the action started and had covered her ears. I gave her the pistol, took the bag from her and told her to stay put and that it would soon be over. She looked at me scared but nodded and complied. I took the bag and limped into the hallway and heard the other two men making their way up the stairs very slowly crunching concrete as they made their way up. I stood beside the wall and hung the AK-47 across my shoulder as I clicked a few buttons on my smart watch. Then I lifted the bag and threw it at the stairs and jumped to the floor and covered my ears just as the bag exploded amidst the cries of the masked men. As the dust was settling I heard the Toyota Hilux engine come on and the driver manoeuvred their way out of the bush and sped off down the dirt road. I managed to get up with my good leg just as Carol stuck her head out of the room with both hands holding the pistol. I put up my hand to signal to her to wait. Still scared, she nodded in agreement. I turned back to where the stairs used to be and just saw rubble and two dead bodies. There were a total of six men who conducted this operation. I had killed four, which left two alive. One of whom had driven the Hilux away and that left the other one unaccounted for. Unless both of them had driven off together. A shot rang out from below the ground I was standing on just as a bullet sped past just a few inches from my head and hit the roof. Two more shots followed me as I dived into the room opposite the one where Carol was held. Whoever was left was tracking the sound of my footsteps and was trying to shoot me through the floor. This room didn't have a door and the window was open and didn't have any iron welded to it to prevent burglars. I got up from the floor with all the speed I could muster and ran towards the window and threw the AK-47 ahead of me out the window as a few more shots kept flying from the bottom of the ground. I dived out of the window and rolled on the floor to break my fall and prevent any of my bones from breaking and I landed on my back just a few feet away from the AK-47 in the space where the Hilux was parked. I rolled over to the gun and picked it up and raised it towards the door I had entered earlier just as the unmasked man who was in charge came out with his pistol pointed at me and pulled the trigger and the only sound that filled the space was a click. He was out of bullets. His life flashed before his eyes as I pulled my trigger and the bullet exploded his head and his body fell with a soft thud. I dropped the gun and limped back into the building and called Carol and told her she could come out now. She came to the edge of where the stairs used to be, dropped the pistol and jumped into my arms. And we just stayed there for a while hugging each other as tears flowed down our eyes. On our way back to her sister's car I stopped at the body of the man who was in charge and reached into his pocket and took out his phone and when we got to the car, I entered the front passenger seat and she entered the driver's seat and started the engine. There was no way I was going to drive with my bad leg. And just as she put the car into gear to move she said. "You know it'll be pretty difficult for me to see at this time of the night so you might want to strap in." I smiled knowingly and opened the glove compartment and brought out what I had lifted from her room. She took her glasses from me and laughed as she wore it.

"I had a feeling you'd say that so I brought the spare you keep in your room."

She looked at me through the frames for a minute and then leaned in to kiss me. And while she was kissing me she unhooked my belt and I pulled away and said. "Umm…I don't think now is an appropriate time for-"

"Keep quiet. I need to tie this around your leg and stop you from bleeding in my sister's car."

"Oh…"

"What did you think I was going to do? Flog you with it?" She said with a look of mischievousness written on her face as she tied the belt around my leg.

"I mean a man can only dream can't he?"

"God you're disgusting."

"Disgustingly cute? Yeah I agree."

She laughed as she kicked the car into gear and drove us out of there.

We made it back to her family house at some time close to midnight. Her parents and her sister were both overjoyed and kept thanking god and me for bringing her back home safely. Amidst all the celebration I asked to Janet to help drive me back to my place given the state of my leg and she was happy to do it seeing as that was the least she could do for me for bringing her sister back. While she drove me back to my place I decided to address the elephant in the car.

"The general I helped you expose kidnapped your sister so that you'll give me up didn't he?" I asked. She was shocked that I knew but her shock only lasted a minute before she responded.

"Yes. How did you-"

"I saw your call history. They were using Carol's phone to communicate with you. And I thought it didn't make sense that they called to have the money delivered today once I entered in the picture. So I checked your call history and noticed that just before you called me to tell me that they had moved up the timeline, you called them and that call had lasted about 5 minutes. Now why would you call the people who kidnapped your sister if you weren't in on it too?"

"I see." She said. Then a few minutes later added. "I'm sorry Briggs. I didn't know what to do."

"It's fine. I'm not mad at you, I would probably have done the same if I were in your shoes. But I've made sure this is the last time they'll ever hurt someone I care about."

"What do you mean? What did you do?"

"Let's just say that I've been running away for too long and it's time I was the one who started doing the hunting." I said as I reached into the glove compartment and brought out the phone that I had bought earlier and turned off the airplane mode and saw the tracker I had placed in the Ghana-must-go moving on the map.

When we reached our destination I got out of the car, closed the door, leaned on the window and said. "I'm going to be gone for a while. I need you to tell Carol that I'm sorry I won't be around for Christmas."

"Okay. But will you be around for Christmas next year?"

"That depends."

"On what?"

"On whether I can stop something like this from happening next Christmas."

"Do you think you'll be able to?"

I looked at the phone in my hand tracking the bag of money and the bullet wound in my thigh and then back at her and said "Yeah. I'm pretty sure I can stop this from happening again."