“Boss!” He was deep in thought when he heard the voice shouting his name.
“What the fuck do you want?” he grunted when the youth barged into his room. Of all the places in the camp, this was the one where no one entered without being invited first, even those closest to him.
“There’s a car… Heading this way.”
“And what the fuck do you expect me to do about it?”
“But after the last time…”
“That was a truck. Is this a truck?”
“No. It….”
“Is it speeding towards us as if the hounds of hell are on its back?”
“No, it’s just driving towards us.”
“Then do you want me to come out and hold your fucking hand? Or can you be trusted to deal with it yourself?”
He was already on his feet and slipping on his jacket.
He didn’t need it; he never needed it, but it was like armor. He felt the weight of the gun he kept in the pocket.
Danjuma pulled the car to a halt a short distance from the huge double gates set into the outer wall of the compound and stared at it for a while.
Even if he hadn’t known what this place had been in its previous life, up close he would have been able to guess. The place looked run down, with fire scars and patched up sections of breeze block filling what had once been holes in the wall.
“I don’t know about you,” said Keno, “but I have a bad feeling about this place.”
Danjuma grunted.
Something told him that whoever had taken to squatting in there wasn’t keen on visitors. That was enough to make him wary. And it convinced him they were in the right place.
“Now why would these people feel the need to post a couple of men on the walls?” He had already made their rifles. They were expecting trouble. Or if not expecting it, prepared for it.
“What the fuck do you want?” demanded a voice from the top of the wall. Danjuma had faced plenty of men like this one; emboldened by the gun in their hands and looking for an excuse to use it.
“Are you in charge?” Danjuma called up, calmly, but loud enough for his voice to carry.
“You're wasting your time.”
“It’s my time to waste. I’m looking for someone.”
“What makes you think he’s here?”
“What makes you think he isn’t?” Danjuma took a few strides closer to the wall, partly so that he didn’t have to shout, and partly so he could get a better look at the man. “Aren’t you going to invite me in, so we don’t have to keep on shouting?”
“Just fuck off will you. There’s nothing for you here.”
He took a risk, and said, “I’m looking for Lebna.” He saw the man’s expression change in an instant. It was a flicker, and didn’t last for more than a heartbeat, but Danjuma saw it. At the mention of the name the man disappeared off the wall, no doubt running to tell who was really in charge, and that meant he’d come to the right place.
“No one called Lebna here,” the other man fronted, ignoring the fact that his watch partner’s disappearance into the compound contradicted every word coming out of his mouth. His grip on the rifle changed.
“You sure about that? Because I’m not sure I believe you.”
The man shifted again. Sweat glistened on his forehead.
“There’s no one called Lebna here,” the man repeated, less certain this time. “Why are you so sure that he comes here?”
“He owes me,” Danjuma said. “He promised me he had friends out here who would front him the debt, so I’ve come to collect.”
“Naw, that’s bullshit,” the guard said, but before Danjuma could counter he stepped aside to let a hulk of a man take his place on the wall.
“Who the fuck are you?” the hulk said.
He had the aura of someone used to being obeyed.
“I’m looking for Lebna,” he repeated.
“Maybe your hearing ain’t so good. I asked, who the fuck are you?”
“Doesn’t matter who I am? You’re going to let me talk to Lebna, there’s no more to say.”
“There’s no Lebna here, so just fuck off and don’t bother coming back.” He then turned away and disappeared out of sight.
Danjuma waited for a moment, just so he could see the guard step back onto the battlements and thrust out his chest with renewed bravado.
“You heard Boss,” the guard said. “Now fuck the fuck off.”
Danjuma knew that he could have given Keno the nod and he could have dropped him from this distance before the man had realized what was happening, but now wasn’t the time.
He wanted to find out as much as he could about whatever went on behind those walls.
A wise man knew his enemy and learned everything there was to know about them so that when it came to breaking them there wasn’t a bone left that didn’t snap.