The Touch Read online

  About the Author

  I am a qualified chartered accountant with the ACCA and I also have two degrees in Agric Economics and Accounting. I currently work with a multinational as an accountant.

  I am a lover of entertainment in all its forms.

  This book is a work of fiction; I did a review and have come up with a percentage of a hundred, thus publicly declaring that this story is truly for the purpose of entertainment.

  With all that said, it is also proper for me to identify that all fictional works, just like this one, have elements of truth that have been rearranged; in other words, a story has been told here that never existed, but in actual fact, key elements in it really did.

  The Touch

  Bill O. A.

  The Touch

  Olympia Publishers

  London

  www.olympiapublishers.com

  OLYMPIA EBOOK EDITION

  Copyright © Bill O. A. 2020

  The right of Bill O. A.to be identified as author of

  this work has been asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  All Rights Reserved

  No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication

  may be made without written permission.

  No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced,

  copied or transmitted save with the written permission of the publisher, or in accordance with the provisions

  of the Copyright Act 1956 (as amended).

  Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to

  this publication may be liable to criminal

  prosecution and civil claims for damage.

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is

  available from the British Library.

  ISBN: 978-1-78830-741-3

  This is a work of fiction.

  Names, characters, places and incidents originate from the writer’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  First Published in 2020

  Olympia Publishers

  Tallis House

  2 Tallis Street

  London

  EC4Y 0AB

  Dedication

  To my mother, Julie U. A.

  Your immense love, sacrifice and pushing spirit has made me who I am today.

  Sometimes words can’t say it all.

  Acknowledgements

  I always welcome any opportunity to tell a story, so here I am with a chance to tell a very short story that will culminate with the individuals I give thanks to in this section.

  Some years back, as a bartender in this rather exotic and classy club, I spent most of my weekends earning cash for my weekday studies in the university. On this particular Saturday, business in the morning was dull as usual, but two gentlemen stepped in for a quick drink. They came close to the bar, ordered what they needed and soon began a conversation. I kept to my quarters and was doing the best I could to keep the long mass of marble table in front of me clean, so I moved around a bit, right in front of these men. After a while, with nothing really much to do other than wait for more customers, I just eavesdropped into what these men were discussing.

  From their accents, I could tell that the man placing the order was an American, while his friend was French. For me, the takeaway from their discussion was that about eight months ago, the American had had lunch with the greatest chess player of all time, and at that special lunch they had a conversation; this is what the American was telling his French friend.

  It was a meeting of minds, and the bottom line in all this was that the American claimed this Russian Grand Master, at the peak of his highest performance, could think fifteen moves ahead with six to seven possible variances of the fifteen moves. The icing was in the creativity accompanying this unique display of mental prowess; this was truly a great feat for the human mind.

  I couldn’t stop thinking about this. The number fifteen kept resonating in my mind; I had come across this number before but in a different situation. I closed for the day and went to my apartment in the hostel. I was just about to open the door to my room when it came straight at me; my roomie had come across a copy of an antique diary that, his professor had told him, once belonged to Agatha Christie. I remember my curious mind going through her personal daily experiences. I got into the room and searched for that photocopy, but I couldn’t find it. I was about to forget about it when I decided to check my roomie’s laptop.

  Behold, there it was; a scanned copy was clearly saved. A few minutes later, I found what I was looking for. The best-selling novelist of all time wrote about a particular day, when she had written exactly fifteen different scenes in relation to a book she was working on. She wrote about how she had coined out different approaches in her story mentally and still achieved what she wanted. She ended her notes saying that the real joy is in the creativity and all the possible directions or variances that could have been.

  I lay in bed that night and my mind went on a trip. Here I was with one of the finest Grand Masters the literary world has ever produced, thinking many years ahead before another Grand Master in another profession thought in her same line; I relished in this discovery.

  I am sure an invite to lunch with Garry Kasparov to discuss items in this antique dairy would be highly welcomed.

  Okay, I will cut the story short. As you might have already guessed, my thanks go to all members of the literary world in its entirety, both past and present. Your individual work has helped shaped my mind these past decades, and I know within me, your efforts as ‘Grand Masters’ or ‘Masters’ have informally trained me, and I am immensely grateful.

  PROLOGUE

  South-Eastern Nigeria

  16 February 2010, 4:20 p.m.

  “Bishop.”

  Hearing his former nickname sounded so tense in the chief priest’s shrine. How time flies. About ten years ago, Alhaji was in this same shrine committing the unthinkable just to strike a deal for wealth and its accompanying fame. Today, he no longer goes by that nickname. He is not even a publicly practising Christian; the price he has to pay for the new life he leads.

  “Aha, Chief Priest. I see your memory is as sharp as when we first met.”

  “Of course, it is. I know my 430 customers by heart, after all they are the only members of society that patronize the east god.”

  “Four hundred and thirty,” Alhaji said with exclamation and surprise, “I never knew we were so many. Do we all seek wealth or are there other things your customers look for?”

  “Priest confidentiality,” the chief priest said cynically. “So what do I owe you for the visit? If I recall vividly, you have seven more years of wealth and fame before you kick the bucket.”

  Alhaji shivered at the rather insouciant attitude of the chief priest, but he knew the man was right. He had sacrificed human lives in a ritual that had provided him with wealth, immeasurable wealth. Forbes listed him as the fourth richest man in Africa, yet he knew he just had seven years more to live before his deal was up.

  But that wasn’t his immediate problem; he needed to get some kind of ritualistic approval to mix his blood with that of others. Alhaji was so meticulous that he had six pints of his own blood stored in case of emergencies, but this was a different matter entirely. His doctors in the USA were waiting for him; they had got the donor for the transplant and all was good to go, but Alhaji just couldn’t. He knew what was at stake.

  Alhaji briefly explained his situation to the chief priest and waited as the chief priest moved some of his accoutrement around.

  “This is a dilemma. The gods have spoken and it will be hard to make any adjustment, but you can be rest assured, Bishop, that our religion is flexible and liberal.”

&n
bsp; Alhaji just couldn’t tell the chief priest that he doesn’t go by that name anymore. In short, there were only a few who even know him by that name. As he was thinking inwardly, the chief priest interjected right into his thoughts and surprised Alhaji one more time.

  “So Bishop, the gods tell me that you are now a publicly declared Muslim. You pray five times a day, you have been to Mecca six times and your new nick name is ‘Alhaji’, but in actual fact all that is a façade. You still follow the Christian God secretly, you say your rosary in secret in the morning and evening, you celebrate Easter and Christmas, and even your kids have secret Bible names besides their official Muslim names. From what I can see, you are the most successful, dedicated and controversial customer to ever grace this shrine.”

  Alhaji was speechless; he just couldn’t understand how the chief priest could know all these things about him. Alhaji quickly adjusted.

  “Well, you know I am just moving with the times. It is a tough business world out there. The northerners are in charge of this country, and I have to seem acceptable to them.”

  “So, that is why you are adding sacrilege to your list of sins?”

  “Chief Priest, I really wonder whose side you are on. You are meant to be—”

  “All right Bishop, let us settle your matter before it gets too dark and you miss your way out of this jungle. Firstly, I will be honest with you, the pain on your left side, your kidney to be precise, is as a result of the gods. You see the gods are losing their potency. The truth is that the gods used to enjoy prayers, offerings and worship from about 30,000 followers in this community. This act of service enriches the gods with power. That number is down to a few hundred people with an additional 430 customers that present specific offerings for their needs. So you see, the gods have their own problems and they are finding it difficult to maintain status quo to all their customers. In other words, my old friend, the gods are making an offer to you, change your true religion from that of the Christian God and become a true follower of the east god, you and your household, and the gods will lift the seventeen-year deal you struck and allow you to live your life to the fullest. As you can see, we are flexible and liberal.”

  “I can never let my wife and kids know of what I have done here. There must be some other way.”

  “What other way can be as sweet as living to a ripe old age with all your wealth and fame? I truly feel that this is something you need to think about. But as usual, time is of the essence, Bishop.”

  “I still have seven years on my deal, at least give me that much time.”

  “That would be difficult as the potency of the gods is fading each day. The issue is now top urgent. I give you three months to decide if you want to be a worshipper or a customer. Now here comes the icing.” The chief priest raised his sceptre and put it into a locally made pot filed with blood and other items.

  He brought the sceptre out and said some incantations on the orb at the end of the rod. He then touched the left side of Alhaji, around his kidney area with the sceptre. In that very instant Alhaji’s pain disappeared.

  “That is just a gift. There are many more to come if you choose the right path. Become a true worshipper and experience all the other additions.”

  Alhaji felt alive again with the sudden loss of pain in his left side. He couldn’t believe what was happening to him, and in a matter of minutes he was whole again.

  “It is getting dark. I think it is best you leave now. Don’t forget, you just have three months to decide.”

  Alhaji rose from the mat he had been sitting on for the past one hour; it will take him about forty-five minutes to get to his entourage at the highway on the main road. He thanked the chief priest for all and promised to be back soon.

  As he left, he felt the cold breeze that had blown all those years ago when he came for that fateful ritual. He began to reminisce how events had occurred;

  He was just two months past his fortieth birthday and he had still felt oppressed by his contemporaries. He had no car and no house. His girlfriend for the past six years had left him and he was a mere civil servant in a north-western state in Nigeria. Those were not the aspirations he had when he was an undergraduate. Life and all its vicissitude.

  For some time now, he had considered the offer made to him by his old and trusted friend Azeem. They had gone to see the chief priest together on his first encounter and the main ingredient for the ritual was the blood of a set of twins. That was the stumbling block to his presumed wealth; he just couldn’t do it, taking human life was totally unthinkable to him. Then finally came the straw that broke the camel’s back. His mother had died and he couldn’t meet up the bills for the funeral, his right as the first son, he just couldn’t take it that his siblings had to arrange for the ceremony. Bishop called Azeem a week later and agreed to everything, he had made up his mind he was going to do it.

  Azeem had promised to help him with the logistics; mercenaries were brought in from the north-east of the country. To prevent any disappointment, there were two targets. A set of twins at Saint Joseph Primary School; they were in primary four and children to the Uzomas. The other twins were recently born and were at the Garkuwa Specialist Hospital. They were children of the Williamses.

  The plan was fool proof. Team Alpha was to go to the primary school, while Team Beta would go to the hospital. Both teams for the operation consisted of a black van, a driver and four field men, all experienced in this sort of thing. The operation’s central command provided state of the art communication devices for each team to use; the set time was forty-five minutes to conclude the kidnapping job after reaching the site of operation. Azeem had made sure his men had spent three days prior to take-off going through their roles. It was like stealing candy from a baby for these men; they couldn’t fathom the rigorous training.

  Team Beta got to their target’s site first. The hospital was in the southern part of the state, a forty-minute drive from central command. The four men came down and were dressed as doctors with fake ID cards clearly displayed on their breast pockets. They moved towards the entrance from the parking lot, knowing they had the advantage of an overcrowded hospital; this is typical of government-owned hospitals. The usual smell of a hospital was all in the air, strong disinfectants were commonly used in places like this.

  The names of Team Beta members for this operation were simple: Beta One, Beta Two, Beta Three and Beta Four. They split into two groups; Beta One and Beta Two went to the children’s ward where the Williamses’ twins were being taken care of, while Beta Three and Beta Four went to the building’s central air conditioning unit. The distraction was to cause a fire in the system that would trigger the fire alarm, hence, the expected evacuation of the whole building. This would give Beta One and Beta Two the necessary distraction to kidnap the twins, leave the building through the fire escape and head straight to their van.

  The two fake doctors on the maternity ward on the second floor had blended in perfectly. They were looking for the baby cot labelled Williamses’ baby; Beta One took a left turn at the entrance and began his search, while Beta Two went right and also began looking.

  A few steps into the ward, their communication device was filled with a static sound. They couldn’t hear clearly as some technological issue related with hospital equipment started interfering with their communication. This was unexpected as they needed to give the go-ahead to the group on the ground floor to start the fire.

  Beta Two found the cot labelled Williams’ baby, but there was only one child in the cot, the space for the second child was empty. He immediately improvised and asked a nurse nearby where the second twin was. He was told that the child had been taken to the neonatal unit for phototherapy; the child had mild infant jaundice.

  Beta Two immediately confirmed where the room for treatment was, and rolled the baby cot with the first twin to where Beta One was.

  “Great. You have found them,” said Beta One.

  “No sir. The second baby is in photot
herapy which is on the first floor and my device isn’t working well since we stepped into this ward. I know we need to be outside the ward before we send the signal for the fire. I think we should get to the first floor and complete our task before contacting Group Two.”

  “Sure. Sounds like a brilliant idea.”

  Beta Three and Beta Four became disturbed with the lack of communication from the first group. They weren’t sure if they should start the fire or not, as thirty minutes had passed since the operation began. They discussed and reached a compromise that if Group One didn’t make any contact in the next ten minutes, they would start the fire.

  Group One got to the first floor without incident. On their way, they contacted Group Two and told them to start the fire in about twenty minutes.

  The door to the therapy room was closed and could only be opened with a pass card. This was clearly a setback; neonatal units were normally extra conscious with hygiene and security. Their plan was to wait for the door to be opened and then approach whoever opened the door, stating the baby with them needed to be brought to the neonatal unit. They began to walk the length of the floor, waiting for an opportunity.

  Group Two also had communication problems immediately they walked into the central air-conditioning room. They had lost all communication with Group One, and decided to start the fire immediately the twenty minutes was up as they couldn’t be going in and out of the room without drawing attention.

  Time was up and Group Two had to set the fire; the intention was to be near the fire alarm in the middle of the room. Beta Four poured some petrol on the wires connecting the air conditioning unit to electricity and struck a match. The fire was immediate and smoke began to fill the room. The men in Group Two left the room and headed for the car park. The alarm sounded about three minutes later and the whole building was buzzing with the sounds of fire alarms.