SOLOMON'S BRIDGE {Part I}

MIDNIGHT CALLER *25*

DR. JAY

They'd called him a spitting image of their legendary British Navy Commander. All through the night, his mind wrestled with his childhood curiousity, the express order of his boss, and the haunting presence of his colleagues, the breakfast party, all lethal men, trained as he was also trained, to be perfect killing machines that can terminate a life in a thousand natural, unsuspecting ways. Dr. Jay is not afraid to die. Miss Edima in her HRBC lecture, said it is written, he who lives by the sword, shall die by the sword and it's because of spiritual principles like this, that he wants to live. He has to find the answers to the questions that he doesn't know, exist.

Unable to hold the suspense any longer, he books a tour in the castle online. Friday morning meets him parking his Jeep in a public car park just beside the castle's very impressive gates. He adjusts his dark glasses to sit further down the bridge of his nose. His butter blonde hair has grown longer, now touching his shoulders, a front shaggy fringe flapping against the morning's strong winds. You need a hair cut, Jay, he read, when he woke with a start at three a.m, from a little scrap of paper tucked under the side of his pillow. Rodney's chicken scrawl is another way to ask, where's the Codex Jay? Nevermind if the tunnel is a death trap; by all means, crank up the pressure...

He needs a haircut. Western Africa's burning hot weather on anyone keeping long hair, is a sweaty, sticky, and rather itchy experience; but luckily for him, it is also that time of year, when the leaves and the grass turn a deeper, lush green, and the weeds crowd like moss. It is that time of the morning; when the cock crows itself to distraction, and the street lights look like kerosene lamps against the yawning gray-blue of dawn. The day begins with a cold, breezy draft coming in from the sea. His group is the first set of tourists to discover the inner workings of Canaan's castle on Ephraim Hill. There is a lot of history, in the stone walls of Justice Hall. It took one hundred Men to build it. One hundred seasoned, yet, marooned sailors. Its the sort of history that tells the story within another story. Why were the sailors marooned? Their speed boat approaches the side flanks of the rising drawbridge. Edidiong, their tour guide, says their party will enter the castle through the east wing, where the lake extends just beneath the portcullis. Something strange happens when Jay gets closer to the massive stone edifice. He goes into another trance. This time is very different to what befell him in the water, when he was about to enter that tunnel. Tears sting his eyes, intense sorrow grips his chest, his reality becomes hijacked as a rogue memory resurfaces. A black woman dressed in scarlet. Playing with him. In the courtyard; laughing while he chases her around. The scene abruptly changes. A black woman is dressed in pure white. Dead, in a coffin lowered six feet deep into the carved out gray stone floor of the dungeons. The Brothers. Nsimah, angry, defending himself, she didn't want to come back, because of the baby! She felt defiled! I tried to talk to her! Akpan his senior standing resolute, still questioning, then where is the baby? Nsimah, where is Hogan's baby? All seven of them, arguing. His trembling touch upon her lifeless face. A pain too heavy, too severe, too much for him to contain. He howls, dropping to his knees, the tortured sound of it endless in resonating echo. Jay looks at his group with wariness, afraid he'd howled out loud. But they are none the wiser.

He buried her here. In the west wing dungeon.

Burried who?! Blinking, he tries to breathe, finding it easier. It's over. He bends at his waist, briefly letting his head touch his knees, before standing back upright. His mission is the African Codex. That's why he is here. His life is in Birmingham. Not here. Jay blinks away the vision, but his grief lingers. Who is she? Who was she? He then considers the colossal stone structure before them. Are the answers here? It belongs to him, doesn't it? In shock, he realizes that, it does. Can it be the reason why his boss chose him? Then, why did his file pass to the clean up crew? Why does MI6 want him dead? Because he can see the signs. The very minute he gives them the Codex...