SOLOMON'S BRIDGE {Part I}

ABRAM SILAS *29*

DR. JAY

Two months after he came to Canaan city, Dr. Jay believes that the killings are carried out by a concerted effort, and that the Nsidung are perhaps the backbone of a very sleuth, multinational syndicate. Warning bells ring loudly every so often in his brain, as he delves deeper into the evolving quagmire of this mission, but he can't stop himself. He no longer trusts his director, nor does he plan for the mission to go according to plan. But Dr. Jay is afraid of history repeating, he is afraid of falling deeply, frighteningly, in love with a black woman he knows next to nothing about, outside of recurring dreams, memories, visions from the past, flashes of another life, in a different century. Its been rather quiet between him and Director Charles Rothschild Pitt. The breakfast party monitor him like glue on paper, and they all probably know, what he does not have the security clearance to be told.

Dr. Jay is not his father.

Deep down, he's always had a deep sense of morality, he has always held on to his mother's high scruples as an extension of himself. While the department protected his father, they clearly do not intend to protect him. They know that he won't plunge any further into the mindless robotic servitude they expect from all their senior agents. They just can't control people who have limits. His chances of a normal life are probably better, here, with the blacks, the clueless Africans, than back home amongst his own guilty race. Isn't this similar to what the Commander felt, in 1891, is it not what he has penned down in his diary? The four princes, the order, a costly decision to break away from the fold? Is history hell bent on repeating itself?

Dr. Jay follows another very promising lead. His arch enemy in the state senate, Boki Chairman, Mr. Abram Silas, was recently declared missing, likely kidnapped, after his car was found bashed up and abandoned by the roadside. A lot of fuss was made on his behalf, so when he materialized in his home five days later (spotted by a local reporter, working for the PARROT,) lots of men and women were angry at his claim of being sick... with a bit of a sore throat. State resources spent looking for him while he was sucking on lozenges, in an undisclosed location, was a pitiful waste of tax payer money. To really aggravate issues, the sneaky reporter, Mr. Bobby Okon, eventually publishes in the PARROT, an incendiary story of how this local council chairman, Mr. Abram Silas, successfully embezzles fifty-five million Naira from multiple rural government road contracts and has tried, to run from the long arms of the law. This article was later retracted, and the allegations were denied, but the gossip never really died down.

People on social media said Abram stole that money and stashed it in a foreign bank account in Switzerland. In the nightclubs, people said he most likely buried his ex- girlfriend alive, deep inside the Edet Nyong forests, to silence her. His agents have their ears to the ground. The people say, he was abducted by the three headed monster claws, and even almost eaten alive, but by a special grace of God, he got away. In fact, public opinion is hyperactive in proferring alternatives, to account... for the five days he went missing.

From experience Jay knows, that people are usually right. Since malaria symptoms do not include abandoned, well bashed cars by the roadside, Dr. Jay follows the car's trail to the city central police station's yard, then to the city Pound, an automobile metal scrapyard for ruined, unusable vehicles. Its a few acres of land cramped up with some twisted, pounded and some flattened heavy machinery, with no records kept, of incoming or outgoing scrap. Dr. Jay spends hours just looking through one indistinguishable pile after another, until he is totally convinced it isn't there.

Needless to say, the council chairman was not to be seen at his official residence.

Sometimes, politicians are not so easy to find, especially when they've got something to hide, but what politicians like Abram Silas in Canaan City don't know, is that if the location signal on their very expensive phones is turned on, they can be traced, to anywhere under the big blue sky, via satellite. So Dr. Jay tracks Abram Silas down to a red brick duplex, deep in the heart of a village behind St. Peter's Orphanage, in Old Town, WaterTown. The house sits flanked on its left side by thick flame of the forest trees, partially hidden behind the foot of a gray blue mountain. Dr. Jay parks his wrangler close to the wall on the right, then climbs the jeep to the top hood. Looking over the fence into the small compound, he sees a security guard sitting by a gatehouse and holding a radio close to his ear. One car, a jade ford explorer is stationed by the front door. And that, is the abandoned, properly bashed up vehicle the police put on record as having been put to the pound. Jay quickly sits on the fence, swings his legs over to drop soundlessly to the ground. The kitchen back door is open; the black gas cooker burners are still quite warm, and three silver hot pots camped idly on the center island, are cooling off. Jay silently moves round the house. A woman showers in one of the three rooms upstairs, however, according to the chairman's file, she isn't Abram's wife. The other two rooms are empty, but Jay finds Abram fast asleep in the parlour. He thinks for a minute, about the song Red said the Nsidung Warriors sing for their new initiates, then sits on a leather chair opposite him, singing the old sea halyard shanty in a low baritone.