Day 39

It all happened so fast after that first burst of automatic gunfire.

I had already dived behind some foul smelling garbage cans.

Out of the corner of my eyes I had seen the automatic weapon pointed upwards in the split second that perfect -English had dived at his colleague, thus saving my life. The next moment I had been behind the foulest smelling garbage I had ever come close to and the automatic fire from the gun had filled the entire alley.

There was a brief respite and I could hear them argue in some local language that I couldn’t quite catch. And then all hell broke lose.

There was some fierce exchange of fire as another gang with automatic weapons seemed to arrive on the scene.

Perfect-English and company ran towards where I was hiding for cover. One of them didn’t make it and I heard him cry out as he went down under heavy fire from the new arrivals.

Perfect-English and his colleague got within a meter of where I was before they too went down in a hail of bullets.

I could not believe that all this was happening in the middle of a city in Africa that was not at war. It was much easier to believe that a Viagra lawyer was tellling the truth.

The ruthless gang continued to spray bullets on the lifeless bodies of the three boys for almost two full minutes. What kind of blood-hungry gang was this, I wondered?

But it was the fact that they had virtually emptied almost all their bullets on the three boys that probably saved my life once again. I stood up and raised my hands in surrender when the gun fire stopped only for one of the men to raise his gun and aim at me.

“Don’t shoot, please,” I screamed at the top of my voice with my hands still raised high in the air.

He pulled the trigger only to realize that he was out of bullets. He rolled away and quickly reached for his pockets.

It was then that the man who appeared to be the gang leader barked out a command.

“Hold your fire. This is a mzungu!”

I kept my hands high in the air and my eyes tightly closed, expecting bullets to cut through me at any time.

The heavily armed gang approached me cautiously. When they reached where I was they quickly frisked me.

“He’s not armed,” the man who had frisked me told the leader.

“We are police officers, please identify yourself.”

I looked at the short stout African in a leather jacket who had said those words and I honestly thought he was joking. He was obviously the leader of this gang that claimed they were police officers. If I had been tauight this in any reputable online college courses I would not have believed it for 100 years.

I looked again at the man who had frisked me. He had some bushy moustache and a bandana that was actually the flag of the United States. Not the sort of regular guy that you'd meet at the local employment agency.

These “police officers” looked much more like thugs than the three boys they had just sprayed bullets into.

The leader seemed to read my thoughts and produced a tiny identification card that alsmot looked like an auto insurance slip.

“We are plain clothes police officers, you probably call them under cover policemen in your country,” he said.

I was to later learn that this African capital of Nairobi had a serious problem of armed robberies mostly committed by jobless youngsters who had easy access to guns caused by wars and political unrest in neighboring countries.

The ill-prepared policemen patrolled around the city heavily armed and simply pumped bullets into anybody they came across committing a crime or firing a gun like they had found poor Perfect-English and company doing.

“You will have to accompany us to the police station and write a statement to explain yourself,” I was informed.

Day 38

"Turn round and face us," the perfect-English voice barked.

I obeyed and slowly turned to face the three men. I was shocked. They were barely in their teens. Heavily-built baby-faced boys. I wanted to laugh. Only that the automatic weapon which looked like an AK47 to me, also looked real enough and I had little doubt that baby-faced or not the youngster knew how to use it.

My attention was attracted to the youngster on my left who reached for his pocket and drew a digital camera. He carefully took several shots of me.

"Ready?" perfect-English asked impatiently. "Remember that you need to take others of him when he’s dead." He said it as casually as somebody preparing to slaughter a chicken for an afternoon meal.

It was that comment that got my mind working again and brought home the reality of what I was facing.

I was about to die in some filthy smelly alley in the back street of some African capital. No, I definitely did not want it to end this way. My mind raced. This was no robbery; it looked like a hit job. No marks for guessing who might have ordered it. But did Teresa know about it? Is that how much she didn’t care about me? Well, I would deal with that later; right now I had to survive.

The boy was already steadying the gun ready to fire.

"Wait," I shouted. The boy stopped a puzzled expression on his face.

"I know that you are being paid to do this, I can pay you more not to do it."

I was watching the boy’s face carefully and was relived when I saw a flicker of interest on them. He looked nervously at his colleagues.

"I can help you with the digital photograph. Using some software you can send a picture of me looking dead that will fool anybody. Besides the person who is supposed to pay you is in police custody and..."

"How much?" he asked.

"Five thousand dollars," I blurted out. I could see that he was trying to do some quick calculations. I made it easier for him since I had just been paid the exact amount in local currency.

"385,000 Kenya shillings."

"Do you have the money here?" perfect-English asked.

That was when I made the sort of mistake that costs people their lives.

"Yes, I have it right here. Do we have a deal?"

The boy who had taken the digital photograph of me grabbed the gun from perfect-English at such speed that I did not react until the gun was pointed at me and was already being fired. Perfect-English moved and tackled his own partner in crime to the ground even as the deafeningly loud sound of automatic weapon fire filled the deserted alley.

============
Contrary to what most people think, prices in general have not gone up, it is just that our paper money has lost a lot of value, more so because it is no longer backed by real money, real silver and gold. Did you know that the same weight in silver still buys gas at the price of decades ago (25 cents a gallon). That’s why investment experts have long-recommend portfolio diversification and that 20% or more of an investor's assets be devoted to tangible assets such as gold, silver and platinum bullion and bullion coins. This is a prudent asset diversification strategy critical in today’s uncertain world that is made possible by Monex a company that has been helping clients buy gold bullion since 1967.

Day 37 David's side of the story

I waited patiently for the Western Union office in the city center in downtown Nairobi to open. It was only 7:00 am and I was way too early.

According to the contract I was to collect $ 5,000 daily for the next 8 days starting today, which would complete my final payment of $40,000. I should have been excited at getting my hands on the cash, so much cash at that, albeit in the local currency but it was easily convertible back to US dollars.

I told myself that considering all that I’d been through, I had really earned it. Still the feeling of excitement did not come.

Again my thoughts drifted back to Teresa. I had left her out there in the bush somewhere.

I replayed our last conversation in my mind yet again.

“I’m leaving today.” I told her out in the garden where we usually had our simple breakfast of tea and bread.

“I saw your packed bags.”

“I guess we should just discuss business, it is the only conversation that gets anywhere with you.”

“Is that right? Maybe it’s because money is all that excites you.” Teresa said casually. Her venom shocked me and hit me harder than a physical slap would have.

“I’m not interested in arguing with you Teresa.”

“Neither am I.”

“Am I still good for the 40,000 dollars?”

“I guess.”

“You’re not sure?”

She turned and looked at me for a long time without saying anything. In fact I had given up her ever getting to answer my question when she finally spoke.

“I’m sure. That transaction was sealed and done in the US.”

“Thank you.”

I stood up from the table shortly after.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you around, Thank you for everything,”I sadly told Teresa, feeling a heavy load in my heart.

“I guess I’ll be seeing you around David.”

“Don’t you want to know what my plans are?”

“I wouldn’t care less...”

“So our relationship was all a lie?”

“It was all in the contract, I keep on telling you.”

I slowly walked away with my bags without once looking back.

I was still weak from the shooting and I walked slowly and carefully like the ground was made of eggs that I could break if I stepped too hard. But the biggest injury was in the beating organ somewhere in my chest and I wondered whether it would ever heal.

The Western Union office finally opened and I went inside with the control number and details that I had obtained from my email, just as the contract had said. I was the very first customer so I filled out the form, showed the pretty African teller my passport and was out of there with the cash in crisp local currency in less than 10 minutes. I fely like somebody who had gfotten some questions in very difficult online college courses answered correctly.

I didn’t go very far.

The first thing I felt was the cold metal of the barrel of an automatic pressed against my back.

The low tone voice spoke in perfect English.

“If you make the mistake of trying to raise the alarm, we’ll shoot you right here and now. Just move quietly and follow our instructions carefully.”

I walked on in the crowded streets conscious of the three heavily built men behind me.

“Turn at the first turning on your left and keep walking.” The low tone voice barked again.

I wondered what all this was about. Were they after the cash or was this trouble again related to my LA contract? I suspected the latter and wondered whether I would ever finish the terms of that contract alive. In a way I didn’t care. I had been through so much that my appetite for life had somehow diminished.

“Stop. This is a good enough place to kill you.”

We were now in some filthy deserted back alley and if I had any illusions that the voice from behind me was just joking, they quickly disappeared when I heard the distinctive noise behind me of an automatic weapon being loaded and cocked. So the gun had been empty all along, was the first though that came to my mind.

But now it was loaded and ready.

Story to resume

Posting will resume within the next 24 hours. This will happpen without fail. It does not matter what silver prices climb to in the markets or how much diamond jewelry is offered to the writer not to write. Not even a million accutane lawsuits can stop this story continuing to the end.

Thank you for your patience