The Airegin Mafias – Chapter 4 Part 4

Lord Frederick smiled a little then gradually the smile spread all over his face and turned into a scornful laugh, Pedro just looked at him as he laughed uncontrollably and he began to walk away from his presence.

“Pedro,” He screamed and the whole workers and their guards were startled “I am giving you the same 24 hours that you gave me, if by this time tomorrow I don’t see Laura in my house, I will send your wife to you in a body bag” He said with his horse voice reassuringly.

Pedro halted suddenly as the threat of his wife being sent in a body bag struck a danger chord in his head. In slow motion, he turned back and faced Frederick. His eyes were red and burning with fury and he clenched his fists and teeth as he proceeded back towards Frederick.

“Please leave us boys, we need settle some private issues,” Pedro stopped sudeenly and spoke aloud, raising a hand up as signal for his boys to excuse them.

Lord Frederick also made the same gesture. Reluctantly, the boys began to move out of sight slowly and in one minute, all of them were out of sight leaving the drug lords in the space at the entrance. The only two, General and Eric who could have had the boldness to stay were not there, they were on other assignments.

Lord Frederick tried to envisage what was about to happen. The space was big enough for them to carry out a fist battle which would be the first they ever had in their lives against themselves. For over thirty years of being friends, they had only engaged in any battle to support themselves whenever anyone of them gets into trouble but this day, they were going to land their fists on themselves.

Don Pedro remained still, he had a smirk on, his eyes were still red and he was staring Frederick straight in the face. He used a palm to wipe his face and then took two short steps forward, “Lord Frederick, what exactly do you want?” He asked in a very strict tone, the look on his face also complimented his extreme seriousness.

At first, it did not sound to Lord Frederick like he heard Don Pedro speak in English. Pedro had called him with the title, “Lord”, something which had never happened before. He knew that when Pedro began to act like this, there must be something very serious in store

“Where’s Laura?” Lord Frederick asked with the same serious tone.

“Laura’s not with me,” Don Pedro said reluctantly, tired of repeating the fact. Though, he was tough and wasn’t scared to go against anyone including his friend, Frederick, he was scared that Frederick could carry out his threat of killing his wife. He was desperate for the feud to end just because of his wife’s life, Frederick was about to strike him where it would hurt the most.

“Don’t lie to me Pedro, your boys could not have missed her.” Frederick barked in a loud voice. Some of the guards from both parties could be seen peering from their places of waiting as they heard Frederick’s loud voice. They returned quietly after seeing that the bosses were only still talking.

“I don’t know what game you’re trying to play Fred but you can’t get me to play with you,” Don Pedro continued in a calm but serious tone, he took two more steps forward. “Now, I’ll ask again. What do you really want?”

“I guess you don’t have anything to say,” Lord Frederick tried to dismiss the conversation and attempted to move away. Don Pedro pulled him back violently and launched the first blow.

_____

“Has my husband not returned since?” Silvia asked  the maid she met cleaning the seats as she stepped into the living room.

“No ma,” she replied and curtsied.

“Oh!” Silvia sighed and several hisses followed as she turned back and trudged towards the room, placing her hands at the back as if to support the weight of the protruded belly. The pregnancy was in its eight months, there were only few days left to get into the ninth month. She, contrary to the doctor’s advice not to put herself under unnecessary stress had done a lot of strenuous activities that day; like walking briskly around the compound which was several squares kilometre large and asking about her husband and details of what was going on from everyone she met. She felt so weak and stressed out, she was also feeling signs of the delivery hour. That confused her a bit as it was not yet nine months. She began to plan on going straight to the doctor.

She entered into the room and picked her phone and car keys. She dialed her husband’s number as she proceeded back outside, it rang twice without being answered.

“Get one of the drivers to prepare the blue jeep for me,” she shouted at one of the maids who met her along the corridor to the living room. The maid on seeing the woman’s condition turned back immediately and hurried out to perform the order.

More than one person responded to the maid’s announcement as three people including Rhoda entered into the living room with her in a rush. Mabel was already proceeding to the entrance door with very heavy steps.

“Oh! My lady,” Rhoda, old John’s lover  rushed immediately to help her. “Please leave the way,” she said to one of the guards who was standing in front.

“We have to inform Lord Frederick,” the guard who left the way spoke.

“You can do that while we get Madam to the hospital,” Rhoda replied, without taking a look at him.

“Lord Frederick is not answering his call,” the guard ran after them seconds after they moved out of the house. “He instructed that we should not allow her leave the house,” he said in a shaky voice.

“Are you crazy? Can’t you see she needs to get out,” Rhoda replied and continued with her support to Silvia.

_____

Don Pedro had a host of his boys circulating Bextord in search for Mabel and the most possible place she could have been kept. Since Eric had suggested to Don Pedro about the possibility of her being hidden away by General, they had diverted their energies to monitoring all General’s property they knew, Eric still led the several search teams.

“What’s up dude?” Eric said into the phone in a very impatient tone.

“Nothing yet,” the receiver replied sharply.

“Damn!” Eric cursed as he cut the call. “Is this how we’re going to stay here all day without results?” He snarled as he ran his hand into his hair. He relaxed his shoulders a bit on remembering something, he took out his phone and dialed. “Hey Vicker! Why the hell are we disturbing ourselves? You of all people knows General than we all do, why don’t you lead us to any of his secret  hideouts that we don’t know of.” He said into the phone.

There was silence from the other end, Eric had to speak again to ascertain if Vicker was listening. “Hey, where the hell are you?”

“Ermm… Sorry boss, I was just thinking about what you said.” Vicker finally replied.

“So where is that place we’ve not been to?” Eric asked.

“Ermm… I don’t think I know any other place,” Vicker said.

“There should be another, think about it and get back to me in two minutes.” Eric said in a command tone and cut the line. Barely ten seconds after the call ended, Eric’s phone began to ring. “Vicker, do you have the place now?”

“No, I don’t but I just saw General drive past now. He and two boys in a sonata.”

“Oh!” Eric eyes widened as an idea entered his head. Getting General as an hostage would be a step further in finding Mrs Mabel’s location.”Communicate with the rest of the boys at other units, monitor General and all of us woul follow him.”

**

“Yes boss,” Vicker replied and the call was ended. He pulled the seatbelt immediately and started the car engine, “Get across to the other guys now and tell them to all journey in direction of the Bextord Highland Bridge,” he said to one of the boys at the back, fixing his eyes at some cars in front as he drove off.

**15 minutes later**

“He’s going in direction of the Frederick’s house,” Vicker said into the phone with one of his hands on the wheel.

“Hey! ” someone shouted from a car which just levelled up with theirs. Vicker looked sideways  dropped the phone as his eyes met with Eric in the other car.

“I met some of our boys now while we drove down the bridge, they’re right behind us.” Eric said aloud. “We’re going to overtake the fool now, no…” Eric paused as someone in his car called his attention to something at the road for returning cars. Eric could see a blue jeep, waiting for the green traffic light at the other carriageway, the occupants of the car were two men at the front seats and Silvia, Don Pedro’s wife behind. Another idea struck Eric’s mind, there would be a better chance of finding Mabel’s location if they could kidnap Silvia just like Lord Frederick had done to Mabel.

To be continued next week Monday