Sniper

Sniper

By

Olumide Odusanya

Peter was seated on the cold tiled floor of his small self contain room, putting on just his white boxer shorts, with two bottles of Sniper insecticide by his side. He looked at the white bottles and the horror of the damage the content would do to him made him shudder.

He sniffed and wiped tears from his eyes as he got his lanky self off the floor and lazily walked to the window. He had been doing that all morning, like he was expecting someone to come and stop him or someone with some good news. He had already broken his phone and thrown his sim card away as he thought that would buy him some time before his creditors found him.

In just three months, his debt profile had risen from zero to four hundred and fifty thousand with all the apps. In those three months, all his businesses had also collapsed, and he currently didn’t have any source of income.

Twelve years of hustling, night and day busting his a$$, and he had nothing to show for. He didn’t feel like going on living, but he found it so hard to ki*ll himself.

The numerous cases of people committing suicide with Sniper that had been in the news lately had given him the impression that it had to be a quick way to go, but as he sat back on the floor and uncapped the bottle, the vapor from the liquid alone had him feeling dizzy. He stretched his hand to get the bottle away from his eyes as he started to hyperventilate; the thought of ending it all both frightened and excited him. It was a journey he would eventually take, so why not take it now when he didn’t want to keep on living. He thought to himself.

He took a few deep breaths and hurriedly brought the bottle to his mouth. He closed his eyes and was about to take down the content in quick gulps when images flashed through his mind, and he halted the process. He had heard stories of people’s lives flashing before their eyes at near-death experiences, and he never understood it till now. In a flash, he had seen a flashback of himself playing with his niece, flashbacks of riding his first bicycle, flashback of himself and his first girlfriend making out, and a couple of his other fun memories…all in a flash of a second.

He picked up the two bottles, walked over to his toilet, and poured the contents down the sink. He went on to sit on the toilet floor before busting into tears.

…

At the other end of the city from Peter’s apartment in Ibadan was a market called Ojoo. It was a busy place, and even busier today as the Vice President of the country was around, introducing market women to a business empowerment program from his government. He was moving around the market with a big smile on his face as people cheered him on. Little did he know that a sniper had him in a scope a few meters away.

Andrew had Nigerian roots, but was an American trained sniper, who had become an assassin in the Nigerian underworld after his discharge from the military during the U.S war in Afghanistan ten years ago. He was in his forties now, but still slim and physically fit. His job today was his easiest thus far. All he had to do was maim all the secret service men assigned to the VP without hitting the VP himself.

He didn’t understand the job, but he never asked questions.

As he stood with his tripod on the window-sill of an empty upstairs shop a few meters away from the busy market, he closed his eyes for a few seconds to visualize how he felt the SS men would react after being hit. His accomplice, Rashidi was breathing down his neck, and he turned around for a second to give him the ‘back off a bit’ look before taking his stance by the window again. Rashidi was a lot younger and didnt have the patience Andrew had developed over the years. They both had army fatigue on for easy get away after their operation.

Andrew shut his eyes again for a second, opened his eyes and fired the first shot, hitting the shoulder of the SS man closest to the VP. Without wasting any time, he fired the second shot, and then the third. Under a minute, he had taken down eight SS men, leaving the VP exposed and running for his life like everyone else at the rowdy market.

Andrew moved away from the small window, and Rashid quickly took his place; firing four canisters of tear gas into the crowd in quick successions. Everything happened within five minutes. Even though there was a police station right next to the shopping complex they were operating from, everything happened too fast for them to be noticed. Within minutes of firing the tear gas they were on their individual bikes, riding away from the chaos.

…

By the time they got to their hideout, the news of their hit was all over the news. Some blogs even reported the VP had been assassinated.

Within an hour, they got a call from the middleman who hired them with instructions for one of them to come to the door. Rashidi was cooking, so Andrew walked to the door, screwing a silencer to the small black pistol in his hand. When he opened the door, he saw a duffle bag on the floor. He quickly picked it up, shut the door and walked back into the apartment.

He dropped the bag on the center table of the almost empty living room and unzipped it. After a quick assessment, he was sure it was complete – all 500,000 was there. Rashidi came out the kitchen with two plates of noodles and a smile on his face. He handed Andrew a plate, put his own the table and dipped his hand in the duffel bag, pulling out a few of the bundles of pounds, before dropping them back in the bag. Even though Andrew had done most of the work, the agreement had been to share the money equally as Rashidi was the one that got the job.

They ate in silence, as each man made plans of what he would do next after leaving the hideout with his share of the money. Rashidi was about to put a fork full of noodles in his mouth when Andrew fired three shots at his chest. The fork fell on the table, making more noise than the gunshots. Blood quickly soaked the black tee shirt he had on, and his body slouched forward, dangling here and there. Eventually, his head went bang on the table.

Andrew put the pistol on the table, and finished his noodles. He then proceeded to take a few gulps from the bottled water on the floor beside him before getting up and tucking the gun away behind him. He assumed a squatting position, zipped shut the bag, stood up and headed out the apartment with the bag in hand.

He was going down the stairs, two at a time when he started feeling a burning sensation in his stomach. By the time he got to the ground floor of the two-storey building he knew he had been poisoned. The freaking noodles. He said in a low voice and a smile appeared on his face as he leaned on the building wall. Even though he knew he was going to die any minute from now, he couldnt help but laugh at how unexpected things had turned out.

He saw a lanky guy walking into the compound and waved him over. The guy ran quickly, getting to Andrew in time to support his fall. “It’s your lucky day. Take a couple of bundles before you call the police.” Andrew said with his last breath before he started foaming at the mouth. Peter laid him on the ground and wanted to run to get help, but he stopped midway when saw there was no use; the man was already dead. He looked around to be sure no one was there before opening the bag. His heart skipped a beat when he saw the money. He looked around one more time before dipping his hand in the bag and pulling out eight bundles of 50 pound notes. He stuffed them in his jeans pocket, took two more and headed to his BQ apartment at the back of the building.

He reappeared moments later, cleared his throat a few times and then started shouting, “Help! Help! Help!”

THE END