ICON OF THE FIGHT

Chapter 23

Mtsvodo stopped in the middle of the glass covered walkway connecting Hornet's Nest to its twin. He leaned on the waist-high balustrade on the side and looked down at the sprawling city. Sivili-Kasi was the tallest building in the country, and, from his safe vantage point, Mtsvodo could see far over the other skyscrapers and pick out the gutted shells of the downtown by buildings. Once a sight to behold, the southern outskirts of the city were now a depressing reminder that the nation was at war with itself. Can a city divided against itself stand? The question slipped unchecked into his troubled mind. Now who said that? Solomon? David? Jesus?

Mtsvodo shook his head. It didn't matter who first put words to the query, it was a valid one. And Mtsvodo had studied history and he knew the answer. It did not bode well for the inhabitants of N'dama. Nor for the rest of the country.

He had left the Command Room after the drone showed the rebels retreating with tonnes of maize and wheat in their UD trucks. By the time reinforcements arrived from King Goshosho the rebels were in the wind. The drone was being recalled back to station. Mtsvodo was waiting for Herman and his team to call with some semblance of good news.

He watched the minimal traffic on the streets below without registering. His mind was busy. To have had no advance warning of the nationwide attacks by rebels was not merely baffling. It was astounding. And Mtsvodo was rarely astounded.

His cellphone rang. It was Herman.

"Give me the good news," said Mtsvodo.

"I know the identities the woman and the man who facilitated the escape of the Fort Rhodes detainees. The man is ragga slash dancehall singer J Kits, real name Josphat Kito. And the woman is the vigilante known as Blind C."

"The Blind C?" Mtsvodo repeated. He wondered loudly, "What does she want in Badara? It's not like we're famous for women rights abuses like the countries she usually operates in."

"She told me to give you a message."

"The Blind C told you..? What the hell happened, Lieutenant?"

"What happened, director, is we were ambushed. Sergeant Gogozha and all his men were killed. I was only spared so I could pass on this message. 'Chido is back and she is coming for her daughter.' That is the message."

A sledgehammer. A runaway train. Being hit by one of the two. That's what Mtsvodo felt like he had experienced. His legs weakened and he struggled to remain upright. If he hadn't been leaning on the balustrade, he would have collapsed.

Chido! Suddenly, it all made sense. The escape, the attacks. It was orchestrated by Chido. But she was supposed to be dead! Five years ago, Mtsvodo himself had put a hit on her. The hitmen reported success and there was no more news of her. He had believed she was dead. Had been relieved she was dead. Because alive, Chido was a terrifying proposition. Mtsvodo was a hardened veteran of the espionage game. He was smarter and more ruthless than most. Fear had no place in his psychological and mental makeup. So he had believed. But now he knew he had deluded himself into placing faith in a myth. Because right now, he was frightened.

"Hello, doctor, are you still there?" Herman's voice crackled from the phone.

Mtsvodo swallowed and tried to calm his breathing. "Yes...yes I'm here. Uh...how long ago did you see her?"

"Forty minutes ago. And it's them, not just her."

"Them?"

"Josphat Kito and the Blind C who calls herself Chido."

"Ok, thank you." Mtsvodo hung up and hurried to his office, his mind whirling.

Once inside, he took a deep breath and slowly exhaled. He did it two more times before he was able to calm down. Then he scrolled down through his contacts lists and dialled a number. It rang once before it was picked up.

"Mountreach Private School, how may I help you?"

Mtsvodo asked to speak to the principal and was promptly connected. When she answered, he gave her terse instructions concerning nine year-old Yolanda Lance.

After he hung up, he went out into the main room, where a dozen senior analysts and agents of the recently formed Director's Discretionary Taskforce sat at their desks, sifting through huge volumes of data and theorising amongst themselves. Half of them were experienced desk jockeys, while the others were BIO assassins. They all looked up when he came.

"We have a lead on who might be responsible for arming the rebels and breaking the detainees out. Her name is Chido Chitsvene. She used to head our European operations before she turned rogue. As of now, we may not know her current whereabouts, but we can track her using her associate, Josphat Kito. Find everything you can about Mr Kito and bring me his head on a platter."

I hope you knew what you were getting into, Mr Kito, Mtsvodo said to himself as he retreated to his office.

A minute later, a tall and thin man in an ill-fitting suit came into the office and stood silently for a while. Beads of sweat could be seen on his brow and nose.

"What is it, Inspector?" Mtsvodo asked. The man before him was the day shift security supervisor of Hornet's Nest. When the army's Guards Regiment sided with former president Saizi after the coup, the task of protecting Sivili-Kasi fell to the Badara Police Corps. The shaking inspector before Mtsvodo was a ten-year veteran of the BPC's security division.

The inspector gulped and said, "There was a breach earlier today."

Mtsvodo narrowed his eyes and leaned forward in his seat. "What kind of a breach?"

"Physical and possibly, digital."

Mtsvodo cursed as the proverbial bulb popped in his head. Now everything made sense. Chido was a brilliant analyst cum operative, Mtsvodo knew that more than anybody else. During training, she had showed a cunning the trainers had never seen before. And her training had nurtured it into something rare. Something sharp and dangerous.

As she had now proved. All the events of the past twenty four hours were merely a groundwork, a foundation for her real target, Sivili-Kasi. Even her warning. Tell him I'm coming for my daughter. It was never a warning. It was a prod, to make Mtsvodo call the people who were looking after the said daughter with a warning. No doubt she had planted a device, a worm of sorts, into the BIO's mainframe and was able to trace the call.

"The bitch!" Mtsvodo swore.

Then all hell broke loose.

The floor vibrated, then tilted violently to one side, throwing the to men in the air for a brief second. Glass shattered, and mounted framed pictures crashed to the askew floor. The building seemed to lean to one side, and the floor ended up being sharply diagonal. Mtsvodo slid down and got his arm pinned by the leg of his desk. Gravity pulled his body down, dislocating his shoulder in a blinding flash of pain. Chunks of concrete debris rained down and one block of the cement crashed his legs.

He howled like a baby as the pain twisted through him. He prayed for unconsciousness, but his god must have been sleeping. Mtsvodo suffered every bit of agony wide awake, until a hole seemed to open up beneath the room and everything went crashing through. Only then did he black out.