She decided to clean things up more but in a different way as she could not bear the idea of sitting on the couch where the bulky dead man had sat. She took some Dettol wipes and went over the whole couch after stripping it from the covers she had put on it. She stripped the floor of all the carpets and set about cleaning the floor with the Dettol wipes which had a flowery smell to them. She scrubbed and scrubbed until her fingers ached. She realised she was letting her old OCD based behaviour come back because of this incident. She had never been able to stomach the smell of blood nor the sight of it oozing out of wounds. Her work at the unit was mainly intelligence based as well as catching criminals and she had fired her gun only a few times.
She washed her hands and decided that she would feel better after a good warm bath. She filled the tub with hot water, added some Epsom salts and a bit of cold water before she eased herself into it. The water and the salts started relaxing her aching muscles. All these hectic incidents were getting the better of her nerves. She wondered if she had done the right thing by leaving Dubai and getting to London where it was more difficult to hide from both her previous unit and from the ISWAP as well as Boko Haram. It seemed they were getting to her all too easily. She also wondered why Al Shabab would want to take down a head of a Boko Haram unit.
She was well aware that Boko Haram and Al Shabab were not exactly friends but she had never thought before that they would turn against one another rather than uniting against the Western world. Would it not make more sense for them to unite their strengths in order to have a stronger impact against the non-believers that they were looking to castigate? She heard a strange noise in her living room and froze. Who was this now? Boko Haram had already been there and her unit normally would not sneak into her apartment as they had their cameras everywhere and very likely already knew what had happened in the road outside as well as what had gone on in her flat. She had realised that they only wanted to monitor everything, especially Boko Haram movements and they did not seem keen on actually catching Manas.
She rose slowly from the bath, trying to make the least noise possible. She reached out to her gun which was on the chair next to the bath tub. Her gown was hanging on the wall opposite the bath tub and she doubted she would have the time to reach it. She wiped her feet on the rug to ensure she did not slip stupidly and make it easier for the intruder to overcome her. She held the gun at the level of her face, pointing it outward, determined to kill whoever it was in the living room. Her heart was racing as it had been a while since she had killed anyone directly. She burst into the living room gun cocked and ready to shoot and found herself face to face with a young black man who was pointing his gun at her...
She opened the door slightly wider and rapidly exited the building after shushing Manas and showing him that she wanted him to come out after her. She braced her shoulders and started walking towards the café without showing that it was her target. The bulky man started slowly walking towards her. She continued walking pretending she had not noticed him gaining in on her. She could see that he was only a few meters away from her and it seemed like he had a gun on him. All of a sudden, she saw him crumple into two and keel over. The smell of gunpowder was strong in the air but she could not figure out where it came from. She felt Manas join her and could see he was holding a smoking gun. He had used a silencer. They walked together towards the café. It was thankfully still open as they both were hungry.
Manas sat opposite her, smiling at her. She had ordered sandwiches, a chicken breast one for him and a falafel and beetroot one for her. Neither of them had alcohol so she had ordered soft drinks for both of them. The waiter arrived at their table and as always with people who were not used to mixed race couples, he gawked at them uncomfortably not knowing whether he should only speak to the man or whether he could address the woman. She gave him a lukewarm smile and reached out for the sandwiches. Manas took the soft drinks off the platter and gave her the coke zero. They ate silently, only looking at each other from time to time.
When they had finished eating, Manas told her that he needed to go back to Cameroon. Things were becoming serious and he had been asked to go back to oversee the operations from there. There were several transactions that needed his signature and he also needed to rekindle the flame there, as well as assert his leadership over the cell there. What had happened in London had done his reputation quite some harm and he needed to show that he was in control and not subjugated by her. He did not say that clearly but she understood what he meant even though he used very carefully his words in order not to give her the impression he was deserting her. She reached out to him and hugged him with tears in her eyes.
It was starting to become difficult. She had no doubt that the man on the street was going to be traced back to Manas and herself. She wondered whether the ATU would cover it up or trace it to her and blame her officially. While her boss might take some pleasure in doing that, she doubted that he would want all the knowledge she had about their operations to come to light. If the cops were involved, she might have to talk and give up secrets in order to explain things. Manas stood up and signaled that they should go. He kissed her goodbye and left her walking quickly towards the tube. He would not be stopping at Canary Wharf as surely the ATU could be waiting there. It seemed nowadays that they only wanted to watch him and not catch him. In all likelihood, there was some bigger fish that they wanted to get to by following him. She looked for the crumpled bulky man but he had already disappeared. Was it ISWAP, Al Shabab or the ATU that removed him? She realized that she really did not care who had done it. One headache less, she thought.
She looked again at Manas’s beautiful black face filling the screen with his lips parting on pearly white teeth in such a beautiful smile that it made her heart ache with longing. His face seemed to pop out of the screen.
She smiled back, yet she wanted to know the truth, even if it were to hurt her.
- Did you order my torture, Manas?
- How could you think that my angel?
- I don’t know. It seemed impossible that your supporters would do it without your permission.
- Those who have tortured you have been castigated. I know I cannot make it up to you, I can never remove the effect the torture had on you, but I have punished those who took it into their hands to punish you for my imprisonment. As soon as I was let out of prison, I tended to that.
- It was awful
- I know. I am sorry. Please forgive me. I should have left instructions that you should not be touched but everything happened so fast, and we had to run away from your anti-terrorist team.
- I forgive you. I see now that it could not have been you and you did not have time to make sure nothing happened to me.
- Meet me alongside the Thames, near the London Eye at 4 pm
- Tea-time! I see you are getting acquainted with the locals
- Anything for you, my angel. I have followed the change of your career and know that it is now here that you have settled down. I want to be with you and give you the best of myself.
- What about your terrorist gang? Are you going to be attacking civilians here?
- I wish I could answer you, my angel. Let’s not think about things that separate us. We have so much to catch up about. I have missed you so much
- Me too
The words almost suffocated her. She had missed him so much that it actually hurt her. She felt as if her chest had been bashed in, so difficult it was to breathe. She quickly put on her clothes and ran towards the tube. It would not take her long to get to the London Eye from Canada Water. She kept wiping nervously her hands on her jeans as she was sweating profusely, and her hands were wet too. She wondered what it would be like to be in his arms again. Would his love for her be the same? Had he been with other women while they were not together? What had he been doing after his release from the Cameroonian prison?
She got down at Waterloo and walked towards the London Eye. From far she could see Manas. He was disguised and now had a beard on as well as a wig, but she could easily recognize him. Suddenly she felt someone gazing at her on the side and turned to see one of her team members from the Cameroon operation. She also felt someone staring at her from the back and turned around to see another of her team members. They were closing in on her and she realized that her phone must have been tapped.
The good thing was that they had not yet recognized Manas so she turned around and looked squarely at the team member behind her. She pushed him and he fell to the ground. The other team member at her side closed in on her and caught her wrists. Stop fighting, he said but she started throwing punches at him while kicking at the other man who was trying to hold her legs. She saw Manas slowly back out of where he was and then turn and walk away. At least he is safe, she thought as her two team members jointly held her by the wrists and legs.
Norah Jones - Come Away With Me (Official Music Video)
She was walking for almost an hour now, always with the Thames by her side. Her thoughts went back to Manas and how she had met him first in a small hut-like construction in Cameroon. She had landed quite abruptly in the field near his house and had hid the parachute under the sand and foliage beneath the trees. She had removed her jumping gear and shoved it under the sand before straightening her clothes. She could not see the remaining members of her team and remembered that she had seen no member of her team jump after her. She knew what her mission was anyway: look for and then report Manas once she had identified him. She had headed towards the house and found the household in great agitation and fuss, celebrating a marriage.
Without further warning, she had been whisked into the cohort and had become part of the celebration. With her local clothes on, nobody suspected her of any ulterior motive than just the wedding celebration. She had looked around for Manas and identified him sitting next to the bride. She looked at the wristwatch with the small camera, but the camera place seemed damaged. She had turned it nevertheless towards Manas and the bride, hoping that the camera would transmit the images of Manas to her team in the airplane that seemed to have vanished in the skies.
They probably will come back after viewing the images sent by her camera she had thought. She had sunk into a small couch next to several other women and joined the celebrations, keen to keep her identity safe. Manas had walked over towards her, his smile engaging and charming like she was told it would be. Her boss had predicted accurately that she would be Manas’ type and that this would lead him to bring his guard down. Manas had bowed towards her, with his hand extended, inviting her to dance alongside him like the Muslims in Cameroon did. She had stood up and had slowly been taken by the banter and the dance and almost forgotten what she had come here to do.
She looked back at the Thames and threw a stone in it, watching the ripples grow as the water was displaced by the impact. One of the images that haunted her mind was Manas standing in front of the policemen in Cameroon where she had taken him, and he had not fled. He was free now, walking sometimes in the streets of London when he needed to but all she could think of was the Manas in chains in Cameroon smiling at her, with his followers at his side. She realized that the only reason Manas was free now was because some policemen in Cameroon admired his jihadism and one of them had released him making use of the lax state of security in Cameroonian prisons.
Her story with Manas had been a very controversial one when her boss realized that she was actually falling in love with the man she was supposed to bring to justice. She had been demoted and was no longer on the anti-terrorist team so she resigned and joined the private sector. She thought back to how the story had evolved. It seemed so long ago now while it had only been 6 months since she had first met him. She remembered how he had reached out to her when he had first got out of prison. She had wondered how he had found her in London as she was not on the phonebook and not a registered voter. She threw another stone in the Thames and realized that it was raining, making more ripples than with just her stone. Her love story with Manas had begun in a very strange way so it was probably just as well that it could lead to strange things. She let her mind drift…
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