STORYMOJA

The conference was all set to go. Rows of rented chairs filled the hall, all with neat press pack folders set neatly on the seats. The electricians had just left after making sure all the cables, the lights and the sound system were good to go. The guard on duty closed the door to the hall and locked it. He whistled as he walked down the hall, twirling a large bunch of keys in his hand. As he went, he switched off the lights in the corridor,one by one, leaving only the weak glow of the emergency lights, set low along the walls. 

The deputy prime minister had just finished a session on the treadmill in his gym. He draped a large grey towel over his shoulders and poured a large glass of water from the cooler that stood in a corner and drank deeply. His t-shirt was drenched in sweat and he was breathing heavily after his simulated three kilometre jog. He needed a drink, but he needed a shower first. He left the gym and headed upstairs. The large home was quiet, his wife and kids were in London on holiday and the household staff had been dismissed for the evening. Only the deputy prime minister and his aide, who was working on a proposal and a speech in the downstairs study, were in the house. 

The shower was hot and steamy. He felt the stress of the day ooze out of his body and as the water gushed, he placed his hands against the wall, closed his eyes and bowed his head, letting the stream pour over his head. He had not been asked to attend the conference tomorrow. Why? Maybe the rumours that he was about to be replaced were not all unfounded after all. The top government officials, including the president, prime minister and the vice president were going to attend the opening ceremony. His being left out did not look good. He opened his eyes and looked at the water swirl into the drain on the floor. That’s pretty much where my political career is heading, isn’t it? Down into nothing. He shut off the water and stood there, dripping. He was scheduled to address a political rally in Limuru tomorrow. A public charade, an exhortation of the good the Party was doing for the country. Bullshit. He stepped out of the cubicle and reached for a towel. Then the lights went out. Funny, he thought. That shouldn’t happen at all. The house had back-up power, blackouts were not supposed to happ… 

WHAM!

Something hit him hard in the chest. He was thrown backwards into the shower cubicle and he hit his head on the tap fitting. He tried to cry out but his vision was greying at the edges and the centre was filled with bright white stars of pain. He raised his right arm, as if to catch someone’s attention then he passed out. Blood from his head formed a miniature delta on the expensive Italian tiles as it ran into the drain. 

The biting cold woke him up. He opened his eyes but saw only dark. He was outside, somewhere, and he was naked. He coughed once and tried to sit up but agony flared up on his right side. He coughed again and spat a glob of spittle and blood into the dust. He sat up again, slowly and let his eyes adjust to the dark. He was just beginning to make out the outline of what looked like a bush when the full force of the excruciatingly bright white light hit his face. He cringed and raised his arms to cover his face. Something dark and soft landed at his feet. 

“Put that on.” A flat voice, from behind the miniature sun, said. 

The deputy prime minister reached for what turned out to be a bathrobe. His bathrobe. He pulled it on painfully, as his torso was one big ache. He tied the sash and then started yelling for help.

“Won’t do you any good. But I’ll wait.”

“Do you know who I am?” blustered the deputy PM. “You will not get away with this! You are finished, you hear!” He broke down in a coughing fit. More blood came up. 

“No, wrong. You are finished. Aren’t you fed up of scrabbling for the scraps from the high table, Mr. Deputy prime minister? Occupying a dead end position? Let’s face it, you are a token. You have no real power as, ahem, deputy prime minister, do you?”

The deputy prime minister took a few steps towards the merciless light, shielding his face with his right hand. 

“What? What the hell are you talking about? Who are you?”   

“I am here to make you a proposal.”

The deputy prime minister took another step.

“What kind of proposal?”

“The kind that makes you president by this time tomorrow.”

The deputy prime minister laughed. A loud guffaw that ended in a painful hacking cough. He stood with his hands on his knees, trying to catch his breath as he considered the idiocy of whoever his abductor was. Me? President? Good one. He stood upright again, slowly. He took another step toward the light.

“You will stop, right there.”

 “Or what?”

There was a loud report. The dust an inch from his left foot spurted and something whined into the night. He stopped moving. 

“If you were going to kill me, you already would have,” he said breathlessly. 

“True. So shut up and listen. There is a conference tomorrow at KICC, right?”

“Yes. So what?”

“Attending that conference will be the president, the prime minister, the other deputy prime minister, the vice president and all their fat Prado riding cronies, right?”

The deputy prime minister remained silent. 

“If all these people were to die suddenly and concurrently, who takes over government?”

The deputy prime minister gaped. He stood in the glare with his mouth open as it all came crashing together in his head. 

“Shit! You would not!”

“That depends on your response to my proposal.”

Steve Mwangi blogs here …