4. ITS JUST BUSINESS

   An unchartered plane landed at a private field in the outskirts of Nairobi. The plane was completely anonymous and not even the local authorities were aware of its presence. Such level of secrecy always involved something illegal. The plane field had a man-made runway consisting of dead grass and dirt and was completely surrounded by tall brown grass and trees. The runway was atleast three hundred metres long and only small cargo planes landed in this area. At the end of the runway was a mansion that had atleast ten rooms inside. Tall bushy thickets made it almost invisible and tree canopys surrounding it, made it undetectable to satelllite images. 

The runway dissappeared into some dense trees that had also formed a canopy. There were like four other privately owned planes inside the dense trees. You would never guess from an aerial view that there could be planes and most likely assume cars because of the rough road that emerged from it. The plane was white in colour with a blue line running accross its middle on the sides. It had no recognition number hence why the government didnt even detect it in its its own airspace.  

After it came to a halt, some gentlemen all dressed up in suits came down the stairs of the plane. They were around ten of them with three carrying black suitcases. One of the ones without suitcases was seen having a close to three men following on his tail like protecting him. He had a well built body and appeared a little bit tall. His suit fitted him better tightening around his muscles. He had that gangstar gybe all over his general appearance with very neat dreadlocks. The pace he walked with to the mansion accompanied with the attention he was given made him easily recognisable as the alpha of the pack.

"Okay guys, lets get to work. We need these buisiness done quickly and be airborne as soon as possible", Maina ordered his men immediately they were in the sitting room of the mansion as he spiraled his dreadlocks to his back, "you all know I dont like bieng on land that much. The buyers are waiting for the auction. Lets move."

  Everyone got busy doing their specific tasks with the three men opening up their briefcases. One brief case had three laptops that were really slim. The second one contained a server hardware with a board that had some lenses installed on it. Indimuli, the one with third briefcase unravelled three minidishes and quickly swung into action connecting them to the server machine from the second briefcase. He was Maina's technical guy. Maina would never go on buisiness without him since he relied a lot on technology. 

    Despite him commanding his people around, Maina was still an amazing leader to his men. He would only issue orders whenever there was an urgent buisiness that needed to be concluded quickly. They receieved good renumerations monthly and oftenly he would give them leave days to enjoy their own vacations alone. His only request is that they still maintain their incognito living since anyone could be watching. This was a line that none of them dared to cross and out of respect, they would never think of it. Lets not forget that he was also ruthless and merciless to betrayers and double agents. 

Within 10 minutes of organised chaotic movements in the room, Indimuli had everything ready. "Chengolama Auction is active sir. Ready to go", he informed Maina.

"Tara and Steven, inform all our buyers the auction starts in ten minutes and will only last for three hours. Also alert Letisha to have the cameras ready for our clients to see the merchandise, I need the stream up in five minutes or less", Maina instructed as he sat cossyly on a black cheasterfield wing chair facing a window. The outside look of nature always mesmerized him. The apppetite for it always got the better of him hence why he loved bieng airborne to enjoy the aerial view of terrains and mountains. It also gave him more ideas of good hiding spots because of his most wanted status by Kenyan authorities.

He was well reknowned for his illegal arms deal buisiness. He did not just operate locally but also within the African boundaries. For buyers oustide the continent, they had to travel to him for physical meetings. Such strategy made him almost untraceble and Interpol had very little on him compared to the local Primary Information Center. 

"And the stream is up in 3... 2... 1..." Tara's voice interrupted his little fantasy that he was having on the now warm leather chair. He rose quickly towards the screen and saw the merchandise streaming all the way from Letisha's camera in the plane.

"Is it good...?" Letisha's voice was heard on one of the speakers in the room. 

Steven pressed a button on the keyboard and answered her through a microphone, "Its perfect. Maintain the camera at that position."

"Activate the damn board Steve", Maina was looking at the switchboard with lenses on it. A few seconds later, a hologram depicting three screens appeared infront of them originating from the lenses. One displayed a bomb like material that had a timer off. The encasement that hosted it had that nuclear logo on it. The middle screen had a countdown already activated for two hours. An empty list was below the timer indicating where the bids commitment will be displayed. To join the bids you had to make a deposit of fifty thousand kenya shillings to evidence your commitment. The third screen manifested accounts transaction as money kept coming in. 

"All our buyers have been alerted and will be joining in a few minutes. All of them have confirmed attendance and cash should be flowing in a few moment", Tara directed these information more to everyone one in the room rather than Maina personally.

"Every page has an onion extension?" Maina retorted.

"Yes. Everything is according to plan", Steve affirmed. A beep sounded all over the room from the speakers. They all turned to the third screen that showed a notification for money bieng recieved into their accounts. 

"Call Khasavuli right now, there's going to be a lot of cash flowing in and I want it moved quickly", Maina addressed his bodyguard who took out his phone and moved to the balcony. Maina turned to focus on the screen as he gave Tara a node to place the start price of the auction.

   ***********************************

A ping notification busted onto the screen of Ambenje who was tilted back on his black office chair with a bucket full of popcorns. Some salt and fine grains from the popcorns were sprinkled all over his moustache that made part of his mutton chop beards. His sidebands stretched all the way to the back of his ears connecting to his corncrow hair. He leaned forward and clicked on the notification to unravel its contents. After a few seconds of reading he punched a few keys on his keyboard turning all his screens black with the one he was looking straight remaining with a command prompt dialogue window. He quickly typed in a few commands making more windows with different lines of words that would definately look gibberish to a lot of non-programmers.

In a moments time, another screen poped up with a title " Chengolama" with a list of people with different amounts of money against there names. The timer on the screen highlighted it was one hour down and another one hour left for the bidding to end.

"Chengolama Auction is on", he called out turning towards Lucas who was a few yards away with other men standing and focused on sheets of papers on a two metre round table. One of the sheets close to Lucas was labeled "Underground". The second Ambenje had rudely interrupted them, forcefully grabing there attention, they all paced towards him with Lucas bieng on the lead maintaining his untammed gaze on to the screen. Mitchelle who was next to Ambenje, so carried away on her phone, had not even noticed the screens turning off. Pulled out of focus by the nasty loud voice she somehow hated just to make a gibe on him, she drew her chair close to the screen Steven was working on.

When they were all centered on the screen, another window appeared within the auction screen that portrayed an explosive device. They were all in awe and mesmerized like a dungeon of gold was right in their sight. The bomb was deadly enough to release an electromagnetic pulse to as far as the surroundings of its target according to its brief description. The bid had accumulated to eighty million kenyas shillings at the moment and there were nine people participating in the auction at that moment.

"Lets join, make the deposit", Lucas came through, "are all our servers and links fully secured?"

"Yes they are", Mitchelle answered as she opened the registration page which redirected them to a cryptocurrency payment plan. Within these few minutes, Ambeje had already called their banker to complete the transaction. 

"And we are in", Steven announced, "what bid should we place sir."

" wait", Lucas replied. 

Five minutes later, the bid was at one hundred and fifty million. The timer rocked on lonely to its death as more bids came through. It got stuck at two hundred million and rose at a tortoise pace. When the timer had only thirty  minutes left of its existence, a button with a "buy auction now: ksh 300M" appeared at the bottom right of the screen.

"Thats our cue, buy before someone else snatches it", Maina grinned as he spoke this words. Micthelle quickly did the neccessary while Steve talked to their banker. Immediately they bought the bid, the site shut down. After a few seconds, another ping got delivered to there screen and it was directions of on how they will meet and finnish the purchase.

"You got the intel?" Lucas turned to Mitchelle.

 "Yes but not that much,  his geeks almost detected me", she retorted.

"Share with the class", Maina implored. She projected her screen onto the bigger one for everyone to see. "Thats where the last node in their connections server was, place of origin is somewhere on the outskirts of Nairobi. When we zoom in", she zoomed in on the large satellite map of Nairobi and continued, "those white boxes you see within the trees are part of a large mansion. Most would assume its just a small farm house because of the concealed part. Next to it is a dense tree canopy with a large murram road originating from it but leads to a dead end. There is another track that appears atleast five hundred metres away from the house out this forest", she stood up from her seat and faced her audience which had not interrupted her since.

"I think they are using the tree canopy as both a hangar and a garage. And if my guess is correct, the bomb is most likley on those planes or cars."

Kanga bursted out with laughter but was cut short with Lucas grimm stare at him. The idea of a hangar underneath a tree amused him.

"So we are gonna buy a bomb for three hundred million kenya shillings?" Adilu addressed the question to the general audience.

"Not really, we are going to buy it for free...", Lucas answered him.

"One more thing", Mitchelle intruded and seemed a little hasty. " We cant trace the registration money we used."

Lucas was shocked, "you mean we are already fifty thousand kenya shillings behind the game? Shit." He didnt look suprised though. At this time Mitchelle and Ambenje were already fading pale.