7. CONTINUA

“Am I?” Lucas returned calmly, no twitching in his eyes. His gaze identical to the one a predator maintains on its prey as soon as it sets eyes on it. Maina was on the receiving end. Almost pinned into a mental corner it seemed and nothing looked real to him for some seconds. Even his intuition and subconscious disagreed on each other hence the power of instinct was a little lower.

“Was it in Naivasha?” Maina abruptly turned and asked Indimuli who was puzzled.

“I am sorry”, he replied to affirm his stance of being in the dark.

“when I won a game with a royal flush”’, he further expounded.

“Oooooh!”, Indimuli retorted in both amazement and relief, “what a royal win it was, the pot was a hundred million.”

“Yes”, Maina jumped in.

“What are you doing?” Lucas couldn’t hold it and the question just popped up directed to Maina, “if you trying to scare me...”

“By all means, NO”, he had that sinister sounding accent. “but it is facts. For one, I will never forget his face”, he sounded drawn into his narration.

“His face”, Lucas interrupted.

“Lumumba Dubaku”, he sighed in relief, “yes that was his name. The guy went berserk and even wanted my head for retribution.”

“How do I get my merchandise, and  I suppose you already have a draft of how you would want this to progress..”

“yes I do. I call also, am all in.”

“Gentlemen, confirmed all in, the next three rounds are going to progress sequentially without any break. Are you all ready?” The dealer addressed the question to the house The dense silence chortled their understanding. Everyone was focused on the table, each one breathing slowly and controllably. The two kingpins were silent, eye sight focused at the dealers fingers. Ambenje kept looking at his laptop screen, not even focused on the game. He was the only one in the room who didn’t focus on what was at hand and somehow no one noticed it. “Please show your cards, the small blind first. Maina turned his hole cards, exposing it to the audience.  “A nine of diamonds and a six of flowers”, the dealer continued his job.

“your turn sir”, he addressed Lucas very calmly. Maina had that far grin on his face. Almost like he had won the game and was just waiting confirmation. Lucas hesitated for a second with his cards.

“Are you scared now! Don’t want to say bye to your money now, huh”, Maina teased him. Lucas turned his cards after taking a moment and calling a meeting within himself. On his side were two powerful cards that obliterated the hell out of Maina. 

“A seven of flowers and an eight of flowers. We shall move to fifth street since there are no more bets”, the dealer announced. Maina already knew he had lost these round, his hand only had a possible two pairs of a kind while his adversary had a possible straight flush that was almost close to a royal flush. The dealer discarded the top card on his deck and placed two cards facing up. They both were a nine of hearts and a nine of spade. 

Maina banged the table in an irrational anger momentum while raising up from his chair. “That was so close”, he said in a slow paced manner, full of anger lurking inside of him. Indeed he was so close to checkmating Lucas. With the two new community cards, his stake had rose from two of a kind to four of a kind since his one hole card; nine of flowers matched the other three nines hence having a four cards of the same rank. However, the hole cards for Lucas broke all defences of Maina. He firmly deployed a straight flush; having the same suit of cards with ranking that ascended sequentially. The only hand that could beat that was a royal flush or a higher straight flush.

“Wow”, Lucas amazed, “what do we have here!”

“Big blind wins by a straight flush”, the dealer announced. “Do you wish to continue?” The question was directed to Maina since he had no chips left.

“Bring me another fifteen million”, he replied, a little bit irritated and also calm. He tried to maintain his cool in such occasions. The dealer went on to fill the chips. “You can consider that as a discount.” He told Lucas who laughed sarcastically. 

“Anything funny?” Maina was blazing all his mental haven.

“No, I accept the discount, lets play on and by the way, how is the payment process?” Lucas asked sarkingly.

“My guy here will give you the account and routing numbers. You will pay half the money to demonstrate good faith. That you can be trusted. That you will do now, by the time we are cascading the premises, my banker should have confirmed the payment. I will contact you in twenty four hours with where and when we meet for the final transaction.”, he ignored the tone in Lucas voice.

“Am not doing a thing until I see the damn thing.”

“What kind of fucker are you, to expect me to walk around these streets with such merchandise in this damn big city?” he paused, scratched his cheek before adding, “a very stupid one, right?” To some point he made sense to Lucas. Reasoning out with his few senses left, he concluded he would neither do that too. 

“Okay, as it seems, am the one who is showing the gestures here, how do I trust you?”

“Ha-ha, you don’t, as long as I have what three quarters of the underworld wants, I keep on playing checkmates on you sons of bitches. Regardless of that, am a trustable business man and my reputation precedes me, besides you always know where to find me if things go wrong.”

“Am sorry gentlemen, shall we begin the next game”, the dealer interrupted them, “lets place the bets as we continue with these candid conversation.” Deep down the dealer was shocked on what he was hearing. In these line of work he had heard about the most damaging conversations but this one felt off the grid. For whatever reasons, he assumed the merchandise must be a weapon of mass destruction. He was still new at the premises, having been employed a month a go. Sometimes he would see on the news of a certain terrorist activity and then remembers he knows the people responsible but could not do anything. Its not once or twice he had thought of  quitting the job but again he had bills to pay, a small sister to take care of. The rules of the job were also not a light, forever you will live looking over you shoulder in fear of being watched or followed. Exposing the company secrets was the worse of all and it immediately triggered an assassination plot. You wouldn’t last long even in police custody or witness protection given the kind and nature of network the company ran.

“Sir, are you okay?” the question from Lucas woke our dealer from whatever stray thoughts his mind had wandered too. Soo dark and scary it appeared on his face. 

“Sorry gentlemen, where were we, never mind, I just remembered. So what’s your bets, you are the small blind Mr Lucas.”

“One million”

“Two million”, Maina raised the bet as soon as Lucas was done. The dealer turned to Lucas to see if he accepted by nodding his head to affirm. His deadlocks were all tied to the back as they cascaded to his back abyss. Maina turned to Steven and nodded to him who in turn acknowledged and punched a few strokes on the keyboard.

“Can I have your number sir?” He askes Lucas in a civilised manner. It appalled Lucas since he wasn’t anticipating the attitude. He gave his number but solely due to the respect that emanated from the request. While still playing the game, he received a notification which on checking was a payment request and the routing number were already setup.

“Just in a few seconds and you have already established the numbers. That’s good, hats off.” He turned to Indimuli and gave him the phone. Within seconds, money had lready been transferred as agreed and Mania’s banker affirmed. 

“The big blind wins by a flush”, the dealer announced marking the endd of the game and new bets to be placed for the new game. The pot for the second game had accumulated to five million and Maina was very determined to return his lost fifteen million bid he’d lost in the first game. Time was never on his side and he knew that. Lucas had sent the details to his banker and instantly, one hundred million Kenya shillings was transferred to the account.

“Do you guy want to play another game?” The dealer had maintained a terse manner of communication through this session. Normally he would have been killed for hearing such conversations but the club protected him. Death to him would raise havoc to both Maina and Lucas. Before they could reply, Maina got a call from his banker who confirmed the transfer was successful. Instantaneously, Lucas received a text message which he read and looked at Ambenje who nodded in affirmation.

“Since you are an honourable man, I will leave you this”, Maina slid his arm into his pocket and glided and envelope to Lucas. “Those are the codes for activating the bomb, they can only be generated once hence we cant change them.”

“Son of a bitch”, Lucas was so angered with Maina but had to maintain his cool. Any drastic movement in the chase game and he would be checkmated.

“Hey, to be honest, now that you have the 16 digit code, that bomb is useless to me now. Just like carrying a junk. Can we play one more game?”

Lucas turned down the offer while standing up preparing his leave. His team rose up too in tandem. “I think we are done here. I will be waiting for your call and you have twenty four hours.”

“what if I don’t meet your deadline. I don’t appreciate working under pressure. For Pete’s sake that’s why I never wanted to be employed.”

“I think you already know the answer to that”, he maintained a stunned stare with Maina’s  eyes, not breaking contact. Like they were trying to intimidate each other. “It was half pleasure doing business with you.” With that, he turned and walked out of the room with his team following suit.”

After they had all cleared the room, Maina turned to Indimuli, “ anything suspicious?”

“Apparently yes sir. They breached our system and they know where the bomb is”, Indimuli retorted.

“I knew it, all those glances on his phone. Call Letisha, tell her to move the bomb to Lalana.”

“Lalana sir!” Tara was appalled.

“Yes and we got to do it now or we will loose our precious merchandise plus your precious friend Letisha.”

“Right away sir.”