BANKS COPS AND ROBBERS 2

Then he heard footsteps. Someone was running in his direction, and then he heard other footsteps right behind the first. His first thought was to keep quiet and lie very still. After all, this was Lagos, and poking your nose where it didn’t belong especially in the middle of the night could get you killed. He had decided he wouldn’t move and just let whoever it was run past him when the door of the bus swung open. That was the moment he had met Marcus and that was when his life changed forever. Marcus had climbed into the bus and held a knife to his throat, threatening to kill him if he so much as made a sound. They had both laid on the floor of the bus until Marcus’ pursuers were gone. A few minutes after the last footsteps had receded, Marcus climbed down from the bus, smiled at him and thanked him for saving his life. He pulled out a wad of 1000 Naira notes and tossed them at him calm as you like, as if he did not just threaten to slit his throat. That was the first and last he saw of Marcus until their paths crossed three months later. *********************************************************************************Emeka had just finished talking to one of the branch’s high net worth customers and was walking him to the door of his office when he saw the commotion at the counter. At that point it had deteriorated into a three sided shouting match between Sanni, John and the cashier. Emeka put on his ‘’how-may-I-help-you-today’’ smile and walked to the counter.
 ‘’Hello young man, I’m the manager of this branch. My name is Emeka. It seems you have a problem they haven’t been able to help you with, right?’’, he said to John. ‘’I most certainly do’’, John threw back at him. ‘’I don’t understand why you charge me for everything and when I ask for my money all this young lady can tell me is that there are procedures to follow to get my own money. Please just close the account and give me my money right now’’.
 Emeka turned his smile up a few watts. ‘’You don’t have to close your account. I’m sure we can work something out. Please come into my office’’. Emeka walked John to his office and after offering him a seat, brought out a bottle of wine from the refrigerator beside his desk and poured a glass for him. ‘’You know, we don’t just close accounts like that. There’s a lot of paper work to be done and we also have to explain to our head office why the account was closed. They see it as a failure to properly manage our customers and that doesn’t look good on my appraisal’’. The minute John heard that, he knew he had leverage. Maybe it was only a little but he was going to hold on to it with all he had. ‘’Well, the only thing I am interested in now is the fact that I don’t have enough money to go home’’, John said sipping from his glass of wine and trying to look as gloomy as possible. ‘’How much will it cost you to get home?’’, Emeka asked. ‘’Five thousand Naira’’. Emeka reached into the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a bundle of notes. He counted out five thousand naira and handed them over to John. ‘’I’ll just instruct the cashier to debit your account for the 4,400 Naira you have. Have a wonderful trip back home and enjoy your holidays’’. Emeka leaned across his desk to shake hands with John and that was when all hell broke loose. *********************************************************************************Sanni had left the banking hall and was back outside supervising the parking of vehicles when he saw the tinted Peugeot 406 salon car. At first, he thought it was a government official because it didn’t have any number plates. He started to walk towards the car. These government people had money and they liked it when you deferred to them. The last thought that crossed his mind was that he could probably get a very good tip if he played his cards right. He was only about two meters from the car when the back door on the passenger’s side opened and the young man with the AR15 assault rifle stepped out. The bullets threw him halfway across the parking lot and he was dead before he hit the ground. There was a space of about three seconds when time seemed to stand still and then it was utter mayhem. The customers at the ATM scattered in different directions all screaming and shouting and falling over one another. The man with the gun turned and fired at them as they ran away. Three of those running were hit in the head and died instantly a few more were wounded and lay on the ground moaning or screaming. One man had his intestines hanging out and was still crawling along the ground trying to get away. One of the two remaining guards was trying to scale the fence when the gunman turned and sprayed a volley of shots into his back. He flipped from the wall like a rag doll and fell face down on the other side of the fence. He twitched a couple of times and then stopped moving. The mobile policeman attached to the branch was at the back having lunch under the shade of a tree when he heard the first shots. He grabbed his rifle and dove for cover behind the branch’s bullion van which was parked next to where he was sitting. He crawled from there to the wall from where he could see what was happening in front.
 The scene that greeted him made him sick to his stomach. There were four men and a woman all armed with high powered rifles walking towards the entrance of the branch. They stopped briefly and spoke in low tones and then two of the men began to walk towards him, while one of the others put a bullet in the head of a customer who had been shot in the stomach and was crawling with his intestines hanging out trying to get away. It dawned on him they were going to block off the rear exit. He scrambled away from his position behind the wall, sprinted for the fence at the back and vaulted over it without breaking stride. There was nothing he could do here on his own and he dared not use his radio to call in for help for fear that they might hear him. He just hoped the situation did not deteriorate any further before he got help. *********************************************************************************John was reaching out his hand to shake Emeka when he heard the first few shots go off. When the screaming and shouting started he immediately knew it was a robbery. It dawned on him that he had to get out of the branch manager’s office. He was most likely the first person the robbers would look for when they got into the bank. He ran out of the office and into the banking hall. Some of the customers were already lying flat on their faces with their hands over their heads. He was just going to do the same when there was a deafening explosion and the security doors erupted in flames and tangled metal. John looked up and through all the smoke and debris saw a woman lowering a rocket propelled grenade launcher. His next thought was a prayer. ‘’Baba God, abeg I no wan die today’’ (Dear God, please I don’t want to die today)

TO BE CONTINUED