OLD ABA ROAD, PORT HARCOURT, RIVERS STATE.
Savior.
He hated that name. Why in the goddamn world did whoever bequeathed this name to him give him such a crass name?
Tiger.
Now, that sounded more like who he really was. The kind of high he gets whenever he hears people—even the media and his antagonists—cower as they call his name was something he wouldn't trade for anything.
Tiger was a killer. A ruthless one for that matter. He didn't care one bit about how anyone felt.
When it came to the bad guys, he chose to be extremely brutal because they deserved nothing less. He strongly believed that it was the only way to destroy them by paying them back in their own coin.
Presently, notwithstanding the fact that he was young, he was the second most influential personnel in the country's top crime syndicate.
He was also in the police's most wanted list, but it never bothered him for once. The fact that they could never catch him no matter how hard they might try made it all the more fun for him.
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He knew he was like a ghost. No, strike that. He was more like a breeze and that was why they could never apprehend him.
You can feel the breeze on your skin but you can't touch it. So was Tiger.
Savior was in the country, smoothly and perfectly carrying out his operations, and the Nigerian police knew it, but just like the breeze, he could never be caught unless he willingly turned himself in. He had no intention of doing that anytime soon.
After all, he wasn't the real enemy here. Just like the police, he too was hunting down the actual enemies. Too bad the police disagreed with him.
Really, it didn't matter to Savior if the Nigerian police and majority of the society agreed with him or not. He wasn't asking for their opinion.
It didn't matter how the enemy was being destroyed. He was doing his job well in bringing down the enemies and that was all that mattered to him. And he'd continue to do it faithfully to the end.
‘An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth’ was his motto.
This was obviously what the law and constitution did not totally understand. Sadly, that was why good, harmless and innocent people were the ones dying and bad people kept increasing as they continued darting about the face of God's green earth, causing chaos in the society.
But this was why Savior was born. To let justice prevail. He often chanted the mantra to himself.
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He was born to correct all those mistakes, by sending the bad guys into extinction and preventing the good folks from dying a gruesome death in their hands.
This was his destiny. It was just unfortunate that he didn't realize it earlier than he did. It took the death of his father in the hands of those monsters to draw his attention to that realization. His delay in taking action against those scumbags was something he would forever regret. Perhaps if he had known earlier, he could have prevented the death of his father.
A lot of people didn't have any sense of living, but this was his own purpose. It was why he was still alive, currently at the right place at the right time, tracking this woman driving slowly in front of his car from the Oil Mill market.
Don't worry, madam. I ain't gonna ever hurt you.
He only wanted to trail behind the woman to her location so that he and his gang could plan how to carry out their next operation in two weeks' time.
It would also be the perfect location and circumstance where he would eliminate more scoundrels without drawing too much attention. His plan was to gun down two boys who were stooges of those filthy bourgeois during this particular operation. He would send them to hell where they belonged. Let justice prevail.
Who are you, Tiger?
I am justice and justice is me. Justice loves me and I love justice.
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Savior had joined the syndicate during his days in the university shortly after his father's death. With the sense of dedication and resolve he possessed, he had worked his way up to the hierarchy and successfully earned their respect and trust. Not just that, but he had manipulated his way to become the second big thing in the syndicate in less than five years from the time he joined them, making him answerable to only its founder and current leader.
The crime syndicate was the highest in the country. Its members were scattered nationwide and in some other parts of the world. It certainly wasn't as big as the Russian mafia but it could be almost as deadly.
Because of his current position and influence he had on the group, he was one of the most trusted. He was also revered by the younger ones who were looking up to him. If only they knew that he was their biggest nemesis waiting for the right time to explode.
Well, I'll show them. Show 'em all who's boss, Tiger.
An image of his late father's innocent face turned up from his memory and danced in his imagination. He involuntarily winced at that.
Don't worry, Father, I know I'm making you proud wherever you are right now. I might not be doing this the way you like it but I'm still getting the job done. Just continue to watch and see how your boy will make you mighty proud.
Still deep in his thoughts, Savior almost lost track of the woman he was trailing as she began to veer into an interstate highway. He was jerked back in time from his musings to his current mission.
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He riveted his eyes on the car, determined not to be distracted again as he kept following her thirty yards behind.
After driving for about two miles, the woman began to gradually slow down. Savior noticed it and also stepped on his car brakes to match her pace. He kept a considerable distance, never taking his keen eyes off her.
His gaze moved past her car and he could see an estate ahead of them. It occurred to him that the woman might have been slowing down because she was going to drive into that estate.
He hoped it was truly where she resided. Like a confirmation to his thoughts, the woman turned on her left indicator.
Not long after, he watched the woman turn towards the entry gate. The gate was opened by one of the security men and the woman drove inside the estate.
Savior tapped his finger on his steering wheel, smiling contently to himself.
He pressed his right foot hard on the accelerator and speedily drove past the estate gate just as the security man locked the gate after the woman drove unceremoniously inside.
"Very good. Another job well done," he muttered to himself.
Savior turned on his Google map and typed in the name of the estate. After two seconds, his phone screen displayed most of what he already knew about the estate.
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Having grown-up in the city of Port Harcourt, he knew the city like he knew the back of his palms. At the moment, he knew that this was one of the new and developing estates in Rivers State. Sometimes, places like this were usually vulnerable and easy to penetrate by people with ill intents.
He had successfully completed his first task by discovering and choosing this location. Now, he just needed to get back to his secret hideout, review the map and carry out some other assignments to look for a loophole before they would carry out their operation. In the next two weeks or less, he would kill his next unsuspecting victims.
For someone of his caliber and rank, he ought to be relaxing and allow the younger ones to do the menial jobs like picking a spot for the operation. But he certainly hadn't joined the syndicate to be babysitted by some bunch of rookies. And he also wanted everything to run on his own terms.
In this kind of job, trust was a rare commodity. He couldn't play the dice and ended up blindsided.
Starting from now, he would make the game special by involving the police. He had been involving the police alright; it's just that he'd been doing it indirectly. But this time around, he would begin partnering directly with them.
Two weeks, guys, two weeks. That's all the time you have before you'll be ridded of your blasted days on planet earth. Enjoy it while it lasts.
Savior smirked and stepped harder on the accelerator. His car cruised fast as he turned the steering in the direction of his hideout.
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