Murder on the Karen Boulevard

I was going to kill somebody. I meant it. After so many years of planning; not that I am a terrorist. I was a terrorised man.

            I made my way to the spot where I was going to kill the man I hated with passion from. Days and nights of rehearsals had imprinted the route in my mind like a stamp.

            I knelt behind the 12.7mm gun on tripod and looked through the powerful night scope. I could make the silver studs on the ear of some guy kissing his girl in the dark about two kilometres away.

I scanned the road ahead, the traffic at this hour of the night and the exact killing zone I had selected. Directly above it there was a billboard astride the road. It was the standard height. If it were to fall it would take exactly five seconds after the chains that held it were released. I needed to fire four quick shots.

The man I was going to kill had contracted my company to put up the billboard. It was done to my specifications. He was a multibillionaire oil magnate without whom the current president would be nothing and the economy on the verge of recession.

After hours of waiting in the dark something at last happened.

I saw his motorcade.

*

Senator Willice Omamo was running behind schedule. He was late for the campaign party at his house. His wife had called him the past one hour incessantly. He had ignored her calls.

            “Call the organiser at Amani Children’s Home and tell him I couldn’t make it to the fundraiser,” Senator Omamo said to his campaign secretary sitting across from him in the limo.

            “But sir, it won’t be advisable to…”

            Rachel was good at what she did, young and promising; but too opinionated.

            “I’ll take what you say under advisement, Rachel, for what it’s worth, but it’s my call in the end,” the senator said. “Now, I want you to cancel that fundraiser.”

            “Yes, sir,” Rachel said.

            The Internal Security Steering Committee he headed was on the threshold of being disbanded. With the recent spate of terror attacks, murders, robbery and other crimes going off the rocker his race for State House was on the line.

He had to take control, show the country he had what it took to lead it to Vision2050 launched by the incumbent president, his rival in the forthcoming general elections. That’s why he was late getting to his campaign party. Meetings, crisis talks and damage control had been taking place to build public confidence in him. So far it had been dour, all the more reason he was almost losing it.

            According to InfoTrak he was the favoured candidate. The campaign party was equally important to him, so was the fundraisers which were aimed at building masses behind him. Obviously his magnanimity could not be forgotten.

            As Rachel busied herself with what she had been told to do, Senator Omamo took out his phone and called his wife to let her know that he was on his way. Better late than never.

            “Hey, babe. It’s me. I should be there any time from…” he didn’t finish what he was about to say.

            Senator Omamo felt hands grab him and push him on to the floor of the limo. “Sir, you need to stay down,” it was his security head. “We are under attack…”

            At that instant, something hit the limo from above. It seemed to fold into half from the middle. Searing pains tore through the senator’s body as he felt several ribs crunch and puncture his lungs.

            Senator Omamo drew in air. None filled his lungs. I’m being killed, he thought. So, this is what it has come to?

*

There was no word of the victim yet. Still, the sight of the mangled limousine on TV was all I needed to know that at last it was over. Multibillionaire oil magnate, Oliver Were-Tanui, the man who took what rightfully belonged to me – was dead.

            It was a stunning mete of natural justice and retribution. He had the blood of my parents on his hands. The ground from where their blood soaked, all his handiwork, was still wet and grew the TaOil Company. OPEC, the Middle East oil giants and BP and Shell started wooing him. The oil discovered in Turkana some time ago, from Uganda, Tanzania and Somalia was being drilled by his company. That could be mine, my parents’ legacy. Did he think he was going to get away with it?

            My sister, Jennifer, came into the room and stood behind me.

            “Anything yet about the scum?”

            Something else answered instead. “We are coming to you live from Karen roundabout where a possible assassination attempt was made on the life of Senator Willice Omamo several minutes before midnight last night…” it was the TV.

            “What?” I screamed. “That motorcade…”

            “…Senator Omamo is the opposition’s and popular presidential candidate in the forthcoming general elections according to opinion polls. So far, opposition leaders are accusing the incumbent government of attempting to assassinate their candidate…”

            “What have I done? What have I done?”

*

“Senator Willice Omamo’s car was hit by a billboard,” the news anchor said. “That is according to the preliminary investigations conducted by the police. ‘No one was trying, and wants, to kill the senator’ is the message from the State House…”

            All the news channels were filled with the news of the failed assassination attempt on the senator. He was recuperating at Karen hospital where he had been rushed after the incidence.

            No one knew the truth, and probably will ever.

            For me it was a glaring mistake. I was back to square one.