A young man, an undergraduate, murders another in a gang war on one of the university campuses. The university senate begins to investigate. The blood trails leads to his rooms where the insignia of The black Axe is found, apart from two guns and a sword skilfully fashioned to look like a harmless umbrella. He is rusticated and handed over to the police. At the courts, where Amadiora presides it is clear that he would get the death sentence or life in jail. He is a northerner and moreover a cousin to the sultanate. The Sultan himself personally summons Babiavelli and has a secret night rendezvous with him to avoid the prying eyes of the press. A week before the pronouncement of judgement Babiavelli  summons Amadiora to The Bar  and orders him to reverse the case and set the man free.

“It is all in order. I ‘ll set him free of course”. Amadiora watched Babiavelli closely. The other men leaned forward with interest. They all knew about the muscle-fights between Babiavelli and the Sultan. Babiavelli’s political fate depended somehow on the support of the Northern Mafia, at the head of which was the towering bearded image of the sultan himself.  And their own fates were in turn allied to that of the General. If he lost in his campaign for the highest office in the country they would all be out of  their jobs.

“No, you don’t do anything of the sort. Danburauba!“ Amadiora’s instincts were right. He smiled and bided his time.  The General had changed his mind.  The boy had to die - if only to prove to the sultanate that he still had his fingers on the pulse of things in the country.

“But my hands are tied...“

“Untie them, untie them!“ Babiavelli  picked up a Havana cigar from a box on the table, lit it with trembling fingers, dragged on it and blew rich smoke at Amadiora as if in challenge. “So how are you going to do it, eh? Just do it, kai!“

Amadiora paused wistfully and picked up his bottle. As if that were a cue of some sort, all eyes beamed on him. His reaction was equally important to the others. The keen eyes in the gloom of the room  had that strange wild translucence  of a cat’s irises dilating in the dark. The crazed glaze induced by alcohol only aided the feeling that he was amongst enemies. He turned around to look at the bar-man. The same weird look was in his eyes. He turned once more to the gathering. Chief Nebucadnezza  Adejo was directly opposite him, a journalist and a liar, sly as a serpent and as quick and dangerous with the pen, his gross corrupt weight notwithstanding. He was in charge of propaganda. And rightly so; his sworn motto was, the pen is mightier than the people. He liked to keep a low marxist profile and was dressed in the usual T-shirt, jeans and rubber sandals. On either side of him were a state security chief and  a police commissioner - the ear and mouth-piece of his boss, the Inspector-General. Both were in their forties - thin rake-like figures, predictable in off-duty safari suits.

 Seyi Alajobi - that was the police-man’s name - had once broken the morale of a proud student union leader by snuffing his nose with tear-gas powder, forcing him to sniff in deeply while gassing his eyes directly with the canister variety at the same time. The naive and idealistic young man quickly confessed that the police was indeed a friend of the people. He had had the effrontery to write an article titled the police as an enemy of the people in a major daily newspaper. Salliyu Gokobiri, the secret service man read political history at the university and had since been a devoted student of the Nazi officers of the Jewish holocaust. He never smiled. This was in keeping with  his reputation  as the dreaded  head of a Gestapo-style terror squad, murdering journalist, erring newspaper editors, trade union leaders and any  open critic of Babiavelli’s campaign. Under his iron rule the threat of sudden death gripped the land like a fever.

Amadiora’s eyes sought relief in the other empty seats and without looking directly at Babiavelli, who was seated away from him on the same couch, said  “Well, General - as I said before... You know the case has reached the judgement stage...“  His eyes roved and settled at a point on the high ceiling. The air was charged. Babiavelli picked up his bottle of star slowly and took a long pull, eyes thoughtful. He returned the bottle unto the table, dipped a hand into his flowing babanriga and began to caress his paunch like a pregnant woman responding to the stirrings of life inside her. He did not seem to have heard Amadiora; he simply stared at him. Amadiora felt hot in the air-conditioned room. Gokobiri regarded him with stony eyes. He recognised the danger and quickly made a detour.

“Bar-man“, he raised his voice sharply at his chosen route of diversion, “one star for the General!“  The tension was diffused. They all burst out laughing for no clear reason, except for Attilu and Babiavelli, who seemed unimpressed. The Bar-man trotted over with a cold bottle of star, opened and placed it before the General and retreated quietly to his post. Relaxed in the prevailing atmosphere of restored camaraderie, Amadiora leaned back and sighed, “Yes! Well the boy was arrested without a warrant in the first place...”

“So?,“ Babiavelli interrupted. Amadiora smiled knowingly.

“So we can use that small technical detail to throw the case out and start all over again.“ Babiavelli hit the armrest of the couch in excitement. Gokobiri frowned and asked:

“Why wasn’t the issue of a lack of warrant raised by the defendant’s lawyer during the trial?

“He did“, Amadiora chuckled, “that was why we could twist the case in the boy’s favour in the first place.

“Nice! So the press cannot fault any sudden turns on the lack of a good defence“....

“The press is here,“ Nebucadnezzar interjected, “we are with you all the way.“

“We simply have a re-trial“, continued Amadiora, “and find him guilty after admitting the police’ sworn evidence of a wrong warrant or no warrant at all“.

Alajobi warmed up to this opportunity of proving his own usefulness in the scheme of things. “I’ll personally brief those of my men involved,“ he said. Babiavelli chuckled and whispered to himself. He was now at that stage of alcoholic nirvana possible for him alone. With his brain swathed in the fumes of wisdom, he rode on charged electric airs, which made of his large eye-balls  lightening conductors for self-illumination. Of course they were blood-shot by this time and glowed like live coals. He chuckled once more and spoke loudly into the gloom, “What an Oliver Twist of a case!“ Amadiora could not see the relevance of the comparison and expected much worse. The bees were at work in his own head already. Nebucadnezza, his expression puzzled asked, “has your excellency read that great classic?“ Babiavelli did not seem to have heard the question. He began to ramble.

“You know I was going to -hic- make you - hic - Minister ...

“ ...for Justice,“ Amadiora completed, in an effort to take Babiavelli off the subject, knowing that he was been referred to.

“Mini - star. For - hic - INJUSTICE,“ Babiavelli roared and diminished into the couch in chuckles. “And Anthony General... Yes a General even if you nefer fight war - for your yeye civilian life before... That boy gets the death sentence!“ Amadiora looked sharply in the direction of the bar-man. In his anxiety he kept forgetting that only by really raising the voice to the roofs could any sound penetrate those glass barriers. He was reassured by the glass bar. It was lightly sound-proved ‘for security reasons’ - on the insistence of Gokobiri.