chapter 7

The following week Sam was living in the United States of America with his father, Charles. He had gradually return to the living the actual life of wealth and luxury something more than he had ever imagined before.

The world flashed right before his eyes as the days went by with him aging every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month and every year into the man that he had now become.

The aftermath of Charles’ decision to father him was what the young boy had been living in.

9 YEARS LATER

Sam, the sweet boy that had shown up at Charles’ warehouse as the new recruit for the job at a drug manufacturing center, the boy that Charles had taken in as a son, the boy who had believed in a lot of things that were in no way true had grown with all these into a young man, Samuel Rowland he was called by. He had grown into the exact replica of his father over the years.

Sam had continued his academics at one of the best schools around the world studying the same course as his father, Charles - Business Administration. Even at school he was at the top of it all - ill gotten grades, clubs, parties, orgies, play boys. At least that was until his decision to drop out of school just so he could lead the drug dealing business and write a history of wealth for himself far greater than that of his father.

Sam had a few months before his upcoming graduation when he went into his decision to have a change of heart and life styles and dreams and his career. Drugs and inexhaustible wealth and power were the new choice he had made to get into his life. His insane dreams went as far as to gain global authority. The only thing wise in that decision was like his father he stuck to the legally safe drugs and kept away from although sold but also kept away from his system the drugs he manufactured and the rest illegal ones knowing entirely well what they are capable of. 

He resumed from the exact spot that his father, Charles had stopped climbing the same steps of murder, gangsteric and illegal lifestyle, international invincibility from the law that he too had climbed to his present status. With the ridicules of old age and a son to continue the luxurious legacy he had begun Charles went into retirement. He retired leaving Samuel as the sole heir to all his wealth and glory. 

Charles had been preparing Samuel right from the day he turned 15 on the family business so he could take over when a time like this would arrive – his retirement and the time when the entire Rowland fortune would all be his. Charles had told him, taught him and imbibed in him all it took to be an untouchable illegal crook. From his escapades with his dad and experience Sam had also learnt a lot about the family business; the art of fake names, fraud, invincibility from the law and a lot more of the drug business from his father’s rivals and their meagre attacks amidst others.

By the time he was 21 years old he had become an expert in the science of micro biology and human anatomy, a knowledge he had gotten by his experiments and praticals rather than lectures, on the vast number of human beings he had abducted and/or trafficked. He had gotten the precise reasons and theories on what the content of his father’s drugs could do in the system of a person(s). 

Sam’s personality got so corrupted and spoilt by Charles’ lifestyle that he toyed with the human brain all for the sake of finding a much effective dose that would make the mind even lighter than the drugs of his father would have done. On his 124 lab rat he was able to successfully come up with a new chemical substance that was a hundred times more effective than Charles drugs.

Samuel named it the KKY Express. 

A drug that in the first two weeks of release into the drug-dealing community became the top in the black market. Samuel Rowland’s net worth through the sales had risen from $132.568B to about $204.973B three months later. Sadly, luck they say is never sufficient for the dark of heart. 

On the 3rd day of March the year 2022 Samuel Rowland was caught red-handed smuggling his illegal drugs across a national border. His genius plan was to have the liquefied drugs injected into the hardest wood known to man and get them across the border through that means. In his thought and to the best of his knowledge there was no way that a scanner would be able to pick up the chemicals from the center of a wood so thick. He had done his research and found out that it was technologically or scientifically possible for a scan to go through the wood. At about 0.5cm into scanning the wood, the scanner would not be able to see anything nor go further so he made the Allocasuarina luehmannii to be his best method of transportation that was until he had gotten himself caught by the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s newly developed laser scanner. The great name of Charles Rowland the invincible drug lord had finally fallen.

“What did you just say?”, asked Charles provoked on hearing the news of Sam’s immediate capture and arrest. 

Charles had been on a retirement cruise when a call from Sam’s bodyguard had informed him of the incidence.

“Boss, Samuel got caught by the F.B.I trying to smuggle in some parcels of KKY across the border”, he repeated.

Charles was 73 years old but with the vast amount of wealth and luxury that he had been living in and enjoying all around himself he looked and had the physical qualities of someone in his early 60’s. This time Charles knew that with Charles arrested there was no way he could get him out of an authority such as the F.B.I. Definitely there was no way that he could implore help from Brad to get into the server and do a little magic for Sam’s case to be dropped or anything neither was there any price that could be paid to get Sam off the hands of the F.B.I. The law would always be the law. Sam was arrested and would have to go in line with the charges held against him.

Brad had died two years back leaving all his knowledge and skills to a daughter who like him was also a technological expert but also a wanted fugitive of the law. She had gotten a lot better than her father in the technological world and just with a few hits she made her way into the world with politicians and leaders worldwide secretly crawling for her skills. The only set back she had became the fact that she only followed the green note – money, and as a result got herself caught and arrested for unimaginable cyber crimes one of which was the hacking and looting of millions from the world bank.

She stole huge chunks of money just so she could donate it all to some charity all around the continent of Africa and Asia for growth in health services, civilization and economy. She was doing the right thing of course but obviously in the wrong way. All her equipments, tools, everything she had for her dubious practices were seized and burnt to ash wherever she had them hidden. The mini – satellite owned by her father was destroyed and her various bank accounts all over the globe were drained and then frozen solid. 

“So-so-so….”, stammered Charles before going into shock. 

Immediately, from his cruise he was transported through an helicopter secretly to a hospital where a doctor diagnosed him to have had a heart attack. 

Few hours into his hospitalization Charles gave up the ghost.

Sam was left with the situation of going into trial. According to the laws, he was to be deported back to the home country stated in his records – Nigeria, where he would be tried and by law would be sentenced to a minimum of 25 years in prison.

AT THE COURT ROOM 15 DAYS AFTER SAM’S ARREST ON THE DAY OF HIS TRIAL AT THE SUPREME COURT OF NIGERIA

The supreme court of Justice filled with national and international lawyers, reporters, jurymen as well as spectators attracted by the sensational nature of the case – the personalities involved and the global publicity given to it in the press. It was the case of the decade.

Amidst all the clamors, restlessness and heated discussions and the last minute consultations going on in the courtroom, the judge- Judge Bishop O. Leki entered in a proud and swift countenance of his professional regalia. 

“Order! Court!”, announced the court usher.

The entire number of those present in the court rose to their feet and remained in such position until the judge took his seat.