Ndome and Masaa nicknamed each other Brother. The nickname was manufactured by a naïve thing they once did while in high school. They shared one woman, during their hardest times of their emotional life while in the same High School. They didn’t deliberate share as such. But, in the course of one night, they accidentally met at a particular place for a purpose. The girl had mixed up things somewhere. She gave them date at the same place. She didn’t come that night, maybe because she discovered the mistake. But when they met there, they became suspicious of each other’s intention and shamefully admitted to each other they had a date with the same girl, Motha, who was a slight cripple. Hunting brothers, they teased each other. Surprisingly, that was the last date both had with the girl. It was at a later time that each disclosed to have had slept with her.
High school graduation separated Ndome and Masaa. Masaa went to university and Ndome went to army training college. By the time Masaa graduated and got a job as a teacher, ambitious Ndome was eying to be called Captain Ndome. They had kept close to each other, perhaps, because they came from the came countryside. They were friends and, this time, they joked about how riotous the cripple was in bed.
When Ndome fell in love with his small and awfully beautiful piece of woman, Katunge, he played marital delay secretly. He had decided from within that he will Katunge after he became a Captain. He was a tall man with a sharp head that fitted well in armed forces. Within two years he earned his captainship and planned the wedding date to Katunge’s delight.
Both Brothers had declared, come the wedding day, they would be each other’s best-men. It became so ideal that Masaa had a girlfriend after quitting his first materialistic girlfriend when he found she had gone to bed with a married man, most likely attracted to him because of his wealth.
Masaa’s new girlfriend, Kakwasi, was an ambitious university graduate with a dream of going for postgraduation, something that was a threat to Masaa and made him start thinking about post-graduation to be a match for Kakwasi, although he had a good and promising job as a banker.
Masaa and Kakwasi became the best-man and best-bride for Captain Ndomes’s grand wedding that had been designed to be given military status. Both couples wore the same suit. For Masaa and Kakwasi, it was a treat to be the best persons for the occasion and have a tase of military air. Masaa would live to remember watching the small girl, Katunge, dressed like an angel, looking up at her bride as if he would take her to heaven, while Mdome looked down at her as it she would take him from the sky to the ground. It was a great amusement to watch the two.
The marrying couple had a plan to go for their honeymoon in Mombasa. They had a plan that they would travel by road from Nairobi to Mombasa and take a flight back to Nairobi after the honeymoon.
Masaa volunteered to drive the couple to Mombasa for the honeymoon. There was no way he could drive to Mombasa without his girlfriend who was anxious to see Mombasa and the Indian Ocean for the first time. “Come, let’s escort them,” he gladly accepted.
Captain Monde had bought himself a good car, red because he liked red things. For convenience, the drive had to take place on Saturday. Masaa and Kakwasi took two days off duty. They would return to office on Wednesday because they wanted to have good time in Mombasa separate as couples.
To enjoy the full day together, they left Nairobi at six o’clock for the nearly 500 kilometers drive. It was a wonderful morning. Unfortunately, the car behaved badly as they approached the Kyumbi town, a junction to Machakos. Captain Ndome suspected he had bought contaminated fuel somewhere, or there was something wrong with the petrol pump. They had a break at Kyumbi where the problem was detected and repaired. The petrol jet had blockage somewhere.
They were back to the drive joyfully. Just when they were about to bypass Salama town at the foot of the Kilungu Hill, Captain Ndome spotted the gorgeous display of the Mount Kimimajaro, a rare occasion when the mountain at the horizon displayed its full body on a cool morning. He cried for a photograph with his new wife. Masaa looked for a good location and drive the car to the side of the road. They burst out of the car full of smiles. To get an excellent capture of the photo including the background, they looked for a raised ground, quite a bit from the road, where Masaa did excellent shots with his expensive mobile phone.
“My God, I must have some shots of the mountain for my family to see,” Kakwasi cried. “I left my phone in the car.”
“I’ll get it for your – in your handbag?” Captain Ndome asked moving fast to the car after getting the car key from Masaa. Kakwasi caught up with him before he reached the car. They left Masaa and Katunge admiring the view of the breathtaking mountain.
Captain Ndome and Kakwasi were in the car sorting out things when the worst struck. Three robbers out nowhere stormed into the car with one of them armed with a pistol and snarling, “Dare shout and you’re dead.” Captain and Kakwasi were forced into the back seat sandwiched between two men. They had got Captain Ndome when he was dangling the car keys in his hand.
One of the robbers drove the car off madly.
A daylight abduction.
The adoptees were driven to a hell in the abyss of Tanzania. The good thing was that they were spared any harm. But they had been caught by a dangerous gang of robbery.
After the couple had been stripped off their identity cards, the gang took to using them. as a couple among others, for robbery mission. They were given new fake identities as Tanzanians whereby Kakwasi was dressed up with a gab covering her face when she was sent out on business. They were given good accommodation and treated nicely as a couple living together.
Half a year passed by before Captain Ndome and Kakwasi realized by design of fate or whatever, they were married. But how would they ever get out of the hell?
Masaa and Katunge had been thrown into the same turmoil by fate. They had left the abduction spot devastated after seeing the couple kidnapped and the red car flying out of their sight. They had no option but to return home to wait for the outcome, having been thrown into a common emotional prison where, under circumstances, they became roommates. Either through expressing sympathy for each other or whatever, they became intimate. Then, what they had never been prepared for took place.
They got married.
Perhaps by the design of fate, if not by luck, the couples met after nearly four years of separation. That was when Captain Ndome and Kakwasi cleverly outwitted their captors by design. The captors had made the mistake of keeping the two as a couple, capable of planning their escape. But the escape had become easier only after they got their first child, when the robbery demand of missions became less. The encouraging thing was that the captors, who had given them death threat if they dared play evil, took Captain Ndome at a high value because of his intelligence in maneuvering things. He was paid for that by being allowed to keep encouraging wealth as his possession.
How he and his wife planned the escape is a long story of little value in saying that when the two couples met, there was no discussion of marriage. They accepted the turn and strengthened their friendship. As if they had synchronized things, they met when each couple had two children. Captain Ndome had two daughters while Masaa had son and daughter, with the son as the first born. It was a miracle that Captain Ndome got back his job.