24 Hours Later – Outskirts of Lokoja
The night air was thick with dust and diesel. A rusted tanker rumbled past a checkpoint, blaring fuji music from blown-out speakers. Onome Amadi sat in the back of a beat-up SUV, one hand wrapped in gauze, the other clutching his daughter's fingers.
Ife was asleep, her head on his lap. Even in rest, her brow stayed tense. Her childhood had been torn in two—and Amadi knew there was no stitching it back the same.
Zainab Musa drove. Her eyes never stopped moving, tracking shadows in mirrors, calculating every vehicle that passed.
"We can't go back to Abuja," she said. "They'll be watching every road in and out. Airports. Phones. Safe houses. All burned."
"I figured," Amadi muttered.
She tossed a thick dossier onto the seat beside him. "This is who Boma was working for. The real puppeteers."
He opened it—pages filled with surveillance photos, classified comms, deep fake IDs, and account numbers stashed across Panama, Seychelles, Dubai. The web of rot was vast.
And at the center:
General Udo Kainene.
Presumed dead five years ago. Former Chief of Army Staff. Cold as titanium.
"You telling me Kainene is still alive?" Amadi said, voice low.
"Not just alive. He's building something. Something bigger than you or me." She looked him dead in the eye. "Boma was just the warm-up."
Amadi exhaled slowly. "And the rest of the children?"
Zainab's face darkened. "Scattered. Some sold off. Some used as leverage. And a few…"
She didn't finish.
Later that night, at an abandoned NIA outpost near the River Niger, Amadi sat alone by a flickering oil lantern. Ife slept in a cot inside, wrapped in a heavy blanket. Zainab was outside, sharpening a blade.
Baba's voice crackled through an old satellite phone.
"I decrypted Boma's last comms. They were planning a handover in Gembu. South Taraba. Coordinates match one of Kainene's ghost sites."
"How many men?"
"A convoy. At least 30. Heavily armed. Mercs. Foreign."
Amadi's eyes narrowed.
"They have children?"
"Looks like it. But something else too." A pause. "Files. Data drives. The kind that can bring down governments."
Amadi stood. His mind raced through the maps he'd memorized years ago—the terrain of Taraba, the narrow ridges, the cave systems. Perfect for disappearing… or hiding something explosive.
"I'm going after them."
"You're walking into hell, Oga."
"I live there."
To Be Continued…