Chapter 9: Abuja Terms
1320 Words
Abuja at 6 a.m. smells like wet concrete and burnt suya.
The plane from Lagos landed early, and I didn’t sleep on it. Sade’s people picked me up in a black SUV with tinted windows that didn’t roll down. No conversation. No phone. They took it at the airport gate, sealed it in a bag, gave me a receipt like I’d checked a coat.
Aisha was still in Lagos. Dipo was watching her, and she had instructions: if I didn’t message “clear” by 8 p.m., the Iceland dead-drop gets the real log file. Not the fake one. The real one. The one with the names, the IP patterns, the way the Frankfurt server tied back to three shell companies in Dubai.
If I died, she’d burn it all.
If I lived, maybe she wouldn’t have to.
The SUV stopped in front of a building that wasn’t on Google Maps. No sign. Just a gate, a guard, and a scanner that looked expensive.
“Phone off,” the guard said. He didn’t ask.
I walked through.
Inside was a conference room with glass walls and a table that cost more than my first apartment. Sade was already there. She stood when I came in.
“Drink?” she asked.
“No,” I said.
Two men entered from the side door. Late forties, suits, the kind of calm that only comes when you’ve never been told no.
“Tayo Bello,” the taller one said. “I’m Director Adebayo. This is Mr. Kolawole.”
Neither offered a hand.
I sat down.
“You have 20 minutes,” Adebayo said. “Convince us not to kill you.”
Straight to it. I liked that. Less room for lies.
1. *What they wanted*
Adebayo slid a folder across the table. Inside were printouts of payment flows, failed transactions, and names I recognized from Kano.
“Operation Chimera,” he said. “You’ve already seen part of it. We block fraud before it hits the banks. No courts, no delays. 2.3 billion naira saved last quarter.”
“And 2,300 people who never got charged,” I said.
He didn’t flinch.
“Collateral,” Kolawole said. “Some of them were innocent. Most weren’t. You know how the system works. Wait for a warrant, the money’s gone.”
2. *What they offered*
“Build it,” Adebayo said. “Full version. Nationwide. You get a lab, a team, a budget. Off-books, but real. Salary is 4 million a month. Aisha gets protection. You get immunity.”
“Immunity from what?”
“From us,” Kolawole said. “And from them.” He nodded at the folder.
3. *What they didn’t say*
They didn’t say who ‘them’ was.
They didn’t say what happened if I said no.
And they didn’t say why Sade looked like she wanted to be anywhere else.
I opened the folder, flipped to the last page. It was a photo.
Aisha. Outside the guesthouse in Maryland. Taken yesterday.
“You said untouched,” I said quietly.
“She is untouched,” Adebayo said. “For now. That’s the point of this meeting.”
I closed the folder.
“Why me?” I asked. “You have people. You have money. Hire a team from Israel, from Russia. They’ll build it faster.”
“Because they can’t hide it,” Sade said for the first time. “You can. Your code doesn’t look like code. It looks like noise. We ran your Frankfurt build through three audits. Nothing flagged.”
“That’s why you want me,” I said. “Not because I’m good. Because I’m invisible.”
Adebayo nodded.
“And because you have a reason to hate the people we’re stopping,” he said. “That makes you careful. Careful people don’t leak.”
I looked at Sade.
“Do you believe that?” I asked her.
She met my eyes. “I believe you won’t sell out your sister. The rest, we’ll see.”
The choice was fake.
If I said yes, I’d be building a weapon I couldn’t control.
If I said no, Aisha’s photo stayed in the folder, and the next one would be her address.
If I tried to stall, they’d know.
So I gave them the only answer that gave me time.
“I need to see the system,” I said. “Not slides. The actual servers. The live feed. If I’m building it, I need to know what I’m fixing.”
Adebayo and Kolawole exchanged a look.
“That’s unusual,” Kolawole said.
“It’s necessary,” I said. “You want me to sign my name to this? I need to know it works. And I need to know it won’t kill the wrong people.”
Sade spoke before they could answer.
“Give him access. Read-only. One hour.”
Adebayo hesitated, then nodded.
“One hour. No devices. No notes. Sade stays with you.”
They led me down two levels, through a door that required a retina scan, into a room that felt colder than it should have.
Walls of screens. Live transaction streams. Red flags popping up and disappearing in seconds.
And in the corner, a list.
Names. Dates. Locations.
“Detained,” “Released,” “Pending.”
I recognized three names from Kano.
All three were marked “Released.”
None of them were in prison.
“See?” Sade said quietly. “We don’t keep them. We stop the payment. We send a warning. If they try again, we escalate.”
“And if they don’t deserve a warning?” I asked.
“Then we made a mistake,” she said. “And we fix it.”
I didn’t believe her. Not fully.
But I saw enough to know the system wasn’t a lie.
It was just unfinished. And dangerous.
When the hour was up, I walked out without looking back.
Back in the conference room, Adebayo was waiting.
“So?” he said.
“I’ll build it,” I said.
“Good,” he said.
“But not for you,” I added.
Kolawole stood up fast.
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll build it for Nigeria,” I said. “With oversight. With a board. With a kill switch that isn’t in your hands. You want results? You’ll get them. But you won’t own me.”
The room went quiet.
Sade didn’t move.
Adebayo sat back down slowly.
“You’re negotiating terms,” he said.
“I’m setting conditions,” I said. “Take them, or I walk. And you know I can walk. I have the pattern. You don’t.”
Kolawole looked like he wanted to call security.
Adebayo looked like he was calculating odds.
After a long moment, he said, “We’ll discuss it.”
“Do that,” I said. “You have until 8 p.m. If I don’t hear from you, Aisha gets a message. And you lose your invisible man.”
I stood up.
Sade walked me out.
In the hallway, she said, “You’re insane.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But I’m still alive.”
“And Aisha?”
“Still untouched,” I said. “Keep it that way.”
She nodded once.
The SUV dropped me at the airport at 1 p.m.
My phone was in the bag, waiting.
I didn’t turn it on.
I bought a ticket back to Lagos with cash.
Name: T. Bello.
Seat: 14A.
Aisha’s message came in while I was taxiing.
_Clear._
I didn’t reply.
Lagos was loud when I landed.
But for the first time in a week, it didn’t feel like it was closing in.
I had a deal. A bad one. A dangerous one.
But it was a deal.
And now I had 48 hours to figure out how to make sure I didn’t become the thing I was trying to stop.
- Writer
