Chapter 5: Kano Burn
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Kano at 6 AM was already loud.
Trucks, generators, traders shouting prices in Hausa, Yoruba, English, all at once. The air smelled like dust, diesel, and hot bread from the roadside ovens.
I checked into a small lodge near Central Market under the name “T. Bello”. Cash only. No ID. If they were watching transport records, I wasn’t making it easy.
The tablet buzzed at 6:12 AM.
_“Central Market, Row 14. Cybercafé ‘SpeedNet’. 1000 people. 9 AM. Last chance, Tayo.”_
1000 people. ₦50 million.
They were going for everything on this run.
I didn’t reply. I just moved.
SpeedNet was bigger than the other places. 30 computers, two AC units struggling against the heat, and a back room with a server rack humming non-stop. The laptop running the chat was in that back room. Locked door. One guard outside.
I couldn’t walk in like before.
So I waited.
At 7:40 AM, a delivery guy came with a crate of bottled water. The guard signed for it, propped the door open with his foot, and stepped outside to smoke.
That was enough.
I slipped past the door, into the server room. It was hot, loud, and smelled like burnt plastic. The laptop was open. Chat was live. Account 9021187434 was still the receiver. They hadn’t changed it once. Arrogant.
I didn’t have my flash drive this time. They’d probably flagged USB ports after Kaduna.
I did the next best thing.
I opened the laptop’s task manager. Killed the chat process.
Then I opened Command Prompt and ran a script I’d written on the bus. It forced a DNS redirect for their payment gateway. Any request to 9021187434 would now resolve to a dead IP. 0.0.0.0.
It wouldn’t hold forever. Maybe 20 minutes. But 20 minutes was enough if I timed it right.
I left the room, closed the door, and walked out of SpeedNet like I belonged there.
At 8:15 AM, I was in a café across the road. Ordered tea. Logged into the cloud server. Set ledger_cleaner to run at 8:59:59 AM.
Backup plan. If the DNS trick failed, the cleaner would still hit.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
_“You’re in Kano. Good. We were hoping you’d come.”_
Another message. A video this time.
It was my sister’s apartment door.
Timestamp: 7:03 AM this morning.
I stood up so fast the chair fell over.
_“Leave her out of this,”_ I typed. My hands were shaking now. Not from fear. From rage.
_“Stop us, and she stays safe. Simple.”_
_“You have 44 minutes.”_
I didn’t answer.
8:59:30 AM.
The café was quiet. Everyone was watching their phones, waiting for the market to open.
8:59:59 AM.
Ledger_cleaner triggered.
Across the road, inside SpeedNet, I saw the guard run out holding the laptop. He was shouting. The screen was blue.
Payment status on my server: *Blocked. Fraud Detected.*
1000 people kept their money.
I exhaled.
Then the tablet buzzed.
_“Mission complete. Node destroyed.”_
I waited for the next location. It didn’t come.
Instead:
_“You win this round, Tayo. For now.”_
_“But you know how this ends. You can’t protect everyone.”_
_“We’ll be back. And next time, we start with your sister.”_
The chat went offline. The account deleted itself.
Gone.
I sat there for a long time, staring at the dead screen.
They’d scattered. No location, no server, no trail. Just a threat.
My phone buzzed again.
A normal number this time. Aisha.
_“Tayo? You okay? Someone was at my door this morning asking about you.”_
I typed back, slow: _“I’m fine. Don’t open the door for anyone. I’m coming home.”_
I paid for the tea and walked out.
Kano was still loud. Still moving. 1000 people didn’t know how close they came to losing everything today.
And somewhere out there, the group that called themselves “we” was regrouping.
But now they knew my name.
And I knew what they were capable of.
This wasn’t over.
It was just the end of round one.
I hailed a cab to the motor park. Lagos was 12 hours away.
Let them come.
- Writer
