Chapter 13: The Briefing
1295 Words
The Ministry of Finance building in Abuja doesn’t intimidate you with size. It intimidates you with silence.
9:00 a.m. sharp.
Me, Adebayo, Kolawole, Nkechi, Mrs. Adeleke from CBN, and the EFCC kid sat on one side of a long table. On the other side: Permanent Secretary Alhaji Musa, two aides, and a man I didn’t recognize. Late 50s, expensive watch, eyes that never blinked enough.
“Minister sends his apologies,” Alhaji Musa said. “He’s in London. I’m authorized to act.”
“Understood,” Adebayo said.
“Let’s see it,” the man with the watch said. No preamble.
“Mr. Bello,” Alhaji Musa said.
I plugged the laptop into the projector. Not live data. Test data. Clean, anonymized, pulled from the Frankfurt set. If I showed them live cases from the presidential contractor, this meeting would end in handcuffs.
The screen lit up.
_Ledger_guard_ interface. Simple. Black background, white text, flags in red.
“Here’s how it works,” I said. “Transactions come in real time. The system scores them against known fraud patterns. Anything above 95% confidence gets held for 24 hours. Human review decides next.”
I ran the demo.
In 90 seconds, 47 transfers flagged. 44 confirmed fraud in the test set. 3 false positives, all released.
“Total held: ₦3.1 billion,” I said.
“All without freezing civilian accounts,” Nkechi added.
The man with the watch leaned forward.
“How do I know this isn’t theatre?” he asked.
“You don’t,” I said. “But the two banks in Lagos and Port Harcourt do. They confirmed 19 cases yesterday. ₦1.8 billion held.”
“Why did we hear about a presidential project being held?” Alhaji Musa asked.
“Because it was compromised,” I said. “The account was used to move ₦890 million to a Dubai shell. We held it. The contractor still has access to their account. The money is just paused.”
Kolawole shifted in his seat.
“Paused,” he said, “is a nice word for blocked.”
The man with the watch stared at me.
“Who authorized you to touch a presidential project?”
“The board did,” Adebayo said. “Unanimously.”
Silence.
The kind that makes you hear your own breathing.
Alhaji Musa broke it.
“If this is real, why didn’t EFCC do it years ago?”
“Because EFCC needs a warrant,” I said. “By the time the warrant comes, the money’s gone. We hold first, verify second. It’s not illegal. It’s faster.”
“Faster isn’t legal,” the man with the watch said.
“Neither is stealing ₦2.3 billion a quarter,” Nkechi said. Her voice didn’t shake.
He looked at her, then at me.
“You’re asking us to trust an off-books system run by a man we met two weeks ago.”
“Yes,” I said.
“Why should we?”
“Because yesterday, your hospital payroll wasn’t robbed,” I said. “And you didn’t know about it.”
That landed.
His jaw tightened.
Alhaji Musa spoke before he could reply.
“Funding continues,” he said. “For 30 more days. Then we review again. But no more presidential projects without direct approval from this office.”
“Understood,” Adebayo said.
“And Mr. Bello,” Alhaji Musa said, looking at me, “if this breaks, it breaks on you.”
“Noted,” I said.
We walked out at 9:47 a.m.
The Fallout: Abuja, 11:00 a.m.
The second we hit the hallway, Kolawole pulled me aside.
“You just lied to the Ministry,” he said quietly.
“I didn’t lie,” I said. “I showed them what the system can do.”
“Without live data, it’s a magic trick,” he said.
“Without live data, I’m in Kuje Prison by noon,” I said.
Adebayo joined us.
“He’s right,” he said to Kolawole. “We buy time. If Phase 3 works, we show them live data. If it doesn’t, none of this matters.”
Kolawole didn’t look happy, but he nodded.
“Thirty days,” he said. “Don’t waste them.”
Nkechi waited by the elevator.
“You were good in there,” she said.
“I was terrified,” I said.
“Good,” she said. “Terrified people don’t get sloppy.”
She handed me a folded paper.
“Your access logs,” she said. “Clean. No tampering. I check every morning.”
I pocketed it.
“Thanks,” I said.
She didn’t smile.
“Don’t make me regret that,” she said.
*Aisha’s Clock: Accra, 12:30 p.m.*
My phone buzzed with Tayo’s message as soon as he was out of the building.
_They bought the demo. 30 days more._
I typed back: _Good. Frankfurt pinged again 20 minutes ago. Same IP._
Tayo: _They’re obsessed. Let them look._
I didn’t feel relieved. I felt exposed.
Kofi from the lab came in with coffee.
“You look like you haven’t slept in a week,” he said.
“I haven’t,” I said.
“Want to tell me why you’re hiding a server in my rack?”
“No,” I said.
“Fair,” he said. “But if Interpol shows up, I’m telling them you paid in cash.”
I almost laughed.
“Deal,” I said.
I checked the fallback server logs.
Clean. No unauthorized access.
The dead-drop was still armed.
If Tayo’s 30 days went bad, Accra would wake up.
The Call: 4:00 p.m.
It came on the burner phone I’d stopped using.
Unknown number.
I answered.
“Mr. Bello,” a voice said. Female. Young.
“Who is this?”
“Someone who works for the people you just stopped,” she said.
I didn’t answer.
“You held ₦890 million yesterday,” she said. “That money was for something important.”
“Stealing it isn’t important,” I said.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “If that money doesn’t move in 48 hours, people die.”
“People died when it did move,” I said. “Check Kano.”
The line went quiet.
Then: “You’ll regret this.”
Click.
I didn’t tell Adebayo.
Not yet.
If Chimera was threatening me directly, it meant we’d hit them where it hurt.
And it meant they were running out of options.
Night: Lagos, 10:15 p.m.
I was back at Dipo’s.
Aisha’s flight landed an hour ago. She was downstairs, arguing with him about security.
I pulled up the live dashboard.
No new flags in the last 6 hours. Too quiet again.
That worried me more than the noise.
Aisha came in without knocking.
“You look worse than I do,” she said.
“You got a threat call too?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “But Frankfurt pinged again.”
“I know,” I said.
She sat across from me.
“Thirty days,” she said.
“Thirty days,” I said.
“We stop them,” she said.
“We try,” I said.
She nodded.
“Then we sleep,” she said. “Four hours. Both of us.”
I wanted to argue.
But my eyes were burning.
We set the alarm for 2 a.m.
To check the logs.
To make sure the second clock hadn’t moved.
Outside, Lagos was loud.
Inside, for the first time since Kano, it felt like we had a plan that might actually hold.
If the Ministry didn’t pull the plug.
If Chimera didn’t hit back harder.
If I didn’t get careless.
Three ifs.
Thirty days.
One system.
We’d see which one broke first.
- Writer
