The Dead Man Switch
1268 Words
Jane traced Femi’s handwriting—neat columns of dates, ship names, coordinates. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“They took my son.” Ngozi’s tears fell on the pages. “I’m sorry.”
Amara stiffened at the window. “We’ve got company.”
The motorcycle screeched around the corner, militia rifles blazing. Jane clutched the ledger, Ngozi’s sobs vibrating through her back. Amara weaved through traffic, cursing in Yoruba.
“Jump!” Amara yelled as they neared the docks.
Jane leapt, hitting the wooden planks hard. The motorcycle exploded against a shipping container, flames licking the sky.
Ngozi screamed. “My son! They still have him!”
Jane gripped her shoulders. “We’ll find him.”
“How?”
“By burning it all down.”
Oduma’s replacement sat poolside, cigar glowing in the dark. Jane watched through night-vision binoculars, Amara’s sniper rifle cold against her cheek.
“Remember,” Amara whispered. “Headshot. No mistakes.”
Jane’s finger hesitated on the trigger. The senator laughed, clinking glasses with a man whose face froze her blood—Nathaniel, alive, his arm in a sling.
“Traitor,” Amara hissed.
Jane’s shot went wide.
Nathaniel cornered her, his breath ragged. “It’s not what you think.”
Jane pressed Amara’s pistol to his chest. “Explain.”
“Oduma’s successor blackmailed me. They have Ngozi’s son.”
“And you believed them?”
“I had no choice.”
Jane’s laugh was hollow. “There’s always a choice.”
Sirens wailed below. Nathaniel gripped her wrist. “They’re coming. Let me fix this.”
She lowered the gun. “One chance.”
The cargo ship loomed, its hull stamped with Oduma’s false logo. Jane, Amara, and Nathaniel split—a trinity of reckoning.
Amara planted explosives in the engine room.
Nathaniel hacked the manifest, leaking it to INTERPOL.
Jane faced the warlord holding Ngozi’s son.
“Last warning,” he sneered.
Jane raised Mama’s charm. “*Ẹni tó ń lé e lẹ́rù ẹ, á máa rí i.*”
The bullets turned to rain.
Abuja smoldered.
Jane stood at the edge of the port, watching the cargo ship burn. Flames licked the sky, turning the predawn blackness into a canvas of blood-red and gold. The air reeked of saltwater and gasoline, of vengeance served raw. Ngozi clung to her son a few feet away, her whispers blending with the crackle of fire—prayers to ancestors, saints, and the faceless gods of survival.
Amara flicked her Rothmans into the harbor. “We need to move. They’ll have heard the explosion.”
Jane didn’t turn. “Where’s Nathaniel?”
“Gone. Again.” Amara spat. “Men like him always run.”
But Jane knew better. Nathaniel’s limp had been too pronounced, his eyes too hollow for flight. He was out there, she was sure, stitching wounds both physical and moral.
Mama’s charm hung heavy around Jane’s neck, the wooden figurine warm against her skin despite the chill. The *babalawo*’s words echoed: *“Feed the fire.”* She’d fed it. Now the flames threatened to consume her.
The safehouse was a relic of colonial Lagos—crumbling Victorian architecture draped in bougainvillea, its walls sweating with mildew and secrets. Jane sat cross-legged on the floor, Tara’s laptop propped on a stack of old newspapers. The WHITELIST files glowed ominously, names scrolling like a funeral march:
*Senator Oduma. General Adeyemi. Chief Olumide. N. Ayodele.*
Amara kicked open the door, a cardboard tray of *suya* in hand. “Eat. You’re wasting away.”
Jane ignored the skewers. “Oduma’s successor is here. Chief Olumide. He’s meeting the arms dealers tonight at the old British Council building.”
“And?”
“We finish this.”
Amara dropped the *suya*. “You’re not Tara. You can’t brute-force justice.”
Jane stood, Mama’s charm swinging. “Watch me.”
The building was a ghost of empire—crumbling Doric columns, shattered stained glass, and the faint scent of old blood. Jane crouched in the shadows of the courtyard, Amara’s pistol a familiar weight in her hand. Inside, laughter echoed—Chief Olumide holding court with men in tailored suits and the cold eyes of jackals.
Nathaniel materialized beside her, his arm still in a sling. “They have a child. A boy from the villages. Human collateral.”
Jane’s grip tightened. “Where?”
“Basement. Two guards.”
She turned, but he caught her wrist. “Let me do this. I owe you.”
“You owe *them*.”
He vanished into the dark.
The boy couldn’t have been older than ten, wrists bound, eyes wide with a fear that transcended language. Nathaniel snapped the guard’s neck with his good arm, the sound like dry twigs underfoot. The second guard raised his rifle—too slow.
The boy screamed as the gun clattered to the floor.
“Shhh.” Nathaniel knelt, slicing the ropes. “You’re safe.”
The kid spat in his face.
Fair enough.
Jane burst into the council chamber, Amara at her flank.
Chief Olumide smiled, unbothered. “Ms. Ajayi. I wondered when you’d join us.”
She leveled the pistol. “You’re under arrest.”
Laughter rippled through the room.
“For what? A chat with old friends?” Olumide sipped his brandy. “Sit. Let’s negotiate.”
Amara fired.
The bullet struck the chandelier, raining glass and chaos.
They fled through the servants’ tunnels, the boy stumbling between them. Behind, shouts and gunfire crescendoed.
Nathaniel pressed a flash drive into Jane’s hand. “Olumide’s offshore accounts. Leak it.”
“Why?”
“Because I need one thing to be clean.”
Amara shoved him. “Save the heroics. *Move!*”
Dawn found them back at the docks, the boy reunited with a weeping mother in a nearby village. Jane stared at the charred skeleton of the cargo ship, its hull half-submerged in the harbor.
Nathaniel lit two cigarettes, passing one to Jane. “What now?”
She exhaled smoke. “We rebuild.”
“We?”
The sun rose, bloody and relentless.
The *babalawo* awaited them in Lagos, her bone necklaces replaced by rusted keys and SIM cards. “The dead are restless. Tara. Femi. They demand balance.”
Jane handed her the flash drive. “Will this help?”
The old woman tossed it into a clay pot of glowing coals. “Fire purifies.”
---
**The Leak**
By noon, Olumide’s secrets flooded the dark web—arms deals, bribes, mass graves. Protestors stormed his compound, his name trending alongside #JusticeForTara.
Amara scrolled through Twitter, grinning. “The people have spoken.”
Jane didn’t smile. “They’ll find a new monster tomorrow.”
Ngozi’s messenger arrived at dusk—a sealed envelope with Femi’s handwriting.
*Jane, if you’re reading this, I found the witness. A maid who saw Oduma’s men plant the bomb. Her name is Aisha. Protect her.*
Jane burned the letter. Some fires needed feeding.
The lagoon was a living, breathing beast. Jane waded through waist-deep water, her boots sinking into the sludge of rotting fish and plastic waste. Makoko’s floating slum stretched ahead, a labyrinth of corrugated shacks perched on stilts, their reflections trembling in the oil-slicked water. Children in torn T-shirts paddled past in hollowed-out canoes, their laughter sharp against the hum of generators and the distant wail of a mosque’s call to prayer.
Amara trailed behind, her Glock wrapped in waterproof plastic. “This is a trap,” she muttered in Yoruba. “Femi’s been dead two years. You think his witness survived this long?”
- Writer
