The Lagos Directive

Act 1: The Call Back

Location: Epe, Lagos State – One Year After Ipao

The morning tide rolled in slow and silent, the sun casting a molten shimmer across the lagoon. Ogun Wale-Thomas stood barefoot on the damp jetty, hands in his pockets, watching the sunrise filter through the mist. Behind him, the weathered beach house he now called home, modest, secure, and quiet. Although, for a man like him, quiet was both haven and haunting – a refuge tinged with ghosts of yesterday.

Makx lay nearby on a sun-warmed mat, eyes half-lidded but alert. The scars from Ekiti had faded beneath her dark coat, but her gait still carried the memory of pain. She looked up briefly as Ogun exhaled and turned back inside.

The kitchen smelled of ogi, akara, and fried yam. Efe stood over the stove, moving slowly, mechanically. Her face had regained its fullness, but the shadows behind her eyes remained.

“You didn’t sleep again,” Ogun said, gently.

“You didn’t either,” she replied without turning.

They spoke carefully these days, every word a dance between love and the damage left behind. Ogun set a mug beside her and made himself hot Bournvita.

“Had the dream?”

Efe nodded. “Ekun. Sometimes it’s Falaye. Sometimes it’s me doing what they asked. Sometimes… it’s that night at Ipao.”

He wanted to say something comforting. He didn’t. Instead, he said, “You’re still here. That’s what matters.”

She gave him a small, broken smile. “Only because of you.”

⸻

Location: Abuja – SD9 Headquarters

Ibrahim Sanusi, two years deep into his tenure as Director-General of SD9, studied the grainy satellite image. A gift from Langley’s eye in the sky. The resolution was a little dull, but the implications were sharp. A convoy of humanitarian trucks rerouted mid-transit. No known orders. No tracking logs. But their destination had changed, toward a border town under quiet siege.

Sanusi leaned back, tapping the edge of his desk. This was the third compromised route in six weeks. All linked to NGO corridors that should have been dormant.

“Falaye is dead,” he murmured, “but his network isn’t.”

He unlocked a drawer and pulled out an old thumb drive, Hadji’s last encrypted archive. Inside was a call-sign. One person who can track residual movement in Falaye’s fractured system. The variable no one can predict.

OW-T.

After Falaye’s termination, Sanusi and Ogun had spoken only once. A quiet conversation. A mutual understanding. Ogun wanted out. Sanusi promised he would be left alone.

Unless.

He picked up a burner phone, dialed a long-dead encrypted number.

It rang once. Then again. Then—

“This line shouldn’t exist,” came the voice on the other end.

“It does. And so does the ghost of Falaye’s past. I need you, OW-T.”

Silence.

Then, a soft breath.

“Where?”

⸻

Location: Ilorin, Kwara State – 36 Hours Later

The meeting took place at a decommissioned airstrip under a rusting hangar. Ogun arrived alone, gear minimal. Sanusi stood with two trusted aides, no weapons drawn, but tension simmered in the air. He recognised one of the aides, Commander Idris, who he met at Ipao a year ago.

“I said no eyes,” Ogun warned.

“They’re mutes,” Sanusi replied flatly.

The humidity clung on to them like a second skin as they sat on upturned ammo crates. The tension between them was dense, wordless, and electric.

Sanusi got straight to it. “We confirmed Falaye wasn’t acting alone. He was heavily funded, protected and enabled by a powerful group. They’re old and deeply embedded in everything. They call themselves the Obsidian Circle.”

Ogun raised an eyebrow. “Sounds poetic.”

Dangerous men usually are,” Sanusi replied, reaching for the folder next to him.

He passed Ogun a dossier. Some redacted photos. Financial links. Off-book operations.

“I want you to help me find them. Quietly. Outside SD9’s structure.”

“So I get no backup.”

“You get freedom. Autonomy. And my resources.”

Ogun flipped through the pages. One photo stopped him cold: a face he thought he’d never see again.

He looked up. “If I do this, I set the rules.”

“Of course,” Sanusi replied. “They’re watching everyone. Every corridor. Every contact. But you? You’re the anomaly. No signal. No trail. The weave they can’t untangle. And that scares them.”

Ogun stood, dossier in hand, expression carved in stone.

“Good. Let them stay scared. It’s the only honest thing they’ll feel.”