The Lagos Directive

Ikenga’s heart kicked once against his ribs.

Then he moved.

The carbine came up fast and flat.

He sent a short, disciplined burst into the broken concrete lip. One round tore through Sanusi’s left shoulder and knocked him off the wall into the channel below.

Makx launched forward with a savage bark.

Ogun fired in the same breath from the rise above the road.

His rounds slammed into Ikenga’s carbine just as he ducked for cover. Metal sparked. The weapon spun out of his hand and cartwheeled into scrub. One of his knuckles split open from the shock.

By then the two operatives with him were already moving.

The first operative from Ikenga’s Hilux jumped out left and sprinted for the culvert with his pistol high.

The second dropped right, braced by the roadside, and began firing uncontrolled bursts toward Ogun’s rise to keep him pinned.

Behind them, the rear Hilux braked hard, doors flying open.

Three more men fanned out.

That was when the noose stopped being a trap and became a kill-zone.

The road crossed a concrete culvert, with a shallow drainage cut running away beneath it into weed and rot. Ogun had the left rise for a moment, but little cover. Sanusi was exposed in the channel. If Ikenga got into the drainage cut below the road, he would vanish from sight and force the fight into close quarters.

Ogun moved fast.

He slid down the dusty left bank, rifle low, boots skidding, and hit the culvert bottom beside Sanusi just as the roadside gunman widened for a better angle. Sanusi was trying to push himself up on one elbow, blood already spreading dark across his shirt.

He fired a controlled burst at the roadside gunman. It forced him to flinch and roll. Then he grabbed Sanusi’s collar and dragged him behind the broken concrete lip. Rounds cracked overhead and punched chips from the edge above them. Sanusi grunted once. His face had already started to grey.

“Can you still shoot?” Ogun asked.

Sanusi bared his teeth. “Give me something.”

Ogun shoved a pistol into his good hand and pressed him tighter into the wall.

Then he rose just enough to steal a sightline.

The operative on the road had edged wider, trying to open the angle.

Ogun snapped off three fast shots.

The man jerked backward as his chest and throat exploded.

At the same moment, the first man from the rear Hilux tried to build a line on the culvert from farther back.

Sanusi fired once from the ground.

Missed.

He exhaled through his teeth and fired again.

The man clutched his throat, stumbled against the road edge and went down hard.

Makx broke into the fight without warning and drove straight at the nearest close threat.

She hit him low and hard, clamping behind the knee and dragging him sideways. His pistol discharged once into concrete.

Ogun stepped in and pumped hot rounds into his chest.

That left two. One had taken cover behind Ikenga’s Hilux. The other was behind the bonnet of the rear Hilux, sending shots toward the culvert wall to pin Ogun in place.

Ikenga had disappeared.

Not into the road.

Into the dead ground.

The drainage line ran under the road and split into a shallow cut clogged with weeds, dirty water and rubbish. Tight walls. Blind bends.

Ogun knew where he had gone because it was where he would have gone.

Sanusi was pressing one hand over the wound now. Blood kept pushing through his fingers.

“Go,” he said.

Ogun glanced at Makx. The dog stood rigid at the mouth of the cut, chest heaving, ears forward, every line of her body pulling toward the darkness below.

“Stay with him,” Ogun said.

Makx held sentry.

For a moment, she stayed exactly where she was, torn between them.

Then Ogun dropped into the cut and vanished around the first bend.

The stink hit first. Rot and stagnant water.

He moved low and fast, rifle forward. Light came down only in strips now. The culvert had widened into a shallow channel choked with weed, then tightened again ahead where the bend turned blind. Behind him, shots cracked from the road. Sanusi and the bonnet man were still trading above.

To his left, something shifted.

Ogun turned.

Ikenga came out of the side shadow like he had grown there.

The first strike was a rotten branch swung with both hands. Ogun got his forearm up too late. Pain burst through the arm as the wood smashed into bone. Ikenga was on him immediately after, shoulder first, driving him into the wall so hard his teeth clacked together.

Ogun tried to create space.

Ikenga smothered it.

At this range he was all pressure. Hips. Elbows. Weight. He jammed Ogun into the wet concrete, crushed a forearm across his throat and drove a knee into his midsection before Ogun could bring the rifle to bear.

The rifle went into the water.

Ikenga’s fist crashed into his jaw.

Then another.

Ogun, half-stunned, parried and buried an elbow in Ikenga’s ribs which forced a sliver of space. Ikenga closed it instantly. He caught Ogun by the shirt, twisted through him, and drove him down into the stinking water.

Above them, a shot cracked.

Sanusi.

Then another.

A scream started and died wet.

Makx had found a throat.

The last survivor was still out there.

Ikenga heard it too and became even more vicious. He trapped Ogun’s wrist, twisted hard, and dragged him into the dead part of the bend where the light fell away. Ogun tried to slam him into the wall. Ikenga smothered the attempt, kicked his shin, and sank a brutal punch into his ribs. Ogun felt the crack before the pain arrived.

White heat flashed through him.

Ikenga got on top of him then, not cleanly, but enough.

Enough to make it ugly.

He smashed Ogun’s head into the concrete once. Twice. Ogun bucked and nearly rolled him, but Ikenga kept finding leverage. A forearm across the face. Fingers digging for an eye. A hand at the throat. No wasted movement. No shouting. No loss of control. Just method.

“Here,” Ikenga said, breathing hard but steady, “is where your legend ends.”

He ripped a Ka-Bar from his ankle.

Ogun caught the wrist with both hands.

For a second the blade hung there over his chest, trembling.

Ikenga was stronger here. He had the angle. The leverage. The knife kept dropping.

Ogun tried to break his balance.

Ikenga slammed his head back into the wall and the knife dropped lower.

Above them, Makx barked.

Nearer now.

Sanusi shouted something, voice broken by pain.

Then came the sound of an engine turning hard on the road. The last surviving gunman, the one who had held behind the bonnet, was moving the Hilux closer to extract Ikenga.

He heard it and smiled with one side of his mouth.

“That one still knows his job.”

The blade pierced Ogun’s skin.

Then Makx hit.

She came through the side gully in a blur of explosive muscle and bite into Ikenga’s upper arm. Deep enough to make the knife rip free sideways.

Ikenga gave a raw, involuntary shout.

That gave Ogun just enough room.

He smashed his forehead into Ikenga’s face, breaking his nose with a wet crack.

He instinctively responded with a brutal backhand that split Ogun’s eyebrow and hurled him sideways.

Ikenga remained relentless.

He shrugged off Makx.

Caught Ogun by the collar.

Drove him into the wall again.

But his arm was going weak now, blood running down to his fingers. Makx hit him a second time, lower and harder, dragging his balance out from under him.

Ogun surged up on a burst of adrenaline, got under Ikenga’s weight and slammed him hard into the concrete. Ikenga’s right shoulder gave with a sickening pop.

Remarkably, Ikenga rolled himself back up. He staggered away, blood in his teeth, right arm dangling.

Ogun was breathing through blood, one eye blurring.

Makx stood between them, low and shaking, lips peeled back.

Then the Hilux engine screamed closer.

The last survivor had brought it round.

The vehicle slewed near the far lip of the drainage line, passenger door already open.

Ikenga measured it in one glance. He did not waste the chance.

“This is not finished,” he said.

Ogun kept his eyes on Ikenga, dragging air into battered lungs.

Ikenga hauled himself up the far bank and vanished toward the waiting Hilux as two shots cracked from behind Ogun.

Sanusi.

One round punched into the dirt at Ikenga’s heel. The other starred the rear panel as the Hilux dragged him away in a spray of mud and dust.

Ogun climbed out at once.

Sanusi was down at the culvert entrance, pistol still clutched in his hand, blood spreading beneath him. Bodies were strewn across the ground, and beyond them people were starting to gather, drawn by the gunfire

Makx reached Sanusi before Ogun did and stopped beside him, panting hard.

Sanusi tried to speak and failed the first time.

The second time he managed, “Tell me that idiot didn’t get away smiling.”

Ogun dropped beside him and pressed both hands over the wound.

“He got away bleeding.”

Far down the road, the Hilux engine faded into the heat.

Ogun listened until it was gone.

Then he looked once in that direction, face empty, and bent lower over Sanusi as the blood kept coming.

Ikenga had escaped.

But he had left men in the dirt, his own blood stained the dead ground, and something worse than defeat behind him.

Proof that he could be reached.