Chapter Sixteen: The Night the Sky Fell

The streets of Kinshasa bled tension.

By dawn, power outages rippled across the capital. Officially, it was a failure at Inga III. Unofficially, it was sabotage. The blackout choked comms, silenced CCTV, and plunged entire neighborhoods into darkness.

Michael stood inside a logistics warehouse in Kasa-Vubu district. It had once been a factory. Now it was the beating heart of Operation Zakar. All screens flickered under backup generators. A wall-length map of Kinshasa was littered with glowing pins—checkpoints, militia hubs, loyalist barracks, comm relays, and safehouses.

He turned to Falcon.

"We go tonight."

Falcon gave a nod and relayed the order into his comm: "Phase Black begins now."

21:00 — The Diversion

Thirty minutes later, fire ripped through a refinery outside Limete. No one claimed it, but everyone knew. The blast was audible across the Congo River. Loyalist troops were scrambled, stretched thin. At the same time, doctored audio of N'Shonda fleeing the country was leaked across state-controlled media. Citizens flooded the streets in confusion. Police stations were abandoned. Civilians looted banks, clinics, and warehouses.

And under the chaos, Kestrel teams moved.

They hit fast: comms tower at Mt. Ngaliema, fuel depots in Matete, and the strategic water grid in Bandalungwa. Disabling all of them took 28 minutes.

Michael's voice buzzed through encrypted comms.

"All units converge on Palais de la Nation."

22:04 — The Palace Gate

N'Shonda's guards—mainly Belarusian—held steady under the first wave. Their uniforms were heavy, their rifles precise. But they weren't prepared for the second.

From the west wing, a security tunnel detonated—blowing a 12-meter hole through a steel barrier. Falcon's team surged in through the smoke.

Inside the palace, corridors echoed with gunfire.

22:37 — The Betrayal

General Lokutu, N'Shonda's army chief, had received 5 million dollars in Abuja-channeled crypto three days prior. When summoned to the palace's panic room, he turned and shot the defense minister in the thigh. He then opened the sealed hallway to Falcon's men.

Michael walked through the blood-streaked corridor ten minutes later, flanked by two Kestrels and Mireille, who'd arrived hours earlier from Bukavu. She wore civilian clothes and a pistol at her waist. Her face was pale, but her eyes were steel.

"I want to see him fall," she whispered.

N'Shonda was in the underground bunker, screaming into a dead satellite phone. He looked smaller now, stripped of his medals and power.

When Michael entered, he didn't flinch.

"You think you've won?"

"I know I have," Michael said.

"You're just a shadow," N'Shonda spat. "You'll fade."

Michael pulled a folded document from his jacket and dropped it on the desk. It was signed—an "emergency resignation" dated two weeks prior, forged expertly with biometric keyprints. A gift from a mole inside the president's own press bureau.

"This goes public in an hour. You'll be the coward who abandoned his people."

N'Shonda reached for the pistol hidden under his desk.

Falcon shot him through the shoulder.

"I said alive," Michael said coldly.

"I missed the heart."

23:45 — A New Dawn

By midnight, the palace was secured. Nigeria's ambassador had already arrived via a diplomatic convoy.

Power returned.

State television came online.

Mireille, now the face of the transition council, appeared on-screen beside General Lokutu. She spoke of reform, peace, rebuilding. Her voice shook slightly but grew stronger with every word.

Michael watched from the shadows of a balcony above. His suit was bloodied. His gloves reeked of gunpowder. But his mind was already far away.

Paris was silent.

Washington hadn't intervened.

China had withdrawn its diplomats hours earlier.

Nigeria had claimed the Congo.

And the world would pretend to be surprised.