Chapter 31 – The Scissors and the Scythe

The flames of tension between Iran and Saudi Arabia had always flickered — tribal history, religious sectarianism, proxy wars. But under Michael's cold orchestration, the flickers became sparks, and sparks edged closer to a regional wildfire.

From his Tel Aviv office, Michael sent just a few encrypted messages — leaked arms shipments, false intercepts of Hezbollah plans allegedly funded through Saudi shell companies, and a doctored intelligence brief hinting at Iranian interference in Riyadh's Royal Guard. The rest, he left to paranoia.

By the time Saudi analysts started questioning the new wave of intel, their king had already recalled ambassadors and moved two divisions near their eastern borders. Iran responded with ballistic posturing and threats through proxies in Yemen and Iraq.

Michael merely watched — amused, calculating.

But while the world focused on the chaos abroad, the real consolidation was happening back home.

In Abuja, the IIS headquarters became a fortress of silence and fear. Gone were the days when intelligence officers could moonlight as informants or politicians' lapdogs. Michael had seen betrayal up close — in Johannesburg, in India, and once nearly in Nairobi. He had vowed never again.

Enter Aliyu Bashir, a wiry, sharp-eyed Hausa operative Michael had recruited years earlier in the jungles of eastern Congo. Back then, Aliyu had been a field tech with a talent for detecting sabotage. Now, he was Director of Counterintelligence, and under his watch, the agency bled its poison out.

In less than two months, over forty mid-level operatives had been quietly detained — some tried, most simply disappeared. A retired general in Kaduna known for leaking arms manifests to political thugs? Found dead, ruled a suicide. An ex-IIS analyst who tried to sell contacts to a foreign embassy? Vanished en route to a meeting in Lagos. Word was — his teeth were mailed back in a sealed envelope.

Michael didn't micromanage these purges.

He didn't have to.

He had built a culture of precision, loyalty, and ruthless discipline. The men and women of IIS were no longer bureaucrats or second-tier soldiers — they were the scalpel and the shadow, feared even by the military. Ministers called them "untouchable." The President called them "our sharpest sword."

And that sword was being honed.

At the end of the week, a new directive passed quietly through Michael's desk: Operation Sand Scorpion. Its goal — deepen the divide between Iran and Saudi Arabia with an engineered oilfield explosion near the Kuwaiti border.

As for Nigeria, not a single leak emerged from IIS.

Michael had ensured that. With Bashir wielding the scythe and him pulling the strings, Nigeria was no longer just watching history unfold.

It was scripting it.