CHAPTER 69
The farm was quiet.
From a distance, it looked ordinary—sunlight spilling across cassava fields, a white-painted bungalow with wind chimes that danced gently in the breeze. Birds chirped. A goat bleated somewhere out back.
But Zainab knew better.
"Retired my foot," Obi muttered beside her. "This is a fortress dressed as farmland."
She nodded.
It was the kind of deception she had come to recognize. Clean fences, fresh paint, fake innocence.
But the truth was in the silence. The absence of workers. The way the cameras were hidden in scarecrows. The gleam of a rifle barrel behind the kitchen window.
"We go in with no weapons," she said.
Obi blinked. "Are you serious?"
Zainab pulled out a folded tunic—a white kaftan lined with silk.
"It's not war they fear," she said. "It's exposure."
They approached on foot, dressed plainly.
The man who stepped out to greet them was tall, grey-bearded, wearing sandals and a straw hat. He smiled—but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Zainab," he said. "I hoped you'd never find me."
"You trained monsters," she replied.
"I trained men," he said. "They chose their path."
She stepped forward. "You built the Bureau. You wrote the codes. You created the system."
"And now I farm yams," he said, gesturing to the field.
Zainab dropped the tunic at his feet.
"Inside that is a USB," she said. "It has everything. Names. Accounts. Videos. The entire Bureau's history."
He didn't look down. "And what do you want?"
She stared at him.
"I want you to confess. Publicly. To everything."
He laughed. A long, empty laugh.
"You think Nigeria cares for confessions?"
"No," she replied. "But I'm not doing this for Nigeria anymore."
He frowned.
"I'm doing it for Fatihah. For Amaka. For every girl who stitched freedom into her hemline because she couldn't afford a protest."
He bent to pick up the tunic.
"You walk out of here," he said, "they'll come for you."
"They already do," Obi murmured.
Zainab stepped back.
"Choose, sir. Retire with silence. Or fall with truth."
She turned.
They walked away.
That night, the Bureau's former head released a video.
His face—aged and weary—filled the screen.
"I built something I can no longer defend," he said. "I erased lives. I rewarded loyalty with death. I let wolves rule while calling it a system."
It went viral in under ten minutes.
By morning, Abuja was in uproar. More resignations followed. Two ministers were arrested. A senator fainted on live television.
And in the middle of it all…
Zainab sat in a tailoring shop in Makurdi, adjusting the sleeves of a bride's gown.
As if nothing had happened.
But everything had.