CHAPTER 70
The rains came to Makurdi like a warning.
Thunder cracked through the sky as if the heavens were being torn open, and beneath the downpour, Zainab stitched faster. The lights flickered, the small solar backup groaned to life, and Fatihah glanced at her from across the sewing table.
"You're not going to rest?"
Zainab didn't answer.
Not because she was ignoring her—but because her hands knew something her voice didn't.
A storm was coming.
Not the one outside—but the one brewing in the Bureau's wake.
The video had changed the nation, yes—but it had also scattered the vultures. Now, they were no longer in one place. They were desperate. Disorganized. Dangerous.
Obi stepped in, wet from head to toe, holding a rolled newspaper and a burner phone.
"They're cleaning house."
He dropped the paper.
Front page:
"RAVEN FOUND DEAD IN APAPA FLAT. BODY UNRECOGNIZABLE. SUSPECTED SUICIDE."
Zainab's hand paused mid-stitch.
She looked at Obi. He shook his head. "It wasn't suicide. That was a message."
"And the Jackal?" she asked.
He handed her the phone.
A voice message played. Grainy, mechanical, but unmistakable:
"You're not done. You just peeled the first layer. I was never part of their circus. I trained the lions."
Zainab's heart clenched.
The Jackal had gone rogue.
Obi sat on the edge of the wooden table. "The files we exposed? They didn't include him. He's too clean. Too smart. Too... separate."
Fatihah, who had remained quiet, now spoke up.
"What does that mean for us?"
Zainab looked at her. Then looked outside where the rain hadn't stopped in hours.
"It means we're still in the middle," she said. "And we need to make the last stitch."
Two nights later, a package arrived.
No return address.
Wrapped in old brown paper, it was addressed only to: "Zee."
Inside?
A child's drawing.
Crayons on white cardboard.
It showed a woman behind bars.
A wolf stood outside.
And at the bottom, written in careful block letters:
"YOU WOKE THE WRONG BEAST."
Zainab stared at it.
She didn't speak.
Didn't cry.
She folded the paper, slid it into her diary, and pulled her scarf tighter.
"We go to Calabar next," she said.
Obi frowned. "Why there?"
She looked at him.
"Because that's where the real files are buried. And that's where the Jackal became a ghost."
They left that night.
Disguises. New names. New SIMs.
But the same mission.
No longer to destroy the Bureau.
Now… to dismantle the man who made the Bureau possible.
And this time, Zainab wasn't just fighting back.
She was hunting.