The night in Abuja was hot and thick with tension. The stars were hidden behind a blanket of clouds, and thunder rolled faintly in the distance, as if the heavens themselves were warning him to turn back.
But Pharm Dr. Michael Ogunlade didn't believe in signs.
He arrived at the Transcorp Hilton five minutes early. Room 44. The text had been direct. No names. No hints. Just instructions.
As he ascended the elevator, the silver doors reflected a distorted version of himself—black suit immaculate, hair perfectly trimmed, expression unreadable. But beneath that polished exterior, a storm brewed.
Not fear.
Anticipation.
When the elevator dinged and the doors slid open, he was met with silence. The hallway was empty. Dimly lit. Luxurious.
He walked with the calculated grace of a man who knew how to kill and not flinch. His fingers brushed the concealed Glock under his jacket. Loaded. Silenced. Standard IIS protocol.
He knocked once. The door opened before his knuckles fell a second time.
The woman who opened it was dressed in black leather. Short hair. Scar over her left brow. Her eyes scanned him like a biometric scanner.
"You're early."
"You're expecting someone else?" he asked.
"Only death arrives early. Come in."
He stepped inside. The room was dim, lit by a dozen low-burning candles. Three people sat in a triangular formation—two men and one woman. All dressed in ceremonial black suits with the IIS insignia woven in deep crimson thread over their left breast pockets.
Michael didn't need an introduction.
They were the Inner Circle.
Only ten such figures existed across the agency. They didn't answer to the President. They didn't answer to the Senate. They were accountable only to history.
And now, they were calling him.
"Michael Ogunlade," the woman in the center said. Her voice was smooth, almost hypnotic. Her face was veiled in shadows. "Do you know why you are here?"
"To serve."
"To rule," corrected the man to her left. "Only pawns serve. Kings orchestrate. You've passed every test. Johannesburg. Lagos. Maitama. We watched. We pushed. You never broke. Not even when we sent false data to get you killed in Joburg."
Michael didn't flinch. He had suspected.
The woman continued, "Tonight, you will take your final vow. The vow of the unseen. After this, you are no longer IIS. You are something deeper... something darker."
A blade was brought out—a curved ceremonial dagger, its hilt inlaid with black diamonds. Ancient, silent. She held it out.
"Your blood seals your fate."
Michael took it without hesitation. Without breaking eye contact, he made a shallow cut across his palm. The blood fell into a silver bowl engraved with Yoruba sigils.
The moment it hit the bowl, the candles flared, as if acknowledging the birth of something new.
"Welcome, Agent Umbra," the man to the right said. "You are now officially part of the Shadow Directive."
A second woman emerged from the inner room, holding a folder. She handed it to Michael. He opened it slowly.
OPERATION NIGHTFALL.
Inside: Satellite images of a military base in Cameroon. Illicit arms deals. A covert bio-weapons research lab funded by European syndicates. A Nigerian general caught supplying them with federal intel.
Michael's eyes narrowed as he flipped through the pages.
"You want him dead?"
"Dead is the easy part," the woman said. "We want his network burned. His funds drained. His legacy wiped."
"And the lab?"
The man on the left leaned forward, his eyes hard. "Erased. Leave no survivors. The virus they're cultivating doesn't just kill. It disfigures. Nigeria must not be blamed. This mission must vanish into myth."
Michael looked up, a sharp smile tugging at his lips.
"Then I'll make it a ghost story."
Three days later, Michael stood on the edge of a jungle clearing in eastern Cameroon. Dressed in camo, face painted with mud, and a suppressed UMP45 strapped to his back, he surveyed the facility through binoculars.
The compound was buried in thick rainforest, disguised as a defunct cocoa farm. Guard towers, drones, thermal sensors—this was no ordinary lab. It was a fortress.
Behind him, two IIS operatives waited silently.
"Status?" Michael asked.
"We tapped their comms. They have a new shipment arriving at 0100. Bio-agent samples and funding from Paris. Three SUVs. Five guards. One scientist."
Michael nodded. "We hit them at 0102. Set the charges. Kill everyone inside. Wipe the servers. Extract the samples for containment."
The jungle fell silent.
And then hell broke loose.
They struck with surgical precision. Silenced shots dropped sentries from treetops. A drone fed live-feed thermal imaging to Michael's lens. He moved like a phantom—one moment crawling through brush, the next knifing a guard through the throat.
Explosions rocked the rear compound as the first SUV arrived. Michael stormed the lab with two others, using smoke grenades and sonic flashbangs to disorient the scientists.
One tried to run. Michael shot him through the leg, dragged him to the incinerator room.
"What's the formula?!"
"You don't understand!" the scientist screamed. "It's airborne! You can't stop it!"
Michael smashed his face against a steel cabinet.
"I am the stop."
He doused the man in ethanol and lit the fire. The screams didn't last long.
By dawn, the facility was ash. The bio-samples were sealed in temperature-controlled cases and airlifted to IIS quarantine labs in Lagos.
Michael stood atop the watchtower, covered in soot and blood, staring into the rising sun. He lit a cigarette.
One of the operatives approached. "Command confirms: complete success. Target General is trying to flee to Banjul. We've already deployed capture protocols."
Michael didn't smile. Victory was a weight, not a joy.
"Tell them," he said coldly, "Agent Umbra delivered."
As the chopper blades sliced through the morning air, Michael looked down at the smoldering remains of the base.
He was no longer a man. He was a myth in the making.
And the world had no idea what nightmare had just been unleashed.