Sub-Level Three

"This is a terrible idea," Tobi whispered.

"You said that on the stairs."

"It remains true."

"Then why are you holding the door?"

"Because," Tobi said miserably, "I am a coward, and you are terrifying."

Ada concealed a smile. It was past eleven at night. The Okafor Tower was empty except for security, a skeleton cleaning crew, and the two of them creeping down a service stair to a floor that did not appear on the lift panel.

Sub-level three. Archive. Anything marked red.

"Mr. Okafor said you would have to ask permission," Tobi muttered.

"He said I had to ask him. I'm asking you to look the other way."

"That is the same thing."

"It is a very different thing, legally."

"I will be fired."

"You will be promoted," Ada said. "If I am right."

The last door was steel, with a keypad and a small red sticker. Tobi hesitated. Then, with the air of a man signing his own death warrant, he pressed six digits.

The lock released with a soft click.

The archive was cold, and enormous, and smelled of old paper. Rows of grey shelves stretched into shadow, boxes stacked to the ceiling, each one labelled in neat black marker. Ada walked slowly down the first aisle, trailing her fingers along the spines.

"There," she said. "Red tags."

Eleven boxes. All sealed. She lifted the lid of the first and found, in careful order, a stack of corporate registration documents.

Three shell companies.

She laid them out on a steel table and went through them with the speed of long practice. Registered in Mauritius. Directors listed as nominees. Share capital in the millions.

"Tobi. Look at the registered address."

He leaned over. "Four-two-seven, Adeola Odeku Street. Victoria Island. That is..."

"Adeyemi Textiles."

"All three?"

"All three. Same building. Same suite number." Ada sat back slowly. "The transfer of two hundred million naira from Okafor Holdings, routed through these companies on the third of March. It did not go to an unknown account. It went to Vivian's family business."

Tobi blinked. "But that would mean..."

"That the Chief used Vivian's company to wash the money. And that Vivian knows exactly what her family has been part of." Ada's pulse was loud in her ears. "Which is why she was so afraid at the party."

"And the signature on the transfer?"

"Damian's. Copied, or used without his knowledge." She tapped the last page. "I would bet my salary on it."

"What salary? You are a consultant."

"Tobi."

"Sorry, ma."

* * *

She was reaching for the second box when Tobi's phone buzzed.

He read the message, and the colour drained from his face.

"What?"

"It is from Mrs. Bankole. She says..." He swallowed. "She says the housekeeper found something in the penthouse. In the ceiling. A small black device."

"A bug."

"Yes, ma. And it has been transmitting for almost three weeks." Tobi looked as though he might be sick. "That is how Miss Adeyemi knew about the contract. Someone was listening in the penthouse, the night you signed."

Ada closed her eyes.

Mr. Eze. Of course. It would have been simple for him to install it. A quiet word, a small favour. One more loyal servant in the Chief's long, patient web.

"Do not remove it," she said.

"Ma?"

"Leave it exactly where it is. If we take it out, they know we have found it. If we leave it, we can tell them whatever we want." Her mouth curved, grim and quiet. "We are going to feed them lies, Tobi. Very careful ones."

He stared at her for a long moment.

"I am beginning to understand," he said, "why Mr. Okafor chose you."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

"It was meant as one."

She turned back to the shelves, and that was when she saw it.

A single file on the lowest shelf, tucked behind the red-tagged boxes. A thin grey folder, edges curled and soft with age. Not red-tagged. Not even labelled for the archive. Just a name on the tab in faded blue ink, in a feminine, looping hand.

Okafor, 2019.

Ada's fingers stopped over it.

Not Damian. Not the Chief.

His mother.

She knelt, pulled the folder free, and opened the cover. Inside lay a single photograph, sepia-toned with age: three young men in suits, arms slung over each other's shoulders, laughing at the camera.

On the left, a younger, leaner Emeka Okafor.

In the middle, a man with a gentle smile Ada would have known anywhere.

Her father.

And on the right, so young that she nearly missed him, her mother's brother, the uncle who had vanished from the family the year she turned nine and whose name no one had spoken since.

Beneath the photograph, in the same looping hand, a single line.

They were friends, once. Ask Samuel what happened to Daniel.