Six Years Ago – Northern Mali
The village emerged through the mist like a secret, half-buried in the rain and red earth. From above, the world was a shivering grid of mud-brick roofs and narrow footpaths, trembling under the downwash of rotors.
Major Daniel Okoye stood at the open bay of the helicopter, one hand gripping the strap above him, the other cradling his rifle. Wind and rain battered his face, but his eyes remained fixed on the coordinates glowing faintly on his wrist display. No emotion. No wasted movement.
“Three minutes,” came the pilot’s voice in his ear.
Danny gave a curt nod.
The other operatives sat silent, locked in—night vision goggles lowered, safeties off. These weren’t soldiers. They were shadows sharpened into men.
The helicopter dipped low over a flooded rice field, skimming the treetops before touching down just beyond the village perimeter—silent, fast, surgical.
Boots hit the mud.
They were in.
Danny led the way, goggles snapping into place. The world bloomed in eerie green hues. Mud walls glowed like ghosts. He signaled forward, two fingers slicing through the darkness.
The team moved as one.
Between ruined sheds and broken fences, they crept—barely a whisper in the downpour. A sentry ahead, silhouetted in infrared—AK slung lazily over his shoulder, head bobbing with fatigue.
Thpft.
A suppressed round punched clean through the night. The sentry dropped without a cry.
They advanced.
Two more guards patrolled the path toward the central compound, muttering in Bambara, rifles slung across their backs. One stopped to scratch his chin.
Thpft. Thpft.
Both fell in the space between heartbeats. Danny never broke stride.
They reached a crumbling compound wall and scaled it silently, dropping into a darkened courtyard slick with rain. Chickens scattered. A dog whined and retreated into the shadows.
Danny paused, raising a fist. The house stood ahead—two stories, no electricity, shuttered windows, a single guard pacing the threshold under the awning.
Markings on the side confirmed it: this was the one. The hostage house.
Danny glanced once at his team. No words. They fanned out, rifles steady, boots silent on soaked stone. The last guard never saw the end coming.
Thpft.
He crumpled like wet paper. Danny held at the door, hand poised on the latch. Behind it, everything could change. He gave the signal, and they breached.
The door gave way under silent pressure, opening into a room steeped in darkness and tension. Major Daniel Okoye entered first—low, fast, lethal. His rifle swept the corridor. Clear.
Then—movement. Voices. A sudden clatter.
Contact.
The world exploded in controlled violence.
Muffled gunfire barked through suppressors as Danny and his team surged forward. A man emerged from a side room, rifle half-raised. Danny dropped him with a double tap to the chest. Another insurgent leaned from behind a staircase, firing blind. Bullets bit into the clay walls, inches from Danny’s head.
Thpft. Thpft.
Two shots from the rear—clean, surgical. The shooter fell, throat torn.
Three more insurgents scrambled in the upper hallway, shouting commands and taking cover behind a broken banister. Danny motioned his flank to split. He moved right, angled low, counting the tempo of their fire.
He popped out—two taps, down. The first man folded.
A second dove into a side room. Too late.
Grenade. Flash.
A brief scream. Then silence. Only one remained.
Danny advanced through the upper corridor. The last insurgent burst from a door, spraying wildly. Danny ducked, came up calm, and drilled him through the skull.
Six men dead.
He breathed once, steady. Then signaled the all-clear.
“Hostages,” he said into comms.
“Room secured,” came the reply.
In the back room, the UN personnel huddled—four civilians, two translators, hands bound, faces pale. They flinched at the sight of the soldiers, but Danny stepped forward slowly, rifle lowered.
“You’re safe now,” he said, voice like gravel under steel.
His men cut the bindings. One hostage sobbed. Another vomited.
They moved quickly, guiding them back out the way they came. The rain had not let up—if anything, it had thickened, as if the sky wanted to bury the sins of this place.
In the distance, rotors stirred the air again. The helicopter waited.
Danny held the rear as they crossed the rice field, scanning the tree line, finger loose beside the trigger. His team boarded with urgency. The hostages were loaded first—shivering, wet, alive.
As Danny climbed aboard last, he took one final look at the village—now quiet, wounded, and fading into the storm. Then the doors shut, and they lifted off into the dark.
The helicopter touched down on the rain-slick tarmac of Forward Operating Base Lion’s Watch. Floodlights cut through the darkness, illuminating a landing pad flanked by sandbag walls and watchtowers. Soldiers moved like clockwork on the ground, disciplined and ready, their rifles slung but senses sharp.
As soon as the rotors slowed, medics rushed forward.
The cargo door dropped.
Danny stepped out first, boots hitting the concrete with purpose. The moment his feet landed, he was no longer a shadow in enemy territory—he was an officer once more, cold and composed, the mission burned behind his eyes.
The hostages were ushered off quickly, medics checking pulses, asking questions in hushed French and English. One of the translators looked back at Danny as he was led away, lips trembling, eyes wide with something between gratitude and disbelief.
Danny gave nothing in return.
His team disembarked in tight formation, mud-streaked, soaked, and quiet. They moved toward the operations building—a squat structure wrapped in antennas and floodlight haze.
At the entrance, Colonel Idris Makanjuola waited, arms crossed, silver-haired and unsmiling. His posture was always the same—steel in the spine, judgment in the eyes. Not one for dramatics, but never indifferent to results.
Danny stopped before him, snapped a sharp salute. “Extraction successful. Ten hostiles down. Zero casualties. Hostages secured.”
The colonel returned the salute with a nod, eyes scanning the men like he was reading reports in real time.
“Efficient,” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
He studied Danny for a beat longer. “Any complications?”
Danny’s jaw tightened for half a breath. “No, sir. Target compound confirmed. Intel held up. Resistance was minimal. Engagements were swift.”
Colonel Makanjuola turned toward the operations room, gesturing. “Debrief. Now.”
Inside, the air buzzed with static maps and murmuring comms. Monitors displayed satellite images, live drone feeds, weather updates. A tactical board on the wall still showed the mission clock, now frozen at +00:32:17—thirty-two minutes from insertion to extraction.
Danny stood before the screen with his men behind him, helmets off, sweat cooling against their skin.
“Walk me through it,” the colonel said.
Danny did. Each movement. Each kill. Each confirmed visual. No embellishment. Just facts—cold, clear, clipped. His voice never wavered. His hands never gestured. Every word was precise, each one cutting deeper into the memory than the last.
When it ended, the colonel leaned back, arms folded again.
“Six years of perfection, Okoye,” he said, voice low. “You make it look easy.”
Danny said nothing.
The colonel’s eyes narrowed. “But it’s not, is it?”
Silence stretched.
Then Danny spoke, softly. “No, sir. It’s not.”
A pause.
“Get some rest, Major. You and your boys earned it.”
Danny gave a nod and turned. The moment the door closed behind him, the hall fell quiet.
The wheels of the plane touched the tarmac with a muted screech, and the fuselage hummed with deceleration as the military transport came to a stop at Muritala Muhammed International Airport. The storm that had haunted Mali hadn’t followed him—here, the sky was wide and bright, the Lagos heat already beginning to press through the hull.
Major Daniel Okoye stepped out into the sweltering morning, the scent of jet fuel and humid concrete greeting him like an old rival. His boots felt heavier on this ground, not from fatigue, but from everything the silence would soon require of him.
He wore plain clothes now—no uniform, no insignia—just a black t-shirt, tactical jeans, a weathered duffel slung over his shoulder. Another ghost among the crowd.
Outside the terminal, Lagos breathed with its usual madness—barking conductors, shuffling luggage, arguments over fares, and the constant, grinding honk of traffic. But Danny saw none of it. His movements were surgical—locating the exit, scanning for a working cab, always calculating.
He found a beat-up Corolla idling near the curb. The driver leaned out with a bored expression. “Lekki?”
Danny nodded.
The driver popped the trunk. “Four-five. No A/C. Fuel dey low.”
Danny said nothing, just dropped his duffel in the back and slid into the passenger seat. The door shut with a dull thud, muting the chaos outside.
They pulled into traffic, the city opening up around them in all its unfiltered, boiling rhythm. Vendors weaved between cars, music spilled from cracked windows, and the scent of roasted maize clung to the air. But inside the cab, it was quiet.
Danny reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone—black, scratched, silent.
He hadn’t turned it on since boarding the helo to Mali.
The screen flared to life.
Buzz. Buzz. Buzz.
It started slowly, then built—a rush of digital urgency. Missed calls. Texts. All from one name: Nneka, his wife.
Danny stared at the screen, throat dry. His finger hovered, then swiped through the messages. There were many. Some short, some frantic.
“Danny, call me back.”
“I need to speak to you. It’s important.”
“Where are you? I’ve been trying to reach you since yesterday.”
“Please answer your phone.”
And finally: “Call me. It’s urgent. Please.” Sent: 2:17 AM, the night before extraction.
Danny’s jaw clenched. The noise of Lagos fell away. He didn’t dial. Not yet.
He just stared at the message, the screen flickering faintly in his hand, the words burning brighter than the sun outside.