CRUDE INSTINCT (7)
MOVING PIECES
Guzape Hills
2 am
The house rose in elegant grandeur, a multi story white mansion of classical design with soaring columns framing a grand portico, ornate balustraded balconies, arched windows glowing warmly, and intricate cornices crowning its pale stone façade. Palm trees and manicured hedges framed the curved brick driveway where a white luxury SUV rested, the entire estate softly lit by ornate street lamps against a pale evening sky, its security perimeter humming with quiet vigilance.
Inside the house, the air was cool and dry, scented faintly with the ghost of cedar and luxurious polish. Soft light filtered through tall arched windows, gliding across polished marble floors and illuminating the high, ornate ceilings. The gold rimmed sofas stood empty of life, their cushions perfectly undisturbed, while only the standing and split ACs hummed steadily, circulating a crisp breeze that stirred the heavy drapes and deepened the profound stillness of the vacant rooms.
In the colossal master bedroom with its super king size bed with an elaborate gold trimmed headboard, the man sat quietly, looking outside the open floor-to-ceiling window framed by still blue velvety curtains at the dark.
Beside him, his phone ignited silently, one soft pulse of red light, then another.
He answered on the second ring.
“Daddy?”
Even after crossing an ocean and a continent, the single word arrived still weighted with the particular tightness of inherited cautiousness.
“Have you seen it?”
“How are you Janet? Seen what?”
“The article, Daddy,” she said. “New York Times. Online. They’re saying the SEC is investigating you….wait, I will read the rest for you.”
There was silence, and then static. She came back, breathless and shaken.
“….for undisclosed related-party transactions, possible FCPA violations linked to the old offshore structure.” She stopped to exhale. “It is on the business homepage, Daddy.”
He sat up with the unhurried precision of a man who had long ago trained his body not to betray surprise. The sheet slipped to his waist. Outside, the dark hills of Guzape held their ancient, indifferent posture.
“Send the link,” he said, voice low, almost gentle. “Then forget it. Do not speak of it. Not to your mummy, your siblings or anyone. Do you understand?”
She released a small breath into the phone, fragile as glass. “Are you…”
“I will handle it.”
The connection died. For a moment he remained motionless, the phone warm in his palm, the city glittering far below as though the world had not just tilted. Then he opened the article.
The prose was temperate, almost courtly, the kind of measured language that killed more cleanly than any verbal blitzkrieg. No feverish Nigerian intrigue. No anonymous sources from Abuja. Only the bloodless machinery of American bureaucracy and the unmistakable scent of a file assembled in patient silence until someone decided the moment had come to set it alight in public.
He dialed New York.The lawyer answered on the third ring, sleep still clinging to the edges of his voice.
“I assume you have seen it,” the magnate said.
He waited and listened to the sounds from the other side. There was a pause. The distant click of a laptop waking in a Manhattan apartment. A sharp intake of breath.
“Christ. This is cra…”
The magnate cut him off, his voice cold and contemptuous.
“Why am I paying you if we can’t avoid things like this?”
The lawyer stammered an apology. The magnate continued, ignoring him.
“Listen, find out what is substance and what is noise. Then get back to me.”
He ended the call without waiting for reassurance and immediately dialed Washington. The managing partner of the lobbying firm answered with the cultivated calm of a man who had built a career converting other people’s catastrophes into billable hours.
“I have just read the Times,” the lobbyist began. “We are already mobilizing…”
“You are surprised.”
It was not a question. It was a verdict.
Silence stretched, thin and luminous as wire.
“Yes,” the man said at last. “We received no advance signal. Nothing from the agencies we watch. Nothing from the Hill. This did not travel through any channel we monitor.”
“See, I want a name. If it is who I think it is. I want to know who he is working with. Get back to me before the close of business tomorrow.”
“Understood.”
He rose, pulled on a robe, and walked to the open balcony. Abuja’s lights stretched in irregular constellations, some steady, some flickering, none offering answers. He rested both hands on the cool stone railing and stared into the darkness for a long time.
No one had seen it coming.
The younger man had surprised him. There had been nothing reckless in his moves, nothing of the bluster or hesitation he had expected from someone with fewer years in the game than him. The moves had been cold, brutal, and unnervingly precise, each one landing with the force of a man who had already calculated the cost and accepted it. He had thought himself the one setting the terms. Now, looking out over the city, he wondered whether he had underestimated the younger opponent.
For the first time in many years, the magnate felt doubt.
*****************************
Fraser Suites
7 am
Rachel opened her eyes to soft light filtering through heavy curtains. The suite was quiet except for the low hum of the air conditioner. She lay still for a moment, taking in the space: a spacious one bedroom with polished wood floors, a wide bed layered in crisp white linens, a sitting area with a low glass table and two armchairs, and a window that looked out over the quiet stretch of the city. Everything felt expensive, carefully chosen and far removed from the modest flat in Utako she had left behind.
She sat up slowly, the sheet slipping from her shoulders. Three nights. She had been here three nights already, and still she had not seen him.
The memory of the call returned without invitation.
It had come the afternoon after his message. She had been stuck in the usual crawl of traffic near the junction at Utako market after returning from Wuse where she grabbed a quick lunch at Gusto.
His voice was exactly as she remembered, low, controlled, stripped of anything unnecessary.
“Rachel.”
“Obinna.”
“It’s been a while.”
“Yeah.”
“How is life lately?”
“Great.”
“Good to know. So here, there’s been a little issue at my end, so I am doing a check on my people to be sure they are good. I thought to check on you to be sure no one is bothering you.”
Rachel had hesitated, thinking of the black Prado and the mysterious calls immediately. He had sensed her hesitation.
“Rachel? Have you been followed?”
“Yes.”
“How fast can you pack?”
“I am on the road right now.”
“Pack for two weeks. Drive to my office. Leave the car there. My driver will pick you up.”
She opened her mouth to ask the first of a dozen questions, where, why, how long, what was happening, but he did not give her the chance.
“Don’t stop at home longer than you need to. And don’t tell anyone where you’re going.”
The line went dead.
She had sat in the traffic for another full minute, phone still pressed to her ear, before the weight of it settled. The Prado. Stephen’s venomous stare. The anonymous voice that had simply said her name and hung up. Whatever this was, it had already moved past suspicion into something that required her to disappear for two weeks.
That same evening she had driven to his office, left the keys with the security post as instructed, and climbed into the waiting black SUV. The driver had said almost nothing. He delivered her to Fraser Suites, handed her a key card, and left. The suite had already been prepared, her name at the front desk, a small note with the WiFi password and nothing else.
Rachel swung her legs out of bed and crossed to the bathroom. The marble was cool under her feet. She brushed her teeth, washed her face, and stared at her reflection longer than necessary. The woman looking back at her looked rested on the surface, but the eyes carried the same low grade tension she had brought with her from Utako.
She returned to the bedroom, pulled on a soft robe from the wardrobe, and sat on the edge of the bed again. Outside, the city was already moving.
Somewhere beyond these walls, the Prado might still be parked under a different broken light. Stephen might still be nursing his humiliation. And Obinna, wherever he was, had decided she was safer here than anywhere else, yet had not come once to explain why.
She reached for her phone out of habit, then set it down again without unlocking it. No new messages. No missed calls.
Three nights.
She rose and began to get ready for the day, which consisted of the assignments Pierre had taken to sending her while she took care of ‘family business’, the quiet of the suite pressing in around her like another kind of waiting.
*****************************
Oleo Energy
Maitama
1pm
The lounge area of Obinna’s office carried the quiet hum of filtered air and low sunlight slanting through the blinds. Leather armchairs formed a loose circle around a low glass table. A chessboard sat untouched on the coffee table to the side, pieces still in their opening positions.
Edafe sat with the others, the new encrypted device in his hand looking almost ordinary in the bright room. He answered the incoming call on speaker after a quick glance at Obinna.
Ofer’s voice came through clean and immediate.
“Good. We can finally talk like this. Emails were safe, but slow. The only time I tried a phone call before was that WhatsApp mess on the day they tried to drug you at the party. Never again.”
Edafe nodded even though Ofer could not see him. “Primary mode with Zara was WhatsApp calls.”
“Still unsafe. Encrypted but susceptible to contact chaining which mapped the network of people you called often.”
The call stayed brief. When it ended Edafe set the device down and exhaled, a faint, almost wistful smile crossing his face.
“I will miss that babe. Best link up I’ve had in a long time. Beast in bed. Especially when we pop, you know, the usual, molly, a little coke, sometimes the stronger stuff. Keeps everything sharp and endless.”
Obinna leaned back in his chair. His eyes narrowed to slits, his jaw tightening as he fixed his friend with a hard, unblinking stare. Whatever restraint he had been holding onto since the incident with Zara was beginning to fray.
“So you are still using?”
Edafe’s expression tightened and his eyes moved in a half roll. “Abeg, no start.”
“No start?” Obinna’s voice cut across the room, low and edged with anger. “I don’t think I am the problem here.”
The room went still, thick with tension. George looked down at his polished black shoes. Kunle stared resolutely at the portrait of an oil rig high on the wall above Obinna’s desk while Chike tried in vain to catch Obinna’s eye as he glared at Edafe.
“The orgies…the drugs…they’re not just your private recreation Edafe. They are fucking hazards, and your actions are putting all of us at risk. Do you realize how much of a liability you are becoming?“
Edafe’s face darkened.
“Get off your high horse, Obinna. I no do pass you, abeg.”
Obinna’s features tightened as he stared Edafe down.
“I am not the one opening my house for half of Abuja to walk through. I am not the one having orgies with questionable characters. And I am definitely not the one who almost got fucked up last week by his favourite link up.”
Edafe’s jaw worked. The pidgin dropped away.
“Yes, I have my peculiarities and my fucking idiosyncrasies, but what you are not going to do, is sit there and judge me as if you are any better! You are not going to call me a fucking liability, you hear!”
A muscle strained at his temple. He cocked his head to the side, disbelief flashing across his face.
“Me, liability? Obinna?”
His eyes grew red and his tongue returned to the familiar fluidity of pidgin.
“You siddon there, look me for face, call me liability?”
He shook his head and clicked his tongue.
“Guy, you disappoint me. You disappoint me bad.”
He stood, the chair scraping back and without another word, walked to the door.
Obinna’s voice followed him, level. Unapologetic.
“You can’t go to Jahi. They are doing a sweep for bugs. I got a room at Transcorp. And please, do not go home to Maitama.”
Edafe paused, his hand on the door handle.
“Obinna, abeg, you no be my papa.”
The door closed hard behind him.
Silence held for several seconds. One of the others cleared his throat.
“Man, I don’t know,” Chike said, dragging a hand down his face and shaking his head. “You went too hard Obinna.”
Obinna turned his gaze back to his friend, the lines on his face still hard and uncompromising.
“Not hard enough.”
Kunle stepped in.
“Dude, we all know, he is the crazy one, but he has always had your back, Obinna. He got you Ofer, remember?”
“Yeah, so he does a good thing and finds a thousand ways to fuck it up. How many times have we gone back and forth on this?”
Muttered excuses filled the room like background noise. Obinna ignored them.
“I am not going to moderate my language for him. He needs to sober up. We have bigger fish to fry.”
The men dropped the topic of their disgruntled friend and moved on to other matters, talking with the shadow of the terse exchange hanging over their heads until the end of lunch hour, then rose one by one. Chairs shifted. Hands gripped hands and shoulders touched in light embrace. Footsteps crossed the carpet and the door clicked shut.
Soon Obinna sat alone, the room finally quiet. His phone rang. It was the head of the trading desk.
“Sir, Deepcrust Trading is insisting on a transferable LC.”
Obinna’s tone flattened. “Does Oleo have a policy about transferable LCs? Yes or no?”
“Ah…yes of course, sir. I just thought you should know, sir.”
“Have you ever seen me issue a transferable LC to anyone?”
“No, sir.”
“Exactly.”
He ended the call.
He dialled his secretary next. “Send in Stanley from logistics. Now.”
“The one we sent with the gift to your friend…in Utako?”
“Yes.”
The young man arrived minutes later, slightly out of breath, tie slightly askew. He had never been called into this room alone. He stood until Obinna gestured at the chair opposite.
Obinna let the silence stretch. The young man fidgeted, eyes flicking from the desk to the chessboard to the window and back.
“How long have you worked here?”
The answer came in a rush of half formed sentences. Years, departments, deals handled, loyalty, hard work, eagerness to take on more responsibility. The longer the silence lasted, the more the young man filled it, selling himself with growing confidence, certain the private audience meant opportunity.
Obinna listened without expression. When the words finally slowed he gave a single nod.
“Thank you Stanley. You are on immediate leave. Effective now.”
The young man’s face went blank, then confused. “Sir…I don’t understand.”
Obinna said nothing. The silence returned, colder this time.
Stanley stood, stammered a half sentence, then left. The door closed softly.
Alone again, Obinna turned his head left. The chessboard sat undisturbed on the coffee table, white and black pieces locked in their starting ranks. His gaze rested on them for a long moment.
Rachel.
*****************************
Fraser Suites
8pm
Rachel had just finished the last of the grilled fish and steamed vegetables the hotel kitchen had sent up when the suite doorbell chimed. She set the cutlery on the tray, wiped her fingers on the thick white napkin, and crossed the living area of the suite.
She was still in the loose grey tee and soft fabric shorts she had changed into that morning. She looked down at her exposed legs, wondering whether to change into something else. A gut feeling told her it was Obinna at the other side of the door.
She sighed and pulled the door open.
Sure enough, it was Obinna. He stood in the corridor, a folded wooden chessboard under one arm and a small velvet bag of pieces in his hand.
“Evening,” he said. “In the mood for a game?”
She blinked, caught off guard by both the sight of him and the request. Heat rose lightly within her. He was still sp handsome, especially in his dark trousers and fitted green shirt, the sleeves rolled neatly to his forearms.
Feeling self conscious, she folded her arms across her chest without meaning to.
“I just ate. Come in.”
He stepped past her into the suite. The quiet authority of his presence filled the carefully lit space. She closed the door and watched him set the board on the low table in front of the sofa, unfolding it with the same precision he brought to everything else. The pieces clacked softly as he arranged them.
They sat opposite each other. Rachel curled one leg under herself, conscious of how the shorts rode up, and tried to focus on the board instead of the man across from her.
The game began in silence.
He played with measured aggression, picking off three of her more advanced pieces in successive exchanges. Each capture was clean, almost surgical. After the third, he spoke without looking up.
“I infiltrate your camp because of your weak positions.” He moved a bishop into the gap he had created. “To infiltrate mine, what would you do?”
Before she could answer, he advanced one of his own pawns. The move looked almost casual, yet it opened the diagonal for his bishop and placed direct pressure on her kingside bishop. The pawn itself was not especially powerful, just far enough forward to tempt.
Rachel took it.
“I return the favour,” she said.
Obinna’s mouth twitched once, almost a smile.
“Good one.”
The game continued.
Rachel was still absorbing the exchange when his hand moved again. He lifted two of her knights, one after the other, from squares that had looked almost harmless. They had been quietly advanced, waiting for the right moment to leap toward his more valuable pieces. Not obvious threats. Easy to overlook. Yet he removed them with the same surgical precision he had used on her earlier pieces.
She frowned. “How did you even notice those? They weren’t…”
He picked up a captured knight and twirled it around his fingers.
“This. Just slightly higher than the pawn, this guy…easily overlooked, can be dangerous because he can make sudden moves which can be hard to track.” He looked up from the board and smiled, but it was barely perceptible. “Like a spy.”
Rachel nodded thoughtfully.
“And every army needs a spy.”
“An army without spies,” he said, voice low and even, “is like a man without ears or eyes.”
She nodded once. “The Art of War.”
He nodded in return. Then he simply sat still. For a long time he held her gaze, the silence stretching until it felt almost physical. His eyes did not leave hers.
A sudden self awareness made her pulse jump. She did not look away.
“What did you do with the first piece, the pawn?” she asked, knowing full well that the game more than just simple chess.
“I placed him on leave.”
“And the spies?”
“Returned blind to their owner.”
Intrigued,, she began to ask for more details but mobile phone vibrated against the table, ending the conversation. He glanced at the screen, then answered, turning slightly away as he brought the device to his ear.
“Yes.”
A brief silence followed while he listened. Rachel watched the line of his shoulders, the controlled stillness of a man who measured every response.
“Tomorrow,” he said at last. Another pause, longer this time. “Seven.”
He listened again.
“I’ll confirm the place.”
He ended the call and set the phone face down with quiet finality. Rachel could not hear the voice on the other end, yet something in the timing, in the low, familiar cadence of his replies, gave her a sharp, instinctive certainty that the caller was a woman. Jealousy rose before she could contain it, hot, uninvited, tightening beneath her ribs.
She told herself it was none of her business. She told herself she had no claim. The question still left her mouth.
“When was the last time you had sex?”
Obinna held her gaze. The silence stretched, long enough for her to hear the soft pulse of the air-conditioning and the distant traffic far below. His eyes did not waver.
“Three weeks ago.”
Something cold and heavy settled in her stomach. She felt physically ill. The air in the suite thickened. She stood abruptly, murmuring an excuse about needing water, and walked out of the bedroom into the sitting area.
She sank into the armchair by the window, arms wrapped tightly around herself, and stayed there. The city lights of Abuja blurred beyond the glass. She replayed the words.
Three weeks ago.
Shortly after he had called off their affair. She closed her eyes, hating the image her mind insisted on constructing. She hated that it still mattered. Minutes stretched into something longer, heavier. When she finally trusted her face again, she rose and returned to the bedroom.
He was already asleep.
He lay on his back on the wide hotel bed, one arm bent loosely above his head, the other resting across his stomach. The habitual tension in his shoulders had eased. In sleep his face looked younger, almost peaceful, unguarded in a way she rarely saw.
Rachel stood in the doorway and studied the relaxed profile. Conflict moved through her in slow, opposing currents. On one side was the sharp, irrational anger that he had been with someone else was the quieter, more dangerous knowledge that she had never truly moved on. The weeks of distance, the careful silence, the deliberate avoidance of his name, all of it had been careful theatre. The truth sat in the room with them now, undeniable.
She exhaled slowly.
She would remain at Fraser Suites for as long as the situation required. She would see him if necessity demanded it. She would speak to him, even sit across from him over a chessboard again if the days insisted. But she would not sleep with him.
Not again.
The decision settled inside her like a door closing without sound. She turned off the remaining light, crossed to the far side of the bed, and lay down with her back to him, eyes open in the dark long after his breathing had settled into the slow, even cadence of deep sleep.
****************************
The Headquarters
Central Area
1:47 a.m.
The corridor outside the Inspector General’s private annex was empty except for the distant, measured tread of a night sentry two floors below.
He lifted his phone and dialled. The call connected after two rings. Background noise filtered through.
“Report.”
The vigilante’s voice was high and excitable as he reported back in broken English.
“Nobody come today at the well, sir, but eh… two days before, some NSCDC and army people come. They measure everywhere, snap everything and ask me many questions, sir. They even get one white man with them. He ask me questions more than even the army people. He was doing as if he didn’t believe me, sir.”
The Inspector General’s pen stopped moving.
A long silence stretched across the line. Outside the annex, a generator somewhere on the compound coughed once and settled back into its steady drone.
“Okay. Continue to watch,” the Inspector General said at last. “Is the crude still leaking?”
“Yes, sir. Every day, the oil is still pouring for ground. Everywhere just black with oil.”
The vigilante paused, then added without being asked,
“And it is too bad, sir. Something that can be bringing someone money is just wasting anyhow.”
The words hung longer than they should have.
The Inspector General did not answer immediately. He leaned back slowly, the leather of the chair giving a quiet protest.
For years, he had stood in the shadow of men who never dirtied their own hands, men who spoke in soft voices from air conditioned rooms and expected obedience the way other men expected rain. The oil magnate most of all.
A man who treated institutions like private staff and the country’s security apparatus like a personal retinue.
A part of the Inspector General had resented it for longer than he cared to admit. The resentment had grown quieter with time, but it had never died.
It had only waited.
Now the image of black crude spreading unchecked across the red earth at Igbokoda returned with new clarity.
Valuable. Unclaimed. Flowing freely into the night while the big guys fought for control.
His face stayed still but his mind spun at the thought of the possibilities before him. A small vessel. Something modest enough to slip past the usual patrols along the Ondo coast. A barge, perhaps. Or a coastal tanker with the right papers and the right silence.
The leaking manifold would not last forever. But while it did, the oil was there, measurable and convertible.
He filed the thought away carefully, the way he filed everything that mattered.
“Continue as instructed,” he said aloud. “Report only to this line.”
“Yes, sir.”
The connection ended.
The room returned to its heavy quiet.
The Inspector General remained seated for a moment. Then he reached for the second phone, the one that never appeared on any official inventory, and called the head of the men he had placed with Obinna,
the same men who had been dismissed that morning without warning.
The officer answered immediately and relayed everything that had happened. They had been served breakfast by Obinna’s cook, then handed envelopes containing their pay and instructed to vacate the premises for the time being.
“He didn’t tell you why?”
“No, sir.”
The IG ground his teeth.
The young man was proving to be a headache.
He leaned back and stared at the ceiling. It was too neat. Too deliberate.
Obinna had not merely dismissed the men; he had done it without a confrontation, without a question, without giving them so much as a reason to be suspicious. Almost as though he had known they were never there simply to protect him.
The thought unsettled him. And now there was the oil well. The magnate’s decision to take over the well by every means necessary had reached a critical stage. If Obinna knew what was being planned, the men posted at his house were no longer useful.
They were a liability. Worse, they had been seen. The Inspector General’s eyes narrowed. The black crude spilling across Igbokoda’s soil returned to his mind.
Perhaps fate had placed the opportunity in front of him for a reason.
He sat very still. Then, slowly, the resentment he had carried for years gave way to something colder.
Possibility.
He closed his eyes and began to plot.
© Umari Ayim.
2026