Chapter 26: THE PLAN

It felt delusional at first. The kind of plan that belonged in a film, not in the wreckage of their lives. But when Samuel sat across from them in the visitation room, eyes sharp and voice steady, it became frighteningly real. With his status at the top of the prison hierarchy, he didn’t need to shout to command attention. A whisper from him carried through cells like prophecy. The wardens deferred to him; the inmates treated him like law itself.

And Aisha—well, Aisha had money. Jemima had more. Money had a way of convincing even the most righteous men that morality was flexible.

They met three times in the weeks that followed, always at night, always under the hum of dim bulbs that flickered as if in warning. Samuel’s tone was quiet but cold, surgical in its precision.

“No bribes. No disguises. They’ll sniff that out,” he

said.

“Then how?” Jemima asked.

“A death,” Samuel said. “Not mine—but one they

believe is mine.”

The room went silent. Even the sound of distant gates clanging seemed to pause.

He leaned forward, voice dropping lower. “They’ll never stop searching for an escaped convict. But they don’t look for the dead.”

Aisha stared at him, her throat tightening. “You’re

saying—”

“I’m saying you can’t free a man like me. You have to bury me.”

It sounded insane. Yet the longer they stared at him, the more it made sense. Inside those concrete walls, death was routine. Bodies came out every other week—disease, fights, suicide. No one questioned it. No one looked too closely.

The plan grew in fragments. Jemima handled the money and logistics. She knew men from back alley clubs from her time searching for Aisha. Men that could provide a double body to use. Perhaps someone from a morgue, one of the several unclaimed bodies lost to cult violence and the likes. Aisha focused on timing, on coordinating from the outside. Samuel’s part was the most dangerous: he

had to orchestrate a fight violent enough to justify an emergency transfer, yet controlled enough not to actually kill him.

He already had someone in mind—a man named Bala, thick-necked, short-tempered, and desperate to get out of solitary. All it would take was a promise of

money on the outside. Bala agreed after two

conversations. Samuel made sure the warden on duty that week was one of the few who owed him favors. The night was chosen carefully. A Tuesday. Quiet shift, no inspections, the perfect shadow in the week.

—

Two nights before it happened, Aisha couldn’t sleep. She sat by her window, staring at the slow crawl of traffic lights across the third mainland bridge. Lagos moved like a restless god, never sleeping, never forgiving.

She thought of her father—how she would look him in the eye again, how strange that would feel.

Jemima had promised everything would go

smoothly, but Aisha had seen too much of life to believe in smooth endings. She had built herself from scars and smoke. Yet this plan—it made her feel like the little girl she once was, waiting by the window for a father who never came home.

Her phone buzzed. Jemima.

Tomorrow’s the last meeting before it happens. Be

there. We owe him this.

—

The next evening, they met in Jemima’s apartment. It

smelled of expensive wine and tension. The curtains

were drawn, the lights low. Samuel’s note was

spread on the table—handwritten in neat, deliberate Yoruba.

Aisha read it aloud.

“The knife will be in the dining hall. He’ll stab high, not deep. The guards will react faster if it looks messy. The blood is mine, the rest is yours.”

Her voice cracked on the last line.

“Do you think he’ll make it?” she asked.

Jemima looked at her—tired, hollow-eyed, but

composed. “He doesn’t plan to die. He plans to disappear.”

They sat in silence, the hum of the fridge the only sound between them.

Finally, Aisha whispered, “And what then?”

“Then,” Jemima said, “we give him back his life. And we take theirs.”

—

The day arrived heavy with heat. Lagos sun pressed down like judgment. Inside the prison, the air was thick, the stench of sweat and iron impossible to ignore. Samuel moved with the calm of a man who

had accepted his fate. Bala stood opposite him in the

dining hall, pretending to eat. The room was filled with noise—the scrape of plates, laughter that never reached the eyes.

Then it began.

A small shove. A muttered insult. Chairs clattered. “Old man,” Bala growled, “you think you still run this place?”

Samuel didn’t answer. He wanted the attention,

needed the eyes.

The first punch came fast, then the knife flashed—a crude, rusted thing sharpened from a spoon handle. It sank into Samuel’s side, a calculated angle just above the ribs, missing vital organs but blooming red

all the same.

The hall erupted. Guards shouted. Sirens blared. Men scattered.

Samuel fell to the floor, his hand clutching the

wound, the other gripping Bala’s collar. He

whispered through clenched teeth, “Make it look real.” Then he slammed his head against the floor hard enough to draw blood.

Within minutes, he was on a stretcher, pale and limp. The medic shouted for clearance.

“He’s losing blood—get the van ready!”

—

Outside, Jemima sat in her car across the street, eyes on the main gate. Her hands trembled as she clutched the steering wheel. The plan was simple: a warden— one of Samuel’s loyalists who worked in the prison

—would call her the moment the transfer began. From there, Jemima would trail the ambulance to the hospital.

The call came. “They’re moving him.”

Jemima started the car. Aisha sat beside her, face stone still.

They followed from a distance, headlights dimmed, heartbeats loud. The ambulance moved fast, sirens

slicing through the city. They reached a small government hospital at the edge of Surulere.

The van halted. The guards jumped down, shouting for help. Inside, Samuel’s body convulsed slightly— part real pain, part performance. The warden on duty signed the papers, grumbling about protocol.

Within the hour, the doctor pronounced him critical. The word spread quickly through the prison channels. By nightfall, Samuel Abati was declared dead.

—

Aisha and Jemima waited in a quiet alley behind the hospital. It was long past midnight. The smell of rain mixed with disinfectant drifted from the morgue’s open window.

When the rear door creaked open, Jemima’s breath

caught.

Two men emerged—one of the wardens and the nurse. Between them, a gurney covered with a white sheet. They moved quickly, efficiently. The warden grunted, “Body’s tagged. Make it fast before the

supervisor returns.”

They slid the stretcher into the back of Jemima’s SUV. No words. Just fear. Just the sound of rubber wheels over cracked pavement.

Once the door shut, Aisha exhaled a trembling

breath. “Drive.”

Jemima’s hands were steady now. They drove through the empty streets, the city muted, wet, and vast. Every red light felt like an eternity. Every passing police van like a death sentence.

When they reached the abandoned warehouse near the port—a place Jemima had leased for the purpose

—they stopped. The air inside was cold, still heavy

with oil and dust.

Jemima pulled the sheet back.

Samuel’s eyes were open.

For a moment, no one spoke. He sat up slowly, blood still dark around the wound, his breath shallow but steady. He looked at both women as if seeing them for the first time.

“You did it,” Aisha whispered.

Samuel’s lips curved faintly. “No,” he said, voice hoarse. “We did it.”

Jemima handed him a towel. “You’re free now. For good.”

He wiped the blood from his hands, eyes distant. “No one is ever free. Not in this country. Not yet.”

They sat in silence for a while. The rain outside grew heavier, beating against the tin roof like gunfire.

Samuel stared at the dark horizon through a broken window.

Finally, he spoke, his tone lower, more measured.

“This was the easy part. The hard part comes next.”

Aisha frowned. “What do you mean?” She knew

what he meant, they had spoken of it before.

He turned to her. “You don’t get justice by running. You get it by making the ones who caused it wish they hadn’t lived long enough to see it.”

Aisha shivered at the edge in his tone. It wasn’t rage.

It was colder—resolve forged in grief.

Jemima swallowed. “Then we start tomorrow.”

Samuel looked between them. “No. We start now.”

—

They burned the bloodied sheet that night. The flames reflected in their eyes, small and defiant

against the dark. By morning, the city would believe Samuel Ajayi was gone—another inmate claimed by violence, forgotten by dawn.

But in truth, Lagos had just gained a ghost.

And ghosts, when wronged, never rest.