Femi does not like being this close to Rosewater, but there is nothing else to be done under the circumstances. She stands in the shadow cast by the mining rig in the full moon. Her bodyguards are deployed all over, although it would be foolhardy for anyone to attack her. The noise of the rig, which never stops, day and night, will protect their conversation from casual surveillance. The air is full of the smell of ammonia that spoorshit gives out. The last estimates Femi saw put Wormwood’s motion at four centimetres a year, which does not seem like a lot, but it was half that the year before, and the faster the alien moves, the more spoorshit is available for mining. Femi does not understand the science, but the technicians say it’s like uranium and crude oil combined. Furious work is being done to harness it for energy and weapons. Femi is unimpressed. Why bet the future on a resource whose limits are unknown, or where there might be unforeseen consequences?
She thinks briefly of Eric, back from his walk, stuck in the hotel, guarded by the tentacle, comatose or catatonic, no one can tell.
Three people approach from the direction of Rosewater: Kehinde and two of his minions. The two fall behind, split off into different directions, walking perimeter, perhaps. Kehinde comes towards her, stops a foot away.
“It is always a pleasure to see you, ma’am. I am sorry for the delay. We were hounded by a border bot and they are hard to kill.”
“How is the work going?” asks Femi.
“Very well. My brother thinks I’m not going to kill him, but suffers daily losses of his men, either from my boys killing them, or desertion. It’s pathetic, really. I had hoped he would put up more of a fight, but this place makes one soft.” He gestures to the city, although to Femi he seems to be pointing at the Honeycomb specifically.
“How soon before he’s crippled?”
“The organisation is crippled already. You wanted it done with noise and in public to spread fear. Well, there is widespread fear.”
“And that fear is because of what you do, not the reanimate riots?”
“Riots, gangland shooting, suicide bombers, what’s the difference? You’re getting what you want. And thank you for the ammunition and training.”
“Did you have Kaaro killed?” she asks. Her mouth is dry and her heart feels like a trapped rodent in her chest.
Kehinde laughs, unable to read the moment, perhaps because they have to shout above the noise of the rig. “I did. I sent my best after him, and they did not let me down.”
Inhale, count to five, exhale. “Why?”
“Because it will make the head of security think it was Taiwo, and she will go after him hard. She already moonlights as a vigilante, did you know that?”
Femi does. After the rebellion, she was worried that Aminat lacked fibre, but things change. Poor Kehinde. He is going on about the assassination, giving operational detail with relish. He is a big man who does not at first realise that he has been shot. His voice trails off, and he looks down at his own gut, puts a meaty hand to the new hole in his clothes, then glances around. He thinks he has been shot from somewhere else.
Femi kicks him in the midsection, no longer bothering to hide her pearl-handled revolver. He writhes on the ground, face scrunched up with dawning realisation and agony and hate.
She screams in his face, “I warned you. I said stick to the fucking gangsters. I said no civilians. Didn’t I say no civilians?”
Kehinde is trying to respond, but a gut wound is a gut wound, and it’s not the movies. The bullet went right through the coeliac plexus and hurts like hell, Femi is sure. She shoots him a second time, this time to the right of his belly, through the liver.
“Kaaro was off-limits, you… throwback. He was like a stupid little brother who said and did disgusting things, but who you still love. He was stupid, but he was my stupid and you did not have my permission to kill him. You did not.”
Is she shouting because of the noise, or is she shouting because her heart hurts and she feels she has failed Kaaro?
She shoots him in the eye, and movement ceases in the other. She shoots him once more in the neck for good measure. Each bullet costs her ten thousand dollars because nobody makes them any more and she has one source at Awka, but it is worth it.
Kehinde’s death is unsatisfactory, but necessary. As she walks away, her bodyguards peel away from darkness and fall in behind her, having dealt with Kehinde’s men. The three bodies will be found in the daytime with the shift change. This is Nigeria; Femi has no need to cover up the death of a villain.
What the hell is wrong with men? Always a dick contest, always weighing who has the heaviest balls. She has spent so much time picking up the messes the president makes and leading Jacques by the hand when she was in Rosewater. Be much easier if she was in charge.
Poor Kaaro. Such an arse, but a good one, in spite of himself. She had hoped he would return to the S45 fold one day. She will miss him.
The car picks her up and drives in the direction of the hotel. When Femi deactivates the phone block, it rings. It’s Tolu Eleja.
“What?” asks Femi. He is supposed to maintain radio silence.
“We need to talk about Aminat,” he says.