The call came in just after 1:00 a.m.
Selorm's voice cracked through the line like dry thunder. "We've got movement. P's car just pulled into an abandoned paper mill near Kpone. GPS stopped transmitting five minutes after arrival."
Brian was already half-dressed, shoving his Glock into the side holster and grabbing the encrypted radio. "Everyone up. Quiet entry. We treat this like a handshake or a setup — nothing in between."
Akosua and Adjeley were already in the vehicle, engine running like a purring cat with fangs. Kojo sat in the back, loading a GoPro onto the modified drone they'd nicknamed Dragonfly.
The city was dead quiet by the time they hit the Kpone bypass — a black stretch of night interrupted only by occasional truckers and wandering goats.
Brian reviewed the grainy footage they had — the dashcam from P's escort. It was poor quality, but what stood out was the way the guards flanked him. No briefcase this time. No velvet room. This wasn't business. This was something else.
"Could be a meeting spot," Kojo offered.
"Could be a kill site," Akosua muttered, watching the darkness swallow the road ahead.
The abandoned mill loomed like a rusting corpse. A three-story factory with broken windows, vines choking the steel, and faded words on the wall: "Ghana Pulp Limited — Since 1978."
Brian signaled them to park a few blocks out.
"No comms inside," he whispered. "Radio silence. Eyes sharp. We go in two teams."
Akosua and Kojo circled from the left, creeping through the thick underbrush.
Brian and Adjeley took the right flank, slipping past a barbed gate that hung half off its hinges.
They approached slow, quiet, weapons drawn.
But there was nothing.
No guards.
No lights.
No cars.
No movement.
Just silence.
Akosua pressed into her mic. "It's too clean."
Brian grunted in reply. "I feel it too. Fan out. Check perimeter."
Inside, the mill was a skeleton of its former self. Paper fragments littered the concrete like forgotten snow. Rusted machinery groaned softly as the wind pushed through. A metal staircase led to an office overlooking the main floor — its windows shattered, its door ajar.
Adjeley was the first to smell it.
"Something's wrong," she whispered.
They found him near the boiler.
Male. Mid-30s. Black jeans. No shirt. Chest tattooed with strange symbols. Throat slashed so clean it looked surgical.
A white rose placed gently on his stomach.
Akosua stepped back, heart kicking against her ribs.
Brian looked around, his voice cold. "This wasn't a fight. This was a warning."
Kojo scanned the area. "No shell casings. No footprints. Either he walked in on them, or he was brought here postmortem."
Adjeley crouched next to the body. "Check his hands."
They were burned.
Not from fire — acid.
Kojo flinched. "Torture?"
"Or punishment," Brian muttered.
Akosua lifted a tag hanging from the body's pants loop. "Warehouse keycard. Not local. It's branded: 'Sahara Maritime.' That's a Tema port operation."
Kojo's eyebrows rose. "That's not small-time."
Brian stood and scanned the walls. "No messages. No blood trails. Just this corpse and the rose."
Akosua checked under the rose with a pencil. A folded note, stained faintly in red.
She opened it carefully.
Scrawled in shaky handwriting:
"I told you. I told you he would kill me."
There was no name. Just an initial at the bottom.
J.
Brian's face darkened. "Someone was talking."
"Maybe to Dora," Akosua said softly.
"Maybe to us," Adjeley added.
Kojo snapped a photo of the note and rose. "I'll cross-check any former port workers named J. Could be a missing link."
They sealed the body for retrieval. No gunfire. No chase. No suspects. Just death.
A dead end — but not empty.
Back at HQ, the silence was heavier than the rain falling on the roof.
Brian leaned against the edge of the strategy table, the note lying beside the warehouse badge and a close-up of the tattoo from the body.
Selorm entered quietly. "We ran facial recognition. No police record. But Interpol had an alert ping on a man matching that tattoo pattern. His name was Jude Narku. Ex-employee at Sahara Maritime. Went off-grid six months ago. No family. No address."
Kojo added, "There's something else. He filed a complaint two years ago. Said drugs were being loaded onto private containers without customs clearance. Complaint was buried."
Adjeley sighed. "He tried to speak out."
"And they killed him for it," Brian finished.
Akosua stood silent for a moment. "That note — 'he will kill me.' It wasn't written under duress. That was resignation. Like he knew it was coming."
Brian's gaze swept over the wall of photos.
Loko.
Dora.
Now Jude.
"P doesn't just run logistics. He erases problems."
Kojo frowned. "You think P killed him personally?"
Brian shook his head. "No. But he authorized it. And the rose? That's a calling card. Same thing left for Dora."
Selorm looked up. "Dora's gone. She shut off her phone. Wiped her apartment clean. She's vanished."
Akosua's chest tightened. "They might already have her."
Brian tapped the table.
"Or she's hiding."
He turned toward the board.
"We're not losing momentum. Kojo, dig into Sahara Maritime. I want access logs, security footage, anything from the last two weeks."
"On it."
"Selorm — look into recent deaths or disappearances near Tema port. Anyone connected to container logistics."
"Roger."
"Adjeley, Akosua — find out who's replacing Dora at Club Palms. Because someone will."
Akosua nodded. "You think they're cleaning house?"
"I think," Brian said, his voice low, "that P knows he's being watched — and this was his way of telling us that the next mistake we make… will be our last."
That night, as the city hummed below, Brian sat alone in the corner of HQ, staring at the white rose they'd brought in from the crime scene — now sealed in a transparent evidence bag.
He thought about Jude.
Thought about how many Judes there had been. How many more waited to die before anyone would care.
He picked up a marker and added Jude's photo to the board.
Below it, he wrote in capital letters:
"WITNESS. SACRIFICED."
Then he circled the rose.
And underneath it:
"THE SIGNATURE OF P."
He didn't say it out loud.
But it echoed inside him like thunder:
"Next time, he'll leave more than just flowers."