Chapter 6 - The FireThe room went black.
Maxwell reached for Clara.
“Stay close.”
Chief shouted.
“Don't move!”
Then they heard footsteps.
Someone was running upstairs.
A door slammed.
Maxwell rushed out.
The house alarm began screaming.
Security guards flooded the hallway.
“Fire!”
Someone shouted.
Smoke started pouring from the kitchen.
Chief grabbed Clara.
“Get outside!”
Maxwell ran toward the source.
The kitchen was already burning.
A curtain had caught fire.
Then another.
The flames moved strangely fast.
Too fast.
Maxwell grabbed the extinguisher.
He sprayed.
Nothing happened.
The cylinder was empty.
He froze.
Someone had tampered with it.
Chief pulled him back.
“Leave it!”
They escaped through the side door.
Within minutes, flames were visible through the windows.
The fire brigade arrived.
Neighbors gathered outside.
Maxwell stared at the burning house.
Chief stood beside him.
Neither man spoke.
A firefighter approached.
“This fire spread through multiple points.”
Maxwell looked at him.
“Multiple?”
“Yes.”
Chief's face hardened.
“Arson.”
The word settled over them.
Clara looked at Maxwell.
“Someone knew we were inside.”
Maxwell nodded.
“And someone wanted those files destroyed.”
Chief looked at him.
“They aren't all destroyed.”
“What?”
Chief reached into his pocket.
He handed Maxwell a small metal key.
“This opens a second cabinet.”
“Where?”
“In the workshop office.”
Maxwell stared.
“Why would you have that?”
“Because I put the most dangerous documents there.”
Maxwell's voice became cold.
“You trusted me with them?”
“I trusted you when I had no choice.”
Maxwell laughed bitterly.
“You sent me away.”
“I wanted to keep you alive.”
“You stripped me of everything.”
Chief's eyes hardened.
“Because your name was already marked.”
Maxwell stopped.
“What?”
Chief lowered his voice.
“Six months before you left, someone tried to poison you.”
Clara gasped.
“You never told me.”
“Because the first person I suspected was inside my own house.”
Maxwell stared at him.
“Who?”
Chief looked toward the burning estate.
“I was never able to prove it.”
That night, they returned to Maxwell's workshop.
He opened the hidden cabinet.
Inside was a stack of sealed files.
One had a label.
PROJECT ONOCHIE.
Another.
PROJECT ADEYEMI.
And the last one:
PROJECT MAXWELL.
He opened it.
The first page contained a photograph of him at age twelve.
The second contained his school records.
The third contained medical records.
The fourth contained a list of people assigned to watch him.
Maxwell's hands shook.
“How long?”
Chief answered.
“Since you were eleven.”
Clara looked at him.
“You were being monitored.”
Maxwell continued reading.
Then he found a page that made his blood run cold.
TARGET STATUS:
ACTIVE.
He turned the page.
There was one sentence.
DO NOT ALLOW SUBJECT TO ACCESS THE TRUST DOCUMENTS.
Then another.
IN THE EVENT OF DISCOVERY, REMOVE SUBJECT PERMANENTLY.
Clara covered her mouth.
Maxwell looked up.
“Who wrote this?”
Chief's voice was barely audible.
“I don't know.”
A paper slipped from the file.
Maxwell picked it up.
At the bottom was a signature.
A signature he knew.
His mother's.
Lolo Onochie.
He stared at it.
“No.”
Clara looked at him.
“Maxwell…”
“No.”
He turned the page.
The signature appeared again.
Then again.
Chief closed his eyes.
Maxwell's voice broke.
“My mother signed this.”
The workshop became silent.
Then Maxwell's phone rang.
Lolo.
He answered.
“Mum.”
Her breathing was shaky.
“Maxi.”
“Did you sign these documents?”
Silence.
“Mum?”
Her voice cracked.
“Come home.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Did you sign them?”
She began crying.
“Your father made me.”
Maxwell's eyes closed.
“What did you sign?”
Lolo whispered:
“The order to watch you.”
He clenched his fist.
“Why?”
“Because I was trying to protect you.”
The call ended.
Maxwell stared at the phone.
Then he looked at Clara.
“My whole family has been lying to me.”
Clara's expression was grim.
“No.”
May you like
She pointed to the file.
“Someone has been lying to all of them.”
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