Chapter 04

Chapter 04

Hunt Protocol

The city woke up angry.

By morning, checkpoints had multiplied like rumors. Soldiers stood behind sandbags that hadn’t been there the night before. Radios crackled with orders that contradicted each other. Somewhere above it all, drones hummed—too high to see, too low to ignore.

Kofi watched from a rooftop, binoculars steady in his hands.

This was the moment Hunt Protocol was designed for.

Speed. Precision. Shock.

Ethan Hunt would already be moving—running across rooftops, leaping gaps, trusting momentum and luck in equal measure. He would believe the plan would bend to his will.

Kofi lowered the binoculars.

“But this is Africa,” he murmured.

Bako was gone, hidden within a network that no longer belonged to the state. But the extraction was unfinished business. If Bako talked without protection, he’d be dead by nightfall—and so would anyone connected to him.

Kofi needed leverage.

He needed proof.

The Council met once every month at a private high-rise overlooking the port. Officially, it was an “investment forum.” Unofficially, it was where decisions were signed in blood and ink.

IMF doctrine said infiltrate the building, access the server room, copy everything.

Hunt Protocol.

Kofi knew the risks. Facial recognition at the lobby. Armed security on every floor. Backup power systems. Escape routes that assumed helicopters.

He smiled grimly.

Ethan Hunt would have smiled wider.

The lobby was chaos disguised as elegance.

Men in suits. Security in tailored uniforms. A grand piano playing to nobody. Kofi walked in wearing borrowed confidence and a visitor’s badge that had cost him two favors and one promise.

The elevator scan stalled.

The guard frowned.

Kofi leaned in. “If this freezes again, my boss will scream.”

The guard sighed and waved him through.

Timing.

On the thirty-second floor, Kofi stepped out into glass and steel.

The server room was protected by a biometric lock and two guards who looked bored but deadly.

Kofi waited.

When they shifted positions—just slightly—he moved.

One guard went down silently. The other reached for his radio and caught Kofi’s forearm instead.

They struggled. The man was strong. Trained.

Kofi twisted, slammed him into the wall, and injected a sedative into his neck.

The door opened.

Inside, cables pulsed like veins.

Kofi plugged in his drive.

Thirty seconds.

Footsteps echoed outside.

Ten seconds.

A voice barked an order.

The door began to open.

Kofi yanked the drive free and jumped—not out the window, but onto a maintenance ledge that wrapped around the building.

Wind tore at him.

Ethan Hunt would have jumped without thinking.

Kofi clung to the ledge, breath shallow, heart pounding.

“Crazy bastard,” he whispered—not sure if he meant himself or Ethan.

Below, sirens wailed.

Above, boots thundered.

Kofi moved sideways, inch by inch, until he reached a service ladder and disappeared down the building’s spine.

By the time security reached the ledge, he was gone.

That night, Kofi decrypted the files.

Names. Accounts. Foreign contractors. Military orders signed by men who never wore uniforms.

This wasn’t corruption.

It was architecture.

Kofi leaned back, exhausted.

Ethan Hunt had spent his life stopping bombs and villains.

Kofi was dismantling a system that would simply grow another head.

Still, Hunt Protocol had worked—barely.

Kofi stared at the city lights.

“Your way breaks fast here, Ethan,” he said quietly. “But it still teaches when to run.”

Outside, thunder rolled.

The next protocol would not be about speed.

It would be about faith.