Page 74 of Her Forever SEAL

“Okay,” Clint said. “I've got him.”

Nobody moved.

“His name is Ibrahim Sula. Right now he's in Los Angeles.”

Mason felt the air in the room change.

“How certain are you?” Rylie asked.

“Certain enough. I've been running all three names against every Midnight Delta op that touched the Boko Haram in the last twelve years. Two of them don't hold up under scrutiny. Sula does. Twelve years ago we were pulling a Boko Haram operative out of a compound in northeastern Nigeria. The man's name was Kofi Sula. It was supposed to be an extraction. He ended up dead.” A pause. “He was Ibrahim's brother.”

Sophia gripped the table.

“How old was Ibrahim when this happened?” Mason asked.

“Twenty-three. Kofi was the only one left in his family. He was his baby brother.”

The room sat with that for a moment.

“So, he's been planning this since he was twenty-three years old,” Angie said.

“That's what the timeline says.”

“Who is he now?” Rylie asked. “What does he look like on paper?”

“That's the part you're not going to love,” Clint said. “He's rich. Legitimately, spectacularly rich. Got into cell phone distribution in Nigeria right around 2004, 2005, when the telecom market was exploding. Built a retail network across the north, then expanded into infrastructure contracting. By 2012 he's worth somewhere north of four hundred million dollars.”

Angie let out a low breath.

“Let me guess, his government loves him,” Mason grimaced.

“Yep. He funds schools, clinics, and road projects in the north. On paper he's exactly what Nigeria needs more of, a self-made success story who reinvests in his community.” Another pause. “The fact that some of that community is Boko Haram doesn't show up anywhere official.”

“What about his diplomatic status?” Lydia asked.

“Honorary consul. It's not uncommon. Wealthy private citizens, especially ones who fund the right things and know the right people, they give it away like candy. That gives him access, gives him protection and gives him a reason to travel.”

“And it gives him immunity,” Mason said flatly.

“Yeah.” Clint's voice was careful. “It does.”

Mason looked at the whiteboard. He looked at Lydia's map. He looked at the corridor marked in red and thought about a man worth four hundred million dollars sitting in a hotel in Los Angeles right now, untouchable by every legal mechanism Mason had ever operated within.

“The aid worker,” Sophia said. “The one that sent you all to West Africa. That was his doing?”

“Had to be. He's got enough government access in Nigeria to have known about the kidnapping before it happened, but my guess is he engineered it. And he's got enough credibility with US contacts to have flagged it as a priority extraction and specifically requested Midnight Delta.” A beat. “Getting bad intelligence to the CIA to keep you pinned down after the extraction, for a man with his connections, that's just another Tuesday for him.”

“He wanted us out of the country,” Mason said.

“He wanted you out of the country,” Clint corrected. “Mason, everything about this operation points at you specifically. The text Sophia received. The timing. The way it was structured. Sula doesn't care about the team. We might have all been on the op, but you were the leader. All of his focus is on you.”

The room went quiet.

“What about the helicopter specs?” Angie asked. “Was that ever real?”

“Real enough to use as cover,” Clint said. “My guess is he'd have taken them if he could get them. Four hundred million dollars doesn't mean you stop wanting more money. But it was never the point. It was something to keep everyone looking left while he moved right.”

“And Lydia figured that out,” Rylie said quietly.