® 18+ SNVL
© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel
Flashback – An hour earlier
Location: International Airport, Lagos.
Time: 2pm
‘Thanks for your cooperation, Agent Gray,’ Dakolo said with a smile as he offered a handshake to the white security officer.
The white man took his hand in his firmly and smiled back, ‘Please do the right thing Agent Dakolo, and let us be glad we did this for you.’
‘I won’t disappoint you, I promise.’ Dakolo replied, meaning his words with his whole heart.
They released each others’ hands and Agent Gray went ahead to shake hands with James who was standing beside Dakolo.
‘Agent James, nice meeting you.’ Gray said.
‘Same here sir,’ James replied.
‘I’m glad you’re with Dakolo helping to fight the rot in your security system, I wish you both well.’
‘Thank you sir,’ James replied with a smile. He felt guilty as he remembered his promise to himself years ago not to ever be one of the corrupt officers but his change had been drastic when it became about saving his father’s life.
Agent Gray stepped aside and signaled to two other foreign officers who were standing behind him with Madam Henrietta in the middle. She had been disguised by the officers, dressed in a black hijab and a white long sleeve gown. One of the officers beside her spoke some words to her and she raised up her head and looked at the two Nigerian officers, then she walked slowly to them.
‘Thanks once again, Agent Gray.’ Dakolo said with smiles to the officer again and both made salute signs before turning opposite ways. ‘This way madam,’ Agent Dakolo said to the woman as James led the way. Dakolo walked behind her as she followed James.
They got to the car park area of the airport and James got into the driver’s side of the car while Dakolo opened the door for the woman to sit at the back and joined her there.
Twenty minutes after they got out of the airport facility to the road, Agent James took notice of a vehicle that had been trailing them from the airport and brought it to the attention of Inspector Dakolo.
‘Sir, haven’t you noticed that red car following us?’ James asked, flashing a look at Dakolo.
A frown appeared on Dakolo’s face and he turned back to look. He saw the red car behind, even though there was a black jeep in between them.
‘I noticed it at the airport and it has been following from a far distance for a while,’ James said to Dakolo who was still staring as if to confirm if the car was really following them.
‘Are you very sure?’ Dakolo asked and turned his face to the front. He looked at the woman sitting by his side with accusing eyes.
‘They’ve been taking every direction we take, I don’t think it’s just a coincidence.’ James said.
Dakolo turned to look again for some minutes. ‘Just keep moving and let’s watch them for some more minutes.’
‘Hmm,’ James said with a sigh. ‘Sir, remember I have to stop at the petrol station. The officer who brought the car did not fill it.’
‘Oh Sh|t!’ Dakolo cursed under his breath. He remembered the young officer had asked to fill it but he himself had asked the young man not to worry. He took out his pistol and placed it on his knee, holding it down with his hand.
‘Okay, go into the filling station and let’s watch them.’
James turned on the traffic indicator, there was already a filling station in sight. He switched to the slow lane at the first opportunity he got. He took a glance at his side mirror after some seconds and noticed that the red car had also joined them on the slow lane. Dakolo also noticed, and he set his gun properly in his hand in readiness for an attack.
They turned into the filling station and drove to the free fuel dispenser. As they stopped the car before the stand, they looked back and noticed the red car also driving in. Dakolo quickly stepped out of the car with his gun hidden by the side and watched as the car drove to another fuel stand.
To their surprise, a gentle looking man stepped out of the car to talk to the attendant at the fuel stand. A young lady with dark eye goggles on was seated at the passenger’s side of the red car. Dakolo waited to observe properly and concluded that the people in the red car were just ordinary people.
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‘How much fuel sir?’ the fuel attendant was asking James who wasn’t paying attention to her but had his gaze also fixed on the red car.
‘Sell five thousand naira,’ James replied the attendant. As the attendant turned to input the commands to the fuel pump, James heard a loud groan from behind. He turned back to see someone slamming Dakolo’s head to the top of the car. He quickly picked his gun and stepped out of the car but someone grabbed his neck from behind, pulled him and slammed his face into the fuel dispenser.
MIND BLOWING STORY BY TISA PHIRI STARTS ON MONDAY “TO FIND GRACE“
The attendant was terribly scared and the fuel pump nozzle dropped from her hand.
The man from the red car opened the door at the side the disguised woman was sitting and ordered her with a gun to get out of the car.
____
‘Here I am baby,’ a voice sounded from behind the opened door and a shadow could be seen formed on the ground. Rex walked in through the door, pointing a gun at her.
He watched as Tarasha quickly grabbed the lady at her front and turned her face to him, placing the gun to her head. He smiled evilly to himself and made a scornful look. As if she had a change of mind, he saw as she hit her hostage at the back of the head with the butt of the gun.
Lizzy fell to the ground unconsciously and Tarasha pointed her gun at Rex just like his was pointed at her.
They stared into each others’ eyes for a moment silently. Rex changed the focus of his gun for a moment and fired a shot at someone behind Tarasha. Tarasha did not bother looking back, she knew it was only madam Christiana who was sitting behind her. She stepped forward over Lizzy’s body and raised her second hand to hold the gun.
Rex also stepped forward, his gun still raised and held tightly in his hands. He kept his gaze on Tarasha’s hands just like she kept hers. He wasn’t sure he was going to pull the trigger yet even if he had the opportunity, he needed to make sure the remaining videos would not be uploaded by anyone else after her death.
‘You made the mistake of not killing me when you had the opportunity and I’d make you suffer for that,’ Rex said, even as he brainstormed to find the best way to get her without killing her.
Tarasha kept a careful gaze on his hand and observed every of his movement. She believed he was trying to distract her with his words, the first person who got distracted amongst the both of them would probably get the bullet first into his body. And if they both remained undistracted, the two options were either having their bullets into each other’s body or putting down the gun to settle the fight in another way.
She knew it was an almost impossible task if she tried to take down all the asassins all alone without backup. What she had come to do was to get Patricia in order to be sure of who she and the other two guys that escaped from the last encounter were working for. She was sure if being capable to defeat them all if it had only been the two other guys and normal security officers with them. But with Rex who she knew matched her speed and strength, her best option was to leave the place, she already had her escape planned well before she set out.
Rex took a step forward and watched as she also took a step forward closing the distance in between them to four metres. He noticed she had the same type of earpiece he had in his ear and located her mouthpiece hanging at the tip of the cloth on her neck.
‘Hello boss…’ Tarasha heard Henry’s voice sound in his earpiece but she could not turn on her mouthpiece to respond to him. ‘Hello boss,’ Henry called again.
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‘Can we make this faster?’ Tarasha offered, signaling that they should drop their weapons and use their fists. It would also make it easier for her to get close to the door.
Rex understood and signified his approval with a nod and both of them lowered their guns slowly. They squatted and dropped it on the floor at the same time and also rose up together. They both took steps forward closer to each other and drew up their fists for a battle.
‘How are you going to upload the remaining videos after I beat you up tonight?’ Rex taunted as they both circled around each other.
‘It’s none of your f****** business,’ Tarasha replied and threw the first blow which Rex dodged easily.
‘You have to try harder to get to me,’ Rex said with an evil smile.
‘Tara, is everything okay?’ Tarasha heard Henry’s voice faintly just after Rex spoke.
She threw another blow to his left chin which he blocked with his hand, she followed with a quick one to his belly and he blocked with his second arm but swiftly she sent him a headbutt on his chest and didn’t miss. He staggered back a bit and massaged his chest gently with his palm, his evil smile appeared on his face again. He realized she wasn’t ready to enjoy the fight and noticed the hastiness.
‘Better trial,’ he said as he raised up his fist again. As he moved closer to her to continue the fight. They heard sounds of gunshots coming through the door which made both of them go different directions and take cover behind tables.
Tarasha pulled out another gun and held it ready in her squatting position behind the wooden shelf. She took a peep to see if she could locate Rex. She knew the object she was hiding behind wasn’t enough to secure her from being hit by a bullet and she needed to leave there as soon as she could. She glanced towards the left and saw the door again. She had taken note of the kind of lock it had immediately she entered into the room.
‘Omotara, I know you’re busy right but I hope you can hear me. Cole called from the base some minutes ago, he discovered that Madam Henrietta is back into the country and is in the hands of Stainless. He wanted me to tell you of his decisions to lock off all connections to her from the base,’ Henry’s voice came through the speaker again.
Tarasha wasn’t paying so much attention until she heard madam Henrietta being mentioned. She turned on her mouthpiece quickly. ‘Who the hell is Stainless?’
Rex had also taken out his gun and was pointing it towards the door. He was hiding behind a one seater sofa which had a laptop placed on the seat. He watched as Eric stepped in with a gun in his hand. Eric stood by the wall at the end and fired some shots sporadically.
Eric eyes wandered about the room and Rex knew he was soon going to discover his hiding place. He thought of showing himself to him and manipulating him to help get Tarasha but things changed before he could make any conclusion. There suddenly began gunshots in his direction, hitting the sofa and flying past above it. He peeped quickly to check and it wasn’t Eric shooting but Tarasha. She had gotten up from her hiding place and was heading towards the second exit close to her as she shot towards him and at Eric. Rex also got up from his hiding place and joined Eric to shoot at Tarasha but she was quick to open the door and get out.
Rex stepped out from behind the chair and tried to go after her but Eric stopped him.
‘What the hell are you doing here Tiger?’ Eric asked in a surprised tone, pointing his gun at Rex. Rex stopped and raised his hands, he turned to look at Eric who was now pointing a gun at him as he walked forward. The bullets in his gun had finished and he didn’t want to take the risk of having Eric shoot at him. He was sure Eric would not kill him due to the oath of allegiance to every member sworn by all in the Vilary clan but there was still a possibility of Eric shooting him in the leg or hands.
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‘I need to go after her man,’ Rex said with a calm voice.
Eric walked passed him but kept his gun pointed at him. ‘You’re staying the hell here while I go after her.’
ANOTHER STORY TITLED JODA BY THIS SAME WRITER STARTS ON MONDAY
Rex watched as Eric walked pass him to the door without facing forward fully. He wondered why Tarasha had run out. He had thought she had come ready and willing to face him.
Eric opened the door and entered into the room it led to, he ran towards the exit in pursuit of Tarasha.
Rex turned and quickly walked back to pick the gun he had dropped on the floor, then he also picked Tarasha’s gun before heading towards the exit. He stopped as he got to the exit and tried to open the door but noticed it was locked from the other side by Eric. He stopped and turned on his mouthpiece.
‘Hey Stainless, are you trying to say something?’ he asked. He had been hearing Stainless voice in his earphone but was unable to reply.
‘Yes boss, we’ve got the woman but she doesn’t know their location and the details from the phone shop is not working.’
‘Keep her, we could get some other good information from her.’ Rex replied.
_
‘What the f*** is happening in there?’ Carl asked Eric as Eric stepped out from the back exit of the building.
‘Did you see a girl on white pass here now?’ Eric asked, ignoring his question.
‘I saw a girl putting on a volleyball Jersey run past some seconds ago,’ Carl replied.
‘What the f***! That’s Samantha Osman, I met her in there with the other Tiger.’ Eric said before continuing his chase. He left Carl wondering what to do. He had seen the girl pass but she looked more like one of the casual girls seen around the place, he was expecting to see her on black like they had seen in the footage.
___
15 minutes later
Henry kicked on the engine of the car and drove into the road, he moved on a high speed until he got to the gate of the Park and slowed down. At the same time, Tarasha walked out of the gate hurriedly, now putting on a black singlet with a backpack strapped to her back. She entered into the backseat of the car and Henry sped off immediately. Mr Matthew still seated at the front of the car glanced at her.
‘How did it go?’ Henry adjusted the rearview mirror to enable him see Tarasha at the back. She was still busy arranging some things in the backpack.
‘Good,’ she replied impatiently.
Henry raised a brow. ‘Did you get to Patricia?’
‘No, I did nothing to her.’ Tarasha replied calmly, she appeared to be deep in thoughts.
Henry took a quick glance back. ‘Nothing? Why?’
‘I already confirmed who she is working for?’
‘The Vice President?’
‘Yes, that’s what we needed to confirm.’
‘Well, I don’t think so. We should have kidnapped her to hear more from her,’ Henry sighed.
‘We don’t need to kidnap her anymore, Rex is with them. We’re sure now that all the attacks we had on us are from the same source – Elvis Richards.’
‘I don’t understand, why didn’t you take Patricia if you had the opportunity to. Wouldn’t it have reduced the number of people we have to bother about? Or did Rex stop you?’
‘Our sole mission is not about Rex or Patricia, our sole target is Elvis Richards, we’d take care of the rest with him.’
Henry did not understand but he didn’t bother to ask anymore questions. He continued driving silently until she spoke again.
‘Has Cole been able to locate them now?’
‘He didn’t say that when he called back, we’d get to the base soon. We don’t need to worry.’
‘No, we’ve got a lot of worry to do.’ Tarasha replied.
‘I mean Cole said Madam Henrietta can’t lead them to us in anyway, so we are not in trouble for her capture.’
Tarasha sighed loudly without replying his words. Henry looked into the mirror but couldn’t see her face well, he took a quick glance back and saw her looking down, her face very moody.
‘Please, leave Agent James out of this. I only asked him to follow me there,’ Inspector Dakolo explained to the police agents standing in front of him. He was putting on a white t-shirt and black three-quarter shorts. His forehead was bandaged, a neck guard was around his neck and his left hand hung on a bandage which was tied across his shoulder.
‘You both have lots of explanation to make,’ Agent Tim said. ‘The DSP in Abuja has no record of your trip and you never submitted a report that you were able to track Mrs Henrietta. James also has to explain why he joined you in a case that he has no business with.’
‘Sir…’
‘Shut up Inspector Dakolo, you’d surely pay dearly for your insubordination.’
____
‘They hacked the NSCC system early, I couldn’t follow them.’ Cole gave a reply to Tarasha’s question. She had just entered into the computer room and was taking out the guns from her pocket. She took out three revolvers all together and placed them on the table, then she also took off her electronic wrist band and her Talkon communicator receiver from her trouser waist.
‘So they weren’t captured in any of the footages?’ Tarasha asked as she walked close to him.
‘They were in some of them,’ he answered. He was seated in a more comfortable seat different from the normal chairs used in the computer room. His belly wound was still been covered round by bandages and the usual computer room seats were too hard for his injured back.
He tried to move his chair backward on seeing Tarasha approach him but she signalled for him not to bother. She stood behind him and rested her right hand on the top of his chair backrest as she looked into the computer screen.
‘I traced them here when I got the notification that someone was trying to track my location with my debit card details,’ Cole explained as he showed her the first footage. Stainless could be seen standing outside a phone booth with two other mean looking men and Madam Henrietta dressed in her hijab.
‘This was the shop you got her phone from?’ Tarasha asked after two minutes of silence and staring at her mother’s eyes in the paused video and also wondering why the woman was dressed the way she was.
‘Yes, I guess they asked her questions and it resulted in forcing her to lead them to the phone booth.’ Cole replied.
‘But how did she get into their hands?’ Tarasha asked in a concerned tone.
Cole looked leftward and dragged a chair closer. ‘Why don’t you take a seat, I’ve traced everything already and I’ll explain to you in details.’
Tarasha took the seat reluctantly and listened intently as he continued to explain.
‘I traced the whole journey back to the international airport, Madam Henrietta was brought into the country by some United States Special Agents. She broke our rule and did not heed to your instructions, ‘I checked the records of the new credit cards and identity we gave to her and discovered that she never used it, she probably continued to use her real identity and credit cards and it got her discovered by the special agents who brought her secretly into the country and handed her over to Agent Dakolo who was in charge of the kidnap case of the woman and Stephanie.’
‘So how did she get to the hands of Stainless? that guy works with Rex and she’s in danger with them.’
‘Here,’ Cole opened one of the footages showing Agent Dakolo and James in the airport together before he continued with his explanation. ‘Agent Dakolo went with James Elvis to get her from the airport, I guess one of them told a third party and the Vice President probably got wind of her return to the country and informed Stainless to do the job for him.’ He closed the footage and opened another one. ‘They were followed from the airport and they got double crossed in a Petrol Station, Stainless and some other guys attacked and took the woman from them.’
‘Zoom in,’ Tarasha said. The footage showed Agent Dakolo and James being attacked in the Petrol Station. The camera which captured it was at a far distance, hence the need for it to be zoomed.
‘Stainless took her from here and stopped by at a warehouse,’ Cole continued to explain. He opened another footage to show her the warehouse they got into. ‘After some minutes, they took her out again and then visited the phone shop where they must have gotten the details I used for the payment of the phone. They tried to track me with that and I got the alarm, since then I cut off her connections with Madam Henrietta, they can’t create a link from her to us.’
‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ the words fell out of Tarasha’s mouth before she knew. She looked up and saw the surprised look on her face. ‘Ermm… I mean you did the right thing but we still need Madam Henrietta,’ Tarasha quickly tried to correct herself.
Cole kept a thin stare of her face, he noticed something was amiss and it wasn’t just about the step he took. He was sure he had done the right thing for the team’s safety.
‘What do we need her for?’ Cole asked with a raised eyebrow.
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She looked away and sniffed in. Cole realized there was something more to it, he could see that she was emotional.
She turned back her face to him after some minutes, she had been able to compose herself. ‘I have a strange feeling about it, we need to apply more caution.’ She said.
Cole stared at her with confused eyes, ‘More caution in what aspect?’
‘There could still be a way of tracing us to this place for them,’ she replied. ‘I know Madam Henrietta cannot lead them here because she would not remember but Rex is intelligent, he could dig deeper and still trace us here through her.’
Cole just stared at her, she was acting weird. It was the first time he was hearing her talk about having a ‘feeling’ and not just talking about it but making decisions based on the feeling.
‘Well, what do you think we should do?’
‘We’d be alert, very alert.’ Tarasha replied as she got up to her feet.
‘Okay boss, I’ll try put all security checks in place.’ Cole replied.
___
‘So you can’t remember their location or the way which leads to it?’ Rex asked. He was sitting in front of her on a plastic chair in a living room. She was on a sofa, her hijab was already taken off.
‘No, a needle was driven into my hand after dressing up that day. I only came back to consciousness some minutes before we got to the phone booth.’
Rex nodded slowly. He wasn’t expecting less. ‘We don’t plan to keep you here or hurt you. We only have some few requests for you and we would allow you go when you meet our requests,’ Rex said in a calm voice. He took some seconds to observe the woman’s response before he continued. ‘Would you like to tell, not just us, but the world who Samantha Osman really is?’
The woman frowned. ‘I don’t understand, I know nothing about her. Stephanie knows her more than I do,’ she said.
‘Stephanie knows more about her?’ Rex picked her line.
‘Er…Yes,’ she answered reluctantly, feeling foolish to have mentioned Stephanie.
‘That means Stephanie knew about your abduction before hand and it didn’t come as a surprise to her.’
‘No, she didn’t know. Samantha Osman did not abduct us, she helped us from some people who attacked us that night and kept us with her.’
‘Don’t be gullible madam! You think she didn’t plan that attack on you just for her to appear as a saviour?’
The woman was speechless.
‘I know you know little about Samantha Osman but I know somebody who knows much about her already,’ Rex said and then sat up. He snapped his fingers.
The woman looked around for some seconds wondering what the snapping of his fingers meant until she saw him stepping out from behind the curtains of the hall way. She opened her mouth in big surprise.
___
‘Doctor,’ Tarasha called as she entered into the living room.
The man was seated at the dining room with Stephanie taking dinner. He looked towards Tarasha as she settled on one of the sofas.
‘Good evening Samantha,’ the doctor replied, after eating up the remaining food particles in his mouth.
‘Good evening sir, please finish your food.’ she replied when she saw he was already making moves to get up.
‘Good evening Samantha,’ Stephanie also greeted and Tarasha replied her with a smile.
The doctor finished five minutes later and joined her at the sitting room. He sat on a one-seater sofa adjacent her but she signalled for him to join her on the three seater. He answered and joined but sat at the opposite end. She moved closer to him.
‘I’m sure the liquids prepared for Dave James should be ready by now,’ Tarasha asked in a low voice.
‘Yes, everything is set.’ the doctor replied also in low tones.
‘You’d inject him tonight and we’d drop him off tomorrow somewhere he would be easily discovered and helped,’ Tarasha said to him.
‘Okay, I’d go get it done once I leave here.’ the doctor replied.
She gave a light smile and kept her stare on the doctor’s face for a moment. All the while she was talking she could feel someone’s eyes fixed intently on her, she looked away from the doctor’s face and looked up in Stephanie’s direction.
Stephanie quickly looked away immediately their eyes met and continued to use the spoon on the empty plate pretending to be serious with her food. She had been trying to listen to their conversation but heard none of their words, she only saw their lips moving.
She got up from the table and packed her plates and the doctors on a tray, consciously avoiding looking towards Tarasha. As she walked out of the dining area, she heard her name called and she froze.
‘I’ll like to see you once you keep the plates,’ Tarasha added. Stephanie nodded without looking back and hurried away. Tarasha turned to the doctor. ‘That’ll doc, please do a good job.’
The doctor bowed and got up from the seat.
___
‘Henrietta,’ Elvis Richards said with an evil smile as he walked into the living room, followed by Agent Tim and Stainless who carried a chair for him to sit. Elvis was putting on the same clothes he wore that morning but he now had a waist coat on it. He had left for Lagos at the same time James had left but travelled by land.
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He sat on the plastic chair beside Rex after Stainless dropped it for him.
‘I gave you freedom and a new life but you decided to work with Samantha Osman to pull me down,’ Elvis Richards began accusingly. Tears began to form in Madam Henrietta’s eyes. ‘I don’t know how you thought you could escape me,’ the man paused and let out a chuckle. ‘But here you are, at my mercy again.’
Tears began to roll down her cheeks and she couldn’t look at Elvis Richard’s face. She hadn’t considered yet that her return back to Nigeria was his work but now that she was seated in front of him, she confirmed her fears that she truly could not run away from him. That was the reason she had warned Stephanie not to bother taking up the case of her family against him.
‘I have another opportunity for you to save yourself and your daughter,’ Elvis Richards continued. ‘You’re going to do all I say without questioning me, Okay?’
Madam Henrietta nodded in approval. She was scared of him and knew he was capable of doing anything he said, just like several years ago when he promised to destroy the George’s family and fulfilled his promise without mercy.
Elvis Richards turned to Rex, ‘Are you sure we would get her tonight with this?’
‘Yeah, as long as this woman cooperates with us, we can stop her from releasing tomorrow’s video.’ Rex replied confidently.
_____
Stephanie returned three minutes later. She stood at the other end of the sofa until Tarasha asked her to sit.
Stephanie sat reluctantly. She had so many thoughts running through her mind and she feared what Samantha was going to say to her.
‘Stephanie, when are you returning to school?’ Tarasha asked.
Stephanie took a slow glance at her face, she didn’t expect the question. ‘I don’t know for now,’ she answered.
‘School have resumed, are you planning to forfeit your final semester?’
Stephanie looked at her face again. ‘No, but I can’t return for now until everything is settled. Everyone still thinks we’ve been kidnapped.’
Tarasha raised a brow. ‘And that brings to my mind this question,’ she said and paused to cross her legs. ‘When last did you talk to Madam Henrietta?’
‘The day she left here.’
‘And she never tried to reach you since then?’
‘No, I couldn’t reach her also.’
There was silence for a moment.
‘I’ll organize for your return to school this week and I’ll tell you the way to go by it before you leave.’
Stephanie looked somehow confused. ‘But…I can’t leave until I see the Vice President paying for his sins an…’
‘He begun the payment already,’ Tarasha cut in. ‘Haven’t you been following the videos on my blog?’
‘I saw both of them on the news, but…none has talked about the Vice President sins yet.’
‘I have to let you go first, we’re getting to those parts and it’s getting increasingly dangerous for you to be here with us. Arrangements would be made for you to leave with your mother this week and go back to your normal lives without being troubled by anyone.’
‘But I can’t leave without…’
‘Shhh…’ Tarasha hushed her. ‘That will be all, you can leave now.’
Stephanie got up from the seat sluggishly, she took another glance at Tarasha before turning to leave. She heard Tarasha call her name again and she stopped.
‘Steph, who have you been talking with?’
Her heart began to beat fast and her legs felt too heavy to turn back. She however managed to turn and face Tarasha. ‘My mother is the only one I’ve been talking to,’ she replied in a shaky voice.
Tarasha let out a chuckle, she could sense the feeling of guilt all over Stephanie. ‘I hope you haven’t been talking to someone you’re not supposed to talk to while you are here.’
‘No… I don’t have access to my phone any longer, I don’t have my contacts on the device you gave to me.’
‘But you have the internet and you have your mouth.’
Stephanie was speechless.
‘Well, I like you a lot but I also enjoy killing those who I like when they betray me. I hope you would not be one of them.’ Tarasha said in a strict warning tone. ‘You may leave now.’
Stephanie bowed and walked away as quick as she could. She wondered if Tarasha had been monitoring her movements or probably knew that she had gone to see Dave secretly or if she just doubted if she had been communicating with people in the outside world.
As she walked through the hallway, her thoughts drifted back to Dr Ekwueme and what Tarasha could have told him. She wondered if it was about Dave. Her mind skipped a beat as she got to the door of the laboratory and found the key in the keyhole. She froze for a second and then her heart began to beat faster. She looked around for a while before she got the courage to check what was happening in the place. She held the knob and turned it. The door opened and she stepped in. To her surprise, the doctor was not in as she expected. She looked around and found nothing different until she looked towards the shelf and noticed a particular ampoule missing. Her heart began to beat fast again.
_
Cole walked into the dining room just as Stephanie left the living room. He had his plate of food on tray and a small nylon containing his drugs beside the food.
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‘Are you done with the security checks?’ Tarasha asked him as their eyes met.
‘No, but Henry is there now, completing the job for me.’
Tarasha nodded in response and looked away from him. She rested her back and took in a deep breath as she closed her eyes, shutting herself temporarily off from the world. She filled her mind with thoughts of her mother and wondered what she would be facing now in the hands of her abductors. She was the only one who knew that the woman was her mother and that gave her some rest of mind that Rex would not think of using that as a bait for her. That was why she refused to tell anyone else, and apart from the risk of having it being let out, it could change the attitude or response of the person towards her.
She thought of ways to go about rescuing the woman without letting it affect her already made plans or relationship with her team. No idea was coming to her mind and there was no one she could talk to about it. At that moment, she really wished there was a God who answers prayers and could tell her how to go about rescuing her mother. She hoped silently within herself that she would see her mother again, hale and hearty.
‘Omotara, you need to see this.’ Henry’s voice cut Tarasha off from the realm of thoughts. She looked up and saw Henry walking towards her with a laptop in his hands. Cole also looked from where he was. ‘Someone is making a counter video against you and they have Madam Henrietta in the video.’
Tarasha raised her brows and waited until Henry joined her on the seat. He placed the laptop on his laps and played a video. Madam Henrietta was seen sitting alone on a plastic white chair and holding an exercise book.
‘Good day everyone, my name is Henrietta. I’m the foster mother to Stephanie George and I’ve been a victim of Samantha Osman. Samantha Osman took us – I and my daughter- several weeks ago from my residence in Abuja after sending some of her men to attack us.
I was lucky to escape today from the location she kept us and I’m making this video from the police custody but my daughter is still in Samantha Osman’s custody and her life is in danger. I want to plead with all Nigerians who have information about Samantha Osman to come out and provide the police with such information so that our country can be a better place. Samantha Osman has done a lot of terrible things to the nation already but very small is what she has done compared to what she is planning. I therefore plead…’ Tarasha stopped the video.
‘Why?’ Henry stared at her face.
‘She’s being compelled to do this talk,’ she replied.
‘I know but she said some things at the end which I’ll love you to listen to,’ Henry said.
‘What did she say?’
Henry sighed. ‘She said she has a lot of secrets to give about you also and they’ll be continuing the video tomorrow.’
‘When was this video uploaded?’
‘About ten minutes ago, I saw it on the popular youngicee blog and they’ve began to trend some new hashtags on social media against us, “#BringDownSamanthaOsman”” andreeNigeria”. ‘
Tarasha took in a deep breath, not knowing the immediate response to give. She rested her back again, planning to take a moment to think. Her phone however disturbed her thoughts as her message ringtone sounded. She picked the phone from the footstool beside her. She unlocked it and swiped down the notification bar. She saw a new email from Rex.
‘I just started my own video series and I’m about to shock you with the videos, do we make a deal or keep releasing our videos?’ the email read.
Tarasha pondered on it for a short while before she clicked on reply.
‘Go to hell dude, my video series continues tomorrow. Watch out for it!’
12:13AM
Tarasha had slept off with her forehead on the table in the computer room when an alarm sounded suddenly. She raised her head up and saw a red question mark blinking on the screen of the main computer system. She tapped on the keyboard and quickly navigated to the security app to see what was going on.
‘ACCESS DOOR BEEN TAMPERED WITH,’ the warning read. She opened the surveillance camera apps and switched to the live streams from the cameras outside the gate of the compound. There were four vehicles outside the gate, up to twelve men with guns standing outside and a man with a machine, trying to open the gate. A second later, the stream from the cameras stopped suddenly. Tarasha knew someone had disconnected their satellite connection from outside and that would make it impossible to view the streams from the surveillance cameras until she boot up another system.
She got up from the seat and walked to the left side of the control room, she pushed a red button on the wall and a loud alarm which would be heard in every room of the building began to sound.
She walked back to the control system and navigated to the control panel. She clicked
She got up from the seat and walked to the left side of the control room, she pushed a red button on the wall and a loud alarm which would be heard in every room of the building began to sound.
She walked back to the control system and navigated to the control panel. She clicked on the All System option among the list of displayed softwares. She right clicked and clicked on uninstall. She then removed a USB drive connected to the system and walked out.
___
30 minutes later.
‘d@mn it!’ Rex cursed as he walked back into the living room. There was no one in the house contrary to his expectation. He wondered how they had been able to evacuate the place so early and easily, it was meant to be a surprise attack. Their quick escape only meant that the attack was expected or that Samantha’s team got alarm of the attack so early. Rex wondered how this was possible because he had arranged the plan and timing so well.
‘No one is here boss,’ Stainless said aloud as he walked into the living room with two others behind him.
Rex glanced at him. ‘it’s obvious they made preparations for our attack and I’m still trying to figure out how they knew we were coming,’ Rex said.
‘Probably, our entrance wasn’t neat enough.’ Stainless put in.
‘That wasn’t it, if it wasn’t neat, it was quick and swift enough.’ Rex said thoughtfully. ‘They couldn’t have all moved out so quickly.’
‘I think they began to prepare when they knew we had the woman with us,’ Stainless said.
Rex did not agree with him but did not give a reply. ‘Let’s get out of here,’ he said in a voice of command to all of the men there.
____
Time: 7:46AM
Stephanie and her mother were still asleep on the only mattress in the underground hideout. It was just a room but was large enough for all of them. Dave could be seen sitting unconsciously with his head bowed on a wheelchair. Cole was sitting on a plastic chair, the doctor, Tomi and Mr Matthew were also sitting on three other chairs beside him while Nicholas was sitting on the bare ground with his back rested on the wall, all of them were fast asleep except for Cole who was watching on the orders on Tarasha. An electric lamp was at the front corner of the room giving some brightness to the whole place. There was a staircase at the other corner of the room but there was no visible door or opening to show that the staircase led to another room or somewhere else. The ceiling was made of a material which had a larger percentage of reinforced concrete composition.
Cole was dozing off when he heard a humming sound, he looked up and saw a little space of the roof above the stairs opening. Tarasha stepped in from there and climbed down the stairs. The opened space closed back slowly like it opened.
Mr Matthew and Nicholas also opened their eyes as she approached them. She stopped before getting to Cole and took a glance at Dave. ‘We’ve got to get him out now,’ she said to Cole. ‘We’ve checked carefully and they’ve all left.’
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 14 Part 4
‘How do we go about it?’ Cole asked.
Tarasha turned her face towards the doctor and called his name. She called it four times before the man stirred awake.
‘We’re taking him away now, is there anything else you need to do before we take him?’ she asked the doctor.
The doctor did not it answer immediately, he was still very sleepy and his brain couldn’t process her words quickly. He stretched and yawned on the chair where he was. He shook his hands and feet to ease off his joints where he felt some strain.
While Tarasha was waiting for the doctor’s response, the space at the roof opened again and Henry stepped in from above. He dusted his hand against each other and placed them on his waist, he took a cursory look around before fixing his face on Tarasha.
‘I’ve got the car ready,’ he announced.
Tarasha glanced at him and shook her head in approval. The doctor got up from his seat and walked towards Dave.
Everyone’s attention as drawn towards the mattress as they heard a yawning sound. Stephanie had just woken up and forgotten where she was, she had sat up and was stretching her body also. She opened her eyes to see Tarasha standing and everyone else around, she seemed baffled for a moment but quickly looked at her side and heaved a sigh of relief on seeing her mother still asleep.
‘Good morning everyone,’ she mumbled incoherent words as she looked around again. Her eyes landed on the Doctor and Dave. Every other person also had their eyes in the same direction.
‘I think he’s fit to be taken out now,’ the doctor said after checking Dave’s eyes with a little medical torchlight in his hand. He also checked his pulse and warmness of his body. ‘The medicine had no adverse effect on him,’ he added before standing straight and facing Tarasha.
Tarasha took a glance at Nicholas and Henry, she made signs to the both of them. ‘Let’s get him out now, I’ll drop him off myself.’
TIME: 10:43AM
LOCATION: ABUJA
The Vice President sat in his office tiredly, two men were seated in front of his table and discussing a matter with him which he listened absentmindedly to. He literarily was forcing himself to stay awake. The stress from the rigorous journey the day before was telling on him. He had traveled by land all the way from Lagos overnight, he got to Abuja in the early hours of the morning and had no time to rest properly – the sleep he could do in the car was not enough to help him rest- he only freshened up quickly to prepare for the meeting. Here he was in the meeting and most of the things that were said were not getting into his head, he couldn’t wait for the meeting to come to an end.
His phone began to vibrate on the table and got his attention for a moment. He only took a glance at it and then returned his gaze to the men. It stopped ringing for a while and then began to ring again. He reached for the phone and then checked who the caller was, it was President Emeka.
‘Excuse me please Gentlemen, His Excellency is the one calling and I’m sure he has a very important information to pass across.’ he said to the men to excuse himself. The nodded and mumbled some words to show their approval, not that he needed to answer the call anyway.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 19 Part 9
‘Good morning your Excellency,’ he greeted as he got up to his feet and walked to the window at the right.
‘Good morning Chief Elvis,’ President Emeka replied, his voice sounded full of worry. ‘Well, I’m calling to tell you this for the respect I have for you. The law makers would be discussing you today and I’m sure they would come up with the decision for you to stop your work as the Vice President until all the allegations made against you are proven to be false. I would advise you as a friend to declare you decision to pause your work before they make you do.’
Elvis Richards was confused for a moment, he couldn’t understand why the President was asking him to go on an involuntary suspension. ‘Sir, I’m yet to understand why they will stop me from working yet. Most of those accusations are only mere speculations drawn from stories which haven’t even been verified as true.’
‘Chief Elvis Richards, these ones aren’t mere speculations and would not be regarded as that. The person who is telling the stories is not a kid who doesn’t know left from right and I really hope the allegations are not true because it would be the biggest embarrassment our nation has ever received, the world would turn against our government and I’m very sure our party would not be able to produce the next President. I advise you once again to formally declare that you’d put a stop to all your activities as the Vice President from this moment. Have a nice day Elvis Richards.’
‘But sir…’ Elvis Richards tried to argue his case but the President did not wait to listen before ending the call.
He heaved a sigh of frustration as he took the phone off his ear and turned. He met the men’s eyes staring at him inquisitively but they looked away on meeting his eyes. He looked at his phone again, he saw the sign for many notifications at the top bar. He swiped down the notification bar and saw some notifications from his browsers and text messages.
‘Samantha Osman releases New Video,’ the first notification read.
‘Inspector General Rikau tells how he killed for The Vice President in New Video.’
‘Breaking News: Inspector General Of Police confesses to be a murderer.’
Everything about the atmosphere changed immediately he read the notifications, he needed no one to tell him that Rex’s plan had failed. His body began to tremble and his bladder was suddenly full. He managed to walk to his seat and sank into it uncomfortably.
‘Is anything wrong sir?’ one of the men asked. They had noticed his discomfort and that he was sweating suddenly.
‘Yeah… Eve..very thing is fine, ‘ he replied with a deep breath. ‘We have to end this meeting here, I have got to do some other things.’
‘Sir, but we are not through yet.’ one of the men argued in a serious tone.
‘Yes, I know. But we have to stop here right no,’ Elvis Richards insisted.
‘Sir, I think we should finish this. The deadline for this project is this week and we can’t let today pass without making significant progress.’ the first man who had asked him if everything was okay said in a calmer voice.
‘Please, just go, we can’t continue today!’ Elvis Richards shouted in a loud voice.
The men sprung up to their feet immediately and slowly made their way to the door. The first man opened the door and allowed his second to step out first, he turned back to the Vice President still holding the knob of the door. ‘Sir, when should we come for the continuation of the meeting?’ he asked, almost in a pleading tone.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 16 Part 2
‘I said get the hell out of this place!’ Elvis Richards shouted in a louder voice and banged his fists on the table. The man stepped out immediately and closed the door.
He continued to tremble and his hands hovered about the table without knowing what to do for a moment. He finally picked his phone and clicked on the first notification from the youngicee website. It loaded completely in few seconds and he scrolled past the texts on the webpage to the video. He clicked on play and adjusted his phone to landscape view.
His door opened at that moment and Ayo stepped in. He flashed an angry glance at Ayo and shouted at him. ‘Out!’
Ayo bowed in fear and stepped out quickly.
The Vice President continued with his video. It started the usual way with masked Samantha Osman addressing the viewers and introducing the remaining parts of the video. Then the Inspector General continued his confession. He started from how the Vice President contacted him during his work with the Boko Haram Insurgency Group and how he paid them hugely to carry out murder of different people and how he gave them specific instructions on what to do with the victims and when to molest the women, take the kids and when to kill all the victims. He mentioned some specific instances and examples of their popular victims. Then he ended the video with how the Vice President helped him escape punishment with the other terrorists.’
Elvis Richards could not hold the pain. He felt some tightness in his head. He began to feel some difficulty to breathe and some pain in his chest. He tried to open his mouth but couldn’t shout for help. He continued to struggle to balance himself until he fell off his chair.
____
Rex heart was full of anger as he continued to stare at the phone in his hands. He felt like smashing it on the floor but he managed to control himself. He had just finished seeing the video again, for the fourth time. He had been monitoring and had seen it immediately it was posted on the blog. He knew he had failed again, but it was bigger this time and he couldn’t bear it. He had not just failed his client -the Vice President- but he had failed himself and failed the whole clan. The mission had become more than just a client’s job to him, it was now his personal mission, he had to regain the glory of his clan and the order of the senior Tigers. He was not going to let go Samantha Osman even if his client did not want her dead anymore, he had to make sure she dies and dies in his hands.
He stared at his phone again. He closed the video player and switched to the contacts lists. He scrolled to Nicholas’ number on the phone, he wondered why Nicholas had not reached him again. He began to think Nicholas was not totally faithful to him, maybe Nicholas had informed Samantha that he could be coming the last night.
With or without Nicholas’ cooperation, he had resolved in his mind that he would not test until Samantha Osman breathes her last.
They all sat quietly in the room, awaiting Tarasha’s return. Nicholas had his phone in his hand but was unable to do anything with it. Cole’s watchful eyes was giving him a hard time and he began to have a feeling that Tarasha had warned him (Cole) to be very vigilant because she was suspicious of betrayal already.
He knew he was putting his life in great danger with his moves but he preferred his life to be in danger than for his beloved mother and his five year old son who lives with his mother to be wiped out by Rex. For this reason, his loyalty to Rex must remain unshaken.
Rex had found him through his mother. After he escaped from the base that night, he managed to find his way to Badagry just like he told Cole. Two days after he was still trying to recover from his wounds was when his mother placed a call to the friend he stayed with at Badagry. She had called and ask the friend of his whereabouts, claiming there was something really important she needed to tell him. Respecting the agreement between them, the friend had told the mother that he had not heard from Nicholas a long while but would reach her if he hears from him. The friend told Nicholas about the call immediately. The next day the woman called his friend again to ask if he had heard from Nicholas, and also mentioned that the matter she had to discuss with him was about life or death.
Nicholas had to call her the next day and inform her that some of his friends had reached him through his emails and had informed him she claimed she had something urgent to see him. It was then she told him that someone had been putting letters containing death threats in the school bag of his son. The school had denied knowledge of any letter and the boy had also confirmed that he always found the envelope in his bag every morning when he got to school which meant that it was put in his bag from home or before he got to school.
The night Nicholas decided to visit his mother and take a look at the death threats was the night he met Rex. In less than one hour after he got to the house, a knock sounded on the door.
Flashback
‘Are you expecting somebody?’ Nicholas asked his mother as he stared at the door.
She shook her head in negative. He got up from the seat where he was comparing the letters, he dipped his hand into his pocket and held his gun by the handle but did not bring it out. He proceeded towards the door and peeped through the door hole, he saw no one there.
‘Who’s there?’ he asked aloud but got no response. He turned back and glanced at his mother.
‘It could be one of the neighbors kids, sometimes they knock the door playfully.’ the mother said to him.
‘I think you should go into the room with Charles for now,’ he said to her.
‘Why? Is there any problem?’ she asked.
‘No problem mum, please just obey.’ he said in a pleading voice and with a pleading look.
She decided not to argue with him. She carried the young boy in her arms and picked a nylon from the centre table and walked straight into the room. The apartment was a two-room self contain, so the living room led straight into the bedroom.
Nicholas pulled out his gun after watching them go in. He hid it behind his body and opened the door to check. He could see nothing suspicious except for the neighbors who going were about their normal activities. He thought of asking the neighbors who knocked the door but changed his mind and stepped back inside.
He walked back to his seat full of thoughts. He knew for sure that he was the main target of the death threats to his child and that was why he came at night but he also knew that it was possible that the house was being monitored and that his presence in the house was known. He had tried to figure out who could be after him. He thought about all his recent jobs, the only person that could be coming after him was the Samantha Osman’s Gang, maybe they had discovered he wasn’t dead yet and they wanted to kill him to prevent him from letting out the little secrets he had learnt while being with them for a short while.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 16 Part 6
Another knock sounded at the door before he got back to his seat. It got him more suspicious and he walked back to the door hurriedly. He checked through the peephole and saw the image of a man standing outside. The man was dressed in all black and held a black item in his hand. He was certain that the person sending the death threats had come for him.
‘Who is it?’ he took a step back from the door and asked. He got no response. He asked for the second time and still got no reply. He held his gun firmly in his right hand and turned the key with his left, he turned the knob and opened the door swiftly.
He was surprised to see the Pastor of his family church standing at the door. The man was more surprised to see him at the door, pointing a gun at him. The black item he was holding was a small paper Bible wrapped in black coloured case.
‘Oh! Sorry Pastor,’ Nicholas apologized as he put down the gun. ‘Good evening sir.’
He gave way for the man to enter but the man remained at the entrance. He took some steps back and then put the gun in his pocket. The Pastor entered and closed the door.
‘Good evening bro Nicholas, we need to talk,’ the man said and placed a hand on Nicholas shoulder as they walked to the seats.
Nicholas wondered why the man was visiting at such an hour, he knew that his mother must have given him the news of his presence.
‘Bro Nicholas, what are you doing with a gun?’ the man asked.
‘Sir, I would talk to you but I don’t want my mother to know about this please.’ Nicholas pleaded.
‘Speak on brother,’ the man said with an indifferent look.
‘I work as a body guard where I work, we are not allowed to use the guns outside our working place but I had to bring it here when my mother told me about the death threats.’ Nicholas lied.
‘Are you sure you’re saying the truth bro Nicholas?’
‘Yes, I wouldn’t lie to you Pastor.’
The Pastor took some seconds to think, he wasn’t convinced with the explanation but he decided to skip the discussion for that moment. ‘I’m here concerning those death threats the young boy have been receiving…’
There was an interruption.
‘Sh|t!’ Nicholas cursed as he looked towards the door and saw the knob turning. The Pastor hadn’t given him chance to lock the door after letting him in. He quickly dipped his hand into his pocket but before he could pull out his gun. A man had stepped into the house.
He recognized the man’s face at once. It was one of the hostages who was kept in the Samantha Osman’s building before it was attacked. The same one who attacked him in the room where he was asked to keep watch over the hostages.
‘What the hell do you want here?’ Nicholas cursed. He was already on his feet as he couldn’t pull out the gun without standing.
‘Remember your mother and your child are in the room, don’t let’s make so much noise to attract them,’ Rex said confidently in his foreign accent. He began to approach Nicholas with confidence.
‘Stop there, else I’ll shoot.’ Nicholas threatened but Rex was unshaken.
He walked to the dumbfounded Pastor and inserted a pin into the man’s neck. Then he turned to the back of the chair and stretched his hand beyond the curtain of the bed room, he pulled the door and locked it with the key to prevent Nicholas’ mother and the son from stepping out.
‘Put the gun down, we need to talk.’ Rex said, turning back to the sitting area.
PRESENT
That was the beginning of his work with Rex. Rex had made him understand that working with Samantha Osman was never worth it and that Samantha only used and dumped people. He also made him understand that it was possible Samantha would have killed him after their mission if it had been successful, citing an example that it was for the same reason she never bothered about the men who were killed at the attack.
Since then Nicholas was won to Rex’s side with the promise of better payment and the safety of his family.
The job was dangerous but Nicholas knew he had to continue doing it to preserve his family. He had sent the address of the base to Rex the first day he got there but Rex had decided not to attack immediately because he believed that he (Nicholas) still had a lot more of secrets to learn from the Samantha Osman’s gang before an attack at their base could be successful.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 22 Part 13B
All through his stay, Rex had insisted for him to identify all the secret exits and entrance into the base and he had tried his best to discover all the exits but still never discovered the underground exit through which the team escaped.
Tarasha finally returned after two hours of leaving. Henry who was already sleeping off stirred awake at the sound of her entrance.
‘We’ve got to move now,’ she announced to all of them and they began to adjust themselves. It was time to move to a new operation center.
_______
TIME: 2PM
Location: Abuja Teaching Hospital.
‘Vivian, how is Dad doing?’ James asked as he rushed into the ward in the hospital. Vivian got up from her seat and rushed to embrace him.
He held her tight in his arms for a while and walked her to the bed.
‘He hasn’t opened his eyes since morning,’ Vivian said in a weak voice. ‘They said he had an heart attack.’
‘Heart attack? But that’s impossible, I’m not aware he has any heart condition.’ James replied.
He stared at Chief Elvis’ face for a while. The man looked strong even in the sick bed. He knew the sudden collapse must have resulted from the new video released by Samantha Osman.
He also still had a bandage covering his forehead and on his wrist. He had just landed in Abuja with Inspector Dakolo when he heard the news of the man’s sudden collapse and from there he rushed to the hospital.
‘I need to see the doctor,’ he said as he released Vivian’s hand which he was holding.
As he turned back to move, the door opened and a Doctor came in with Ayo and another man following behind.
‘Good afternoon Doctor, please what really happened to my father?’
‘Good afternoon officer James,’ the Doctor greeted back but didn’t answer the question. He walked straight to the sick man to perform some checks.
‘Good morning officer,’ Ayo greeted. ‘He collapsed this morning after a meeting,’ Ayo began to explain.
‘I was told he had an heart attack,’ James said.
‘No, the doctor says it isn’t an heart attack.’ Ayo replied. ‘He doesn’t have any ailment that could lead to an heart attack.’
James heaved a sigh. ‘So what is the real cause of the collapse?’
‘The doctor would explain, he wanted us to get here first.’
They remained in silence for about two minutes, waiting for the doctor to finish his checks. He finally took off his stethoscope and hung them around his neck.
‘He would be fine, it’s nothing serious actually. He’s just been so stressed out and has been going through a lot of tension recently, he needs a lot of rest. I would suggest he takes a leave from work,’ the doctor said.
James took a glance at his father, he heaved a sigh of relief.
‘We administered some drugs to make him rest well, he would be awake soon and is fit to go him by evening but you all just have to make sure he has enough rest and peace.’ the doctor said and looked at every of his listeners face one after the other, a gesture to emphasize to them that the man’s recovery depends on all of them.
‘Thank you doctor,’ James said in a calm voice. He looked at his father’s face again. He knew it might be impossible to get the man feel peace considering his present circvmstances. He knew the man would never feel peace as far as Samantha Osman remained unstopped and the videos were still being released.
_____
LOCATION: POLICE HEADQUARTERS, ABUJA
TIME: 3PM
Dakolo walked on silently to the office of the Acting Inspector General Of Police with his heart heavy and full of worries. It was the first time he would be meeting with the AIG since the man had been acting. He didn’t know what kind of man he was, whether he was just like his predecessor IG Rikau or if he was honest.
If the man was just like IG Rikau, then it meant he was aware of how Madam Henrietta was snatched from his hands. He had watched the video uploaded by Rex and had noted the claim that the woman was now in the police custody. He had expected that the police deny the claim and dissociate themselves from the video but no such denial was made, instead the Lagos State Commissioner Of Police had confirmed that the woman was truly in the police custody.
How they got to know about the woman’s return into the country remained a mystery to him. He couldn’t suspect James as James life was almost lost in the process. He was so confused about it and did not know what step to take.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 14 Part 2
He finally got to the AIG’s office and pressed the bell button. The AIG’s voice sounded five seconds later and he was asked to come in. He opened the door and walked in slowly.
‘Good afternoon sir,’ he said with a salute.
‘Inspector Dakolo,’ the AIG replied in a calm voice, stressing each syllable of his words than usual. He stared at Dakolo’s face thinly for a while. ‘I’ve gone through your records and I’ve seen your works, you impressed me.’
Dakolo remained quiet, he didn’t know whether to say a thank you. He began to hear a sound which distracted him. For a moment, he didn’t know where the sound was coming from until he saw the AIG’s eyebrows gathered together and staring at his face. He realized that the sound was from the phone in his pocket. He quickly picked it out and tried to end the call but the phone did not respond quickly, causing him more embarrassment. He held the power button down until it switched off.
‘I’m sorry sir, that was my wife, her calls always have to ring out.’ he apologized.
The AIG wasn’t impressed with his explanation. He took up a letter from his table and stretched it to Dakolo. Dakolo stepped forward to take it. ‘That’s your letter of suspension, I decided to give it to you after reading through your records.’ he paused as stared at Dakolo’s face for a while. ‘But I’m still interested in listening to the explanations for your actions.’
Dakolo stood still without making any move for a moment. He wondered if he should tell the man the whole truth, the man sounded interested in knowing it. He had expected that the man would dismiss him without hearing from him.
‘By the way, where is your partner?’
‘Agent James got a call that his father collapsed, he rushed to the hospital.’
‘Okay.’ the AIG stared at his face for a while. ‘Why don’t you sit and tell me what you did and why you did it?’
_____
TIME: 9PM
LOCATION: All-Rounda Hotel, Lagos.
He woke up to a new world with a sneeze. He stared blankly at the white coloured ceiling for a while until he sneezed again. He could feel some pains in his head as he managed to sit up. He looked around the room where he found himself. Everything around was clean and shiny. He looked up to the left side and found the source of the cold air – the rectangular shaped air conditioner. He got out of the bed and looked around. He located a three seater leather sofa with a table in front of it. He found his way there and sat on the sofa.
There were some items on the table, he began to check them one after the other. The first was a student association identity card bearing a picture that looked like his. The name written was Frank Thomas. There was another identity card beside, a national youth service Corp card bearing the same picture. He checked the date of the new ID card and then picked the student ID card, he realized that the student ID card had expired few months ago and the person whose name was Frank was now a serving youth corp member. There was also a diamond bank debit card on the table bearing the same name and then a receipt with the same name on the table, it was a hotel receipt showing payment for lodging in a room for a week.
A thought suddenly struck his mind as he touched his chin. He realized he had so much beards just like the man in the picture, he touched his hair also and found it bald just like the man in the picture. He got up from the chair and began to look for a mirror to check his image. He located the door to the restroom and quickly got in where he found a mirror. He looked at his face in the mirror, it was the same man he saw in the identity cards.
He tried to remember how he got where he was but he couldn’t. The only picture he had of his former self was different. The shiny skin covering his head and his beards almost made him not recognize himself.
He closed his eyes and tried to find his way back memory lane. His new look reminded him of someone, his father.
___
‘We’re in a new centre of operation,’ the long awaited message from Nicholas popped up on Rex’s phone.
He clicked on the reply button immediately. ‘Keep your device trackable,’ he typed and sent.
‘We’re in a new centre of operation,’ the long awaited message from Nicholas popped up on Rex’s phone.
He clicked on the reply button immediately. ‘Keep your device trackable,’ he typed and sent.
‘The device remains trackable but I think the location is secure,’ a reply popped up on Rex’s phone.
‘That’s expected, make sure you send me the address as soon you get it,’ Rex replied back.
TIME: 10PM
James eyes searched around as he walked with his father, Ayo and two security officers behind to the car park. The security guys walked past them to the Prado Jeep. They opened the door for the Vice President to step in and James before closing it. One of the security officers sat in front with the driver.
‘James, I think I saw some officers around this place.’ Elvis Richards whispered to James after the driver started the car engine.
‘Yes father, there are officers around. I think they’ve been given directives to keep watch over this place.’
The Vice President chuckled. ‘Directives to watch this place or directives to keep watch on me?’ he mumbled and then sniffed in gently.
James sighed. He had noticed the men a long time ago but hoped the Vice President would not notice them so as not to make him feel unhappy.
There was silence between them until they drove out of the hospital compound into the road.
‘Son, thanks for standing by me and for all that you’ve done even though you are very aware I didn’t father you,’ Elvis Richards said in low tones with passion in his eyes.
‘I haven’t done anything father, and you’re getting it wrong, you did father me, you’re responsible for what I and my siblings are today,’ James replied, looking straight into the man’s eyes.
Elvis Richards smiled for a moment. After a while, he shook his head in self pity and let out a deep breath. ‘It doesn’t look like we are going to win this, everyone is against us now.’
‘It’s not too late father, the tables can still turn.’ James muttered.
‘I’m an old man James, I’ve seen more things and I have more experience than you have, I know when a process has gotten to a dead end.’ the man replied in a sad tone. He closed his eyes and breathed in and out softly. The picture of his godfather, Chief Afeez Abdulkadir appeared in his mind. He shook his head vigorously in a bid to shake off the picture from his mind but it was unsuccessful. In situations like this, the man would have been the first person he would have called to ask for a solution but their relationship had gone sour even though they haven’t had physical or verbal confrontations. He believed that the man already knew that he was responsible for the death of his three children and he was sure that the man would already be doing something about it.
‘Father, I think we still have to fight harder,’ James voice cut through his thoughts.
‘Fight harder?’ he looked at his son’s face in disbelief. ‘The battle is a lost one already. We don’t have a chance of winning. The President himself is already involved in the case and I’m sure he must have instructed the EFCC chairman to dig into my past dealings in the government.’
‘But…’ James tried to speak but the Vice President continued without giving him a chance.
‘They have the power and they also have the truth, there’s no way we are going to turn an obvious truth into a lie and I know more truths would soon be revealed.’
James squinted and turned his face away as he drew himself into deep thoughts. He remembered all the things he had watched in the video released by Samantha Osman that morning, all the distasteful things the Inspector General of Police had said about the Vice President’s involvement with the Boko Haram Insurgency. He had thought all that was made up and that Chief Elvis could not be as wicked and corrupt to that level, so it was quite shocking to hear the man talking about more dangerous truths being revealed.’
‘Dad, we’d continue this discussion privately when we get home.’
Elvis Richards shook his head slowly before resting back. They remained silent for a couple of minutes until he remembered something he needed to do.
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‘Please can I get my device?’ he asked aloud, taking glances both at James and Ayo as he was sure the device would be with one of them. He noticed the look on James face and knew what it meant. ‘Hey! I need to make a post on social media based on the President instructions, I’m not doing anything else with the device.’ he explained.
James pulled out a bag from his side and took out the tablet device. He handed it over to the man.
‘Thank you,’ the man said as he rested his back. He unlocked the device and opened his twitter application. His twitter feeds loaded in a less than a minute but he ignored the tweets and clicked in the box to type a new tweet.
Today, I wish to declare my decision to resign as the Vice President and also put a pause to my presidential ambition…
He stopped typing and glanced at James who was staring at him. He felt that the boy deserved to know of his decision before he made it known to the rest of the world.
‘Here, I’m about to post this.’ He whispered to James and turned the tablet screen to him.
‘Oh no!’ James exclaimed with his eyes widely shone. ‘You can’t do this now,’ He gasped with his face still full of surprise. ‘The State Service has already sent an invitation for interogation to you, if you do this now, it would take away the immunity you enjoy as the Vice President and they may maltreat you during the investigation.’
Elvis Richards heaved a sigh and fell back on his chair. James was right, he was just about to make a very wrong move at a wrong time.
‘That’s true,’ he shrieked.
James locked the device and returned it into the bag.
*Twenty Minutes Later*
They had gotten back to the Vice President’s house and the man was now alone with James. James allowed him take a shower and change his clothes before he asked his question.
‘Dad, the Inspector General said a lot in today’s video, are they all true?’
The man who was staring at the wall before gave James a sharp look. He couldn’t give a response, he could see the disappointment and hurt already on the young man’s face and he wasn’t bold enough to confirm his fears.
James stared at the man’s face for a couple of seconds more, he had hoped the man would tell him that some of the things said in the video about him weren’t true but with the look on his face, James knew he was guilty of all that was said. He breathed out deeply and got up to his feet, without saying another word to the man , he proceeded straight to the door.
‘James,’ Elvis Richards called as James touched the knob of the door. He stopped and his shoulders dropped but did not turn back. ‘Are you also turning your back against me?’
The man’s word sank deeply into James’ heart. Could he also turn his back against the man he had called Father since the day he started speaking? He closed his eyes and stayed silent for close to a minute. He finally turned back and walked to his seat.
____
ABUJA
TIME: 08:56AM
‘Sir, his chances of surviving are very slim and he’s currently suffering from so much pain. As it is now, he feels so much hotness under every part of his skin and that’s why we have to keep him in the environment he is.’ the doctor explained to the Acting Inspector General.
AIG Abdulrafiu was seated in front of the doctor’s table comfortably, his left elbow resting on the left armrest of the chair and his chin resting on his palm. The man had a rigid stout figure when he stood, he had a baby face which made him look younger than his age, only the thick lenses which usually hung on his nose gives an observer the impression that he was advanced in age.
He sat up and continued to look the doctor straight in the eye. ‘The fact that he still has some chances of surviving is a good one, if he survives he would be useful to our investigation and may probably be able to name more bad guys we don’t know yet.’
‘I’ve explained that he may never be useful for your investigation,’ the doctor cut in.
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‘And you have not explained why you are ruling out the possibility totally,’ the acting IG replied him.
‘Sir, this is because even if he survives and recovers fully, it might take a long time for him to be stable enough to speak or carry out normal activities but there’s a far higher possibility that even if he recovers he would be unable to do so many things especially using his senses.’
‘So that’s why you want us to give permission to end his life?’
‘I don’t want to end his life, I’m just trying to save him from the pain he’s going through. I tell you truthfully, he’s going through a lot of pains at the moment and I just thought there’s no point keeping him alive since the probability of him surviving the whole thing is less than two percent.’
The Acting Inspector General pondered on the doctor’s words for a while. He tried to imagine how severe the pain Inspector General RIkau was going through as the doctor tried to make him see but all he could successfully imagine was how severe the pains of the multitudes Chief Rikau and his cohorts had put into everlasting pains by destroying their families and destroying their lives. If the man had to go through severe pain to come back alive and name other culprits like him, then so be it. He deserved to go through the pains for a good reason.
‘How long will it take him to be stable enough if he recovers?’
‘It could take him a year or even two,’ the doctor replied.
‘That’s not bad,’ the man shrugged. ‘I’m sure he would still have something valid to bring in, keep him alive regardless of what decision his family makes. Is that clear?’
‘Yes sir,’ the doctor nodded in agreement.
‘Thank you,’ IG Abdulrafiu said as he got up from his seat. The doctor also got up in courtesy and received a handshake. The man’s android phone in his hand beeped as he proceeded to the door. He unlocked it to check what new message he had received. It was a text message from his subscription to the Youngicee News Portal, he opened to read.
Samantha Osman releases today’s videos. Inspector General Rikau makes more shocking revelations, names five notable murders carried out on the Vice President Instructions.
_____
LOCATION: LAGOS STATE POLICE DIVISION C
TIME: 09:45AM
Madam Henrietta sat quietly alone at the edge of the narrow bed, a covered plate of food was on a stool in front of her with a bottle of water and a glass cup. The spoon was in her right hand but she had been holding it without touching the food for close to an hour since she had been served. She couldn’t stop remembering the lies and pretense she had been forced by the Vice President to put up in the video, she had not been able to sleep well since then. She had never felt the way she was feeling now. She felt she had to see Samantha and apologize to her for telling false things against her.
She looked around the room for a second, it was no different from a police cell. The Vice President had deceived her, after promising that she would be allowed to travel back to the United States and continue with her life peacefully, he had left her with the abductors and she had stayed two nights in that room.
She remembered Stephanie and her mother again. She wondered if Samantha had left them go or if they were still with her. She shook her head and sniffed in as she thought about how dramatic her life had been for the past three months. The drama had all started the day Stephanie asked her about the pictures and docvments.
‘Madam, you’ve not eaten your food yet.’ an officer interrupted her thoughts. He had entered into the room uninvited and she didn’t notice him until he spoke.
She replied him with a quick glance only.
‘I came to fetch the empty plates but I’ll be back in the next one hour,’ he said and turned and walked out.
She fell back in the bed tiredly after watching him walk out.
___
‘I just located Madam Henrietta,’ Henry announced as he walked into the new living room. Tarasha was sitting on a one-seater sofa with a stool in front of her and four pistols on it while Cole was sitting at the edge of the three-seater sofa adjacent to Tarasha’s seat. They were the only two present there before Henry’s entrance.
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‘Where is she?’ Tarasha asked, looking at Henry’s face as he walked to a seat.
‘In the Police Division C,’ Henry replied as he took his seat opposite Tarasha. ‘I think I understand why they haven’t released any video with her since the first one, they tried to use it as a distraction for us but since they’ve confirmed that it won’t work, they did not bother to release a follow up video. They probably think we don’t care about her anymore and just dumped her in the Police Custody.’
There was silence for some seconds.
‘Do we still need her?’ He asked staring at Tara’s face. He rephrased his question to make it easier, ‘I mean would we need to help her out or not?’
‘I think she’s safe since she is in the police hands,’ Cole interjected.
‘No, we’d go for her. We all know she wasn’t abducted by the police, the reason we can’t release the video for anyone else in the world to see is because she was dressed in a disguise and we can’t prove she was the one taken at the filling station.’ Tarasha quickly put in.
Henry let out a sigh of relief now knowing that Tarasha was willing to help the woman out. He believed that her stay with the police was temporary and that they would soon return her to the hoodlums that abducted her.
‘But won’t it be unnecessary since we don’t need her for our mission?’
‘We need her, I need her…’ Tarasha insisted in a strong tone.
Cole remained silent but kept on wondering what was wrong with Tarasha. It was strange to see her so emotionally attached to the woman and to boldly say she was needed when they all knew for certain that there was nothing the woman could add to the success of their mission.
‘I was planning to move Stephanie and her mother today since we’ve completed the arrangements for them to leave but I think I have to visit the police headquarters instead,’ she said and then turned to Cole. ‘You would drop them off and give them all instructions this evening, make sure you sound a serious warning to them so they would think twice before disobeying our instructions like Madam Henrietta.’
‘Okay boss,’ Cole answered with a nod. Even though he didn’t understand the reason for Tarasha’s decisions, he still decided not to bother her with questions that would make her think he was doubting her leadership. ‘Can you give me an actual time you want me to drop them?’
‘No, wait! Tarasha raised her brows as she pondered for a while. She turned to Henry, ‘Have you thought of any way we could penetrate easily into the police division C?’
‘I haven’t thought about penetrating at all,’ Henry replied.
‘We could go through Stephanie,’ Tarasha and Cole said in unison. They glanced at each other’s faces.
‘Let’s come up with a plan,’ Tarasha quickly added, facing Cole now. She cleared the pistols on the stool and placed her device on it. She detached a flash drive connected to the device and stretched it to Henry. ‘Here, you can install our saved data into the new system.’
___
LOCATION: VICE PRESIDENT’S LOUNGE, ABUJA
TIME: 10AM
Elvis Richards was on his way out when the call from James came in.
‘Hey James,’ he answered the call.
‘Dad, where are you now?’
‘I’m still at home, I’m about leaving for the State Service office, to honor their invitation for the interrogation.’
‘Okay Dad, like we agreed, please be calm and don’t give in to their intimidation, make sure you maintain your stance, don’t resign yet.’
‘Hey boy!’ Elvis Richards chuckled. ‘You’ve forgotten you’re talking to a well trained officer?’
‘I remember quite well father,’ James also replied with a chuckle. ‘Some times, when we are at the other side, we tend to be overcome by the tactics we invented ourselves.’
‘I understand you boy.’
‘Yea, I’m setting things in place already. In less than five days, you’d be walking as a new man, a free man.’ James replied in a confident tone. He was indeed confident, for he had a very good plan.
TIME: 2PM
LOCATION : POLICE COMMAND, DIVISION C.
‘Good afternoon young lady, what can we do for you?’ the policeman at the desk asked the young lady who approached him.
‘Good afternoon sir, I’m Stephanie and I’m here to see Madam Henrietta Williams.’ the young lady behind the desk asked.
The officer seemed shocked at her response. He squinted and pulled his head back to stare at the young lady’s face very well.
‘You’re Stephanie George?’ the officer finally asked. Her face looked a bit different from her normal look as she had an usual eyebrows drawn and was dressed in a different way from her usual mode of dressing. She had a long scarf covering her head and ears, she also wore a long skirt.
‘Yes, I want to see my mother who is in your custody.’ Stephanie replied.
‘Okay…’ the officer replied with a suspicious look on his face. He got up from his seat and stretched his hand toward the landline.
Stephanie watched him as he punched some buttons on the device and put the receiver on his ear. The device refused to connect, there was a total loss of signal.
‘Don’t trouble yourself with that, just bring her out for me to see.’ Stephanie sounded like she knew his device wasn’t going to connect.
The man stared at her face for a while, then he turned towards the officers walking through the reception and others at the other areas of the reception, he beckoned on a senior officer.
‘Agent Waziri, sir we have a situation here.’
Agent Waziri who was discussing something else with another officer before turned and glanced at the officer behind the desk.
‘I’ll join you in a minute’ he replied.
‘You don’t need to involve so many people, you’re only wasting time that way.’ Stephanie whispered to him.
The officer looked at her angrily but had no words to say. She raised her hand and glanced at her wristwatch.
‘The communication lines are opened for the next five minutes, you can make your call now.’
The man stared at her face intently at the sound of her words, his anger was gradually turning into fear. He reached for the receiver and dialed the number. It began to ring. Agent Waziri however got to the desk before the person he was calling could pick up.
‘What’s the matter officer?’ Agent Waziri enquired.
The officer dropped the receiver slowly, without taking his gaze off Stephanie’s face. Agent Waziri also turned his gaze to Stephanie, he turned it back to the officer when he started speaking.
‘Sir, this lady here is Stephanie George and she asked to see Madam Henrietta Williams.’
There was a shocked expression on Agent Waziri’s face as he turned his gaze to Stephanie’s face. She was also staring at him.
‘How did you know Madam Henrietta is here?’ he asked in a furious but low voice. Only he and some few officers knew when Agent Tim brought the woman there and they had been instructed to keep it secret.
Stephanie smiled. ‘Samantha Osman told me.’
Agent Waziri’s eyes balls almost popped out at the sound of the name.
‘Samantha Osman…’ he muttered and moved closer to Stephanie. He held her by the wrist and tried to pull her away from earshot.
Stephanie resisted. ‘You’re wasting time, she is here with me and waiting for you to bring out my mother.’
Agent Waziri pulled out his gun immediately and grabbed Stephanie firmly. ‘Officer, call the gate immediately and order them to lock all exits and entrances.’
The officer at the desk picked the device and dialled the men in charge of the entrances immediately.
‘Tell me exactly where she is,’ Agent Waziri shouted at Stephanie. He released her hand and pointed his gun at her as he took out a phone from his pocket. He dialed a number and placed it close to his ears.
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‘Sir, there’s an emergency, I’ve ordered for all the exits and entrances to be locked. We have Stephanie George here and she claims Samantha Osman is here with her.’ he said to the receiver of his call and waited to hear the response before ending the call.
‘Be on guard everyone, we’ve got an intruder in the building.’ the Inspector announced aloud to every officer around. He turned back to the officer behind the desk, ‘Sound the alarm to every section and let them know that we have a dangerous intruder.’ After that he motioned Stephanie and directed her towards the hallway which led into the inner section of the building. He followed vigilantly behind her with his gun.
Outside the buildings of the police commands were several officers in the compound, at their different positions. The announcement about the intruder had just been made and they had all gotten up and were looking around and inspecting people especially the sellers and other non officers who had been allowed into the compound for different reasons.
An officer standing down the balcony of the main building was the first to drop dead at the sound of a gunshot. The other officers looked around in panic and tried to locate the direction from where the gunshot came but more of them began to drop to one after the other to the ground.
‘There is a sniper in one of the storey buildings at the other side of the road,’ one of the officers hiding behind the fence of the compound said to another. He took out a phone to make a call.
‘We would have to open up the gates and send men to those buildings,’ the other officer replied him.
‘I’m trying to reach the control room now,’ the first officer said, a furious look on his face as he dialled the control room number the second time. ‘The network is so poor.’
The other officer also took out his own phone. ‘You can use my phone,’ he offered.
He adjusted the position of his long gun to the left side as he handed the phone to his colleague with his right hand.
The officer took the phone and dialed the control room number into the dial pad. He clicked the green button and put the phone close to his ear. ‘d@mn it! It’s not connecting here too.’
The Agent continued to prod Stephanie through the hallway with the gun in his hand, two other officers had joined him and they were leading her to the DPO’s office. There were several doors connecting other rooms to the hallway and different officers stepped out from there with their guns from time to time, they proceeded in opposite direction to Agent Waziri and the three.
Agent Waziri stepped to the front when they got to the DPO’s office. He pressed the bell and waited for a response, he did it for a second time after thirty seconds. They waited about a minute and didn’t get any response. Agent Waziri turned the knob of the door and barged in hoping to apologize to the DPO when he gets in.
They were surprised at the scene they met. A lady dressed in police uniform was seated on the table behind the DPO who was kneeling in front of her with his hands in the air. The DPO’s face was already bruised and his nose was bleeding, the lady behind him had the tip of her gun touching his head. She had her leg on the visitor’s seat which had been pushed aside for her to sit at the middle of the table.
The three officers stepped in and all pointed their guns at her, still making sure Stephanie was right beside them.
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‘No long talks, all you need to do is bring out Madam Henrietta and your boss would be free,’ Tarasha said to them in a confident tone. She looked at each of the men’s faces and saw that they were staring at their DPO to permit them to bring the woman. She ÇOçked the gun.
‘Brin… Bring..her… immediately,’ the man stammered in fear.
The three officers were reluctant at first but had no choice than to yield. The one beside Stephanie turned to step out of the room.
‘You have five minutes, you’d meet him dead if you stay longer than that.’ Tarasha warned before he stepped out. The officer increased his speed and they could hear him running through the hallway.
‘Gentle men, put down your guns, don’t you think you’re scaring the young lady beside you?’ Tarasha said mockingly while they waited for the officer and Madam Henrietta. The men reluctantly lowered their guns as they saw her moving her finger close to the trigger but made sure they kept an eye on Stephanie to watch her moves.
The Inspector returned four minutes later with Madam Henrietta. She was surprised to see Stephanie in the DPO’s office. Stephanie on the other hand was happy to see her and was full of smiles.
The officer who brought her in however made sure they did not come close enough to each other.
‘I’m going with her,’ Tarasha said as she stepped down from the table, with her gun still pointed at the man’s head.
‘No, you’re not,’ Agent Waziri replied her. He moved closer to Madam Henrietta and placed his gun at the side of her head.
Tarasha chuckled. She pulled a bag at the other end of the DPO’s table closer to her and pulled the zip open with her left hand.
‘You must think I give a f*** about that woman beside you,’ Tarasha said with a non-chalant attitude. ‘I only need to get her body out of here,’ she added and pointed her gun at Madam Henrietta immediately firing a shot into her body. The woman fell down lifelessly.
Stephanie was shocked beyond words and could not control herself, she ran to the spot the woman was dropped and turned her upward. She began to cry as she saw the blood on the woman’s cloth.
The officers were also shocked at her action, they were unable to stop her from killing the woman and she still had their boss close to her and easy to kill.
‘So, you still want your boss dead?’ she asked as she pressed her pistol against the DPO’s forehead.
They all dropped their guns to the ground.
She took out an armless jacket from the bag on the table and unzipped it. ‘You have to put this on,’ she said as she helped him put on the jackets one side at a time. ‘Get up,’ she said after he was done putting in the jackets. ‘Zip it up,’ she ordered and he complied. The inspectors watched silently, wondering what she was doing. She took out a small rectangular device from the bag and turned to the other side of the DPO. She located another zip at the left side of the jacket and pulled it open. The front covering of the jacket fell off and revealed an explosive device set up under. She tapped the green button on the remote control and a green light appeared at the side of the jacket.
The officers were now terrified
She stepped some distance away from him and stayed close to the wall. She held up the device and turned the screen to the officers, a timer with green dotted line was reading and it remained one hour, twenty nine minutes and thirty eight seconds.
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‘The bomb would go off if anyone comes 0.5 metre close to him or when I push this red button,’ Tarasha explained to them even though she believed they should know what it meant as trained security experts.
The officers could not mutter a word. Only Agent Waziri was bold enough to pull out another gun and point at her. ‘You are not going anywhere, we are not fools here.’ he threatened.
Tarasha smiled. ‘I didn’t tell you,’ she said as she began to unbutton the shirt of her police uniform. Under the shirt was a different explosive device which shocked the officers more, they knew what it was. ‘This kills all of us here and several others in the area when mishandled or at the touch of a bullet,’ Tarasha added with a smile.
Agent Waziri slowly lowered his gun.
‘Her body has to go with me,’ Tarasha said, pointing to Madam Henrietta’s body on the floor. ‘Come on, get up Steph, stop crying over what you can’t change.’ she said in a reprimanding tone. Then she turned back to the officers, ‘One of you would carry her on your shoulder and follow me to my car.’
Stephanie refused to get up and continued to cry. She had thought Tarasha had come to help Madam Henrietta get out and did not expect that Tarasha would shoot her so carelessly. She now understood and agreed with what Dave had always told her. She realized that it was dangerous to work with an assassin even if you had a common enemy. Samantha truly did not have a good heart as Dave had told her.
The officers were angry but had no choice. They couldn’t do anything about the DPO. Moving close to him would cause an explosive which would affect a large part of the police building and kill them and several officers alongside the DPO himself while shooting Tarasha or trying to hurt her will cause a more dangerous explosion which would destroy the whole division C facility and many other neighboring buildings.
‘Move away guys,’ Agent Waziri shouted at the officers staring at them and pointing their guns at Tarasha. ‘No one should make a move,’ he further warned as he walked beside Tarasha. The officer who had gone to bring Madam Henrietta to the DPO’s office was carrying her on his shoulder while the third officer was carrying Stephanie on his shoulder. Tarasha had drugged Stephanie when she began to act stubborn.
‘I need the gate open for my car to come in,’ Tarasha said to Agent Waziri and he in turn have orders for the gate to be opened.
Tarasha waited for a while after the gate was opened and soon a Jeep was driven in by Cole. The officers followed and laid Madam Henrietta and Stephanie into the car while Tarasha sat in front with Cole.
‘I’ll push the red button the moment I notice any police car following us,’ Tarasha issued a final warning to Agent Waziri before she closed the door.
They all watched in silence as they drove out and no one could make any move due on Agent Waziri’s instruction. The Agent began to hear some murmurings behind him from the junior officers. He made a sharp turn to the back and gave the officers a furious stare. He took a moment to stare at the dead bodies on the floor which numbered up to fifteen, then he looked up again.
‘Did anybody contact other divisions for reinforcement?’ he asked aloud.
The murmuring became louder, only one officer spoke aloud clearly. ‘We can’t make calls, the signal reception on every phone is poor.’
Agent Waziri was silent for a while, he took out his phone and checked, there was still no signal. ‘I think the network lines were hacked for this purpose.’
Stephanie opened her eyes and found herself in the middle of the bed in the room she shared with her mother. The woman was seated at the edge of the bed with her back resting against the headboard. She didn’t seem to notice anything until Stephanie turned to sit up.
‘Stephanie,’ Madam Atinuke flashed a look at her daughter. ‘Are you okay?’
‘Mum, how did I get here?’ Stephanie asked, squinting at her mother’s face.
‘You went out with Samantha and I was told you were afraid seeing someone die and you passed out,’ Atinuke replied.
Stephanie could now recall what happened to her. The last thing she remembered of the event was being grabbed on the arm by Samantha and not knowing what happened to her after that.
Atinuke watched as the girl got up to her feet and proceeded slowly towards the door.
‘Where are you going to?’ Atinuke asked her.
Stephanie stopped and stared at her mum. She couldn’t answer the question, she couldn’t tell what she was going to.
‘Your food has been brought in already, you don’t need to go outside for anything, everything you need for the night is here.’ Atinuke added, pointing to the food on a stool beside the bed.
Stephanie let out a breath as she spotted the plate of food she hadn’t take note of before. She glanced at the door again, she wished she could just leave that building immediately, she wished she could leave Samantha Osman and everything concerning the assassin but there was no way she was going to be safe with her mother without the help of Tarasha. She knew there were no government agencies in the country she could run to for safety. She wished she had listened to Dave James and helped him when she was supposed to.
A knock sounded at the door while she was still standing and lost in thoughts. She glanced at the door and then walked back in anger to the bed.
‘Why didn’t you check who we have at the door?’ her mother whose eyes had been following her asked. The knock sounded the second time.
Stephanie gave no answer to her mother’s question.
The older woman replied after the sound of the third knock. Stephanie laid in the bed with her face buried in a pillow. The door opened and Cole stepped in slowly.
‘Stephanie,’ Cole called in a calm voice after closing the door. She didn’t give a response. Her mum looked towards her direction. ‘Sit up Steph, I’ve got some really important information for you.’ Cole said, knowing of a certain that she wasn’t asleep. ‘Sit up!’ he added in a firmer voice.
She got up from the bed and suddenly rushed towards him. She began to hit him on the chest as she wailed. ‘Samantha killed her, why? What did she do to deserve to die? I wonder what her gain is.’
Cole managed to grab her two hands and keep her from throwing him more blows. She struggled with him but he was stronger and able to keep her from freeing her hands.
He kept a straight face as he spoke to her, ‘Her death is all for good, Samantha would not do anything to hurt someone in her team, Madam Henrietta’s death was to save her from more pains and also to protect you and your mother.’
Stephanie got angrier on hearing Cole’s stupid justification for his boss’ action. She stopped struggling with him and stared at his face with so much spite. He also released her hands after seeing she wasn’t going to hit him anymore.
‘How is she protecting me and my mother by killing the person who protected me since I was little?’ she cried.
Cole’s face remained straight, ‘You’d understand when the time comes.’ he said confidently.
Stephanie stared at him thinly with disbelief in her eyes, she couldn’t understand how he could still defend what was obvious wickedness. She had seen the cruelty in Samantha’s eyes when she shot Madam Henrietta and knew it was more than protecting someone but believed it was an action based on her selfishness. She believed she must have shot Madam Henrietta because of Madam Henrietta’s involvement in the video made by the police to implicate her.
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Stephanie’s greatest pain was not the woman’s death but her being involved in killing the woman. Samantha Osman had deceived her by lying that they were going to rescue the woman from the enemies, little did she know Samantha was only using her as a tool to kill the woman who brought her up.
‘Steph! I encourage you to keep yourself together, arrange your clothes and other things and help your mother arrange hers too. I’ll be taking you out of here tomorrow to a location where I’d explain how you can return to school and stay out of trouble. Then you can continue to live your normal life,’ Cole explained.
For a moment, Stephanie felt some shrills run down her spine. She felt something contrary to what she expected to feel by the news of having the chance to leave Samantha Osman. She suddenly felt she was leaving a protective cover to an uncertain future.
She looked at Cole’s face however, unwilling to show her weakness. ‘Why don’t you take us out this night? I can’t bear it to stay one more minute with ruthless vipers who have no regard for human life,’ She blabbered.
Cole grabbed her by the arm harshly and turned her to himself as she tried to walk away. ‘Be careful what you say girl,’ he warned with a threatening look on his face. ‘Don’t try to do anything stupid against Samantha when you get out there, else we’d come for you.’
Cole’s grip on Stephanie’s arm was causing her so much pain and the look in his eyes was scaring her to death. He looked as if he was ready to kill her that moment.
He finally released her and let her take a breath. He spoke again, calmly this time, ‘You know that when Samantha Osman decides to come after you, no one in the country can save you and not even security or government agencies in USA can save you from her wrath.’
Stephanie stared at him for some more seconds before she angrily turned back to the bed.
Cole moved his focus to Madam Atinuke and tried to soften the look on his face in order not to scare the woman.
‘Madam, Samantha would love to have a word with you before you leave tomorrow.’ he said to the woman.
Stephanie sprang up to her feet immediately, ‘Over my dead body would I allow her meet with my mother again.’
Cole only glanced at her but refused to give her more attention. ‘Have a goodnight Madam,’ he said to the older woman and flashed a look at Stephanie before he turned back and walked out of the room.
‘Goodnight Mister,’ Madam Atinuke mumbled back in response to Cole.
‘Mother, I won’t let you see her tomorrow.’ Stephanie said aloud and got up to her feet. She turned to her mother’s side and knelt in front of her. ‘You won’t see her tomorrow, I promise I would do everything I can to make sure you don’t see her,’ she said and held her mother’s hand, trying to reassure her.
‘I would see her,’ Atinuke whispered in reply. ‘I need to hear what she has to say to me.’
‘No, she’s doesn’t have anything to say to you.’ Stephanie said in a pleading tone. ‘I can’t let her hurt you.’
Atinuke placed her hands on her daughter’s shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘Samantha would not hurt me, or you. I believe what he said,’ she said with so much confidence in her tone. ‘I see the way she looks at you when she does and I know the way she talks about you, she has so much affection for you like an elder sister has for a younger one.’
‘No, she doesn’t see me that way. If she does, she wouldn’t kill Mrs Henrietta.’ Stephanie argued.
‘I believe she has a good reason for killing Henrietta if she did, but I don’t think she can harm you.’
Stephanie stared at her mum in disbelief. She couldn’t believe that the woman was also defending Samantha acts.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 17 Part 4
__
10PM
Tarasha had just finished taking her bath when she heard a knock at the door. She took her time to put on a short gown before going to unlock the door.
‘Henry,’ she muttered as his eyes met hers when she opened the door slightly. She opened it well for him to enter and closed it after he walked in.
‘Tara, how are you doing tonight?’ he asked as he walked straight to the table and picked up an item.
‘Good as usual,’ she replied and walked straight to his front. He was still reading from the piece of paper he picked. ‘I see you’ve been so busy in the control room that you couldn’t spend more than a minute with us when we returned.’
‘Yeag, sorry I had to go back to the task you gave me.’ Henry replied, he dropped the paper and looked at her face.
‘Which one?’ she squinted at him.
‘Monitoring the Inspector General’s and the Vice President’s movements,’ Henry replied.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed and stared at his face with a smile. She didn’t expect that he would still be monitoring the Inspector General whose case she had already settled and was done with. ‘So what about the files from the drive I gave to you this morning?’ she asked. She had initially thought the drive was what he referred to as the task.
‘I copied all that already,’ Henry replied. ‘I did it since morning.’
‘So what have you been doing alone in the control room?’
‘Checking out the test result of my new application,’ he replied. He pulled the seat of the armless plastic chair from under the table and sat on it.
‘And what’s the result?’
‘Successful, as usual.’
‘Nice, what’s the application about?’ she asked and moved closer to him slowly.
‘It monitors and hacks online sources, mostly data collection sources and stores their data in it’s archives, it’s grabs the data as it’s been received or sent out and keeps it even though it’s deleted from the main source.’
‘What kind of sources are you talking about?’ She widened her legs placing each at both sides of the chair, and sat on his knees and held the backrest top with her hands.
‘I actually developed it to hack communication lines, but I implemented some tools which makes it grab video sources too. I installed it about three days before our first operation base in this state got attacked and destroyed.’
‘So if it stores communication lines data, that means it keeps data of calls, the callers and receivers, their locations, texts… And what else?’
‘It was also designed to store voice notes of the calls,’ Henry replied. He took in a breath and could perceive the scent of Tarasha’s perfume. He could also feel the skin below her short gown on his knees.
‘What did you design it for?’
‘Well, it could be useful for investigation by security offices.’ Henry replied.
‘So what made you remember the application after a long time?’
He smiled lightly and licked his lower lip and bit it softly afterward. He looked away from her face for a moment and stared at her laps which was on his, her thighs were fully exposed and only her underpant was covered by the gown. He slowly placed his fingers on her thighs and began to massage gently.
He placed his gaze on her face again. ‘I did some checks on the Vice President today and I noticed he’s been usually close to his son Agent James recently, so I thought I needed to follow their conversation on phone and I remembered that the application can allow me to that.’
‘Wait, but how do you receive signals for the app?’
‘It receives through an antenna, you saw when I hung the antenna outside the gate at the first base.’
‘Oh! I did truly,’ she remembered him talking about the application that day but without much details.
‘So, I realized that the antenna I placed outside the first base wasn’t destroyed, it only shook from where it was but continued to receive and store. I was able to retrieve some data it stored since then.’
‘So which data did it store?’
‘Just my phone records,’ Henry shrugged. ‘I’ve checked through the first week and found the data, that’s enough proof that the application and the process works very well.’
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 15 Part 7
Tarasha gave a light smile. ‘How are you going to use it for the Vice President and James?’
‘I need their phone numbers first, and that’s why I came to you. I want to know if you’ve previously gained access to all the Nigerian network providers database, with that we can search for their phone numbers. It will take me some time, probably weeks to hack each one of the providers if I’m to start from the scratch.’
Tarasha raised her brows. ‘But as a seasoned hacker, you should have gained access to these networks at some point during your work.’
He chuckled. ‘I promised myself not to use my hacking skills for unethical reasons, and I kept that promise for a long time.’
Tarasha smiled again. ‘I’ve only gained access into only one of the providers database but we don’t need even need them to get the numbers. I’ve worked with the Vice President before, and in short we’ve got the numbers of the both of them.’
‘Oh! That’s great,’ Henry seemed elated.
‘Yea…’ Tarasha smiled.
Henry stared into her eyes for a moment. She released the top of the backrest from her fingers and rested her elbows on it, bringing her face closer to his.
‘You’re smiling a lot today, what’s the secret?’ Henry noticed.
‘Well,’ she shrugged. ‘I think I just feel relaxed.’
Henry stared at her with disbelieving eyes. ‘I think it’s connected to Madam Henrietta’s return.’
Tarasha raised her brows and chuckled. She realized she had not been able to hide it totally, she had not been able to hide the happiness she felt having the woman back around her. She stared blankly at the wall behind for a moment, reflecting on how it will feel like having her mother close by to her.
After a while of being lost in thoughts, it suddenly came to her consciousness that Henry had his fingers playing around her thighs and already getting under her gown.
‘So, what’s the secret behind you feeling relaxed?’ he asked, when he saw her eyes following his fingers.
‘I’ll tell you the secret,’ she said with a smile. ‘Soon,’ she added and then covered his lips with hers.
She ran her fingers into his hair as he responded to her lips. The kiss was fierce and intense and Henry’s hands dipped further under her gown until his fingers touched her chest. She broke away from the kiss for a moment and helped him take off his shirt before she continued with the kiss. Her action gave him more courage and he carried her up and pulled her underpants down. He dropped her on the bed and found his fingers at her back, pulling down the zip of her gown.
Fifteen minutes later, they lay next to each other on the bed, feeling exhausted. Different thoughts ran through their individual minds as they stared blankly at the ceiling. The room was dead silent and they could almost hear each other’s heartbeats.
Henry freshened up before he returned to the control room. He now had the two numbers he needed to track the Vice President and Agent James calls. As he sat on the seat, he noticed his phone which he had dropped beside the mouse before he left the room, the green notification light was blinking. He picked it up and unlocked it to check, he had a new message.
‘You seemed to have totally forgotten about your mother, few weeks ago you were so consumed with finding her and you even made attempts to get to her location. Have you forgotten her totally now?’
He read the text again and again and still did not understand. He knew the source of the message was the same source that had been sending him such messages. He had blocked some few numbers but the source kept reaching him with new numbers. He read the message one more time, he decided it was time to do something about it.
Madam Henrietta was surprised to find herself alive when she opened her eyes. At first, she thought she was already dead, but after she looked around and saw the medical equipments and other things in the room, she confirmed she was still on the earth. She got up and sat at the edge of the bed but wasn’t able to move around because of the drip connected to her hand.
She stayed awake for more than thirty minutes without seeing anybody or hearing anyone’s voice. She found herself lost in thoughts. All the worries she had while in the police’s custody returned to her mind and she began to worry about being in Samantha Osman’s custody. She also wondered how she survived the gunshot in her belly. She raised her cloth up to check and found the place already covered with bandages.
She was so lost in thoughts that she did not hear the sound of the door opening. Not until Tarasha almost got to her front before she realized that someone else had joined her in the room. A sudden shock gripped her heart as she saw Tarasha’s face, she trembled and almost left her skin as Tarasha stopped in front of her.
Tarasha let out a light smile on seeing the woman’s face. She couldn’t explain the feeling she had inside her but she knew seeing her mother alive was the cause of the feeling.
‘Good morning madam Henrietta, how are you doing today?’ she greeted with a smile.
‘Fine,’ Madam Henrietta replied briefly with an expressionless face. She was afraid but at the same time wondering why Tarasha as smiling at her.
‘Sorry, I had to shoot you yesterday,’ Tarasha apologize as she moved closer. She rolled up the woman’s blouse to check the wound behind. ‘I had to do it to help us leave that place easily.’
Madam Henrietta stared carefully at her as she checked the wounds, pondering on the last sentence she said.
‘So, you didn’t shoot to kill me?’ she asked with stammering lips.
‘No, I don’t have a reason to kill you,’ Tarasha replied as she covered back the wound. ‘We came there to help you out.’
Madam Henrietta was speechless. She stared at the young lady’s face in awe.
Tarasha turned back and located a chair behind. She pulled it closer and sat on it.
‘The wound would heal quickly as far as you keep feeding well,’ she continued talking after crossing her legs. She unlocked the phone which she had taken out of her pocket and checked the time. ‘You must be feeling hungry now, aren’t you?’ she asked. She did not wait for the woman to answer before she continued. ‘Your food would be brought in soon.’
Madam Henrietta couldn’t find words to say even though she felt she needed to apologize for what she said in the video made by the policemen.
There was total silence for a couple of minutes. Madam Henrietta had several thoughts running through her mind. She had doubts about Tarasha’s intentions. She couldn’t understand why she would say she had no reason to kill her even with the video that was recorded. She also wondered what was next after that, she wondered if she was going to be set free again or if she was going to be punished for not following instructions the previous time. Her eyes widened as she suddenly remembered someone.
‘What about Stephanie?’ she blurted out.
Tarasha raised her head and stared into the woman’s eyes. ‘She’s fine and with her mother.’
The woman closed her eyes and heaved a sigh of relief.
‘What about your own daughter?’ Tarasha asked.
Madam Henrietta had a confused look on her face as she opened her eyes. She narrowed her gaze on the young lady’s face, ‘Steph… Stephanie is the only daughter I have.’
Tarasha felt hurt at the sound of her reply. She was quiet for close to a minute before she spoke again. ‘Stephanie is the daughter of Lewis and Atinuke George, I’m asking about your own daughter.’
‘My daughter?’ the woman seemed more puzzled. ‘I don’t have a daughter apart from Stephanie.’
‘You never had a child of yours?’
‘A child?’
‘Yes.’
The woman stared blankly for a moment and then let out a deep breath.
‘I never had a child of mine,’ she replied, shaking her head slowly.
Tarasha squinted at her with so much confusion in her heart.
____
‘How long will it take you to locate any of their security installments?’ Rex message popped into Nicholas’ phone.
He tapped the space and the keyboard came on. ‘It’s completely hidden safer than the previous place, I’m sure only Samantha has full information and even Cole doesn’t have.’ he typed his reply and sent to her.
‘Do they not have a control room in the facility?’ Rex’s reply came in.
‘They do but I can’t gain access yet, the systems are locked.’ Nicholas replied.
‘You can have an idea of the security facilities they have in place by just looking around,’ Rex replied.
‘Henry spends almost everyday in the control room, there’s no way I can get in and start looking around without him suspecting me.’ Nicholas complained.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 19 Part 3
‘You gotta find a way man and stop wasting time like a dumb a$$, remember that your mother and son’s lives are at stake.’ Rex threatened.
‘I promise, I’ll find my way and get back to you as soon as I can.’ Nicholas typed his reply and sent. It marked read and he waited for some seconds to see if Rex would reply but Rex went offline less than a minute after.
__
Rex put the phone on the table and got up from his seat. He knew he had to find his way to get to Samantha Osman and wasn’t depending on Nicholas, Nicholas’ input might just be a plus for him. He opened up the laptop on the table and tapped the boot button. His phone began to ring while he waited for the computer to boot.
He picked up the phone and checked the caller, it was Elvis Richards. He felt tempted not to answer the call as he did not know what to say, he had failed the man terribly and he understood that no excuse was acceptable.
It stopped ringing and began to ring a second time. He swiped the green icon hesitatingly add delayed for some seconds before taking it close to his ear.
‘Rex… Rex,’ he heard the Chief’s voice at the other end.
‘Hello Chief,’ he finally spoke.
‘Rex, where are you? I need you to come to Abuja as soon as you can,’ Chief Elvis said.
Rex wondered what the man needed him for in Abuja. ‘Do you have a plan against Samantha or you have another task?’ he asked. He was not ready to carry out any task that wouldn’t lead to or increase his chances against Samantha yet, all he wanted to do was to finish off Samantha Osman before considering any other task.
‘You have to come around Rex, Samantha Osman already won against me but I need you to help me go out of this unhurt. You have to be here,’ the man pleaded.
Somehow, Rex felt indebted to the man. He decided that if the man had a good plan that would work to make him get out unhurt really, then he was going to get involved. Getting the man out unhurt would also mean Samantha did not win at the end.
‘I don’t know if there’ll be a flight to Abuja today,’ Rex said.
‘Yes, there is. It leaves for eleven o’clock this morning and I’ve booked your space already, I’m send you the necessary docvments immediately after this call.’
‘Okay.’
___
LOCATION : ABUJA
Elvis Richards heaved a sigh of relief, now knowing that Rex was coming to Abuja. He stared at James who was sitting in front of him and expecting a reply eagerly.
‘He agreed to come here,’ Elvis Richards said to James.
’That’s good, I really do hope he would have a good strategy to get you out of here safely,’ James replied.
‘I trust he would,’ Elvis Richards replied confidently.
‘But where did you get him from?’
‘I told you he’s an agent from an assassin clan in Russia, he’s one of their bests and it cost me a lot to bring him down here,’ Elvis Richards replied.
‘I’ll trust your word since you believe he is our solution to this.’ James replied concludingly.
__
Location: Lagos
‘You never had a child of your own, does that mean you are barren?’ Tarasha asked, her voice seemed a bit shaky. She was disturbed in her heart at the thought that Madam Atinuke could have told her something incorrect, perhaps the woman wasn’t in her complete senses when she told her Madam Henrietta was Omotara’s mother.
‘No, I wasn’t barren. I actually got pregnant twice, my womb was destroyed after I aborted the second child.’ Madam Henrietta answered her.
‘And what happened to the first pregnancy?’ Tarasha asked her.
The woman drew in a deep breath, she stared at Tarasha’s face for a little while as she tried to put words together. ‘I gave birth to that baby alive but it was never mine because I gave it out the same day and heard that she died eight years later.’
There seemed to be a sudden release of tension in Tarasha’s heart. She let out a deep prolonged breath which she had held in for seconds.
‘Who did you give the baby out to?’
‘Doctor Danjuma and his wife,’ she answered in a low tones. She looked remorseful as tears began to form in her eyes. ‘They saved me from death that day and also saved my child, they tried to help me and promised to watch me as I train my child but I was too scared, I was scared of my past, I was scared to be a mother yet. I had so many dreams that I thought I could never fulfill with a child.’ she stopped and exhaled deeply. Tears had begun to roll down her cheeks slowly. ‘I was forced to Brë@štfeed the child the only day I did, it felt annoying to me, it wasn’t the life I desired at that time. Even though Mr Danjuma and his wife showed me love, I still could not erase the voices of the people in the village who told me I was a shame to humanity and a disgrace to my mother and my father’s house. That baby was the item of shame and disgrace, every time I looked at it, I remembered the shameful process by which I got pregnant. Our only few days together were horrible for me, I had nightmares everyday of that man touching me again with his filthy hands and I remember how he denied raping me and lied that I tried to seduce him in his office. Nobody believed my side of the story because he was an important and responsible man in the village, only my mother believed me. But the same problem killed her, her small thriving business went down because no one in the village wanted to do business with or associate themselves with the woman who taught her daughter how to seduce the village benefactor. I watched her die of pain and I couldn’t do anything to save her, I was heavy with the baby and everybody I ran to never listened to me because I was an item of shame and even the kind hearted ones had been warned by the village elders not to involve themselves in anything that concerned me or my mother.’
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 14 Part 10
She paused to sniff in and clean her eyes.
‘I tried to take my life after my mother’s death but I wouldn’t just die and everytime, the baby would still kick to inform me that she was alive and still willing to come out anytime soon,’ she let out a brief smile at this point and sniffed in before she continued again. ‘But everytime she kicked, I was reminded that I was an item of shame and the living thing kicking inside of me was the reason. Sometimes, I had dreams that the baby would become someone great and be a solution to the problems of many if I kept it but everytime I woke up to reality and found myself on the streets of the village, streams and farmyard, the people and environment constantly reminded me of how the child came and how shameful it was to keep it. The torments overshadowed the good dreams and as the delivery period drew closer, I began to have only nightmares. I couldn’t keep the baby because I thought I would die of the memory, but…’ she took another pause and closed her eyes briefly. ‘I wish I had listened to the Danjumas, perhaps, I could have gotten a better life and the baby would have remained alive if I kept it myself.’
She ended her story and wiped her face again with the white sheet on the bed. She looked up and was surprised to see tears in Tarasha’s eyes.
Tarasha saw the surprised look in Madam Henrietta’s face and realized that the tears in her eyes was the cause of the surprise. She quickly tried to wipe her face but it was late, it had already created an effect in Madam Henrietta’s mind.
‘What’s wrong? Is anything the matter?’ Madam Henrietta asked. For the first time, she clearly saw the humanity in Samantha Osman. She had always thought Samantha was a ruthless assassin who had lost every iota of feeling and sympathy and always believed that her seemingly kind acts were just a pretense to get her prey.
‘Nothing,’ Tarasha forced out a smile. ‘I only remembered a similar story.’
‘You had a similar story to this?’ Madam Henrietta asked. She had suddenly become interested in the assassin’s personal life. ‘Can you share with me your story?’
‘Don’t bother about my story, you would find out very soon.’ Tarasha replied. She drew in a breath and wiped her face with a handkerchief. ‘So do you know the baby’s name?’
‘Her name was Omotara,’ she replied.
‘So how did you confirm that she died?’
‘She lived with the Danjuma’s family and they were reported to have died in a terrorist attack. At first, the kids were reported to have been kidnapped alongside other children but few days later, all the kidnapped kids died in an accident.’
‘Were the names of the kids involved in the accident listed out?’
‘Yeah, two of the Danjuma’s kids including my Omotara was listed.’ Madam Henrietta’s eyes got filled with tears again as she answered.
‘What if you found out that your daughter did not die in that accident?’ Tarasha asked.
Madam Henrietta raised her brow. She had never considered the possibility of her child having survived the accident announced.
‘If she did not die?’ she mumbled, staring at Tarasha’s face and wondering what she was driving at.
‘Yea.’
‘Do you know anything about the said accident?’
‘No, I don’t.’
‘So, why would you say it is possible my child survived out of those that died.’
‘I didn’t say that, I only asked what you would feel if you found out she did not die in that accident. That could mean she was never involved in the accident,’ Tarasha replied.
Madam Henrietta stared thinly at Tarasha’s face without words to say. Tarasha seemed to be confusing her unnecessarily with her words.
‘So, you were R@PED by a Chief right?’
‘Yes.’
‘He was also a lecturer who you went to seek admission help from?’
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 16 Part 2
‘Yes…he was,’ she replied slowly, trying to remember if she had mentioned that the Chief was also a lecturer.
‘So you gave birth to the baby in a forest and you were taken to a hospital by the Danjuma’s but you fled after three days of being admitted?’
Madam Henrietta was unable to close her mouth from the shock she got from Tarasha’s mentioning of the details she did not speak about.
‘Who are you?’ she asked in low tones, staring narrowly at her face.
Tarasha smiled. ‘So tell me, who was this Chief Lecturer who molested you?’
Madam Henrietta trembled in fear, still squinting at Tarasha. It seemed to her for a moment that she was sitting in front of a person with supernatural powers who was reading her past.
‘Who was the Chief?’ Tarasha asked again, seeing that she delayed the answer.
‘Chief Gabriel Oluwamurewa,’ she replied.
‘Is he still alive?’
‘Yes, I believe. He was sentenced to prison a long time ago and it was rumoured recently that he got out but no one knows where he is now.’
‘Ermm…’ Tarasha squinted as something rang in her head. ‘What did you call his name?’
‘Gabriel Oluwamurewa,’ the woman answered.
‘He was arrested for importation and distribution of fake and substandard drugs couple with some other financial crimes?’
‘Yes.’
Tarasha’s heartbeat increased without her consciousness. The description given by Madam Henrietta perfectly matched Chief Gab’s. She felt it strange that he could be her father, after working with him for several months there had been no connection whatsoever. Even the books which contained his past which he shared with her never contained the records or any information linking to her birth.
‘Is there a problem?’ Madam Henrietta asked as Tarasha got up. She had noticed a change in the young lady’s mood and did not understand her reactions.
‘No, there’s none.’ Tarasha replied without turning back. She couldn’t face the woman for the fear of revealing her weakness.
‘Do you know anything about Gabriel Oluwamurewa?’
‘No,’ Tarasha replied, still without turning back. ‘Sorry, I have to go now,’ she quickly added. ‘Your food would be brought in soon.’
Madam Henrietta watched in awe as she walked out of the room.
_
Tarasha walked straight to her room to find Henry seated at the edge of the bed. He had his head bowed with the forehead resting on his palm and the elbow resting on his knee.
Tarasha’s mixed feelings temporarily disappeared on seeing Henry’s position, he didn’t bother to take a look up even when she entered. She knew something was obviously wrong with him.
‘Henry, what’s wrong?’ she asked as she moved closer. She sat beside him and placed a hand on his shoulder.
He lifted his head slowly, his eyeballs were slightly red and his face gloomy.
‘I’m feeling a terrible headache, I can’t even think or do anything properly.’ he managed to reply.
‘Have you told the doctor?’ She asked.
‘Not yet,’ he replied. ‘I’m still wondering what’s happening to me.’
‘Let me get the doctor immediately,’ she said and tried to get up but he held her back.
‘What did he say happen to me the last time?’
‘Which last time?’ she asked as her eyebrows gathered together slowly.
‘The last time I collapsed and was in coma for some days, I’m feeling the same way I felt when I woke that day and I’m scared I may collapse soon again.’
‘No, that won’t happen.’ Tarasha got up. She remembered the collapse story that was told to Henry and recalled it was only made up but it wasn’t time to tell Henry the truth about it yet. ‘I’ll go get the doctor for you now.’
She walked out of the room and returned to minutes later with the doctor who walked straight to Henry.
‘Henry, please tell me exactly how you feel.’ the doctor said..
Henry explained in details to the doctor the feeling he had. After listening for few minutes, the doctor took out a thermometer to check his temperature..
‘I think this is a result of stress,’ the doctor gave his verdict. ‘You’ve not properly recovered from the last time and you’ve been giving yourself so much stress recently.’
‘But what really happened to me the last time?’ Henry looked up and asked.
The doctor flashed a brief look at Tarasha’s face and she looked back at him expressionlessly.
Henry caught the doctor’s gaze and detected that he was hiding something which Tarasha knew about.
‘So much of work then, barely time to relax and calm your nerves.’ the doctor fumbled.
‘I see….’ Henry replied and then looked at Tarasha’s face.
‘Let me get some drugs for you right away,’ the doctor said and excused himself.
‘Tara, talk to me. Is there something the doctor is hiding from me?’
Tarasha stared at his face. ‘Hiding?’
‘Yes, it seems like I have a terrible health condition and he doesn’t want me to know yet.’
‘There’s nothing of such Henry,’ Tara replied.
‘Please Tara, tell me the truth.’ Henry pleaded.
‘Nothing man, no one is hiding any truth from you.’
Henry inhaled deeply. His stare lingered on her face for a while and he wondered if she could be deceiving him. He licked his lips slowly and closed his eyes as he inhaled again. He decided not to ask about about the occurence any longer.
‘I need to meet the doctor and colelct the drugs from him,’ he said as he got up from the seat.
‘He’d bring it in,’ she answered him, wondering why he needed to get up. ‘You should take some rest after taking the drugs and not go back to the control room for now.’
‘I know,’ Henry replied her but continued towards the door stubbornly. He stopped as he touched the knob and turned back. ‘I need to go back even if it’s for a minute, the application recorded some calls already this morning.’
‘Oh!’ She frowned her face. ‘Is the application not user friendly, I could help you monitor it instead.’
Henry raised a brow. ‘It’s user friendly but I still think you should come with me right away, I’d show you what you need to know.’
Ten Minutes after Henry took the drugs the doctor gave to him, he sat in front of the main computer in the control room and Tarasha was sitting behind him. He had his right hand on the mouse as he explained the use of the software to Tarasha.
The software had already taken records of six calls and a text message. Henry took some few minutes to explain the use of the software to her before they proceeded to listen to the recorded calls.
The first call was from Agent James to the Vice President and the record was for twenty seconds. Henry played and they listened to it together. They heard James asking his father if he was still home and what his plans for the day were. The Vice President’s reply was that he had no plans for the day except for the interrogative session he was scheduled to attend. The Vice President also complained to his son that the President, the senate and some prominent citizens were intensifying the pressure on him to resign from office.
James reply to his father’s complain of pressure was what caught Tarasha and Henry’s attention more. Theyhad to replay the audio twice again. James had said to his father in an assuring tone not to sucuumb to the pressure that all will be over ny the next day. It got Tarasha and Henry thinking and they wondered what plan James had for his father that made him sound so sure that his father would stop facing the pressure from the next day.
‘Have you been monitoring James?’ she stopped to ask Henry.
‘Kind of, but not fully.’ Henry replied in a stressed tone. He was feeling weak but unwilling to leave the control room yet, so he put up a fake strong expression.
‘Do you think he’s trying to kill someone for his father?’
‘Well, I don’t know. But what if he’s trying to kill, are we gonna stop him?’
‘No, of course not. We’ll only capture him do and show it to the whole world after.’
‘Sounds like a nice plan,’ Henry chuckled. He clicked on play for the second audio. It was a call from James to an unknown number which was however revealed by the application. Henry copied the revealed number and minimized the software, he opened the real caller software and pasted it into a dialog box and pressed the enter button. He switched back to the previous software and continued to listen to the new audio.
‘Hello Mr Fidelis, Agent James on the line,’ James voice sounded first.
‘Agent James, I was about calling you.’ the call receiver replied.
‘Do you have all the docvments set already,’ James’ voice sounded again.
‘Yea, I do. It’s only left for him to input his new signature,’ the voice replied.
‘Okay, I’ll call him to send his signature now and send it to you as soon as I get it.’
The audio ended and James switched to the real caller application. It had already finished processing and had the details of the user with the phone number displayed.
Name: Fidelis Omayin
sëx : Male
Date Of Birth: 29-06-1983
Marital Status: Married to Jenifer Omayin
Home Address: 34, Obalow, Kuje, Abuja.
Office Address: Block 54, Jewel Road Gwagalda, Abuja.
Occupation : Immigrations Officer
Place Of Employment: Nigerian Immigrations Service
‘Hey! I think this man is trying to flee,’ Tarasha raised her voice as it suddenly occured to her.
Henry turned to look at her face. ‘I think so too, he’s trying to get a new identity and leave the country.’
‘Lets check the next recorded file.’
Henry switched back to the application and played the next audio. The call was from Agent James to the Vice President again.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 15 Part 3
‘Dad, I already asked you to chose a new signature. Pleasd sign it on a plain sheet, take a shot and send it to me on whatsapp.’
‘Okay, I’ll do that right away.’
The call ended with that.
‘Can this application read their Whatsapp messages?’
‘No Tara, it’s quite difficult to gain access to Whatsapp messages as a third party. It would take a longer time for me to build something that can access user’s messages and they have enough competent employees that’ll probably detect the bug early and block it.’
‘Okay, let’s just go through the rest of the calls for now.’ Tarasha said.
Henry felt some more heaviness in his head as he turned his face from Tarasha back to the computer. He tried to hide his facial expressin from her but she took note of it.
‘I think you gotta rest now,’ she said as she got up from her feet and placed her hands on his shoulder. ‘I’ll continue with this and you’d catch up when you’re better.
He hesitated for a while before he picked his phone and stood up. She sat on the seat he got up from and watched as he walked out of the control room.
_
Henry had just stepped out of the control room when his phone vibrated. He looked at the screen to see what notification it was, it was a text message. He sighed as he already guessed the source of the text message. He swiped down the notification bar and saw another message challenging him about the safety of his mother.
__
LOCATION: ABUJA
Rex flashed a quick look around the airport after he took his last step down the plane. He began to proceed with the other passengers slowly, taking note of everything around him. He believed it was possible the Vice President had other motives for asking him to Abuja and he wasn’t ready to give any chance for himself to be deceived.
His phone beeped as he stepped into the hall. He dipped his hand into his pocket and took out his phone without bothering to stop. He unlocked it and opened the new text message. The address for him to meet Agent James had been sent. He read through the message twice and tried to see if he had been to the location before.
Another message popped in just as he exited the messaging app. This time it was a text message from his subscription to the Youngicee News Portal.
‘Breaking News: Inspector General Rikau to Undergo Surgery tomorrow.’
He was about to exit again when another message entered.
‘Breaking News: Vice President Invited Publicly by EFCC amidst pressure to resign.’
He locked his phone and returned it into his pocket immediately. He hastened his steps after gettingout of the building. He proceeded towards the car park and soon located the vehicle waiting for him.
___
LOCATION: GRAVL AVENUE, LAGOS.
Three people were seated in Chief Gabriel’s living room; he, his wife and Chief Nonso. They appeared to be in a joyous mood, each one had a pack of juice and glass cup in front. They were watching a comedy program on TV and were discussing about it. After the program ended, Mrs Gabriel got up and took an empty plate into the kitchen.
Chief Gab picked up the remote control and reduced the volume of the television, he shifted to the edge of the three seater sofa towards Chief Nonso.
‘Chief Nonso, so tell me what plans you have for the moment?’
‘I think I told you most of them already,’ Chief Nonso replied. ‘I’ve not made any changes.’
‘So you still insist on not contesting even after Elvis Richards is totally out?’ Chief Gab questioned.
‘I’m not pulling out because of Elvis Richards, I’m just being careful and strategic. If you carefully observe the situation, you will realize that my chances of winning the election this year are very slim. The best thing to do is to wait and contest in the next one.’
‘Well, I respect your choice and I can’t force anything on you.’ Chief Gabriel said. He shifted back towards the stool where his cup of juice was and picked the cup. ‘But what do you think about Samantha Osman’s job?’ he asked after taking a sip. ‘I think she has done better than we expected.’
‘I love the way she did not need to kill the Vice President but made sure he faces disgrace, I think that’s a crueller punishment than death.’
‘He still needs to die however,’ Chief Gab said. ‘The Elvis Richards I know is a stubborn one and does not give up easily, if we don’t silence him totally, he can spring up again at any time.’
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 22 Part 11
‘Maybe you should remind Samantha that you need him totally dead,’ Chief Nonso suggested.
‘I don’t think she has forgotten that, I emphasized it the last time we met.’ Chief Gab replied.
‘I believe what she’s doing is weakening him first, she’d definitely bring him down.’
Chief Gab was yet to reply when he received text message on his phone. ‘Talk of the devil,’ he said to Chief Gab with a grin as he showed him the screen. ‘She just sent me a text message,’ he added as he opened the message. ‘She wants us to meet today, let me call her to find out when we should meet.’
Chief Gab dialled the number and placed it close to his ear. ‘Hello Tarasha,’ he said into the phone.
‘Chief Gab, good afternoon. Get dressed, I’m on my way to your apartment.’
‘Huh? You’re on your way here? I just got your text message,’ Chief Gab replied with surprise in his tone.
‘Yeah, I’ll be there in the next twenty minutes, get dressed.’ she replied.
‘Where am I going to? Where are you taking me to?’ he asked.
‘Stay relaxed man, we just need somewhere good to talk out of the usual environment.’
‘Okay, I’m waiting for you.’
Chief Gab took the phone off his ear slowly. He wondered why she wanted to take him out before they talked but there was something about Tarasha’s voice that sounded so different and made him feel unafraid about going somewhere out of his comfort zone with her.
‘What did she say?’ Chief Nonso who had been waiting for a feedback asked impatiently.
Chief Gab looked at his face and saw the eager look on his face. He didn’t feel like telling the man what Tarasha had just told him but their promise not to hide things from each other made him speak.
‘She asked me to dress up, she’s coming to pick me and we are going out to have a discussion.’
‘Where’s she taking you to?’
‘I don’t know, I didn’t ask but she says somewhere out of the usual environment.’
‘What does she mean by that?’
‘Well, I don’t know. I think she just wants to take me out from a place I’m used to.’
‘Hmm,’ Chief Nonso shook his head in a suspicious manner.
Chief Gab inhaled and exhaled noisily. Then he got up from his seat and picked the keys to his room from the centre table.
‘Let me go freshen up before she gets here,’ he said to Chief Nonso.
‘What? You’re really going with her?’ Chief Nonso raised his brows surprisingly at him.
‘Yea, do I have a choice?’ he blinked and proceeded towards the door.
‘Can’t you tell her to choose a known location?’
Chief Gab stopped at entrance of the hallway, ‘I told you I don’t have a choice, do you think we can stop her if she wants to do anything bad to us?’
Chief Gab’s words instantly brought something to Chief Nonso’s rememberance. He got up from his seat and walked slowly towards Chief Gab.
‘You once said we’d eliminate her after she finishes this mission, do you still have a plan for that?’
‘No,’ he shook his head. ‘Not yet but it won’t be difficult to get a plan. Even though she’s efficient in her job, she’s young and do not have the experience we have. We’d definitely defeat her with the wisdom of the elderly.’
Chief Nonso stared at Gab’s face for a while. Defeating Tarasha seemed impossible to him but he had learnt to trust Chief Gab, he believed Chief Gab would get it done just as he said.
___
52 minutes later.
‘Where are we going to?’ Chief Gab asked for the umpteenth time. They had been driving in the car for about thirty minutes and Tarasha had not mentioned any word to him apart from her greetings which she did before he entered the vehicle.
For some reasons, Chief Gab wasn’t scared even with Tarasha’s silence. She didn’t look to him like someone who had come to hurt him.
Tarasha kept glancing at his face every time he asked a question but refused to reply him. She had made up her mind not to say anything to him until she got back to the base with him. She herself did not completely understand why she was bringing him with her. She told herself that it was to confirm if he was really her father like her mother said but deep down inside she knew she was lying to herself but refused to acknowledge. She was bringing him with her because she was afraid. She couldn’t point to what she was really afraid of but all on her mind was to get the man to safety first. She believed Rex must have discovered that she didn’t kill Madam Henrietta but took her out alive and Rex would have began to make investigations on why she was so important to be rescued. She didn’t want to take any chances.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 15 Part 10
They drove into the new base fifteen minutes after and Tarasha finally spoke to him after halting the car in the park.
‘We are here now, we’d talk about everything we need to talk about.’ She said to him as she opened the door and stepped out. He also stepped out and followed after her as she led him into the main building.
She took note of a vehicle in the car park as she walked towards the building and deduced that Cole was back.
Cole was the first person she met in the living room. He was carrying his laptop in his hands as he proceeded to a sofa.
‘Welcome boss,’ Cole greeted as he spotted Tarasha. He smiled as he spotted Chief Gab behind Tarasha but did not say any word to the man.
‘Cole, how did it go?’
‘It went well, they agreed to follow all my instructions and yours too.’
‘Nice to hear that,’ Tarasha replied. She led Chief Gab on into the hallway and into an unoccupied room where there were only few furnitures. ‘You can take your seat,’ she said pointing a sofa to the man.
Chief Gab silently obeyed eveen though he had several awakward thoughts running through his mind. He couldn’t come up with a clear reason why Tarasha could have brought him to where seemed as their operation base, he knew she was up to something but wh@tëver she was up to seemed weird to him.
She dragged a plastic chair to his front and sat on it. She took a moment to stare into his eyes and read the expression on his face. She however felt no connection to the man her mother called her father, or maybe it was just because she was already expecting too much.
Chief Gab knew it was time for them to discuss but the long stare Tarasha made into his eyes made him more confused.
‘Chief Gabriel Oluwamurewa,’ she called softly, staring into his eyes. He stared back at her. It was the first time she called his full name. ‘What do you know about me?’
Chief Gab squinted at her. ‘What do I know about you? I know you are Tarasha and you are from the Nefary Clan.’
‘What do you know about my past? What do you know about my origin?’
Chief Gab began to sweat. He knew she was Nigerian and one of the kids that must have been taken out of the country during the Boko Haram Insurgency period. He was scared that she about to connect him to the insurgency in the past and bring out his faults.
‘I… don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he stammered.
‘You were one of the men that worked with the terrorist group to transport young kids out of the country to the Nefary clan, I’m sure you know what I’m talking about.’
‘Yes…I know, I always thought you were one of those kids. I truly regret all that we did in those days, I wished I was never part of them.’
Tarasha was silent for a while.
‘How many children did you have in the past before you married your new wife?’
‘Only three kids and they were all murdered by Elvis Richards men with my wife.’
‘You had no other child out of wedlock?’
He stopped to think and shook his head. ‘No, I had no child with any other woman apart from my late wife.’
‘Think well Chief, think.’
Chief Gab was puzzled. He searched his brain for a while but couldn’t remember anything.
‘I had no other child,’ he answered.
‘You had no other child with another woman which you rejected?’
‘No,’ he denied.
‘And you never molested any woman?’
‘No, I never did.’ he replied, raising his voice out of fear.
Tarasha was beginning to get angry. She got up from the chair and kicked it away.
‘Gabriel Oluwamurewa,’ she called out fiercely. ‘You worked as a lecturer in a reputable University in the country, did you ever molest any lady and deny her pregnancy?’
Chief Gab was now trembling all over. He regretted not listening to Chief Nonso’s advice not to go with her.
He closed his eyes and thought deeply. He was able to locate the incident she was referring to in his memory. His vibration increased out of his feeling of guilt.
‘You molested a teenager and refused to take responsibility,’ she barked at him.
He shook his head on fear, he was sweating all over and almost peeing in his boxers.
‘I…did…not,’ he denied.
You molested a teenager and refused to take responsibility,’ she barked at him.
He shook his head in fear, he was sweating all over and almost peeing in his boxers.
‘I…did…not,’ he denied.
Tarasha stared at him in anger. She had a gun in her pocket and wouldn’t have hesitated to shoot him if she hadn’t learn that he was her biological father. However, her patience with him was slowly running out and she was sure she was going to do something crazy to him if he kept on denying the truth.
She decided to help me confess quicker by threatening him, she took out a knife from her left side and placed her hand on his shoulder, making the cold blade touch his neck.
His whole body shivered and his lips trembled as he stared into her eyes. He remained careful enough not to move his neck, he was sure the shiny metal would cut into his skin at the slightest mistake.
‘Tara!’ someone barged into the room uninvited.
She turned back angrily and saw Henry standing at the entrance. He looked surprised on seeing her in that position but refused to give much attention to wh@tëver she was doing with the man.
‘You need to come now, we’ve got something to settle.’ Henry said to her in an urgent tone.
She took a look at Chief Gab again before returning her knife to where she pulled it out from. Then after a little hesitation, she turned and followed Henry. On their way to the computer room, she called Nicholas and asked him to take care of a new hostage she put in room AB.
Henry led her hurriedly into the computer room. After sleeping for three hours, he had woken up feeling better. He had taken his meal and drugs before going back to the control room where he found more calls already being recorded by the new application. It gave him more hints and with that he was able to dig deeper into the immigrations service website and pull out some information.
‘I returned here about an hour ago to listen to the recorded calls and I met new ones gotten by the app,’ Henry began his explanation after sitting behind the control system. ‘I have been able to connect their plans and I’m certain like you wrote in the notes that the Vice President is planning to escape.’
He stopped and opened a saved page on the browser. ‘Here,’ he said, pointing a line of texts to Tarasha. ‘He’s going to change his name and disguise as this new person,’ he said as he enlarged a new picture.
Tarasha chuckled. ‘They haven’t got time to do a plastic surgery, I believe they plan to disguise him with the use of makeups.’
‘Yea sure, that’ll make it a not-too-easy process for them.’ Henry replied and then continued with his explanation. ‘Luckily for us, the immigrations officer had his profile on Facebook public and had his profile email on it, I was able to hack into his email and extract some data. He also had the mistake of using the same password for his Google account, I was able to access his Google account and verify the log in without him getting a prompt on his device. With it we’d be able to follow his location and locations of all the devices he has signed up on.’
‘But why do we need to follow his location? Is he going to be with the Vice President?’
‘Yes, he’s moving with them to Lagos this evening.’
‘Is there no way to track Elvis Richards himself?’
‘For now, we can still track Elvis Richards but I don’t think we’d be able to keep tracking him,’ Henry replied.
‘Why?’ Tarasha asked.
‘Did you listen to the last phone call among the first set of recorded calls?’
‘Yes, the one with Rex. Rex’s responses were not recorded,’ Tarasha replied.
‘And that’s because the device he uses is highly secured. From the phone call, we know that Rex should be in Abuja right now. My thoughts are that Rex is intelligent enough to keep Elvis Richards not trackable to us. I’m sure that’s one of the reasons he was called over.’
‘By what time are they leaving for Lagos?’ Tarasha asked as she adjusted her sitting position and pressed the boot button on the CPU in front of her.
‘Tonight, they would make a night trip and get here in the early hours tomorrow.’
‘And what do they do after getting here tomorrow?’
‘I’m not sure but I have an idea I pulled out from available information,’ Henry cleared his throat. ‘I don’t think they’d be stopping over anywhere, they’d be moving straight out of Lagos through a different means of transportation.’
‘What other means are you talking about?’
‘I’m not sure of what it is, but I know they ain’t moving from here by land.’
‘We need to have a strong plan,’ Tarasha said thoughtfully.
‘What do you think?’
‘I don’t have a plan yet, I’m thinking how possible it would be to release their plans on my blog and make them fall into the hands of the police. Putting it on the blog will expose him to the world, and then the police catching him will give him some of the punishment he deserves.’ Tarasha replied.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 22 Part 6
Henry narrowed his gaze thoughtfully. ‘Setting them up to walk into the hands of the police is a great one but putting it up on your blog could totally destroy our chances of getting them.’ Henry replied.
‘Why do you say so?’ Tarasha questioned.
‘Rex is with them and he could make sure that they do not get caught by the police even if we feed the police with information, but putting it on the blog will make it so obvious that we are aware of their secret plans and it might be difficult to know what they’re doing anymore if they escape the police by chance.’
‘Hmm…’ Tarasha turned away and pondered on his wordc for a while. She realized he had analyzed it accurately and wondered why she didn’t think the same way. Her mind was filled with distractions which wasn’t allowing her focus on the mission.
‘But we can ensure that the police arrests the Vice President by being there with them, we can stop Rex from stopping them and then the officers will arrest the Vice President in his disguised form and show him to the whole world. It would be a huge disgrace to him.’
‘Nice plan,’ Tarasha shook her head and forced out a smile. She close dher eyes briefly and took in a deep breath, trying to refocus her mind properly. ‘The Vice President is already being watched by men of the DSS, how does he plan to get out of his house tonight without them knowing?’
‘I’m quite sure he’d get out without them knowing, that’s the reason for the disguise and the reason for Rex’s presence.’ Henry replied her.
‘Okay, we’d follow your plan. We’d let out the information to the security operatives and also be there to ensure that the Vice President does not escape,’ she said as she got up to her feet. She stared blankly at the wall for a moment. She needed to clear of her head so that she could concentrate on the task ahead. She decided she was going to settle all she needed to settle with Chief Gab and Madam Henrietta that night for her mind to be cleared before the next days’ task. ‘I’ll give instructions to Cole and Nicholas to start with the plans, I need to settle some other issues right away.’ she said to Henry before walking out of the control room.
Henry watched her leave. He had forgotten to ask why she had Chief Gab locked up in a room. It was obvious she was hiding a lot from him and the rest of the team but wh@tëver it was, he believed that time would tell.
He closed the running process on the application and returned to the dashboard. He saw a new notification, the app had been able to fetch some of the NSCC footages he requested for. He download the footages into a folder.
__
Nicholas walked into the room where the hostage was with the rope in his hands. He wasn’t sure of what to do. Tarasha had called him to take care of the hostage and had also warned him to treat the hostage gently. Their treatment of hostages was usually not a gentle treatment and that was the reason for his confusion. He had the rope in his hands but he did not know whether treating the hostage rightly meant tying him gently to the chair or not tying him at all.
As he moved closer to the hostage, he realized that he was a very known man to him. He had at once worked with Don Dan on an assignment for the Chief.
‘What are you doing here Chief Gabriel?’ Nicholas asked in low tones as he moved closer to the seat.
Chief Gabriel stared at Nicholas’ face for a moment. It looked so familiar but he couldn’t remember where he had met him before. He didn’t know what reply to give Nicholas, all he could do was ask for help.
‘Please, how can you get me out of here?’ Chief Gab pleaded.
Nicholas squinted. ‘I just asked what you were doing here,’ he said with a disgusted look on his face. ‘I can’t get you out of here, I’m here to make sure you don’t escape.’ Nicholas added with an evil grin showing him the ropes in his hands.
‘Please don’t do that,’ Chief Gab was terrified on seeing the rope, actually thinking that Nicholas would use the rope to flog him. He tried to get up from the seat but Nicholas pushed him back forcefully.
He took out a gun and ÇOçked it to threaten the man. ‘You should allow me do what I need to do without struggles, I could actually decide to go the violent way.’
Chief Gab stared at him shakily but realized that the rope was so long and was for something else other than flogging him. Nicholas squatted in front of the man and began with tying the man’s hands.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 18 Part 10
‘Did she sent you to tie me?’ Chief Gab asked calmly. He did not put up any resistance
Nicholas considered the question as a stupid one and did not bother to reply.
‘Please, she’s getting this all wrong. If she would only allow me to explain to her,’ he protested only with wordc.
‘Tell me, what is she getting wrong?’ Nicholas took a pause and asked the man, hoping to extract some useful information. ‘She’s asking if I R@PED someone some years ago which I never did, I don’t know why she’s so sure I did.’
Nicholas continued immediately with tying his ropes. ‘If she is so sure you R@PED the girl, then you truly did. She doesn’t act on assumptions, she only acts on confirmed facts.’
Nicholas’ response totally shattered Chief Gab’s heart. Nicholas had not even heard an explanation from him before believing Tarasha’s side of the story. Maybe it was finally time for him to accept the responsibility which he had refused twenty five years ago.
Nicholas hurried to the living room where Tarasha had asked him to meet her. He found her standing at the centre, the centre table had been moved aside, Cole was standing some metres away and also facing her. He stood beside Cole and took a quick glance at Cole before fixing his gaze on Tarasha’s face.
‘Our sources just revealed to us that Vice President Elvis Richards would be leaving Abuja tonight to Lagos. He’s under close watch and we don’t know what his plans are but our plans are to welcome him when he arrives during the early hours of tomorrow morning. I’d lead the team tomorrow, all you’d need to do is listen through your earphones and act on every instruction I give to you. I want Elvis Richards dead but I must kill him with my hands.’
She stopped for a while and stared at their faces. She began to walk in an imaginary circle around them. She stopped in front of them and spoke up again after a minute. ‘Get the extra speed weapons ready, get the cars ready and get the maps ready. Remind yourself of the tactics used in the route games you’ve played, we probably would need them in this task.’ she stopped again and was silent for about ten seconds. ‘This could be our last task and we have to treat it carefully, no mistakes and no delays. No one should be a loophole,’ she stared at Cole’s face intently after her last sentence and then stared at Nicholas’ face for a shorter moment. ‘You can go start the preparations now,’ she said with a dismissal tone.
They both turned at the same time and headed into the hallway together.
Tarasha took in a deep breath. She looked at the wall clock and mumbled the time under her breath. She closed her eyes again, she needed to deal with her personal issue quick before it interferes with the task ahead.
She was horrified to find Chief Gab tied to the chair when she returned into the room. She stopped at the middle of the room and felt terrified by the horrific feeling she had when she saw him. She was scared for herself. It was obvious she had fallen so weak by her feelings and it could affect her if she did not apply caution. Her anger for him had suddenly vanished with the little space of time she had spent being away from him but she was sure it would return once he continues to deny what he was accused of.
She closed her eyes and took some time to compose herself before moving. She walked straight to him and took off the ropes.
Chief Gab watched in silence as she untied the ropes. He didn’t understand what was going on and how to react to it. She finished untying him and flung the rope to the ground. She then stepped back and stared at his face for a second.
‘Tarasha, would you allow me explain how it happened to you now?’
Tarasha was yet to reply him when the door behind opened and Madam Henrietta walked into the place followed closely by the doctor. Tarasha stepped away from his front to enable him see who was coming. She took a glance at the woman’s face and then looked at Chief Gab’s face to see his expression. She pulled a chair closer fit Madam Henrietta to sit.
Madam Henrietta recognized Chief Gab immediately she set her eyes on him. Instantly, tears filled her eyes as memories of the past returned to her mind. She stopped at the middle of the room for a while and began to weep. She had just seen the man who turned her life around, the man who because of his uncontrollable lust killed her dreams forever.
Chief Gab kept wondering who she was and why she was in tears. He stared at Tarasha’s face with raised eyebrows, hoping Tarasha will say something concerning what was happening.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 21 Part 6
‘Thanks Doctor, you may leave.’ Tarasha said to the Doctor who was still waiting for further instructions. He turned and proceeded out of the room slowly. ‘Please have your seat Mrs Henrietta,’ Tarasha said to her after the doctor had gone out. She turned to the other side and stood at the middle of the space between the man and the woman.
She stared at Chief Gab’s face again. He stared back at her with a confused look on his face, he still seemed not to know what was happening. She turned her eyes to Madam Henrietta. The woman was now seated and had wiped the tears off her face.
It suddenly occurred to Chief Gab that the woman sitting in front of him could be Adunni who he denied impregnating several years ago but he wondered how Tarasha could have found out about it and what business she had to do with it. He stared at the woman’s face for a little longer, it didn’t seem to him like she could be Adunni, she looked quite too sophisticated to be that village girl. Furthermore, he had heard several years after that Adunni ran away from the clinic with the baby and the two vanished into thin air and probably had died.
‘Do you remember this woman?’ Tarasha finally spoke.
Chief Gab shook his head. ‘No,’ he replied. Truthfully, he did not recognize her.
She turned to Madam Henrietta, ‘Do you recognize him?’
The woman nodded affirmatively while Chief Gab stared in surprise. ‘He’s the man, that lecturer who R@PED me and denied it.’
Chief Gab’s heart began to beat at an abnormal rate. His fears had just been confirmed. He never in his wildest imaginations think that such a day as this would come. He glanced at Madam Henrietta’s face briefly and then tried to picture the face of young Adunni. He could now see the resemblance, he could also see the striking resemblance between Madam Henrietta and Adunni’s mother. Adunni had grown up to look so much like her mother.
Chief Gab’s eyes met with Tarasha’s and he could see the fire in her eyes burning angrily. His bladder suddenly became full and he couldn’t control himself as urine began to drop from his organ.
‘I’m…sorry… I can explain all that happened,’ he stammered as he dropped to his knees.
Tarasha felt tears well up in her eyes but she raised her head up and sniffed in, trying to stop the tears from dropping.
‘I totally regret all that happened that year and…’ he prostrated on the floor before her in frustration as he pleaded.
‘Let’s get out of here,’ Tarasha said and stretched her palm out to Madam Henrietta. The woman held her hand and got up. They both walked out of the room without listening anymore to Chief Gab.
___
Henry was filled with anger after taking his time to watch the downloaded footages. He now had the explanation for so many things which he had been seeking for. He renamed the folder where the footages were saved. He maximized the browser and switched to a tab where he logged in to his Google account. After logging in, he clicked the link to Google drive and waited for it to load. He needed to save the footages online for future reference.
___
Tarasha walked with Madam Henrietta to the room she had been assigned since she was fit enough to leave the medical room.
Madam Henrietta sat at the edge of the bed and Tarasha sat beside her.
‘How is your belly wound?’ Tarasha asked, not looking at the woman’s face but facing the wall in front of her.
‘Better, thanks.’ Madam Henrietta glanced at Tarasha’s face. She noticed Tarasha wasn’t looking at her but appeared to be lost in thoughts. She wondered if Tarasha was really a caring person or if she was just putting up the act to get something she wanted. She concluded that it was this part of Samantha Osman Stephanie had seen which made the girl always comfortable being with the assassin.
‘What would you do if you see your daughter now?’ Tarasha’s voice sounded after a minute.
Madam Henrietta flashed a quick glance at her. She didn’t know what response to give. She didn’t know if seeing her daughter which she thought was dead would make her feel happy or make her sad, she was full of regrets for neglecting the baby when she was supposed to take care of it.
‘My daughter is dead, even Stephanie who was my daughter has now been taken away from me by her real mother.’
‘Your daughter is alive,’ Tarasha said and turned her face to the woman for the first time since they entered that room.
The woman stared at her with a confused look.
‘I’m Omotara, the daughter you gave birth to in the forest.’
‘Hey Steph! Where have you been?’
Steph smiled on hearing the scream of her course mate. She was finally retuning to school, four weeks after resumption. That was against her usual manner. She always resumed at least, a week after resumption and joined the executives of the SWAD to preach the gospel of the group especially to the fresh students. This time around, she was the leader and was supposed to lead the team in recruiting more members but she wasn’t available. They believed in carrying out the recruitment so early before the students get themselves exposed to other things and probably even involved in vices.
‘You heard I was kidnapped right?’ she replied the friend.
‘Yes, but I never heard that you’ve been found.’ the girl at the other end replied.
‘You are the first person I’m calling,’ Stephanie said.
‘I see, where exactly are you calling from and what happened to you?’
‘Don’t worry, I would explain everything to you when we see. I would present myself to the police tomorrow and explain what happened to me. For now, I want you to start organizing the team. We have to begin our normal activities for the semester, or have you guys met at all since we resumed?’
‘Yes, we met twice already but we really had no strong direction since you were not around and we knew the circvmstances surrounding your disappearance. I’ve just been able to convince the rest of the team that we have to continue our activities without you.’
‘Please, you really have to start. I would resume back to school as soon as possible.’
‘Wow! Steph, I’m so glad to hear from you tonight. I’m happy you’re alive and coming back to school soon.’
‘I’m also glad to hear from you again.’
‘But Steph, won’t you tell me where you are?’
‘Not now Sinach, and please do not tell anyone yet that I called, please don’t.’ Stephanie pleaded, even though she knew it was impossible for her friend to remain quiet about the call. She was already hearing background voices of females, asking if it was really Stephanie George on the line.
‘So when are you coming to school?’
‘After I settle everything with the police.’
‘Please come back soon, I can’t wait to see you.’
‘Alright babe, see you soon.’
She took in a deep breath after putting down the phone. She wished she could just tell Sinach that she wasn’t far away from school and it would take less than twenty minutes to drive to her location, but that was against the instructions Cole had given her, and it wasn’t even safe for her to do.
____
Location: Abuja
Two men at the backseat of the vehicle and only the driver at the front. The older of the men had his laptop resting partially on his knees and his lap, he was sitting in a relaxed position. The other man who was younger was sitting up, checking an item on the laptop screen.
‘I do think I should take the lead in this, that guy doesn’t know we’ve been tracking him and it’ll spoil everything if he sees you at the front.’ the younger man said.
‘Yeah, I’ve thought about that before and I was thinking of you being at the forefront but then I remembered that the third party could see you and that may cause greater problems, especially for you.’
‘She?’
‘Yes, she could identify you immediately.’
‘Is there any way she would have found out about this?’ the younger man asked.
‘It’s possible she has already, I’ve been following the patterns closely while you were away and I can boldly tell you that she has her strange ways of always getting inside information.’
‘So, that means two of us aren’t the right ones to lead this?’
‘I guess so.’
‘But there’s a simple solution,’ the younger man said. The older one turned his gaze to him, ‘We can be at the front if we use a proper disguise and also thread carefully. We already have a strong weapon against them.’
‘I get you,’ the older man replied thoughtfully. He looked away for some seconds, thinking about his partner’s last statement. ‘What strong weapon are you talking about?’
‘The element of surprise,’ the younger one replied. ‘None of them would be aware that we’d be there and they won’t plan for us.’
The older man stared at his partner’s face for a while, a light smile appeared on his face. ‘You must be a real big criminal,’ he said jestingly. ‘You always sound like a very experienced detective who knows the patterns of criminals.’
The younger man smiled back. He was about to reply when the moving vehicle entered into a pothole and unbalanced them for a while. By the time the vehicle returned to the plain road, his phone was already ringing. He took out his phone and stared at the screen briefly, it took three seconds for the truecaller app to identify the name of the unknown caller. He smiled to himself on seeing the name, he had sent his phone number to the person by email and had waited so long to get this call.
____
The vehicles were moving already, a Camry sport series in front and a jeep behind. Both vehicles tried to drive as much as possible as if they had no relation with each other and took different short alternative routes, so that they would not be seen as connected together if anyone was watching.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 15 Part 2
The Vice President in his disguised costume was sitting with Rex at the backseat of the Camry sport series. Ayo, his PA was also disguised and was sitting in front with a driver. The jeep behind was occupied by some security officers who were loyal to the Vice President and at one time or the other carried out or were involved in illegal activities for the man. Four of them in the vehicle, none dressed in uniform but all armed to the teeth, extra weapons were hidden in a safe place in the car. The immigrations officer was also in the vehicle with them.
Elvis Richards had his eyes closed and head tilted backward but he wasn’t asleep. He was meditating on what his new life would look like and how it would feel living like an ordinary person after several years of being in leadership positions and in the government.
Rex on the other hand was busy with the device in his hand. He had gotten a message from Nicholas telling him that Samantha Osman’s team had learnt from a source that the Vice President was on his way to Lagos and they had plans to attack him even though he claimed she had not disclosed the plans. He had also gotten a voice recording but had not been able to deduce what the voice recording meant.
Rex had known it was possible for Samantha Osman to get an idea of their planned trip but he didn’t know how she was going to get it. On meeting Agent James that morning, he had advised Agent James that full information about the plan should not be given out yet to the people working with them. He now had in his mind the next step to take. The escorting security officials in the jeep would have to be led by Stainless while he, the Vice President, the immigrations officer and the Vice President’s PA would only have knowledge of the next step.
He pondered for a while and changed his mind about involving Ayo in the plan, he had only counted Ayo because the young man was trusted by the Vice President and the Vice President at several times had contacted him(Rex) through Ayo. But now, he knew he had to take Ayo out of the plans since Samantha Osman was getting information from a source which could be part of the team.
The Vice President’s phone rang and distracted him from his thoughts. He took it out and checked the caller, it was Agent Tim. He answered the call.
‘Hello Tim,’ he said into the phone.
‘Good evening sir,’ Agent Tim greeted. ‘Please where are you right now?’
‘Where am I? Where else am I supposed to be by this time of the night? I’m in my home of course.’
‘I’m sorry for not asking my question directly, but I just got a memo from the Acting Inspector General and we’ve been asked to confirm if you are still in your residence.’
‘What kind of thing is that? You people want to come into my house this night? That’s total disrespect and invasion of privacy,’ the Vice President sounded somewhat angry.
‘No, we can’t come into your residence this night but I just got a memo from the AIGP and I’ve been asked to follow a team of officers to join the secret officials that have been monitoring your movement. It’s as if the Inspector General got an information that you are planning to escape this night.’
‘But that’s preposterous, what kind of accusation is that? I think I’d have to sue the force for defamation of character once all this is over.’
‘I just said I should give you this information from the memo I got sir, I have to go now.’
‘Thank you Tim, have a goodnight rest.’
The Vice President ended the call and exhaled deeply. He glanced at Rex who was already looking at him.
‘You’re tensed man, you need to be stay calm.’
‘How can I be calm when nothing seems to be working. Someone has already hinted the Acting Inspector General of my plans to leave the house in Abuja,’ Elvis Richards replied, his eyes widely shone as he took his breaths heavily.
‘You need to relax and forget what happens elsewhere, I’ve got it in control.’ Rex replied.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes,’ Rex replied with a reassuring stern look. ‘You got out of your house unnoticed already, they would have to wait till morning before they can confirm that you’ve left the house.’
‘Are you sure no one really noticed when I left?’
Rex replied with a nod and looked away. He was sure none of the security officials secretly watching could have noticed the man was out of the house already. They left the house with a good plan. They had found a man of close size to the Vice President and disguised him in the same form and clothes worn by the Vice President. They drove into the Vice President’s house around four o’clock with the man at the backseat of the Camry sports car and the glasses open so that the secret stalkers would see him clearly. They drove out of the house by 5:30pm with the Vice President now disguised as the man and in the same clothes and sitting in the same position in the car. With that, they were sure that the DSS men would think the same man who was in the car driven in was the same one that came out with the same car.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 15 Part 12
‘Find a good space and pull over,’ Rex ordered the driver after some minutes.
The driver took a glance back at Rex and then glanced at the disguised Vice President to confirm if he should obey Rex’s order.
‘Pull over,’ the Vice President supported and then turned to Rex. ‘What do you want to do?’
‘Something we need to do,’ Rex replied him.
Elvis Richards trusted him and kept mute until the driver pulled over. Every one of them turned to Rex to see what he wanted to do.
Rex wound down the glass by his side and looked around briefly to see how safe the place was. He then turned and looked at Ayo, ‘Call the people in the Jeep to pull over behind us.’
Ayo looked at Chief Elvis who nodded in consent immediately. He took out his phone and made the call, he described the position where they parked and gave the instruction. They waited five minutes for the Jeep to get there.
Rex took a look back at Jeep for a moment, then he turned back to Ayo. ‘Get up and join them in that vehicle, tell the Immigrations officer to come here and the Jeep would continue to maintain the same distance from this car like it has.’
Ayo raised his brows and took a quick glance at Elvis Richards. The Chief nodded in consent still. Ayo took in a deep breath and stepped out of the vehicle hesitatingly. A minute later, the immigrations officer joined them.
Immediately after they continued the journey, Rex requested for the phone of the driver, he took out the sim cards in it and broke them before returning. He also changed the IMEI and some other details.
____
*Hours later*
Dakolo was sleeping off already when he got a call. He quickly picked the phone and looked at the caller, it was the IGP.
‘Good evening sir,’ he said into the phone in a surprised tone, wondering why the man was calling him at such a time of the day.
‘Good evening Officer Dakolo, we just got a mail from Samantha Osman some minutes ago and she claims the Vice President is planning to leave Abuja tonight. I already increased the number of officers monitoring him but I also want you to do some investigations by asking Agent James questions.’
‘Oh! I would start that right away,’ Dakolo replied. He sat up and picked the laptop which was by his side and placed it on his laps.
___
11:45PM
‘Finally we get his attention,’ Carl announced in a loud voice which made Eric looked towards his direction.
‘Is he calling?’ Eric turned to him and asked.
‘No, he sent a text message,’ Carl replied.
‘Hello guys,’ someone distracted them. They both looked towards the entrance as Victoria entered in unannounced.
‘Victoria, you’re late!’ Eric exclaimed.
‘Yes, I know. I had to wait and gather enough information,’ she replied as she walked elegantly to meet Carl. ‘I think I have an idea of where Samantha Osman will be tomorrow morning,’ she added as she picked a piece of carrot on Carl’s table and broke part into her mouth.
‘Where is that?’ Eric turned to her, she had been able to get his attention.
‘Attacking the Vice President at his location,’ she replied as she turned towards Eric while she leaned her bum against Carl’s table.
They both stared at her and demanded for more explanation.
‘She sent an email to the IGP and SSS Chairman today, she claims Chief Elvis Richards would escape his residence for Lagos tonight.’ Victoria replied.
Eric reasoned her words for a moment and then turned back to his laptop. ‘That’s vague, you haven’t mentioned where she would be yet.’
‘I’m sure she would try to attack the Vice President in Lagos.’
Eric glanced at her briefly and sighed uninterestingly. ‘If she sent a message to the SSS, isn’t it logical that she wants them to stop him? That means she wouldn’t be doing any attack.’
Victoria was blank for a moment. ‘She stated clearly in her message that the Vice President was going to be in Lagos tomorrow.’
‘I thought there were SSS men watching for the man not to escape?’ Carl put in.
‘Yes, the man is under close watch.’
‘Well, if you say her message made it certain that the Vice President would be in Lagos tomorrow, then we can make arrangements to follow them or choose to follow this new lead we have.’
_______
4:45AM
‘We’re in Lagos already,’ the driver announced to Rex who was the only one awake with him in the car. The others had slept off totally. Rex had also spent some time to sleep but not deeply, he stirred awake at almost every change of speed by the vehicle.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 21 Part 1
‘I can see it on my map,’ Rex replied. He was already viewing the map before the driver spoke.
‘So, what direction are we taking?’ the driver asked.
‘Drive to Ojota, we’d change the vehicle there and you’d take us to the next point.’ Rex replied him.
‘Where’s the next point?’ the driver asked him.
‘You’d know only when we get into the other car,’ Rex answered.
_____
5:06AM
‘They’re now in Ojota,’ Henry announced. The team of four were all sitting in a Chevrolet. Cole at the driver’s seat and Henry with him at the front while Nicholas was sitting with Tarasha at the backseat. The back doors of the vehicles were still opened as they were yet to move. Another vehicle was in the compound with theirs, ready to move, a Lexus Jeep. Tomi was the driver of the car and she had Mr Matthew sitting beside her.
Tarasha had explained everyone’s role to them individually but she had also emphasized that they keep their communication devices on at all times as there could be a change in instructions or plan.
Nicholas was uncomfortable in his seat. He knew Rex would be expecting more messages from him but he had not had the chance to be alone since four o’clock that morning and that was the time Tarasha had begun to give detailed instructions. To make matters worse, he was now sitting with Tarasha, there was no way he could send any message to Rex. He thought about his mother and child. Rex had really done extensive research on them and knew their daily routine and activities, he knew where to find and kill them at any point in time. Another thought suddenly popped up in his mind as he glanced at Tarasha’s face. What if Tarasha succeeded in killing Rex? He asked himself. That would mean freedom for him. He made up his mind to work with Tarasha towards getting Rex killed that day.
‘Have they stopped moving?’ Tarasha asked Henry.
‘Yeah, they’re in a compound.’ Henry replied her.
‘Let’s move now,’ Tarasha ordered and closed the door at her side. Nicholas also closed his.
Cole turned on the car engine and soon they drove out through the gate.
‘Any new calls yet?’ Tarasha asked Henry while she tried to fetch the NSCC live stream on her own device.
‘None,’ Henry replied.
‘Rex has hacked the NSCC system, I can’t fetch any stream right now. We’re depending on your tracking.’
‘You have to restore the system back soon, remember we’re tracking the location of just one person and he could part ways at any time.’
‘Yea, sure.’
___
5:10AM
‘Where are we going now?’ the Vice President asked Rex as he stepped into the backseat of the new vehicle. Rex entered after him and closed the door. The immigration’s officer and the driver were already seated in front.
‘Mr Paul, call your friend and ensure our train tickets are reserved.’ Rex said to the immigration’s officer.
‘You’re choosing train?’ Mr Paul stared at him in surprise.
‘Make the call quickly,’ Rex reiterated.
‘Why Train Rex?’ Elvis Richards asked.
‘Samantha Osman already told everyone you’re not in Abuja, Train transportation will be the least expected medium for you to use.’
The Vice President shrugged and remained quiet.
‘Hey! Good morning, hope you made the reservations I told you last night?’ Mr Paul’s voice sounded out loud. He was making the call Rex instructed him to make. ‘Yeah, I know it leaves by 8:30AM, the passengers would be there by then. Thank you.’
He ended the phone call and turned to Rex.
‘Good,’ Rex let out a light smile. ‘Can I have your phone?’
The man hesitated for some seconds but ended up giving Rex the phone.
Rex removed the battery and took out the sim card. He broke it just like he did to the driver earlier.
Mr Paul stared at him in surprise.
‘Sorry, you may retrieve your sim later.’ Rex said as he returned the phone. ‘Make sure it remains off,’ he added and looked away from the man’s face, his face not showing any sign of remorse. ‘Let’s move.’
‘Move? To where?’ the man asked, his anger sounding in his voice. ‘The train leaves by 8:30AM, how can we go there now?’
‘We’re not going there now,’ Rex replied him calmly. ‘Have you forgotten why you joined us? We still have to get to your office here and take the docvments before going there.’
‘But…’
‘And we’d change this car two more times at two different locations,’ Rex added before he could make another excuse.
____
‘d@mn, I just lost them!’ Henry exclaimed loudly.
‘You lost them,’ Tarasha asked. ‘Have they left the location?’
‘No, I don’t know if they’re about to leave. The man just took his sim out of his phone.’
‘Haven’t you extracted the details of the phone before?’
‘The phone is also off,’ Henry replied.
Tarasha let out a sigh. She refreshed the process she was running on the NSCC system. ‘This system would be up in five minutes,’ she announced. It was their alternative for tracking their targets.
Madam Henrietta eyes popped up finally after a time of troubled sleep. All through the night she had struggled to sleep but couldn’t as she couldn’t get her mind off Samantha’s words. It had come as a big shock to her and Samantha had not even given her time to assimilate her words before leaving her alone in the room.
She rolled out of the bed and looked towards the window. The brightness and reflection of sun rays which she could see through the window made her realize that she had slept for not less than an hour and half. She reached for her phone on the table and checked the time, it was some minutes to eight. She slid her legs into the slippers and quickly rushed out of the room with the phone.
She rushed into the living room and met no one there. She looked back into the hallway wondering which of the rooms she would find Tarasha. She walked back into the hallway slowly considering each of the rooms one after the other. She remembered the first room as the medical room where she was treated. We wasn’t sure of what was being done in the second room but she had seen not just a person go into the room. She was still standing confused when the doctor appeared at the other end of the hallway.
‘Good morning Madam Henrietta,’ the doctor greeted with smiles as he walked towards her. He stopped at her front and raised his brows at her on seeing the confused look on her face. ‘What’s wrong Madam?’
‘Good morning, please where is Samantha?’ she asked, holding the man by his shoulder.
‘She went out already,’ the man replied. ‘Is there any problem?”
‘Do you know when she would be back?’
‘No, I don’t have an idea,’ the doctor replied and held the woman’s hand which was on his shoulder. He took it off gently and wrapped his fingers around hers. He stared at the woman’s face for a moment. She was looking down but the expression on her face made it obvious that she was carrying a load in heart which seemed to heavy for her to bare alone. ‘Can you share your challenge with me? I may be of help,’ he offered.
‘No, thanks. I will wait for her,’ she said and tried to walk past the doctor to her room but the man held on to her.
‘She dropped a message for you,’ the Doctor said, making Madam Henrietta turn to her instantly.
‘What did she say?’
The doctor blinked and swallowed in gently, he knew he wasn’t about to say what she expected.
‘She said she could be out for a long time and asked that she could help in the kitchen,’ the doctor said.
The woman looked down for a while, she was quiet.
‘It’s okay if you can’t do it, she arranged for an alternative,’ the Doctor quickly added on seeing her response.
‘I will,’ she said softly, raising up her head. ‘Where’s the way to the kitchen?’
‘Over here,’ Dr Ekwueme pointed the way.
Madam Henrietta turned and took two steps in the direction before stopping. She turned to look at the man’s face again, ‘Is Chief Gabriel still here?’
The doctor stared at her face for a while, wondering if he was supposed to answer her truthfully. After some seconds of deep thinking, he nodded in response.
‘I would like to see him,’ the woman said.
‘Now?’ the doctor asked.
She thought for a moment. ‘No,’ she shook her head and turned back. ‘After I leave the kitchen.’
The man waited for some seconds and then followed her.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Epilogue
____
Location: Unspecified.
7:39AM
‘You should be able to find your way from here pal, I think it’s time to get down.’ Rex said to the Immigrations officer, twenty minutes after they took the docvments from the immigrations office.
‘What? The agreement was that I’ll go with you until he leaves succesfully through the border,’ Mr Paul protested, he took a quick look at the Vice President for support.
‘The agreement changed,’ Rex replied in harsh tones.
‘How can the agreement change without my knowledge?’ Mr Paul argued.
‘Sorry man, that’s just the way it has to be,’ Rex said with a concluding tone, not looking at the man who was staring fixedly at him.
Mr Paul waited some seconds for Elvis Richards to say something in his defence but the man did not. He realized the man agreed to wh@tëver Rex was doing.
‘But will I still get my payment in full?’
‘You would get it in full,’ Rex replied.
Mr Paul heaved a sigh of relief and slowly turned his face to the front. Rex began to speak again before he could rest his back.
‘You would also get your penalty in full the day you decide to talk about this deal to anyone, including the police,’ he heard Rex say to him. He turned back slowly and saw Rex showing him something on the screen of his andriod phone. He squinted and stretched out his hand to take the phone but Rex brought the screen closer to his face instead. He saw the picture of his wife and two kids. Then Rex swiped to the left and he saw a picture showing his full profile. Rex swiped again and his mother’s picture was seen. ‘You’d lose all this people first and then you’d die after, that is your penalty.’
Paul turned back to the front silently and solemnly as Rex withdrew the phone from his face. He thought of Rex’s threats and considered if it was possible for Rex to do all the things he mentioned. The driver soon pulled over and he opened the door and stepped out.
Elvis Richards began to feel awakward at the absence of the immigrations officer. He was now all alone with Rex and the driver. Several thoughts ran through his mind. What if Rex had met with Tarasha at any point in time and they had both agreed to kill him or bring him to them? He asked himself. He began to be suspicious of Rex’s intentions towards him. Rex had stylishly dropped Ayo his PA first and then the immigrations officer, those are the people who could have helped him if Rex tried to hurt him. Could it be that purposely eliminated them so as to give him the free space to do anything he wanted. To make matter worse, Rex had not said any other thing concerning the plans to him and was not answering James call.
The awkward thoughts were still running through his mind when Rex interrupted with words.
‘We are not using the tickets he got for us, I booked other tickets already.’ Rex said, looking at Elvis Richard’s face.
‘Oh!’ Elvis Richards raised his brows in surprise, Rex was beginning to confirm his suspicions.
‘See this,’ Rex added, handing his phone to the man.
‘What’s that?’ the Chief mumbled under his breath as he took the phone. Rex was on the Youngicee Online News Portal.
INSPECTOR GENERAL RIKAU’S BODY REJECTS SURGERY – DOCTORS SAYS HE HAS THREE DAYS LEFT
Elvis Richards’ heartbeat increased immediately after he read the headline. He closed his eyes and took in a long breath, hoping that the headline would have changed when he opened them but it was still the same. He released his breath and shook his head in pity – more of self pity than pity for the Inspector General. Samantha Osman had succeeded in terminating the life of the Inspector General, was it possible for him to escape her judgement?
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 18 Part 2
He glanced at Rex. Yes, it is possible, he answered the question in his mind. If Rex was truly with him, it would be possible to escape Samantha Osman. He knew that Rex may find it difficult to kill Samantha but he was sure Rex was able to stop her from coming to him.
He handed the phone back to Rex without reading the content of the article.
Rex collected the phone knowing the man did not read the content, he decided not to talk about it. He tapped on the screen of the phone and then scrolled to the bottom of the news article to check the related news. He clicked on the arrow leading to the next news article. The new article loaded in less than five seconds. The headline was ‘SSS confirms the absence of the Vice President at his residence’.
He didn’t bother to read further. He picked up his phone and dialled Agent James number. Agent James answered the call immediately.
‘Hey, why have you not been answering your calls? I’ve been so worried and my Dad’s number has not been connecting too,’ James said in a distressed tone from the other end.
‘I was busy man and your father’s phone was switched off,’ Rex replied.
‘What of my Dad, is he okay?’
‘Yes, he is well. He’s with me here.’
‘Okay, I wanted to find out how far you’ve gone. The SSS has searched the Vice President’s Quarters for him this morning and confirmed that he is no longer there,’ James said.
‘Yeah, I know. We’d soon be on our way out of Lagos,’ Rex replied.
‘Are you sure there would be no problems?’ James sounded doubtful.
‘No problems man, your Dad is in safe hands.’ Rex reassured. The Vice President had told him the day before that his job was to make sure he gets out of the country safe without being caught on the way by the police or any other agency. James had already made plans to get him out of the country and lacked how to ensure he wasn’t stopped on the way.
‘I’ll call again, please keep in touch.’
Rex ended the call without replying James. He wasn’t going to keep in touch like James wanted because he was carrying the job all out in his own way and not according to James’ plans. He could not trust James plans to be safe enough.
He brought out an earpiece and his second mobile phone after keeping the first one. He plugged the earpiece into the phone and then switched to his meesaging application. He opened the conversation between him and Nicholas and read through again. He paused when he got to the audio file sent. He read the message above the audio file again. Nicholas had mentioned in the previous messages that Tarasha had brought in Chief Gabriel and was interrogating him. In the message above the audio file, Nicholas explained how he was sent by Tarasha to tie up the man and how he had fixed a recorder under the chair of the man. Rex had listened to the audio before, he played it again. This time to listen carefully and pick out the details.
He forwarded the audio to the point he began to hear Tarasha’s voice, he had taken note of the minutes before. He could hear Tarasha speaking to the man. There was silence for about three minutes and then she continued again, asking him about someone he R@PED in the past. He heard the man’s voice trying to explain and deny. There was silence for some minutes again until a loud sound of a creaking door. Tarasha asked if the man recognized a woman but the man denied until she spoke some more words, the man admitted knowing her and then began to apologize and then mentioned that he regretted all that he did.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 15 Part 11
Rex did not need anyone to tell him that the woman was Madam Henrietta, even though Nicholas still mentioned it in the chat after the audio. Nicholas had already told him that Stephanie George and Madam Atinuke were out of the house. The audio made Rex realized that Madam Henrietta was truly important and that was why Tarasha had taken the troubles to come rescue her. He had been wondering about it for a long time. Now, he could deduce from the audio that Madam Henrietta was the person R@PED by Chief Gabriel. What he did not know was how the issue was a source of concern to Tarasha.
‘You were friends with Chief Gabriel several years ago,’ he turned to Elvis Richards and asked.
‘Yes,’ Elvis Richards replied in soft tones and nodded.
‘Do you know when he once slept with a woman forcefully?’ Rex asked.
Elvis Richards squnited. ‘Gabriel was a lecturer, he slept with several women and girls. I can’t number them.’
‘A particular one he slept with and refused to take her child when accused,’ Rex specified.
Elvis Richards eyebrows gathered together. He turned his face forward and thought for a while. ‘Yes, I knew when he was accused. I was one of those who insisted that he should never accept the baby.’
‘And what relevance does that incident have today?’ Rex asked.
0lElvis Richards was surprised at his line of questions. ‘What relevance? it has no relevance today.’
‘Do you know who the girl he slept with was?’
‘Yes, I do. Her name was Adunni Olasunkanmi.’
Rex squinted. He was expecting the man to mention Henrietta. He stared at the man’s face for a while as the man also stared at him. He decided it was best he carried out a detailed research on Madam Henrietta’s profile before asking further questions from Elvis Richards.
_____
Location: Unspecified
‘Good morning sir,’ Dakolo said into the phone mouthpiece.
‘Inspector Dakolo, have you made any progress?’ the IGP’s voice sounded from the other end.
‘Yes Sir, I’ve been making some progress but right now it seems there’s been a full stop.’
‘Full stop? How?’
‘I tracked them to their first stop point, and it appears they only swapped their vehicles at the first stop. The NSCC footage cannot be fetched and no useful data is coming from my source,’ Dakolo replied.
‘You have to find a way to work it out inspector, I believe you can do this. We searched everywhere around and can’t find Elvis Richards, I think he may be trying to escape from the country.’
‘I think so too, that’s the only explanation for him to leave his residence disguised as someone else.’ Dakolo put in.
‘I’ve given instructions already for security to be tightened at all airports, so he can’t escape by flight. And I’ve also asked all officers at checkpoints especially on federal roads to watch out for him.’
For more than twenty minutes, the doctor stood quietly at the entrance of the kitchen, leaning his right side against the door frame. Madam Henrietta was at first conscious of his presence but she soon forgot about him as she got deeply involved with the kitchen work.
From the way the woman worked and the look she kept on her face, the Doctor was more certain that she was nursing something big in her heart. He finally got tired of standing at the door and stepped in closer to her.
‘Madam Henrietta, would you change your mind and share with me what is bothering you?’ he asked.
She turned her head slowly and glanced at him. ‘I just need to see her,’ she replied briefly and turned back.
The Doctor sniffed in, he knew there was no need bothering her any longer as he could see she wasn’t going to open up to him no matter how hard he tried.
‘Okay, I’ll be in the lab if you need me,’ the Doctor said and turned around.
He walked out of the kitchen and proceeded straight to the laboratory. He walked straight to the table where he had a centrifuge and some liquid analyzers on. He fondled some of the tools in his hands for a while and then suddenly realized his working tools were not complete. He looked towards the incubator and then walked slowly there. He stopped and checked the timer by the side, there was still two hours and five minutes left for his cell culturing to be completed. He turned and looked towards the shelf, there was a mixture he needed to use for his work that morning which he hadn’t taken from there yet. He walked there and began to check the bottles and ampoules one after the other until he found the mixture he was looking for. He turned and was about to walk back to the table when something struck his mind. He hurriedly searched through the bottle of mixtures again and brought out an ampoule. He dropped the previous mixture he was holding and raised up the ampoule to see it clearly under the light. He opened his mouth in shock as he noticed that the liquid in the ampoule was only full to half of the container.
His heart began to beat faster and his hand began to tremble as he lowered the ampoule.
_____
‘Looks like we’re going to keep driving without direction all day,’ Cole let out his frustration through his voice after driving twice in a cycle on the same road, the third journey had just begun. Tarasha and Henry were supposed to provide him information on the direction to take but nothing was coming from them.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 17 Part 9A
Tarasha was unable to trace the vehicle of their targets since it was changed and Henry had also not been able to locate the immigration officer since the man’s sim had been destroyed and his phone made unreachable. Tarasha began to check different cars in the NSCC footages but was yet to locate which one was used by their targets. Henry on the other hand had resorted to using his newly designed app to fetch data which could possibly provide their urgently needed information.
Three minutes after Cole spoke up, Tarasha’s face seemed to brighten up a bit as she made an observation.
‘I think I’ve located the new vehicle,’ she said aloud.
Cole took a quick glance at Tarasha and consciously swerved to the slow lane on the road. Henry made no response to Tarasha’s words instead, he pushed in gently the earpiece in his left ear to reduce the sound of voices he was hearing, it seemed like he was listening to something very important and wanted no distraction.
‘They went to the immigrations office after changing the car,’ Tarasha said aloud. She then placed her gaze on Cole’s face and directed her words to him. ‘Do you know the place?’
‘The immigrations office here?’ Cole replied with a question, wanting to be sure of what he was asked about.
‘Yes,’ she replied him.
‘I’ve not been there before but I know where it is located,’ Cole answered. ‘Is that our new direction?’
Tarasha let out a sigh. ‘I’m not sure there’s a need to go there, they would have changed their car again and also changed location.’
‘They should be on their way to the train station already,’ Henry announced in a loud voice as he took the earpiece off his ears. Both Tarasha and Cole stared at him but he kept his eyes fixed on his device without even taking a glance at them.
‘Did you get that from their recorded calls?’ Tarasha asked Henry.
‘Yes, I did.’ Henry replied and picked up the earpiece to put in his ear. ‘I’m fetching the records of the man who helped them with the train tickets now, the train leaves by eight thirty, you should find out from the booking records what train and the station.’
‘There’s only one station they could have gone to,’ Cole said aloud thoughtfully as he pulled the gear and increased the speed drastically. ‘It is about forty five minutes drive from here when driving on a normal speed,’ Cole added.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Epilogue
Tarasha checked the time on her phone, it was two minutes to eight o’clock. They had very little time to meet up.
______
Unspecified Location
Lagos State.
‘How much is your money?’ Mr Paul asked the Cab man after stepping out of the vehicle.
‘A thousand naira,’ the taxi driver replied him.
Mr Paul pulled out a thousand naira note from the wallet which he took out of his back pocket and handed it to the driver. The driver drove off immediately. It took sometime for him to return the wallet to his back pocket. Before he could make any movement, another car stopped exactly where the taxi had driven off from.
‘Mr Paul.’
The immigrations officer was surprised to hear his name being called there. He moved closer to the vehicle and bent to peep in. Two people were seated at the front – the driver and another man whose face he didn’t recognize.
‘Mr Paul,’ he heard his name again and realized the person calling him was at the backseat.
He stepped back and peeped in. The man at the backseat had a crooked smile on, he looked familiar even though Mr Paul couldn’t tell where he knew him from.
‘Get into the car,’ officer Dakolo said in a command tone.
Mr Paul was taken aback. The tone with which the man called his name twice was a friendly one, only for it to change to an opposite tone suddenly. He pulled back and tried to take a step back but the man seated at the passenger’s seat in front had already gotten out of the car and was pointing a gun close to his belly.
‘Get in,’ the man with the gun said with a nod and a serious look.
______
Location: Lagos Terminus
Time: 08:18am
The disguised Vice President now known as Patrick Oluwafemi was balanced on the reclining seat in the first class lounge of the train. He had his head rested back and his eyes closed. He seemed to be enjoying some peace as his face carried a smile while he listened to some music through his earpiece. He had checked his time five minutes ago and felt some joy knowing the train would soon leave and that he was getting closer to his freedom from Samantha Osman and his opportunity to get a new life.
Rex was seated at the other side. His seat wasn’t reclined and he was seated up. His tablet device was on the stand meant for the television by his left side and he had footages from the NSCC system streaming live on it. From time to time he would switch to the dashboard and select another footage to check another different route to the railway station. He had been monitoring for over thirty minutes and there was no sign of police vehicles or any other group coming after them but he still did not want to rule out the possibility of Samantha Osman having found out about the planned train journey.
Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 19 Part 1
The time rolled slowly and soon it was five minutes left for the train to move. Rex looked out through the glass and saw some people still buying tickets for the remaining spaces on the train. He sat back on his seat and switched to the dashboard again, he selected a new footage. He saw something like a disarray on one of the roads he had previously checked. The positioning of the vehicles on the road made it seem like an accident but there was no crash yet. He rewound the footage to see what had happened. It was exactly what he anticipated, a Chevrolet Camaro had just sped pass that route hastily not minding the traffic laws and what could happen on the road.
He returned to the dashboard quickly and selected another footage, he rewound till it got to the scene of the Chevrolet’s movement. He carefully watched the direction of the Chevrolet as it was driven recklessly through the road. He paused the video at a point and zoomed in to have a closer look at the vehicle. The zoomed image was not clear and the glasses of the vehicle were tinted, so he was unable to see anything inside the vehicle.
He got up from his seat quickly and looked out through the window. The hastiness of his movement caught the Vice President’s attention.
‘Is there a problem?’ Elvis Richards asked.
Rex did not answer immediately until after thirty seconds. He stepped out from the seat area and pulled out a bag from behind the seat. He opened it and looked at the Vice President as he dipped in his hand.
‘I think we have some visitors on the train,’ Rex finally replied. Elvis Richards squinted as fear returned to his heart. ‘There’s no problem, all you need to do is wait here.’
