TARASHA – Episode 38

® 18+ SNVL

© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel

7:45AM NEXT DAY

Rex eyes fell on the Inspector General’s body as the man began to make some movements in the bed. Rex was tied in a chair while the Inspector General was tied to a bed in the same room.

He had woken up that morning to find the Inspector General fast asleep on the bed in the same room with him, he realized that Tarasha’s men must have brought the man in the last night while he was asleep. The drugs they injected him which made him weak had also made him unable to know when they brought the man in.

The Inspector General finally stirred awake after stretching for some minutes. He turned his neck all around until his eyes landed on Rex. He was shocked at first, then he tried to sit up but realized he could make no movements. He resigned and continued staring at Rex with his shock still on his face.

‘Rex, what are you doing here?’ He managed to voice out.

Rex stared at him without saying anything. Then he looked away and stared straight at the wall.

‘Rex,’ the Inspector General called again but Rex gave no response. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath. He didn’t know what to think. He couldn’t imagine that Rex was also kidnapped by Samantha Osman and was tied down just like him. Before he could make any conclusion in his mind, he heard the sound of the door opening and footsteps walking in. He tried to look towards the door as possible as he could and he could see the people walking towards them.

A total of three people had entered, Tarasha, Nicholas and Basit. The men stopped behind while Tarasha stopped in the space between the Inspector General’s bed and Rex’s chair.

The captives at the both sides turned their gazes to her.

‘Hello Guys,’ Tarasha said with a crooked smile, glancing at both sides one after the other. Then she walked to the side of the Inspector General and stopped at the left side of his bed, where both men could see her well. ‘I would like to talk to the both of you, but separately first.’

‘Nicholas, I want you guys to take this man to another room,’ Tarasha said without looking up, her eyes still fixed on the IG’s face.

She stopped and waited for the men to roll out the bed before she walked to Rex and stopped in front of him. ‘Rex, where is Chief Nonso?’ she asked, looking directly into his eyes.

Rex maintained a straight face, breathing gently and staring back into her eyes unblinking.

‘You know you’re going to tell me this eventually, so why are you wasting my time and your time?’ Tarasha asked, as she walked back to where the men stood previously. They had dropped a bag there. She opened the bag and pulled out a pack of syringe and ampoule and then she walked back to him with the pack visible in her hand.

Rex stared at her hand, he could tell the possible content of the ampoule but he wondered if Tarasha knew how to use it or not.

She stopped in front of him and took out the ampoule in the transparent pack, she raised it to the front of his eyes for him to read what was written on the label.

Rex remained calm even after he confirmed the content. He kept his gaze on her face and remained silent.

‘This is only going to work on you after you undergo a lot of torture, why don’t you save me the time and save yourself from the pain?’ Tarasha said temptingly.

Rex remained silent and kept looking into her eyes. Tarasha also kept staring into his eyes for a moment until Nicholas and the other man returned. This time they came with whips and some other torture materials.

Tarasha walked back to the bag again. She took another pack of syringe and ampoule out, the content of the new ampoule was to weaken Rex’s body. She injected him the second liquid and the men soon took off the ropes on Rex’s hands and legs and threw him to the floor. They began to torture him.

____

9AM

‘Good morning Vivian,’ Agent James said into the phone as he stepped out of his father’s room.

‘Good morning sir,’ Vivian greeted from the other end.

‘Hope you slept well,’ James said.

‘Yes, I did, how about you?’

‘I did too,’ James replied.

‘How’s father doing now?’ Vivian asked.

‘He’s very much better, we left the hospital already,’ James replied.

‘Wow! That’s good, I would call him right away to talk to him,’ Vivian said in an excited tone.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 22 Part 13A
‘Not now Vivian,’ James said in a lifeless tone as he stepped into the living room.

‘Not now? Why? I thought you said he was okay now,’ Vivian replied in a suspicious tone.

‘He wants you to come to Lagos today,’ James replied.

‘Huh?’

‘Yea, he wants everyone of us to undergo a test,’ James said.

‘A test? What kind of test?’

‘You’d know when you get here, I’ve tried to talk him out of it but he insisted that we must all go through the test.’

‘Tell me, what kind of test?’ Vivian asked insistingly

‘A Medical test, just take it like that,’ James said.

There was silence for a brief moment, then James spoke again.

‘We’ve arranged for your flight, all you need is to be at the airport by 10am.’

‘Ermm… Are you sure all is well? Dad himself warned me to avoid making any trip recently to avoid been discovered by Samantha Osman or her men,’ Vivian said doubtingly.

‘Yea, everything is alright. Just check your mail and confirm the flight, dress up early so you don’t miss it.’ James said.

The call ended and James heaved a sigh before he settled on the seat. His phone beeped and he raised it up to check the screen, he had a new mail.

____

2:30pm

‘This young man looks so innocent,’ Dr Ekwueme said to Tomi. His palm was placed on a patient’s forehead who was lying on a bed in the medical room.

‘Most expert assasins and dangerous people do have their faces looking innocent especially when they’re unconscious or asleep,’ Tomi replied him.

The doctor glanced at her, she sounded so sure of her assertion. He didn’t know whether to credit the certainty in her voice to her long years of experience in treating criminals or just believe that she spoke what she felt.

‘This guy isn’t an assassin,’ the doctor continued as he stepped back to use his stethoscope. ‘He’s a journalist who has been on Samantha’s tail for a while.’

‘I’ve heard about him, Dave James.’ Tomi replied. ‘He gave the information that made us come to Lagos but chose to betray us at the last minute.’

The doctor remained silent for a while, he hung his stethoscope back around his neck and stopped to stare at the patient’s face for a while.

‘This young man looks so much like someone I know,’ the doctor finally voiced out.

‘You seem to know a lot of people Doc, I know that should be the case because you’ve lived so many years on this planet,’ Tomi said.

The doctor looked around and located a chair, he walked to the chair and carried it to the right side of the patient’s bed. He sat on the chair and stared at the face intently for a while before he relaxed his back.

‘Yes, he definitely looks like who I know.’ he said aloud, though he was talking to himself.

Tomi stopped what she was doing and looked at the doctor’s face, surprised that the doctor was sitting with the patient instead of going to rest in his room.

‘Who exactly does he look like?’ Tomi asked.

The doctor leaned forward to see the patient’s face one more time. ‘He looks like…’ he was saying when the door of the room opened and Cole stepped in.

‘Doctor, I can hear some noises coming from the room beside yours, is she awake already?’ Cole asked as he entered.

The doctor stared blankly at Cole for a while, trying to remember the room beside his. He had been working much more than a person of his age should work in the past few days and tend to forget a lot of things.

He finally remembered that Mrs Atinuke George had been taken away from the medical room and put in the room beside his since she left the critical stage.

‘Oh! It’s possible that she’s awake now,’ he managed to get up to his feet as he remembered. He proceeded towards the door and walked past Cole.

Cole eyes met with Tomi’s as he looked around the medical room. They stared at each other’s faces for a while and Cole was the first to look away, he felt somehow guilty but he shrugged it off. He turned and walked out of the room without looking back again.

Doctor Ekwueme walked as fast as his old age could carry him towards his room. Before he got there, Madam Atinuke was already standing outside the door in the corridor.

‘Where am I?’ she asked as she saw the doctor.

The doctor paused and stared at her with a smile. ‘Relax madam, you’re in safe hands,’ he said in his weak old voice.

The woman turned round and glanced at every corner of the corridor, she didn’t seem to believe his words as a frightened look appeared on her face. Her gaze settled on the doctor again and she was about to speak when someone appeared behind the doctor.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 15 Part 4
‘She’s awake,’ Cole said as he saw the woman and stopped beside the doctor.

‘Yes, she is.’ The doctor replied.

‘Who are you people?’ Madam Atinuke asked but did not get any answer. She watched the men stare at her for a while after which their gazes moved from her to something behind her. She looked back slowly and saw someone stepping closer to her slowly from the other end of the corridor. It was her daughter, Stephanie.

Stephanie could not believe her eyes. Her mother was alive, standing right in front of her. She had only come to check her in the room and was expecting to see the woman lying down on the bed unconscious with the drip line still fixed into her veins.

‘Steph…’ Madam Atinuke called in a low voice, surprised to see her daughter.

‘Mum,’ Stephanie called back and ran to hug the woman.

___

3:15pm

‘Boss, Madam Atinuke is awake,’ Cole said to Tarasha as she entered into the computer room.

‘I received the doctor’s text message on that,’ Tarasha replied him, with very little enthusiasm in her voice. She walked towards the table and settled in the seat behind him. ‘I got your text, you said you’ve gotten the identities of the men in the video.’

‘Yes, I have but those men are people that I’ve never met in my life. I’ve never even come across their names,’ Cole said.

‘Let me have a look at them,’ Tarasha said, fixing her gaze on the computer screen. Cole was still trying to locate the pictures.

‘Here,’ Cole said, opening a picture showing two men’s passport photographs side by side and their respective names under each passport.

Tarasha stared at the picture for a while also, she had never seen any of the men or heard their names.

‘Have you found out where they work?’ she asked.

Cole quickly minimized the window and maximized another app which showed a detail profile of the men in the citizen’s directory. Tarasha took a minute each to go through each of the pictures.

‘Things could have changed, these profiles were saved based on information gotten from the last population census. Is this all you’ve got about them?’

‘No, I also located their facebook profiles and twitter handles,’ Cole replied.

‘Are the profiles public?’

‘No, they weren’t but I was able to break into the private profiles. There is no difference between the details they have in the citizen’s directory to what they have in their facebook and twitter profiles.’

‘So, there are no additional details on social media about them?’

‘None,’ Cole answered.

‘Did you check their recent posts?’

‘Yes, both profiles and timelines have not been updated for about seven years.’

‘Oh!’ Tarasha chuckled. ‘Well, there should be other ways to get them. Have you tried to trace the addresses on the citizens’ directory?’

‘Yes, the addresses aren’t valid residential buildings anymore.’

Tarasha stopped for a while to think.

‘But I have found ways we could get them,’ Cole said and waited for Tarasha to pay full attention to him before he continued. ‘I have traced two of their close family members each, both on the citizen’s directory and social media.’

‘Oh! That’s cool but I hope we can get them through their family members.’

‘We can make a trial,’ Cole said encouragingly.

‘I do hope so,’ Tarasha repeated as she got up to her feet. ‘I’ll be back,’ she said and proceeded straight towards the door.

3:15pm

Stephanie sat at the other edge of the bed watching happily as her mother ate the lunch of fried rice served to her.

Her happiness knew no bounds that day. Madam Atinuke had gotten up looking more healthier and stronger than she used to be. Even though her voice was still imbalanced like before and she was still slow, there were still signs of better health. Stephanie couldn’t wait to see Samantha Osman and thank her for saving her mother’s life from the Vice President and also helping her get better.

Someone knocked on the door when the woman was almost done with the meal. Stephanie glanced at the door and glanced at her mother, the oler woman was expecting her to attend to it.

‘Come in,’ Stephanie said from where she was sitted. She stared at the door intently, waiting eagerly to see who was coming in. The door opened slowly and Madam Henrietta stepped in.

Madam Henrietta closed the door and stood still for some minutes right behind it without releasing the knob. Stephanie and Madam Atinuke’s eyes were directed towards her but she couldn’t look at them, her eyes were staring at the ground.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 17 Part 11
She didn’t believe that Atinuke could come alive again. Not because she wanted the woman’s death, but she just didn’t believe that someone with such mental and physical illness like that of Atinuke did not have anything to live for anymore.

She finally summoned courage and looked up, her eyes met with that of Stephanie’s, Madam Henrietta had continued with her food. She walked towards the bed and stopped some metres by the side of Atinuke.

Madam Atinuke looked up and their eyes met. She dropped the spoon into the plate and squinted at Madam Henrietta’s face. ‘Henrietta, it’s been a long time,’ she began in a shaky voice. Henrietta looked down at that moment. She felt guilty and could not look Henrietta in the eyes anymore. She had condemned her to death all the while Stephanie still hoped she could live and be well again.

‘Thank you for taking good care of Stephanie,’ Madam Atinuke continued. ‘Thank you for taking good care of your daughter.’

Madam Henrietta was surprised at her last statement and looked up. She glanced at Stephanie’s face and also saw the girl looking at her with a light smile.

There was silence for a moment but a lot was still being communicated in the silence.

‘I’m sorry,’ Madam Henrietta finally found her voice. ‘I’m sorry for not checking on you all these days.’

‘Sorry? You don’t need to be sorry,’ Madam Atinuke said joyfully. ‘You have been taking care of my daughter and that is far better than coming to see me. You took care of her like yours and made sure she lacked nothing in life, I am very grateful to you.’

Madam Henrietta burst into tears, she couldn’t find words to say anymore. Stephanie got up from her sitting spot and walked to Madam Henrietta to embrace her.

__

‘Do you want to see her now?’ Dr Ekwueme asked as he walked through the corridor with Tarasha. He stopped at the door to Madam Atinuke’s room and raised his hand to knock, only waiting for Tarasha to permit.

‘Is it necessary I see her now?’ Tarasha asked, squinting.

‘Well,’ the doctor put down his hand slowly and shrugged. ‘It depends on you, I only thought you would like to see how she’s doing.’

‘Would she be able to give me answers to my numerous questions now?’

‘Hmm… I think we should give her some more time.’ The doctor replied.

‘Let’s proceed to the lab then,’ Tarasha said.

The doctor turned to lead the way.

‘How well is the woman now?’ Tarasha asked as they proceeded.

‘She’s okay, back to her normal self.’ The doctor replied.

‘Her normal self?’ Tarasha questioned, not too sure of what he meant by the statement.

‘I mean her former self,’ the doctor replied. ‘The only thing that happened is that she stepped out of consciousness, we didn’t do anything to take care of her previous mental or physical state.’

‘Can’t something be done about it?’

‘I don’t think anything can be done to help her case, only few people do come out of her condition and what cures them has not been discovered or ascertained yet.’

‘So it means her previous condition couldn’t have gotten better?’

‘It could have,’ the doctor said, stressing the word ‘could’. ‘But if it happened, I wouldn’t say it’s a result of the therapy she underwent, it would have to be tested and proven if I make the assertion.’

They got into the medical lab and Tarasha closed the door behind her.

‘He should be awake by now,’ the doctor said as they proceeded to the bed Dave was sleeping in. Dave’s eyes were still closed and he didn’t look like he had woken up before they came in.

‘Looks like he’s the lazy type,’ Tarasha said when she got to the bed side and found Dave still asleep.

‘Those drugs are meant to weaken his body, his own way of responding to weakness could just be sleep.’ The doctor said.

Tarasha stared at him for a little while before turning to leave. ‘I have only few words and questions for him when he’s awake.’

Dr Ekwueme watched as she closed the door after stepping out. He turned to look at the patient again and met a surprise. Dave’s eyes was opened and he was staring at him.

‘Please be quiet Doctor,’ Dave pleaded in low tones.

Doctor Ekwueme would have responded in a loud voice but for a reason remained quiet. The voice of the young man sounded like a voice he was once familiar with.

‘You look and speak like your father,’ Dr Ekwueme said in low tones as he moved closer to the bed.

‘Yes, I think so too,’ Dave said as he tried to sit up but he struggled and couldn’t get himself up.

‘Don’t waste your strength, you can’t get up,’ the doctor said to him in a calm voice.

There was silence for a moment, the doctor kept staring down at his face and Dave stared back also.

‘Doctor Ekwueme, why are you working with Samantha Osman?’ Dave finally spoke.

The doctor was speechless for a while. He had never thought of making ready an answer if he was ever asked the question, but the answer was still not farfetched, he was able to put words together and give her a reply quickly.

‘I’m working with her because I want to join forces to bring down the bad eggs of our nation,’ Dr Ekwueme replied.

Dave squinted, he felt an itch on his forehead and tried to lift his hand to scratch the place but couldn’t. He closed his eyes and waited for the feeling to stop.

‘Dr Ekwueme, I can help you out of this mess if you would allow me. I know Samantha Osman is using you against your will but I can help free you if you’d do what I ask you to do.’

Doctor Ekwueme kept staring at the young man’s face for a moment, he seemed to be considering Dave’s offer. Then he moved closer to the window and tried to lean against the wall for support.

‘I don’t want to be freed, this is the only opportunity I have to right my wrongs,’ the doctor replied.

‘Right your wrongs?’ Dave muttered. He tilted his head back a little and strained his eyeballs to see the doctor where the man was now standing behind his bed.

‘Yes, there are so many things I did in the past and this is my only opportunity to make a difference.’

There was silence for a moment.

‘So, you’re trying to correct your wrongs?’

‘Not necessarily correct but also make a difference with this opportunity, ‘The doctor replied thoughtfully.

‘And how do you think you can make a difference by joining forces with a criminal?’ Dave said.

‘Whether you call her a criminal or not, I’m not bothered or moved, but if she really is, I’m proud to join forces with a criminal to do the right thing.’ Dr Ekwueme defended. ‘And I don’t think I have the moral justification to call her a criminal, I think I’m worse, I was a doctor who was trusted by the society but I still betrayed the trust and worked against them.’

‘What are you trying to say Doc? Are you talking about your work with the Vice President?’ Dave asked.

The doctor remained silent.

Dave continued to speak. ‘If that’s what you’re talking about, I have better ways of you helping the society right your wrongs than this path you’re toeing.’

He paused to get a response from the doctor but the older man remained silent.

‘I can help you if you allow me sir, Samantha Osman is dangerous and heartless, she does not care about anyone, I am sure she only wants to use you in fulfilling her mission and would do something bad to you after she does.’

The Doctor’s voice was low and gentle, ‘I don’t care if she’s only using me to fulfill her mission and I don’t want to know what she’d do to me after it ends, I only want to ensure that I play my part in making our mission a success.’

Dave heaved a sigh. He knew he needed to do more than just talking if he wanted to get the doctor on his side. He wondered what Samantha Osman had done to the doctor to make the man so convinced and ready to die with her, so much that the doctor now took Samantha Osman’s mission as his too.

He decided to stop in his trial to persuade the doctor and ask questions about his safety. ‘What’s she going to do to me when she finds out I’m awake?’

The doctor took some time to think of an answer to his question. He stepped forward slowly and stopped beside the bed where Dave could see his face. ‘I think she’s definitely going to ki|| or incapacitate you later on when she finds out that you are one of those trying to pull her down.’

Dave swallowed a breath. The Doctor’s words ignited more fear in him than he had expected.

‘And you are going to let her ki|| me?’ Dave said, deciding to go emotional.

‘I don’t want her to do anything bad to you, I know your parents.’ The doctor said. ‘That’s why I’m taking the risk to stand here and talk to you.’

‘So she’s going to ki|| you if she finds out you are talking to me?’ Dave asked, trying to make the man see another fault in Samantha Osman ways.

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‘She probably would not, because I would not hide anything we have discussed here from her.’ The doctor replied.

Dave was shocked at the man’s response. ‘You would tell her all we have said here?’

‘Yes.’

Dave was too shocked to close his mouth. He stared at the doctor in bewilderment, wondering if Samantha Osman had bewitched the doctor in anyway. He didn’t believe in the power of witches in cases like this but he didn’t know what else to attribute the doctor’s loyalty to Samantha Osman to.

‘I have to go now, staying any longer here would cause suspicion.’ The doctor said and squeezed Dave’s palm in his before trying to turn.

‘Please, Doctor Ekwueme, help me.’ Dave pleaded. He tried to hold back the man but there wasn’t enough strength in his hands to keep the man’s fingers in his grip.

‘I don’t know if I can help you,’ Doctor Ekwueme said, with his back now turned to Dave. He closed his eyes and bowed his head as he thought of how guilty he would feel if it turned out that Samantha Osman ended up ki||ing Dave.

‘Please help me,’ Dave pleaded again.

The doctor decided to turn a deaf here and leave the room.

‘Dr Martin Ekwueme,’ Dave called as the doctor took a step. ‘You went through so much to keep me alive when I was a boy, how come you are willing to let me die now, is it part of righting your wrongs?’

Dave’s last words hit the doctor hard. He stopped after taking two steps and couldn’t move again. He felt tears form in his eyes and his chest beginning to beat faster. He remembered truly what he went through trying to save the young man when he was a little boy from the hands of death. It almost cost him his own career and even thr_@tened his life. That was one of the only actions he took in his life that he could remember and be proud of. If he allowed the young boy turned man die now, it would mean that all his efforts in the past were wasted.

He finally turned back and moved closer to Dave again. He stared into the young man’s eyes and could see the man he knew years back right in the eyes.

‘What’s your name?’ the doctor asked.

‘David,’ Dave replied.

‘Dave James?’ the doctor asked for clarification, now remembering when Samantha mentioned the name.

‘Yes, that’s what I’m called.’

Doctor Ekwueme remembered James perfectly well and he remembered the happiness and grateful look on James’ and his wife’s faces after he succeeded in treating little Dave, the boy who was the first they could call a son and saved the boy from death. He also remembered the bad things he had done to the family of the boy in the past, saving the now grown up boy seemed to be the only way he could correct that wrong he did.

The doctor turned suddenly and without saying any more word, proceeded out of the medical room. He walked straight into his room and locked himself in.

____

5 minutes later

‘Boss, I just discovered that those men once worked with the Central Intelligence Department of the Police,’ Cole said to Tarasha as she walked into the computer room.

‘How long have they left service?’ she asked as she proceeded towards him.

‘Both of them were dismissed,’ Cole replied.

‘Oh! What was their crime?’

‘It’s classified information, I couldn’t find what their crime was.’

The door opened and distracted them. Henry walked in.

‘Tara, the Vice President’s kids are all in Lagos now.’

Tarasha turned to him. ‘All of them? I think he has three kids right?’

‘Yes, three kids.’ Henry replied. He stopped at some distance from them and settled in a seat behind one of the computers.

‘Inspector James has been in Lagos for some days already, what part of the country did the other two come from?’

‘One from Abuja and the other from Cross River.’

‘And what do you think they are here for?’

‘I can’t say for sure, but I do believe that he may be trying to smuggle them out of the country through other means apart from flights.’

Tarasha chuckled. ‘I believe you’d update us with that.’

‘Yes, I would as I find out more.’ Henry replied.

Tarasha got up from her seat and turned round the table to the other side. She pulled out a drawer and took a tablet device from it.

‘Henry,’ she called as she walked towards him. ‘This device is secured tightly and could not be opened by the android unlocker, I’ve not had time to try other means. Can you get it opened for us?’

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Henry collected the device from her and observed the body and label for a while. ‘Whose device is it?’

‘It’s for Rex,’ she replied.

‘Oh! That guy is still with us?’ Henry asked rhetorically.

‘I need to go there now, he vomited after we injected him this morning.’ Tarasha said. ‘The old doctor says he probably has some kind of immunity against the liquid and it may be difficult to make him confess even after injecting the liquid.’

‘Immunity?’ Cole and Henry said simultaneously. They glanced quickly at each other after.

‘Yes, he does a lot of hard drugs. The old doctor explained that some of the substances in those drugs could form antigens against the liquid in his blood cells and it could take us more than injecting him once before he speaks.’

‘How many times can the injection be given in a day?’ Cole asked.

‘It can’t be given to a person more than once in two days, it could ki|| the person.’ Tarasha replied.

‘$h|t, we shouldn’t wait that long to get Chief Nonso out of Rex’s prison.’ Cole cursed.

‘That’s exactly why we need to unlock that device as soon as possible,’ Tarasha said, facing Henry. ‘If it happens that he has immunity against the injection, we could be able track all his recently visited locations from the location history or call history in the device.’

‘I’ll start work on the device immediately,’ Henry said.

Tarasha nodded gently. She stared at their faces silently for a while before she turned and proceeded to the door. She opened the door and suddenly stopped without stepping out. She turned back. Cole and Henry had their eyes fixed on her.

‘Agent Dave James is awake,’ she said. ‘I heard him speaking with the doctor, Cole, I need you to place an eye on them through the cameras.’

Cole nodded in response. He turned back to the system and opened the in-house camera software. He heard the sound of the door being shut as the app processed.

There was no way Agent Dave could escape, Cole was sure. The only persons who knew how to get out of that building without being led was he, Henry and Tarasha but he still had to place an eye on the Agent as Tarasha had instructed.

____

‘Now, after this is what?’ Vivian asked James impatiently.

The three siblings were seated in a room in the hospital after the samples of their blood had been taken by the hospital laboratory staffs.

‘Let’s wait for the doctor to talk to us,’ James replied his impatient sister.

The doctor walked in at the same minute and the siblings placed their gazes on him.

‘Inspector James, the result of the tests would be out in three days.’ the doctor said, looking directly at James.

‘Why in three days time, I thought it would out in few hours time.’ James argued, getting up to his feet.

‘No, this is a DNA test, it doesn’t work like that,’ the doctor said as he proceeded towards the exit door at the other side. ‘I’ll call your father as soon as the results are ready.’

‘Why do you have to call my father? Can’t you inform me when it’s out?’ James questioned.

‘Your Dad requested for the test and with the eagerness with which he requested, I’m sure he would like to be the first person to know when the results are out. We’re done with the test, you guys can leave now,’ the doctor replied as he stepped out of the room through the door.

James sat back on the chair and let out a deep breath, staring at the ground. He raised his head up after some seconds and glanced at his younger ones, ‘I think we have to leave now.’

‘No, we can’t leave. Not until you tell us why we needed a DNA test,’ Vivian objected strongly.

James stared at her face speechlessly. The other brother also stared at James’ face, expecting him to give a reply to Vivian’s objection.

‘Dad wants the DNA test, you heard the doctor say it was Dad’s personal request, didn’t you?’ James replied.

‘Why in the world does Dad want a DNA test?’ Vivian fired.

‘I think you should direct your anger to Dad when you see him and not me,’ James said, already getting impatient with Vivian.

‘Brother, why are you talking like this?’ the other brother joined them. ‘You mean you called us to come meet you here and carry out a DNA test without knowing why we had to undergo the test?’

James sighed, he was now short of words to defend himself.

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‘Brother, you got to give some explanation to us. You can’t tell us, you called Vivian to fly down from Abuja and me from Cross River without knowing the reason for the DNA test.’

____

‘Is he awake now?’ Tarasha asked as she climbed up the balcony of the building.

‘Yes, he’s been awake for about three hours now.’ Nicholas replied, walking by her side.

‘Has he spoken any word yet?’

‘No, he hasn’t.’

There was silence for a while as they got into the house and walked through the living room.

‘Are the other men all present?’ Tarasha asked.

‘Yes, they are. Waiting for you in the main room,’ Nicholas answered.

‘How many of them know that we have a new hostage here?’

‘Just I and Basit, the others have only gathered in response to your invitation.’

There was silence for the rest of the time Tarasha and Nicholas used to walk to the board room. They got in and met all the six men seated around the table. All stood up to honour Tarasha as she got in. She signaled for them to sit and remained standing behind the chair she was supposed to sit on. Nicholas also took his seat.

She stood in silence for a while. Then she dipped her hand into her back pocket and took out an android phone, with something very tiny hidden from other’s view under it. She adjusted the wristwatch on her hand carefully before she returned her focus to her audience. She pointed to the man seated at the rear end of the table and ordered him to stand up. He was the same person who drove her, the doctor and Stephanie to Anambra State.

The man obeyed and got up to his feet with a confused look on his face, he wondered why she needed him to stand.

‘I’ll like you to explain to the rest of the team, why and how you got drunk during a mission?’ Tarasha asked. All eyes in the room turned to the man immediately.

His heart began to beat fast. He remembered having woken up later that day to find a note left by Samantha Osman in his room to call her whenever he woke up. He had gone to meet Stephanie out of fear immediately and the young girl explained to him that Samantha had called him on phone several times and needed him to work but he had been too drunk to get up. He was surprised later when he saw her later and she did not talk about it with him and had thought she had forgotten about it when they returned back to Lagos without her mentioning it.

‘You have twenty seconds to start talking,’ Tarasha said in a frightful voice.

For the first three seconds, he stood without knowing what to do but then his instincts told him he could only save himself by escaping. He remembered that they had all come in for the meeting through the backdoor of the room which was right behind him. He turned sharply and headed for the door, he got there in three seconds and struggled to turn the knob but it was stiff. He continued to struggle with the door until he realized there was no way it would open easily.

Tarasha glanced at her wristwatch, he had nine seconds more. She placed her stare on his face and he stared back at her too.

Then he tried to play smart and reached for the gun in his pocket. He took it out and pointed it at Tarasha.

She wasn’t shaken by his gesture. She glanced at her wristwatch and saw that he had only three seconds remaining.

Two…one…zero.

She raised her right hand up and before the man could do anything, a tiny piece of arrow had gotten into his forehead. He fell to the floor lifelessly.

All the other men stared at her in horror.

She returned the android phone into her pocket. ‘Clear his body,’ she said, looking at one of the men at the right side. ‘You would get other instructions later, I think that’s the end of the meeting for today.’

____

5:43pm

‘Have you taken your lunch?’ Cole asked, surprised to meet Henry in the control room as he walked in.

‘I would do that very soon,’ Henry replied. ‘It’s taking longer than I expected. Rex has good knowledge of securing phones.’

‘It’s expected,’ Cole commented.

Cole’s phone rang and caused a distraction. He brought it out of his pocket and glanced at the screen. Patricia was the caller.

‘Hey Pat!’

‘Hey Vic, I’m coming to Lagos tomorrow. My company is bringing us for a five days training.’

8:45PM

Tarasha walked into the living room tiredly. She had left the other operation base angrily after several hours of trying to force out words from Rex to no avail.

‘Welcome boss,’Cole and Tomi stood up to greet simultaneously.

Tarasha took a glance at them and replied, ‘Hey.’

The doctor only glanced back at herand watched until she walked out of sight. Tomi and Cole returned to their seating position. The Doctorturned back to the television which his eyes had been fixed on for a long time. He realized he wasn’t even following what was being aired and the others in the living room with him were also not paying attention to the TV, their focus was on the devices in their hands. He hoped that Samantha would meet Henry before coming back to the living room. Heknew she was definitely going to ask about Dave James if she returned to the living room without speaking to Henry first. He had seen Henry few hours ago and explained to him how Dave James’ Parents were his benefactors and how he saved the boy’s life years ago and handed the boy back to his parents. He had begged Henry to help plead with Samantha Osman to spare Dave’s life. He and Henry had concluded that Henry would try to convince Tarasha to wipe off Dave’s memory totally after getting what she wants from him instead of ki||ing him.

_

Tarasha ignored the control room and the other rooms and walked straight into hers. She took off her clothes immediately and got into the bathroom to take a shower. Few minutes later, she returned looking refreshed and met Henry already seated in the bed.

‘Good evening Tara,’ Henry greeted as he laid his eyes on her.

She smiled, ‘Hi Henry.’

‘How did it go with Rex?’

‘Rex is immuned to the mixture, so it will take us sometime to get him to talk’ Tara replied in a not-too-happy tone.

‘I think I have gotten some things out of the device that could be of help,’Henry said.

Tarasha flashed a quick glance at him as she walked to the wardrobe. ‘That’s good news,’ she said as she unwrapped her towel from her body and began to wipe the remaining wet areas. This left her bare back uncovered to Henry.

Henry stared at her fixedly. It wasn’t the first time he was seeing her back but it was the first time he noticed a tattoo at the middle. He felt like moving nearer to have a closer look but he felt it would be strange and obscene to move closer to her while she was naked.

‘What exactly did you find?’ Tarasha asked, realizing that Henry had been distracted by her naked behind.

‘Three locations, I scrutinized the three but I can’t seem to detect which is the most feasible location where Chief Nonso could be hidden.’ Henry replied, still thinking about the tattoo. It looked like something he had seen recently but he couldn’t tell where he saw what he saw from.

‘Which places are the three locations?’ Tara asked, now sounding more interested. She began to put on her clothes.

‘Mile twelve, Orile and Badagry,’Henry answered.

‘Are those places on this planet?’Tara asked, the names sounded very strange to her.

‘He he,’Henry chuckled.’They are three different parts of Lagos.’

‘Do you know all the places?’

‘I’ve only heard of them, I have not been to the three.’

‘But are you sure they are in Lagos?’

‘Yes, I am very sure.’

She let out a breath and turned. She was now putting on a pant and bra, holding a free gown in her hand.

‘I think Cole would know all the three places, he stayed in Lagos for a longer time than I did and he has worked around here for so long. He would be of great help.’

Tarasha stared blankly for a while, considering Henry’s suggestion. Then she turned and picked abrush for her hair which was already growing and had transformed from the smooth skin cut. After putting on her gown, she turned back towards Henry.

‘I know Cole would know the locations but I can’t go in search of the Chief with Cole, he needs to be around to monitor what we are leaving here and at the other base.’Tarasha said to Henry.

‘Okay,I’m sure anyway that the places wouldn’t be difficult to locate.’

‘I hope it is so.’

There was silence for a minute. Tarasha settled at the other side of the bed silently.

‘Tara, I have something important to discuss with you.’ Henry broke the silence.

‘What’s that?’she asked in reply and sat up.

‘It’s about Agent Dave James,’ Henry replied, he adjusted himself and faced her.

Tara squinted. ‘The doctor talked to you about him, right?’

Henry squinted also, wondering how she could think so quickly that the doctor had spoken with him.

‘Yes, he did.’ Henry replied. ‘He wanted to know the fate of Dave James, but then he pleaded that we leave the agent alive.’

‘Is that all the doctor spoke to you about?’

Henry paused for a minute wondering what else she expected. ‘Yes, that’s all he requested.’

‘He didn’t tell you what they discussed when I left them in the medical room.’

‘The doctor happens to know Agent Dave James and his family but he didn’t recognize. He treated the Agent when the agent was a little boy but didn’t recognize him until the agent spoke up and reminded him.’

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‘And is that the only reason he wants us to keep the agent alive?’

‘Doctor Ekwueme says he was very close to the family and they were his benefactors, he wouldn’t feel good seeing them lose the first son and breadwinner of the family.’

‘Is he sure the Agent is not playing a fast one on him?’Tara asked as she got up from the bed.

‘The doctor is sure,’ Henry replied and also got up from the bed. ‘He knows everything about Mr James who is the father of Agent Dave.’

‘I need to talk to him,’Tara said as she placed her hand on the knob of the door to open it. Henry was right behind her.

She suddenly stopped as she tried to turn it, she was hearing a sound. She flashed a look at Henry’s face and he stared back at her blankly. Soon they heard a knock at the door.

Tara opened the door immediately and startled Stephanie who wasn’t expecting a quick answer.

‘Good evening,’ Stephanie gapped.

‘Hi,’ Tarasha replied.

‘I…came to see you,’ Stephanie said, stuttering.

Tarasha stared at her silently for some seconds before opening the door and ushering her in.

‘Thank you,’ Stephanie said as she stepped into the room. She saw Henry standing behind Tarasha,’Good evening.’

Henry noddedand smiled back in response to her. ‘I have to excuse you two,’ he said, flashing a look at Tara as he walked out through the door.

Tarasha closed the door and stepped back towards the bed side. ‘How is your mom doing? I haven’t come around to see her yet.’

‘She’s doing fine,’Stephanie replied with a smile.

‘You can sit on the bed,’ Tarasha said to her.

‘Thanks but I don’t think I need to sit down,’Stephanie replied.

‘Okay, let me hear what you have to say to me.’

Stephanie stood speechless for a moment. She was carried away with Tarasha’s real look- the look without makeup and lowly cut hair. The Samantha she always see during the day always had a wig to cover her almost hairless head. Even though she still looked very beautiful, her hairstyle made her look strange.

‘As you already know, my mother isnow awake and I’ve told her about you already.’ Stephanie began.

Tarasha interrupted. ‘What did you tell her about me?’ she asked with a raised eyebrow.

‘I only told her that you helped us get her out from where they tried to ki|| her and that you’re helping us in the case against the Vice President.’Stephanie answered.

‘Okay, proceed with what you were saying.’

‘I also told her of the burnt documents but she says she’s willing to testify in court if we need her to,’Stephanie paused and raised a brow as a smile appeared on Samantha’s face. ‘I told her you would like to see her and ask her some questions.’

‘Yes, I would love to see her and ask some questions from her but we have all the documents we need against the Vice President.’Tarasha said.

Stephanie narrowed her gaze, wondering if Samantha heard what she said rightly. ‘I’m talking about the documents Madam Henrietta burnt to ashes.’

‘Yes, I know what you’re talking about. Did you see the documents before she burnt them?’

‘No, I got to the house to find the place I kept them empty and I saw the ashes at the backyard.’

‘What documents did you keep?’

‘The pictures and files given to Madam Henrietta by my late Dad’s lawyer and some of those I got with the journalist Dave James.’

‘Did you ever give them to Dave James to hold?’ Tarasha asked.

Stephanie squinted and racked her brain to recall. ‘Yes, Dave but he only held them while we were together. I never left them with him.’

Tarasha thought for some seconds, ‘Did he know where you kept the documents?’

‘Yes, he knew.’

‘I recovered the original copies of the missing documents from him, he must have swapped them withphotocopieswhere you kept them.’

Stephanie’s lips were left ajar for a moment. She couldn’t believe that Dave had taken the documents behind her and she couldn’t even imagine how he did them.

‘But how could he have made extra copies and swapped with the original documents?We were always together if I wasn’t in the house and we also came to Lagos at the same time and even together.’

‘Did you ask yourself how he got the documents from the authorities at first?’Tara asked a question which hit Stephanie. ‘If he could break into secure place like the nation’s ministry’s officeswithout them knowing there was a break in, you think your house was more secured than those buildings were?’

Stephanie let out a breath. She then remembered who Dave was, a specially trained top secret agent.

‘So we have all that we need against the Vice President?’Stephanie asked with an excited tone.

‘Yes, we do. But that doesn’t stop me from coming to see your mother,I’ll be there once I finish with what I have to attend to.’ Tarasha said. ‘So is that all you want to talk to me about?’

‘Ermm… No, I also want to thank you for helping my mother. I’m very grateful to you,’ Stephanie said in a soothing voice.

Tarasha felt confused for a while. She had an unexplainable feeling. She wasn’t used to sincere gratitude and didn’t know how to respond to it but she suddenly remembered what she was supposed to do if it was an act. She smiled sheepishly and opened her hands wide for a hug. Stephanie ran into her embrace and hugged her tightly. It still felt absurd for Tarasha, the feeling was more than an act and the hug felt warmer than it used to feel when she hugged other people.

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‘I have to go now,’ Tarasha mumbled out when Stephanie still clung to her and showed no signs of letting go soon.

‘Thank you,’ Stephanie said again as she released her. She stared at Samantha’s face for a while, smiled and then stepped back.

‘I need to see doctor Ekwueme now, I hope your mom is still awake when I finish with him.’ Tarasha said as she proceeded towards the door.

‘I’m sleeping in her room tonight, the doctor says it’s safe to do so now. So I’ll be the one to answer you when you knock.’ She said, following after her.

‘Alright, I’ll be there once I’m through.’ Tarasha said and opened the door for Stephanie to step out.

_

Doctor Ekwueme’s eyes fell on Tarasha’s face immediately she stepped into the living room. She stopped a step after the entrance, ‘Doc, we need to talk in private.’

Dr Ekwueme swallowed hard as he got up to his feet. He flashed a look at Henry who was seated by his side again before he proceeded towards Tarasha. He had been told by Henry already that Tarasha had gotten his request. Henry had also told him to put his mind at rest and be sure that Tarasha would grant his request.

Tarasha waited patiently for the doctor to get to her and motioned for him to step into the corridor that led to the other parts of the house. ‘Let’s go into the medical room,’ she said and followed behind. She walked as slow as the aged doctor walked. ‘Have you taken dinner?’

‘Yes, I have.’ The doctor replied, taking a glance at her face. She held his hand to support him and they continued the walk silently.

He kept glancing at her face from time to time, hoping that she would begin to talk to him already but it seemed she was resolved for them to get to the medical room first.

It took them some extra seconds to get to the medical room. Tarasha opened the door and allowed the doctor in before she entered. She proceeded quickly to the bed Dave James was lying in.

Dave had his eyes firmly closed and was motionless. Tarasha stared at him for some seconds while she waited for the doctor to join her.

‘You are beginning to walk slower these days,’ Tarasha said to the doctor, giving him a side look.

‘Yes,’ the doctor squeezed his face. ‘I’m having some pains on my right legs and I think I need some treatment for it.’

‘But why didn’t you talk until now?’ she asked.

‘I thought it was something that would leave like it usually does but I remembered that I’ve not been using the same drugs I take daily at home.’

‘We should get the drugs for you tomorrow, first thing before doing anything else.’ Tarasha said before fixing her gaze back on Dave’s face. ‘Is he still pretending or he’s really asleep now?’

‘David,’ the doctor called, stepping closer to look at Dave’s face. There was no response from Dave.

Tarasha smiled lightly with her eyes still fixed on Dave’s face. ‘He needs to die, he’s a dubious person.’

The doctor was shocked at Tarasha words and quickly turned to stare at her face, but Tarasha had her eyes still fixed on Dave’s face.

‘You really still want him dead?’ the doctor asked in a shaky voice.

‘Yes, why not?’ she answered. ‘He’s fake, he’s fully awake and listening to us. I guess he’s trying to fool me,’ she added and laughed. She had seen Dave’s eyes move when she mentioned that he still needed to die, so she knew he was conscious and listening to them. She moved away from where she stood and turned to look at the shelf where some mixtures and syringes were stored.

‘I don’t think he’s awake,’ the doctor said, moving closer to Dave. He placed his palm on Dave’s cheek and felt Dave respond to his touch. He also realized that Dave was awake and only pretending to be asleep.

‘He must have lied to you about who he is, I don’t think he is really the son of the James you know.’ Tarasha said and turned back to them. Dave still had his eyes closed.

‘Come on David, open your eyes. We know you are listening to us,’ the doctor said, tapping Dave on his cheek.

Dave finally opened his eyes and saw the doctor standing right beside him. He looked to the left of the doctor and saw Samantha Osman standing beside and looking at him. He remembered the face perfectly well. She was the same girl he had seen on low cut driving in the Chevrolet, the only difference was that her hair was now lower.

Tarasha took her gaze off his face and continued to speak with the doctor, ‘We really do not need him anymore, all we would do is keep him here until we finish all we have to do. After that, we wipe off his memory and let him go as a new and free man.’

‘No, don’t wipe off my memory.’ Dave found himself protesting in low tones.

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The doctor only glanced at him and looked away. ‘Why don’t we wipe off his memory right now and let him go?’

‘I’m thinking he could still be of help to us, he’s been following after me for some time now and I believe he has a lot of information I may need as we get closer to rendering the Vice President useless.’ Tarasha replied. ‘After that we wipe off his memory.’

‘No, please don’t.’ Dave pleaded. He was terribly scared. He couldn’t imagine what it would be like waking up not to remember anything about himself, most of the things he had learnt in life and everything that he had.

__

Agent Dave’s began to ring again and Cole took it out of his pocket. He checked the screen, the contact named Lizzy was still the caller. She had called more than thrice that night already and Cole did not answer any of the calls. As he stared at the screen, he felt the urge to answer the call and listen to what the caller would say at first. But just as he tried to swipe the green button, Tarasha walked back into the living room without the doctor.

‘Boss, this same contact has been trying to reach the agent for some time now.’ He said as he sat up.

Tarasha paused, she was on her way to the dining table. ‘It could be his colleague,’ she said aloud as she thought of what to do. ‘Have you unlocked the phone?’

‘Yes, Henry did after unlocking Rex’s.’

‘Let me have it,’ she said and proceeded to the dining.

Cole took the phone to her there and returned to his own seat. She opened the call dialer and selected the SMS option for the last missed caller ‘Lizzy’. She quickly went through the previous messages to check the pattern of their messages.

‘Babe, I’m in a tight situation and can’t talk now. Can we chat on WhatsApp?’ she typed and sent as a SMS before opening the WhatsApp application.

She quickly read through the previous conversation between Lizzy and Dave and discovered a lot in less than two minutes. One of the main things she picked from the conversation was their discussion about Stephanie George. From the tone of the replies sent by Lizzy, Tarasha could tell that Lizzy was jealous about Dave and Stephanie’s closeness and probably had a crush on Dave.

___

Vice President quarters, Lagos.

‘I heard they are coming to question me tomorrow.’ The vice president said to James as James walked into his bedroom.

‘Yes, I heard it too.’ James replied, after sipping the alcoholic wine from the glass cup. He had the bottle of wine in his right hand and a glass cup in his left.

‘It’s really getting messier,’ Chief Elvis said with a tone of regret. He was seated in his bed, his back resting against the headboard and his waist down covered with his blanket.

‘You don’t need to get tensed Dad, I’ve got your back. Just remain calm. When they come, do not admit to any of the charges.’

‘Are you sure it’s going to work?’

‘Yes,’ James said in a confident tone. He glanced at his father and wondered why the almighty Elvis Richards was suddenly behaving like a sissy. He poured wine into the cup again and gulped it down hungrily.

__

Location : Abuja

Time : 10:48PM

That night, after reading a romantic novel titled ‘Love And Justice’ on youngicee website, Lizzy had decided to give Dave another chance in her life. She still crushed on him despite all Dave had done to disappoint her. She had made up her mind that if he answered and received her well, she wouldn’t listen to the other party that offered her money to get the same information she was giving Dave.

She opened her whatsapp messenger immediately she received the SMS. They began to chat and the conversation began to annoy Lizzy even from the beginning. Dave was not about to change his feelings towards her.

‘Sorry, this place is surrounded by untrusted and naive people who could hear our conversation if we talk on phone.’ A message entered from Dave after they had exchanged pleasantries.

‘It’s late, are you still with someone right now? Or should we talk at midnight?’ Lizzy typed and sent her reply.

‘I’m in the same room with Stephanie George, I wouldn’t like her to hear our conversation and I also can’t go out to answer the call.’

‘You’re with Stephanie, I thought she was kidnapped by the Vice President.’

‘No, she has been with me all this while.’

‘But why the f*** didn’t you tell me?’

‘I’m sorry babe, it skipped my mind.’

‘How the hell could it have skipped your mind?’

‘I’m sorry Liz.’

‘What’s your schedule for tomorrow?’

‘Not fixed yet.’

‘I’m coming over to Lagos for an assignment, can you make time to see me in the afternoon.’

‘Oops, sorry I would be busy.’

‘I thought you just said your schedule isn’t fixed.’

‘Yea, but I can’t just leave Stephanie, she needs me by her side.’

‘F*** you Dave, goodnight.’

Angrily, she exited the app and switched off the phone. She reached for another phone under her pillow. She unlocked it and quickly typed some words into the message box.

‘I agree fully to your terms,’ she sent to an unsaved number.

Location : Abuja

6:30AM Next Daynow

‘I’m sorry about what happened yesterday.’

Lizzy woke up to find the text message from Dave’s number on her phone.

‘I plead with you in God’s name, let me know when you’re in Lagos, so that we can see.’ another message popped in as she pondered on the first with the phone still in her hand.

She took in a deep breath after reading. Dave’s plea looked sincere and full of regrets, but she had made a commitment to the other party already. Moreover, it wasn’t Dave’s first time of sounding or looking sincere with an apology which never stopped him from disappointing her.

She dropped the phone beside the pillow and got out of bed. She turned back again briefly to check the time on the phone. Her flight to Lagos was for eight o’clock that morning. She pulled the switch of the bulbs and the night light turned off while the white day light bulb turned on. Just as she turned towards the bathroom and was about making her way there, her phone began to ring. She stopped and let out a breath. It must be Dave calling, she thought. Maybe he had now found a way to speak with her without getting into trouble, like he claimed he would. He always did find a way when it came to apologizing, and the way was always a good one. She turned and reached for the phone but she was disappointed, Dave wasn’t the one calling her. She answered the call and placed it close to her ear.

‘Hey Sweetheart,’ a male voice sounded from the other end.

‘Good morning,’ she greeted the caller reluctantly.

‘Good morning, how was your night?’ the caller asked in a mischievous tone. Lizzy was yet to answer when he spoke again. ‘Oh! Your night must be d@mn boring. I forgot that you were alone, and Dave whom you are madly in love with must have shagged that pretender SWAD leader mercilessly overnight.’

‘Enough of that man, don’t you think it’s too early to beat around the bush?’ Lizzy replied angrily. She forced out a breath after letting out her anger. But then she felt it was unnecessary to get angry at the caller, he was saying the truth like he always did. She had refused to believe him from the scratch when he told her that Dave was never going to reciprocate her crush for her but she never listened but decided to remain hopeful until Stephanie George came into the picture. Even after the SWAD leader came into the picture she still had some hopes left but it all went gradually as Dave played true to the caller’s every word about him and showed himself running crazy over Stephanie George instead of giving attention to her.

‘Oh! I’m sorry dear. Well, I just called to congratulate you once again for the good decision you made yesterday to agree to the terms. I know you would never regret it. Your flight is by eight o’clock this morning, don’t forget. We would be on the same flight but as usual, we should act as strangers. We would see properly when we get to Lagos and find a strategic location to meet.’

‘Okay,’ Lizzy replied.

The call ended and Lizzy checked the phone’s screen, there was a new message from Dave. ‘Please reply my messages, I beg you.’ The message read.

She sniffed in and shook her head. That was it, Dave was good at begging and apologizing but it never meant he wasn’t going to be the jerk he was. She began to imagine the reasons he couldn’t call but was sending her messages instead. The picture of him being in the bed with Stephanie George kept appearing in her mind. She could see both of them naked under the sheets, their legs culled around each others and Stephanie’s head on Dave’s chest. That must be the exact reason Dave wasn’t able to speak with her on phone, he didn’t want Stephanie to hear him speaking with another woman, she concluded in her mind.

‘I will call you when I get to Lagos,’ she finally typed a reply she never meant, just to stop him from disturbing with further messages. She sent it and flung the phone back to the bed.

She proceeded to the wardrobe with a determination in her heart. She was going to meet him in Lagos, not to give him an opportunity to reciprocate her feelings towards him but to sell him out totally.

____

LAGOS

‘Good morning,’ Tarasha smiled as she sat in the bed beside Madam Atinuke.

‘Good morning, you must be Samantha Osman.’ Madam Atinuke smiled back at her. ‘Thank you for taking care of my daughter and for willing to help us fight my husbands ki||ers.’

Tarasha smiled in reply. She wasn’t sure of what to say.

‘She also saved me from a rapist some time ago,’ Stephanie said as she approached them from the door.

Tarasha glanced at Stephanie and forced a smile on, even though she felt uncomfortable with the praises.

‘Thank you for all that you do for our family,’ Madam Atinuke thanked again.

‘You’re welcome,’ Tarasha replied, almost in whispers. She wasn’t feeling shy or timid before the woman but it just felt strange sitting in her presence.

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There was silence for while.

Stephanie joined in the bed but sat behind, resting her back against the headboard while Tarasha and Madam Atinuke were seated in front close to the corner at the edges.

Madam Atinuke kept her gaze on Tarasha’s face without taking it off while Tarasha stared at the wall in front.

‘Samantha, how old are you?’ Madam Atinuke asked.

The question came unexpected to Tarasha. For a moment, she did not know what age to reply with, whether her age according to the Nefary Clan or her age according to her mother’s diary.

Before she could come up with a reply, someone interrupted with a knock at the door.

‘Who is that?’ Stephanie replied, staring at the door from where she was seated.

They heard Doctor Ekwueme’s voice.

‘Please come in Doctor,’ Stephanie said.

The door opened slowly and the doctor stepped in. He walked in closer and stopped in front of Tarasha and the woman. They exchanged greetings and the doctor asked about the woman’s health.

‘How are you doing Madam?’

‘Fine,’ she replied.

‘I can see,’ the doctor said with a discontented look. From the weakness of her voice, he could tell that she was gradually getting back to the previous condition of her health before she was taken out of the special care center. She was sounding a little bit stronger because of the effect of the boosters which were mixed with her drugs.

The doctor glanced at Tarasha. ‘Thanks, the drugs have been gotten for me.’

‘You’re welcome,’ Tarasha replied with an expressionless look.

There was silence for the next one minute. The doctor located the sofa in the room and sat on it.

‘Dr Ekwu…eme,’ Madam Atinuke said stuttering as she peered at the standing doctor.

The doctor smiled, ‘You finally recognized me.’

The woman’s mouth was left agape, ‘What are you doing here?’

The doctor laughed at the question. ‘Treating you, and living my life.’

‘How is your family and where are they?’

‘They’re perfectly fine in Anambra State,’ the doctor replied.

A phone began to ring, even though the ringtone wasn’t loud, everyone still looked towards Tarasha in whose pocket it was ringing from.

‘Please, excuse me,’ she said as she got up from the bed and took out the phone. ‘Henry, you’re ready?’ she said into the phone as she approached the door.

They watched her open the door and step out.

‘I think I know her,’ Madam Atinuke said aloud about two minutes after Tara left.

The doctor took a quick glance at her. He squinted at her for a while, ‘Where do you know her from?’

‘I can’t remember,’ the woman replied.

‘You can’t, why don’t you try remember?’

The woman squinted for a while and then closed her eyes.

Stephanie and Doctor Ekwueme stared at her expectantly for over a minute but then she surprised them by an unexpected outburst.

‘They took everything I have, my husband, my children and they want to ki|| me. I would not allow them, I would not let them go scotfree with their crimes,’ the woman suddenly got up and began to shout, with her hands at the neck region of her cloth as she attempted to rip it off.

The doctor was shocked. He had never seen her that way and wasn’t expecting it at that time but Stephanie was proactive.

‘Doctor Ekwueme,’ Stephanie said as she sprang out of bed. ‘Please get out of this place immediately.’

The doctor looked at the young woman and then got up hurriedly. He proceeded towards the door as fast as his legs could carry him. Stephanie also joined him but stopped behind the opened door.

‘Mum please, calm down.’ Stephanie said in a pleading tone.

The woman who was displaying on her own had her attention gotten by Stephanie. Her blouse was already torn almost halfway, revealing her underwear partially.

The woman stopped her violent attitude for a moment, she turned to Stephanie and squinted at her like she was trying to recognize who it was. Suddenly she opened her eyes wide again and then pointed a finger at Stephanie.

‘You,’ she said in an angry voice and began to rush towards the girl.

Stephanie hurried out and locked the door with the key from behind. She dropped to her knees and began to sob

The doctor was still there, he was resting against the wall in front of the door. He heaved a sigh as he saw the look of disappointment on the young lady’s face.

He tried to imagine what could have triggered the ill mental condition in the woman. There was nothing else he could think of than the request he made of her to try remember where she knew Samantha Osman from.

He waited for a minute and then flashed a glance at Stephanie to see if she was calmer now.

‘Steph, have you ever seen your mother like this?’ Dr Ekwueme asked, even though he was sure that the answer was yes.

‘Yes, it’s not the first time but I was hoping that it won’t happen again.’ Stephanie replied.

‘Get up, we need to talk about it, we could find a way to control it.’ The doctor urged.

‘Is everything okay?’ another voice joined them.

They both looked towards the entrance of the passage area and saw Tomi standing there, with her eyebrows raised in a questioning mood.

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‘No problem nurse,’ the doctor replied. He turned briefly to Stephanie and motioned for her to get up. ‘What of Samantha?’ the doctor turned back to the nurse.

‘She’s gone out with Henry already,’ Tomi answered.

‘Cole?’

‘He’s gone out, at the same time with them but to a different place I believe.’

‘Okay,’ the doctor said. He then turned to Stephanie, ‘Let’s go, we need to talk about your mother.’

Stephanie continued staring at the door for a while, she could still hear noises from the room and was reluctant to leave her mother suffering alone.

‘Let’s go now,’ the doctor encouraged.

_____

10:53AM

‘I served the Inspector General myself,’ Nicholas said as he followed Cole from the car garage towards the main building.

‘So all hostages have been fed and you’re still the only one who knows that we have the IG here?’ Cole asked in low tones, being conscious of the environment.

‘Yes boss, I’m the only one who knows. And I’ve got the keys with me alone,’ Nicholas replied with the same low tones.

‘What about the drvgged guy, is he awake now?’ Cole asked about Rex.

‘Yes, he is but should be asleep again.’

‘We have to wake him up now,’ Cole said as they climbed up the balcony.

His phone began to ring as they stepped into the first room. He stopped to take it out of his pocket and checked the screen, Patricia was the caller.

‘Hey Pat!’

‘Victor, our flight landed some few minutes ago.’

‘Wow!’ He smiled. ‘I’m glad to hear that.’

‘So when are we seeing?’ she asked.

‘When will it be convenient for you?’

‘Well, I won’t be so busy today until tomorrow, I only have to wait for them to get us to the hotel we are going to be lodged first.’

‘Okay, call me after and tell me what time would be good for us to hang out.’

‘Okay dear.’

‘Alright, I will be expecting your call.’

Cole smiled as the call ended. He put the phone back into his pocket and proceeded quickly to join Nicholas.

__

In a dark tinted Venza Jeep. Lizzy was seated at alone the backseat, dressed in a black trouser suits and white inner shirt. She looked smart and ready for a corporate activity. The driver of the vehicle sat at the front alone. He was also dressed corporately and he had dark eyeglasses on.

They had been driving in silence for about thirty minutes from the airport. They drove into an IT company and waited in the car garage for five minutes. Two people joined them in the vehicle, one at the front seat and the other with Lizzy at the back. They drove out of the company and continued the journey.

‘How was the flight?’ the person seated beside Lizzy asked.

‘Great,’ she replied without giving the person a look.

‘Yea, I know it was great.’ The person replied with a smile. ‘We were on the same flight, I know you didn’t see us. So what’s our first move?’

‘We have to wait until I make my own moves first,’ Lizzy replied confidently, not intimidated by the confidence of the one talking to her.

‘Do make quick moves, we can’t wait to deliver.’

‘The moves would continue after you fulfill your first part of the deal.’

The person beside her chuckled, ‘I’ll make the first payment right away.’

A device was taken out. After a minute of working on the device, a beep sounded on Lizzy’s phone. She took it out to check and confirmed the transaction.

‘Received,’ she said with a straight face.

‘Yea,’ the reply came with another chuckle.

They drove and discussed for some more minutes until they got close to a bus stop. The vehicle parked and the two people who joined them alighted. Lizzy’s car drove off.

The two watched as the car drove out of sight before they crossed to the other side of the road and got into a blue rover parked there.

____

12:49PM

Henry and Tarasha sat at a table in a restaurant. They had plates of beans and plantain served in front of them and were eating quietly until Tarasha broke the silence.

‘Where do we go next?’ she asked.

‘I think we should go to Orile now,’ Henry replied.

Tarasha paused to think for a moment. She recalled the pictures of the survey of the area and couldn’t but agree with Henry that it was the next place they should go.

‘Tara, what plans do you have for everybody else after we complete the whole mission finally?’

Tara was about to take a spoon of beans but dropped it as the question hit her. She raised her brows at Henry. She could tell that the question Henry was trying to ask her was if she had plans for them at all.

‘Why do you ask?’ she replied.

Henry narrowed his gaze at her. He changed the position of his head and nodded to the other side. ‘I was just thinking about Dr Ekwueme, Stephanie and the two elderly women. The public thinks they’ve been kidnapped, I don’t know how they’re going to go back to their normal lives.’

Tara was quiet for a while. She had thought about his question already and had a plan fixed but didn’t know how Henry would react to it.

‘They would all return to their normal lives, I have plans to make them appear rescued after the death or judgment of the Vice President in court.’ She answered. ‘But what about you? How would you return to your normal life?’

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 14 Part 12
Henry squinted at her. ‘My normal life? I do not have a normal life anymore,’ he paused and cleared his throat. ‘My normal life is the one with you.’

‘What about your parents and family? What would you do with them after all is done?’

Henry gasped. He suddenly remembered that he had it in mind days ago to do a check on his mother when he travelled to Abuja with Cole but all that happened was him waking up to hear that he couldn’t go on the trip anymore because he collapsed and was unconscious for about forty eight hours.

‘I will only make sure that they remain fine and live well, I can’t leave you.’

Tara chuckled. She relaxed her back and continued with her food silently. After some seconds, she raised her hand and checked her wristwatch.

‘We need to hurry up, we don’t have much time by our side.’

__

6PM

In a black Range Rover. Victor is seated at the driver’s seat while Patricia is on his right. Both look tired out after having some hours of fun together. They had been together since 2 pm that day and now Victor had come to drop her in the hotel she was lodged in. They both sat in silence for a long while at the parking lot. The ringtone of Victor’s phone disturbed the silence.

Victor took out his second phone. He glanced at the screen. The caller’s ID displayed was ‘Boss’. He began to feel uncomfortable, it would be difficult for him to communicate effectively with his boss with Patricia beside him.

‘Hello Boss,’ he finally answered the call after hesitating for a while.

‘Cole, we just located the exact spot Rex has Chief Nonso in Badagry and luckily for us, there are security cameras around the area. We already surveyed the building and we found out there are some guys guarding the place. We don’t know for certain how many they are, but we can guess they are not less than twelve, we also do not know how strong they are. I’m going in alone and I’ll need you to watch from the base and communicate with Henry and I, I would try as much as possible to bring the men outside the main building.’

‘Okay boss, but I need some minutes to get back to the base.’ Victor said into the phone.

‘How many minutes do you need?’

‘Thirty minutes maximum boss.’

‘Please hurry.’

Victor dropped the call and glanced at Patricia. She already knew he needed to leave immediately.

‘It’s okay honey,’ she said and pecked him before stepping out of the car.

He reversed out of the parking garage and drove out of the hotel.

As the range Rover drove away, Lizzy walked into another car at the other side of the garage. ‘Drive after the black car,’ she said to the driver.

The driver obeyed and turned out of the garage.

‘I realized he hired the vehicle, there was no need putting a tracker on him,’ Lizzy said into a phone as the car drove into the road, still having the black range Rover in sight.

‘So, how are we going to get him?’ the voice from the other end of the phone replied.

‘I’m after him now and would follow him to their present location, his boss gave him thirty minutes to get there.’

‘Be careful Agent, you should tell us as soon as you get his location.’

‘Yes sure, I would.’

45 minutes later.

Lizzy checked her time again. The time was far spent and Victor had been seen coming out of the car rentals service he rented the vehicle from. They (Lizzy and the driver) had watched him drive into the place to return the car and had not seen him come out in the same or a different car.

It was when the rentals service began to lock their gates that Lizzy realized that Victor must have left without them knowing. She concluded that he must have used a very good disguise technique for them not to know when he left.

She tried to recall all those she had seen come out of the place and there was only one instance that Cole could have escaped through. A car with three guys in it had come out of the place five minutes after Victor drove in with the Range Rover. She did not pay much attention to the car then because all the guys all had so much beards and it appeared like they were a beard gang of some sort but then she remembered that the guy that was seated at the backseat of the car wore the same type of shirt Victor wore.

‘d@mn it!’ she cursed aloud. ‘We’ve been fooled, he left already.’

‘How could he have left, through the back?’ the driver who was also a trained NIS officer asked.

‘Through a very good disguise method,’ she replied.

She heaved a sigh and closed her eyes. She rested her head against the headrest as she began to think of what next to do. Then she suddenly remembered Tomi and realized that she wasn’t making good use of Tomi. She tapped her phone out and searched out Tomi’s number.

7:23 PM

‘Boss, I’m ready,’ Cole said into the mouthpiece hung around the second button on his shirt.

He was in the control room alone. The main computer system was already set up and the apps were running. It had taken him an extra fifteen minutes to set up after getting to the Base.

On the computer screen, a live stream was running. A well lighted one storey building was being shown. From the outside look of the building, one could tell that the top and down floors were designed as two separate flats.

Cole moved the cursor until he located Tarasha. She was dressed in a blue native top and a black skinny three-quarter shorts and had a small black bag strapped to her bag. She had a pair of special black trainers on her feet. He also noticed that she was lightly disguised with tribal marks on her face. He couldn’t but commend her silently for coming up with the idea to look like a native.

‘Can you see me?’ Cole heard Tarasha’s voice sound in the earpiece.

‘Yes, I can see you.’ Cole replied. He watched as she turned and looked around for some minutes and then she finally rested against the wall.

‘I can’t see the cameras because of the darkness of the day, locate the non visible areas of the cameras and get back to me immediately.’

‘Okay boss,’ Cole replied and got to work immediately. His fingers worked so fast on the keyboard and soon the live streamed video began to go in a rotational direction.

Someone knocked on the door.

Cole took a glance at the door. ‘Who’s it?’ he asked in a loud voice.

‘Nicholas,’ he heard the voice reply.

‘Come in.’

Nicholas entered into the place and proceeded straight towards Cole. ‘I’ve gotten the NSCC web account you asked me to get,’ he said and stopped beside Cole.

‘How did you get it?’ Cole flashed a look at him.

‘I paid a top official and he gave me his account details,’ Nicholas replied.

‘Hope the top official doesn’t have your own real name and details?’

‘No, he doesn’t.’

‘Okay, send the details in a notepad file to me.’ Cole said, hoping to conclude with that. He continued with the work on the computer but noticed that Nicholas was still standing behind him. He turned to him and raised a brow.

‘You’ve not given any further instruction,’ Nicholas said.

‘Further instructions pertaining what?’ Cole asked, squinting at his face.

‘We really don’t understand why we had to come to take you to the vehicle rentals firm and back putting on disguise.’

‘That’s done already,’ Cole replied and turned back to his work. ‘There’s no further instructions to be given for now. I went out to get some information and knew I could be possibly seen by someone against us, that’s why I needed the car rental company and the disguise. That way, no one would be able to trace my movement after driving into the company.’

Nicholas raised his brows in realization and nodded gently before walking out of the control room.

___

LOCATION: MOWO, BADAGRY

‘Just keep moving now, I’ll tell you once you come in sight.’ Tarasha heard Cole’s voice in her earpiece.

She obeyed his instructions and moved away from the tree, she proceeded towards the gate of the building on a straight line from where she was previously standing.

‘I can see you now,’ Cole’s voice sounded as she got to the gate.

She looked around carefully. People were all around the area. A lot of women seated in their various shops and stores and others walking with bags returning from their places of work. Even though no one seemed to pay attention to her, she knew the neighbours and shop owners close by were watching her but just keeping quiet to see if she would do any thing suspicious.

She didn’t waste any time but pushed the pedestrian side of the gate and stepped into the compound. The gate, an old fashioned one creaked out loud as she closed it back. She stopped on a spot for a second to look around the place. She could approximate the distance between the main building and the gate as twenty two metres. The house was a very big one but the remaining space at the front of the house was also large. There were also spaces between the building and the fence at both sides.

She proceeded straight towards the main door of the ground floor. Someone stepped out through the door as she got halfway and stared at her from the balcony. He closed the door and stepped closer to the tip of the balcony, waiting for her.

‘Can you see the front of the house?’ she said in very low tones as she proceeded.

‘Just the front of the house, I can’t see the verandah fully but now I see a man standing there.’

‘Good evening sir,’ Tarasha greeted.

‘Good evening Aunty, are you looking for someone here?’ the man replied in a not-too-friendly tone.

‘I actually saw the to-let signpost outside the gate and I came to find out details about the house.’

‘Which To-Let sign post are you talking about?’ the guy asked with a frown.

‘It’s outside, resting on the fence beside your gate.’ She replied.

‘And you are sure it’s this house?’

‘Yes.’

The guy stared at her with suspicious eyes for a moment, then he turned back and opened the door, he poked his head in quickly and called for someone to join him. Thirty seconds later, another man joined him in the balcony.

The new man was built heavier compared to the first one who was only tall but slim. He looked more vicious and impatient.

‘This lady says there’s a sign post outside the gate,’ the first man said.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 15 Part 10
‘What sign post?’ the heavily built man asked, with his eyes still fixed on Tarasha’s face. He slowly turned his face to his partner while the partner was answering.

‘A sign post advertising vacancy,’ the first man answered.

‘Vacancy here?’ the heavy man turned back to Tarasha, narrowing his gaze.

‘Yes, it’s out there by your gate side.’ She replied confidently.

The heavily built man stared at her for some seconds. She looked confident and harmless at the same time. He examined her face and noticed the tribal marks on her cheeks, it looked exactly like those of the indigenes of the land. ‘Why don’t you go and check what she is talking about,’ he said to the first guy.

Tarasha kept a smile on as the first man walked past her. She didn’t move her gaze from the heavy man’s face who was also staring at her. She stepped closer to him and put her hand on the handrail which demarcated the balcony. Her eyes wandered for some seconds and she saw some movements at the window side. She knew some of the other men were now aware of her presence.

She heard the sound of the gate opening. Then she turned back to the man and looked directly into his eyes, ‘So which one of the flats is vacant?’

The man widened his eyes, wondering what kind of stupid question she asked.

‘Are you alright? Can’t you see we are just trying to confirm what you’re talking about?’

‘Oh! Sorry, wrong question. I wanted to ask which of the flats you kept Chief Nonso Onwuli.’

Before the man could come to himself, she attacked him with a short knife from her bag, driving it into his chest. He tried to resist by pulling her hand off but she was stronger than he expected. She kept twisting the knife hard into the left side of his chest, inflicting pains all over him until the whole knife with the handle got in his chest. He fell to the floor unconscious but she dragged him up and pushed him towards the door.

__

‘Good evening sir,’ a stranger on face cap greeted him as he stepped out of the gate.

He looked at the stranger for a moment and noticed where the stranger’s attention was. ‘What the f***!’ he cursed as he stepped forward. ‘Who the hell put this here?’ he asked, staring at the “Flat to Let” Vacancy Sign post resting on the fence.

‘I actually want to make enquires about the vacant flat,’ the stranger said.

The tall slim man was impatient. He hurried to the place and tore off the sign post immediately.

‘Hey!’ the stranger moved closer. ‘Why are you tearing it off?’

‘Mister man, please don’t bother me.’ The tall man said as he proceeded back into the compound angrily.

He stepped into the gate and tried to close it but the stranger stopped it with his leg. The stranger pushed the gate open and stepped in.

‘Who the hell are you?’ the tall man asked but Henry replied him with a heavy blow.

The man staggered back. Henry quickly removed the syringe from his pocket and took off the cover. He tried to pierce the man’s hand with him but the man was also quick. He dealt Henry a blow on the face which made Henry almost fall to the ground. He followed it up with a kick and Henry landed on the floor with his right side.

The syringe fell from Henry’s hand and stopped at a distance of a meter away from him.

He managed to stand up quickly as the man rushed towards him. The man flung him a blow but Henry dodged it by bending and grabbed the man by the belly. He turned the man’s back and towards the fence and with speed slammed the man’s back against the fence. Unluckily for him, because of anxiety, he didn’t pull back his head as quickly as he intended to do and also hit his head against the wall.

Both men fell to the floor, hurt but Henry was in a deeper pain. His face was flat on the ground. His opponent was able to get up before him and decided to take advantage of Henry’s pain before he could recover. The tall man located the syringe and picked it up. He stared at it for two seconds, he didn’t know what the content was but he knew that Henry was planning to hurt him with it. He proceeded towards Henry, placed a knee on the ground and raised the syringe.

__

‘Get up everybody,’ Tarasha entered the house, pointing a gun. There were four men in the living room. She had the unconscious man’s back turned to them as she dragged him in, her left hand supporting his heavy weight by her grip on his neck.

The men stared at her without moving for a while until she Ç0çƙed the gun and pointed it to the unconscious man’s head. The weight on her left hand was increasing but she didn’t want to drop him yet for the other men not to know he was dying already.

The men got up and put their hands in the air.

‘Spread out,’ she said and motioned them with her gun.

She glanced at the body she was holding up again. The man was still alive but would be dead in less than two minutes. She had to let him fall to the ground soon, the bleeding from his chest had increased and could stain her all over if she didn’t let him go.

In a twinkling of an eye, she held the trigger and spread the bullets into the men’s body faster than they expected it. A silencer was attached to the gun, so it made no noise. She dropped the heavy man to the floor and proceeded further.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 17 Part 8
__

The determination to still remain alive and not to fail Tara made Henry act swifter than he would normally. He turned immediately he felt the man’s hand touch his body and ensured the man couldn’t position himself well to drive in the syringe. The man fell dropped to the floor on his side. Still on the floor, Henry turned and dug a kick with the bottom of his leg into the man’s belly. He turned and managed to get up quickly. He rushed towards the man who was also trying to get up and launched a blow to his face. The man fell back.

Henry looked around the floor to locate where the syringe had fallen but didn’t see it early. He found it later beside his opponent but the other also saw it at the same time and got to pick it before him. Henry rushed to the man before he could get up. He landed a blow on his face and placed a knee beside him. He held the man’s hand which had the syringe and tried to force it out of his hand but the other man was not ready to give up.

He launched a blow targeted to Henry’s chin with his right hand but Henry blocked it with his own left hand. However, the man still regained the upper hand as he used his knee to hit Henry at the jaw. Henry landed painfully on the right side of his butt and his enemy got up quickly before he could recover. The enemy followed up with a blow to Henry’s chest, making Henry scream out in pain and taking his back to the ground. The man raised the syringe and tried to drive it into Henry’s chest but Henry stopped him by gripping his wrist.

The tussle continued for a moment as Henry struggled to keep the man’s hand away from his chest but the man strived harder to drive the needle in. The man doubled his effort and his needle got closer to Henry’s chest, almost touching cloth.

All of a sudden, Henry realized that the man had left his pelvic region unprotected amidst the struggle. All Henry did was to raise his knees and hit the man hard at the region. The man screamed out loud and fell face flat on Henry with Henry moving his hand away from his chest. Henry quickly turned and picked the syringe from where it fell, he drove it into the man’s neck.

He released a huge breath in relief as he got up from the man. Then he suddenly remembered what he was supposed to do with the man. He stared down again, the man was still conscious but totally unable to move his body. He took out a knife from his pocket and removed the carton cover from the blade. He squatted beside the man and turned him up, then he placed the cold metal on his neck.

‘Now, where is Chief Nonso Onwuli?’ he asked in a desperate tone, still breathing loudly from the tussle.

The man blinked his eyes for some seconds without replying until he began to feel the blade drive deeper into his neck.

‘He’s in the room opposite Capon’s room,’ he finally voiced out.

‘And where is your Capon’s room located?’

‘It’s the last room at the right side on the ground floor,’ the man replied.

Henry retrieved the knife and covered it back. He turned on his communication device as he returned the knife. He took out a one sided earphone and put it into his left ear.

‘Hey Tara, they’ve got the man at the third floor of this same building.’ he said into the mouthpiece attached to the collar of his shirt.

He waited for some seconds to get an answer but he got none. ‘Hey Tara, did you hear me?’ he waited for another ten seconds but still got no response. He turned and faced the building. He began to imagine several things that could be happening to Tara which could make her unable to respond to him. She had told him to go get the car immediately after he got the location from the man but without him getting a response from her, he didn’t think he could go out for the car, she could need his help in the building.

__

The noise in the first room had attracted the attention of the other men in the building and one of them was already heading towards there through the passage when Tara stepped in there.

The man stopped for a moment and stared at her. The passage was well lighted and he could see her face but didn’t know who she was. He wondered if she was one of the numerous girlfriends of their boss who was in the inner room on the same floor.

‘What do you want?’ he asked as he proceeded towards her with confidence. She looked harmless so he didn’t think she could do anything harmful, what he planned to do was to walk past her to the first room to check what was wrong after confirming first from her that the boss called her in.

She proceeded towards him as he came towards her. They stopped in each other’s front and looked into each other’s eyes.

The man was confused. He couldn’t understand how she could be staring into his eyes that way instead of asking where the Capon was and going straight to her business.

‘Where is Chief Nonso Onwuli?’ Tarasha asked, trying hard to pronounce the name rightly as Henry taught her.

The man frowned and squinted at her for a moment trying to figure out what was going on. He suddenly realized that she was asking about their hostage and he tried to grab her immediately but she held him at the upper arms of both sides and drove her artificial nails into his skin.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 22 Part 4B
The man winced in pain as blood dripped out of the points in which the finger nails entered. He tried to fight back but noticed that his strength was gradually dwindling and realized that the nails driven into his body were not ordinary. He managed to look at it and noticed that they were flat metallic objects. Soon she released him and he fell to the ground. She pulled out an handkerchief hanging from her front pocket and wiped the blood on her fingers with it.

Another man surfaced in the passage as she took two steps further. He was surprised to see her at first but more surprised to see the man on the floor with the drops of blood. He quickly unbuckled his belt and pulled it out. He flipped it in the air and it stretched out like a sword.

Tara stopped on seeing the man’s weapon, she began to step back as he stepped towards her. She knew the weapon not only had a sharp long blade but could also be a tool for electrocution.

He took a step one after the other and she took a two step backwards with every step he took. The corridor was long because the rooms in the house were many, about fifteen metres length and two and a half metres in width. She still had five metres to the entrance of the corridor.

The man suddenly increased his speed but she turned back and ran to the entrance. He ran faster than her but she still got to the entrance wall before him. She jumped and used the sole of her right foot on the wall, her shoes helping her to launch herself higher. The sole of her left foot touched the left wall and she landed right behind the man.

He didn’t expect it but he quickly stopped and turned with a swing of the weapon. She dodged it by bending her head swiftly and then grabbed his neck with her right hand, she dipped her finger nails into his skin and held the hand with which he held the sword by his wrist. She could hear some sounds from her earpiece as she tightened her grip on his neck, soon she choked life out of him and dropped him to the floor.

She could hear Henry’s voice in the earpiece again as she proceeded to the body of the first man that was ki||ed in the passage and picked the handkerchief, she wiped her fingers off the blood of the new man and dropped back the handkerchief.

‘I heard you Henry,’ she said into her mouthpiece as she pulled her bag. ‘Go get the car and drive to the entrance when I give you the signal.’

She took out a pack of tissue paper from the bag and put it into her pocket, she then strapped it back on. Two other guys were standing at the front as she looked up. They had the same weapon that the second man had in their hands.

She smiled as she stepped back slowly until she got to the man and picked up the weapon. What she wanted was a very silent operation and the men were helping her achieve that by bringing out noiseless weapons to attack her.

She held the weapon firmly in her hand and signalled for the men to come closer for a fight.

_____

Cole could hear every of Tarasha and Henry’s conversation through the earpiece from where he sat in the control room. He had seen Henry when he was contemplating to go into the building against Tarasha’s instruction and was about to remind him of the instruction before he heard Tarasha speak up. He was certain that the mission to save the Chief would be a successful one.

His phone made a beep sound and he picked it up to check the notification, it was a new Whatsapp message from Tomi. He chuckled in surprise, it had been a long time since he had any phone conversation with Tomi. He opened the message to check.

‘I never believed you could be so shameless, your nude photos are already everywhere on the internet,’ the message read and then a link followed as the second message. The thumbnail displayed by the link showed a nude picture of someone’s backside.

Cole wondered what she was up to this time. He was sure that there was no way he could have nude pictures of himself on the internet, but he clicked on the link out of curiosity.

‘This page is not safe,’ a warning popped up from his browser. He ignored and closed the warning box, he wasn’t expecting his browser to identify the page as safe before because of the nudes on it and he also believed that his phone had the necessary apps to combat any malware that could attack from the website.

He continued to the website and it loaded fully. There were nudes on it but he scrolled down to the end and couldn’t find any picture with someone who looked like him. He hissed and closed the page.

His phone vibrated and there was another notification.

‘Security issues!’ the warning read.

____

‘Location retrieved,’ a notification popped up on Lizzy’s laptop and she got up from the bed immediately.

She smiled to herself as she stared at the screen. She picked up her phone and dialed a number.

‘We’ve got the second address now.’

‘Security issues?’ Cole raised his brow as he stared at the warning prompt.

He picked the phone and unlocked it. He stared at the notification for some more seconds before clicking on it. The notification was from the location security application on the phone. Every device that was being used in that house had the app installed on it and it was always introduced to any device brought in newly.

Cole wondered why the application had stopped running. He knew it was almost impossible for it to crash or for the app to stop running by itself. The app had been edited by Tarasha herself and it couldn’t have any bug or unknown error.

The app, installed on all smartphones and devices in the house connected the devices location services to the main control server and it was used to hide the devices’ location from people forcefully trying to find the location and it could also be used to redirect hackers attention to another location. The link which was sent to the device from Tomi was an advanced phishing link which immediately extracted the real IP address from any browser that visits it and also tracks the location of the device immediately. The malware from the website was specially designed to crash any application or software that could stop the website from extracting the location.

There was no other reason Cole could find for the application crash except for the website link which he clicked on. He clicked on the start button for the application to continue running and he minimized to check if other applications were not affected. Some other applications which were not necessarily security apps were also affected, he turned them all back on. He opened the whatsapp messenger again and opened the chat with Tomi to see the link one more time.

He stared at the link for some seconds, there was nothing suspicious by merely looking at it. Then he clicked on it again, this time he opened with another browser on a private tab. The same warning popped up. The first and only line of words on the warning tab read;

‘Website may be harmful or unsecure, continue or exit?’

The words ‘continue’or ‘exit’ had the green color which meant they were embedded links.

The warning didn’t look different from the usual warnings that popped up on browsers when visiting pornographic websites and other websites which was rated unfit for all surfers by the Nigerian Internet Authority, so Cole had no reason to take it serious since the website he was supposed to visit contained nudes.

His thumb hovered around the continue and exit links for a while but then he realized that there was a button for ‘Read more details’ under the warning which he had taken for granted because he was too used to the prompt. He clicked on read more details and more information was displayed.

‘This website contains dangerous files and attachments that could manipulate your computer and it’s files.’

Cole let out a gasp. He shone his eyes widely as he thought. Why should Tomi be trying to find his location? What could she need it for? And how did she get such a link that could extract the device’s location. He was baffled. He knew for a certain that the link couldn’t have been created by Tomi herself, she didn’t have enough knowledge to do that.

He exited the browser and quickly opened his call dialer. He searched out for her number and dialed it. It rang three times consecutively without being answered. He dropped the phone for a moment, wondering what Tomi could be up to.

He picked the phone again and dialed Stephanie George’s phone number.

‘Hi Steph,’ he said as the call was answered from the other end.

‘Good evening Cole,’ Stephanie replied.

‘I’d like to speak with Tomi please, I tried to call her phone but she’s not answering.’

‘I’m sorry but Tomi is yet to return, the doctor has been trying to reach her on phone and she’s not answering.’

‘Where did she go?’

‘Doctor Ekwueme sent her to get some drugs.’

‘Since when did she leave the house?’

‘More than an hour ago, she left in the black Corolla.’

‘Okay, what pharmacy did the doctor send her to get it from?’

‘I don’t know, give me some seconds to confirm.’

‘Please confirm and send a text to me as soon as possible.’

__

Lizzy stared at the phone on the table as it vibrated. She smiled to herself, knowing it must be Victor calling to speak with Tomi. A young man was seated beside her at the table, he was seated in front of the computer system directly and the phone was closer to him. He checked the screen and glanced at Lizzy.

‘The caller’s name is Cole,’ he said to her in an American accent. He was a black American.

‘Let it ring,’ Lizzy replied without moving an inch. She turned to the back and smiled at Tomi who was tied to a chair with her mouth gagged with a duct tape.

Flashback

‘Tomi, I’ll like you to get some drugs from Outright Pharmacy before it’s late.’

Tomi heard the doctor speaking to her. She was in the kitchen and had just finished preparing dinner, she was now cleaning the dishes and pots used in the cooking.

‘Okay sir, I’m rounding up already.’ she turned back and found the doctor at the entrance of the kitchen.

‘Thank you,’ the doctor replied. ‘Can I come and help you with something there?’

‘Thank you sir, you don’t have to worry.’Tomi said and glanced at him with a smile. ‘You need to have a lot of rest, I’ll just hurry up and go get the drugs for you immediately.’

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‘The drugs are not to be used by me, they’re for Stephanie’s mother,’ the doctor replied.

‘Oh! I thought we got all the drugs she needed already.’

‘Yes, we did but after what happened today, I discussed with her daughter and I realized that some of these new drugs will help the woman.’

‘Okay then, let me hurry up.’

Tomi finished with her work ten minutes after and dressed up to go to the pharmacy. She called Tarasha and informed her that she’d be going out to get some drugs and Tarasha instructed her on how to get out of the building.

The pharmacy was about thirty minutes drive from the base. The doctor had always insisted that she went to that particular pharmacy because of their quality service and presence of almost all medicines in the store.

Tomi had just gotten to the pharmacy when she received a call. She stopped at the entrance to answer it.

‘Hey Tomi,’ a male voice sounded through the speaker.

‘Hello, who am I speaking with?’

‘You’re speaking with…’ the voice faded off and the call ended.

*

Lizzy was seated in front of the computer set. A man was seated beside her and making a phone call. Her hand was on the mouse as she scrolled through the tracking app, trying to track the location of the receiver of the call who the man seated next to her was calling.

She navigated through the software draggingly. She wasn’t expecting the tracker to be able to locate the call receiver’s location. She expected that the location would be untraceable as usual and didn’t think it was possible for Tomi not to be in a secured location at the time of the call.

‘Hey Tomi,’ the man beside her said into the phone. That gave a signal to Lizzy that the call had been answered from the other end.

She stared on surprise at the computer screen as the map popped up and a dot appeared on the call receiver’s location on the map. She quickly zoomed it. The call receiver’s location wasn’t far from their own location, it would take a walk of about five minutes only.

‘You’re speaking with…’

‘Shhh…’ she turned to the man and placed a finger on her lips signalling to him to stop talking.

The man slowly took the phone away from his lips.

‘Cut the call,’ she said in whispers and the man obeyed. ‘Right now she’s in this same street, at a pharmacy not far from here.’

‘What do we do?’

‘It’ll make our work easier and faster if we get her physically,’ Lizzy replied. She got up and disconnected the laptop from the power source. ‘Let’s go get her, you would continue the call in the car as you monitor the tracker for possible change in location while I’ll drive.’

_

Tomi hissed as she walked into the pharmacy. She looked around for a second and located the desk. She walked to the place and gave the attendant the list of drugs she wanted to purchase. Three minutes later, she had paid for the drugs and was waiting to get a receipt at the counter when another call entered. It was the same number. She finished with the cashier at the counter before she turned to answer the call.

‘Hello.’

‘Hey Tomi, where is Samantha?’

She frowned as she walked back to the entrance door. ‘Who is this?’

‘It’s a colleague of yours, I want to ask if you can reach Samantha Osman for me. We are on a mission from her but Cole has been delaying us, he’s been in a hotel room with a girl for more than one hour now.’ The man replied hurriedly without pausing for Tomi to say anything.

Tomi was quiet for a while. She still did not know who the caller was but the mention of Cole being with another woman got her attention more. She cursed him under her breath. He was supposed to be on an errand for the boss but he chose to waste time with a girl which perhaps was the wh-_-re Patricia in a hotel room just because the boss had gone out with Henry.

‘Which hotel is he in?’ she asked.

‘Golden Green Hotel at Asipa Road,’ the man replied.

‘Asipa road?’ she questioned again. That was the same road the pharmacy was located.

‘Yes.’

She stopped to think for a moment. She considered going to the hotel to see things herself but discarded the thought when she realized that it wouldn’t help matters but only cause troubles. Then she thought about getting the boss to be angry with Cole, it was another way to get Cole punished.

‘Hey!’ she said into the phone. ‘Is there anyway you could get his picture with the girl in the hotel room or hotel premises?’

‘Ermm… I don’t think so…’ the man was saying when the line went off.

‘Hello…’ Patricia said before looking at the phone’s screen. She dialled back the number but it was unreachable. She tried two more times and it still didn’t connect.

She shook her head as she returned the phone into her bag and proceeded to the car parked outside the pharmacy. She got into the driver’s side of the car and dropped her bag on the passengers’ seat. She then started the car and pulled on her seatbelt. She turned on the trafficator and placed her gaze on the side mirror to check the cars coming from behind. She waited patiently for the right time to drive into the road as the vehicles passed. She noticed a car stop right behind her but she didn’t pay much attention to it.

The men at the passenger’s side of the car stepped out. He was putting on a dark shades to cover his eyes and a blue face cap on. He walked to the car in front and turned round the bonnet to the driver’s side.

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Tomi saw as the man walked to her side. She wound down the window when he stopped beside her.

‘Hey!’ he smiled as he bent to talk to her.

‘Hi,’ she replied with an indifferent look.

‘Step out, I need to talk to you.’ he said.

Tomi stared at him in awe, surprised at his audacity. She ignored him and smiled. She faced front and tried to wind up the window but he scattered the window glass with a blow that touched her chin.

She was too shocked to react and before she could come back to herself, the man had grabbed her neck and was pulling her out through the window.

She had never felt a man’s hand so strong. She was helpless as he pulled her out of the car with a hand and carried her towards his car. His grip on her neck was so tight that she couldn’t even let out a scream.

The passers-by watched in amazement as the man dropped her into the backseat of the car and entered with her. The lady in front of the wheels drove away immediately. She didn’t waste time to put on the trafficator and almost caused a crash as she burst into the road but she was unconcerned. She continued driving, and drove roughly.

35 minutes later

After driving through a long route to ensure their vehicle could not be traced, they finally got back to their operation base. The man carried Tomi in and dropped her on the floor.

The black American man was already waiting for them in the room. He was seated in front of the control system and working on the security cameras software.

The place was dark but wide. The computer systems in the room were located on the tables resting directly against the wall at the left side. The entrance to the room was at the right side. Tomi sat up where she was dropped at the centre, she noticed the place was fairly lit but well ventilated. The air conditioners there were major contributors to the coolness of the place.

The lady who drove the car walked in through the entrance and Tomi turned to look at her. She was dressed in a blue top and a black trouser made of shining materials. Her high heeled shoes made sounds on the tiled floor as she walked towards Tomi catwalking like a model with Tomi’s bag in her hand.

‘Hey! I’m Patricia,’ the lady squatted before Tomi and stretched out a hand for a handshake.

‘You b***h! I should have known,’ Tomi cursed angrily.

Lizzy smiled and retrieved her hand. ‘I don’t think it’s the time to get touchy, you need to cooperate with us if you want to get out of here alive.’

Tomi stared at her confused, wondering what her cooperation was needed for. ‘What do you want from me?’

‘Nothing much or too difficult, I only want you to lead us to Samantha Osman.’

Tomi frowned, wondering what business Patricia had with Samantha Osman.

‘What do you want with Samantha?’

‘It’s none of your business, all I ask of you is that you lead us to the base she operates from.’

Tomi was silent for a while. She was disgusted by everything around her and annoyed with the fact that she had to listen to Patricia without being able to punch her in the face.

‘I can’t and would never do that,’ Tomi finally voiced out in a determined tone. She realized that Patricia might have been an enemy of the Samantha Osman’s team and was using Cole as a bait.

Lizzy bit her lips and chuckled. Then she got up and walked away.

‘We need to tie her up,’ she said as she approached the desk. ‘I’ve got her phone from her bag and get some contacts from it.’

The Nigerian man who had brought Tomi inside walked back to her and tried to drag her up. She resisted but he dealt her blows and weakened her.

‘I think I have a better idea,’ the black American spoke. ‘Does she have that Victor’s number?’

‘Yes, she should.’ Lizzy answered and sat beside him.

‘We could trick Victor to reveal his location.’

… PRESENT

The Nigerian man returned into the room, now changed into a dark blue cloth which looked like a security official uniform. Lizzy and the black American turned to look at him.

‘I made the call and the guys are ready, we’d get there in few minutes time.’ he said as he approached them.

‘Am I coming with you?’ the black American asked.

‘No Tiger, we need you here.’

The black American looked a bit disappointed but he turned and faced the system.

____

Cole finally located Outright Pharmacy along Asipa Road. He clicked on the location on the map and switched to the street view. He checked the area to locate the features briefly, then he copied the numerical details of the location and switched to the NSCC software.

The NSCC software was quick to locate the cameras in the location and displayed a live capture of the place. Cole stopped the stream and began to fetch the footages for the past few minutes.

Soon he found the footages he needed, he saw how Tomi got into the pharmacy and the call she received outside. Then he saw how she was also pulled out from the black Corolla.

__

Tarasha walked straight to the room which Henry directed her to, she stopped and stood sideway in front of the door. She stared at the opposite room for a while before she turned the knob. The door did not open.

She stared silently at the opposite room for about five seconds before taking out an instrument from her bag. She inserted the weapon into the keyhole of the door and tried to fit it in. She turned it carefully to avoid making any sound as the instrument fit into the keyhole. The door did not open still. She pulled it out a bit and turned it again without success. She repeated the process for the third time and the door finally opened. She pushed the door in gently. Just as she tried to step in, the door of the opposite room opened and a man hurried out of the room. He stopped in shock as he saw her. She released the door and walked back towards him slowly.

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‘I think we’ve got some company here,’ the man said aloud, trying to call the attention of the others in the room he came out from.

He stood boldly as she got to his front, wondering what she was planning to do. She looked so small in his eyes that he saw no reason to be scared or careful.

‘Who’s she and how did she get there?’ someone else appeared at the door.

‘I don’t know,’ the first man glanced back to reply.

Tarasha took him by surprise and kicked him at the groin before he could turn back to her. He screamed out loud in pain and grabbed his private part. With that she held him by the neck and twisted it so hard that it made a loud sound. The other man rushed towards her.

He launched a blow towards her but surprisingly to him she grabbed him by the fist and squeezed it in her palms. She then twisted his arm, making him fall on a knee with a groan. She sent a kick to his neck with her right knee and dragged his neck with her left hand, she turned his neck until she was sure the bones were broken.

Boom!

The capon stepped out and fired a shot at her but she had seen him earlier and was able to dodge the bullet. She fled into the room which door she opened.

She walked straight to the right hand corner of the room and at once noticed Chief Nonso seated in fear at the right corner of the room. She chose to focus her attention first on the man that shot at her. She brought out her gun and Ç0çƙed it in readiness. She watched and listened for the man’s footsteps.

She could hear as he moved carefully among the fallen bodies and touched the frame of the door. The door made a little movement sound and she realized that he was already behind the door. She tried to picture his height from what she had seen before entering his room. She raised her gun and targeted it towards the door, imagining in her mind the level of his forehead. She released three quick shots and they pierced through the door at three different points on the same level.

She paused for a moment but didn’t notice any movement, she then lowered her hand and fired three more shots in the same pattern.

One of the first set of bullets entered into his neck and another from the second set his belly. He fell to the ground with his bum hitting the ground first and his back resting against the wall. His feet pushed the door forward.

Tarasha stepped forward slowly and carefully until she was able to see him and confirm that the bullets hit him. He was dead already.

‘Get up Chief, we need to get out of here right now,’ she turned and said to the Chief with a note of urgency.

‘Tarasha, is that you?’ Chief Nonso’s voice sounded shaky, even though he had an excited look on his face. He sprang out of the chair and hurried towards her, full of hope again. He had grow so lean and unhealthy due to the lack of good food and health habits for the past weeks he had spent there.

‘Henry, get the car now.’ Tarasha said as she proceeded hurriedly. She stopped at a point to wait for the man who was trying to catch up with her. She checked her time, they needed to get out of the place quickly because of the sound of the gun that must have been heard.

35 minutes later

Alasia, Ijankin

Henry was seated alone at the front seat of the car while Tarasha and Chief Nonso were at the back. They all sat in silence, each one to his own thoughts.

As the car approached Alasia Bus stop, Tarasha found the need to speak with Cole. She adjusted her mouthpiece and the fixed back the earphone which had been removed from her ear.

‘Hey Cole, are you still with us?’ she said into the mouthpiece and waited for a response. She couldn’t hear Cole’s voice except for some noises underground. ‘Cole, are you there? I need you to check again if we are being followed or monitored by any security officials.’

She still got no response. She concluded that he must have left the communication device to quickly do something else. She took out her phone and opened the call dialer. She was about to dial his number when she heard his voice.

‘Boss, we are under an attack. Some unknown men are here and they appear to be fully armed.’

‘Unknown men?’ Tara replied in shock.

‘Yes boss, the men are more than us. I hope we are able to control the situation.’

Tarasha was quiet for a while. Cole voice sounded with very little hope and she knew the situation must be very bad for him to sound that way.

The drive back to the base would take about one hour and even more if there happened to be traffic congestion on the way.

‘How the f*** did they get in?’ Cole cursed aloud as he and Basit hurriedly stepped into a large room together.

Some of their men were already in the room, some taking weapons from the store and others putting bullets into guns.

‘Guys, we have new instructions from the boss.’ Cole said in a loud voice to get the attention of all the men. They all turned to him, suspending everything else they were doing with their weapons.

‘These guys attacking us do not know we are aware of their presence and they would want to use the element of surprise against us,’ Cole continued. He was sure he now had the attention of every other man. ‘But the boss is sure they also have a counter plan in case we discover them. So we are going to watch quietly and let them get into our traps. We have lasers and explosives set up to work against them once they try to break in. I will direct each and everyone of you to the points to stay. All you need to do is keep your eyes open and your earpieces on, I’ll give you instructions on when to fire at them and their specific positions at your different locations.’

‘Okay, boss.’ Basit let out a breath as he stepped forward, he appeared to be relaxed by the fact that Samantha Osman had already made plans for a possible attack. ‘I’ve got to get my weapon too,’ Basit said to Cole as he stepped forward and proceeded towards the shelf where the weapons were arranged.

‘You may not need to get a new gun,’ Cole said aloud as Basit proceeded. Basit stopped and turned back to look at him. ‘I have a different assignment for you.’

‘What’s that?’ Basit raised a brow.

‘These guys gotta go to their points first,’ Cole said and turned his gaze to the five other men standing and waiting for his instructions. ‘We have four entrances to this building,’ he continued. ‘The first four of you will pick each four entrances,’ he paused and faced Nicholas, the fifth man. ‘You’ll take the fire exit.’

‘Okay,’ some of the men muffled under their breaths and began to proceeded towards the entrance where Cole was standing.

‘Boss, how do these men know the traps set for the attackers?’ Basit asked.

Cole stopped to think for a moment. The men also stopped to listen. ‘I think you should lead this team Basit, you should go to the fire exit while Nicholas follows me.’ Cole said, making the quick decision as he remembered that Nicholas was the only one who knew all the hostages they had in that building. Basit only knew that the Inspector General was kidnapped but didn’t know where he was kept. Nicholas the fifth man who was supposed to go to the fire exit was now going to take Basit’ role in the defence operation. ‘If everyone follows my instructions, none would be caught by any of our defense systems. Just listen and follow me.’

With that, the men hurried out of the lounge with their guns. Basit also quickly selected a long gun and hurried to his own point. Cole and Nicholas had gone out before them and they went straight to the control room.

‘I need you to get the hostages to the room labeled 12, you keep them close there until I give a further instructions.’ Cole said to Nicholas on their way and Nicholas turned immediately towards the room where the hostages were. Cole continued into the computer room.

The room labeled 12 was a room close to the underground escape route of the building.

He tapped the space bar on the keyboard of the control system and it came on. The security camera application was on and the screen was displaying videos from six different locations in small rectangular frames arranged next to each other and three on a row. Cole bent down and picked a chord and a small device, he connected the chord to the device and also connected the other point to the back of the system. A thin bright beam of light evolved from the device. Cole picked the device and faced the beam of light towards the wall painted white in front. The reflection of the light formed on the wall was blur at first but soon became clearer and appeared to be the projection of what was exactly on the laptop screen, four times bigger but still very clear with sharp pictures. He could now see boldly what was happening at the different points. He touched the mouse and minimized the footage options returning to the interface of the security camera application. He moved the cursor to the left side and highlighted two options amongst a list displayed. In two seconds, the footage options came up again but had increased to eight this time around. He clicked on one of the newly added footage and it displayed large on the screen with the other footages displayed at the rear button in smaller rectangular frames and in a linear arrangement.

Cole began to move the camera capturing that footage by clicking on the screen and moving the cursor at the same time. On the screen was captured the inner view of the compound which was well lighted, with the aid of the lights Cole could see some of the attackers clearly. He spotted about four of them standing and pressing their backs against the walls. They all had on all black clothes. He looked confused, he couldn’t explain what was happening.

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The men in black right from the moment he noticed them at first had been working and walking so confident and slow, like they came to do something else other than attacking them. He had seen them standing by the wall ever before he went to arrange the other guys. If the men had come to attack them, why were they resting against the wall without doing anything? He couldn’t tell but he was sure they were up to something.

He returned to the interface again, he needed to check other parts of the building.

_____

PRESIDENTIAL QUARTERS, LAGOS.

The Vice President was gradually drifting into the realms of sleep when his phone began to ring. He heaved a sigh of frustration, he had dropped the phone on a table some distance away instead of beside the pillow as usual. Luckily for him he still saw one of his assistants in the room as he opened his eyes.

‘Please, get me the phone,’ he said in a sleepy voice as he managed to sit up and rest his back against the headboard.

‘Okay sir,’ the assistant replied and quickly got the phone.

It stopped ringing before the phone got to him but the Vice President dialed back the number immediately.

‘Hello Doc,’ he said in a thick voice.

‘Good evening sir,’ the doctor replied.

‘Evening doctor, how are you?’

‘I’m fine sir, how is your health now sir?’

‘I’m doing better,’ the Vice President replied. ‘I’m surprised to see your call at this time of the night,’ the Vice President said before checking the time, he realized it wasn’t late yet.

‘I’m sorry to disturb sir,’ the doctor apologized nevertheless. ‘I only wanted to inform you that the DNA test results are out already,’ he quickly added.

The Vice President was quiet for a while as tension suddenly gripped his heart. He had been expecting the results but now that it was out, he was suddenly afraid to know what the result was.

‘How come it’s out today? Isn’t it earlier than what you told me?’ he asked in a panicking voice.

‘It is, I had time to work on it early,’ the doctor replied. His voice showed that he was surprised that the Vice President was complaining about earliness of the result.

‘So can you tell me?’

‘Tell you sir?’ the doctor’s voice was shaky.

‘Tell me, are those children mine?’

‘Ermm… I’m not comfortable saying that over the phone sir, I’ve complied all the necessary information in the result and I’ve sent to your mail online.’

The Vice President’s fear was increased by the doctor’s words and before he could put words together to reply, the line went off. He dropped the phone shakily beside him and stared blankly at the wall.

The assistant who was done clearing the room stopped as he got to the door and turned back, ‘Is there anything else I could do for you before leaving?’

The Vice President glanced at him for a moment without saying anything until he turned the knob of the door and was about to open.

‘Put on my laptop and connect it to the internet,’ he said as he stepped out of the bed.

‘Please give me a minute sir,’ the man said and stepped out to drop the things in his hands before returning.

_____

‘Why are you pushing me like a dog and where the f*** are you moving me to?’ Rex cursed.

Nicholas had two chairs with rollers under at both sides and was moving them into the room where Cole asked him to move them to. Rex was tied to the chair at his right and Stainless to the chair at the left, both could not move other parts of their bodies except for their wrists and their necks because the ropes held every other parts to the chair firmly. Rex had been talking from the moment Nicholas had carried his chair and fixed it on the roller. He had seen Nicholas come to move the Inspector General who was in the same room with him first and then come back for him after a minute. He started asking questions from the moment Nicholas fixed the legs of the chair into the spaces in the roller but began to curse when Nicholas rolled the chair out of the room and he saw Stainless in the corridor tied just like him with his chair placed on a roller.

At first Rex had thought they were trying to change the rooms they put him and the Vice President but when he saw Stainless also been rolled alongside with him, he realized that they were up to something else.

Nicholas finally got to the destination room and rolled them in. The Inspector General and two other people tied in the same manner were already in the room. Rex noticed the rollers under their chairs and realized that they were also moved the same way he and Stainless’ chairs were moved. He took a moment to look around the large room. He noticed that it had two other doors apart from the one Nicholas rolled them in through and it had two windows at the left side.

Nicholas rolled them to the middle and left them there. He walked back to a seat placed beside the door and sat on it. He picked the gun on the floor and placed it on his lap.

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‘What the f*** have you brought us here to do?’ Rex asked with a scorn.

Angrily, Nicholas rose to his feet and proceeded towards Rex. He landed a blow on his face and followed it up by hitting the butt on his gun on the nose.

Rex groaned in pain. He could feel blood dripping from his nose but couldn’t clean or touch it with his hand. He saw a drop of blood on his shirt as Nicholas walked back to the seat.

‘I’ll double the punishment for any other person that makes a sound,’ Nicholas said in warning to the rest of the people. He relaxed in his seat and placed the gun back on his lap.

Rex felt his blood boiling in anger but he was helpless with the ropes holding him firmly to the chair. He tried to move his body and he noticed that the chair moved with the aid of the roller under. He remained calm and sniffed out with the blood still falling in little drops on his chest.

He placed a stern look on Nicholas, wondering what was happening. He was sure something unpleasant was going on and his best guess was that the police had come to visit the building which they were in. That was the best explanation he could give for the movement of all of them into that room with someone sitting and watching them.

He noticed the man watching them busy with a phone and he quickly used the opportunity to look around the room well. He noticed a piece of broken glass at the left corner of the room. He imagined getting an opportunity to pick the glass, he could try cut the ropes used to tie him with it. But it was an almost impossible task. There was no way the man seated in front of them would watch while he cuts the ropes. The guy didn’t look like he was going to leave them alone in the room soon and even if he left them alone it wouldn’t be easy to get to the corner the glass was. Though the chair had a roller underneath, he still had to struggled to roll it with his stiffed body. He would make a lot of noise in the process and get noticed even before he got to half of the way. Another challenge was how to pick up the glass when he got to the corner but that wasn’t a tough challenge, he could make himself to the fall to the ground in that direction. The only disadvantage was the noise that would be made and the risk of not falling on the right side.

He glanced briefly at the man’s face and glanced at the glass again, trying to examine if it would cut through those strong ropes easily. He shook his head and heaved a sigh at the impossibility of his thoughts but then he realized that it could be his only chance to get out alive, Samantha Osman would have likely gotten back Chief Nonso and would ki|| him as soon as she returned. And he wasn’t sure he would get another chance to escape apart from this.

He clenched his fists to feel the strength left in his body. He didn’t feel as strong as he used to be but he still had some energy in him. He expected that they would inject him in the arm by the next morning as their usual routine was and that would keep him very weak for three days again. Now was the best opportunity because it was the strongest moment they allowed for him. He kept stealing glances at Nicholas’s face but applied extreme care to ensure Nicholas does not observe that he was up to something.

_

‘Oh s***!’ Cole cursed as the camera landed on the power room. It was now clear to him why the men were resting on the walls and doing nothing. It was because the one of them had located the power room and was trying to do something there.

‘Boss, I just saw one of them in the power room.’ Cole said as he got up from his seat and picked a gun from under the chair.

_

‘What are they doing in the power room?’ Tarasha said into her earpiece, feeling alarmed. She glanced at the time again, they still had at least thirty minutes to get back to the base.

‘I can’t say boss,’ Cole’s reply sounded through her earpiece.

Fear struck Tarasha’s heart as she imagined that the men could be from the Villary Clan like Rex and that they were planning to put off the lights and put her men to darkness to their own advantage. The lasers and other security measures put in place in the house would also not work with the power disconnected from the source and that would render her team helpless.

‘Do all you can to stop the guy from tampering with anything in the power house,’ Tarasha said. ‘Attend to it personally.’

For about ten seconds, there was no reply from Cole and then his voice sounded slowly in a sad tone. ‘Boss, the lights have gone off.’

Tarasha took in a deep breath. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand to block her voice from sounding to Cole. ‘Drive straight to Base A,’ she said to Henry.

__

Cole quickly searched through his pocket. Luckily, he found a phone and turned on the flashlight to provide light in the dark corridor where he stood, the same place he was standing when the lights went off. He walked out of the corridor and looked around, there were no signs of light anywhere in the building or even in the compound. He took out the second mouthpiece in his chest pocket and attached it to the collar.

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‘Guys, the power source is off. We’ve got to go against them, step out now and fire every one down.’ Cole shouted in his instruction into the mouthpiece. The mouthpiece was connected to every member of the team and they all heard his instruction at once.

__

Nicholas was confused as the lights went off, he quickly got up and opened the door to see if the light was still on outside the room but everywhere was dark. He stepped back into the room and began to pace about with his phone still in his hand. Soon he heard Cole’s voice sound in his earpiece, he stopped to listen. The instruction didn’t help his confusion as he couldn’t tell if he was also supposed to step out according to Cole’s instruction. He searched his pocket for his mouthpiece and took it out. He fumbled to clip it to his collar for some seconds but lost grip of it and it fell from his hands. He quickly bent and began to search for it on the floor. Unluckily for him, the darkness denied him the opportunity of finding it. He tried to use his phone’s backlight to find it but it wasn’t bright enough. He stood up straight and positioned the phone in his hand properly, he swiped down the notification bar to search for the flashlight icon and clicked on it. The flashlight turned on and he pointed it to the ground to search for the mouthpiece.

A small rat was running towards his feet at that moment and he tried to step on it with his foot but missed, the rat hurried towards the door and ran out.

Nicholas heard a crushing sound as he took a step back unconsciously. He froze in fear, hoping what it sounded like was not what happened. He lifted up his right foot which had stepped on the object and bent to look at it. It was the mouthpiece he was looking for, already destroyed by the sole of his shoe. He stood up with a sigh, he had lost the only chance he had to speak back to Cole. He walked back to the door and picked his gun on the seat and proceeded straight out, guiding his way with the phone’s flashlight.

The opportunity Rex was looking for had finally come. He had previously located all the points every object was located when the lights were on, so it was easy for him to move himself to Stainless’ front.

‘Hey Dude!’ he called in low tones as he rolled his chair to Stainless’ front.

‘Boss,’ Stainless replied in a weak voice.

‘Can you move your wrists and use your fingers?’ Rex asked.

‘Yes,’ Stainless answered, clenching his fist and wriggling his hand to confirm. He could tell what direction Rex was speaking from and could also tell that Rex was close to him but the darkness was still so thick that he could see his face.

Rex took some time to move himself to Stainless’ front before he spoke again.

‘You grab my chair at both sides and push me forward,’ Rex said.

‘Huh?’

‘Do exactly what I said, push me forward with all your strength.’

Stainless tried to hold the chair and stretched his fingers but it still did not get there. ‘I need you to move back a little more,’ he said to Rex.

__

Cole began to hear gunshots as he proceeded quickly through the passage of the building which led to the power house. He stopped as he got to the door to check if the man who was supposed to be manning the place was still there but he couldn’t find him. He took out his gun and walked slowly to the door.

‘Cole, ki|| the hostages if you can but make sure you get out of that place as soon as you can.’ Tarasha’s voice came in.

Cole froze for a second, trying to understand rightly what Tarasha meant. ‘You mean I should escape?’

‘Yes,’ Tarasha replied plainly.

‘What about the other men?’

‘Tell them to get out of the building if they can also, those men have a good plan and they already have the darkness advantage.’

‘Okay boss,’ Cole said.

He turned on the other mouthpiece. ‘Nicholas, ki|| everyone of those hostages right now.’

He waited for some seconds to get a reply from Nicholas but didn’t. He hoped Nicholas had heard him but he wasn’t ready to go back to ki|| the hostages himself. Tarasha’s warning to him about escaping had put more fear in him.

‘I’m watching Base A right now,’ Tarasha’s voice sounded through the speakers again. ‘It still looks safe but we can’t tell if they were able to force the location out of Tomi’s mouth. You need to go to the base now to keep the people there safe but the major thing I require from you is to guard the power room and keep them from disconnecting till I get there.’

‘Okay boss,’ Cole replied and turned back immediately. He proceeded in the direction of the underground escape.

Unluckily for Rex, the broken glass was not as sharp as he expected and it didn’t cut through the rope easily. It took him almost two minutes to be able to cut off the part of the rope tying his right hand to the arm of the chair. With his right hand free, he began to cut the rope tying the left hand confidently when he saw a glimpse of light through the opened door. He paused for a second to watch and listen, he noticed the light remained but couldn’t hear any more footsteps as the sounds of the gunshots filled the air. It suddenly occurred to him that Nicholas could be the one returning and he quickly moved his focus to the rope tying the right leg instead. He began to saw the rope hurriedly, hoping to make the right leg free before Nicholas got into the room.

He was able to cut the rope but not without injuring himself. His palm was cut severely and there was also a cut close to his knee. He gave the injuries no attention but he quickly removed the ropes. The rope used to tie his chest was connected to the one on his right hand, so it fell off as he got up to his feet. He now had his right side totally free but his left still stuck to the chair. He sighed. He knew they had tied the ropes that way to prevent a possible trial to escape.

He could see the source of light getting closer to the slightly opened door and he got himself ready for a fight.

He held the right arm of the chair with his right hand and began to hop towards the door, with the sounds of the gunshots outside drowning the noise made by his hopping and that helped him to keep Basit unaware of his movement.

Basit quickly made his way back to the room with the aid of his phone’s flashlight. The sounds of gunshots from the gun war had increased and made it impossible to hear any other sound. He hastened his steps as he turned into the passage which led to the room. As he got closer to the door he Ç0çƙed his gun in readiness to spray the bullets into the bodies of the hostages but he got the shock of his life as he stepped in.

Something rammed into him from the side and slammed him to the wall. It took him too much by surprise and he couldn’t recover himself quickly. He couldn’t even tell what had hit him but he heard the sound of crushing wood furniture and a man’s groan when he crashed to the floor.

Rex managed to get up quickly and rammed into him again with his the chair on his left side. Even Rex was injured by the attack but he ignored every pain he was feeling to make sure Nicholas was taken out. He got up and began to kick Nicholas in the face until Nicholas fainted. He stopped when he was satisfied and stepped back to take off the other part of his body tied to the chair. After two minutes of struggling with the rope, he was finally able to take it off. He picked the mobile phone which had fallen from Nicholas’ hand and shone the flashlight to Nicholas’ face. He wasn’t sure if Nicholas was dead yet but he was sure he had nothing to fear from him any longer.

He turned back and shone the light at the other hostages in the room. He pointed the light at Stainless’ face who bowed his head slightly to avoid the light in his eyes. The gunshots sounds were subsiding, Rex couldn’t tell if it was the end of the gun war or if it was just an intermission for another round. He stared once again at the other hostages, Stainless was the only one who could be useful for him. He hurried over to Stainless and began to help him untie the ropes.

It took him three minutes to finish and when he was done, he noticed that the gunshots had ceased totally. He stood by the door and paused for some time to listen. He stepped out and looked into the corridor, everywhere was dark like inside the room was, there was no sign of light anywhere. He listened carefully and began to hear some sounds and voices. He could now tell that those who attacked the place weren’t police officers but he didn’t have an idea who the attackers were and if it was the Samantha Osman team that won the gun battle or otherwise. One other thing which he couldn’t understand was why the place was in total darkness.

His gaze landed on the phone in his hands and he realized that the blood from his wound was already soaking the phone. He put the phone in his shirt and cleaned as much as he could with the cloth and then held the phone in the other hand.

‘Hey!’ he looked back into the room, pointing the gun at Stainless. He could see Stainless trying to free the Inspector General who had asked for help. ‘Leave that man, we don’t need him to get out of here,’ he said in a command tone and Stainless obeyed instantly. ‘Pick up the gun and come over here,’ he said, pointing to the gun which had dropped from Nicholas’ hand.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 17 Part 8

Stainless responded as fast as he could but was still slow because of the weakness of his body. He picked the gun and stopped beside Rex.

Rex stared at him for a moment and noticed his weakness. He was sure that Stainless would faint after taking a few more steps.

‘Let me have the gun, you stay here and watch.’ He said and took the gun from Stainless.

He put the phone into his pocket to conceal the flashlight as he proceeded through the corridor slowly and carefully. He paused as he got to the entrance and peeped to see if there was anyone coming, there was none. He took out the phone and shone the flashlight into the new room. The place looked like a lounge. There was another exit facing him directly which led into another passage. He walked to that exit and used the light to see through the passage. He noticed that there were several rooms at the both sides of this passage. The room he had come out from was labeled 12 while the last room along that new passage was labeled 11. After seeing all he needed to see in the passage, he turned off the phone’s flashlight and put it into his pocket. He began to proceed slowly and carefully straight to the entrance of the passage which he had seen earlier. He stopped as he heard some sounds coming closer from that direction, he quickly moved to the wall beside the door labeled 9 and waited to see what was coming. He noticed a sharp red light on the floor just at the middle of the entrance, the light moved up and down showing that the person carrying it was walking towards the place and his hand was moving. He brought out his gun and pointed it towards the entrance. The light went off all of a sudden and there was total silence.

Rex remained alert with his gun still pointed at the entrance and his finger on the trigger in readiness. Nothing happened for almost one minute until Rex noticed in the dark the shape and image of a person at the entrance. He was about to pull the trigger when a voice sounded.

‘Tiger!’

Rex froze for a moment. He couldn’t tell who the owner of the voice was but from the way the salutation sounded, he could tell that the person standing at the entrance was from his Clan.

‘Tiger,’ Rex hailed back.

___

BASE A, LAGOS.

Tarasha couldn’t wait for the car to park properly before she stepped out of the car. She turned to the back and used the gate remote control to close it back before she proceeded towards the building.

‘Boss,’ Cole called, walking towards them from the left side of the building.

Tarasha stopped and turned to him with a furious gaze.

‘Do you know who those men are?’ she asked.

‘I don’t have an idea boss, I’ve never seen any of them.’ Cole replied.

Tarasha was quiet for a while. Henry walked up to them and stopped beside Tarasha.

‘How many were they?’ Tarasha asked Cole.

‘I saw close to ten men,’ Cole replied.

‘And you viewed each one’s face?’ Tarasha questioned.

‘No, I didn’t check their faces.’

Tarasha paused to think for a while. Then she turned to Henry, ‘Get the sleeper bus ready, we have to leave and move everyone out of here immediately.’

Henry nodded and went ahead to carry out the instruction.

Tarasha glanced back at the vehicle she and Henry drove in, she could see Chief Nonso still asleep in the car, she had injected him sedatives on their way.

She turned back to Cole.

‘How did you escape the other base? Are you sure no one followed you here?’

‘I took the underground route,’ Cole replied. ‘No one saw me and there are no signs of a possible attack here.’

Tarasha raised a brow at him. ‘What makes you think so?’

‘I don’t think anybody knows this place.’

Tarasha was quiet for a while. She stared at Cole’s face and he was uncomfortable with the way she was looking at him, it seemed as if she was suspecting him.

‘Why did you tell Tomi of the other base?’ she asked.

‘I never told her anything about it.’

‘But you told me they got to know the base through her,’ Tarasha accused.

‘Yes, they got to know it through her.’ Cole replied with a sigh. He didn’t know how to explain that he fell into their trap by visiting the wrong link.

‘Then how did Tomi get to know that location?’ Tarasha asked again, her anger being revealed in her voice.

Cole couldn’t give a reply but luckily for him Tarasha didn’t wait to get an answer.

‘Go shut down the control system,’ she said to him as she proceeded hurriedly into the building. He hurried after her.

___

PRESIDENTIAL QUARTERS, LAGOS.

‘Sir, we’ve just gotten the address of Doctor Musa,’ the Vice President’s PA said, standing in front of him like a soldier.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 17 Part 9B

Chief Elvis Richards had his head bowed, his forehead resting on his palms and his elbow resting on his knees with his feet which was placed on the brace between the legs of the table in front of him.

‘Sir,’ the PA called again, trying to get the attention of the Vice President who seemed absent minded. ‘Hello sir.’

The Vice President raised his head slowly and stared at the PA. The PA stepped back in fear. The man’s eyes were red with fury which the PA had never seen before.

‘Where the hell did you find him?’ he said in an angry tone.

‘He is retired and now stays in Agbara Estate at Ogun State,’ the PA replied.

‘I want him here tonight,’ the Vice President said, staring blankly at the ground with a devilish look.

‘Yes sir,’ his PA said and turned immediately. He glanced at his wristwatch as he walked away. It was late already and no matter how fast he and the other boys acted, he was sure they could not get the doctor to the Vice President anytime sooner than 1am.

The Vice President buried his face on the table in front of him. He was doing his best to control the anger boiling inside of him but he couldn’t wait to pounce on Doctor Musa. Doctor Musa was their family doctor years ago and was the doctor who had been in charge of the delivery of two of his children. The same doctor assured him after he had an accident that he could still have children contrary to Doctor Reuben’s first report. Years ago, he had noticed the strange closeness between his wife and the doctor but his instincts didn’t tell him that they could be doing something in secret against him.

‘Ayo!’ the Vice President shouted his PA’s name and the PA came running back.

‘Sir…’

‘I want you to send men to Doctor Reuben also,’ the vice president said.

The PA stared at him, looking confused as he did not know who Doctor Reuben was.

‘Doctor Reuben was the last doctor who treated me at the New General Hospital,’ the Vice President explained.

‘Okay,’ the PA nodded in understanding.

‘Send men to get him and bring him here today also,’ he ordered.

‘It will be done sir,’ the PA bowed and turned to leave immediately.

The Vice President bowed his head and before he could be drifted into the realm of thoughts again, his phone rang. He raised his head up and located the phone. He picked it up and glanced at the screen, the caller’s ID was unknown.

‘Hello Elvis Richards,’ a familiar male voice spoke from the other end.

‘Hello…’ Chief Elvis replied, trying to remember whose voice it was.

‘Where are you Chief?’

Chief Elvis did not reply immediately. He squinted until he could tell whose voice it was. ‘Rex, where the hell are you?’ he said with excitement and sprung to his feet.

‘Tell me your location,’ Rex insisted.

____

All eyes fell on Tarasha as she stepped into the interior of the sleeper bus, she turned to close the door and took her seat beside Madam Henrietta directly in front of the doctor. The two three-seater sofas were facing each other and a car-sized bed was at the other side with some little space after the sofas. Mrs Atinuke and Stephanie were seated at the edge of the bed while sleeping Chief Nonso and NIS Agent Dave were behind in the bed, in very uncomfortable positions.

Everyone remained in silence, they were still eager to know why she had told them it was time to move out of the house without giving any reason. They had been enjoying the peace in the house but totally forgot that they lived with assassins and functioned in an assassination organization where peace was rarely found and where it was rare to live in the same location for a long period of time.

She relaxed her back and crossed her legs, obvious of the fact that people were looking at her and expecting an explanation but she decided not to be pressured by their looks but give them the explanation at her own convenience.

The bus soon began to move. Cole was driving and Henry was at the front with him.

‘Doctor, I heard you asked Tomi to get some medicines from the pharmacy,’ Tarasha suddenly broke the silence.

The doctor froze for a moment, then he raised his head up slowly and stared Tarasha in the face. His heart was full of fear as he immediately began to think that the errand he asked Tomi was the cause of their movement from the house.

‘Yes, I did.’ He answered in a shaky voice.

‘Medicines for who?’ Tarasha raised her brows.

‘For her,’ the doctor replied and glanced at Mrs Atinuke.

‘I thought we had every drug she needed already.’

‘Yes, but she had an outburst after you left us with her yesterday and we needed new drugs to make her calm.’ The doctor replied.

Tarasha took a glance at the woman who was their subject of discussion. Coincidentally, the woman looked in her direction at the same time and their eyes locked for a moment.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 16 Part 4

‘She’s calm already,’ Tarasha turned back to the doctor. She had heard about the outburst the day before but didn’t know how it was resolved.

‘Yes, the medicines were to prevent further occurrences,’ the doctor replied.

Tarasha glanced once more at the woman’s face and rested back in the sofa. She took out her tablet device from the bag and unlocked it. She opened up the NSCC app, the footage she earlier requested for had already been processed. She played the footage and followed through.

She watched as the men arrived at the gate of the second base and parked their cars. She noticed the exact minute they began to step out of the vehicles, it was the same time Cole called to inform her that they were being attacked. She counted the total number of men, they were eleven in number and two of the men who didn’t look like Nigerians seemed to be the leaders of the group. She watched them spend a couple of minutes to check the gate and also look around the house before they took out an instrument to open the gate which happened silently. She watched all their moves to the end; how they got into the compound and spread themselves in it. The NSCC cameras could not capture how they got to the power room at the back of the house and other things they did inside the building. The security cameras in the building installed by her were the only ones that were positioned in the right places to capture their activities in the building.

She noticed that all through their activities around and in the building, the men acted confident and weren’t in a hurry. It could only mean one thing – that they had taken care of the possibility of the police coming to disturb them. She also noted the exactness of the men; they knew where to go first – the power house – they knew that once the power was disrupted, the lasers and other security measures that were in place wouldn’t work anymore.

She exited the footage and returned to the dashboard of the app. She tried to locate the more recent footages from the same area but couldn’t find any more, she also couldn’t find the one she just finished watching on the server anymore. It meant that the data had just been cleared from the NSCC database. She then switched to the live stream of the area. She could see a part of the building now in flames, the police were now present and several rescue teams were there. She moved the camera views and saw how their hostages including the Inspector General were been moved out of the burning house. She watched for some time to see if Rex would be brought out of the house just like the other hostages but five minutes after all others were brought out, there was no sign of Rex.

Who could those people be? She asked herself. The directness of their movement to the power house hinted that they could be related to an assassin Clan that uses darkness as a weapon and the disappearance of Rex also hinted that he had been rescued by them. Also, having no police or other security group disturb them hinted that they had the backing of the Vice President or a senior security officer.

She concluded that the two men who led the attackers were from the Tiger Clan just like Rex and the Vice President had invited them to Nigeria after she kidnapped Rex.

She dropped the tablet device and as the camera showed the Inspector General again. She became angry with herself, she had failed again. She pondered deeply for a while. She had wasted so much time to fulfill the mission and it was because she had allowed feelings take over her. And now, the mission seemed to get more difficult by the day. She had to hurry up and finish up without considering anyone’s thoughts or suggestions. All she had to do was to think and act like an assassin, not just an assassin but a queen of the highest rank in the Nefary Clan.

Suddenly, something returned to her memory. The Clan she had been referring to as the Tiger Clan was actually the Vilary Clan, the Nefary’s Clan topmost rival clan .

She closed her eyes pictured once again how her mentor queen had defeated the woman from the Vilary Clan years ago. That same queen before her death had told her that she(Tara) was five times stronger and better than she(the mentor queen) was.

She now had more than one member of the Vilary Clan against her. She wasn’t scared. The only advantage they could have had against her was her ignorance of their presence. She reminded herself again that all she had to do was think and act like the deadly assassin she was, and victory would be hers.

She sprung up to her feet and walked up to the door carefully with new hopes. Her emotions had made her fail over and over again. She would no longer allow Henry influence her and would no more give room for emotions.

Here, thank you,’ Rex said as he handed back the phone he borrowed to one of the men seated in front.

He rested his back on the wall of the bus and tried to stretch his legs through the empty space in the bus. He still felt uncomfortable in the seat even though he was the only one left to seat in the middle row. A man was seated with the driver at the front, two were seated at the first seat row and three others were at the third row.

He felt weak but still managed to keep his eyes opened and focused on the guy beside the driver. It was the guy from the Tiger Clan who had met him in the building and hailed him first. Rex knew he wouldn’t be treated nicely by the guy just because he was also a Tiger especially when they both did not know what their individual missions were and they would be conflicting.

The sound of Rex’s voice returning the borrowed phone made Eric realize that it was time to end his niceness to his clan mate. Rex was only still alive just because he (Eric) hadn’t been instructed to ki|| any of the hostages and he didn’t think it was necessary since Rex wasn’t against them. Rex had asked him to assist him to get out of the building and that he had done, just to show solidarity to a kinsman, but now that they were out of the building and far away, the niceness had to stop and he had to return to his strict business mode.

‘Pull over,’ Eric instructed the man driving the bus.

The driver flashed a look at him but didn’t argue. He pulled over to the curb at the right side.

‘Hey!’ Eric turned back to talk to Rex. ‘You got to get down here.’

Rex raised his brows and stared at him for a moment. He could tell from all Eric’s activities since they had met that Eric was junior to him in the clan and did not have much expertise as he(Rex) had, he would have handled the situation in a totally different way. However, he was still grateful that he got help. He nodded silently and rose slowly, he proceeded to door and opened it.

The bus zoomed off as soon as he stepped out and locked the door.

He looked around in trial to identify where he was but it didn’t seem as if he knew the location. The day was dark but the area was well lighted, so he could see everything around. They had dropped him in the middle of an eight lane road and he had to cross the left side before he could access any building. He crossed easily to the other side as there were no vehicles approaching from either direction.

___

‘We are here sir,’ Ayo announced their return.

The voice sounded somewhat distant to him even though he opened his eyes immediately. He could only see a blur image of his PA standing right in front of him and it looked more like a dream than reality. Perhaps, it was part of the dream he was just being awoken from. He couldn’t tell where his dream started from or where it ended.

‘We’ve brought the two doctors,’ Ayo’s voice rang in his head again as his vision began to get clearer. He rested his back and flipped his head backwards for a moment with his eyes closed, he drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. Then he sat up and stared at Ayo, he could now see clearly. He was now sure Ayo’s presence wasn’t part of his dream.

‘Where are they?’ he asked, his voice still sounding sleepy.

‘We kept them in one of the extra rooms, I didn’t think you would want to see them tonight.’ his PA replied.

‘I would like to see them right away,’ the Vice President replied stubbornly even though he felt weak and knew that the right place he was supposed to be found at that moment was in his bed, taking his night rest. But who would be able to rest after finding out that the children he had loved all his life and worked so hard to cater for were not his.

‘Let’s go get them,’ his PA turned, saying to the other men standing at the back.

‘Bring Doctor Musa in first,’ the Vice President said as he watched their backs while they walked away. Ayo only nodded in response and continued walking without turning back.

Elvis Richards reached out for his phone as soon as the men walked out of sight. He unlocked it and opened his call history, he saw the call he received three hours ago, that meant the call from Rex wasn’t a dream and was as real as Ayo’s return. He remembered his conversation with Rex, both of them had agreed to meet in the morning at a guest house and iron things out.

Soon, Dr Musa was bundled into the room by two men and made to kneel some metres by the side of the Vice President. The Vice President turned his chair and faced the doctor directly. Ayo took off the sack used to cover the doctor’s face.

Dr Musa was in his pyjamas, he was in the bed with his wife when he began to hear the dogs barking in the compound. He called on the security man to find out what was wrong but the security man did not answer the calls. After some minutes, the dogs stopped barking and everything seemed to return to a state of peace and total silence. Dr Musa was however still bothered as the security man was yet to answer his calls. He decided to step out into the compound and check what was happening but as he stepped down the verandah of the house took some steps in the compound, he noticed some strange smoke in the compound and one of the dogs gasping for breath. He realized that the dogs had been poisoned with the smoke but as he made his way to turn back into the house for safety, he was seized by strong hands and his nose was covered with a handkerchief. He woke up to find himself tied up in the boot of a moving vehicle with his face and head totally covered and his mouth taped in it.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 21 Part 8
The Vice President’s PA removed the tape from his mouth and stepped back. Dr Musa was shocked to see the Vice President sitting before him. His mouth was free to talk but no words could come out of his mouth. He knew he had not been good to the Vice President but he didn’t know which of his crimes the man had found out.

‘Excuse me all of you, I want to be alone with him,’ the Vice President ordered all the men.

The PA was hesitant to go out at first but when the Vice President flashed him a look, he had no choice than to walk out after making sure that the ropes tying Dr Musa’s hands behind him were firm.

‘You, Doctor Musa,’ the Vice President began in a low but shaky voice after being sure that the men were out of earshot. He suddenly couldn’t find words to say anymore. He turned to the table and picked his tablet device. He unlocked it and opened his email account, he opened the message he received from the hospital and downloaded the documents containing the DNA results. He opened the results and turned the tablet to Dr Musa to see.

Dr Musa’s eyes scanned through the first result quickly and the Vice President switched to the next when he noticed the doctor had finished with the first one. The Doctor only glanced at the screen the second time but did not bother to scan through anymore since he already identified it as another DNA result. The Vice President still switched to the third one which the doctor did not bother to read at all.

Dr Musa shook his head in self pity, he had never thought that a day like this would come. He knew there was no way he was going to get out of this mess he had gotten himself into years ago.

‘You were my Doctor for more than twenty years and you delivered my wife of all the three kids, can you explain to me the results I just displayed to you?’ The Vice President asked as he returned the tablet to the table.

Dr Musa was silent. Even though he had always known the truth, it wasn’t easy to spill it out now even as he knew death would be the consequence for saying the truth or even hiding it.

‘Talk to me,’ the Vice President said, shaking his head thr_@teningly.

Dr Musa remained silent. There was no way he was going to let the truth out. He preferred to remain silent and die because he knew he would still die after saying the truth.

The Vice President pulled out a gun and pointed it at him, he moved it closer till the tip touched the doctor’s forehead. He placed his finger close to the trigger.

‘I would count one to three and I would blow off your brains if you remain silent,’ the Vice President thr_@tened, now in a harsher and louder voice.

Dr Musa wasn’t moved by the thr_@t, he knew the Vice President wouldn’t pull the trigger yet if he really wanted to know who the real father of his children were. He didn’t think the man had any other option to get the truth from.

‘One…Two…,’ Chief Elvis Richards Ç0çƙed the gun. ‘Three…’

Dr Musa closed his eyes in anticipation for the worse but nothing happened. The gun was slowly removed from his head and taken down.

The Vice President put the gun on the table and continued to stare at the doctor for almost a minute.

He let out an evil smile and chuckled, ‘I won’t let you give you rest easily, that would be bliss for you. I won’t let you escape this same suffering that you’ve put me to.’

Dr Musa’s heart was beating fast as his gaze was fixed on the floor. He feared to suffer but he knew it was inevitable as the Vice President had promised. However, he was still resolved to keep his mouth shut no matter what the Vice President did to him.

Chief Elvis Richards rested his back in the chair and kept his stare at the man’s face a little longer. He always suspected that the doctor had something to do with his wife. His wife had always frequented the doctor’s office when she was alive with the excuse that she was going to see him for advice about her health condition when he didn’t even notice her acting or feeling ill. His suspicion had gotten to its height when he began to notice late night calls between the two and on a certain evening when he noticed a pack of condoms in his wife bag when she returned from the hospital. He had accused her but she claimed that she had bought it for her husband to use and for him to last longer during that night’s intercourse. He never caught them red-handed, so there was no way he could have come out boldly to accuse the doctor. It was for the same cause he decided to change their family hospital to the hospital where they met Doctor Reuben. Just after that was when he had the accident that almost took away his spine and affected his segz life. That was when Doctor Reuben claimed that he could no longer make babies. But his wife had rejected Dr Reuben’s result and insisted that they return to their previous hospital and doctor Musa. Then Dr Musa had given a slightly different report which was that the man could still make babies but he would have to live on drugs and possibly use some drugs some hours before segzual intercourse with his wife. The Vice President and his wife took the drugs home and used them as prescribed, and confirming Dr Musa’s words, the Vice President’s wife began to show signs of pregnancy two weeks after the couple’s first intercourse after the accident.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 22 Part 5
‘Ayo!’ the Vice president shouted his PA’s name all of a sudden.

Dr Musa glanced at his face in fear.

The PA came running in about thirty seconds after the call.

He stood beside the doctor and bowed slightly to the Vice President.

The Vice President glanced briefly at the PA’s face and placed his gaze at the Doctor’s face.

‘I’m not going to let you die easily, I want you to suffer the same thing you’ve done to me. You won’t die until all of your kids are ki||ed right in front of you and then you would be given a painful and slow death. With that you would be able to go to hell knowing that all you did not leave any of your children in this world.’

The Doctor was shocked by the Vice President’s words and very little was the fear he felt before compared to what he now felt. The Vice President was going to attack him where it would hurt the most; his children’s death.

‘Ayo,’ the Vice President called again and turned to the PA. ‘I want you to locate all of his kids whether home or abroad, no matter how long it takes you, they would be used as sacrifice for his sins and we would make him watch how all of them would be slaughtered.’

The PA nodded in response.

‘Now, take him out of here.’ The Vice President ordered.

‘No please, don’t touch my children,’ Dr Musa began to plead, tears were forming in his eyes.

Ayo beckoned on two other men and they walked in to carry out the doctor.

‘Please, don’t touch my children,’ the doctor continued to plead as the men laid their hands on him. The Vice President paid a deaf ear. ‘I would tell you everything you want to know…’

‘Stop!’ Chief Elvis ordered the men as they lifted the doctor. The put him back on his knees. ‘You would answer my questions?’

‘Yes,’ Dr Musa answered, still in tears.

The Vice President remained silent for a while, then he looked at the men and ordered all of them to leave him alone with the doctor.

‘So, explain the result I showed you.’

The doctor took in a breath. ‘They show that you are not the father of those who the test were carried out on.’

‘And who are those people?’

The doctor was quiet for some seconds. ‘Your…chi…’

‘My children,’ the Vice President completed the statement with an evil chuckle. ‘So how do we explain that my children are yours?’

The doctor flashed a quick look at the Chief’s face and frowned. He didn’t understand the Vice President meant by the question.

‘How do I explain to the world that my doctor was sleeping with my wife and was lying to me that I could make babies?’

‘No sir, I never touched your wife,’ the doctor denied in a strong tone.

The Vice President narrowed his gaze at him. ‘Don’t lie to me.’

‘I’m not lying, I never slept with her.’

‘Then who did? Who owns the bas***d children she brought to me?’

‘I don’t know sir, I don’t have an idea who the person is.’

‘Stop playing with fire Musa, it takes me nothing to wipe out your entire family.’

‘Sir, I don’t know who the person is.’ Dr Musa pleaded with tears dropping from his eyes.

‘But why did you lie to me that I could still make babies?’

The doctor began to sob uncontrollably. ‘Your wife…’

‘My wife did what?’ the Vice President cut in impatiently.

‘Your wife was already pregnant with the second child, she found out in the same week you came to me for the check up and she pleaded with me to help save her marriage,’ Dr Musa explained.

‘And you agreed to help her by lying to me?’ the Vice President stared at him with disbelieving eyes, feeling disgusted by his explanation.

‘I was indebted to your wife, we were close friends in the university and she saved me from dropping out from school, there was no way I could reject the first favour she asked from me.’

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 19 Part 2
The Vice President stayed silent for a while. He seemed to be trying to figure out if the doctor was saying the truth or not.

‘I had the accident after the first child, how come James is not my son too?’

‘Sir, I can’t explain that. The only one who can explain is their mother.’

‘But I remember that you said I could give birth before then, when we came to meet you to complain about the delay in childbearing.’

‘I didn’t tell any lie then, you had the problem of watering sperm which was a result of low sperm count. It caused the delay but you could still have given birth because I prescribed the necessary treatment for you.’

The Vice President was silent again. He couldn’t believe this was happening to him. It meant his wife cheated on him right from the beginning of their marriage probably until her death and she pretended to be the most faithful woman ever.

He closed his eyes tightly and ceased his breath, hoping it was all a dream but he opened his eyes to still meet the doctor in front of him.

‘Musa, you were close to my wife. She tells you everything, even our private matters. You should know who she was sleeping with.’

‘I swear I don’t know who it was, she never told me. She said they had sworn to each other to keep the affair secret until death.’

Chief Elvis heaved a deep sigh. He was full of grief and he didn’t know what to do. He felt like the most miserable man on the planet and didn’t know if life was still worth living. But even if he had to die, he needed to make everyone who had caused him pain suffer first.

‘I don’t believe you, you can’t tell me you have no clue about the man who my wife cheated on me with. That would only mean she was cheating with you,’ Chief Elvis suddenly spoke again, frightening the doctor with his tone.

‘I swear, I know nothing about it.’ Dr Musa said, shaking his head in self pity. He froze as his eyes met with the eyes of Chief Elvis. He could see the anger and desperation in it, he could see a man who would not stop until he got what he wanted. He could see a man who was going down and was desperate to pull others down with him. He suddenly squinted as he got a glimpse of memory, he remembered something which could be of help. ‘Sir… There was a man who used to drive her to the hospital and around town, especially when you were out of the country.’

‘Is that the man she cheated with?’

‘No, but I think it’s the driver of the man she cheated with.’

‘How can I get that driver?’

‘He came for treatment in my hospital some few months ago, I have his records.’

____

Location: Vespa, Ijanikin, Lagos.

Time: 8:05am

‘I think we’ve been tricked,’ Carl said as he looked around the dusty warehouse, the soles of his shoes making noise as he paced about the empty floor.

‘Do you think that Cole could have told Samantha Osman about the link?’ Eric asked as he stepped closer to Carl.

Carl was the name of the American Tiger while was the Eric was the name of the Nigerian. They had three other men (Nigerians) with them in the warehouse and they had come in search of Cole.

‘F***, I can’t believe I was tricked,’ Carl exclaimed as he turned back and proceeded towards the exit of the warehouse.

‘I don’t think it’s all about the trick, I’m sure there’s something more. We need to return immediately before we get more surprises.’

____

Location: Asipa Road, Lagos.

Time: 8:22am

A gunshot sound made Tomi’s eyes pop open. She shook her body but couldn’t make any reasonable movement. Her body was tied with strong ropes to the chair. She felt weakness all over her body. She had rejected the food offered to her by Carl the last night and now she was wishing she had taken a little, it would have left some strength in her that morning.

Another gunshot sounded and this time closer. She wondered what was happening. She had not slept for so long. All through the night she had not been able to sleep straight for an hour and kept wondering if she was ever going to get out of the place alive. She soon began to hear sounds of footsteps and a familiar lady’s voice approaching.

She held her breath as the door of the room opened and a man was pushed inside. She hoped the owner of the female’s voice was who she thought it was. She was full of joy and shock when Tarasha stepped in immediately after and dragged the man up. Tarasha’s eyes met with her’s as she pulled the man up by the collar of his shirt. She inserted a pin at the left side of the man’s neck and dropped him as he fell unconsciously.

Tarasha quickly proceeded to where Tomi was seated and began to take off the ropes from her body. Tomi was dumbfounded. She closed her eyes, she didn’t believe it was happening so fast. How in the world was Tarasha able to locate her that quick, it could only be a dream. She finally opened her eyes.

FLASHBACK

3am

‘I can’t still connect how they got the address of the second base and not the first one if Tomi never knew the second base existed,’ Tarasha said aloud, to no one in particular.

She, Henry and Cole were in a room where they had just finished setting up some computers and their network system. The other people who had come with them in the sleeper bus had gone to sleep in the other rooms of the building. Tarasha had insisted that she, Cole and Henry had no business with sleep until they found out how the attackers had gotten to know about the attacked base.

Cole paused all he was doing for a moment after he heard Tarasha’s words. He had the answer to Tarasha’s question but he couldn’t muster enough boldness to answer as it would make him look like the most stupid person on earth.

‘Boss, the Vice President’s children are still in Lagos,’ Henry said, diverting their attention briefly. ‘Don’t you think we could use one of his kids as bait for him?’

‘Do you have an idea of what they are doing in Lagos?’ Tarasha asked.

‘Yes, I think they came for a medical test. All of them especially James have been going in and out of the hospital in the past two days even though their father is no longer there.’

‘Find out and give us specific details, then we know the next line of action.’

There was silence for the next couple of minutes.

‘Cole,’ Tarasha called in a stiff voice and turned to him. Cole froze at the sound of his name. ‘What are you hiding?’

His heart began to beat fast. It wasn’t his first time of getting into trouble with her and he knew she might not forgive him easily for this one but it could be more difficult if he lied in response to her.

‘Yes, I am.’ He got up from his seat with his head bowed in shame. ‘A link was sent to me through Tomi’s WhatsApp account yesterday and I clicked on it,’ he said in a sad tone.

‘Can I see the link?’ Tarasha asked, squinting at him.

Cole turned and picked his phone, he unlocked it and opened the chat with Tomi before he handed it to her.

The first thing she saw was Cole’s recent chat with the number, it had been delivered but there was no reply yet. She scrolled up and found the link. She clicked on it and opened on a browser, it displayed the same warning it showed to Cole.

She returned to the messaging app after about a minute and scrolled down to read the remaining chats. Cole had sent new messages telling Tomi that the link was false and asking where she was. Tarasha clicked on the chat box and began to type a new message.

‘Tomi, where exactly are you now? We were attacked yesterday and the boss is mad at you.’

She returned the phone back to Cole after sending the message and turned back to her computer without saying a word. Henry who was looking at them also turned back after some seconds of silence from Tarasha. He stared more at her face for a while, he couldn’t read the expression on her face. There seemed to be no change even after Cole had confessed to her.

After some minutes, Tarasha picked her phone and unlocked it. She swiped down the top bar to read the new notifications. She had a new message from Chief Gab and a new mail from her colleague assassin from the Nefary Clan. She opened the message from Chief Gab first.

‘I’d be back in Nigeria later today, please keep Chief Nonso safe.’ the message read. She closed the app and opened the email from the assassin, the subject of the email was ‘Details About The Vilary Clan’.

She was quiet for some couple of minutes, pondering on what should be their next line of action.

‘Let’s focus all our attention on getting Tomi back first, after that we can continue with the plan on the Vice President’s children.’ She said to Henry and then turned back to Cole. She knew he had been standing all along but refused to pay attention to his presence. He deserved a punishment for being careless but she knew it wasn’t the right time to punish him, it would affect her workforce negatively. ‘Find a location quite far from this place and make the same people locate you there, keep me updated with every of your move’ she said to Cole before she turned back to the computer in front of her. ‘Now, we got to retrieve again the NSCC footages of how Tomi was kidnapped.’

_____

PRESENT

Location: Asipa Road

Time: 10:18am

‘F*** it!’ Carl cursed as he kicked the door in to find an empty room. He stepped in and pointed his gun to all corners of the place but found nothing and no one. ‘We’ve been fooled,’ he said with regret as he walked further in. He stopped beside the body of the man laying unconsciously on the ground. He placed a finger to feel the man’s pulse and stood up when he confirmed that the man was no longer breathing.

Eric and Lizzy stepped in after him with pistols in their hands. Lizzy walked in hurriedly towards the point Tomi was previously tied to. The chair was on the floor and the ropes had been cut into pieces also.

‘d@mn it! You guys were so careless, you spoilt everything,’ Lizzy complained bitterly. ‘There’s no way we’re going to get through to Samantha through Victor anymore.’

‘Why?’ Carl asked her in a calm voice.

‘That girl must have told Samantha Osman everything and Victor would now know who I am.’ Lizzy replied.

‘It’s possible she doesn’t remember anything to say to them.’ Eric put in.

‘How?’ Lizzy asked, turning to Eric.

‘We mixed her food with some liquid to make her forget,’ Eric replied, glancing at Carl for confirmation.

Carl shook his head sadly, ‘She refused to eat that food. I didn’t anticipate this, I would have injected her or forced her to eat.’

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 18 Part 4
Eric let out a sigh.

‘The whole plan has been messed up,’ Lizzy said and proceeded to the door angrily.

‘Hey, relax.’ Carl said and pulled her back by the arm. ‘We’ve not lost yet, all we need to do is do some more work on the other guy in the team. Remember we’ve got some hold on him?’

_____

Time: 12:15pm

Cole stopped at the door and made a sign of the cross before he turned the knob. He pushed the door in slowly and poked his head in first before he stepped in. Tarasha was seated on her plastic chair with her back turned towards the door facing Tomi who was seated at the edge of the bed and facing the door directly.

Cole swallowed in as his eyes met with Tomi’s. He closed the door gently and paused for a moment. Tarasha and Tomi were sitting quietly and it seemed they had stopped talking when they heard him enter. He drew in a breath. He wondered why Tarasha had instructed for him to report to her immediately he returned to the house. He began to walk slowly towards them and stopped beside Tarasha, just a metre away, He glanced at Tomi’s face again before he finally fixed his gaze on Tarasha.

Tarasha did not look towards him or act like she noticed his presence. She remained in her silent mode with her eyes staring downwards. She looked like she was deep in thoughts.

‘Boss…’ Cole’s called and paused to clear his throat when the word didn’t come out clear. ‘Boss,’ he called again but she gave no response. ‘I got them there,’ he continued to give his report however. ‘And they left some minutes after they found nothing.’

There was silence for about two minutes. Cole was scared by the silence. He expected her to say a word at least, whether to dismiss him or give him further instructions. But her silence made it seem that she was mad at him and the look which Tomi was bearing on her face made it seem worse. Tomi was staring at him like he needed much pity.

‘Boss, I see you are here with Tomi. I hope… I hope you didn’t find it difficult to…’ Cole stammered as he talked, not being comfortable with the silence but he still couldn’t find enough words and the right ones to articulate himself. ‘Ermm… Did you find the guys that…’

Cole had to swallow the remaining words with a gasp as Tarasha pulled out a gun and pointed at his forehead. He opened his mouth in shock as he saw her Ç0çƙ the gun.

She finally turned her face to him. ‘Get the hell out of here and find out your girlfriend Patricia’s location,’ with that she unÇ0çƙed the gun and lowered her hand. She got up from the seat and made her way out of the room.

Cole stood there for a while, unable to close his mouth still in shock and as he wondered what Patricia had to do with the situation. He stared at Tomi’s face. She heaved a sigh as their eyes met and turned away to lie in the bed.

‘Tomi, what has Patricia got to do with this?’ he finally found his voice after a minute.

There was no reply from Tomi.

‘Can’t you hear me? Why is the boss asking that I locate Patricia?’

‘Why don’t you ask the boss yourself and stop disturbing me?’ she replied and flashed an angry look at him.

Cole stood there speechless. He didn’t know what to think. Could it be that Tomi had lied against Patricia in order to turn the boss against him and her (Patricia)? But he also knew that it would be an impossible task for Tomi to have convinced Tarasha with a lie. That only left it with one option; that Patricia was an enemy and was only using him to get to Samantha.

Cole couldn’t contain the thoughts as he walked out. He went straight into the newly arranged computer room. There was nobody else there. He took out his extra phone and located Patricia’s phone number there. He dialed it several times but the call wasn’t answered.

*

Tarasha rested her head well on the pillow and took out her phone. She opened the browser and opened the saved pages list. She clicked on the first news page she had saved since nine o’clock in the morning.

INSPECTOR GENERAL AND OTHERS FREE FROM ABDUCTION AFTER A HEAVY GUNWAR.

The Inspector General of police, notorious criminal Stainless and some yet to be identified men have been rescued by the police from a building in Ikeja, Lagos.

Sounds of gunshots exchange was said to have filled the area in the late hours of the night yesterday, after which a part of the building was set ablaze. The residence of the area claimed that the police did not show up at the crime scene until two hours after the gun war had ended. However, the police command claimed that they had been there from the onset and they had been the ones engaging in the gun war with the men who occupied that building.

Four dead bodies were found in the building and they have been identified this morning as the bodies of Okonkwo John, Zubair Afeez, Onipade Juwon, Ohimen Akpos who are notorious thugs and hired ki||ers in Anambra, Kwara, Ogun and Edo states respectively.

The Inspector General of Police was found in one of the rooms at the other side of the burning building with two other men while the notorious criminal, Stainless who is wanted for troubling the nation’s capital for a long time was found unconscious at the door to the room the Inspector General of Police was tied in.

The police are yet to give an official statement on this yet, but an officer who pleaded anonymity has told our sources that there seemed to have ensued a disagreement which led to a fight between the assassins found dead in the building. Our sources have tried to reach the police state command but to no avail. Investigations are still on to find out what these notorious assassins were doing in the same building and why they had the Inspector General there.

In recent times and since the arrival of Samantha Osman and her group, there has been an increase in the activities of assassin groups and clashes. There have also been an increase in the number of kidnaps happening around the country; two doctors were reported to have been kidnapped from their homes at midnight this morning.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 14 Part 2
____

Location : Presidential Quarters, Lagos.

Time: 12:30PM

‘Answering you that question doesn’t help us move forward,’ Rex said adamantly to Chief Elvis Richards.

Elvis Richards stared at him. His eyes were swollen even though he had slept for some hours after talking to Doctor Musa. Rex had come to meet him at the Presidential quarters and they were having a discussion in a secret room. Elvis Richards had asked Rex if he was a part of those rescued from the attacked building the night before but Rex had refused to answer him. Rex was expecting him (Elvis Richards) to talk about recruiting more assassins but from their conversation, he could tell that the man knew nothing about the new assassins.

‘So when are you going to ki|| Samantha Osman? Or do you think I need to get someone else to do it?’ the Vice President asked Rex after some few minutes of silence.

‘No, give me just two more weeks and I’ll end it before the end of the fourteen days, if I do not end it, I would return all the funds you ever provided and the monies you paid.’ Rex replied.

Elvis Richards gave him a quick stare. He was surprised that Rex could say such words. It only meant Rex was also now as determined as he was to end Samantha’s life.

‘So what do you need me to provide for you now that you are starting all over?’ Elvis Richards asked.

‘The first thing we ought to do is silence Stainless in the police cell or get him out,’ Rex replied.

‘Hmmm…’ the vice president sighed thoughtfully. ‘I may not be able to get him out but I can order for his silent death.’

‘I also need two capable hands to assist me and I need a set of computers and network accessories to get started,’ Rex added.

‘I would provide all that for you,’ Elvis Richards said promisingly. ‘Just make sure you don’t fail this time,’ he added.

‘I won’t,’ Rex replied confidently. Rex had a plan that could turn out to be perfect if he got the necessary materials and the workforce he needed. He had followed the news and read every article which talked about the last night’s attack. There was someone who hadn’t been mentioned and counted by the police amongst the men found in the building. It was the man who had brought all the hostages together in the room.

He reached for the phone he had taken from the man and hidden in his pocket since the last night, he took it out and unlocked it. He navigated to the profile and found out that the owner’s name was Nick.

He remembered that he had hit Nick until he fainted the last night and left him in the same room with the Inspector General and other hostages. The news had also reported that Stainless was found unconscious at the entrance to the same room. No other person except Nick could have attacked Stainless. It meant that Nick had recovered early and was able to get out of the building, except if the police and news media had only skipped reporting about Nick in negligence.

‘Ayo, where are you?’ Elvis Richards said into the mouthpiece of his phone. ‘Come and meet me at the quarters behind the main building.’

_____

Time: 3:30pm

‘Aargh!’ Henry exclaimed angrily and he turned and got out of the bed angrily. He proceeded to the table where his ringing phone was on. It was the seventh time the phone was ringing and he had hoped it would stop, only for it to start ringing again at the point he was already going back to sleep.

He picked the phone and checked the screen. The caller’s number was unknown. He silenced it and waited for the incoming call to end before he silenced the phone totally. He checked the total seven missed calls, it was from the same number. He didn’t know who the caller was but he wasn’t interested in knowing yet until he had enough sleep. He was about to drop the phone back and return to the bed when a text message popped in.

‘Hey! Don’t you want to see your mother again? Why have you refused to call back since we met?’

He squinted and read the message again. He felt suddenly weak and unable to move. He didn’t know what the message was all about but he remembered he had made up his mind to try reaching his mother on the planned trip to Abuja with Cole, only for him to wake up on a day after and hear that he had fallen into coma before the day of the planned trip.

The sender of the message was the same number calling him. He reopened the call history and dialed back the number.

‘Hello,’ he said into the phone.

‘Hey Dude! What the hell is wrong with you? Why don’t you wanna answer the calls?’

‘I was asleep,’ Henry replied.

‘You’ve been sleeping for how many days?’

Henry didn’t understand the question, he didn’t know what to answer.

‘How long have you been sleeping? Why have you refused to get in touch like you promised?’

Henry was feeling more confused.

‘I think I should call you back,’ he said and cut the phone without waiting to get a response from the other end.

He stood on the same spot, wondering what the man on the phone was talking about. He didn’t remember promising to get in touch with anybody and didn’t even remember talking about his mother with anyone. He returned to the bed and sat at the edge, holding the phone in his right hand placed across his chest.

A knock sounded on the door and distracted him from his thoughts. He glanced towards the door but didn’t answer until the seconds knock. ‘Come in,’ he said, without bothering to ask who it was.

Also read – Tarasha 2 – Chapter 14 Part 4
He felt relaxed and dropped the phone on the bed as he saw Tarasha step in. She stopped at the door and they stared at each other for about thirty seconds before she proceeded towards him. She settled beside him and crossed her legs with her two hands resting on the palm at both sides.

‘You’re just waking up?’ she broke the silence.

‘Yes, I just got up.’ Henry replied and faced her. ‘It doesn’t look like you’ve slept at all.’

‘I slept for an hour and half,’ she replied.

‘So, when are we taking the next steps against the Vice President now that we’ve got Tomi back?’

‘We need to get rid of every liability first,’ she replied. He frowned, not understanding what she meant. ‘We have to send all those people with us away, Stephanie George and her mother, Mrs. Henrietta, Dave James and Chief Nonso.’

‘Oh! But none of them needs to die right?’

‘Yes, they do not need to die. You would be taking Chief Nonso to his residence today. You’d go disguised, you drop him at the front of his residence and leave him in the car there.’

‘Okay… What about the others?’

‘We’ll get them away one after the other, I need to find out some things first from Mrs. Atinuke and I’m going to talk to her immediately I leave here. After that, we can decide when she leaves with her daughter and Mrs. Henrietta.’

‘Okay, I have to freshen up now.’

‘Tell me as soon as you’ve made all other things ready, I’ll get you disguised before you leave.’

‘Okay.’

Tarasha got up and proceeded to the door. She stopped and turned back as she placed he hand on the knob. ‘One more thing,’ she said, raising her brows. ‘You know how Tomi was kidnapped, please be careful of talking to strangers on your phone. They tricked her and could try to trick any other member of the team. So don’t give anyone sensitive information on the phone and don’t be tricked by anyone’s offer,’ she said in a warning tone before turning out of the room.

Henry heaved a sigh. Her last warning brought back to his mind the phone call he had just received. He concluded that the caller was only trying to trick him and there was no truth in what he was told.

*

‘Good afternoon doc,’ Tarasha greeted as she entered into the room. ‘Good afternoon ma,’ he also greeted Mrs. Atinuke.

‘Good afternoon,’ it was only the doctor that answered Tarasha. He had just finished giving the woman her medications for that afternoon and was about leaving when Tarasha knocked. He made his way to the door after replying Tarasha.

‘I think you should be here Doc, I’m here to ask her some questions and you could assist her in remembering.’ Tarasha said to stop the doctor from leaving.

The doctor returned and dropped the medications on the table, he sat on the only chair in the room – a one seater sofa while Tarasha sat on the bed beside the woman. He didn’t think it was the right time to ask the woman questions since he had just administered to her the drug that would make her calmer and prevent future outbursts. But from the look on Samantha’s face, she was determined to ask the woman at that moment and he didn’t think he could change her decision.

‘I want to ask you some questions ma, I hope you would give me answers,’ Tarasha began. Mrs. Atinuke turned to her and nodded in affirmation. Tarasha continued, ‘I’m totally ignorant of some of the things I’d be asking you so don’t be offended if I ask a silly question.’

‘Please go ahead,’ Mrs. Atinuke said.

‘Do you remember Mr. Lewis Andrew George?’

The woman frowned, ‘That’s my husband.’

‘Okay, and he’s Stephanie’s father right?’

The woman nodded.

‘And he also happens to be a relative of the late Dr Danjuma.’

‘No,’ the woman said, shaking her head.

Tarasha flashed a look at the doctor who had claimed that Lewis A.G was a relative to Dr Danjuma. The doctor was speechless.

‘Dr Danjuma was my elder brother,’ the woman quickly added. ‘I am the one related to Dr Danjuma, it wasn’t my husband.’

Dr Ekwueme heaved a sigh. At least, he was correct in a way. Lewis AG was still related to Dr Danjuma.

‘Do you know all about Dr Danjuma and his children?’ Tarasha asked.

‘Yes, I do. My brother doesn’t hide any secrets from me.’

‘Can you recognize any of his kids if you see them now?’ she added.

The Doctor stared at Tarasha in suspicion. He had once thought that Tarasha could be the girl child of the family but discarded the thought as a foolish one and also after Henry had said to him that her real name was Tarasha.

‘No, I don’t think so. I’ve suffered a lot in the past years, their pictures are very faint in my memory. Even if I see them as kids now, I may not recall who they are. But I can’t see them anyway, Boko Haram wiped off the entire family.’ Mrs. Atinuke said as a tear dropped off her eyes.

‘Yes, that’s sad, I read about that too.’ Tarasha said in condolence. ‘Do you know how they gave birth to all their kids? I have some information I need to retrieve with it, the enemies had some things to do with the birth and death of the kids.’

‘They are secrets which Danjuma told me, I won’t like to reveal them to anyone but I would tell you only because you’ve been good to me and my daughter.’

‘Thank you,’ Tarasha said with a smile. She glanced at the doctor and the doctor rose, knowing it was time to leave. Tarasha waited for the doctor to step out before she continued. ‘I want to get information particularly about the birth of their daughter and who she was.’

‘Omotara,’ Mrs. Atinuke smiled. She then stared deep into Tarasha’s eyes, ‘I know who she is…’