TARASHA Episode 17 Pt 5 – Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
I told them to watch and make sure nobody escapes through the gate,’ Ken replied Dakolo’s question.
‘Let’s go…’ Dakolo was saying but got interrupted by the sound of a gunshot. He turned back to his men. ‘Did you hear that?’
‘Doesn’t sound close,’ Ken commented.
‘Doesn’t sound too far also,’ Dakolo said with an eye gesture. Ken knew what he was being asked to do and he took out his phone immediately.
‘Hello officer, was the gun shot from your end?’ Ken said into the phone. He listened for a reply while staring into Dakolo’s face. Then he cut the call and slowly dropped the phone. ‘They found some men in the neighboring compound.’ Ken said to Dakolo.
‘Let’s go,’ Dakolo said and without wasting any more time began to march forward, facing the direction of the runabout which was still almost one kilometre away.
He stopped again suddenly as he remembered something. All the men following behind him halted. ‘You,’ he said pointing to one of the junior officers.
‘Sir.’
‘Follow me,’ he ordered, ‘go back to the gate Ken. I’ll still have some business there.’ He said pointing to the paper company gate.
‘Okay sir,’ Ken said and began to walk on in the same direction with the rest of the men.
Dakolo and the junior officer walked into the compound of the paper company. The guard from whose body Dakolo had removed the pin from was kneeling beside another and trying to wake him. Dakolo stopped beside the one fallen at the gate and took out the pin from the body.
‘Look for a clean container or anywhere i can keep this,’ he ordered the junior officer before proceeding forward. He squatted beside the kneeling man and removed the pin from the neck of the unconscious security guard.
‘What happened here?’ Dakolo asked the conscious guard, standing up to his feet.
‘I don’t know,’ the guard stood up to face Dakolo, looking confused. A look at the signature on Dakolo’s shirt reveal to the guard that he was an agent.
‘You don’t remember how you got into this state?’
‘No.’
‘Okay, what’s the last thing you can recall?’ Dakolo asked.
‘Ermm…’ The guard stammered. He paused and stared at the formerly unconscious guard who was now coughing.
‘Ehn?’ Dakolo tapped the guard on his shoulder. ‘Leave that guy and answer me first.’
‘The last thing I remember was when we were about to end the activities for the day, that was three thirty pm.’ The guy answered with a confused look.
‘Is there still anyone inside there?’ Dakolo asked pointing to the main building.
‘Ermm…what’s the time?’ The man asked.
Dakolo took a glance at his wristwatch, ‘It’s past six’.
‘Everyone should have left already. We close by 4pm and all of the workers leave before 5pm.’
The junior officer returned and stretched a plain paper towards Dakolo. Dakolo dropped the pins there and the officer folded the paper.
‘You don’t remember the men who came here to attack you?’ Dakolo asked the guard.
The other guard by this time had gotten up and was dusting his body. The one who was by the gate was also approaching them.
‘O boy, you remember anything wey happen?’ The guard talking to Dakolo asked his colleagues. He got no response, the one coming from the gate was grabbing his head and staggering forward. The guard turned back to Dakolo. ‘I don’t remember any men and I don’t think they remember either.’
‘Sir,’ Dakolo changed his tone to a more serious one and began to walk in a circle around the two security guards closer. ”Has something like this ever happened before?’ Dakolo paused to ask.
The talking guard paused to think, his face twitched in discomfort and he scratched his bum. ‘No sir,’ the man said shakily. It was obvious that he was hiding something from the look on his face and the time he took to answer.
‘Don’t play with me,’ Dakolo shouted angrily and took out his gun.
‘It has,’ the man finally confessed. ‘But it was different from this.’
‘How was it different?’
‘We found ourselves in our office that early morning, all asleep. The only similarity with this is that we don’t remember how we all fell asleep on duty at the same time and at strange positions even without locking the gate.’
‘When was that?’
‘Saturday morning last week,’ the guard answered.
‘That means you fell asleep on Friday afternoon.’
‘No, Friday night. I could remember that we already bought what to eat by 6.30pm that day.’
Dakolo gave a mischievious smile and nodded his head slowly. It could only mean that the place had being used to access Henry’s house on the day he was poisoned. ‘And why didn’t you report it?’
‘We were not sure of what happened, we thought we all slept off due to the drink we had earlier that evening.’
‘Is that how you drink on duty?’ Dakolo asked with serious tone.
‘No o, it wasn’t an alcoholic drink. It was an herbal concoction and that wasn’t the first time we were taking something like that.’
‘I see… Well you guys would have to come to our station first thing tomorrow and repeat all you’ve said here. Failure to comply would bring more problems for you. You also need to go for medical checkup,’ Dakolo said with a note of finality and made a signal to the junior officer.
~~~
6.15pm
‘I need you to give him special attention and care, and I also don’t want it mentioned to anybody.’ Tarasha said to the lady beside her as they both marched from the car towards the house.
‘No problem, as far as you’ve got everything in the house like you’ve said.’ The lady replied. She was a dark, tall and slim lady, a little bit taller than Tarasha was.
‘I believe what I have should be all you need, but in case you need to get any other thing, please call me first before leaving the house.’ Tarasha said before they both entered into the house.
‘Sure madam,’ the lady nodded in acceptance.
‘Good evening brother,’ Tarasha greeted as her eyes met with Jefa’s immediately they walked into the living room.
‘Omotara,’ Jefa replied with a bright smile. He woke up feeling quite better, better than he ever felt in the hospital. He had gotten up from his bed and called out her name but got no response, then he found a note close to his bedside she wrote for him. It read, ‘I’ve gone to make some arrangements for your treatment, I’ll be back very soon.’
After reading the note, he found his way to the living room and sat alone in silence.
‘You didn’t sleep for long,’ Omotara said as she got to the sofa he was seated in. She sat on the arm and looked into his eyes for a short moment, she couldn’t stay for long as another string of emotion was being pulled.
‘I think I slept enough,’ Jefa replied. ‘I’m feeling very much better.’
‘Okay,’ Omotara got up and turned to where the nurse was standing. She took out a chip from the pocket of her short gown. ‘This lady would be here to take care of you,’ she said to Jefa, rubbing her hand on the nurse’s shoulder, she clipped the chip to the collar.
The nurse gave Jefa a smile but he frowned back. ‘Do I really need a nurse, I feel strong already and I think you’re doing a better job than any nurse could do. The injections and drugs you gave me worked like…’ Jefa was saying but Omotara cut him short with an eye signal.
‘I thought you said you’ve not administered any home treatment to him?’ The nurse turned to Omotara and questioned.
‘Ermm… He was asleep, so he wasn’t aware of who administered the medications to him.’ Omotara said with a shy smile.
The nurse turned back to look at Jefa’s face and he nodded in confirmation.
‘I’m on night duty today and I’ll be going to work soon.’ Omotara said as she came to stand in front of him. ‘Please come, let me show you the room you’ll stay.’
‘Do have your seat nurse,’ Tarasha said with a glance at the nurse. ‘Excuse us for a moment.’
Jefa stood up and followed her immediately, as fast as his strength could carry. She wasn’t walking fast either, so she made it easier for him.
‘I don’t want anyone to be aware that I administered drugs to you myself,’ Omotara said as they got out of earshots of the nurse. ‘Neither do I want anyone else to be aware that I have a laboratory in the house.’
She stopped in front of the door to the laboratory. She opened it and peeped inside. She closed it back again and locked it with the keys.
‘I thought you were a Doctor or nurse,’ Jefa said as they continued to proceed further.
Omotara smiled. ‘None of such,’ she replied. ‘That’s why I don’t want anyone to find out. When she asks of the drugs you’ve been using, you tell her you didn’t bring any from the hospital.’
‘What about the ones you gave me?’
‘She shouldn’t find out about that,’ Omotara replied. It was really important that her lab and medicines were kept secret as the contents of the lab and constituents of the medicine could raise suspicion if seen by a medical person.
‘But how come you know so much about medicine?’ Jefa questioned anxiously.
Omotara ignored the question and opened the door to her room. ‘This is my room,’ she said as she walked in with him. She proceeded towards the bed to pick some of the clothes she left there. ‘You’ll be using here, I’ll make sure I clean the whole place before I leave for work.’she said as she proceeded towards the wardrobe and threw the clothes in.
‘Ermm…’ Jefa was about to say something.
‘Don’t ask about the other rooms, I share this flat with three other people and they’ll be coming back soon.’ She cut in.
‘No, I was about to say I don’t need to come here. I could stay in the living room.’
‘I can’t allow you stay there, you need to stay somewhere suitable enough for your treatment.’ She argued. ‘You’ll stay here. I’ll come with some clothes for you when I return tomorrow morning. Let’s go back to the nurse now.’ Omotara said and began to proceed towards the door.
‘Wait,’ Jefa stopped her. ‘I’ve been wanting to ask you how you got the diary you brought and the clothes you brought for me at the hospital. I left those things in my house.’
‘Oh!’ Omotara exclaimed, remembering something. She ignored his question and walked back to the wardrobe. She opened it and took out a phone.
‘Here’s your phone,’ she walked back to Jefa and handed it over to him.
Jefa stared at the phone, it was exactly the same type of his phone but the old case and screen had been changed to new ones. The police had told him that the phone must have been damaged to pieces as they couldn’t find anything like this at the accident scene.
‘I saw it fly away from you when you had the accident, so I picked it up.’ Omotara explained.
‘Thanks,’ Jefa smiled.
‘Okay, we have to return to the living room now.’ Omotara said, taking a glance at her wristwatch. Time was far spent and and she still had lots of things to do; like cleaning up her room for Jefa’s use and also hiding carefully any tool or material that could suggest to him the kind of job she did. She also had to meet with her team before eight pm for them to move together to the Senate President’s house for the operation that night.
~~
‘Where are the rest of your men?’ Ken shouted at the criminal, accompanying his shout with a thunderous slap.
The lanky guy vibrated violently and almost fell off from the seat in the police van. His mouth was already dripping of blood.
‘Oga, I swear they went into the next compound while we were asked to wait in that house and keep the people from making noise.’ The criminal replied.
‘Boys, get into the vehicles, he’s gonna lead us to their base’ Ken ordered. ‘Leave a space there for me.’ He said as he jumped down from the van and the other officers entered into the vehicles.
‘Agent Dakolo Sir,’ he called through the Bluetooth device, pressing the earphone against his ear to stop entrance of noise from the environment.
‘Officer Ken,’ Dakolo’s reply came after ten seconds.
‘We found two of the criminals here, one was shot dead while he tried to engage some of our boys in a shootout while the other is with us and he’s taking us to their base.’
‘You going there? Are you sure you have enough men?’
‘Yes, I still have about twenty men here with me. Four of them are going to be staying behind to take care of the incident here while I lead the boys to their base.’
‘Good, are you going to pass through the roundabout? So that I’ll join you people.’
Ken turned around and stared at the criminal inside, ‘is it this way or here?’ He asked, pointing at the two opposite directions.
‘This way,’ the reply came slowly.
Ken turned back. ‘We’re taking the opposite way sir.’
‘Okay, start moving immediately. I’ve called the office and they are sending me another car, I’ll join you there.’ Dakolo said and the connection was cut.
Ken entered into the van after giving the directions for the officers to stay and the vehicles sped off immediately. He sat right in front of the culprit.
‘Una just dey waste una time o, everybody go don run comot for base o.’ The culprit continued his rant few minutes into the journey.
‘Shut up!’ Ken slammed. ‘You’re going to take us to your leader, Samantha Osman.’
‘I say we were not sent by Samantha Osman, I don’t even know her.’ The culprit spoke in a shouting voice.
Ken took out his pistol and cocked it, he placed it on the guy’s neck. ‘Shut up and take us to your main base.’
In Ken’s mind, they were being led to Samantha Osman’s main base, not knowing that they were going somewhere else entirely.
