TARASHA Episode 18 Pt 3 – Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
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‘We found nothing in the car. They must have entered into another car from there. ‘ Dakolo was speaking with Ken as they walked down the car park being led by one of the guards and three uniformed officers following behind.
It was past twelve noon and the Senate President’s house was still busy, the gates were wide open and the security officials could be seen working up and down.
The anti-bomb squad had just finished uninstalling the bomb on Fatima’s body successfully and they were coming out of the house with the bomb they had just removed.
‘Hello,’ Dakolo beckoned to the leader.
‘Yes sir,’ the man responded and changed his direction towards Dakolo.
‘Is the girl okay and would she be able to talk to us now?’
‘Yes, I think so. I don’t think there was anything wrong with her before, she was awake.’
‘Okay, so apart from the bomb, they didn’t do anything else to her?’
‘I wouldn’t know that sir, the medicals are attending to her already.’
‘Okay then, thanks.’ Dakolo waved and watched them leave. He turned to Ken. ‘Lead the guys to the car and check everywhere carefully. I want to see if I can talk to the girl.’ He said.
‘Okay sir,’ Ken accepted and continued his walk with the rest while Agent Dakolo turned back to the direction of the house.
The guard continued to lead Ken and the officers until they got to the car which was brought by the visitors.
‘Have you guys searched it at all?’ Ken asked the guard.
‘No,’ the guard replied.
‘Okay,’ Ken took out his phone and turned on his torchlight as there was only a little reflection of light at the other side of the car. He walked in a circle around it, trying to observe the body, the juniors also joined him. After searching the outer body, Ken tried to open the door. He applied force but was unsuccessful. He stepped back and took out his gun, he was about to sh00t when a junior raised an alarm.
‘Stop Inspector!’ the officer shouted. He was by the back right hand side of the car. ‘There is a note here warning us not to open the car.’
Ken turned around to the officer’s side and looked through the glass. ‘Don’t try to open the door, the whole place would go up in flames.’ Ken read out what he saw on the piece of paper. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ He asked aloud, although to no one in particular. He brought his eyes close to the glass and tried to see if anything else was in the car. He could see something on the ground close to the backseat. He brought his phone closer and pointed the torchlight to it.
‘Shi*t!’ He cursed as he rose up and turned to the other men who were expecting him to announce what he saw. ‘There’s an explosive in the car, someone should get the anti-bomb squad before they leave.’
~~~
Dakolo was already close to the door when a call entered his phone. Without halting, he dipped his hand into his pocket to bring out the phone. He checked the screen, it was from the Vice President. Dakolo let out a sigh before answering.
‘Good morning your Excellency,’ Dakolo greeted politely.
‘Agent, nothing is good about the morning.’ Elvis barked from the other end. ‘What on earth is happening? The media is already reporting an unconfirmed rumor that the Senate President has been kidnapped, I hope it’s not true.’
‘Sadly sir, it’s true.’ Dakolo replied without apologies in his voice, he wondered what the man was doing up at that time reading unconfirmed stories on the internet instead of resting himself. ‘I’m at the Senate President’s house now and we’re keeping the situation under control.’
‘Control my foot,’ Elvis slammed, ‘this has gone out of control already.’
‘We’re making our investigations now and we hope to bring the man back alive soon, hale and hearty.’ Dakolo said, hoping to put an end to the phone call with that.
‘Better do,’ the man said and ended the call.
Dakolo returned the phone into his pocket and continued his walk into the house.
‘Where’s Fatima?’ He asked one of the officers he first met in the living room.
‘She’s upstairs,’ the officer replied.
‘Lead me there,’ Dakolo said as he placed a hand on the man’s shoulder and followed the lead.
‘I don’t really know the place, I’ve not gone there.’
In five minutes time, he got to the room with another officer who knew the place better. He walked closer to the bed, slowly, two of the medical officials were still with Fatima.
‘She was tranquilized before the bomb was attached,’ one of the medical officers said as he saw Dakolo come closer.
‘I see… But is she strong enough to talk to me now?’
‘Yes,’ Fatima replied by herself. ‘I can talk.’
‘Good morning Fatima,’ Dakolo walked closer to the left side of the bed where she laid. He squatted before her, supporting himself by placing a hand on the bed. ‘Sorry I have to trouble you. It’s just that we need to get every information as soon as possible so that we can start work and bring back your father soon.’
‘I know, what questions do you have for me.’ Fatima sniffed in, trying to fight back tears as she used her palm to clean off the drops from her face.
Dakolo waited for her to finish cleaning her face before he began. ‘Did you see the visitors?’
‘Yes, I met them when I came in. My Dad introduce me to them.’
‘Is there anything familiar about them?’ Dakolo asked. Fatima looked confused about the question so he had to rephrase. ‘I mean have you seen any of them around you or your family anywhere before?’
‘No, it was my first time of ever seeing them.’
‘But did you notice any strange thing?’
‘Ermm… I did but it was already late.’ She said and took a short pause. ‘When I came into this room with one of the ladies who wanted to use the toilet, I noticed on a closer look at face that the makeup was a quite special one, it looked so much like another skin was laid upon her face.’
‘Then what did you do?’
‘I didn’t do anything, I wanted to ask questions about what brand of kits she uses but I needed to wait for her to finish using the toilet as she was acting uncomfortable then.’
‘But what made the makeup look suspicious to you?’
‘When she came out of the toilet. I think water had touched her palms and part of the cream she used in lightening her hands had washed away. But I ignored because she caught me staring at her hands and didn’t look bothered.’
‘So what is your conclusion based on that?’
‘I think they came in disguised, we may have not really seen their real colours and faces.’
‘But how possible is it to disguise so well with makeups?’
‘Very possible sir, but this lady’s own was quite different. I was just admiring her style of makeups and the neatness, I didn’t think it was a disguise not until the cream washed off her hands.’
‘But why didn’t you raise an alarm immediately?’
‘Alarm?’ She asked in a surprise tone. ‘Well, all that just began to make sense to me after she attached the bomb to my body.’
~~~
‘Hello Chief,’ Tarasha spoke into the phone.
‘Tarasha,’ the Chief replied. Tarasha could hear him yawning from the other end. ‘Why did you decide to call by this time of the day?’
‘Because I need to speak with you now, so listen up.’ Tarasha said in an impatient voice.
‘Okay,’ the Chief replied, in a more serious tone.
‘Very soon, you’ll hear of the death of the next target, Nasiru Attahiru. But before he dies, I want to give you an opportunity to reveal some secrets which you may have hidden from me, so that I can help conceal them from being exposed to the public.’
‘Ermm… Tarasha. We can’t really discuss that on phone, we have to see.’
‘When do we see?’
‘Maybe you should take a flight to Lagos tomorrow.’
‘Huh? Come to Lagos? You’re kidding right?’
‘No, so that we can…’
‘We would talk through video chat Chief, it’s a waste of time traveling.’ Tarasha interrupted him.
‘But there’ll be a limit to…’
‘You have to find a way to break the limits,’ she cut in again.
‘Okay,’ the man finally gave in.
‘One more thing.’
‘Yes.’
‘This target Chief Nasiru and the next, Chief Elvis is already expecting us and I believe you should know they would be. They already sent one of your boys to monitor me, so you should also watch your back.’
‘One of my boys? Who?’
‘That’s all for now Chief,’ with that Tarasha ended the call.
~~~
Dakolo was through questioning Fatima, he was proceeding back outside the house. His phone rang.
‘Officer, what location have you found?’ Dakolo asked the caller.
‘None sir, it is directing us to Mars.’ The caller replied in a thick Yoruba accent.
‘Maths? What’s that?’ Dakolo asked.
‘Planet Mars,’ the caller corrected.
‘How on earth is that possible?’
‘It’s impossible sir, the location has been secured by a strange kind of technology.’
‘Strange indeed,’ Dakolo said, licking his lips with a frowned face as if he had just tasted something extremely bitter. ‘Please keep trying and keep us posted.’
‘Okay sir,’ the caller said and the call ended.
Dakolo paused for a while, his thoughts drifted to Henry and there pitiable health condition. Maybe investigating Henry was a huge mistake after all. Henry’s loss was also a big loss to the nation as he was the one whom they called during times like this. He could now imagine how Henry would look when he becomes strong enough to talk. A useless dummy he would be, not remembering anything about himself or even having the ability to use his brain for anything new.
Samantha Osman was really a curse to the nation, he thought. Maybe a punishment for the nation’s sins. She must be brought down at all cost. And Henry was a blessing to the nation, he must not be given up on, they must do everything to help him out of the situation they had put him.
Dakolo shrugged and continued walking on, an idea came into his mind. He remembered that the NSCC had just employed more experts, he could call Sylvester and request for the NSCC’s help on tracking the location where the call came from. He took out his phone immediately and executed his thought.
~~~
***Ten minutes later***
‘Good morning Evelyn,’ the caller greeted.
‘Good morning sir,’ Tarasha recognized the voice as Mr Sylvester’s.
‘I’m sorry Evelyn for disturbing your sleep at this time of the night, the police just called me and requested for an urgent tracking to be done.’
‘What do they want to track?’
‘They said a phone call that they got about two hours ago.’
‘Two hours ago? Why are they just tracking it now?’
‘They’ve been trying but all their efforts to track it have been futile.’
‘How did that do it? They would have to request for data from the base of the network operators to do that.’
‘Yes, they’ve done so and still couldn’t track.’
‘Okay, let them forward the data to us.’
‘Thanks dear,’ Mr Sylvester said in a happy tone. ‘Sorry I didn’t ask about your mother, how is she now?’
‘She’s feeling quite better. ‘
‘Thank God. I’ll get them to forward the data to you as soon as possible and I’ll expect an excellent job as usual.’
~~~
***2am***
Vice President Elvis kept pacing around his living room uneasily, his mind could not be at rest. All his guards and maids had already gone to sleep as he has earlier retired to his bedroom before getting the news of the kidnap. He didn’t believe that Nasiru whom he had just spoken with few hours ago had been already caught by the Samantha Osman group, when he thought that the Police and his man Don was already keeping her on the run. In fact, that was how Don had made it look to him when they spoke for the second time the last night. Don had told him that he had met with Samantha that day and almost caught her if not for the police who came in and disrupted all his plans. Don also promised that very soon, he would deliver to him the head of Samantha Osman.
Elvis took out his phone and dialed Don’s number. After ringing thrice, Don finally picked his call.
‘Hello VP,’ Don spoke in a sleepy tone.
‘Blockhead, you’re there sleeping while Samantha Osman has just captured someone else.’ Elvis slammed.
‘Huh?’ Don seemed surprised. ‘That can’t be, she was on the run yesterday and couldn’t have carried out any operation.’
‘Dummy!’ Elvis cursed him again. ‘As I speak to you now, she has the Senate President in her custody. And all these happened after you told me that you gave her a hot chase last night.’
‘Yes, I met her yesterday and I would have trapped her if not that the Police came with their unfortunate heads.’
Elvis shook his head in self pity, to him Don was sounding like a confused fellow. Samantha Osman would surely not be stopped if he was depending on Don to do it, she had clearly shown that she was above him in every way.
‘You are helpless Don, I don’t think you can carry out this assignment.’
‘I can,’ Don tried to argue.
‘Shut up! See me first thing by daybreak,’ Elvis said and ended the call with that. He dropped his phone on the table. He continued his pacing around, thinking of what he could do to save himself.
For a moment, his thoughts drifted to the person who could be the person sponsoring Samantha Osman. One person that came to his mind was Gabriel. But how on earth could Gabriel be the one? Gabriel who had been stricken with poverty was also sick with stroke and was hiding in a remote village in a poor African country, the only thing that was being awaited was the news of his death. It couldn’t be Gabriel, Elvis thought. Then who could it be?
That was a question he had no answer for, but he knew he had to do something drastically to save his life. He began to think of which other person could handle Samantha Osman but he could find no other trained and expert assassin as Don. He sank into a sofa, frustratingly. Was he going to end his life just like that? No. How could he who had been a terror to the hearts of many now be terrorized by a young girl?
An idea suddenly struck his heart and a broad smile appeared on his lips. He got up and picked his phone from the table. He unlocked it and began to search through the contacts. He didn’t find what he was looking for. He chuckled and hissed at his stupidity, how was he even expecting to find a phone number which he had not called for over fifteen years now on a recent phone?
He began to walk away from the living room, on his way to his study. He was very sure he would find Matvei’s contacts. If he couldn’t find a valid phone number, he was sure he would get a location address or an email address with which he would be able to get in touch with the man. What he needed now was another competent assassin, one who was specially trained, preferably more trained than Samantha.
