TARASHA Episode 18 Pt 8 – Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
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‘Tara, you’ve not still stopped to rest since. What’s the matter?’ Jefa asked his sister, staring into her face with that same look that a father who is deeply worried about his daughter keeps. Both of them were in the living room, Jefa was sitting in the armchair while Tarasha was moving around the house and working. She was just passing through the living room then when Jefa decided to question her.
She stopped and took a quick glance at his face and then folded her arms. She couldn’t keep her eyes on his face because she didn’t want the feeling it was giving her. It was a strange kind of feeling, one which she wasn’t supposed to have.
‘I’ll rest when I’m done with what I’m doing,’ she said, staring at somewhere else with her arms folded like a sulking wife.
‘What are you doing?’ Jefa questioned with a note of authority.
The authority in Jefa’s tone sounded funny to Tara, she took another quick glance at him and faced somewhere else again.
‘I’m only asking to know if I could do some things for you while you go and rest,’ Jefa continued, offering to help this time.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll be done in few minutes time.’
‘Please hurry up,’ Jefa said in a pleading tone.
‘Thank you,’ she said and started to walk away.
‘Ermm… Sorry,’ Jefa began to talk again, just remembering something. ‘Did you come home with someone around 12 noon?’
‘No, I didn’t,’ she replied. ‘Why?’
‘Nothing, I thought I heard your voice and a guy’s own.’ Jefa said.
‘No, I didn’t come home at all.’ She said.
‘Okay, I was hoping you had come home with Henry.’ Jefa said.
Tara heaved a sigh at the mention of Henry’s name, she wished that her brother would stop mentioning him in every discussion. All she could hope for was that Benny should quickly execute his mission and end Henry’s life finally, then the only thing that would be talked about was his funeral.
‘No,’ she refuted. ‘I didn’t come home at all,’ she reiterated.
Tara took a glance at his face before walking away. He didn’t look like he was convinced that she spoke the truth but she wasn’t bothered, the most important thing she needed was that he stopped disturbing her with questions.
Jefa was partly correct, she had come home with a man but certainly not Henry. She had come with Benny to use the laboratory in the house.
Tarasha walked into the room and straight to the bed. She fell tiredly into it with her face buried in the pillow. She wasn’t tired physically, she had physical strength but what she didn’t understand was her weakness in dealing with herself when she faced her brother.
With the same determination and mindset which she changed to and spoke to the Senate President, she had come home to speak to her brother, so that they could plan his departure sooner than they earlier agreed. Though she had been the one who forced him to stay in her house, pleading with him to only go after he is declared fit enough by the nurse, she didn’t want him to wait any further because she realized and had begun to see the signs of the effects which his presence could have around her. The problem now was to face him and speak to him, there was an overwhelming influence he always had whenever she saw his face. Sometimes, it brings pictures of their father back to her, sometimes the whole family and sometimes, pictures of her loving brother. But she needed none of that now, all she required was a mind free of unnecessary emotions or attachment to fulfill her mission.
She turned to face the ceiling and then raised her knee, she took in another long deep breath and closed her eyes briefly. She needed to get Jefa out of her life quickly, else she would become a weakling.
Questions began to rise in her hearts and she began to wonder why she was even sent to her country of descent. Why wasn’t she sent to somewhere else in the world? Why didn’t they send her to another country knowing quite well that she could meet something in Nigeria which could make her get distracted?
Oh! Possibly it was purposefully. Vlasdislav had done it purposefully, she thought. To punish her, that would be the reason. She remembered that she had offended her masters on several occasions and previous projects. She had even gone against the Nefary Clan’s rules once and when she was accosted by her bosses for it, she gave them a stubborn and nonchalant attitude and did not apologize (a skill which they impacted into her).
Twice did Vlasdislav and Ristoslav tried to ki*ll her by sending her to ki*ll two of the most senior assassins who became *** but she surprised m amazed them on the two occasions when she returned with the heads of the two senior assassins. Since then, she became a threat to themselves and they began to class her as a senior assassin too even though she hadn’t used up to the number of years required to be classified as that.
Ristoslav and Vlasdislav were also ‘veteran’ assassins but their old ages and too much use of drugs had weakened their bodies. That’s why they reduced the use of drugs for their own trained assassins. Both of them were the second and third persons in command in the Nefary Clan.
Vlasdislav was the assassin who had betrayed the Villary Gang and joined Nefary. He was one of the major men in the Villary Gang and was the most sent Agent to Africa during the nineties. That was when he got connected to a Nigerian politician who was a godfather to Chief Elvis. He gradually rose in rank in the gang and began to control some of their international activities especially their relations with the African continent. In the early 2000s, Matvei took over from him in controlling their relations with Africa as Vlasdislav had risen in rank and also aged more.
The year 2011 was when the Villary Gang’s deal with the Nigerian young politicians was strengthened, they began to receive supply of “goods” from Nigeria, their major dealers were the Heavy Seven Group of which young Elvis was the major leader and Gabriel his assistant. The Villary Gang’s operation with the Heavy Seven began to decline in 2015 when the coming elections procedure in Nigeria toughened, then it came to an abrupt end when the new Government came into power in May 2016.
Vlasdislav who was a major assassin and trainer in the Villary Gang began to have disagreements with some other major men in the gang that same year. Early 2017, he finally broke away, taking a hundred of young trainees with him to a rival organization called the Nefary Clan, Omotara was one of the trainees which was taken away by Vlasdislav. That was how she became a citizen and part of the Nefary Clan family. She learnt so fast, excelling in all her tests and her promotion to the next level was always rapid. Her fast learning ability made Vlasdislav take more interest in her out of all her age mates and those trainees he brought along with him. On a certain day after some thing happened, just in few years of her training, he changed her name from Omotara to Tarasha, a story to be told later.
Tarasha turned and faced the ceiling, raising one of her knees up as she took in a long deep breath. She just needed to do all that she could to move Jefa far away from herself. She got up swiftly and walked towards the table near the wall, she dragged the chair closer and took the laptop bag from under the table. She took out the laptop from her bag and turned it on, then she sat and relaxed her back, waiting for the computer to boot.
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Dr Tobi and Dr David busied themselves with experimenting the samples for several hours in the laboratory. Dr David seemed to be the one leading the tests, he took care of the mixing and heating while Dr Tobi joined only in most of the observations.
‘Seems like you’ve been working on this sample for a long time,’ Dr Tobi said.
‘Not really, but I’ve made quite some progress on it.’ Dr David replied.
‘Hmm…’
‘Yeah…’ Dr David lifted up a test tube and squinted as he stared at the blue coloured liquid. ‘I think we’re done with the drug now.’
Dr Tobi stopped to stare at the test tube too, ‘but I don’t think we can administer it to the patient, mixing it has made it contaminated.’
‘Why not? We can administer it,’ Dr David said defensively. ‘The foreign matter isn’t harmful to the body.’
‘Are you sure? We’ve not verified what substance it is.’
‘Yeah… But we’ve verified that it isn’t harmful.’
‘It’s not harmful to the normal body but it could be harmful to the patient in his condition.’
‘Hmm…’ Dr David stopped to think. ‘Well, you may be right there. Since you’ve been the one treating the patient all these while.’
‘Yes… I think it’ll be dangerous to him.’
‘So what do we do now? Do you have some quantity of the samples left?’
‘I don’t know, I’ll have to find out from the officer… Ermm…his brother I mean.’ Dr David said and took off his hand gloves, preparing to go out of the lab.
‘Okay,’ Dr David smiled, ‘but make sure you get all the remaining quantity.’
‘I will,’ Dr Tobi said and excused himself.
Dr David watched him leave, another stage of his mission has been done, he had contaminated the first sample of the cure. Now his next plan was to contaminate the remaining quantity of the liquid, that’s why he urged Dr Tobi to get all that was left. He had succeeded in wasting the sample of the liquid and wasting time also. To fulfill the mission, he had two options; contaminate the remaining liquid and encourage Dr Tobi to administer it that way or find a way to be left alone with Henry and he’ll infuse a poison into his blood cells.
