TARASHA Episode 19 Pt 3 – Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
Doctor, where have you been?’ Dakolo asked as he saw the Senior Doctor coming out of an office. ‘We’ve been looking for you everywhere.
‘I’ve been looking for the access card to my office,’ the Doctor replied and began to lead the way to his office.
‘We heard that an operation on our patient, Henry is ongoing.’ Dakolo followed the Doctor behind, with inspector Ken and Clem who trotted after them like a little kid who had just been scolded.
‘Yes, Dr Tobi is in charge of that,’ the doctor replied without stopping to listen. He never liked interacting with the police.
‘We need to know where the theatre is, I need my men to stay around there.’ Dakolo pressed on.
‘Agent please, we are carrying out our jobs as medical professionals and we would not allow you to interrupt or disturb us.’
‘Come on Doctor, we are not disturbing. This patient’s case is a serious one and we need to keep an eye on him always.’
‘Are you not the agent that signed for the operation to go on?’ the doctor paused to ask.
‘Yes,’ Dakolo paused too and placed his hands on his waist.
‘Then why are you getting worried about the operation again?’ the doctor asked and continued his walking.
‘I told you before, this patient’s case is a special one.’
‘And we have a special professional to take care of him or do you think we’ll allow you enter into the theatre with them? Dr Tobi is one of our bests here, so let him do his job.’ The Doctor said and began to climb the stairs leading to office block. ‘By the way, why are you coming to me today?’
‘We couldn’t find the other doctors.’
The doctor sighed and continued to walk up the stairs.
‘See doc, I’m not asking that we should be allowed inside the theatre, all we need is to stay around the place.’ Dakolo retorted. ‘And I heard you call Dr Tobi a professional, was it professional for him to have told the media about the patient? And he even had orders from the police not to, he still went ahead to tell the media.’
The doctor paused in the middle of the stair case and stared at Dakolo’s face. ‘I think there’s a mix up there, Dr Tobi couldn’t have told the media, he’s too professional to do that.’
‘Then how do you explain the Media’s presence here today and why would they even call his name when he’s not the one who told them? How did they get to know his name?’
The doctor took a step forward and paused again to think. ‘I don’t think it’s doctor Tobi, I heard of a foreign lab scientist working with him. It could have been the lab scientist who carelessly mentioned it to someone else.’
‘Exactly!’ Dakolo exclaimed. ‘It is that lab scientist that we really need to be careful of, that’s why you should get us to the theatre right away.’
The doctor took another step forward, he paused to think and then turned back. ‘I’ll take you there but you’ll not enter into the place until the operation is finished.’ He said and began to lead them down the stairs again.
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Dr Tobi was relieved when he began to hear sounds of people coming upstairs, he stood by the door, ready to raise an alarm by banging on door. Few seconds later, the sounds began to subside. Dr Tobi listened carefully and began to bang on the door furiously but it was too late, the people approaching had already turned back and left. He returned to the visitor’s seat frustrated, he wondered why the most senior doctors’ offices in their hospital were always located far away from other places.
All through his imprisonment in the office, he had been wondering who the disguised nurse was and the purpose for locking him up in the office. His mind began to raise doubts on Dr David, was it possible that the lab scientist wasn’t truthful and had an ulterior motive? But even if that was true, there was no way he was going to carry out an evil plan and escape from the hospital, the police will definitely lay their hands on him before he walks out of the building.
His heartbeat increased as he thought of the patient and what could have happened if Dr David really had an ulterior motive, that would mean the patient would be killed or his situation made worse. Dr Tobi would never forgive himself if that was the case, he was the one who had trusted the wrong person.
He sank into the chair and let a deep breath from his mouth, he closed his eyes and prayed silently for God to avert any possible evil that wanted to take place.
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The assassins nodded their heads to the hard core rap music blasting from the speakers in the car as they drove back to their lodge, Cole behind the wheels and Aisha by his side. Benny was seated at the back, having an awkward feeling but trying hard to conceal it by nodding his head to the music and humming the lyrics like the others. He tried to lighten up his mood by smoking cigarettes but anytime he lit up a stick and placed it in his mouth, he will feel quite uncomfortable and throw it out through the window. This continued all through their journey till he made a decision to be happy anyhow, when he saw that even Aisha and Cole who hadn’t played a major role in the task were feeling happy and enjoying themselves. But everytime, he tried to put on a smile, Dakolo’s face would pop up in his mind again and the smile would diminish. Instead of being happy and glad about his narrow escape from the man- they had met along the staircase when Dakolo was rushing upstairs, the man had paused to stare at his face even though the brown hair, beards and makeup he used to disguise were already removed- Benny kept on feeling like he had done something wrong that would make the agent become able to trace him and in the process nab the whole group.
‘Come on Ben,’ Cole shouted taking his hands off the wheel and turning to the back to tap Benny. ‘You’ve nailed it already, stop looking like someone that was caught.’
Benny tried to fake a smile to make Cole return his focus to the road, Cole did. ‘Do you have any liquor in this car?’ Benny asked, raising his voice because of the loudness of the music.
‘No liquor man, this is a journalist’s official vehicle.’ Cole shouted back with a playful smile. ‘Just enjoy the music and your cigarettes for now, we’ll stop to get any wine of your choice once we see any store.’
Soon, they got to a popular bar and Cole pulled over close to the gate. Without turning off the engine, he opened the door and stepped out, he peeped at Benny through the back window and knocked. Benny rolled down the glass. ‘What wine would you like to take?’ Cole asked.
‘Ermm…’ Benny struggled to recall the name of any wine, his mind was far away.
‘Don’t worry,’ Cole cut in with a loud laugh, ‘I’ll get you your favourite.’ He said and walked away immediately.
Six minutes later, Cole came out of the bar with a white polythene bag. From the shape formed on the bag, one could tell that there were three cartons of wine in it. He opened the door to the driver’s seat and passed the bag to Aisha, then he stood straight by the door and took out his wallet from the inner pocket of his jacket, he put back his debit card into the wallet and returned it back into the jacket before entering the car.
Something struck Benny’s mind as he watched Cole remove and put back the wallet into his inner pocket. Then his mind began to flash back to the events of the day, he remembered observing the cure in the ampoule in Dr Tobi’s office and then exchanging it with the ampoule containing the death poison in his pocket. His body began to shake and sweat began to form on his forehead; he recalled the picture of himself in theatre taking out the cure from his pocket and administering it to the patient.
‘Damn!’ he exclaimed and slammed his his palm on the backrest of the driver’s seat.
‘What’s the matter?’ Cole and Aisha turned to him, asking simultaneously.
‘Just drive this da*mn car out of here,’ he slammed at Cole who was staring at him in surprise. Aisha who was already taking out one of the cold wine bottles to give to Benny put it back into the nylon. Cole lowered the volume of the music and drove into the road, the rest of their journey was done in silence.
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‘Doctor!’ A nurse came crying at the feet of the Senior Doctor as they met at a landing of two opposite stair cases. The nurse had with her three other doctors, including the first doctor who attended to Henry in the hospital, the Pathologist whom Dr David had the first contact with and another unknown one while the Senior Doctor had the three officers with him.
‘What’s happening?’ the Senior Doctor pulled her up and stared at the faces of the three doctors behind for explanation. Four Security officials appeared from behind the three doctors.
‘She came crying to us also, she said the lab scientist working with Dr Tobi has attacked the nurse left with him and injected the patient with a different mixture.’ the older Doctor was the one who replied.
‘Damn!’ Dakolo exclaimed from behind and took out his gun immediately, the other policemen followed his example. ‘Take us to that theatre now,’ he shouted.
Dakolo kicked the door to the theatre open and rushed in with the other officers, the nurse whom Dr David had taken out was still on the floor. The Senior Doctor rushed quickly to the patient and placed his hand on his neck, then he took the patient’s wrists and placed two fingers between the bone and the tendon over his radial artery to feel his pulse.
‘Where’s Dr…’ the Senior Doctor was asking when Agent Dakolo’s voice interrupted.
‘Block all exits and entries into this building and the compound right now,’ Dakolo shouted at the hospital’s security officials. He placed his gun on officer Clem’s neck. ‘I’ll make sure you rot in jail if that so called lab scientist escapes,’ he threatened before rushing out of the theatre, officer Ken followed immediately while officer Clem followed slowly.
‘Where’s Dr Tobi? Where did he go to?’ the Senior Doctor finally asked the question which was interrupted by the agent.
‘He left since you sent a nurse to call him and hasn’t returned since then,’ the nurse replied.
‘Me? Sent a nurse to him?’ the Senior Doctor glanced at the other doctor’s faces to see if the nurse was referring to them but they all had their gazes on him too and the nurse also fixed her eyes on him.
‘Yes sir, you.’ the nurse affirmed.
‘How would I send for him when I know that’s he’s in the theatre, I would never do that.’ the doctor refuted.
‘But the nurse came twice and insisted that you said he should come, she had your department’s uniform on.’
‘That’s impossible, I’ve been looking for the access card to my office since I left the journalists.’ the doctor said and faced the other doctors, as if to ask for their support. ‘Well…’ he turned back to the patient. ‘Let’s sort out this first,’ he held up Henry’s hand again and then his neck. He collected the stethoscope from one one the other doctors and used it to listen to the patient’s heartbeat.
‘He seems fine to me,’ the Senior Doctor said. He stepped away for another doctor to move closer while he went to the trays containing the ampoule and other instruments. He raised up the full ampoule and then the half filled one.
‘This was the one we brought in,’ the nurse explained, pointing to the full ampoule. ‘I don’t know how the other one got in.’
‘We need to conduct a quick test,’ the Doctor who had just finished examining Henry spoke.
‘Yes,’ the Senior Doctor agreed. He picked up an unused syringe from the tray and cut off the nylon.
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35 minutes later
The whole hospital was set into confusion as the police searched everywhere, even wards of patients who were seriously sick and needed no disturbance were not exempted.
After searching around without finding anything, Dakolo turned his focus to journalists who were thrown into surprise at the sudden madness of the policemen.
‘Hey!’ Dakolo called out to some journalists who wanted to enter their cars on seeing him. They had all wanted to leave immediately the police started searching around but couldn’t as the exits were locked already.
‘Enough harassment of the Press already,’ one of bold journalists confronted Dakolo. ‘We came here to do our job and the police has scattered everything and turned it around, you are harassing us, claiming that we attacked one of your patients whereby none of us even crossed the reception.’
‘How did you get into this vicinity?’ Dakolo asked him, ignoring all his previous rantings.
‘How does that matter right now?’ the journalist barked. ‘Let us go, you’re oppressing us and violating our rights.’ Other journalists came to stand by his side with their cameras chanting ‘yes’ and encouraging him.
‘Someone gave you the information right? Did you bother to find out if was true before you smuggled yourselves in here? How did you even get to enter? It shows that someone inside here must have planned it with you. Who led you people in?’
The journalists looked around for a while, trying to see if they could locate Cole and Aisha who had planned with them and gave them the strategy to enter.
‘That does not matter, the police has something to hide and we know it.’ the journalist said and was encouraged by the others.
Dakolo who had gotten a clue about them being led by a particular person from their looking around smiled. ‘You can’t find the person right? It shows that you’ve been used to accomplish a purpose.’ Dakolo said and moved closer to the journalist. He placed a hand on his shoulder gently, the journalists shook off the hand and stepped back. ‘Henry EG has just been poisoned again, you guys distracted the police and the doctors, you are all suspects. It’s better you answer by questions now or provide the person who gave you the information and led you in to clear your names.’
The leading journalist and his friends looked around again for the people who led them in but they found no signs of them.
