TARASHA Episode 19 Pt 6 – Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
Dakolo was seated in the back of the ambulance with the doctor and Henry laying in the bed. Ken was seated in the front seat with the driver, leading the way to their destination.
Dakolo glanced at Henry’s calm face from time to time and would take a deep sigh of relief after. He was glad that Henry was going to live after all, even though if he didn’t remember anything like the doctor said, he was a young man and still had the opportunity to start a new life. Dakolo made up his mind to help Henry have that new life and have it to the full.
Just after fifteen minutes of driving, Dakolo’s phone began to ring. He took it out and checked the caller, it was from the office.
‘Hello officer,’ he answered the call and spoke in a low voice.
‘Sir,’ the female computer operator’s voice sounded. ‘The profile we got yesterday wasn’t from the hospital in Capetown, the signature and logo have some slight differences. The assassins must have created a fake profile and deceived us with it.’
‘Okay,’ Dakolo replied after few seconds of silence, feeling defeated but not surprise about the report. ‘What about the network provider’s report, where did they say the call was answered from?’
‘They haven’t been able to find the exact location sir but it has been confirmed that the call wasn’t answered from South Africa.’
‘It’s okay officer, thanks, you may now retire for the day and allow the officers on night shift take over.’ Dakolo replied.
‘Yes sir, goodnight.’ Dakolo could hear the happiness in her voice before she cut the call.
Dakolo took another glance at Henry immediately the call ended, he stretched forth his hand to the bed and to touched Henry’s fingers. Henry’s hand was warm but there was no reaction made to Dakolo’s touch.
‘For how long is he going to stay unconscious?’ Dakolo asked the doctor.
‘I’m not really sure, only Dr Tobi can give us the most accurate prediction,’ the doctor replied.
‘I wished you were the one to stay with him, I can trust you more. Dr Tobi seems younger, inexperienced and more naive.’ Dakolo said.
‘Dr Tobi is not inexperienced, he’s a professional who has dealt with several other cases successfully, he’s one of the best in Africa and in the world. Even though this case is quite unique, he’s still the best man for the job. I don’t think any other Doctor in the world would do better than him.’
‘Why are you so confident about him?’ Dakolo asked, raising a brow.
‘He’s good, I know him, I’ve seen him perform excellently several times. He has even proved it in this case.’
‘How did he prove it?”
‘You see, in cases like this where the substance used to induce the brain damage and paralysis to the patient is unknown, the only person who would be able to produce the cure has to be the manufacturer of the poison. But in this case, Dr Tobi was able to come up with the cure. The highest point several other doctors in his line would have ever gotten to was knowing that the cure could be derived from that liquid, they would have never been able to know how to purify the liquid and make the cure.’
”Hmm… I see,’ Dakolo commented and took his gaze away. He stared blankly at the wall of the ambulance for sometime.
‘You’ll pick him from his house tomorrow as planned,’ the doctor continued. ‘Now that he would even be left alone with the patient and the patient would be the only responsibility he has, he might be able to come up with several other things to make the patient recover faster.’
Dakolo bit his lips and nodded silently in agreement with what the doctor said. Quick recovery was what he wanted for Henry, very quick recovery. So that they would be able to fly him out of the country once and for all to save him from any other possible attacks.
++++
‘I’ll have to return tomorrow then,’ Tarasha said, stepping into the car. ‘Call me at once Benny is back and also inform him that I need to have a meeting with all of you tomorrow.’ she said and closed the door to the driver’s seat. After waiting an hour for Benny to return, she had no choice than to leave and come back the next day. ‘Make sure you keep an eye on the Senate President, we should administer to him the poison very soon, it’ll take about three days before he finally dies.’ she said before starting the engine. She wind up the window glasses and began to reverse, Cole went to open the gate for her. In one minute time, she had driven out already.
Cole and Aisha returned back into the house quietly, still wondering where Benny could have gone to and what could be wrong with him.
++++
Benny kept on walking hurriedly down the streets, he had gone out of Gwagalada already and was on his way to a motor park. He planned on boarding a bus that night or very early the next morning to Lagos, then from Lagos he was going to travel out of the country to another African nation where they would not be able to trace him to. He had enough money in his bank account to settle down there for the moment and maybe take up a responsible job or start a business.
The roads were already almost empty, there cars were passing by occasionally. There were also very few people on the road and by the side, most of them were people coming from work who could be seen at the joints of Mallams who were selling late night food to people.
He crossed the road to the other side of the junction, he stopped to wait for a cab or a good Samaritan who would be driving towards the direction of the motor garage he was going to.
Not more than two minutes of waiting, the good Samaritan came by. A black car stopped at his front.
‘Hello,’ the windows were wind down and the car reversed a little. A man at the passenger’s side of the front seat waved at Benny. The man’s cap covered his face partly, making it impossible for Benny to see the face properly.
‘Hello, I’m going to the Lagos motor garage there.’ Benny said, approaching the car.
‘Do you have some money?’ the man asked.
‘Yes,’ Benny replied, confident of himself. His gun was in his pocket and he wasn’t scared of entering into a robber’s car. He had received extra training under Tarasha, so entering a robber’s car would even make things better for him; it would give him good enough reasons to snatch the car and use it personally for himself, maybe drive himself to Lagos.
‘Hop in,’ the man said and the door to the back seat opened.
‘Thank you,’ Benny said as he entered and placed his bag beside him. He saw the eyes of the driver peeping at him through the rearview mirror but couldn’t see the face properly. The light in the car was turned off before the car drove off.
The driver began to play one of Tupac’s album, raising the volume so high that it could damage one’s ear. Benny did not complain but just used his palms to cover his ears.
Twenty minutes later, the car began to approach the point where the motor park was.
‘Can you slow down your speed? We’re almost at my destination,’ Benny said but the driver and his partner weren’t listening, the loudness of the music would not let them hear. Benny tapped the driver on his shoulder gently, the music volume was reduced a little.
‘We’ve passed the motor garage already, please stop and tell me how much you want to collect.’ Benny said. The driver did not reduce his speed, he increased it instead and increased the volume of the music too.
Benny took out his gun and wanted to place it on the neck of the driver but unluckily for him, they were close to a police road block. He hid the gun under his legs until they passed the police joint several metres away.
‘Now pull over,’ Benny commanded the driver, putting the gun’s tip at the back of his neck. The driver refused to stop and continued to drive until Benny cocked the gun, he finally pulled over and raised up his hands surrendering.
‘Bro, take it easy.’ the man on the passenger’s side said in a relaxed voice.
‘Hey man, calm down. I’m just playing a late night game with you,’ the driver said in a voice that sounded familiar to Benny. ‘Or would your boss scold you for playing a little, harmless game with me this night?’ the driver added in a mocking tone.
Benny was taken aback, his hand began to drop slowly. Then his heart almost failed him as the driver turned back and Benny saw his face.
‘Nice to meet once again, did you miss me?’ Don asked tauntingly.
++++
~~~~ Monday Morning ~~~~
Tarasha resumed her work in the NSCC that morning, she was given a special office, just like Henry’s. On resumption, she met several uncompleted projects on the table, most which were rolled over from Henry.
The last night had been refreshing for her. For over fifteen years of her life, she had not had so much rest like she did, after spending much time with her brother. They decided to suspend all their talks about the past first and talk about the future. Even though both of them still had those past memories haunting them in their hearts, they decided to pretend to be okay to each other.
Jefa still had a wish to see the Inspector General punished but he left it unvoiced, not wanting to stir up bad memories in Omotara’s head again and not knowing that she had it in mind too. One other important reason why Jefa agreed to stop sharing his past was because he did not want to lie to her, which he’ll be forced to do if he continued. There were a lot of things he did which he thought could make her hate or become scared of him when she hears about them.
Omotara on her own part, decided not to go further with hearing about his past immediately, she was going to hear it from him little by little, so that he would not suspect anything when the people whose names he would mention would pay for their sins with their blood. Her next target was the Inspector General of Police. She was going to add him to the Vice President’s job, after killing the both of them, then it’ll be the appropriate time to hear more stories about the past.
Tarasha began her work immediately, she started to go through all the jobs Henry had not completed and check the structure of the softwares. She was able to make quick progress because of the reports she had gotten from the other developers who had been working with Henry, she was going to be meeting with them by 1pm that day. She also had a meeting with the Vice President the next morning by 9am. She, Mr Sylvester and the other developers would be going for the meeting at the Vice President quarters.
Her phone beeped twice, a text message had entered. She picked it up to read. The sender was one of those numbers which was usually used to send spam messages by the network providers. She wanted to ignore but the first word of the message caught her attention, she opened it to read more. ‘Henry E.G moved from the hospital by the police, rumour has it that he was taken out lifeless… read more on youngicee.com.’
She clicked on the link to get more details of the news. ‘Our sources have gathered that the intelligent programming expert after being attacked was moved out of the hospital that same night. Whether he was moved out dead or not, we’ve not been able to confirm. All efforts to reach the hospital authorities have proved abortive but we were able to reach one of the nurses who was present while he was being moved out. Nurse Titi (real name withheld) spoke to our correspondence, explaining details on how he looked lifeless on the night he was being moved out from the hospital. Only one of the senior doctors in the hospital (name withheld) went with the police in the ambulance and returned to the hospital the next morning, this would mean that there is no Doctor from the hospital who is presently with Henry.
Reports also has it that the doctor who was previously in charge of Henry’s case may have been suspended or sacked by the hospital management as his name has been removed from the duty roster and all other patients he was previously in charge of treating has been assigned to it other doctors…’
Tarasha stopped reading and dropped her phone on the table, she wondered why the police was hiding the news of Henry’s death, why they had to take his body away from the hospital and hide it somewhere else.
She picked up the phone again and dialed Benny’s number, it still wasn’t going through. She dialed Cole’s.
‘Hello Boss,’ Cole answered in a lively voice.
‘Hey Cole, how are you this morning?’
‘Fine boss, you?’
‘Excellent, how about Aisha and the Senate President? Have you poisoned the man already?’
‘Yes, the poison was added to his food last night.’
‘Okay, the effects will start to show tomorrow. That means you’ll take him out of the lodge tomorrow after inserting the microchip in his hand.’
‘Yes boss, I’m still very aware of the plan.’
‘Okay, any news from Benny yet?’
‘None yet.’
‘Conduct a search for him, I’ll send you the data for the cameras in that…’ Tarasha paused suddenly, remembering that the street cameras were not present in some parts of Gwagalada, including the street where their lodge was. ‘Well… Just begin a search for him, make sure that he hasn’t gotten himself into trouble.’
‘Okay boss,’ Cole replied and the call ended.
++++
He sat quietly on the bed, resting his back on the headboard. He stared at everything in the room which he was. It was a very neat room painted white, the door was a transparent glass door which allowed for people in the room to see those outside. Occasionally, he would see one or two people pass through the corridor. Who they were he did not know, neither did he know who he was.
Soon, a young man dressed in a doctor’s coat came in leaving the door opened. He recognized the Doctor’s face as the person who had been administering drugs and injections to him since the day he had found himself there. He didn’t know when he got there or how he did, he also did not know how many days he had spent there as he never left the bed since when he found himself there. He never saw darkness too, the room was always brightened by the florescent bulbs placed at strategic corners of the ceiling.
Two other men entered after the doctor and closed the door. They were dressed corporately in black suits and white shirts, he wondered who they were. They came closer to his bed and stood at his front with smiling faces.
‘How are you?’ the doctor finally broke the silence.
He didn’t reply, he wasn’t sure of what to say. He didn’t even know if he could speak.
‘Hope you’re feeling better?’ the doctor asked again.
‘I’m fine,’ he said, not knowing where the words came from.
The doctor smiled on seeing his tensed state, he placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. We are your friends.’
He looked at the faces of the two other people to see if he could find friendship there. The men were nodding their heads in consent to the doctor’s words.
‘I’m Doctor Tobi,’ the doctor started the introduction, ‘and this Agent Dakolo and Inspector Ken.’
Henry took another quick glance at the two other men, he didn’t like their faces and he wasn’t sure he could trust them, the Doctor’s introduction made them look more dangerous to him.
‘What do you want from me?’ he asked in a frightened tone.
Agent Dakolo moved closer, ‘Henry, we are your friends. We don’t want anything from you, we want to help you.’
‘Who is Henry?’ he asked looking back to see if they were referring to someone else.
‘You,’ Dakolo gave a brief chuckle. ‘You are Henry and we are your friends, we’ve come…’ Dakolo’s phone rang interrupting him. He stopped and stepped back. He brought out his phone and checked the screen. He silenced it and stepped forward again.
‘I want to be alone,’ Henry said, he laid flat on his back and used the blanket to cover his whole body including his face.
Dr Tobi signaled to the officers that it was time to leave. Slowly and without making noise, they marched out of the room.
He took the blanket off his face after the three visitors had left. ‘Henry,’ he muttered to himself. ‘What does the name mean?’
*
‘Please Dr Tobi, ensure you do not make calls to anybody. Keep your line switched off completely.’ Dakolo warned.
‘I’ve heard you Agent, you said I can only make calls when I go into the town.’
‘Yes, but never from this location. We would reach you on the landline provided whenever we want to.’
‘Okay Agent,’ Dr Tobi said.
‘Thank you,’ Dakolo concluded and marched away with Inspector Ken. He had several officers guarding the house, they had also introduced military personnels to the job. After their meeting with the Vice president that day, Inspector Ken would return to the location to monitor the doctor and keep an eye on other security officials.
