Tarasha 2 Chapter 8 Part 11 – Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
7:30pm
‘You have to go back to my room, I have more bags that we’ll need there.’ Tarasha said to Cole who was lifting up two traveling bags to allow her see.
Cole glanced at Henry, they had gone to Tarasha’s room the first time together to select the access cards and some of the bags Tarasha instructed them to bring.
‘He’s not going with you,’ Tarasha said to Cole who was already signaling to Henry for them to go together.
‘Okay,’ Cole bowed and left alone reluctantly.
Henry stepped closer to Tarasha after Henry closed the door. He was looking into her eyes as he wondered why she wanted him to wait, his closest guess was that she wanted to tell him something private and personal.
‘Henry,’ she called and he responded by raising his eyebrows expectantly. ‘You’ll go to the control rooms to disconnect the receiver from the control system, after that you turn off every network on the system. We will need them where we are moving to.’
‘Oh!’ Henry’s shoulders dropped, he was expecting something different. ‘But I don’t know the passwords of all every network there.’
‘I’m aware that you do not need a password to disconnect them, besides you already broke into some of them when you were left alone here.’ she answered him.
Henry stared blankly at the wall for a while. ‘Alright,’ he sighed and turned away.
_____
‘Good evening Mr Sylvester, ‘ Dakolo spoke into the phone in a calm and pleasant voice.
‘Good evening Agent,’ Mr Sylvester replied in his usual tone.
‘How was work today?’ Dakolo continued with the formalities.
‘Fine sir, how about yours?’ Mr Sylvester replied.
‘It was good, thanks,’ Dakolo said and cleared his throat to begin the main discussion. ‘I’m calling you to find out about one of your staffs at the NSCC headquarters, or should I say someone who claims to be your staff. But I think I might have met him at your office once. I saw him this morning, he called himself Agent Dave.’
‘Agent Dave!’ Mr Sylvester exclaimed, his voice showing his surprise. ‘Where did you see him? He’s been away for sometime now.’
‘I met him in town very early this morning,’ Dakolo answered. ‘For how long has he been away?’
‘Just about four days now and we haven’t received any message from him since his absence. All our efforts to reach him through his phone number and email address has been futile. Even his neighbors could not tell us of his whereabouts when we located and visited his house.’
‘That’s quite interesting,’ Dakolo hummed.
‘Where exactly did you see him sir? We need him here, most of his tasks have been left undone since he disappeared.’
‘What position does he occupy in the Agency?’ Dakolo asked, ignoring the man’s question.
‘He’s a top official, he was handling the responsibilities of Evelyn Alexander and Henry E.G.’ Mr Sylvester answered.
‘Oh! That’s a huge responsibility he has there. But since he left, did he ever send a message or give any suggestion about what he’s up to?’
‘No, no one has heard from him for the past few days he’s been absent.’
‘Okay, thank you Mr Sylvester. I’ll see you in your office tomorrow to talk about this fully.’
‘Okay, what time should I be expecting you?’
‘I’ll call you before I come, have a good night rest.’
____
8:29 pm
‘Tomi, where are you?’ Cole spoke into the phone. It was dark where he stood in front of the gate as the gate lights weren’t turned on yet.
‘I just dropped from the taxi and I’m walking down there now. You guys were the ones who asked me not to drop in front of your house.’
‘It’s okay, just hurry up, we need to lock the gate in few minutes time.’
‘I’m here already!’ Tomi sang in a melodious way which Cole hear both through the phone and also before him. He looked up and saw her smiling and waving at him as she walked towards the gate. He ended the call and put the phone into his pocket.
At that moment, the gate lights turned on and the place became brighter. Cole knew it was 8:30 pm as that was the planned time to switch on the lights, Tomi had delayed him for a long time.
‘Hey!’ Tomi flashed her teeth as she approached him.
‘Hi, what took you so long?’ he replied back with a fake smile.
‘I didn’t know I had to do so many other things,’ she said as she entered into his opened embrace. She looked up and gave him a brief kiss after the embrace.
‘Let’s go in,’ he said as he collected one of the bags she was holding. He opened the gate and allowed her in first.
As he entered, he thought about the change in her body language that night. She had felt embarrassed when he kissed her earlier that day but now she was the one initiating a kiss. She probably could have taken some time to think about the whole situation after she left and decided to enjoy the moment with him.
He smiled and followed behind her after locking the gate. ‘Hope you didn’t forget anything?’
‘No, I didn’t.’ she answered, waiting for him to level up with him. ‘I will bring more of the things I need to add tomorrow.’
‘Hmm,’ Cole hummed as he took her hands in his. He also noticed her change of clothes and the short sexy gown she was putting on now. She also had a makeup on and her hair was styled differently. Cole needed no other explanation as to why she came late, it was obvious she had taken the time to beatify herself before coming.
____
Meanwhile, two other people were watching at the other side of the road.
‘I don’t know who that girl is, but that’s the guy who rescued Samantha Osman this morning.’ Dave said to Lizzy who was seated at the passengers’ side of his car.
‘Is this picture clear enough?’ Lizzy asked, showing him a picture she had taken of Cole and Tomi at the front of the gate just immediately after the gate lights came on.
‘It should be,’ Dave took the device from her and placed his fingers on it to zoom the picture. Cole’s face was shown clearly but only Tomi’s side view was captured. ‘With this, I can do something.’ Dave added.
‘Cool, so are we good to go?’ she asked, putting on her seatbelt already.
‘Oh Ye…’ Dave almost answered, already putting on his seatbelt too but his mouth was left agape as he saw something. His eyes followed the movement of a vehicle at the other side of the carriageway.
‘What’s that?’ Lizzy asked, trying to see what he was looking at.
‘Nothing, I just thought I saw someone I know.’ Dave strapped on the seatbelt and started the engine and trafficator. He took some few seconds to observe the road through the side mirror before driving into it.
As they drove off, another car parked at the same spot they left.
_____
8:45pm
Lizzy wondered what the movement was all about as the bags she was given to carry now was heavier than the one she brought with her. Cole had put her bags into a bigger one and asked her to help him with it and another big one. Little did she know she had more to do that night.
‘We’re moving to our underground facility,’ Cole had said to her and without any further explanation began to ask her to help him.
Henry navigated Tarasha gently out from the medical lab on the wheelchair she was placed to the corridor where Cole and Tomi were waiting for them. Tomi was the first to turn back and see them coming, she was surprised that Tarasha was awake already.
‘Hey! What are you doing up already?’ she shouted watching them as they approached. ‘She’s still supposed to be resting on the bed for now, who woke her up?’ she turned and asked Cole who gave her no response. She turned back towards Tarasha and Henry and shone her eyes at Tarasha as they got to them.
‘Good evening nurse,’ Tarasha greeted, looking up into her eyes. ‘I hope you’re ready?’
Tomi turned to look at Cole, not understanding what Tarasha meant by asking if she was ready.
‘Did you bring everything you need?’ Tarasha asked again.
‘Yes, your royal Majesty,’ Tomi answered in a teasing way, folding her arms and wondering who this lady speaking in an authoritative voice was.
‘Good,’ Tarasha nodded and signaled for Henry to keep wheeling her.
Cole held Tomi back by the shoulder as Henry wheeled Tarasha out of the corridor. She turned back to him with a surprised look on her face, ‘Hey! You never really told me who that girl is.’ she said to Cole.
‘Be careful Tomi, that’s my boss.’
‘Your boss? That girl?’ Tomi still had a surprised expression on her face, wondering how Cole who was next to Don in the Nanl Gang could agree to be submissive to a young lady.
‘Yes, she is. And she’s the one called Samantha Osman in case you don’t know,’ Cole added and picked up his bags from the floor, leaving her standing dumbfounded.
Tomi stood speechless for some seconds, her expression had changed to a shocked one when she heard that the girl, her patient was Samantha Osman. She didn’t expect that Samantha Osman was someone she would easily see like that and she had also never imagined her to be a young lady, she was expecting someone far older that the age she was seeing now.
‘Can we go now please, they’re waiting for us.’ Cole returned to get her.
She quickly picked up her bags and walked away with Cole.
‘Who’s taking charge of the security cameras when we get down there?’ Tarasha asked as they proceeded further after Cole and Tomi had joined them.
‘I will take care of that,’ Henry replied after taking a glance at Cole.
‘That means Cole would be in charge of the weapons,’ Tarasha said as they got to the entrance of the study which led to the underground.
Cole dropped his bag and moved forward to clear the five other bags that were at the entrance, earlier placed there by him. He opened the door and Henry wheeled Tarasha into the study. Henry walked straight to the place the wall clock was and brought it down, he inserted the card into the reader and punched in the codes, the wall split into two before him.
He turned back and spoke to Tarasha, ‘How do we stop the timer from reading?’
‘You don’t need to stop it, it hasn’t started reading yet’ she replied him.
‘But it’ll start once someone steps in,’ Henry said.
‘I changed the process yesterday, it would not read.’ she said and tried to wheel herself but couldn’t use her hands properly.
Henry walked to her and held the wheelchair in readiness to move but he stopped on remembering that he had to carry her down the stairs. He turned to look at Cole who was staring in surprise at the opened door of the underground. ‘Cole, you gotta assist me with the wheelchair.’ he said and lifted Tara into his hands, balancing a hand at the back of her knees and the other at her back.
Cole moved further inside and dropped his bags at one side, then he pulled the wheelchair after Henry who proceeded with Tarasha in his hands.
He followed down the stairs until they got to the landing, he positioned it properly and Henry dropped Tarasha back on the wheelchair carefully.
‘Henry, I need to have a bath tonight.’ Tarasha said in a soft tone as he dropped her on the chair.
‘Ermm… Thank God the nurse is here, she will help us with that.’ Henry said, looking towards the nurse who was now standing on the first step of the stairs.
‘No, you will do it.’ Tarasha said in an instructive tone.
‘Huh?’ Henry shot her a shocked look.
_____
‘There’s no sign of movement in the compound yet,’ Rex said to himself although loud enough for Stainless who sat beside him to hear. He had a headset covering his ears which he used to listened to what was going on behind the gate. They had attached a listening chip to the gate which could grab voice from anywhere in the compound as far as it wasn’t even protected by a wall.
‘Their neighbors confirmed that a man and a woman entered not too long before we arrived,’ Stainless said to Rex.
‘I know and I’m sure people are in the building but we can’t tell yet if the people we want are the ones who are inside; Cole and Tarasha.’
‘I think they are the ones; the guy could have been Cole or Henry and the girl must be Samantha.’
Rex shot a cold look at him, ‘Samantha couldn’t have recuperated well enough to walk, it has to be someone else.’
There was silence for the next ten minutes which Rex used to listen more for any sound through the headset. After that he handed over the headset to Stainless and picked a backpack from the backseat, then he got out of the car and headed towards the building.
____
**NIS Underground Office**
A neat cropped photograph of Cole could be seen displayed on the desktop screen, Dave was seated behind the system. With the aid of the mouse, he selected and labeled the different features on Cole’s face one after the other. Then he clicked on the ‘search’ button just below the picture and a dialog box to show the processing progress displayed.
After searching for about five minutes, the dialog box indicated the completion of the process with the word ‘FOUND’. Dave clicked on ‘OK’ just below the main word and a new tab opened on the window. It loaded for five seconds and displayed on the new page the full profile of Cole, showing his full name, his date of birth and other birth details, his parent’s information and some of his other personal details.
_____
11:30am
The new sitting room was a beautiful one, carefully organized and decorated but not as big as the one in the main building. Cole and Tomi had taken time to clean up the living room and two other rooms after they moved in all the loads. The underground facility had other rooms but only the living room, kitchen, two bedrooms and the restrooms were for domestic purposes, the other rooms were either weapons’ stores, computer rooms or just empty.
‘I thought I was supposed to only work as a nurse here, how come I had to join you clean up the place?’ Tomi spoke for the first time since they finished cleaning up. She and Cole were the only ones in the living room, Henry had gone with Tarasha to bath and dress and dress her up.
‘Don’t talk as if you did any thorough clean up, the place wasn’t dirty, it was only a little bit dusty.’ Cole replied her.
‘Oh! But how come I had to join you at all?’
‘Why are you complaining after we’re done with it? You didn’t say anything when I asked you to join me,’ Cole said.
‘I didn’t know we were going to work so much,’ she replied.
Cole chuckled. He got up from the sofa and walked to her, he sat on the arm of the chair and placed a hand around her neck. ‘You don’t have anything else to talk about, that’s why you’re complaining, right?’ he said, looking into her face.
‘Oh! You think I’m just complaining because I want to talk?’ she eyed him.
He sighed. ‘Okay, Tomi.’ He said, raising up his hands in the air. ‘You win, I’m sorry for making you work like that.’ he tilted his face and made a funny expression at her. ‘Are you okay now?’
She responded by giving him a light playful slap on the face. He smiled and grabbed her hand.
‘Wait! Will we continue to see after I finish the treatment here?’ she stopped playing and asked.
‘Huh?’ he raised his eyebrows, looking into her eyes directly. He knew he had sparked off some feelings in her when he kissed her earlier but he wasn’t ready to return whatever feeling she was developing for him, he had only done that to attach the tracking and recording chip to her hair.
He remembered that he had not checked if the tracker was still in her hair or it had fallen down when she had her bath. But he was quite sure of the former, the kind of hair she plaited would require her to cover her hair while bathing so that it wouldn’t get wet and that meant she wouldn’t have touched the hair while bathing except while she rearranged it.
‘I mean, will you reach me again after tomorrow when I leave here?’ she explained.
‘Where are you going to?’ He questioned her.
‘Going back home and to my job of course,’ she replied.
‘I told Tarasha that you can cook,’ Cole said and looked away.
‘And what does that mean?’ she squinted.
‘The boss wants you to remain here,’ Cole replied. ‘You think we would have allowed you know of this underground facility if you weren’t going to join us.’
‘I can’t stay here,’ she refused.
‘You will.’
‘No, I can’t stay here. I’m not prepared, besides I’ve got a new job I have to go back to.’
‘You don’t have to go back to any job, you have another here, you’ll get paid monthly and I assure you that she pays nicely.’
‘No, but I can’t just leave everything like that,’ she argued.
‘Tomi, I advice that you don’t reject this offer,’ Cole said in a serious tone, getting to to his feet.
‘But…’ she stammered uncontrollably.
‘Listen Tomi, you have all you need here,’ Cole said, taking a squat position before her. He placed his elbows gently on her laps and looked into her eyes. ‘You don’t need to go back where you were working with the street thugs and riffraffs, the boss will pay you well.’
‘Its just that…’
‘Shhh…’ he hushed her and placed a finger on her lips as he rose slowly and brought his face closer to hers. His lips touched hers softly and withdrew immediately, he looked into her eyes as he placed his hands on gently on her neck and covered her mouth with his. His fingers found it’s way into her hair and he was able to locate the device, he took it out gently and dropped it behind the chair. He tried to break the kiss but she wasn’t ready to let him go yet as she continued to pull him closer.
‘Hmm…’ someone cleared his throat behind them. They quickly broke away from each other and Cole turned back. Henry had just wheeled Tarasha into the living room, she had been bathed and had changed into a white top and white shorts. Henry also looked refreshed, he had also changed his clothes and had his hair neatly combed.
‘You guys are going to stay in the same room tonight, you should have been patient enough.’ Tarasha said as Henry wheeled her to the middle of the living room. ‘Cole, you can have your seat.’ she said and waited for Cole to respond. Henry also joined Cole on the three seater sofa directly in front of Tarasha. ‘What’s your name nurse?’ She turned to Tomi with a smile.
‘Tomi,’ she replied with mixed feelings of fear and confusion. Her eyes met an encouraging look on Cole’s face.
‘To me,’ Tarasha said, pronouncing the name in a funny way.
‘Tomi,’ the nurse corrected.
‘Tomi,’ Tarasha pronounced again, getting it right this time.
‘Yes, Tomi.’ the nurse nodded.
‘What exactly is wrong with me? I’ve not been able to use my hands well, other parts of my body have also been so weak.’
‘I don’t really know what know what happened to you, so I can’t say or guess what the problem is. We will have to use an hospital facility to be really sure at this moment,’ Tomi answered, mentioning her words carefully and one after the other and also glancing at Cole frequently.
‘I was tortured by the enemy group and I also have a bullet wound on my back, I see that you redressed it earlier. ‘ Tarasha said to her.
‘Yes, I did. I only hope it wasn’t soaked by water when you had a bath. I thought I was supposed to bath you tonight,’ Tomi replied.
Tarasha smiled and her eyes met with Henry’s, ‘I can’t really say if it was touched by water or not.’
‘I did not allow water to get into…’ Henry said with his eyes blinking as he felt shy about owning up to have bathed an unclad woman.’
‘I can’t really trust that word,’ Tarasha cut in with a kind of mocking smile. ‘I need to get a more thorough bath tomorrow, I could even tell he closed his eyes when he got to some parts on my body.’ she said looking at Henry.
Cole could not help but burst into laughter and Tarasha joined in the laughter.
‘Well, I’m happy he did it anyways.’ Tarasha said after laughing. ‘So nurse, I’m aware you’ve him drugs for me already.’
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Thank you. And I also want to believe you’re aware that you have a job here.’
Tomi frowned and took a glance at Cole’s face.
‘Oh! I don’t mean the one you do in the room with him,’ Tarasha said chuckling. ‘You have an official one to do with me.’
‘Yes, I’m aware.’ Tomi finally answered shyly.
‘Good! I hope I get well as soon as I want but whether or not I do, we’ll start with what we have to do immediately.’
…To be continued
