Tarasha 2 Chapter 8 Part 4 – Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
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Time – 7:18am
Agent Dave watched everything carefully from a good distance. He had followed Inspector Dakolo who in turn had followed Agent Tim’s car and the police car which was driving behind it. From where Dave was, he could see Dakolo stepped out of the car and he did likewise. He watched as Dakolo tried to monitor something from afar, the same way he was being monitored from behind. Dave wondered what it could be that caught Dakolo’s attention so much that the Inspector didn’t suspect he was being followed.
Few seconds later, Dakolo suddenly hurried back to his car and sat in it. Dave noiselessly moved to the median and stood on his toes behind the street light, confused for a while as he tried to see what Dakolo was looking at. He could only see two cars and some men outside, he couldn’t tell who they were or what they were doing. Soon he ran to the Road Safety stand at the median and bent to hide himself behind the stand as he noticed that Dakolo had hidden his head in the car, meaning that there was someone coming who Dakolo was hiding for.
Dave watched from his hiding place and observed that one of the two cars he had seen Dakolo watching had turned to the other carriageway and was driving back the way. He saw Dakolo raise up his head in the car after the car had passed and he stared intently at the car to see who was in it.
He recognized the driver of the car to be Agent Tim as the car approached. There was another man at the front seat of the car and a third one at the back. He watched carefully as the car came nearer, the second man at the front seat wasn’t someone he recognized but the man at the back seat was the Vice President, Chief Elvis. He opened his mouth in surprise at the manner the Vice President was dressed. The car passed and he began to rise up slowly from behind the median. He suddenly remembered that Dakolo was still around and bent back quickly. He looked up and saw Dakolo’s car in motion too. He watched for some minutes and Dakolo’s car also sped past in the same direction Agent Tim’s car had gone.
Dave came out of his hiding place and watched as Dakolo’s car turned out of sight. He began to think of what direction to go, whether to follow Inspector Dakolo or to go to the place where the Vice President’s car was coming from and see what was there. He looked towards the place again and saw the second car still there, some men who came out of the car were entering into a house close to where the car was parked. He looked back again and drew in a deep breath, the Vice President was up to something that Dakolo was determined to find out, he also needed to find out what the Vice President was about to do. He ran off the median and rushed into his car. He had to catch up with them as quick as possible.
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The blows continued to rain on Cole’s face even as he tried to resist. The attacker had been waiting for him inside that room, hiding behind a chair and had successfully caught Cole unaware. A blow had hit him on the head and sent him to the floor and the gun in his hands far away from him while he was still trying to look around the place.
The man had rushed to him, pinned him under and had continued to rain blows on his face and chest.
The struggle continued for Cole until the man decided to pull him up by the shoulder. Cole quickly used the opportunity to send the man a blow in the belly and then cover the man’s face, tying the head with the sweater that was hung around his neck. He was able to quickly take out another gun from his pocket while the man tried to remove the sweater from his face. A bullet ran into the man’s knee as he threw off the jacket. It weakened him and he was unable to move immediately. Cole sent in another bullet to his other knee before the man gained the sense to make any other move.
The heavy man hit the floor with a thud. Cole took heaved a sigh of relief and used the opportunity to take in more breath but as he did he noticed he was sniffing in more than air. He touched his hurting nose and realized that he had blood coming out from it. He hurried to pick the sweater on the floor and the other gun that had fallen. He took out a piece of cloth from the sweater and wiped his nose. He then looked towards the heavy man on the floor who was looking at him helplessly and threw the blood stained piece of cloth on the man’s face before sending another bullet into his chest.
He sniffed in again and turned towards the exit of the room, he noticed something on the floor by the wall beside the exit. He walked there and squatted, he picked the pieces of ropes from the floor and squeezed them in his hands. He remembered seeing the same type of rope at the mini computer village facility where Tarasha was captured.
As he rose up to his feet and intended to proceed further, he heard a voice that he was used to hearing on the television, it was the Inspector General’s voice.
‘Surround the whole place and fish him out, he must not leave.’ the Inspector General could be heard shouting. Cole could hear several footsteps around the building and some other voices which he knew was in response to the Inspector General’s order. At that point, he knew getting Tarasha out would be more difficult than he thought. With the noise he could hear around the house now, there were more of the enemies inside than he thought.
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‘Rex, you gotta hurry up. Someone is trying to help her get away,’ the Vice President said frantically into the phone. He sat uncomfortably at the backseat of the car while Agent Tim drove the car and his Chief Security officer at the passenger’s side in front.
‘Why do you panic Chief, she couldn’t have gained enough strength to be able to escape by herself except all the people with her are dummies.’ Rex voice sounded in reply. From the shakiness of his voice, one could tell that he was driving a vehicle on a bad road.
‘The place is under attack right now, I don’t know if it’s one of her men who has come to fight for her?’
‘What? How can you allow that?’
‘I don’t know how it happened, but someone is causing trouble there now.’
‘I hope you’ve killed her already,’ Rex asked.
‘No, I can’t ki*ll her yet. We need to get more information from her, isn’t that what I told you earlier?’
‘You should have killed her already, we could have extracted the information you require from her house or personal facilities or even her surviving man. You should have just allowed me handle all of this,’ Rex complained.
‘No, I still want her to die by my hands.’ Chief Elvis replied, not regretting his actions. ‘Don’t bother about her escaping, the Inspector General is in control and I’m sure the intruder can’t even make it out of there alive. Just be there as soon as possible to do your own job.’
‘I’m on my way there Chief,’ Rex sighed. ‘Since the Inspector General is there, I’ll call him and give him instructions, I hope he follows.’
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Cole changed the cartridges in the two revolvers quickly as he listened to get the direction from which the footsteps were approaching him. It seemed to be from several directions. With the increasing noise in the building as the people searched for him, he began to lose hope of fulfilling the task but since he was in already, he had to give a fight till the end.
He exited the room where he had seen the pieces of rope and began to walk slowly through the next room, looking back and forth carefully with the revolvers set in his hands. As he approached a closed door which led out of the new room he just entered, he heard fast footsteps approaching from behind the door. He quickly tiptoed to the wall behind the door and waited until the door was opened. A fully uniformed officer with a gun in his hands entered carelessly and looked around, his mouth was covered with Cole’s sweater before he turned to look at the back.
Cole cleared the man’s feet off the ground as he squeezed his neck with his arm simultaneously. Soon the man was on the floor and struggling for breath while Cole with a knee to the ground did not relent in his effort to squeeze life out of him. The man’s struggles finally seized as he gave up the ghost. Cole took the sweater off his head and returned it to his own shoulder, he looked around and listened briefly for footsteps. Luckily for him, he could hear no noise at that moment, it seemed the men had assigned themselves to different sections and had all left that area after assigning this particular man to where he was. He quickly began to unbutton the man’s uniform. It took him about a minute to unbutton the shirt and another minute for the trouser, he quickly dragged the man’s half unclad body away from the middle of the place to the edge of the wall. Then he took out somethings from his own clothes and the sweater before he wore the uniform on top of his. He covered the man’s bare body and face with his sweater and rose up to straighten his new outfit. He looked fatter in the new outfit but that wasn’t something to care about, he picked up the officer’s cap from the floor and put it on.
He began to head towards the door the officer had come in from when he heard footsteps from the other room he just left.
‘Have you found any intruder yet?’ Cole heard someone say to him from behind.
He froze behind the door and readjusted the officer’s cap on his head without turning back. ‘I didn’t find anyone here yet except for some of our dead officers,’ He gave his reply in a thick voice and quickly hurried out through the door.
He entered into a faintly lit corridor of about ten metres long, it had about ten doors leading off it, five rooms at each sides and the end led to another corridors which looked very dark from his view.
He took out his gun as he got to the first room by the left and opened the door carefully, he peeped in and the place was dark. He had to loosen his belt and bring out a tiny device from the pocket of the trouser under the uniform which he used to shine light into the room. He closed back the door as he discovered that the room was empty and stuffy. He took three steps to the first room at the right and opened the door to peep in the same way, it was also empty like the first one.
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Dakolo followed Agent Tim’s car carefully until they got to the Vice President house and the car drove into the Vice President’s compound. Dakolo realized that that was the farthest he could go in trying to find out what they were up to; there was no way he was going to get into the Vice President’s house to continue his investigation. He began to blame himself for not waiting to see what see what the officers they had left at the place they had picked someone were up to, he had thought that the real deed was going to take place where Agent Tim was.
It remained unknown to Dakolo who had joined Agent Tim in the car, so he thought it was must be a criminal or a suspect Agent Tim was sneaking into the Vice President’s house, not knowing that it was the Vice President himself. The Vice President’s disguise clothes had worked perfectly well in making Dakolo not to recognize him from far where he watched.
Dakolo was desperate to know who the man that was sneaked in was. He decided to wait where he was until Agent Tim and the person drives out of the place.
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Time : 7:32am
Location : Chief Gab’s Residence. Gravl Avenue, Lagos.
‘Good morning sweetheart,’ Chief Gab’s replied his little daughter who was just learning how to use words and greet properly. He held the four year old girl who ran into his hands and lifted her up playfully. He put her down and straightened her school uniform properly. ‘I bought a lot of chocolates from my trip and I’m going to give them to you when you return from school, alright?’
The girl nodded happily in acceptance.
‘That’s my girl, now hurry up and don’t go late to school.’ he said and waved her bye as she turned and ran towards the door.
He smiled as he watched her go out of the living room, the driver and a guard followed her. He sank into the sofa and released a deep breath as he picked the remote control. Thoughts of his daughter still occupied his mind and he remembered when Tarasha had threatened to kidnap the little girl. That was when she had just begun to work for him and he had refused to pay her at the right time.
‘No weapon formed against us shall prosper,’ he muttered unconsciously and laughed at himself afterwards. He wondered how he could still remember that line of the Bible, he had not gone to church or even open his Bible for more than ten years.
His phone which was on the centre table rang and distracted his thoughts, he was about to stand to get it when he saw one of his errand boys coming to bring it to him.
‘Chief Nonso,’ he muttered as he squinted at his phone. He answered and placed the speaker to his ear.
‘Good morning sir,’ Chief Nonso’s voice sounded cool.
‘Good morning Chief Nonso, what’s happening this morning?’
‘Nothing sir, I just wanted to find out what the plan for today is.’ Chief Nonso replied.
‘The plan for today?’ Chief Gab replied, his voice suggested that he didn’t know what Chief Nonso was talking about. ‘Oh!’ he exclaimed on realizing what was being talked about. ‘Do you mean with Samantha Osman?’
‘Yes sir.’
‘I have no plans for her yet, I’ll…I mean we’ll receive them just like every other visitor.’
‘Just like that? Don’t you think we need to take some precautions?’
‘What precautions can we get against Tarasha?’ Chief Gab said with a chuckle. ‘She doesn’t have any reason to hurt us, so I think we should just receive her as any usual visitor. Setting up any precaution may create unnecessary tension, besides I want her to be more comfortable with us.’
‘Well…’ Chief Nonso released a breath. ‘I’ll be there very soon.’
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‘I’m right where she is now,’ Chief Rikau replied someone through his phone.
He was with two other men and a lady in the room Tarasha was tied. The men fully armed and alert while the lady was only with a knife and a small paper bag. The chief also had a gun in his right hand while the phone was held in his left hand.
‘Is she awake?’ Rex’s masculine voice sounded into the Chief’s ear again.
‘No, her eyes are closed.’ Chief Rikau replied, looking at Tarasha’s face.
‘Okay, make sure the liquid is injected right into one of the veins on either of her hands and wait for a minute before taking off the ropes.’
‘Okay,’ Chief Gab said, making a signal to the lady with the paper bag to proceed towards Tarasha. He also took some steps forward.
‘I’ll be at the other entrance you described in less than fifteen minutes, you should bring her out to me.’ Rex instructed.
‘Okay, that will be done.’
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Cole was at the seventh door now and his search was looking like a complete waste of time. Half of the rooms he had checked were completely empty while the rest were either filled with empty bottles, empty cartons of drinks, or cartons filled with expired drinks.
He opened the seventh door and peeped in carefully before he stepped in and closed the door. The room looked like a training room for a professional boxer, except that it was dirty and the materials in it looked old and unkempt. He searched every corner of the room and found nothing useful or any information leading to Tarasha. He proceeded out of the room and moved to the eighth room at the other side. He turned the handle of the door and it gave way easily, the place was dark like the first and second rooms. He took out his tiny device and shone the light in. As he took a step into the room, he began to hear some voices approaching from the end of the corridor, he quickly entered as silent as he could and closed the door. He stopped at the door side to listen.
The voices sounded lower at first when he closed the door but as the men entered into the corridor, it became louder.
…where did you find the body?’ Cole heard a male voice asking but didn’t hear the reply.
‘He was found unclad?’ the same voice asked again without Cole hearing the response to the man’s first question. Cole realized that the man was talking to someone on phone.
He opened the door slightly and peeped outside as the voice began to diminish. He saw two men with guns in their hands walking towards the other entrance of the corridor.
One of the men suddenly stopped looked back. Cole withdrew his head in immediately but wasn’t sure if the man did not see him. His heart began to beat faster as he put the small device in between his lips and took out his second gun from his pocket. He stopped to listen but couldn’t make much meaning from the voices he could hear. He had to strain his ears to pick out some words.
‘I think… go ahead while…check… rooms.’ From the little he heard, he could decode that one of the men was waiting to check the rooms.
He removed the device from his lips and turned off the light. Then he took in a deep breath as he opened the door slightly, and peeped outside. There was only one man left and he had just entered into the first room. Cole thought of rushing out of the room he was before the man comes out but the man was out he could even finish thinking. The man proceeded to the second door and opened, he shone his light and pointed his gun in. Then he closed the door without entering. He repeated the same for the third, fourth, fifth and sixth doors. Then he proceeded to the seventh door and Cole was getting ready to receive him at the eighth room but the man didn’t only look in from outside and close back the door like he had done for the previous five doors, he entered into the room with his gun. Cole knew he must have been attracted by the same thing that attracted him in the seventh room, he quickly walked out and closed the door gently. He walked silently out of the corridor into another which the two men had entered from. He peeped from behind the opening until the man came out of the seventh room, he watched as the man made his way to the remaining three without finding anyone. Then the man heaved a sigh and put his gun into his pocket as he turned and walked back in the direction his partner had gone. Cole knew there was nothing in the three rooms he didn’t check and decided to proceed from where he was. At both ends of the new corridor where he was were two doors which seemed like entrances to another section of the building. He stared left and right for some seconds, unsure of which to go. He could see a shoe in front of the door at the left, he shone his light towards the the door at the right and he saw that it was locked with a huge padlock. He finally choose to go to the door at the left. He crossed the opening and proceeded to the door without making much noise.
He turned the handle of the door and pushed the door open, pointing a gun in. The place was dark and he could see nothing. It was as silent as a graveyard with no signs of any living thing there. He took out the device in his pocket and turned on the tiny light.
Just as he was about to put the device in between his lips. A strong hand grabbed him by the neck and pulled him in violently.
The device fell from his hands and one of the guns from his hand as he was lifted by the same hand and his back slammed to the floor. The lights in the place was turned on and it revealed three huge men, each of them more than twice his own size pointing guns at him. A slimmer man who turned on the light was beside the bulb stand.
Cole winced in pain. He turned his head and saw blood on the floor in between two pole and two truncated ropes tied at the upper part of the poles. He knew at once that that must be where Tarasha was tied to but have now been taken away.
Cole knew it was the end of the road, he had failed himself, failed Henry and failed Tarasha. He closed his eyes and took in a deep breath as someone cocked gun.
