TARASHA Episode 18 Pt 2 – Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
‘Have you blocked all access to this location?’ Tarasha asked as she stepped into Cole’s room.
‘Yes Boss,’ Cole replied, taking a quick glance as she journeyed towards him. She sat beside him in the bed and then laid back flat.
‘Hope you used the right IMEI?’ She asked, rubbing her palm on her forehead.
‘Yes, I did.’ Cole replied and the room went silent for few minutes. Cole was acting as if he was busy with his laptop but he wasn’t concentrating. His mind was in Tarasha’s body which laid beside him. He glanced down her thighs once again and took in a deep breath. After a hard day’s work like this, a girl with Tarasha’s kind of body would have been the best thing to refresh his body. He wished he could have her right away.
He turned his face back to the laptop and cautioned himself in his heart. What he needed was rest, he thought to himself. How on earth was he even thinking about sex when his whole body was still aching? He had only managed to escape death from Nasiru’s personal guard, he should be thanking God for his life.
‘He should have finished with his phone call,’ Tarasha said and stood up swiftly.
‘Yes, he’s done.’ Cole said after minimizing a window to check the call monitoring app.
‘How many minutes is the recording?’
‘Forty nine seconds,’ Cole answered.
‘He made only one call?’
‘Yes, only one.’
‘Okay.’
+++
‘Inspector,’ Agent Dakolo called from his car after pressing the horn twice when he saw Ken at the gate entrance.
‘Sir,’ Ken turned around to answer. The agent drove away to park somewhere suitable but very close.
‘How long have you arrived?’ Dakolo asked as he stepped out of the car and locked the doors hurriedly.
‘Just now sir, not up to a minute.’ Ken replied, walking towards the man.
‘Has the anti-bomb squad arrived?’
‘Not yet,’ Ken answered, shaking his head to emphasize his point.
‘Are they not supposed to be on standby?’ Dakolo asked no one in particular, taking out his phone as he hurried towards the gate. Just then, they could see the headlights of two vehicles coming towards them. They recognized the vehicles as the police vans.
‘I think a lot of them are not used to being called up by this time of the night,’ Ken replied.
‘That’s… Hello,’ Dakolo turned away from Ken as his call had been answered. ‘Where is the anti-bomb squad? They’re nowhere to be found yet… Okay, they have to hurry up and get here as soon as possible.’ He ended the call and turned back to Ken. ‘She said they had to come to the office first from their house to pick some tools, they’ll be here soon since there’s no holdup in traffic.’
Ken and Dakolo walked up to the security men standing in front of the gate and began to ask questions.
‘How did it happen?’ Dakolo was first to talk.
A man with a stout figure was the person who replied him, he had a thick Hausa accent. ‘About two hours ago, we saw the Senate President drive out of the house in one of his favorite cars. The first thing that got us suspicious was that neither his personal security officer nor the assistant were with him but we saw a man in our uniform driving the car, so we thought it was one of us. We thought it was only three of the guests that were with him since we didn’t know the driver of the car was disguised, we believed that there was still one of the guests in the house. What made my suspicion rise more was…’
‘Inspector Ken,’ Dakolo cut the man’s talk. ‘Please excuse me,’ he said politely to the guard and turned back to Ken. ‘Go in with some guys to check the situation in there.’
‘Okay,’ Ken said and moved back to select the boys that were going in with him.
‘Please go on,’ Dakolo said to the guard after they had given way for Ken and four police officers to enter.
The stout figure guard cleared his throat and continued, ‘as I was saying, I began to suspect something fishy when the man did not return in thirty minutes time. I knew he could not go out for that long if he wasn’t with his security officer. Then I tried to call his personal security officer but the call wasn’t answered, I had to go in to ask of him. That was when I noticed the unusual quietness in the house, I saw Mrs Nasiru laying on a chair in the parlour while the nurse was attending to her. The other guards explained that the Senate President’s guests which he had been preparing for all day turned out to be assassins, they were led in here by Samantha Osman. We later found Mr Nasiru’s personal security officer and one other guard in a room upstairs unconscious.’
‘But why didn’t they call immediately that the noticed that the guests were strange people? How on earth were they able to penetrate into this kind of tightly secured house without the an alarm being raised? How did they get into a room with the man’s daughter and still had the boldness to fix an explosive on her body? That means they must have spent much time here’
‘They came in some minutes after eight o’clock and we didn’t conduct any search on them, that was the instruction we got.’
‘Interesting, I need to…’ Dakolo was interrupted by a loud horn. The anti-bomb squad had arrived.
—-
“Madam, hope they didn’t hurt you’ Ken asked Mrs Nasiru with so much concern shown in his voice.
‘She’s okay,’ the nurse attending to her replied.
Mrs Nasiru was seated on the settee with a worried look on her face as she was been administered drugs by the nurse.
‘They only injected her some substances to make her so weak and she’s fast recuperating from the weakness.’ The nurse explained.
‘Please can she talk to us now?’
‘Yes, but I won’t like you to bother her with so many questions or anything that’ll bring anxiety.’
‘Okay, thanks.’ Ken dragged a footstool and placed it close to the woman, he sat on it and waited for the nurse to finish attending to her before he started.
‘I’m sorry about the unfortunate incident madam, but the police are ready to bring back your husband to you hale and hearty. That’s why you need to provide us all informations you have to help our work.’ He explained and then paused for a few seconds as if to get the woman’s approval before starting the questions. ‘Ma, did you also meet with those guests?’
Mrs Nasiru didn’t reply immediately but continued staring at Ken’s face with a pitiable expression on her face. Then she sniffed in and exhaled. ‘I met them, I served them, they ate on my dining table.’ She replied in a low voice with so much grief.
‘Who did they say they were?’
‘My husband told me that they were Nigerian delegates from a charity organization in Canada. They had come to work with the Ata’s foundation in their vision of eradicating poverty. He said that they had a plan to organise a conference to educate the elites in the country on the relevance of helping the less privileged.’
‘Is that all you know about them?’
‘They organized a food campaign for people in the slums of Katsina sometime last week where they distributed several bags of rice, cooking utensils and other food stuffs.’
‘That means they’ve been like partners with the Ata’s foundation?’
‘Yes, but just recently.’
‘Okay,’ Ken paused and quickly typed in some things into his Android device. ‘Did you notice anything strange about them when they arrived?’
‘No, they looked like normal people. We thought they had only come to pay us a visit and return to their lodge tomorrow morning.’
‘Then how did it all change?’
‘It all started after the meal, I was preparing their rooms with the maids while my husband was showing them around the house. It was surprising for me when he called that I should come downstairs immediately. He told me that it was like their systems were reacting to the meal they just took, asking if we had put something unusual to spice up the food as two of the guest had already been rushed to the toilet.’
‘Oh! I see…’ Ken’s phone rang, he checked his screen and then excused himself from the woman. ‘Sir.’
‘Inspector Ken,’ Dakolo’s voice came through, ‘please take care of the situation while I go in search of the assassins or any clue they must have dropped closeby. The anti-bomb squad has arrived already and will be with you shortly.’
‘Okay,’ Ken replied and the call ended. Just as he was about to return the phone into his pocket, three men dressed in anti-bomb squad uniform walked into the living room.
‘Inspector Ken,’ one of them called.
‘Inspector,’ Ken walked back a little and received a brief handshake from the leader of the squad.
‘Where’s the girl and have you seen the bomb, how it was attached?’
‘No, I’ve not seen her.’ Ken replied.
One of the guards walked towards them quietly, ‘she’s still in the room’ he said pointing in direction of the way to take.
‘Okay,’ the leader of the anti-bomb squad said and they followed the guard.
‘What’s this thing I’m hearing about bomb?’ Mrs Nasiru asked, looking seriously worried and tensed. She had not been allowed to see the same picture her husband had seen that made him scream then, so she wasn’t aware of the danger their daughter was in. She had also been sedated for a long time and the guards didn’t tell her anything about the bomb or had daughter when she woke, they only told her that her daughter was fine and outside the house. ‘Where’s Fatima?’ She asked, fidgeting all over.
‘Don’t worry ma, Fatima would be fine.’ Ken replied, oblivious of the fact that she wasn’t aware about her daughter’s plight. ‘The police are in charge of the situation.’ Ken returned back to the stool and sat in front of her.
‘What happened to her?’ She asked stretching her two hands forward, her face clearly showed her ignorance about the matter.
‘Nothing madam,’ this was when Ken realized that she didn’t know a bomb was tied round Fatima.
‘I was told she was outside,’ the woman said, struggling to get up.
‘Yes, I met her outside.’ Ken said, trying to stop her. The nurse also ran forward to them and tried to put the woman back to her seat.
‘No, I want to see her now, I want to see my daughter now.’ The woman was adamant and she pushed the nurse away. Ken followed, trying to convince her to wait and relax but he tried his best not to touch her. She didn’t take more than six steps forward before she collapsed.
**
Dakolo sat in the front seat of the van with the driver as they rode recklessly. The roads were very free at that time of the night, so there was a very little possibility of an accident.
Dakolo’s eyes were wandering all around the place, searching for the car with the description that he got from the guards. Although he knew it was a fruitless search as the assassins would have gone a long way with it already, that was if they did not change the car like he expected them to. He had it in mind that it was possible that the assassins could have killed the man and left his body in the car somewhere.
His phone rang and he checked the screen, it was from Ken. ‘Inspector Ken.’
‘Agent sir, where are you?’
‘Just a few distance from the house. We’ll be coming back now to the house. Have you gotten any information from the woman?’
‘I got only a little and she’s even unconscious now but the security staffs here said that they received a call from the Senate President some few minutes ago but the number which he used to call was not displayed. Also all their trials to track the number has been futile.’
‘Okay, I’m coming back now. Get every information about the call from them. Then call the office and relay it to them, let them track it and tell us the location the call came from.’
‘Okay sir,’ Ken said and the call ended.
‘Please take the next turn back,’ Dakolo said and returned to the phone to his pocket. ‘Wait!’ He shouted suddenly again. ‘Isn’t that the Bentley Jeep they described to us?’
***
‘Boss, the police are everywhere in Asokoro, a lot of patrol cars are going around.’ Benny said as he stepped out out of the car and Aisha from the other side.
‘Hope you didn’t have troubles getting here,’ Tarasha replied, walking back to the entrance of the house. She had been the one who opened the gate for them to enter.
‘No, we were seen as late night travelers, there were no weapons in my car.’
‘Good,’ Tarasha chuckled. ‘Hope you got the bulbs I asked you to get?’ She asked as she opened the door for them to walk in. She walked in after them and closed the door.
‘No boss, all the stores were already closed.’ Benny replied, keeping a sorry look on his face.
‘Dumb reason, I wasn’t expecting you to buy it, I know you couldn’t get by this time of the night. I was expecting you to uninstall them from any house or place you see them. Now we’ll have to wait till late morning to record the video.’ Tarasha said and walked away into the room where she left Cole.
Benny stood motionless for a while, Aisha was smiling at him. He couldn’t imagine that she was expecting him to steal bulbs at that time of the night when the police were raiding all over.
*
‘Has he made another call yet?’ Tarasha asked as she entered into the room.
‘No boss, I think he’s being careful not to raise suspicion.’
‘Who did he call?’
‘He called his home, he told them that he was safe for now and wasn’t going to be killed. He asked them to track the call and find his location.’
‘I need him to make more calls, I want him to call the police officer who gives them information.’
‘Hmm…’ Cole hummed, wondering how that was going to help them.
‘Most importantly, I want him to call the Vice President. I need to confirm if all the stories he told me were true.’ Tarasha added.
Benny walked into the room, taking off his shirt, unaware of Tarasha’s presence. He flung the shirt away, only for it to land on his Boss’s shoulder.
Benny quickly dropped to his knees on realizing what he had just done. She took the shirt away and threw it on the floor. She gave him a crooked smile. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll return the man’s dead body to his house tomorrow.’ She said it with a serious tone, although she didn’t mean it.
‘Huh?’ Benny opened his mouth in shock, he felt the punishment was too severe for him. Any other punishment would have been better but this would definitely get him caught by the police.
‘Boss, what about the assignment you said we were going to handle immediately after this?’ Cole asked, trying to help Benny out of the situation.
‘I’ll handle that, but I won’t attack, he will be expecting me now. I’ll either wait for him to find me or send you guys to him later. It’ll be easier for you to handle since he was your boss.’ Tarasha said and walked out of the room.
Benny who did not understand her words turned to Cole who looked like he understood better.
‘She’s talking about Don, he was hired to find and ki*ll her.’ Cole explained to Benny.
