Uncleluke1:
u so much like an assassin?!! Lol Oyinprince c wat u'v caused, you ve painted Tarasha to b one beautiful, lovely but yet extremely deadly lady and we'v all fallen in love wit her even going as far as prayin she doesn't die, forgetting the fact that she is a National assassin and threat faa.. Lol!!

missuniverse:
Its obvious disaster looms around the assassin trio dat may consequently lead to their death

Perhaps Tarasha has cursed pain to sme, however; she has reduced the nation's number of political hypocrites that sponsor evil and siphon funds meant for the poor masses that believes in them.

If not for the confusion she created mayb Frank would still b jobless..lol


I believe certain evil prevents greater evil...
I believe certain evil begat good...
I believe in retributive justice...


Episodical plot
Nice character development
little display of conflict
rising action
multiple theme


seems Henry's memory is back
not too good for my Tarasha...

Thanks mam, I just love this review.

vickkydgreat:
Like serious If not dat she is d main character I wish she should die a horrible and gory dearth stupid lady, bastard, idiot,mugu,skallywag,nincompoop, nuisance, mad fellow,....

lol , She kill person wey you know?

Chapter 19 Part 8

**1pm**

The two staffs of the NSCC were sitting while waiting patiently for the Vice President to show up. They had arrived in his mansion over an hour ago and there were no signs of him yet, they were only told by his assistants that he we going to join them soon.

Mr Sylvester poured in the remaining content of the bottle into the glass cup and sipped it slowly, fixing his eyes on the TV. A particular advert was gaining his attention.

'Do you watch Young C.c's movies?' he asked Tarasha who was seated at the other end of the three seater sofa.

'Ermm... Yes, I do.' she replied him. 'I love his action thrillers.'

'Yeah, I and my wife finished watching 'A New Creation' which he produced with Donkross. It's thrilling as usual.'

'I've not seen that yet but where can I get it if I want to buy?'

'The full story is on the website; www.youngicee.com, you can get it from there.' Mr Sylvester replied her.

'Okay, thanks. I'll do that,' Tarasha said.

'Have you heard about the new story coming up too?'

'Nazaretha's Hood?' she was already getting tired of his questions about movies, she felt he was only trying to display his knowledge.

'Yes, I'm looking forward to that one too.'

'Good afternoon people,' the Vice President greeted as he entered into the living room and began to proceed towards them.

'Good afternoon sir,' Mr Sylvester and Tarasha got up and greeted in unison.

'Sylvester,' Chief Elvis called fondly, offering him an handshake. 'Kimberly,' he calleda after shaking hands with Mr Sylvester, smiling at Tarasha. 'I've heard so much about you, I'm pleased to meet you.' he also offered her an handshake.

'My pleasure sir,' Tarasha replied, bending her knees slightly as she took his big hand in hers. She never forgot to curtsy like a proper Nigerian girl when greeting elders, all that she had learnt through reading about the different tribes and their cultures before she began her job in Nigeria.

'You may be seated,' Chief Elvis said, pointing his hand towards their seat while he took the sofa opposite them. 'Sorry I kept you waiting, I was with the President for something very important and I'll still be going back to him after this meeting. Now, straight to the matter. I called this meeting to get acquainted with you, Kimberly.' he said and paused to look at her face.

'You'll be working in Henry's position now and it means you're holding a critical position at a critical moment in the country. I want to work closely with you to make your job more efficient and for you to make my job easier too. I've also started my own personal investigations on Samantha Osman's case, so I would be needing to communicate to you directly.' Chief Elvis paused again and turned to Mr Sylvester. 'I hope you told her everything I want to do with her.'

'Sir, you didn't tell me anything else. You told me that you were going to tell her directly.' Mr Sylvester replied.

'I said that?'

'Yes sir.'

'Hmm... Okay,' Chief Elvis heaved a sigh. 'Then you have to leave us alone now.' he said to Mr Sylvester.

'Sir?' Mr Sylvester questioned as if he didn't hear, just to confirm if the Vice President really meant what he said.

'I mean you have to excuse us,' Chief Elvis repeated. 'You can wait in the other living room.'

'Okay sir,' he said and got up. He made some eye gestures at Tarasha, as if he was advising her to behave well before walking out as instructed.

As soon as Mr Sylvester was out of sight, Chief Elvis joined Tarasha on the three seater sofa.

'Kimberly, I've got a proposal for you,' he began. 'While you work for the NSCC, I want you to also work for me. I'll like to always get direct information from you and not through Mr Sylvester or the police.' he paused to see if she was following.

'I don't understand sir,' she stated.

'Okay, what I mean is this,' Chief Elvis adjusted himself on the seat to enable him explain properly. 'In your work, while you report to your Boss Sylvester and maybe the police if they give you a direct job, you'll also report to me, directly.'

'Does that include everything I do in the office?''

'Ermm, No... Not all, only with matters particular to the assassin group of Samantha Osman. Like I said, I've started a personal investigation on the matter.'

'Okay sir, I understand now. But are you the only one carrying out this one investigation or you have some agents carrying them out for you?'

'Yes, I have some secrets agents that are not known to the police. I'm only telling you now because you're going to work with me and I believe it would remain a secret between us.' he said and paused to see her reaction.

'Yes sir, I won't tell anyone.'

'Good, you'll be paid well for your services and may even receive bonus from time to time if you work efficiently.'

'I'll do my work efficiently sir,' she replied in a promising tone.

'Good.'

'Sir, ' Tarasha called, trying to make a suggestion. 'The reason I asked if you had other people working with you was that I thought it may not be possible to reach you directly at all times because of your work as the Vice President, what if I send the messages directly to the other agents working with you?'

'No, you can't send them for now. You still have to get directly to me first, once you can't reach me, you can always drop a message which I'll get immediately I'm free.'

'Okay sir, then I'll have to get your contact now.' she said staring at his body. She would have killed him right there but it would be impossible for her to escape, the number of security officials and thugs in the compound were five times of those in the Senate President's house.

'Yes,' Chief Elvis agreed, searching his pocket for his phone. 'My phone is not with me now, but I'll send you directions on how to reach me. I'm traveling tomorrow to the United States for medical treatment and I don't know how long I'll be staying precisely, I only know that I'll be there for at least seven days.'

+++++

'We're so close to bringing back your father already, we just need a few more details to enable us launch properly and bring him back safely,' Dakolo was saying to Fatima when Ken walked in and whispered something into his ears, for almost one minute.

Fatima stared at the officers hopelessly, she had been listening to them repeat the same promise for several days now and nothing was seen coming out of it. But she had to keep answering them because she wished to see her father again.

'Thank you Ken,' Dakolo said, before turning back to Fatima. 'We would need you to identify some pictures,' he continued, making a signal to Ken.

Ken opened the bag with him and took out some photos, 'I remember that day that you said a lady on low cut was one of the visitors.' Dakolo said.

'Yes, I did,' she answered, staring intently at the bag from where Ken was taking out the pictures.

'Can you recognize her? I mean the lady on low cut.' Dakolo said. At that moment, the head security officer which doubled as the Senate President's personal guard, the one who almost killed Cole on the night of the abduction walked in. He stood close to Ken and said some things in low tones to him.

'No, I don't think so. I can only recognize the face of their leader who tied the bomb around me. I can't even tell if I'll recognize her if she isn't putting on the same kind of makeup she used that night.' Fatima replied Dakolo.

'Let's try, if you'll know her.' Dakolo said and collected two pictures from Ken. He showed it to her and waited for her response.

'These are drawings,' Fatima said.

'Yes, we couldn't get the photo anywhere, so we had to get her description from people who saw her and put it down into drawing.'

'I've never seen anyone like this,' Fatima said and handed back the pictures to Dakolo.

'What about you?' Dakolo said to the head security official.

The man stepped forward with heavy steps and collected the pictures with his plastered fingers, which was one of the results of his fight with Cole. He stared into the pictures for some minutes. 'The only resemblance between the girls in the picture here and the the visitor on low cut is the low cut, nothing else looks the same.'

'So you're saying the visitor on low cut isn't any of those in the pictures?' Dakolo asked.

'I don't know, you know it could be difficult to recognize from sketches. But we have real pictures of the visitors, our cameras captured them.' the security officer answered.

'What? Why didn't you tell us that all these while?'

'You never asked, I believe you should know that there are cameras in this house.'

'Yes,' Dakolo stated with a tone of regret. He had allowed Henry's case take over his whole mind and had skipped doing the right thing. 'Can we get it now?' he asked.

+++++

'But how can he disappear just like that?' Tarasha said, looking baffled, folding her arms as she stood in the living room before front window of their lodge in Gwagalada. Aisha and Cole were seated on the sofas behind, looking baffled too. 'Did something go wrong in his task?' she asked no one in particular.

'Has he been acting or talking strange before that day?' she turned and asked Cole.

'No, he was okay until he finished the task.' Cole replied.

'Something looks fishy about the whole situation, the press has not said anything about Henry's death also, is the police planning to hide his body forever?'

'Boss, I have an idea.' Cole said with his face lit up.

'What idea?'

'We can confirm if Henry is dead or alive if you check the databases of the NSCC, it'll be an easy job to do since you're there now.'

'Yes, I was thinking about that too. I should have done it but for the several meetings we've been having.' Tarasha replied.

'I also have an idea,' Aisha cut in happily.

'What's that?' Tarasha asked, hoping it'll be an idea on how to find Benny.

'I read the news few minutes ago and I learnt that Henry E.G's mother is in town, she was at the hospital and police headquarters today, crying and demanding to see her son. It was reported that the police have not given her a clear response yet but they managed to convince her to return tomorrow.' Aisha said.

'Okay, what do you suggest we do now?' Tarasha asked, although already determining what to do with the news in mind.

'I suggest we track the woman and follow to see if they'll allow her see her son. With that we can confirm if Henry is alive or dead.' Aisha spoke succinctly, exactly the same thing Tarasha had in mind.

'Good suggestion,' Tarasha commended, she felt cool that they were beginning to think more now, not like when she just started working with them. Now she could entrust more tasks to them, even Aisha.

'Thank you,' Aisha said with smiles, proud that she had been able to make a useful contribution. But her joy disappeared few seconds after, when Tarasha spoke again.

'You'll handle that for us,' Tarasha said to her. 'Find out before the day runs out where the mother stays and place a tracker or a bug to monitor her movement.'

Aisha wanted to argue but the look Tarasha gave her warned her not to dare.

'Cole, you complete the job of the Senate President.' she said, turning to Cole. 'The poison should have done a lot on his body already, cut off his tongue tonight and send him home tomorrow morning. Make sure that his hands have been paralyzed before sending him.' she instructed and walked towards him. She dipped her hand into her jacket and took out an envelope, 'send him home with this letter,' she said and handed the envelope to Cole.

++++

'I've been observing him for the past few days and he's recovering fast, he'll be strong enough to travel soon.' Dr Tobi said to the officers.

'I know he's going to recover soon,' Dakolo said, 'I only wished he could become his old self once again.'

'You mean regain his memory?' Dr Tobi asked.

'Yes.'

'It's possible for him to regain his memory, ' Dr Tobi said slowly. Dakolo and Ken suddenly got excited. 'I've been administering to him some of my specially prepared formulas which would make his brain more relaxed and able to recall.'

'Wow!' Dakolo exclaimed in joy.

'But...' Dr Tobi said in a sad tone and heaved a sigh.

Dakolo paused to listen to what the doctor had to add.

'He would never be able to recall those memories now that he's going to be taken out of the country, he has to be close to the environment which he was previously used to.'

'So are you suggesting that we live him here?' Dakolo asked in an indifferent tone and returned to his seat.

'Leaving him here won't solve the matter. His case is a complicated one and it's a pity that it's not good to expose him to the public now because of safety reasons but if he stays here, chances of ever recalling would fade with the length of time he stays here.'

'I don't understand you Dr Tobi, you just told us that flying him out wouldn't help me recover and now you said staying here would also make him loose chances of ever recalling.'

'What I mean is that for him to be able to recall, he has to exposed to things and the environment he has been exposed to before, particularly his recent environment. That means he would have to be taken to places like his apartment, his place of work and other places he has been to recently before he was poisoned. It would also help him if he could see people who has been on his mind before the poisoning.'

'But all these things are not possible now, taking him back to Asokoro would endanger his life. He has to stay here or overseas till everything is settled.'

'How long would it take for everything to be settled?' Dr Tobi asked the agent.

'Ermm... A couple of months, five to six hopefully.' Dakolo replied.

''Hmm... If he spends two months here or anywhere else without being exposed to his usual environment, he would have completely lost his memory.' Dr Tobi said in a sad tone. 'Well, I think his life is more precious than his memories right now.'

'I have a suggestion sir,' Ken said to Dakolo. 'What about bringing his mum here? Wouldn't that help?'

'Hmm...' Dakolo nodded, remembering that Ken had whispered about the mother's presence to him in the Senate President's house. He turned to the doctor to hear his say.

'Well, that could help. But taking him to meet her in an environment he's used to would be better. Even if he doesn't regain his memory immediately, it'll take him a step further.'


Read 5 more updates on www.youngicee.com

Am soo sure Angel Gabriel is Henry's body guard. Am soo loving your story Oyinprince I hail ooo

frozenfirenaija:
Am soo sure Angel Gabriel is Henry's body guard. Am soo loving your story Oyinprince I hail ooo

Thanks mam. I believe you're doing a wonderful job on "Rhoda" too, I'll check it out when I'm less busy.

Oyinprince:
Thanks mam. I believe you're doing a wonderful job on "Rhoda" too, I'll check it out when I'm less busy.

Thanks ooo

3 gbosas 4 u. Nice 1

Dman00:
3 gbosas 4 u. Nice 1

Thanks man

Tarasha - Chapter 19 Part 9

**Wednesday Morning**

Immediately Tarasha got to the office the next day, she began to find a way to trace the movement of the police with Henry from the hospital. She needed access to the raw files from the regional blocks but as a new staff and person whose job isn't related to it, she couldn't ask Mr Sylvester directly. After getting the area where the hospital was located, she began to look for the section of the NSCC that was monitoring the area. Before 10am that morning, she already found it. But she still needed to break into the regional office and steal the raw file. She decided to strike by break time when most of the staffs wouldn't be on seat.

++++

'Good morning sir,' Ken greeted as he walked into the large room were Dakolo was.

'Good morning Inspector Ken,' Dakolo replied without taking his gaze off the pictures he was staring at on the board. 'How is Henry doing this morning?' Dakolo finally turned and asked Ken after a minute.

'Henry is fine, he's still the same. He doesn't know anybody or himself, doesn't want to see or even talk to me. The only people he sees and likes to talk to are the maids and the doctor,' Ken replied. 'He even shouted at an electrician today when the man tried to fix some wires in his room.'

'But what did the doctor say is the reason for his hostility?' Dakolo asked.

'Fear, he said he's afraid of people. The reason he's more comfortable with the doctor and maids is because he's been hearing their voices ever before his eyes opened and they've also been the one taking care of him.'

'Then how would we take him out of there if he's hostile to us? The doctor and maids won't be with him for a long time.'

'The doctor said I should try act more friendly and smile whenever I come near to him, that way he'll start becoming comfortable with me and learn to trust me too.'

'Well, you have to enroll for smiling lessons then,' Dakolo joked. "I just hope everything works fine.'

Ken waited for some seconds before he started to speak again. 'Sir, what do you think we do about Henry's mum? Should we allow them meet like the doctor said?'

'Yes, I believe it'll be cool if we could allow them to.' Dakolo replied, 'but on the other hand, I still think it'll would be stupid of us to do so.'

'Why did you say that sir?'

'Ken, the whole nation is aware of her presence in town, the media reported everything she did at the hospital and the office here yesterday. It means that the assassins are also aware of her presence, they could be keeping tabs on her and that means taking her to Henry or bringing him to her would expose Henry to danger.'

'That's true sir,' Ken commented thoughtfully.

'It's a complicated situation Ken,' Dakolo heaved a sigh. 'Had it been she had come in quietly, it would have been easier.'

There was silence for the next two minutes, Ken's eyes were fixed on the pictures pinned to the board while Dakolo was lost in thoughts.

'Sir,' Ken called Dakolo. 'These pictures, there is only that looks so close.'

'Yeah, only the girl on low cut' Dakolo agreed with him and touched disguised Aisha out of the four persons in the picture. 'The baffling thing is that her facial features is always different, the makeup she uses must have very thick layers.'

'Yes sir, that's what I'm thinking too. But what about these other people? Any close person found?'

'I've asked for a search on matching photographs to be done on them.' Dakolo answered, he picked his phone from a table nearby. 'I'm sure the search should be completed already,' he said and turned back. 'Let's go get the result.'

Both of them walked out of the room and headed for the computer room, to meet the same officers who had been charge of contacting the Government City Hospital in Capetown.

'Are you done?' Dakolo asked as soon as his eyes came in contact with the lady.

'Yes sir,' she replied, she minimized the application she was using on the computer and opened another. The separately cropped pictures of the four disguised assassins showed immediately, then other pictures began to show underneath each one.

'For this lady who was called their leader,' the lady computer operator began her explanation. She clicked on the picture of Tarasha which was captured in her disguised form, two other pictures displayed underneath.

'Oh!' Dakolo exclaimed as he saw the pictures, he had seen them before. 'Isn't this the fake desert Reporters journalist who interviewed John Obiano?' he asked.

'Yes, it happens to be the same person, Samantha Osman. The facial structures are the same, only the colour and hair are different,' the lady affirmed. 'But the problem now is that her pictures do not match with any in the citizens' directory, it doesn't match with the immigrants' or even visitors' directory.'

'Her pictures has never matched with any, she's always heavily disguised,' Dakolo said. 'It's not her face.'

'But how come the security officials never knew that she was Samantha Osman?' Ken asked thoughtfully.

'Even both of us wouldn't have known if we were in their shoes,' Dakolo answered him. 'She wasn't looking like the same, here she is fairer as the desert Reporters journalist than the way she was when she visited the Senate President's House, no one could have connected it.' Dakolo explained, pointing at the pictures. 'The reason we're able to connect it now is because we've conducted a search.'

'Hmm... This is strange,' Ken heaved a sigh of frustration, placing his fingers on his nose and mouth. 'And I'm sure the facial structures aren't even original.'

'Yes Ken, her real facial structures must have been covered by the thick layers of makeup.' Dakolo added.

The lady computer operator closed the picture and opened another, Cole's disguised form to the Senate President's mansion. 'This one does not even have any matching picture,' she said before closing it. She opened Benny's picture as Mr Alfred, 'this does not have any match too.' she closed it again and opened Aisha's own. 'This one doesn't really match too but we can identify her to be Aisha Bello if we compare the pictures and sketches. Her features here looks similar to the real Aisha Bello's pictures, there are still big differences anyway. The matching factor is that her nose in the sketch looks like her nose in this picture but her cheeks are different while her nose in the real Aisha's Bello pictures looks far different from the two but her real cheeks are like the one in the sketch.'

'Well, it must be Aisha Bello. Although, a sketch isn't really that reliable but with all these connections, it must be her.' Dakolo joined. 'And this also confirms that Aisha Bello is different from Samantha Osman, Samantha Osman is the real leader of the gang.'

'But sir, ' the computer operator gave a confused look. ' We only found little similarities, there are lots of discrepancies between the Aisha Bello's pictures too. The jaws, the foreheads...' she was saying but paused and opened her mouth like she was shocked about something.

'Sir, see,' she urged Dakolo to look at the computer screen. 'The ears are the same.'

'Wow!' Dakolo stared in surprise too. 'Why didn't we ever notice that?' he said, smiling at Ken who had joined in the surprise too.

'It's Aisha Bello, no doubts' Ken stated with certainty in his voice.

Dakolo's smile soon turned into a frown, 'well all these discoveries would not lead us any closer to getting her,' he said in a discouraged tone. Everyone's smiles also disappeared. 'Or is it possible to post her ears to the public and declare it wanted? Who's going to be searching for people's ears?'

There was a deafening silence for the next three minutes, the slow and calm breaths of each officers could be heard.

'But,' Dakolo suddenly began again, with excitement. 'We can do something about this,' he said and began to take out his phone.

The others stared at him in awe, wondering what the reason was for his excitement.

'Hello Mr Sylvester, are you at the office?' he said into the phone. 'Okay, I'll be there very soon.'

'Do something about the ears sir?' Ken asked as soon as Dakolo was done with the call.

Dakolo paused and stared at him awkwardly, 'no, do something about the pictures.'

'How?'

'Don't worry, I'll explain to you later.' Dakolo said and patted Ken on the shoulder. He turned to the computer operator, 'please make five photocopies of the pictures for me, I'll be back to get it in ten minutes time.'

'Okay sir,' the computer operator replied.

'Ken, let's go plan about Henry's mother,' Dakolo before he and Ken walked out of the room.

++++

Aisha had been monitoring Mrs George since the day before. Mrs George was staying in her friend's house and brought with her no car which Aisha could place a tracker on and monitor with. Aisha had no choice than to resume her monitoring by 5am in the morning.

It was until12pm, Mrs George came out of the house with a young man in his late teens. Aisha who was already dressed in a pullover whose hoodie covered her hair, and a dark eyeglass to cover her face began to follow them closely. Soon, Mrs George and the young man stopped by the road side to wait for a cab. An idea came to Aisha, she took out her phone and uncovered her head.

'Good morning ma,' she said approaching the woman where she was standing.

'Good morning,' Mrs George replied calmly, but her body language showed that she wasn't comfortable with the stranger approaching her.

'I'm Seun, a journalist from YTV.' Aisha made an introduction, she pressed the recording button on her phone and brought it closer to the woman to show that she was ready for an interview.

The woman sighed on hearing the introduction and looked away but Aisha pressed on.

'Ma, I have some few questions for you,' she said, turning to stand at the woman's front.

'Young lady, I'm not in the mood for questions. As you can see, I'm on my way to somewhere very important.' the woman said in a warning tone.

'Where are you going to ma?' Aisha asked, disregarding her warning.

'It's none of your business, please leave me alone.' the woman replied and tried to walk away but Aisha followed.

'Would you leave her alone please,' the young man shouted at Aisha, standing at her front in readiness to give a fight.

'Oh!' Aisha slowly backed out acting defeated but she had accomplished what she wanted to do already, a tracker and a voice recorder had been fixed on the woman's clothes.

Aisha walked back to where her car was parked and waited inside until Mrs George and the young man got a cab. She clicked open the screen of her phone and opened the tracking application, she could see the position of the woman on the road. She took her makeup kits bag from the back seat and began to apply a quick solution to disguise her face briefly, she had to do that because it was possible she ran into someone who knew her face. She took off the pullover, leaving on only a small blue blouse. Then she put on her wig before driving off, in the direction her tracking application was pointing her to.

After driving for a total of thirty minutes, she stopped when she noticed that the woman's movement had stopped first. But the stop was brief, there was another movement but a very short one, she could tell that the woman only moved a short walking distance. Aisha took out her headset and plugged it into the phone to listen to the recording, what she could hear at first were brief greetings and questions in low voices, she could easily tell that the woman was in an organization.

Five minutes later, the movement stopped totally, by this time, Aisha had been able to decipher that the woman was in the police headquarters.

'Good morning ma, I'm Inspector Ken.' she could hear someone say to the woman.

*

'Good morning ma, I'm Inspector Ken.' Ken introduced himself to Mrs George. They were inside his office, Mrs George and the young man were seated on the visitors' seats.

'Where is Dakolo?' the woman asked in a distressed tone, thick Igbo accent. 'He should come and tell me where he has kept my son.'

'Please calm down ma,' Ken said politely. 'I'm working with Inspector Dakolo on all issues that has to do with your son, Henry.'

'So you people are in it together? Where have you kept my son?'

'Ermm...' Ken hesitated for a while, staring at the young man. 'You have to excuse us for a moment,' he said to the teenager.

'Tell me, did anything happen to my son?' Mrs George was impatient.

'I can't say anything until he leaves ma,' Ken maintained his position. The young man got up reluctantly and walked out of the office.

'Ma,' Ken continued in a serious tone, after the young man was out of the office.

'Tell me what you people have done to my son,' the woman said in a low but tensed tone.

'Ma, first of all, we have to agree now that everything I tell you here would be kept secret between us.'

The woman stared at him without replying, she twitched her lips and squinted.

'You have to agree ma,' Ken repeated. 'It's to make sure everything turns out well.'

'Okay,' she finally said.

'Good, your son is fine, hale and hearty.' Ken announced and paused to see the reaction on the woman's face. As expected, her face was lightened up and her lips covered with smiles.

'Where's he? I want to see him,' the woman said happily.

'That's the first problem, you can't see him now.'

The woman's smile changed into a frown, she instantly began to doubt Ken's words. 'Why can't I see my son?' she asked.

'You can't see him now because f he's in danger,' Ken replied, he took a brief pause before he continued, Mrs George's face was already showing her eagerness for more explanation. 'Ma, you know the circumstances that led to his condition. His life is being threatened by the dangerous Samantha Osman assassin group.'

'But what have my son done to them?' the woman began to wail. 'My son does not look for trouble.'

'Calm down madam,' Ken hushed. 'Your son is fine and recovering very fast.'

'But how would I know you're not lying to me?'

'You'll know Madam.'

'How would I know?' the woman argued. 'You're saying my son is fine but the news says he was in a condition of mental instability; I tried to contact him but I couldn't, I tried to contact you people but you wouldn't respond. Now the news says he was already poisoned by Samantha Osman, how am I going to know if my son is not dead.'

'You'll see him ma,' Ken replied.

'You'll take me to where he is?' the woman's face brightened up again.

'No, I won't take you there neither would I bring him to you. It's very dangerous for you to go to him now or for him to come to you, the assassins may be trailing either of you.'

'Ah! Assassins trailing me too?' the woman became alarmed.

'Don't worry madam, we have everything under control, we'll provide security for you.'

'They should even come and take me,' she said in a frustrated tone, raising up her two in surrender. 'I'm old enough to die but let them leave my son alone.'

'Madam, both of you won't die if you do what we say.' Ken tried to encourage.

'But wait,' she put down her hands and stared at Ken with all seriousness. 'Is it true that my son has now become a dummy?'

'No,' Ken couldn't do but smile at the manner which she asked. 'It was true, but now your son has recovered, he has his senses back.'

'How am I going to know you're telling me the truth?'

'You'll take to him via video chat,' Ken replied.

'Video chat?'

'Yes.'

'When?'

'This night, we'll connect you to him. We're also making arrangements for you to ensure your safety, you won't leave here now. Some policemen would accompany you to get whatever you need from where you came from this morning.' Ken explained. 'But please, do make sure that nobody else hears this.'

+++

It was past break already and Tarasha had gotten all the data needed. After watching the video files over and over again, she wasn't satisfied with what she got. The officers had taken Henry to a very far distance, far from the cameras' reach. She was getting more impatient about Benny's return now, she needed to know if the task of killing Henry was a successful one. She picked her phone and dialed Cole's number.

'Hello Cole, hope you're getting prepared to send the Senate President back home?'

'Yes, all is set already.' Cole replied.

'Okay, have you heard from Benny yet?'

'No.'

'What about Aisha?'

'No news also.'

'Okay, if you don't hear from Benny or locate him before the day runs out, you guys have to move from the lodge.'

'Okay, back to Asokoro?'

'Maybe, but to an hotel, not where I am.'

'Okay boss,' Cole said and the call ended.

Aisha's call came in few seconds after. 'Hello girl,' Tarasha answered.

'Boss, Henry is not dead.' Aisha stated flatly. She waited for a response from the boss but got none as the boss was too dumbfounded to speak. 'His mother would be speaking live to him through a video chat tonight,' Aisha continued her message.

Read more Five more updates here: http://www.youngicee.com/search/label/Tarasha

Hmmm....

Henry sef wetin make am carry himself go Tarasha house. But I don't think Tarasha will want to harm him again wey egbon Jefa don dey dier

Wow, This is what i call a story.. I cant tell you how to write your story but Tarasha is my best character in this story.... I really want her stay alive... You could just put a twist to it... Dont also want Henry to recover... I also want Dakolo dead... Lol

oh, how I love Henry! his being alive alone can "kill" Tarasha. what else do we need from a 'trained assasin'?

I know Tarasha was really hurt but I'm beginning to dislike what she's turned into.

Tarasha - Chapter 19 Part 10

Tarasha was still furious about the news she had just gotten from Aisha, she was angry with Benny and was willing to skin him alive if she could see him at that moment. She continued to pace around angrily. She didn't think Henry being alive would disturb her plans with the Senate President or the Inspector General but she didn't just like the idea of keeping him alive.

Her doorbell rang, she paused and stared at the door, then she walked back to her seat and checked the person behind the door. They were two, Mr Sylvester and somebody else, she didn't see the man's face very well. She tapped the door's open button on her table and the door was unlocked. Mr Sylvester entered with the visitor.

'Good afternoon sirs,' she got up to greet, staring at the visitor's face, within few seconds, she was able to identify him.

'Good afternoon Kim, this is Agent Dakolo,' Mr Sylvester introduced as they took their seats.

'You're welcome Agent,' Tarasha said with a smile.

'Thank you miss Kimberly,' Dakolo smiled back.

'Agent Dakolo has something for us to work out,' Mr Sylvester said after they were all seated. He collected an envelope from Agent Dakolo and began to take out the pictures inside, he handed one the Tarasha and said, 'these are the abductors of the Senate President.'

'Hmm,' Tarasha hummed in a surprised tone as she collected the picture and stared at it. 'These guys are all young people," she said.

'Yes, young but killing people and throwing families into pain.' Dakolo commented.

Tarasha smiled lightly, trying her best to conceal it. Dakolo's comment sounded more like a compliment to her, killing and causing pain for people was what she was trained to do, so she felt proud when the agent confirmed that she was doing a good job at it. She studied the pictures for some more seconds before looking up.

'Miss Kimberly, I heard that you're very intelligent,' Dakolo continued. 'I hope you're patriotic too?'

'Yes sir,' she stated firmly.

'I believe you,' Dakolo continued. 'But before I explain the details of this job to you, I have to warn you about telling anybody that you're working on it. I know you're very aware of how dangerous this assassin group is. So please, do not tell anybody; your friends, family members or even partner anything you discover while on this job.' Dakolo stopped to get her response.

'I won't sir, ' Tarasha replied in wx promising tone.

'Good. Now, these pictures we are giving to you contains the members of the Samantha Osman group. Apart from this one, Aisha Bello,' Dakolo pointed to Aisha on the picture in his hand, 'we've not been able to get the real identities of the others. This is because these people are heavily disguised. Now, the reason we've brought these pictures here is for you to track them, Mr Sylvester has said that the data from the past seven days would be provided to you. We want you to trace all these faces and spot anywhere they've been to recently.' Dakolo paused as he noticed a deep frown appearing on her face.

'Sir, I don't understand; for which locations am I going to check?'

'For all locations,' Dakolo replied.

Tarasha's expression turned into a shocked one. 'Sir, I alone cannot do the job for a single town in Abuja, I mean that means observing up to hundred videos of at least fifteen hours each.'

Dakolo paused and took in a deep breath, he realized that he was just about giving her an impossible job. If only a town would have up to hundred videos, then the whole of Abuja would more than two thousand videos of fifteen hours each and that would mean they would need up to thirty thousand hours of watching and observing all those videos which was equal to 1,250 days of watching.

'Sir, monitoring successfully for the past seven days in Abuja wouldn't be possible even if we had twenty people working on it and if we are to divert the attention of all regionals to it, then there would be more trouble because anything can happen while they take their eyes off the ongoing transmission.'

'Hmm,' Dakolo inhaled deeply and rested his back on the chair, his idea wasn't good after all.

'But sir, we can work on monitoring the faces of these individuals for the coming days. We'll have to build a system that would keep traces of their facial structures. Once any of them is located in any region, there would be an alarm in the regional office which would be sent here from the region.' Tarasha offered.

'Excellent! Then begin to work on it immediately," Dakolo sat up and said excitedly.

'Alright sir, we'll start work as soon as possible,' Tarasha replied with a smile. She had a plan, there was something like that she had seen installed in the system.

'But...' Sylvester cut in, he looked like he was trying to recall something. 'I think Henry E.G was working on something like that already.'

''Ermm... Yes, ' Tarasha joined, 'I think I saw something like that too, but I'll confirm later.'

'Then when can it be ready for use?' Dakolo asked.

'Once I check and find it already installed, we can turn on the process immediately.' Tarasha replied. 'If it has not been installed yet, it'll take us about twenty hours to install but if it has not been developed at all, then we'll need a week to develop and fix a new one.'

'Okay, how long will it take you to confirm if it has been installed or not?' Dakolo asked.

'Just an hour,' Tarasha stated.

'Oops! I can't wait for that, but I'll call you to get the report,' Dakolo said and began to stand up from his seat.

'I'll get back to you as soon as possible,' Tarasha assured. She got up to receive a warm handshake from Dakolo, then the Agent and Sylvester walked out of the office.

Tarasha sat back and returned to work immediately, she had found the opportunity to call for Henry's presence.

++++

'Ah!' Benny groaned as Don continued to dish out blows to his face. His face was bleeding and mouth swollen, his two hands were tied with strong ropes to two separate poles at the two sides, his legs were also tied in the same manner. That was how he met himself when he woke up, the last thing he remembered doing was fighting with Don. He was ready for death; he was sure death was coming soon as his body was drastically losing strength and his hosts were not ready to show mercy on him except he gives them the answer they were seeking from him.

'He's not spoken yet?' Stainless asked Don, walking into the darkly lit room with a bottle of alcoholic wine in his hands.

'No,' Don replied in a frustrated tone. He stepped back and took a stick of cigar from the concrete table, he lit it and took a quick drag.

'I think the guy loves to die,' Stainless said mockingly, standing in front of Benny with his wine. He poured a quantity of the liquid on Benny's face and it washed down some of the blood. 'Homie, you wanna die because you want to proof loyal to a b**ch?'

'I'm dead already,' Benny spoke softly, like a drunken man. 'It's better you kill me here because I don't want her to kill me for being a betrayal, that would be worse.'

'Oh boy,' Stainless said and laughed sardonically. 'She doesn't have to see you as a betrayal man, you can just tell us her operation base and we'll send you back to her as if nothing happened, and we won't attack her, even if we do, it would be on your conditions.'

'You can't get to her operation base or even attack her, she'll kill you before you make the move.' Benny said.

Stainless laughed again, 'You think all men are sissies like you?'

'Don't mind the f*ol, that b**ch must have poisoned him with something that made him lose his mind.' Don said, moving closer.

There was quietness for a while, Don kept smoking while Stainless was drinking. 'Benny,' Don called softly, blowing smoke at his face. 'Do you know who sent us? It's the Vice President,' Don stated temptingly. 'And he is offering us huge sums of money, you too can be a partaker if you'll only cooperate with us.'

'There's no need for me to join a team I know has already failed from the start,' Benny remained adamant. 'You can't beat Tarasha, she's not your match.'

Don stared at him in silence for a couple of seconds and took in some few drags before he continued to dish out blows to Benny's face.

++++

**Two Hours later**

'This has not been properly developed sir,' Tarasha said, explaining some things to the three men by her side. Mr Sylvester was sitting beside her in the second visitor's seat in his office while Frank and the other guy was standing and staring into the laptop.

'But I thought Henry installed it already,' Frank put in, looking confused.

'Yes, that's where the major problem lies now,' Tarasha continued to explain. 'He installed it while still developing and optimized it with the systems, I know he wasn't anticipating anything evil, that's why he installed it and even made the only way to unlock the API his finger print.'

'That means we can't continue to work on it without getting his fingerprint?' Mr Sylvester asked.

'Yes, that's our password to continue developing.' she replied.

'Wow!' all the men in the office exclaimed in unison, letting out sighs after.

'What about creating a new one? Just stop his process and i run another?' Mr Sylvester asked.

Tarasha turned to face Frank and the other guy, 'I thought you guys worked with him on it,' she said in a questioning manner.

'Yes,' Frank was the one who replied. 'But he never carried us along, he only said he would tell us later when it was the right time.'

'Oops!' Tarasha sighed and turned back to Mr Sylvester to answer his question. 'We can't initialize another process, not when this has been optimized with the system already. We need to first take out the keys which Mr Henry has locked with his finger print.'

'Hmm,' Sylvester took in a deep breath and got up. 'So that means that we won't be able to help the police with their investigation.'

'Yes sir, we won't.'

'Hmm... I just hope they'll understand us, it may seem to them like we are only handicapped and inefficient because of Henry's absence.'

'But sir, that's the least we should be worried about now,' Tarasha said and turned back to the computer.

'What do you mean?' Mr Sylvester asked.

'We are facing more danger than not being able to help the police, we're facing more problems of the camera system being closed down for a year or more.'

'What?? What are you saying?' Mr Sylvester sat back on his chair and began to stare intently at Tarasha's face.

'Mr Henry has optimized the process with the whole cameras system of the nation and has configured it to start working next week, I believed he thought he would have finished working on the process by now. But now the process hasn't being fully developed and he's not here to rush the development process up. It would mean all security cameras in whole nation would start malfunctioning from next week.'

'What? How can he start up such a process?' Mr Sylvester slammed angrily. He got and began to pace around as he envisioned his job as the chairman of the NSCC at risk, which was his greatest fear.

'He was doing it for the good of everyone,' Frank said in a soft voice, trying to allay Mr Sylvester. 'It would have been a great invention if he was here to complete it.'

'But now that he isn't here, what do we do?' Mr Sylvester had frustration written all over his face. 'Now that he's not here, nobody else can continue the process because he secured it with his finger print, why on earth didn't he used a simple password that Kimberly would have been able to decrypt even in his absence? Now, can we make duplicates of his fingerprints? No.'

'Sir, he did it for security purposes. He had to do it with his fingerprints so that the assassins or anyone else wouldn't have been able to decrypt the key.' Frank explained.

'I think what we should do is find a solution now instead of going back and forth on why Mr Henry did the things he did.' the other guy suggested.

'We have only one way out now, ' Tarasha said, drawing the attention of everyone else. 'Get Henry to unlock it for us with his fingerprint.'

'But that's almost impossible right now, we don't know if Henry is alive or not. The Agent refused to tell me anything concerning him.' Mr Sylvester said.

'Alive or not sir,' Tarasha continued slowly; trying her best not to sound insensitive, 'we need his fingers to unlock the process.'

'So we can still use his fingers even if he's no more?'

'Yes,' Tarasha stated.

'Hmm...' Mr Sylvester sighed, sitting back on the chair. He really hoped that Henry was still alive. 'The problem now is that the police are not ready to reveal if he's dead or not.'

'I think you should try more to convince the Agent; if you tell him all these dangers we could avoid, he may consider us. Remember sir, we have less than six days until the whole of NSCC crashes.' Tarasha said in a warning tone.

Mr Sylvester doorbell distracted them, he clicked on the open button on his table in anger and one of the junior staffs entered.

'Sir, our system has been hacked again; some regional offices have complained of static footages in their transmission.' the junior staff announced.

'What?' they all exclaimed, including Tarasha who was aware that it was Cole at work.

++++

'Here, we go sir,' Cole said to the Senate President who was sitting beside him in the front seat of the car. 'I'll open the door for you and you get out immediately we get to to your house, I'll speed off immediately.'

The man nodded in reply, that was the only way he could respond; his tongue has been cut off and his hands paralyzed by the poison.

++++

8pm

'I'm ready sir, I'm about to give him the solution now and we'll connect to you,' Dr Tobi said into the phone. The call ended and Dr Tobi handed the phone back to Inspector Ken.

They both walked into Henry's room, Dr Tobi holding a small bottle and a teaspoon with him. The small bottle contained Dr Tobi's prepared solution which would aid Henry in recalling his memories. Ken was carrying a bag which contained a laptop and other gadgets.

'How are you Henry?" Dr Tobi said as he approached Henry who was sitting on a settee close to his bed.

'I'm fine,' Henry replied with a smile to Dr Tobi but frowned on seeing Ken who was doing his best to look friendly and put on a smile.

'Have you had your dinner?' Dr Tobi asked, placing the bottle on a table beside Henry's seat.

'Yes, I have.'

'Good, it's time to take this drug; it'll help you become stronger.' the doctor said, handing him the teaspoon.

Henry collected the teaspoon from Dr Tobi, placing an awkward look on Ken. The doctor helped in opening the bottle and poured part of the content into the spoon. Henry ended up taking three teaspoonfuls of the solution.

'Doctor, you said you were going to allow me talk to someone tonight,' Henry asked after two minutes of resting. The doctor was already seated beside Henry while Ken was still standing. 'I hope he's not the one?' Henry asked, pointing at Ken and staring at him frightfully.

'He's not the one you're talking to tonight, but I think you should also be nice to him; he's also your friend and won't hurt you.' Dr Tobi said.

'Hmm...' Henry hummed and stared at Ken's face for a while, as if trying to see if he wouldn't hurt him like the doctor said.

'Let's connect now,' Dr Tobi said to Inspector Ken.

'Okay,' Inspector Ken replied and took out the laptop from the bag. He carried it to where the flat screened television was and squatted, he placed the laptop on the floor and turned it on. Then he took out an audio video cable from his bag and connected it to the laptop and to the television.

After few minutes of working on the computer, he placed a call to Agent Dakolo. 'We're ready sir,' he said.

'Where is the person?' Henry asked out of curiousness, wondering what Ken was doing.

'Be patient, you'll see her now.' Dr Tobi answered.

'The person is a lady?' Henry asked. He had never seen any other lady apart from the three maids in the house where he was.

'Yes, she is your mother.' Dr Tobi stated.

'My mother?' Henry's eyes widened in surprise. 'I have a mother?' he asked but got no reply except a kind smile from Dr Tobi.

The video chat was on already, Mrs George was shown on the screen, she was sitting and just staring, most likely still waiting for video signals at her end.

'Is this her?' Henry got up suddenly and began to walk towards the television, Dr Tobi followed him immediately.

'Henry,' the woman called as Henry got midway. He paused and stared thoughtfully, Dr Tobi and Ken were looking at his face, expectant.

++++

'I've been disconnected boss,' Aisha said into the phone.

'How?' Tarasha replied her from the other end.

'I think she took off the clothes I placed the recorder on,' Aisha replied.

'But you know her location now?'

'Yes.'

'Good, you and Cole has to leave that lodge this night, I've given instructions to Cole already. Benny is a traitor, we don't know what he would do next.'

Five more updates available on www.youngicee.com

Nice one, Oyinprince

Wawuuu! Just Wawuuuuu May God bless you more and more Oyinprince for this story!

HENRY!!!

Tarasha - Chapter 19 Part 11

'Henry,' Mrs George called as Henry showed on the screen. 'Henry, how are you?' she asked, the look on her face clearly showed she had been longing to see him.

Henry did not reply but kept staring at the screen intently. 'Henry it's me your mother,' she said, placing her hand on her chest to emphasize. Henry just kept staring without replying, after sometime he glanced at Dr Tobi who gave him a look of encouragement.

'You don't recognize me Henry? Don't tell me it's true what this people has said about you losing your memory,' she said in a grieving manner but the man she was talking to looked indifferent. She saw him turn and take some steps backwards.

'I don't know her,' she heard him say to someone she couldn't see as he proceeded towards a settee.

'Ah! Henry, Ekene. His father's son, boy with the large heart, man of so many dreams and visions,' George began to speak words that he was used to hearing from her. Henry stopped just before the settee, he thought something sounded familiar. He turned back to the screen with a suspicious look, he couldn't just point it out. He hissed and sat down.

'I don't remember her,' he said to Dr Tobi again.

'Henry, I carried you for nine months, breastfed you...' the woman began to wail.

Henry got up and walked closer to the TV again, he stared at the screen for a while without even paying attention to all Mrs George was saying. He wondered why a woman he didn't know was acting so emotional about him, there was nothing she said that he could relate with. She even called him 'Ekene', he had never heard that before. He turned back and walked straight to his seat, he paused midway again when he heard her screaming.

'Ekene, please it's me your mother, look very well at me. You took after me in all aspects, see,' the woman said, pointing at her face. 'We look alike.'

Henry turned to look at her face again and a confused smile formed on his face, to him there was no resemblance.

'You look like her,' he could hear someone say to him softly. It was Ken who was staying close to the television.

He gave Ken a deep frown and became more suspicious about the whole set up. He began to think Ken was trying to lure him into a trap with the woman.

'Please, I don't want to see for now,' he said to the doctor and walked back to his seat. He picked up a towel from headboard of the bed and cleaned his face with it, then he sank into the bed and buried his face in the pillow.

*

'Please disconnect, it's enough for now.' Dr Tobi's face appeared Mrs George's screen.

Dakolo went to the laptop and closed the chat. He turned back to see Mrs George weeping.

'Don't worry ma'am, everything would be alright,' he said to console her after which he signaled for the junior officer who was with them in the room to lead her out. His phone rang.

'Hello Mr Sylvester, sorry I've not been able to speak with you well; I was busy. You were saying something the other time which I didn't quite understand,' he said into the phone.

'Yes sir,' Mr Sylvester's said. 'I was trying to explain to you our need for Mr Henry's presence, the whole of NSCC may crash if we don't have him in three days.'

'But you know that isn't possible sir, Henry is in a critical state and we can't take him around. Even if he comes, he wouldn't be able to do anything, and you know that already.'

'Sir, we don't really need him to do anything, we only need his finger print to unlock a process,' Mr Sylvester said. 'We found out today that he already began the process Kimberly suggested but the problem is that he locked it with his finger print and we need him to be here this week.'

'What about taking the fingerprint from where he is?' Dakolo suggested.

'No, he has to be brought to the office. Our system is inbuilt and can't be moved.'

'Mr Sylvester,' Dakolo called and then took a brief pause. 'I can't believe I even agreed to get his fingerprint for you, it's impossible to get that for now. Let's wait till everything settles.'

'But sir, it could crash the whole NSCC,' Mr Sylvester pleaded.

'Just forget about it and wait,' Dakolo said, not minding the seriousness in the man's voice, he ended the call.

++++

'But Doc, what's up with Henry? Do you think your solution is working?'

'Yes, faster than I imagined,' Dr Tobi answered, smiling.

'Faster?' Ken stared at him in surprise, 'how can you say that it worked when he was even callous to his mother?'

'It worked,' Dr Tobi answered confidently. 'I know it worked, he responded as I expected.'

Ken kept staring at the doctor's happy face in surprise, to him Henry did not respond as expected.

'He would start recalling some things while he's sleeping or when he's alone and his mind has wandered far,' Dr Tobi explained. 'What he needs now is more of things like this, even if he doesn't recall his memory fully, the fear in his mind for people would be erased.'

'So you're saying it's possible he doesn't regain his memory?'

'It's a fifty-fifty possibility,' the doctor said. 'But the chances of him regaining would be increased if we can take him to the places he has been recently and expose him to people he has related with before his poisoning.'

'But what about me and Agent Dakolo? We've related with him recently, he was with us that afternoon before he was drugged at evening.'

'Are you someone special to him? Or did you do something special to him that day?' Dr Tobi asked.

'No, we actually questioned him about some matters relating to Samantha Osman. We felt he was hiding somethings and we threatened for him to speak but he didn't.'

'Oh!' Dr Tobi exclaimed. 'You threatened him? That explains why he's still scared of you. It also shows that my solution is working. He has a very faint memory of you guys, but he sees you as monsters.'

Ken gave the doctor a sharp look. The Doctor smiled and clasped his palms together apologetically, 'sorry about that, I didn't mean to insult you with it but that's just how he sees you.'

'Okay,' Ken shrugged. 'But how can we make his recovery faster without taking him to town?'

'We can't make it faster, we can only try. But I suggest that we keep showing him videos; show him videos of his hobbies; for example, if he loves to watch football and we know that his favorite team is Arsenal FC, we can play several videos of their past matches for him to watch. We can also record videos of his house, his room, his resting place, his office; that could help too.'

'Hmm...' Ken nodded thoughtfully, 'I'll communicate this to Agent Dakolo.'


_____

** February 3, 2031 **

'Good morning sir,' Mr Sylvester could hear several of the junior staffs greeting him from every corner of the building as he walked to his office, one of the messengers was following him with his bag. Mr Sylvester noticed an unusual frenzy in the corporation building that morning but he couldn't tell what it was. He kept on marching to office, hoping that someone was going to come and brief him soon on the matter.

'Good morning sir,' Frank joined him from another block, he collected Mr Sylvester's bag from the messenger and began to walk with Mr Sylvester to his office.

'Good morning Mr Frank, why don't you allow the messenger take the bag, you shouldn't be doing that.' Mr Sylvester replied.

'Sir, there's trouble.' Frank stated, ignoring the man's last statement.

'There's trouble?' Mr Sylvester paused just before the door to his office.

'Yes, there is. The cameras system have stopped working,' Frank said.

'Aww!' Mr Sylvester exclaimed and his shoulders dropped. 'Just as we have all discovered beforehand. Is Kimberly in her office?'

'Yes, she is,' Frank answered.

'And what's she doing about it?"

'She's been in her office since morning trying to control the situation but as we all know, the solution is to get Mr Henry's fingerprint.'

_____

**Two days later**

'Vice President to return into the country in three days time,' Tarasha read the headlines of the news. Chief Elvis had been reported to have traveled out of the country for medical treatment, Tarasha couldn't wait for him to return so that she could begin to execute all her plans. She had also began to study the Inspector General and was already making plans for his death too.

'Senate President still in Coma,' she read the next headline. Nasiru Attahiru had been flown to India for treatment but it was only a waste of money, the man would not survive the poison that was administered to him, Cole had waited for appropriate number of days for the poison to digest and mix with his blood before sending him home. The last headline she read before her phone rang was 'NSCC in confusion as cameras begin to malfunction. She picked up her phone and stared at the caller's name, it was Cole.

'Hello Boss, I was in the bathroom when you called.' Cole's voice came through.

'Okay, any signs of Benny yet?'

'No signs yet.'

'Alright listen to me now,' Tarasha said in a serious tone and lowered her voice. 'The cameras system have began to malfunction since Monday but it seems that wouldn't be enough motivation for the police to give me what I need. What I want you to do now is to cause confusion, install some bombs in certain areas of the town, maybe three to five places. But make sure that it isn't close to where people are, so that it doesn't kill much.'

'Okay boss,' Cole replied and the call ended.

That was Tarasha's first strategy to force them to bring out Henry. She was sure that the police would run to the NSCC for help on footages that captured the people who installed the bombs but the NSCC would not be able to help because the cameras have been malfunctioning. That should make the police bring out Henry for the fingerprint but if they still don't, it could cause distractions that would make her able to trace Henry and even start work on the Inspector General..

++++

Henry stood at the balcony of the house, wondering what life was all about, wondering who the people he lived with were and why they cared so much about him. He also wondered why there were so many policemen around the house.

Only three days ago had he began to come out of the house, he noticed that the house which he lived in was the biggest and most beautiful in that area, the other houses were ancient and small. The people were different also, their dressing and culture was different, they spoke a strange language which he never heard before.

He was enjoying the moment, the cool breeze was blowing on his skin and he was having a nice time viewing the women walking up and down with logs of woods on their head and some baskets of farm produce while most of the men were moving with their cutlasses and hoes, some could also be seen coming out of bushes with local guns on their shoulders and small dead animals in their hands.

A certain old woman passing with two of her children made him recall something which he saw the previous day while taking a stroll with Dr Tobi. He had seen a woman about the same age with this advising two young people; a male and a female; telling the male one who was the eldest to look after his sister when they got to the city. From then on, a voice had been echoing in Henry's head, 'Henry, look after your sister very well; remember that you're the father she has at school.'

The voice kept echoing in Henry's head and anytime he heard it, he would have a feeling of guilt and failure, maybe he had failed in the responsibility which the voice gave to him, he thought. Later that night, he began to relate the voice he was hearing in his head to the woman he had seen on the television days ago, the voice sounded like Mrs George's own.

He took in a deep breath, closed and opened his eyes, something caught his attention. He stepped down from the balcony hurriedly and began to walk towards the road, soon he started running.

'Henry,' Dr Tobi and two officers called as they an after him but he wouldn't stop. 'Just follow him behind, don't stop him,' Dr Tobi said to the officers.

Henry was running after two people who were riding a bicycle. A girl was at the far front, her speed was more while the guy was following after her, trying to call unto the girl.

After some minutes, the girl stopped and dropped off her bicycle. The boy stopped also some metres behind her. Henry stopped running and watched them from afar. He saw the girl pack some quantity of sand and throw at the boy.

Something suddenly flashed through his mind, he saw himself riding on a power bike. He then saw a girl in front of him in a bush, she had her back turned to him. Suddenly she picked up a stone and threw at him, the stone met Henry's forehead.

'Ouch!' Henry screamed and touched his forehead, the two officers behind him came to his rescue. Although, no stone had touched his head today, he still felt the same pain he felt in the picture he recalled.

The police officers began to lead him back home.

'What do you remember?' Dr Tobi asked him as he stepped back into the balcony.

'A girl,' he replied, still holding the part of his forehead where he felt the pain.

'What does she look like?'

'I didn't see her face, I only saw her from behind.' he replied the doctor.

'Try, you can remember,' the doctor encouraged.

Henry closed his eyes, his brain traveled fast. He saw the same shape of the lady's behind, but this time in a room; he was lying on a three seater sofa, a drip bag was hung above and the liquid was running into his body through the drip line.

'Can you see her face now?'Dr Tobi asked, bringing him back to the present.

'No, but I saw her with a pin,' Henry said, illustrating a syringe with his hands. 'I was sleeping on the chair and water was entering my hand,' he added, showing the position where the fluid was entering into his vein.

Dr Tobi smiled, 'come, let's go in.'

++++

'Hello Mr Sylvester,' Dakolo said into the phone in an urgent tone.

'Hello sir,' Mr Sylvester replied back in a tensed tone.

'I know you've gotten the news of the bomb blast which happened simultaneously at Roffman and Denril streets,' Dakolo said. 'It's a surprise that the officers in charge just told me that the NSCC has not provided any data yet.'

'Sir, we're working on providing the data already,' Mr Sylvester replied.

'What do you mean by working on it? The normal procedure is that the data should be sent at least thirty minutes after a casualty.'

'I know sir, we'll try and get back to you now.'

'Better do.'

+++

**45 minutes later**

'Guys, we really need to do something quick,' Mr Sylvester said as he walked into the general computer room. Tarasha and the guys who worked with Henry were seated in front of different computers, very busy with what they were doing. They all looked up to stare at Mr Sylvester on hearing his voice.

'This is the third bomb blast that has been reported in Abuja today and we can't provide the police with videos captured around the place before or after the blast,' Mr Sylvester added.

'We can't provide what we don't have sir,' Tarasha was the first to reply.

'The cameras have not been functioning and we couldn't have recorded anything.' Frank put in.

'But we have to do something quick to get our cameras working again,' Mr Sylvester said, trying to encourage them to work more.

Tarasha took her hands off the computer keyboard and placed her eyes on Mr Sylvester conspicuously. 'There's nothing we can do,' she said flatly.

'So Kimberly, you mean you've not found a solution by all you've been doing since?'

'I've told you the only solution already, it's Mr Henry E.G's fingerprints,' she replied him and got up from the seat. 'All we've been doing since is just a waste of time.'

Mr Sylvester heaved a sigh and put his left hand on his head, his phone rang. Whoop! It's the Inspector General,' he said and decided to take some time to think of what to say. The phone rang twice again before he answered.

'Mr Sylvester, why are you not answering my calls?'

'Sir, we've been running around trying to fix things.' he replied with no apologies in his voice.

'What are you trying to fix? What's difficult in sending the data you're supposed to send?'

'We don't have any data sir,' he stated flatly.

'What do you mean?' Rikau replied.

'Our cameras have stopped working; I spoke to Agent Dakolo about it and I also sent you a petition but got no positive reply.'

'But you know that what you're asking for is not ideal,' Rikau said.

'Sir, that's the only way we can get our cameras to start working again; without that we may not function for the next one year,' Sylvester said, almost shouting on top of his voice.

'I'll get back to you Mr Sylvester,' Rikau said calmly and the call ended.

Mr Sylvester closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, he opened his eyes to see Kimberly and the two guys staring at him.

++++

10 minutes later.

'Good afternoon sir,' Agent Dakolo said into the phone.

'Good afternoon Agent,' the Inspector General was the caller. 'I heard that there's a friction between the anti bomb squad and the NSCC.'

'Yes, there is,' Dakolo replied.

'The NSCC claims that their system is locked and that the only way to unlock it is with Henry EG's fingerprint.'

'Yes sir, they told me that.'

'Find a way to get Henry E.G to the NSCC office as soon as possible.'

'But sir...' Dakolo tried to argue.

'Shh... Don't be insensitive, over thirty people have been displaced, five people killed. The bombers are capitalizing on the fact that the cameras are down, we need to rectify it immediately.'

'Sir...'

'Shut up and just do as I say,' the IG commanded.

'Okay sir.'


Read Chapter 20 Parts 1-5 on www.youngicee.com

You are just too much!!!!
I believe this work to be the best action, romance and crime thriller I've ever come across on nairaland, yes, so to speak...
People should watch out for the TV series of Tarasha, the best they've ever had. Isn't it so Oyinprince

Deluxewize:
You are just too much!!!!
I believe this work to be the best action, romance and crime thriller I've ever come across on nairaland, yes, so to speak...
People should watch out for the TV series of Tarasha, the best they've ever had. Isn't it so Oyinprince

Yes o, thanks man

Wow! hope oyin will not kill henry in this story? B'cos his present around the hotel is very dangerous!!!

Awwww, Henry is so bold. Its obvious Tarasha is in love with him. She just cant help it. I hope she doesnt complete that last mission

this is really thrilling God bless your brain bro oyinprince

hmmmmmm, Oyin, well done in more than a million ways, youngcc on point.

babtuna1:
Wow! hope oyin will not kill henry in this story? B'cos his present around the hotel is very dangerous!!!

Haba! I no dey kill people na

mitchyy:
Awwww, Henry is so bold. Its obvious Tarasha is in love with him. She just cant help it. I hope she doesnt complete that last mission

Let's see

bamiradex:
this is really thrilling
God bless your brain bro oyinprince

Thanks man

93damsel:
hmmmmmm, Oyin, well done in more than a million ways, youngcc on point.

Tarasha - Chapter 20 Part 1

**February 6, 2031**

__8am__

Dakolo kept pondering on so many things as they rode down the untarred road. He already did his best by putting in place reasonable measures to make sure that Henry gets to the town safely and returns back safely to the hiding place. Their appointment with the NSCC was by 9am but with the time he was seeing on his wristwatch, they would get there thirty minutes earlier.

Several pictures kept flashing through Henry's mind; especially that of Mrs George, now he began to see an elderly man with her; most times both of them were sitting before him and giving him certain instructions, he couldn't hear whatever they were saying but he knew from their expression that they were giving instructions or advice.

'What are you thinking about?' Dr Tobi who was seated with him at the backseat asked in soft tones.

'Nothing,' Henry replied and sniffed in. His eyes met with Dakolo's in the rearview mirror and another picture flashed through his mind; he saw himself talking with Dakolo in the compound of Elymax hotel, and then he saw a strange man walking towards them; the picture faded away again. Another picture popped up in his mind immediately; he saw himself walk into the Elymax hotel building, then to the restaurant; after some minutes, a lady joined him. He could see her belly, she was about taking her seat, he almost saw her face.

'We're almost there,' Dakolo announced disrupting Henry's thoughts; the pictures faded away.

++++

'Hello sir,' Tarasha said as she answered the phone call.

'Miss Kim, Henry E.G has just arrived with the police, join us in the control room now.' Mr Sylvester said.

'Okay sir,' Tarasha replied and dropped the call. She rolled her swivel back a little and opened the drawer. She took out a device that looked like a flash drive, she took off the cover and detached a tiny piece from the cover. She put the tiny piece into the inner pocket of her suit jacket before standing up. After straightening up her black trousers which she wore to match the black jacket, she walked out of her office.

**At the control room**

Tarasha, Frank and Mr Sylvester were patiently waiting for Henry and the police officers, the third app developer had been sent to lead the visitors to the place.

They stood before a large box with several buttons on it which made it look like recording mixer. It had a 110 flat screen behind it which served as the monitor for outputting the commands given on the box.

They all turned to face the door as it opened, officer Dakolo was the first to come in, followed by the computer operator who was sent to bring them, then Inspector Clem; they all stepped in and gave way for the people behind to enter except for the computer operator who proceeded towards his colleagues. Then Henry came in, followed behind by Inspector Ken, the Doctor and two uniformed police officers. He began to march forward as he was directed but stopped suddenly as his eyes met with the people he was heading forward to.

He began to vibrate with fright as his eyes moved from Mr Sylvester's face to Frank and to Kimberly. He couldn't tell what was wrong but a certain fear dominated heart especially when his eyes met with the lady's eyes.

'You guys have you to give him a smile, he does not need all these bony faces.' The doctor reprimanded the NSCC officials standing before the screen. Tarasha, Mr Sylvester and Frank tried to put on a smile. Henry continued to walk towards them with the encouragement of the Doctor, he moved slowly but his eyes never left Tarasha's face.

'Here,' Mr Sylvester said to the other NSCC officials and they made way for Henry to come before the box. For a minute Henry took off his eyes from Tarasha and stared at Mr Sylvester's face intently, the man's voice had rung a bell to him.

'Good afternoon Henry,' Mr Sylvester said to him as they got closer to each other. Henry did not reply but another similar voice to Mr Sylvester's began to ring in his head. 'I don't want to lose my job... My job... My job,' Henry kept hearing as he stared at Sylvester's face.

'You have to put your thumb here,' Mr Sylvester said to him, Henry obeyed and put his thumb on a transparent part of the box. He had been already briefed about what he was going to do, he was also told that he was going to meet with some of his colleagues at his former place of work.

His finger print appeared on the screen but it was blur. Tarasha moved closer to the screen and swiped down a vertical bar, the notification on the screen showed red, meaning that the print wasn't correct. 'I think we should get him a chair,' Tarasha said.

Frank made the move to get the chair while Tarasha moved closer to Henry. Henry's eyes was on her face but she didn't mind; she believed that even if he was fine physically, the effect that the poison had already had on him would not make him remember anything; oblivious of the work that Dr Tobi had done.

A chair was gotten for Henry and he sat on it, then Tarasha helped him place his thumb on it properly; the correct print needed appeared on the screen. Then it disappeared and the word 'Authorizing' displayed, and then unlocking, it began to read from 1℅ upwards.

'It's done,' Tarasha announced to everybody, she helped Henry adjust his collar as she returned to her previous position. Henry's eyes kept following her around.

'Finally!' Mr Sylvester exclaimed, making Henry turn his gaze to him.

'Henry, let's go now.' the doctor said with a pleasant smile.

'I don't remember anything yet,' Henry objected loudly.

Tarasha felt something strange strike her heart as she heard Henry talk like a child, she didn't know what it was; she had been trying to avoid staring at his face but his voice was something she couldn't ignore. A feeling of guilt also began to rise in her heart, as she saw him looking at the doctor for help. She quickly discarded all her thoughts with a hiss, then she cleared her throat and pouted her lips with the determination to remain focused and not allow her emotions take over.

'Don't worry, you'll remember,' Dr Tobi said with an encouraging smile which made Henry stand up. 'Let's go to some other places now.'

'Thank you Agent,' Mr Sylvester said to Dakolo as they began to make their way out of the place.

'It's okay Mr Sylvester,' Agent Dakolo replied. 'I hope you guys can now return sanity to your system.'

'Yes sir,' Tarasha answered him from behind, Agent Dakolo turned to her and smiled. 'That's all we need, we can now also track the faces of those killers.' she added.

'Thank you Miss Kim, thank you Mr Sylvester; for making this as brief as promised.'

++++

An alarm began to sound on Cole's phone, he picked it up to check. It was the message he was expecting; his boss had placed the tracker on Henry's body. He walked back to the bed where Aisha was sleeping and sat beside her. He gently tapped Aisha's shoulder before he picked up his laptop and placed it on his laps.

'Yes?' Aisha answered his tap hesitatingly.

'The tracker has been placed, remember the boss asked you to call her immediately we get the signal.'

'Yes,' Aisha hissed and sat up. 'She asked me to come pick the drive.'

______

Saturday 8th February, 2031

___5.30pm__

Two days after Henry had been taken to the NSCC office, normality had returned to their system and Henry had also returned to the hiding place safely but not after he met with his mother in his apartment. Dr Tobi and the police officers had hoped that with his exposure to the NSCC office and it's staffs again and to his mother and his own apartment, he would have regained his memory but that didn't happen; the only thing Henry continued to say was that he saw faint pictures of the people and kept hearing their voices. Even when he met physically with his mum; after an hour of talking with him, all he could say was that the voice was sounding familiar but he never remembered her being his mother or even if he had a father. Another person he kept mentioning was the girl who held his finger for the thumb print , Frank and Mr Sylvester but he never mentioned anything specific.

Dr Tobi began to lose hope on the case and fear began to envelope his heart. His solution had not made the desired effect of returning Henry's memory and with the way Henry was responding, Dr Tobi was scared that it could later turn into a mental illness that would make him start to hear voices in his head at all times and also hallucinate uncontrollably.

+++++

'I think this is a comfortable distance for us to stop,' Aisha said to Cole.

Cole slowed down his speed of driving and took a look at the tablet device on Aisha's lap, he confirmed that they were really at a reasonable distance to stop. He pulled over close to the bush and took the tablet device from her, he took note of the distance in metres from their targeted place to where they were; it was a distance that the bomb launcher could cover and even go beyond. Luckily for them, they were also close to a forest of several tall trees where he could climb, locate the house from and launch the bomb. If he could get a very good tall tree that would allow him straight access to the target house, there would be no need to wait in the area overnight to strategize again.

++

**5.30pm**

'Doctor, can we take a stroll?' Henry cut through Dr Tobi's thoughts as he joined him on the balcony.

'Yes sure,' Dr Tobi replied eagerly, hiding his worries with a smile.

'Thank you,' Henry said smiling. As usual, two officers were about to escort them but Ken stepped them when he came out of the house.

'You are going to take a stroll right, may I come with you?' Ken asked.

Dr Tobi turned to look at Henry's face but Henry turned away without saying anything. 'Yes, you may. I don't think Henry would mind.' Dr Tobi said to Ken.

'Thank you,' Ken said and signaled for the officers to return.

They stepped down from the balcony to the road and took the left turn.

++++

**5.50pm**

Cole was up on a baobab tree, the house in target was on a high hill and not difficult to spot, it was the most beautiful in that village. Maybe it was their King's palace, Cole thought to himself.

'Faster,' Aisha whispered to him. She was down the tree, watching for passers-by who may want to interrupt while she acted like she was just sight seeing.

Cole heard her but gave no reply, the leaves on the branches of the tree had him covered and he could not be easily seen by passers-by who looked up except if they were staring intently. He took off the bag from his back settled well on the branch of the tree. Then he brought out the bomb launcher from his bag.

*

The day's stroll was not a unique one in any way, nothing different or exciting was seen. The village and villagers seemed to be unusually calm that day. Henry was about complaining when Dr Tobi reminded him that it was Saturday and that on most weekends, the villagers were in their huts resting or at playgrounds catching fun.

'Or do you want us to go to the game centres or the palm wine joints?' Dr Tobi asked Henry. They were just some few metres away from the balcony, they were still on the road, facing the house from where they were.

'What kind of games do they play at their game centres?' Henry asked the doctor, considering the suggestion.

'They play Ludo, Ayo, draft and a lot of others,' Dr Tobi answered.

'Hmm... I've not played those games before,' Henry said.

'You must have played one or two of them, you'll remember when you see the game boards.'

'They have boards?' Henry asked again.

'Yes, they have boards...' Ken tried to come in. Henry gave him a sharp frown as if to warn him from talking and tell him that he was only interested in the doctor's explanation. The doctor made a signal to Ken to continue explaining. 'They have boards and they have other items used in playing...' Ken continued but Henry did not wait to listen, he began to proceed towards the house.

'Wait Henry,' the doctor ran after him and stopped him. 'I think we should go to the game centres.'

'The games do not sound interesting to me,' Henry retorted.

'Ermm... Okay, let's go to the palm wine joints then. You would get to taste the freshness of the wine gotten from palm trees, I'm sure you would like it.'

'Hmm,' Henry licked his lips, the offer sounded better.

'Okay, but I want to take my handkerchief inside first, I forgot to take it before.' Henry said.

'Okay, just wait. Let me ask one of the officers to get it for you,' the doctor said and began to walk towards the balcony while Ken and Henry waited at the two opposite sides of the road.

The doctor climbed the stairs up the balcony and began to approach one of the officers who also began to come closer on seeing him. As the doctor was about giving the instruction for the handkerchief, a missile hit the house and the whole place went up in flames.

The surroundings of the house were also affected, Inspector Ken and Henry were flung away into the bush by the vibration. Just few seconds after the first explosion, another missile hit the crumbled house again, more of the particles from the building were scattered abroad forcefully. Ken and Henry were lifted away from where they were previously flung to and moved to a farther distance by the second vibration.

After a minute of waiting without any more explosion, Inspector Ken rose out of the bush where he had been flung to with bruises all over his body and his forehead with a slight cut, he began to look for Henry. In few seconds, he was able to locate the place where the Henry was. He watched for few seconds more before crossing to the place Henry was. Henry had passed out already, his head hit the stump of a tree; he was bleeding badly. Ken pulled him out of the bush carefully. He took another look at the exploded house; he was sure that even the doctor could not have survived the explosion.

He lifted Henry to his shoulder and began to carry him slowly, hoping to get somewhere that was safe enough for him to help with any kind of first aid.

++++

'How are we sure that Henry EG has been killed now?' Aisha asked Cole as they entered back into the car.

'There is no way anyone in that building would survive what we just did to them,' Cole replied throwing the bag to the backseat.

'But how are we sure Henry is in that place? Wouldn't he have taken off the clothes he wore yesterday?'

'He would have taken it off, but he couldn't have left the house.' Cole said as he kicked off the engine. 'Let's visit the place before we leave.'

He began to drive in direction of the exploded house. He horned furiously at the villagers who were coming out of their houses carelessly to see the exploded house. The people gave way for him, wondering what kind of person was driving towards the place where everyone was running from.

***

'Drop me, drop me,' Henry forced himself down the Inspector's shoulder. The Inspector had not been able to go too far as Henry's weight which was almost more than his own slowed his steps.

'Inspector Ken,' Henry said after coming down from Ken's shoulder.

'Henry, you recognize me?' Inspector Ken asked in surprise.

'Yes, I recognize you.' Henry replied.

Officer Ken was glad but he knew it wasn't the right time to be rejoice yet, he turned around to look at the villagers who were staring at them on the road. He quickly approached one of the old men to ask for help, Henry followed him behind slowly and started a conversation with another villager, the villager made him move about a metre away from Ken.

'Sir, please can we get somewhere to hide right now?' Ken asked the man but the man stared at him helplessly as he couldn't understand English language.

'Papa, oni...' a young man tried to explain to the old man in their native language but their attention was drawn by a car that was approaching them. Ken turned to look at the car, the window by the driver's side gently rolled down and a gun was pointed out to Henry who was had his back turned to the car, he and the villager he was talking to didn't notice the car.

With all the strength remaining in Ken's body, he ran towards Henry screaming. 'Noooooo!' But it was late before Henry turned back, the gun was already fired, twice.









Inspector Ken received the bullets into his belly.

Read Part 2 - 6 on www.youngicee.com

Oyinprince:
Haba! I no dey kill people na Let's see Thanks man

lol, since u are d writer, u can do & undo

Tarasha dn dey mkae me vex sef.... Why she jx dey hell benton killing Henry... Make Henry no go b her downfall sef

pemzylabi:
Wow, This is what i call a story.. I cant tell you how to write your story but Tarasha is my best character in this story.... I really want her stay alive... You could just put a twist to it... Dont also want Henry to recover... I also want Dakolo dead... Lol

ya dakolo must die

Tarasha - Chapter 20 Part 2

'Damn it!' Cole exclaimed in anger as Ken shielded Henry from the bullets and the people dispersed in fear, Henry was also seen running away. Cole hurriedly reversed the car and angrily released two more bullets into Ken's body, then he opened the door and stepped out of the car with his gun.

'Drive the car and keep tracking me,' he said to Aisha, putting a piece in his ears which worked as a communication device and also a tracker. 'Tell me at once if the police or any threat comes into sight.' He said before running after Henry in the same direction he saw Henry take.

_________

'You're welcome sir,' Agent Dakolo greeted all smiles as he received the handshake offered him by the Vice President.

'I heard about your success in bringing Henry to town and back to the hiding place,' Chief Elvis said smiling, Dakolo nodded in affirmation. 'Congrats, I hope you've made success in other areas too.'

'We're trying sir,' Dakolo replied as he began to lead the man to the car they brought to take him from the airport.

The Vice president looked more refreshed, healthier and confident on his return. He kept on smiling as he watched the crowd of people and journalists who had come to have a view of him at the airport, the security officials were doing the bests in shielding the lookers from coming closer.

Dakolo watched as the chief's personal security officer opened the door to the back seat of the car for him, he waited for the Vice President to settle inside the car first before he hurried on to the car he was going with.

'You've had several missed calls sir,' Inspector Clem said to him as he entered into one of the cars which was going to be following behind the Vice President's.

'Let me see,' he replied, taking his phone from the Inspector.

'This is from the office,' Dakolo said as he stared at the missed caller's ID.

'Yes,' Inspector Clem affirmed and started the car engine. They began to drive slowly after the Vice President's car which had also moved, there were two other cars in front of the Vice President's car.

'I would call later when we get out of the airport,' Dakolo said as he dropped his phone and put on his seatbelt. Inspector Clem's phone began to ring.

'They're calling me from the office sir,' Clem said to Dakolo, not wanting to take his hands off the wheels.

'Oh! Maybe it's quite urgent then, let me call them right away.' Dakolo said and picked up his phone again, he waited for Clem's phone to stop ringing before he dialed the office number on his.

'Hello Agent, it's officer Koko answering ' a voice came through as the call was answered without delay.

'Officer, what's up?'

'Sir, there was a bomb blast this evening,' the voice announced.

Dakolo sighed, he hated to hear bad news like this especially at a time like this when he was planning to go home straight after they leave the Vice President. 'What time was that?' he asked.

'Exactly 5.55pm,' the officer replied.

Dakolo raise up his hand to take a glance at his wristwatch, it was 6.42pm. 'That's sad, but have you contacted the anti bomb squad?' he said; it was his friendly way of telling the officer that he had no business with the matter.

'Yes, I've told them already.' the officer replied.

'Good, they'll take care of it.'

'Sir, we've located the place and the police station in the area, we have sent some officers to the place.'

'I've heard you,' Dakolo said in a stressed tone, wondering why the officer was reporting details to him when he wasn't the IG or agent in charge.

'The place is Rugbe village sir, Abuja North.' the officer said.

'Ehn? What village did you call it?' Dakolo replied, half shouting.

'Rugbe Village sir, the AIG insisted that I get the information across to you,' the officer said.

'Thank you,' Dakolo said hurriedly and ended the call.

'Rugbe village sir?' Clem asked as they drove out of the airport but got no response from Dakolo.

Dakolo quickly dialed Ken's number but his call wasn't answered, he tried three more times before trying to reach the phone in the house which was used by the doctor but the line wasn't connecting at all. He tried some other officers numbers and none was connecting.

'You have to pull over here,' Dakolo said to Clem.

+++

Henry's heart was beating fast as he watched Cole searching all around for him. He froze in the bush and dared not to make any movement, Cole was carefully listening and would hear the slightest noise he makes. There was a white bird behind him in the small empty space picking somethings on the floor.

The whole village was dead quiet, everyone had run into their houses to hide themselves and their children. There was no other person in sight, not even the village security guards; Henry couldn't blame them, he was sure that the weapons and expertise they had could not conquer Cole, he also knew that the village may have never experienced such vandalization of property they had seen the bombs do to the house.

He saw Cole's face and recognized him at once, 'Tara's boy,' he whispered silently to himself.

He shook in fear as Cole looked towards his direction as if his whisper was heard. Then Cole noticed the shaking in the bush and began to move closer in his direction.

Henry was scared to death as Cole continued to march towards his direction with his eyes fixed there, then luckily for him the bird behind him flew out of the bush.

Cole hissed and turned back, then walked away from the place.

+++++

Aisha stopped by the side of the bush where the map on her phone was indicating Cole's location, in less than a minute, Cole came out of the bush. She gave way for him to enter into the driver's side.

'Did you find him?' Aisha asked after Cole kicked off the engine and drove away.

'No,' Cole replied bitterly.

'And we're going back?' she asked in surprise.

'Yes, do we have any choice? The police would soon be here and it would be difficult to leave then.'

'But what would the boss say?' Aisha asked in fear.

Cole gave her a sharp funny look, 'she won't say anything; we've done our best. We did the major thing she asked us to do, bomb the whole house.'

'But we missed our target,' Aisha said.

'We didn't miss our target, we brought down the house.' Cole insisted. 'We even went farther than she instructed, we went closer to the house to check and even pursued after Henry E.G.'

'But we still missed the target,' Aisha argued stubbornly.

'Yes, maybe we missed the real target though,' Cole said without showing much concern.

'The Boss would be mad at us,' Aisha said with her widened eyes staring at Cole, wondering why he was so confident.

'No she won't,' Cole replied with confidence. 'It's wasn't just the both of us that missed it, the boss missed it with us.'

'What do you mean by that?'

'She was quite sure that he'll be in the house, so she asked to take down the house believing that he would be in it.'

'But I'm scared,' Aisha said shaking her head thoughtfully.

++++

**2 hours later**

It was night already but the place was as bright as noon. The halogen lights placed there by the police officers helped them defeat the limitation of darkness in carrying out their investigations. Different police teams had flooded the scene of the bomb blast, the anti bomb and anti terrorism squad were scrutinizing the destroyed property and trying to locate where the bomb could have be placed while members of the medical team were carrying out the remains of the victims into the ambulances. Members of Dakolo's team were asking questions from the eyewitnesses of the explosion and taking down notes. Several journalists were also there taking pictures, videos and asking questions.

Dakolo who was supposed to be with his team leading the questioning couldn't do that but stayed with the medical team, looking at each body they carried out. He had seen Ken's body already and that had almost brought tears out of his eyes but he decided to hold it in because he was sure he would do worse when he sees Henry's body.

One after the other, the anti bomb squad brought out the bodies, this was the eighth body now and Henry's body had not been brought out; maybe because his room was at the far end of the building, Dakolo thought to himself. He was still looking out for Henry's body when Inspector Clem came to meet him.

'Sir, we found out that Inspector Ken wasn't killed by the bomb,' Clem said to Dakolo.

'Yes, I know; the officers I met here told me that.'the Agent replied, not bothering to take a look at Clem who was speaking from behind.

'And we also found out that he wasn't the real target of the shooter, Henry EG was.'

'Of course Henry was the real target of the bombers,' Dakolo said.

'I'm talking about the person who shot Ken sir; it was Henry who he wanted to shoot.'

Dakolo paused first to process Clem's words, then he turned to listen again, 'wait, do you mean Henry was with Ken when he was shot?'

'Yes, the eyewitnesses said that the terrorists were two; a male and female. They came in a red car and after the second explosion, they drove towards the house and saw Ken with Henry,' Clem tried to explain pointing towards the place where the car had met with Henry and Ken.

'I don't understand,' Dakolo said, stepping down from the hill with Clem, they began to walk towards the place.

'This is where Inspector Ken's body was found,' Clem said after they got to the place where the shooting happened. He was pointing to a blood stained place close to a tree in the bush. 'Henry was standing here, talking with one of the villagers; I spoke to the villager myself.'

'Okay,' Dakolo signaled for him to continue.

'He confirmed that Henry was talking with him when the red car drove close to them, a gun was pointed out from the driver's side and then pointed at Henry who had his back turned to the car. But Inspector Ken saw the gun first and shielded Henry, thereby receiving the bullets in his body.'

Dakolo heaved a sigh, not of relief but of pity. He knew that Ken was too experienced to just die after escaping from a bomb blast; especially in a place where there were several bushes and trees were he could hide.

'But how are you sure that Henry was the one with Ken?' Dakolo asked.

'Inspector Ken wouldn't have done that for a junior officer, the doctor and Henry EG are the only two people he could have done that for.' Clem said.

'That's true,' Dakolo agreed, nodding thoughtfully.

'Besides, the villagers seem to recognize Henry EG; they described him as the sick person who used to take a walk with the doctor and two officers.'

'But where's Henry now? What happened to him?'

'Sir, he could have been taken.' Clem replied in a sad tone.

'Taken by who?'

'The villagers said he ran this way,' Clem said pointing to a narrow path along the bush and the shooter got out of the car to pursue him. That was the last they saw of Henry E.G and the bombers.'

'Have you gone in that same direction?'

'Yes sir, we've searched everywhere.'

++++

Omotara and her brother Jeffrey were both seated in the living room after dinner, watching the channels TV news. About three times already, a breaking news segment had been broadcasted but details of the news was just being told.

'Our correspondent has been able gather information which proves that the house bombed was the place the police had hidden Henry EG to protect him from another assassination attack but as at this moment, it has been confirmed that a young man and woman carried out the bombing of the place. It has also been confirmed that nobody found in the house survived; this could mean that Henry EG had also died with other victims of the bomb blast. Thirteen people including Henry EG, Dr Tobi, three maids, Officer Ken and six other police officers were occupants of the place. Only six bodies have been recovered now; the bodies found includes Dr Tobi's, four police officers and a maid. A brief question segment with the anti bomb squad of the police reveals to us that there are still bodies yet to be brought out of the place.'

'Oh God, please preserve Henry's life,' Jefa cried with teary eyes. He covered his face with his hands and began to make some silent prayers. 'Did you know he was in Rugbe village?' Jefa asked his sister after he was done praying.

She didn't give a reply immediately but paused to think, she never wanted discuss Henry. She couldn't understand what she felt anytime his name was mentioned. She sometimes wished for him to survive and at other times was anxious to hear the news of his death.

'No,' she finally replied, trying not to show any feeling or empathy. She faced the television without taking a glance at her brother's face.

Jefa stared silently at his sister's face for a while before he spoke again. 'Why do you act as if you don't love him?'

Omotara's breath seized for a moment, she turned and stared at her brother's face. 'Love?'

'Yes, you love him and you pretend not to.'

She chuckled, 'I don't love anyone brother.'

'No Tara, you love Henry. I can see it in your eyes.'

'You see nothing in my eyes sir, you are misinterpreting. Right now, I'm tired and the only thing in my eyes is the crave for a restful sleep.'

'But he loves you too, so why are you resisting?' Jefa asked her in a serious tone.

She wanted to respond but she felt a lump in her throat. She stared at him for a while and then shouted in a loud voice, 'did he tell you he loved me or why are you pushing this so far?' she got up and began to walk to her room hurriedly.

Jefa just watched as she walked away, he was more convinced that she was in love with him. What he couldn't decipher was why she was hiding it, maybe Henry had done something grievous to her, he thought.

*

'Where are you now?' Tarasha said into the phone after locking the door to her room.

'I don't know the name of this place but our hotel is just thirty minutes drive from here,' Cole replied.

'Okay, I've listened to the news she I confirmed your job, well-done' she said.

'Boss,' Cole interrupted, not wanting her to commend him further. 'Henry wasn't killed,' he stated.

'Huh?' Tarasha eyes widened in shock. She didn't expect Henry to still be alive even after so many people have had to die for him.

____


'Who's there?' Henry could hear someone shout from inside the compound. He knocked the gate again and the person shouted the same way but this time closer to the gate.

'Can't you knock properly?' a man asked as he opened the gate to the village clinic. He looked more like a security man, though he wasn't dressed in any uniform. He gave a suspicious look at Henry who was looking like a war survivor.

'I've been knocking for some couple of minutes now,' Henry said and pushed his way into the compound. He began to walk straight into the clinic.

Soon, he was inside and was already being attended to by a nurse.

'Sir, you have to deposit five thousand naira for us to continue the treatment,' the nurse said after applying first aid to the wounds especially the bleeding places.

'I don't have any money here,' Henry stated.

'You don't have any money and you came in for treatment, do you think this is a free hospital?'the nurse shouted.

'I'll pay you,' Henry said confidently. The nurse stared at his face with questions in eyes like how he was going to pay without money. 'Don't you know me?' he asked.

She stared at his face for another one minute before she spoke. 'Are you the Henry, the NSCC man?' she asked.

'I'll pay you but not today' he said without responding to her question.

She didn't give any reply either but continued with the treatment. She bandage his head where he had a cut, his stomach and his arm. After a total of thirty minutes, she was through with him.

'I'll be back,' she said, cleaning her hand with a towel. 'You can lie on the bed if you want.'

He got up immediately she walked out and went to the door, he opened it slightly and peeped outside.



In ten minutes time , the nurse returned to the ward with an elderly nurse and a doctor but Henry was nowhere to be found.

CHAPTER 20 Part 3 to 7 is available on www.youngicee.com