‘To check out some houses, she’s trying to get a link to one of the Vice President’s dead victim’s relative.’

‘Was that victim an important person?’

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘I don’t know who to classify as important or non-important to her.’

‘That’s true,’ Henry gapped. He rested his back again and folded his arms. ‘I have been worried because she’s been acting strangely for the past few days, even though she tries to put on a different outward show. She’s been reading a lot. I think part of what she’s been reading is one of the books you gave her.’

‘I don’t understand,’ the doctor narrowed his gaze. ‘How is that supposed to be a problem? I believe she’s only trying to gather enough information and make plans.’

‘Seeing her read is not the problem, the strange thing is that for the last two days, she puts too much of her emotion into it. I can barely get her attention when she’s reading and I can clearly read signs of sorrow or pain on her face.’ Henry said in a sad tone.

‘I don’t know the cause for that, I just think she has a soft heart and she’s trying to make the best out of the books she’s reading.’

‘You really think she has a soft heart?’ Henry asked with a wry smile.

‘Yes, I do think so.’ The doctor replied thoughtfully. ‘Behind the assassin she is, is a soft hearted person who is easily hurt and who craves for love and attention.’

‘Hmm…’ Henry cleared his throat and then let out a breath. Maybe she was really soft hearted, Henry thought. At least, he knew that she wasn’t the same person she used to be when he first discovered she was an assassin. He knew her to be a ruthless killer at first, but in the recent times, he had seen her show pity and concern where he didn’t expect her to.’

‘I have to use the restroom now,’ Dr Ekwueme said as he got up to his feet hurriedly.

‘Okay,’ Henry nodded at him with a smile.

He stared at the remnant of his food for a while, he had totally lost appetite. He picked up the plates on the table and took them to the kitchen for Tomi.





As he walked back from the kitchen to the living room, he could hear the voices of Cole and Tarasha returning. He kept his gaze at the door even as he walked to the sofa in the living room. The door opened and Cole entered first.

‘Hey!’ Cole greeted Henry as he joined in the living room.

‘Welcome,’ Henry greeted back. He turned back towards the door as it opened for a second time. He was surprised on seeing the face of the lady who entered, he took a quick glance at Cole. ‘Cole, you came with someone?’ he asked in whispers.

‘Hi Henry,’ Cole was yet to answer him when Tarasha greeted.

Henry was more shocked and he stared at the new lady’s face who was walking towards the living room. Her voice sounded exactly like Tarasha’s voice and her walking steps were exactly the same. ‘Is this some kind of joke or something?’ he stared at Cole.

Cole gave no reply but fixed his eyes on the android phone he was using. Tarasha stopped and sat beside Cole on the long sofa.

‘Do we have any message?’ Tarasha asked, ignoring the confused look on Henry’s face.

Henry stared in shock for few more seconds before he was able to recover himself. Then he remembered he had seen the face before in the underground room of one of their previous operational base. He felt stupid for having not realized that what she was putting on was a skin mask. But he could still justify his stupidity because he had never observed anyone else using it apart from what he had seen in movies.

‘Tara, you’re putting on a mask?’ he asked, now feeling more relaxed. He remembered her answer to him when he had asked why she had a haircut the previous night and he realized it was so that she could use the mask.

Tarasha didn’t give a reply to his question but she repeated the one she asked him before. ‘Do we have any new message?’

‘Yes, two new messages.’ Henry replied. ‘One from Rex and another from Stephanie George.’

'Stephanie George?' Tarasha frowned. 'What does the girl want?' she asked herself.

'Yes, Stephanie George. She said she has some information about a particular person and would like to meet with you.'

Tarasha chuckled. She was amazed at the audacity of Stephanie to ask for a meeting with her. ‘What was Rex's message?'

'He sent the venue for a meeting with the Vice President,' Henry replied.

'What's the venue?'

'Online.'

'Online?' Tarasha frowned.

'Yes, he wants you to have a video chat with the man.'

'What the f***!' Tarasha flared up. 'The motherf****** thinks we're joking here.'

She got up from the seat and began to walk away from the living room.

'And there's another important information I got,' Henry quickly added with a loud voice to stop her. He got up from his seat and turned to her.

'What important information?'

'The Inspector General is trying to sneak out of the country.'

‘When?’

‘A day has not been chosen yet, I’ll let you know when it has.’

Presidential Quarters, Lagos.



'Vice President, she rejected the idea of the video chat.’ Chief Elvis heard Rex's voice from the phone speaker.

'What do we do then?'

'We have three options; insist on the video chat, fix a physical meeting or renew our threat on Chief Nonso's life.' Rex replied.

'I think it will be dangerous to agree for a physical meeting.'

'You're scared man,' Rex said with a chuckle.

'No, I'm just being careful.'

'No, you're scared.'

'Whatever you say Rex, what matters is the step to take next right now.'

'We don't have to be in a hurry, you only have to make sure you're protected and safe at all times.'

'I'm trying my best to be safe always but how do we know when she's trying to launch an attack?'

'I do not think she wants to kill you anymore, except what is has against you is a personal vendetta. But if she truly works with a sponsor or this Chief we have in our custody who you claim to be the sponsor, their purpose would be to get something from you.’ Rex answered.

'But I don't have anything they could be interested in, except wanting to tarnish my image so that I fail in my presidency bid,’ Chief Elvis said.

'That could just be it...'

'But…' Chief Elvis interrupted. 'The assassination attempts started before I declared that I would be contesting.'

'You should know better Chief, they already knew you were one of the most likely candidates.'

'You're right, so what is your plan?'

There was silence for a minute.

'When are you planning to leave Lagos?' Rex asked.

'As soon as I'm fit enough to fly.'

'Don't you have an idea when that would be?'

'A few days time, I believe. Two days at most.'

'Okay, that's fair enough. I would fix a meeting for us in few days time.'

'Where and when would the meeting take place, so that it doesn't clash with my activities?'

'I'll consider your schedule while fixing it,' Rex replied.

'Okay.'

______

The next day



12PM

Tarasha scrolled down slowly through the citizen's profile portal. It was until she got to the sixteenth ‘Lewis Andrew George’ option that she found the profile which matched the one she was looking for. She clicked on the more details link and was directed to the page showing the full profile. She began to read it carefully, she scrolled down to check his current address when she saw it clearly stated that the man was dead. She scrolled back up to see who the man's spouse was and found the name Atinuke George, she clicked on the name and waited till the full profile loaded. She was disappointed to scroll down and find it stated that the wife was also dead.

She heaved a sigh of frustration and fell back into the chair tiredly. A beep sounded on her phone. She slowly reached for the phone to check the message. It was an email from Rex, she clicked on the notification and the message read:

‘New Date for physical meeting fixed

June 26, the venue would be communicated later. ‘

She minimized the email application and opened the calendar to check how many days they had before the stipulated date. She returned to the email application and closed the message. She scrolled down the inbox to read the other messages which had been attended to by Cole and Henry. She saw the message from Stephanie George and skipped it at first, thinking it will be a waste of time to read it. After scanning through the other messages, she scrolled back up and incidentally stopped at Stephanie George’s message again. She finally decided to open it after giving it much thought. She began to read and the message almost seemed like an informal letter to her, with so many unnecessary details and words of thanks to her for saving her life and saving her from rape by the kidnappers. She got tired and yawned twice already but as she was about to close the message, her eyes caught a line that made her stop.

‘I have some information concerning the murder of Mr. Lewis Andrew George and I think it may interest you because the Vice President commanded their murder.’
_____



2PM

Presidential Quarters, Lagos.



‘Here sir, your drugs.’ The Vice President’s assistant said to him as he put the pack of drugs in front of the man on the dining table. A maid had just cleared the plates of food from the table.

‘Thank you,’ Chief Elvis said as he began to take the tablets out one after the other and use them according to the prescription.

The assistant arranged them back neatly and was about to leave when Chief called him back.

‘Hey! What about the errand I sent you on the night before the Hospital opening? You’ve not given me a response yet,’ Chief Elvis said.

The assistant seemed to be confused for a while and narrowed his gaze until he was able to recall.

‘Sir, I have the information we need already but I was hoping to tell you when you get better.’ The assistant replied.

‘No, tell me now, I’m ready to listen.’

‘We found Atinuke George’s location, she’s in a special care centre. She has a condition which makes her go wild occasionally and her memory isn’t fully intact.’

‘So, she goes wild only occasionally?’ Chief Elvis questioned.

‘Yes sir.’

‘That means she is calm most of the times,’ Chief Elvis said and heaved a sigh. He thought for a while, and then he nodded his head and began to speak. ‘Now that Samantha Osman is digging out everything against me, I do not want to leave any trace.’ He stopped and drew in a deep breath. He pondered for another couple of seconds. ‘I don’t want a situation where her memory would return, so I want you to take her out. Try make the death look as natural as possible so that the care center would not make noise about it, Atinuke has already been confirmed dead in records. Her daughter Stephanie George poses no threat to me because she doesn’t have the slightest idea of what happened to her parents, so we can leave her alive.’

‘When do you want her taken out?’

‘As soon as possible,’ Chief Elvis snapped, giving the man a sharp look. ‘But before her, I want you to take out Henrietta first. She could also become a threat to us later.’



To be continued

Read more episodes here - www.youngicee.com/category/tarasha-season-2

Good job Op Very interesting Following.........

u too much

please i love this book,please keep it comming oh

Tarasha 2 Chapter 16 Part 9
® 18+ SNVL
© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel
The next day.
8PM
ABUJA
‘Good evening mom,’ Stephanie greeted as she walked into the living room from the entrance door and proceeded straight towards her room without taking another glance at the woman.
‘Steph!’ Madam Henrietta called, making Stephanie stop abruptly.
She froze on that spot and didn’t turn back to look at the woman who called her. She had been avoiding the woman since the last two days when she burnt her highly prized documents.
‘Stephanie, why have you been avoiding me?’ Madam Henrietta asked in a sad tone.
Stephanie remained glued to her position, she closed her eyes and wondered what kind of response she was supposed to give the woman. She had truly been avoiding the woman because she had no choice. Or who would like to keep seeing the face of the woman who burnt the documents proving the injustice done to one’s family? The only mistake Stephanie believed she had made was remaining in the house and not going out to lodge in a hotel or stay somewhere else.
‘Stephanie, would you talk to me?’ Madam Henrietta continued. She had gotten up from her seat and was walking slowly towards Stephanie, only about a meter far from her now.
Stephanie remained frozen until Madam Henrietta’s hand touched her elbow. She twitched but still didn’t turn.
‘I’m sorry if I hurt you in anyway but you have to believe me when I say that everything I did is for your good and safety,’ Madam Henrietta said, trying to pacify Stephanie.
‘For my good and safety?’ Stephanie turned to her sharply with her eyes opened widely in disbelief. ‘How can you say burning documents that proves the guilt of my family’s killer is for my good?’
‘Stephanie, those documents do not prove anything. If they did, your father would have won the case years ago. The lawyer even advised me to do away with them after he gave them to me,’ Madam Henrietta replied.
‘Those documents prove their guilt mum, I know what I’m saying,’ Stephanie insisted in a loud voice.
‘Then why was the case never won?’ Madam Henrietta snapped.
‘It was not won because there were some other missing proofs,’ Stephanie replied back.
‘And the proofs remain missing because they never existed.’
‘No, you’re wrong mum, they exist. As a matter of fact I’ve found a lot of them.’
‘You’ve found what?’ Madam Henrietta asked with her brows raised and her voice now low.
Stephanie sighed and shook her head. She closed her eyes briefly, realizing that she should not have talked about finding more proofs.
‘Stephanie, have you really been investigating the same case that led your father to his death?’
Stephanie raised her brows and stared at the woman sharply. ‘How did it lead to my father’s death?’
‘It was this same case he was running up and down about when he had the fatal accident that almost wiped off the whole of the family.’
‘And have you ever thought that that accident could have been a planned one?’ Stephanie asked.
Madam Henrietta frowned, she was confused. She didn’t know what Stephanie meant by the accident being a planned one. ‘So you think your father planned the accident and deliberately wanted to kill himself and his family?’
‘No, I know certainly that the accident was planned by someone who wanted to destroy my family, the accident was arranged so that the deaths could be blamed on it.’
‘I don’t understand you, what are you talking about?’ Madam Henrietta said with a deeply frowned face.
‘My mum told me about the accident, she said Dad was feeling strangely unwell that day. They suspected he had been poisoned and decided to visit the hospital but it was unfortunate that the effect became stronger and uncontrollable while he was driving on the road and then the car also got crushed by a trailer whose driver had lost control.’
Madam Henrietta sighed and looked away. She wasn’t going to take anything said by Tinuke serious. Why should one accept words from a mentally unstable person?
‘I’m sorry for how this may sound, but I just have to say it,’ she started with a frank face. She held the girl’s arms at the two sides, right above the elbows and stared into her eyes directly. ‘Stephanie, you really need to stop listening to Tinuke, and even if you do, you shouldn’t be taking her words seriously.’
‘How won’t I take my mother’s words seriously?’ Stephanie said angrily, wriggling the woman’s grip off her body. ‘I know all of you think she’s crazy and that she says crazy things but to me she’s very sane and her words mean so much to me. There’s always truth in what she says.’
‘Stephanie,’ Madam Henrietta dragged in a long breath. ‘I know it may be difficult to convince you, but I’ll still tell you the truth anyways, if it’s Tinuke’s words you’re acting upon, then you are wasting your time. And then, it is also a waste of time to fight against Chief Elvis Richards, he’s the Vice President now, which means he’s more powerful than he was when your father fought him.’
Stephanie was angry and sad but the woman’s words still hit her down to the marrow. She stood on the same spot for a while, she tried to speak but no words could come out, her fingers and lips kept vibrating. She finally turned and walked straight to her room, leaving Madam Henrietta standing there.
The older woman watched her leave and hoped the girl would come back to her senses and realize that what she had embarked on was just a waste of time. She walked back slowly to her seat and sat back deep in thoughts.
Stephanie fell face flat into the bed as she got into the room. She was frustrated, confused and tired. She didn’t know whether to believe and accept Madam Henrietta’s words or just stick to believing her mum. Madam Henrietta could be right, she always got to the care center to get reports of the insane things her mother does but apart from the occasional outbursts which her mother seldom had in her presence, everything the woman says to her always made sense and happened to be true.
Was it also a waste of time to fight the Vice President? Did she really need to stop? She asked herself these questions. Was she doing something stupid? And who else would have the temerity to fight the Vice President?
She got an answer to her last question as she was about moving to the next. Samantha Osman. Samantha Osman was the other person she knew that was fighting against the President. She remembered the email she sent, she had monitored it and confirmed that it was delivered and read but it was almost forty hours after and no reply had come in yet.
She got up and sat in the middle of the bed. She picked her phone and quickly opened her email application, some new messages were there but she still refreshed it manually to check for other new messages which probably didn’t load automatically. The app was refreshed but there were no other new messages and no reply from Samantha Osman yet. She closed the app sadly and dropped the phone.
She felt pity for herself. It seemed she too was also going crazy, just like her mother. Nobody seemed to make sense from her words, even the lawyer which she had visited that evening had advised her to stop pursuing shadows. The only person who listened to her was Dave, and he wasn’t trustworthy.
Her phone rang and it brought her out of her frustrated state temporarily. She glanced at the screen, it was one of her coursemates and member of her SWAD team. She answered the call and spoke with the person for up to four minutes.
After the call, she got up and proceeded out of her room to get a cup of water and fruits from the kitchen. She walked through a passage which led to the kitchen and also branched to the living room. She looked through the opening which led to the living room as she got there, she was shocked at what she saw. The door of the living room was widely open. Two men in black were standing before Madam Henrietta in the living room, one was pointing a gun at Madam Henrietta while the other one was taking out an handkerchief from his pocket.
She froze on the spot in fear and watched them with terror in her eyes. The man with the handkerchief unfolded it and raised it to cover Madam Henrietta’s nose with it. Stephanie screamed out in fear.
‘F*** it! Some has seen us,’ the man with the gun cursed as both of them looked towards Stephanie’s direction. ‘Take care of this woman while I take care of her,’ he said as he pursued after Stephanie who had ran into the kitchen. ‘We need two others inside,’ he said into a communication device as he hurried.
‘Be fast with it,’ the second man said and watched his friend go. He dipped his hand into his pocket as he turned back to Madam Henrietta. He was trying to take out his gun so that he could put Madam Henrietta under control while he suffocated her with the gas in the handkerchief. Madam Henrietta however had her survival instincts come to play, she took advantage of his distraction and pushed him away with all her strength, but it was only enough to make him stagger back a little.

She got up and tried to run away but he launched forward and grabbed her back, he pushed her violently back to the sofa she was seated on. She tried to struggle with him but he quickly launched two blows on her face. She still held tightly to his chest and he dealt her more blows in her stomach and head until she was weak and unable to struggle anymore. He took out the handkerchief and quickly covered her nose with it even as she still struggled to set herself free.
The first thing Stephanie did when she got to the kitchen was to take out two knives from the cutleries store as weapons of defense in case any of the men come after her. She quickly proceeded to the door of the kitchen which led to the left side of the house and opened it. She could hear the footsteps of the man coming after her already. She pressed the two bulb switches beside the door to turn off the bulb in the kitchen and the one outside. She hurried out through the door. She wished to escape from there but couldn’t as leaving Madam Henrietta to the cold hands of death troubled her. She quickly hid herself in the darkness behind a faulty washing machine which was placed outside the kitchen door and waited for the man to step out.
Soon, she saw the image of the man in the darkness. He had rushed out and was staring to the front and back, wondering which she had taken and how she was gone so quick.
‘We found a girl here, man the front and make sure a girl does not escape, I’ll search through the backyard,’ the man said into a communication device and began to hurry towards the backyard.
Stephanie jumped out of her hiding place and attacked the man immediately, stabbing him at the back of his neck and in the left side of his belly.
The man dropped to his knees weakly and his body trembled before he dropped to the floor. Stephanie stood still on the same spot, her body trembling in panic of just murdering someone. However, she remembered that Madam Henrietta was still in danger and her guilt left her temporarily. She took the knife on the floor and removed the one by the side of the man’s belly. She turned back towards the house, hoping to be able to do something to save Madam Henrietta, that was if she wasn’t dead yet. She decided to enter through the front door because the man wouldn’t expect her to enter through there.
Just as she was turning into the front yard, she saw two other men already in front of the house. Another man was at the front of the door which she didn’t see. Unluckily for her, the two men heard sounds from her direction and spotted her as she tried to run back, they followed after her immediately.
The man in front of the door proceeded inside the house and stopped in the living room. He looked around but couldn’t find anyone except one of their colleagues lying lifelessly on the floor with the poisoned handkerchief beside his head. He pointed the gun around, there was no one else in sight. He proceeded forward slowly and carefully.
Stephanie ran as fast as she could towards the backyard of the house, ignoring the shouts of the men for her to stop. It was difficult for her to see in the dark as she charged forward, she was almost turning into the backyard when her leg hit an obstacle, she tripped and fell.
The fall was heavy. She tried to get up on her feet but she wasn’t as fast as she wanted. One of the knives she also held with her had cut into the skin covering her thumb as she fell and she was bleeding.
Before she knew it, the two men were standing around her and pointing the gun to her face. She sighed resignedly and stared at their faces in the darkness. She closed her eyes as she heard the cock of the gun. She quickly made a silent prayer for God to receive her soul in heaven as she expected the bullet to run into her forehead which the gun was pointed at.
No gun sounded like she expected, what she heard was a loud cry of a man. She opened her eyes to see that a third person had joined them. She couldn’t see clearly the image of the third person but could only see the two men that came after her wrestling with the new one.
One of the men tried to shoot at Tarasha but she grabbed him by the wrist before he could pull the trigger and twisted his arm. The first man which she had stopped with a jab rushed towards her but she pulled the man whose wrist was in her hand by his belt and made the rushing man slam into his partner. Both of them fell to the floor. She quickly picked the knife on the floor beside the dazzled Stephanie and proceeded to the first man on the floor, she dealt him a blow on the face before slicing the knife into his neck. The second man seeing what had happened to his friend tried to get up immediately, but she returned him to the floor back with a kick on his head. She then ran the knife into his chest.
‘Get up,’ she said to Stephanie, lending her a hand.
Stephanie gladly took her hand and got up. ‘Thank you for…’ she was saying when Tarasha grabbed her and quickly dragged her to the back of the house.
‘My mum, she’s still in…’ Stephanie was saying to Tarasha when she was interrupted.
‘Steph,’ Madam Henrietta called from behind. ‘Are you okay?’ the woman asked in concern.
‘’Mum, you’re alive!’ Stephanie exclaimed in surprise and rushed to hug the woman.
The both of them engaged each other in a warm and passionate embrace, forgetting totally the differences between them.
‘Shh…’ Tarasha hushed both of them, placing a finger on her lip. She stood at the edge of the back wall of the house and peeped. She saw a man coming towards the backyard with a gun in his hands.
Madam Henrietta and Stephanie stared at Tarasha with bewildered eyes, both breathing heavily. Tarasha bent down carefully and without turning back, she picked a big stone on the floor with her right hand.
She watched until the man walking forward with the gun got closer to the dead bodies, he was shocked and stopped to look at them. He quickly tried to take a phone out from his pocket but Tarasha took him by surprise and smashed the stone on his head. The gun in his hand dropped as he fell to the floor, Tarasha picked up the stone again and hit him once more on the forehead.
She returned quickly to the backyard to meet Stephanie and Madam Henrietta eagerly waiting for her.
‘You guys have to go now,’ Tarasha said to them. ‘You should wait for me at Goodluck Street.’
‘Why do we have to leave without you?’ Stephanie argued
Tarasha stared blankly at her. She felt like slapping her for questioning her instruction but she resisted the urge. ‘They still have some men, waiting outside at the front, I have to get them.’ Tarasha replied. She touched Stephanie on the shoulder and looked into her eyes. ‘I’ll be with you at the Goodluck street junction in thirty minutes, make sure I find you there.’
Before Stephanie could say anything, Tarasha had left them. She turned back to her mum and stared at her. ‘She says we should wait at Goodluck Street, let’s go.’
‘No!’ Madam Henrietta opposed, widening her eyes in fright. ‘We have to go to the police.’
‘We better not mum,’ Stephanie warned with her eyes widened back at the woman. ‘Let’s follow her instruction and wait for her.’
‘What?’ the woman was surprised at Stephanie’s reply. ‘Why should we follow a stranger’s instruction?’
‘She’s not a stranger mum,’ Stephanie answered.
‘Do you know her?’
‘Yes, I do. She’s…’ Stephanie stopped on a second thought. She had wanted to tell the woman that the lady was Samantha Osman but she thought again that it could increase the woman’s fear. ‘She’s a police officer,’ she lied.
‘Police officer?’ Madam Henrietta squinted, finding it hard to believe.
‘Let’s go to Goodluck Street Mum.’ She said and grabbed the woman’s hand.
Three other men sat in the Toyota bus quietly, waiting for their colleagues’ call or return. One was seated at the driver’s seat, another was seated with the driver at the front and the third was at the seat beside the driver’s.
Tarasha walked quietly closer to the bus. She stopped beside the driver’s side and stopped to talk to him.
‘Hey Honey! Would you love a smooth ride tonight?’ she said, using her fingers to separate the linen covering her cleavage.
‘Get lost LovePeddler!’ the driver replied, thinking that she was a sex worker like she presented herself to be. The driver was impatient for their other colleagues to return, he had been checking his time from time to time.
Tarasha didn’t move, she stood still and stared at the driver with a seductive look. ‘Honey, it doesn’t cost much, I can give you at a subsidized rate.’
‘Get lost, didn’t you hear me?’ The driver shouted in a loud voice, attracting the attention of the others.
‘Who’s she?’ the man beside the driver asked, looking towards the direction.
‘A slu*t!’ the driver replied.
Tarasha licked her lips seductively and bit the lower lip slightly as her eyes met with the second man. The third man at the seat behind the driver’s had also moved close to the window to see what was getting the driver angry.
‘I can fix the three of you tonight, I bet you all can’t match my strength,’ she boasted and eyed seductively.
‘Boss, I’ll kill this girl.’ The driver said angrily, turning to the man beside him.
That was all Tarasha wanted. She needed a person alive amongst them and needed to make her choice, the driver had helped her.
In a twinkle of an eye, she stretched her left hand into the driver’s side and her right hand into the back side. She pulled the two men by their shirt and dragged their heads out through the windows and smashed them against each other. The both men were caught by surprise and didn’t prepare to defend themselves. She drew out the knife from her back and slid it into the throat of the man behind the front seat. Then she quickly opened the driver’s door, making the man’s head hit the top of the bus and tilt backwards…
To be continued.

Tarasha 2 Chapter 16 Part 10
® 18+ SNVL
© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel
In a twinkle of an eye, she stretched her left hand into the driver’s side and her right hand into the back side. She pulled the two men by their shirts and dragged their heads out through the windows and smashed them against each other. The both men were caught by surprise and didn’t prepare to defend themselves. She drew out the knife from her back and slid it into the throat of the man behind the front seat. Then she quickly opened the driver’s door, making the man’s head hit the top of the bus and tilt backwards.
__
‘Mum, I’m bleeding.’ Stephanie screamed aloud as she noticed the blood on her hand.
‘Oh Dear! This is much,’ Madam Henrietta exclaimed.
They just got into a taxi, heading for the Goodluck junction where Tarasha had instructed that they wait for her. Stephanie had not realized she had been cut by the knife due to her anxiety and the darkness around the house did not help matters. She only noticed when she became calmer and observed the fluid on her hand. She was only lucky that the cut had not been too deep, but she had already lost a lot of blood and was weak already.
The taxi driver turned to look at them, he made a frown when he saw the bleeding, not happy because his seats could have gotten stained by the blood.
‘There’s a pharmacy right in front, I’ll just stop you there.’ The driver said.
He stopped them beside the pharmacy and the women stepped out of the vehicle to get first aid treatment for Stephanie.
_____
The man whom the driver referred to as boss was quick to pull out his gun but Tarasha was faster, she jacked up the driver by his neck and threw him on the man’s body, making him lose control of the gun. She gripped the both sides of the door and used it as a support as she jumped first on the driver’s seat and then sent a kick with her two legs simultaneously at the men. She turned sharply and placed her feet on the ground, she pulled the driver away from the boss and pushed him out through the window at the right side.
The man referred to as boss managed to open his eyes and stare at her. He looked confused beyond words. He wondered how the little LovePeddler had managed to take out two of his men in a brief moment already. He tried to reach for his gun but he realized it was far away.
He stared at her face again and opened his mouth to talk, ‘ Who are..’
She interrupted him with a blow on his face, then she picked his gun which had fallen to the floor in the bus. She opened the door and pulled the man out, then pushed him to the ground. She turned to the driver whom she had first pushed to the ground, she thought of shooting him but she changed her mind. She took out another short knife and slit in into his throat.
She turned back and faced the boss, he was yet to recover. She placed a knee on the ground beside the man and pulled him up by the neck, staring him in the face directly.
‘Hey Man, Get up. We got some talks to do,’ She said as she dragged him up to his feet. She pushed him, making his back lean against the bus and placed the knife beside his throat. ‘Who sent you here?’
The man growled, unwilling to give an answer.
‘I won’t ask you for a third time,’ she said, putting the knife deeper into his skin.
‘Stainless,’ the man managed to say.
‘He asked you to kill both ladies?’
‘No, he sent us to the old woman only but he told us to waste anyone that stands in the…’
Tarasha did not let him finish before she took him out with the butt of her gun.
_____
30 Minutes later.
Madam Henrietta and Stephanie arrived at Goodluck junction and began to look around for signs of Tarasha.
‘We’re ten minutes late,’ Stephanie said to Madam Henrietta.
‘She asked us to wait for her here, couldn’t she have waited when she didn’t see us?’ Madam Henrietta complained, looking around in confusion.
They stayed for five more minutes at the junction without seeing any sign of her and both of them were getting frustrated already when they heard a strange voice behind them.
‘Why did it take you guys so long to get here?’ Tarasha asked from behind, startling them.
Stephanie turned back sharply and ran into her arms. Tarasha was taken by surprise at the warm embrace but she didn’t resist. It felt odd at first but she heaved a sigh and decided to release her frozen body. She put her arms around the girl’s body and drew her closer.
‘Can we leave now?’ Tarasha said after breaking free from the hug, looking at Madam Henrietta who was staring at them strangely.
‘Where are we going to?’ the woman questioned in low tones.
‘Just follow me,’ Tarasha replied and began to lead them across the road.
Stephanie gave Madam Henrietta a reassuring look before holding her hand and pulling her along with them. Madam Henrietta had no choice than to follow, she somehow felt indebted to the strange lady for saving her from death.
She was already struggling for breath when the miracle happened. The man who was trying to suffocate her with the handkerchief suddenly fell to the floor after giving out a loud cry. It took her sometime to regain her breath and open her eyes and when she did , she saw the face of a young woman dressed in all black standing before her.
Stephanie got into the front seat of the car with Tarasha while Madam Henrietta sat at the back seat.
Tarasha took in a deep breath after putting on the seatbelt. She took off the wig on her clean shaven head and folded it neatly into a bag beside her. Stephanie stared at her with her lips widely parted.
‘Why did you cut your hair?’ Stephanie asked in amazement, trying to remember whether Tarasha was shaven the first time they met. She recalled, and couldn’t find any image of her been shaven in her memory. She remembered that there was a neatly plaited hair on her head that day and it didn’t look like a wig.
‘Wrong question at a wrong time,’ Tarasha replied coldly. She turned to look at Stephanie’s face and stared into her eyes for a while, it was obvious Stephanie still recognized her from the night she saved her from the rapist. She recalled that the makeup she disguised with was already fading at that time of the night when they first met and agreed it was easy for Stephanie to still recognize her. But she narrowed her gaze as she remembered something else, ‘I thought they said you lost your memory.’
Stephanie remained quiet for a while, she was uncomfortable with the question because of Madam Henrietta’s presence in the car. The old woman also did not know that she could recall everything that happened when she was kidnapped.
Tarasha could see the discomfort in her eyes and sensed it she didn’t want to talk about it in Madam Henrietta’s presence. She changed the subject, ‘Those men that attacked you, where do you know them from?’ she asked and turned to look at Madam Henrietta.
‘I don’t know any of them and I don’t know where they’re from,’ Madam Henrietta answered.
Tarasha turned to Stephanie.
‘I’ve never seen them either,’ Stephanie said.
Tarasha turned back to Madam Stephanie. ‘You were their target, who do you suspect?’
Madam Henrietta let of a gasp. She suddenly became afraid again. ‘Who?’ She began to pant. ‘I’ve not done anything for anyone to want me dead.’
Tarasha glanced back at Stephanie again before facing front. She stared blankly for a moment, thinking about how things would have turned out if she hadn’t been in Abuja that moment. She had tracked Stephanie’s address through the IP from which the email message was sent from and only planned to pay a surprise visit that night to force out some information but her plans changed when she got there. She realized that another group had gotten there before her. She arrived incidentally at the same time their bus arrived and noticed them first. She took some time to observe them and suspected their mission from viewing their body language. She followed after the three men when they went in but didn’t pass through the main entrance and it was why it took her more time to get in after they had.
She heaved a sigh before she pushed the start button to turn on the car engine, she also turned on the indicator and looked into the side mirror to view the cars coming from behind.
It took them extra thirty minutes to get to their destination. It was a house in Gwagalada. They had stopped on the way at a restaurant to get dinner for the three of them. Tarasha led them into the house and locked the door. She ushered them to the dining table and made Stephanie served the food for the three of them.
They finished the food in silence, with Madam Henrietta and Stephanie exchanging glances occasionally and also stealing glances at Tarasha’s face and expecting her to talk. Tarasha knew they expected her to begin a conversation but she remained silent and focused on the meal without returning any of their looks. Only when she finished the meal did she stand up, she took in a deep breath and took quick glances at the faces of the two ladies
‘You two would not try to move out of this place until I return, is that clear?’ Tarasha said calmly, but still maintained the authority in her voice.
‘We won’t,’ Stephanie was the one who replied, she had no problem with the instruction.
Madam Henrietta was also forced to nod in agreement when Tarasha placed her gaze on her face.
‘Good.’ Tarasha got up from the dining table and walked into the living room. She took out her wig from the bag and put it on again. She made it tight at the back to ensure that it wouldn’t fall.
Without another word, she walked out of the house and walked back straight to the car.
‘I thought you said she is a police officer,’ Madam Henrietta questioned, staring at Stephanie’s face for explanation.
‘Yes, I said so.’ Stephanie answered and got up to her feet. She proceeded towards the window and opened the curtains slightly to see what Tarasha was up to.
‘Are you sure she is?’ Madam Henrietta asked, also walking into the living room. ‘Have you seen her on uniform?’
‘No, I haven’t. But other police officers said she was also a police officer on national TV.’ Stephanie turned back before answering the woman. She opened the curtain again to look.
Tarasha was at the back of the car now, standing behind the opened boot. She pulled something up and dragged it to the floor. Stephanie opened her mouth in shock. It was a man. The man was tied up and locked in the boot of the car in which they all came in and she and Madam Henrietta did not notice. The man legs and hands were tied, his mouth was also covered with a tape.
Tarasha took off the tape from the man’s mouth and bent down to speak to him, Stephanie couldn’t hear what was being said. After a minute, she closed the boot of the car and dragged the man in his tied state into the car. She dropped him at the backseat and entered into the driver’s side.
‘What are you looking at?’ Madam Henrietta asked curiously, walking towards Stephanie to also have a look.
‘Nothing,’ Stephanie replied and closed the curtain.
Madam Henrietta stopped behind and stared at her for a while. ‘Are you sure you know who this woman is?’
‘Yes, I know her. She’d be back soon, we’re safe here.’ Stephanie replied and walked back to sit in the living room.
Madam Henrietta proceeded to the window and opened the curtain. The only thing she saw was the car driving out. She proceeded to the door of the living room and tried to open it by turning the knob.
‘The door is locked from outside,’ She said to Stephanie with panic written all over her face.
‘We’re not planning to leave, are we?’ Stephanie replied confidently. She crossed her legs and rested her back.
Madam Henrietta stared at her for a couple of seconds. She was baffled about Stephanie’s confidence and attitude, she concluded that Stephanie must know about and have a hand in what was going on.
‘Steph, you have to tell me what’s happening here,’ she said and proceeded straight to the girl, determined to make her explain everything to her.

Chap 16 Part 10 cont'd

‘Hey dude! Now you’ve gotta talk plainly to me,’ Tarasha said after dragging the tied man into a dark room. The only source of light in the room was her phone’s flashlight which was placed in her trousers front pocket.
She pulled him up by the collar and made him rest his back against the wall.
‘I can’t tell do what you’re asking to do, I would be hunted till he finds and kill me.’ the man voiced out, looking away from Tarasha’s face as she squatted right in front of him.
Tarasha placed a knee on the ground. She pulled his hair and made him look her straight into her eyes. ‘Who’s going to kill you? I can kill him before he gets the news that you told me,’ Tarasha offered.
‘Who are you?’ the man underrated her in his mind. ‘A lady like you can’t kill him.’
‘I’m Samantha Osman, who is he and why can’t I kill him?’ she replied.
The man widened his eyes in shock. His lips trembled and he swallowed hard in fear. He didn’t know whether to believe her or not. The lady in front of him did not look like Samantha Osman but considering her strength and actions, it could mean she truly was who she claimed to be.
‘Stainless gave me the job,’ the man finally voiced out, taking his chance.
‘The same one who worked with Don Dan?’ she asked the question she did not ask at the first time he mention Stainless’ name.
‘Yes, he’s number one in Nigeria now apart from you, the visitor, Samantha Osman.’
‘He isn’t number one,’ Tarasha said and got up to her feet. She thought for some seconds and knelt again. ‘What if you work with me?’ she offered temptingly. ‘It could save you from Don and help you secure your future.’
The man only stared at her for minutes without coming to a decision.
She finally rose up when he wasn’t saying anything. ‘I still need Stainless alive, so I won’t be taking him out soon. That gives him enough time to know that you’ve betrayed him and hunt for you. Since you have made a choice not to work with me, I’ll have to leave you to face his wrath. I’ll kill him when it’s time. Goodbye,’ she said and began to proceed towards the door.
‘I will work with you,’ the man let out a muffled sound.
Tarasha turned back and made a crooked smile at him. ‘Good,’ she proceeded back towards him. She took off the ropes from his hands and feet, ‘I’ll let you leave and work with me. But you should understand that you now owe your allegiance to me, you sign not only your death warrant the day you betray me, you also sign your entire family’s death.’
The man trembled in fear.
‘I was already making moves for your family,’ she said, taking out a phone from her back pocket. ‘I sent the picture of you I took to my team member and they got your profile already,’ she stopped and unlocked the phone. She opened an app and displayed it to him. It showed his full profile and passport, his address, his legal occupation, his wife and kids and some of his family members’ name.
The man opened his mouth in shock. His heart began to beat faster and his body trembled more.
‘Forget that you saw that,’ Tarasha said with a smile and returned her phone. She took out another from the second pocket and handed it to him, ‘Here’s the phone I took from your pocket. Do you have Stainless’ number there?’
The man nodded in affirmation.
‘When is he expecting a reply from you?’
‘He asked me to get back to him as soon as the woman got killed,’ he replied in low tones.
‘Now, call him and tell him that your mission has not been successful yet, but you got the woman under watch.’ Tarasha said. ‘Place it on loud speakers,’ she quickly added as he began to use the phone. She took out her own phone again and unlocked it, she opened the tracking application and clicked on the man’s phone details which she had already stored on it.
The phone began to ring and the call was answered in less than a minute.
‘Alex, what’s up man?’ Stainless voice sounded through the loud speakers.
‘Stain, the woman wasn’t found at the expected place, but we still have her under watch and we will drop her as soon as we get the best opportunity to make it look natural.’ Alex replied.
‘What the hell are you talking about?’ Stainless replied angrily. ‘You can’t drop a harmless woman in one night.’
‘I’m sorry Stain, we should have dropped her if we weren’t following your instructions to make it look natural.’
‘You’re sick in the head, when are you going to get it done?’
Alex quickly glanced at Tarasha.
‘Tomorrow,’ she whispered to him.
‘Tomorrow,’ Alex said into the phone.
‘Get it done tomorrow man, we have someone else to drop here but that must be done first. So don’t delay my job, you get me?’
‘Yes, Stain.’
Tarasha copied the location gotten from the tracker and pasted into the text message box.
‘Locate this place and start a survey,’ she typed under the location and sent the message to Cole.

continue reading here - www.youngicee.com/category/Tarasha-season-2

TARASHA 2 CHAPTER 16 PART 11
® 18 + SNVL
© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel
‘What’s Tarasha up to?’ Henry asked Cole. They were both seated in the dark room where a few laptops were set up. Henry had been the one who fished out the details of Alex when she sent them the picture.
‘I’m not sure,’ Cole replied coolly. ‘But I know we are about to do some a*ss kicking at this location she just sent.’
Henry watched as Cole extracted the required details from Tarasha’s text message and typed it into the request box displayed on the map software. Cole tapped the enter button and the request began processing.
‘I think she’s up to something with Stephanie George,’ Henry hinted, staring thoughtfully. ‘I saw Stephanie George in some of the footages while clearing the NSCC records you asked me to.’
‘And what sort of information would Stephanie have that would interest the boss so much?’Cole asked.
‘We can’t tell, she didn’t sound interested when I told her that day that the lady sent a mail but I believe she reconsidered the message after seeing it.’
‘Whatever it is, the boss would let us know when it’s time,’Cole said. He looked at the laptop screen, the request had finished processing. He zoomed the result displayed and clicked one of the options he found there.
____
Location: Gwagalada, Abuja.
11:15pm
Tarasha stepped into the living room and closed the door gently. The two ladies she left there had slept off already and had no idea that she had come in.
She stopped beside the centre table and stared at both ladies’ faces for a moment. Stephanie was laying on the three seater while Madam Henrietta was in one of the one seater couches.
‘Hello Ladies,’ Tarasha began after clearing her throat. ‘Hello!’ she called again.
Stephanie was the first to stir awake and turn. Tarasha noticed again the bandage on Stephanie’s left hand as she sat up, she remembered having seen the bandage when Stephanie was serving the food but resisted the urge to ask what happened to her in order not to send a message that she cared about the girl. She wanted them to see her as a deadly assassin and not a weak lady who could be moved by emotions, but she couldn’t resist the urge to ask anymore, it felt like the injury was on her own hand. ‘How did you get that wound?’
Stephanie took a glance at her palm where Tarasha’s eyes were fixed and let out a smile. ‘I had a knife cut when I fell earlier tonight,’ she answered.
‘Okay,’ Tarasha muttered under her breath. She hated the happy smile Stephanie gave even though it calmed her mind. She moved her gaze to Madam Henrietta who was still asleep. ‘Wake her up,’ she flashed a look at Stephanie.
‘Mum,’ Stephanie called, getting up her seat to Madam Henrietta’s seat.
‘I’ll be back in two minutes,’ Tarasha said and proceeded into the inner rooms.
She returned two minutes later and met both Stephanie and Madam Henrietta wide awake and waiting for her.
‘Sorry, I had to disturb your sleep, I needed to tell you that we would be travelling tomorrow morning. You have some hours to prepare, you don’t need to worry about clothes or other similar items, I’ll cover that up for you.’ Tarasha said. ‘I’m telling you now because I want no resistance when it’s time to leave tomorrow.’
‘But why are we travelling? Where are you taking us to? I don’t even know who you are,’ Madam Henrietta opposed. She was confused and tired of listening to Tarasha’s orders. ‘We are supposed to report the attempt on our lives to the police immediately, but here we are; you locked us somewhere we don’t know and you’re giving us orders without explanation.’
Tarasha let out a devilish chuckle and kept a frowned face. She hated being questioned and her mind boiled with anger at the audacity the woman had. She narrowed her gaze at the woman’s body and stared at her face for a brief moment. She thought about leaving the Madam behind and going only with Stephanie who she came for but she also thought that the woman may have more to offer than Stephanie had. Since Stainless was the person who sent assassins to them, there could be a possibility that the Vice President also had a hand in it.
She suddenly remembered something and stared more intently at Madam Henrietta’s face. She could now tell why the face looked familiar at first. She recalled that Madam Henrietta was the lady seen beside the Vice President as he walked down the airplane on his arrival to Lagos. She realized that Madam Henrietta could be a good asset to her if treated well.
Her rage left her and she let out a forced smile. ‘I’m sorry I may not be able to explain that to you right now. But the choice is yours, you may come with me and be safe or you may chose the police and get handed back to those who tried to kill you.’
Madam Henrietta stared cluelessly at her and was troubled greatly in her mind. The strange lady whom Stephanie called a police woman spoke so boldly and didn’t look harmless, but it was still difficult to trust a lady who took out several men singlehandedly.
‘There are three rooms in this apartment, you can sleep in any room of your choice.’ Tarasha said before sitting on one of the sofas.
‘Can we talk first before I go to bed?’ Stephanie asked carefully.
‘We would talk when I say it’s time to talk,’ Tarasha replied without looking at her.
6AM
Still deep in sleep, Madam Henrietta could feel someone’s warn hands grip her left palm. The person gently shook the hand and a soft voice followed. ‘Please wake up, we need to talk.’
She managed to open her eyes but her retina struggled for some seconds to accommodate the bright light in the room. She yawned and stretched and only remembered where she was when her eyes opened fully. She sat up quickly, resting her back against the headboard as she stared at Tarasha.
‘Don’t panic ma’am, I got some few questions to ask before I allow you make the choice of travelling with me or not.’ Tarasha began, looking deeply into the woman’s eyes. ‘I want you to tell me nothing but the truth, would you do that for me?’
‘I have no reason to lie to you,’ the woman replied.
‘What’s your relationship with the Vice President?’ Tarasha asked sharply, even before the madam finished talking.
She was shocked by the question and couldn’t hide it in her facial expression. She stared at Tarasha for a while, with her lips slightly apart.
‘Chief Elvis is my friend, we met several years before he became the Vice President.’ She finally replied.
‘What kind of friends are you? How close are you? How and when did you meet him?’
‘I can’t really say what led to our friendship but I’ll say we met how other friends do meet. I think we first saw each other at an event and we exchanged numbers.’
‘How close are you to him?’
‘I used to be close to him at some point but he got married and as he grew higher in politics, we began to talk and see less.’
‘So you are no longer close?’
‘Yes, we aren’t.’
‘When last did you meet him?’
Madam Henrietta took sometime to think before answering. She wondered why the questions were being asked and what the purpose was. She decided not to open up, as she still wanted to hide her relationship with the Vice President from Stephanie. ‘I can’t remember, it’s been a while.’
Tarasha paused for a second, she narrowed her gaze and stared thinly at the woman. ‘You just broke the only promise I asked you to make, you just lied.’
Madam Henrietta raised a brow.
‘I’ll give another opportunity for you to help yourself, when last did you meet him?’
Madam Henrietta thought for some more few seconds, she decided that she wouldn’t be intimidated by Tarasha’s tactful acts and would maintain her stand. ‘I’ve not seen him for…’
‘What the hell were you doing with him in the Presidential flight to Lagos?’ she slammed.
Her heart missed a beat and then began to beat faster than usual. The look on Tarasha’s face had changed totally and Madam Henrietta knew it would be dangerous to keep lying to her.
Her lips trembled for a while. She closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath.
‘What were you doing with him in Lagos?’ Tarasha asked again, this time in a calmer voice. She got up from the bed and began to pace about the bed length slowly.
‘He needed to ask me something about the past and we settled it that day,’ she replied.
Tarasha stared blankly at the wall. ‘How do I know you’re not lying to me about that?’
Madam Henrietta remained in silence, trying not to be quick to answer. Another thought struck her mind. Maybe this Lady was Stephanie’s friend and she probably was the one who had seen her with the Vice President in Lagos and told Stephanie about it which made Stephanie accuse her.
‘I helped him organize a party during his term as the deputy governor of Lagos State and he wanted to find out some things about those I worked with,’ she replied.
‘Is that all you did together?’
‘Yes, nothing else.’
Tarasha let out a threatening chuckle and stared at her face thinly. Madam Henrietta looked away. ‘He didn’t discuss anything about his past sins with you?’
Madam Henrietta looked at her sharply. ‘His past sins?’ she frowned.
‘Yes, his past sins.’
She was getting more confused and she didn’t know whether to continue hiding the truth from her or tell the truth. But she still didn’t want to lose Stephanie’s trust and she wasn’t sure that Stephanie would not hear it from Tarasha if she let it out.
Tarasha took out her phone, she punched in some numbers and dialed. She turned back to Madam Henrietta and walked closer, she fixed her eyes on her face and stared narrowly into her eyes, ‘What do you know about his past sins?’
‘His past sins?’ the woman answered shakily, the look on Tarasha’s face was now terrifying. ‘He didn’t tell me anything about his sins,’ she replied.
Tarasha returned the phone into her pocket. She placed her left foot at the edge of the bed close to Madam Henrietta and placed her left elbow on it, resting her jaw in her palm. She squinted at Madam Henrietta’s face, ‘What about you? What are the past sins and secrets that you know from your association with him?’
‘I’ve not discovered any of his secrets yet, he keeps them carefully,’ she replied in shaky voice.
A knock sounded at the door and it startled Madam Henrietta. Tarasha took a quick glance at the door and spoke, ‘Come in.’ She turned back to Madam Henrietta, ‘Which of his secrets are you covering for him?’
Madam Henrietta’s eyes met with Stephanie’s as the latter moved closer to them. She looked again at Tarasha’s face. The fear in her mind increased, her heart began to pump faster.
‘I’m not covering any secret for him,’ she answered, this time sincerely.
‘Then why did you burn up the documents that prove his guilt?’ Tarasha asked in a loud threatening voice. She glanced at Stephanie who had just entered and didn’t know what was going on. Tarasha had come into her own room earlier to discuss with her but never told her that she was going to discuss with Madam Henrietta too. What Tarasha had told her was that when she saw her call, she should go into Madam Henrietta’s room and try to convince the older lady to travel with them.

16 Part 11 cont'd

‘Which f****** Nicholas are you? The last Nicholas I saw died in a septic tank,’ Stainless replied more coldly, he seemed to be having a bad day.
‘Nicholas of the X-Gang, the one you met in Markurdi six years ago.’
‘You? You’re a crazy nigga, what do you want from me?’
‘I need to see you man, I heard you are in Lagos. I’m around your base in Rael University Area, can I come over?’
‘Who the hell told you I’m in Lagos? And what the f*** you wanna see me about?’
‘It’s complicated man, I tell you, but it involves a lot of money. Are you in your base?’
‘No, the f***** base was raided months ago when your stupid friend Don Dan met with Samantha Osman.’
‘So where can I meet you?’
‘I’m in Rael Area, meet me at BT Close. I hope what you bring really involves a lot of money.’
‘Okay, I’ll be there in few minutes and I’ll give you a call.’
Nicholas ended the call and stretched his hand to return the phone.
‘Hold the phone,’ Cole said to him. He looked at the other men’s faces, ‘It’s time, we’ll watch where he comes out from. Take him as a hostage first and then attack the base if we still find it necessary.’

Read more here - www.youngicee.com/category/tarasha-season-2

Guys, join me on this thread and read an awesome crime thriller

https://www.nairaland.com/4627778/baby-me-crime-story

Oyinprince:
Guys, join me on this thread and read an awesome crime thriller

https://www.nairaland.com/4627778/baby-me-crime-story

You are yet to finish Ordinary Tarasha , you are jumping to another rubbish story.


will you getawt from here?

Couldn't believe I could meet up.
Following steadily
Oyinprince I hail brotherly

Tarasha 2 Chapter 16 Part 12
® 18+ SNVL
© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel
‘I’ve found him,’ Nicholas said into the mouthpiece attached to his chest, looking from the driver’s side where he sat.
Stainless had just gotten to the BT close junction and was looking around for signs of Nicholas. He spotted a red car at the other road carriageway and stared at it for a couple of seconds. Then he took out his phone and was about to redial the number that called him last but he saw someone step out from the driver’s side of the car. He exited the dial pad and returned the phone into the pocket.
He stared in wonder at Nicholas who was now watching the road so as to cross and meet him. He wondered if the car Nicholas had come out from was his or was borrowed. If it was his, then it meant that Nicholas had hit the jackpot and was now making more money. The Nicholas Stainless used to know was a local assassin who used to carry out petty jobs most of the times and was only involved in bigger jobs when Don Dan needed his services.
‘Stain,’ Nicholas stopped beside him and greeted with a crooked smile.
‘Nicholas,’ Stainless replied and extended his hand for a handshake. He was still staring at the car, not because it was bigger than what he could afford but he was surprised as to how Nicholas got the money for the vehicle, did it mean Nicholas was now handling bigger jobs?
‘Where do we talk?’Nicholas asked him, looking around.
‘Do we plan to talk for a long time?’Stainless asked, considering leading Nicholas to where he came out from.
‘No, it’s a brief talk but we need to be comfortable.’
Stainless looked around one more time. ‘I was in a Game House with my guys, would you come there with me?’
‘A Game House?’ Nicholas looked around briefly again, his eyes lingered on his car for a longer time. ‘Can I pick my car and park somewhere here and we can talk inside?’
Stainless stared at his face for a while, he wasn’t too comfortable with the idea of staying in Nicholas’ car to talk but it was still a better option than the noisy Game House. He hesitated for a while but finally agreed, ‘Let’s just cross and get in.’
They crossed to the other side of the road and stopped beside the bed. Nicholas opened the driver’s seat in order to unlock the other doors.
‘You have something on that seat,’ Stainless said as he turned to the passenger’s side.
Nicholas eyes fell on the bag at the passenger’s side, he hissed and stared for a second. ‘Please, can we use the back seat?’ he said as he released the doors to the backseat, acting as if he didn’t want to move the load on the front passenger’s seat away.
Both of them entered into the backseat and settled in. Nicholas turned on the air conditioner of the car and they began to talk.
‘I have a simple deal for you, it only requires you to give me few words.’ Nicholas began, having Stainless listening to him attentively. ‘It should not take more than ten minutes for us to complete this whole deal and I’ll pay you five hundred thousand naira right here.’
Stainless squinted at Nicholas’ face. He wondered what Nicholas wanted from him that he was willing to pay half a million naira for in ten minutes and how Nicholas even had that kind of money. ‘What deal could you want to make with me?’ he asked in low tones.
‘It’s simple,’ Stainless drew in a short breath. ‘You’ve been working for the Vice President recently, and you sent Alex to kill a particular Madam Henrietta yesterday but he couldn’t…’ Nicholas paused to look at Stainless’ face, he noticed the surprise and continued. ‘I want to know why you want to kill her and what you are planning to do after that.’
Stainless was shocked beyond words. His mouth was left agape and his eyes opened wide. He wondered where Nicholas got the information from and what the intention was. He was more bothered at Nicholas’ audacity to even ask him. He realized that he was in a dangerous position; in the car of someone who knows something that should be his secret. He tried to open the door but as he turned to the other side, someone was already standing beside the door. He placed his fingers on the inner door handle but the door was opened by the man outside before he could open it. The man entered into the car holding a gun, he pushed Stainless into the middle of the seat.
Two other men entered the car, one into the driver’s side and the other the passenger’s side.
Stainless knew he had gotten into a trap. He blamed himself for being so stupid and not suspecting that Nicholas was up to something. He stared at Nicholas’ face with a mean look, wishing he could lay his hands on his neck that moment but there was a gun in Nicholas’ hand now and the gun touching his belly placed by the man at the other side stopped him from making stupid moves.

16 Part 12 cont'd

Nicholas had a crooked smile on his face and stared back straight into Stainless’ eyes unblinking.
‘Stainless,’ one of the men seated at the front seat called.
Stainless turned slowly to the front, he looked at the man at the passenger’s side whom the voice had come from. He squinted as he stared at the side view of the man. The voice sounded like one which he had heard before but he couldn’t recognize the face from the side.
‘Stainless, you haven’t given an answer to Nicholas’ request,’ Cole said, looking at Stainless’ face through the rearview mirror.
Stainless’ eyes fell on the rearview mirror and his eyes met with that of Cole. Their eyes locked for a moment before he looked away.
‘Cole, what do you want from me?’ Stainless asked, still keeping a mean look and trying to act like a boss.
‘Exactly what Nicholas requested from you,’ Cole replied, still staring at him through the rear view mirror. ‘You tell us the truth without struggles and you go with the five hundred thousand naira, but if you make us force it out of you, you get nothing but we’d still get what we want. Either ways, we win.’
‘And what makes you think I will give in to you or that you can force it out from me?’ Stainless questioned.
Cole closed his eyes for a moment, he stared at the mirror again and let out a short chuckle. ‘I’ll give you the last opportunity to take the five hundred thousand naira offer, and if you refuse, we’d go by it the hard way.’
‘F*** you Cole, I ain’t taking any offer.’ Stainless slammed.
‘Then, we’d do it the hard way,’ Cole said and turned to look back for the first time since he entered the vehicle. He smiled evilly at Stainless and then winked at the guy beside Stainless. The man took out a syringe from his body and drove the needle into Stainless’ shoulder. Stainless eyes closed and he fell into an unconscious state immediately.
‘Nice job Nicholas,’ Cole commended and then turned to the driver. ‘You’ll take him to the base and we’d meet you guys there.’
With that Cole and the third man at the back seat stepped out of the car. They waited at the roadside and only proceeded after the car drove off.
‘Get the other car to the opposite side, and meet me in the Game House.’
12:30PM
Madam Henrietta’s could not put her mind to rest for the few hours they had used on the journey. She could not seem to comprehend the reality that she was travelling in the same vehicle with the deadly assassin. Her greatest confusion was still the fact that Stephanie was comfortable with it.
It was a Toyota sienna jeep, Tarasha was alone at the backseat while Madam Henrietta and her daughter at the middle seat and the driver alone at the front.
Tarasha lay with her body partially on the seat and her legs raised up and leaning by the side of the window glasses. She held an android phone with her two hands across her chest and her fingers were working on the keypad. The phone beeped, signifying the entrance of a new message. She swiped down the notification bar and clicked on the WhatsApp notification.
‘Stainless hasn’t budged yet,’ she read the message from Cole.
‘We shouldn’t expect him to budge easily but have you found out anything else?’ Tarasha typed and sent in the reply.
‘We haven’t been able to connect any part yet, the other guys with him do not know the full plan. All we know is that they’re waiting for the death of Madam Henrietta to drop someone else. We have one other person who is also close to Rex as hostage but I’m not sure he knows the plan too.’
‘You’ve got no idea of the person they want to drop after Madam Henrietta?’
‘Yes, we have no idea. Stainless seems to be the only one who has, I’m not too sure of the other hostage.’
‘Keep trying to break the both of them and also track down anyone that tries to contact them.’
1:30PM
‘Cole, his phone is ringing,’ Nicholas said to Cole as he entered into the dark room.
Cole was seated there alone with his laptop and a cigarette in his hand. He turned to look at Alex who was walking towards him. ‘What’s the caller’s ID?’
‘Rex,’ Nicholas answered.
Cole’s eyes widened and he took in a deep breath at the sound of the name. Alex got to him and handed the phone to him. Cole stared at the screen for a while, the phone was ringing again. He couldn’t answer and only waited until the call ended.
‘Have you tried to track the location of the caller?’
‘Strangely, the call has no source.’ Nicholas replied.
Cole nodded, he wasn’t expecting Rex to be trackable.
‘What about the guys that went to get Tobi’s mother?’ He asked Nicholas. Tobi was Stainless’ close partner. Cole and his partner who waited to go into the Game House had tricked him out of the place and brought him with them as the second hostage. Tobi didn’t seem to have the information they needed but they found out that he had also had personal contact with Rex and planned to use him get information from Rex.
‘I called them few minutes ago, they should be here in fifteen minutes time,’ Nicholas answered, after taking a glance at his wristwatch.
‘We’ll wait till they arrive,’ Cole said to Nicholas. He silenced Stainless’ phone which was just given to him and dropped it on his table. Then he nodded at Nicholas as a sign of dismissal. He put the cigarette in his mouth and took a deep drag.
25 Minutes later
Tobi could hear the footsteps sounds coming towards the direction of the room where he was tied. He wondered if the men were coming to torture him more or they were coming to release him, after all, he had told them he didn’t have the information they needed and he was not going to give them no matter what they did to him. He had already sustained so many injuries on his face and body as they tortured him but he was determined not to give in.
Tobi was a short heavily built man with strong muscles. He led a pack of touts in Lagos and worked hand in hand with Stainless whenever the latter had a job in the state. The only cases where Stainless would not work with him were when the job at hand was not given directly to Stainless.
The door opened some seconds later and Cole came in first, leaving the door open. He stopped in front of Tobi, giving two metres space between them.
‘I have a surprise for you boy,’ Cole said to Tobi with an evil smile.
Tobi gnarled at him. He had known Cole for a long time and knew him as he grew in rank with Don Dan. They had never been at peace even though they had known each other for a long time, reason being that Cole was Don Dan’s man while Tobi was on Stainless’ side. Cole wasn’t a match for him when it comes to physical strength and combat but Cole was far better with guns and cars.
Tobi felt like pouncing on Cole but he was handicapped by the strong ropes used to tie him to the chair. He felt foolish for having been deceived by Cole. They had lured him with money just like they had done with Stainless and he foolishly got into the car with them where they forced a syringe needle into his arm.
Tobi could hear sounds of more footsteps coming towards the place but he still fixed his eyes on Cole’s face until Cole turned sideways to the door and spread his hands wide as if to usher someone in from the door.
Tobi looked at the door and was shocked on seeing the person who entered first, his mother flanged on both sides by two men, her hands and legs tied and her mouth also covered with a tape. He squirmed and trembled on the chair and struggled to set himself free but the ropes were too strong for him, and the liquid that was injected into his body also made him weak.
‘Save your strength dude, you’re going to need it later.’ Cole said in a mean voice. He walked closer to Tobi and stopped in front of him.
Tobi only glanced briefly at Cole’s face, his focus was on his mother. He could see the shock on her face and knew she would have wished to say something if the tape wasn’t covering her mouth.
‘What exactly do you want from me?’ Tobi turned to Cole and asked in a determined voice. He didn’t know Cole would go as far as to get his mother. He was now willing to tell them all they needed to free his mother.
‘I have an offer for you,’ Cole began. ‘We can help your mother forget everything that happens here if you’d tell us what we want but if you don’t , we would help you take off her head and serve you her blood to drink.’
‘F*** you Cole, what the hell do you want? I told you I don’t know what the plan is already.’
‘And I don’t believe you. But if you truly do not know what Stainless is up to, we’d give you your phone to call Rex and ask him some questions that we’d tell you,’ Cole said, handing Tobi’s phone back to him.
‘Rex isn’t directly involved in the first murder, he gave Stainless the orders already and left him to carry it out.’ Tobi voiced out.
‘Oh! So you know about the plan for the first and you don’t know the second?’ Cole gave a crooked smile as he returned the phone into his pocket since Tobi wasn’t collecting it. ‘What’s the second plan? I’m sure you know it,’ Cole said in a mean voice.

16 Part 12 cont'd

Tobi shot a narrow gaze at Cole. He took in a deep breath and glanced at his mother’s face again. ‘Promise me you’d let her go if I tell you.’
‘You have my word Tobi, you know I may be anything else but I always keep my word.’ Cole replied.
‘There’s a sick woman that Madam Henrietta kept in a special care center at Ikoyi, we’re to drop her after Madam Henrietta is dropped.’ Tobi said.
‘Which woman are you talking about? What’s her name?’ Cole asked.
‘I don’t know her name offhand, I have the details written somewhere which isn’t here,’ Tobi replied.
‘So, until Madam Henrietta dies first before you can kill her?’
‘Rex is around the care center already, waiting for us to call and inform him that the first woman has been dropped, but whether she dies or not, the deadline is to kill the sick woman tonight.’
‘So you and Stainless have no role in killing the second woman?’
‘We do have, even though not major roles but we are supposed to join them there at seven pm.’
‘Tell me, what’s your own role?’ Cole asked and then squatted. He seemed not to be ready to end the questioning yet.
Tobi heaved a sigh of frustration and shook his head, he glanced at his mother again. He was already giving out too much information and he knew he couldn’t escape trouble from Rex and his men even if he did save himself and his mother from the present one.
‘I see you’re scared of what Rex could do to you but you should also consider your mother’s life before you make the decision to lie to me.’
‘I won’t lie to you,’ Tobi voiced out in frustration.
‘Good, now continue telling the truth. Tell me what your role is.’
Tobi heaved another sigh. He stared intently at Cole’s face and began to explain in details. It took him two minutes to finish the explanation.
Immediately he finished, Cole took out his phone from his pocket. He unlocked it and stopped the recording which was ongoing, he saved the file and renamed it.
He turned back to the men who brought in Tobi’s mother. ‘Take her away, make sure you treat her nicely.’ he said to them. He began to proceed towards the door slowly.
‘What the hell is this?’ Tobi shouted. ‘This isn’t our agreement.’
Cole stopped and turned, ‘I haven’t broken the agreement yet, your mother is under good care, she would be allowed to go once I find out that all you’ve told me is true.’
With that Cole walked out of the room and slammed the door shut. He selected the renamed recording file and forwarded it to Tarasha on WhatsApp.
He received a reply from her twenty minutes later and returned back to meet Tobi in the room and carry out Tarasha’s new instruction.
‘When are you letting my mother go?’ Tobi asked as he spotted Cole walking in.
‘Tobi, your mother is safe and would not be hurt as far as you don’t mess up.’ Cole replied as he walked towards him. ‘I have a new deal for you,’ he squatted before Tobi and said with a smile.
‘F*** you Cole! Let my mother go first,’ Tobi said angrily.
‘Relax your nerves man,’ Cole said and paused for a while to allow him calm down. ‘We would not only let your mother go but let you go too if you work with us.’
Tobi squinted, wondering what Cole was trying to offer.
‘I work for Samantha Osman,’ Cole continued. ‘She pays very well and can also guarantee you security from Stainless and Rex even if they find out that you gave them out.’
‘Samantha Osman,’ Tobi muttered under his breath with a thoughtful look. It seemed to him like a nice offer to with a well feared assassin but he wasn’t known as a betrayal and wasn’t ready to be labeled as one.
‘But there’s a warning,’ Cole continued while Tobi was still considering the offer. ‘Your mother is still with us and would be hurt if you ever try to play smart.’
Tobi considered the offer for some more minutes. He then looked up and gave Cole a thin stare.
‘Go to hell man!’
Chapter 16 Ends.

Read Chapter 17 & 18 here - www.youngicee.com/category/tarasha-season-2

® 18+ SNVL
© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel
‘Stephanie,’ Tarasha called softly from behind.
She turned slowly and met Tarasha sitting up and staring back at her.
‘How often do you visit your mother at the care center?’
‘I go there frequently during my breaks, at least twice a week.’ Stephanie replied.
‘So, that means you should know of some of their operations.’ Tarasha said.
Stephanie raised her brows. She didn’t understand what Tarasha was referring to as their operations.
Tarasha sensed her confusion and decided to be more specific. ‘Do you know the schedule for their meals?’
‘Uhmn… Yes, I think I do know a little. They take breakfast by 7am, lunch by 1pm and dinner by 7pm.’
‘Are you sure of this schedule?’ Tarasha asked.
‘Yes, I’m very sure,’ Stephanie replied.
Tarasha paused for a minute to think. Her eyes met with Madam Henrietta who was now sitting in a slant position and looking at her. The woman turned her face back quickly.
Tarasha glanced at her wristwatch and bit her lips slightly.
‘Madam Henrietta,’ she called softly.
Fear gripped Madam Henrietta’s mind as she heard her name, she wondered if she had done something wrong or if she had gotten into trouble for being caught stealing glances at her. She slowly turned back in fear and her eyes trembled as she stared at Tarasha’s face.
‘You registered Mrs. Atinuke George’s at the care center right?’
‘Yes, I took her there.’
‘And are you allowed to take her anytime you want?’
‘Ermm… I think there has to be some few days notice before she is allowed to be taken away.’ Madam Henrietta answered.
Tarasha glanced at the time again. Time was not on her side. She had not known that she would have to get to Lagos very early and so did not plan to leave Abuja early. They even eventually left an hour later than she planned because she had to go back to Madam Henrietta’s house with Stephanie to get some documents there.
She calculated the most feasible time to get to Lagos before Rex would make an attempt on the woman’s life. She would be some minutes or an hour late to get to the venue and stop Rex from killing the woman, she had to devise a plan to delay Rex.
‘We have to get Mrs. Atinuke out of the place tonight,’ Tarasha said aloud. Stephanie gave Tara a sharp look. Tarasha continued to talk, facing Madam Henrietta, ‘Is there a way to reach them at the Care Center and demand for her release tonight?’
Madam Henrietta stared at Tarasha in confusion. ‘Why do we need to demand to take her tonight when we are not going to pick her?’
‘Who told you we aren’t going to pick her tonight? We are going straight there from here.’
‘Why?’ Stephanie asked in a loud tone, widening her eyes in surprise.
Tarasha flashed a look at her and then turned back to Madam Henrietta, ‘Can you reach them by phone?’
‘It’ll take sometime for me to get the moderator’s number.’ Madam Henrietta replied.
‘How long will it take you?’
Madam Henrietta sighed. She glanced at her phone’s screen to check the time. ‘The person I can call to ask for the moderator’s number would be at work now and would not be able to answer me. She would close in an hour time.’
‘An hour would be too late.’
‘But that’s the only option I have,’ Madam Henrietta replied. She was unwillingly to let Samantha Osman know anything about Atinuke. She believed the assassin was not to be trusted.
‘You have to find another option right away. Mrs. Atinuke would be killed an hour after dinner time.’
Stephanie let out a gasp, her eyes widened in shock and she began to pant.
7:12PM
‘Tobi, where the f*** are you guys?’ Rex’s angry voice sounded through the phone’s speaker.
‘Boss, I can’t find Stainless anywhere, I’ve been trying to reach him, he’s the cause of the delay.’
‘Forget about Stainless, get the car and start coming over right now,’ Rex said.
‘Okay boss, I’ll be there as soon as I can.’ Tobi said before ending the call. He heaved a sigh before pulling on his seatbelt. He was already in the car before Rex called, the only thing he was waiting for before moving was the call.
He sighed again as he pushed the start button. He didn’t want to betray Rex but there was nothing he could do. He had been forced to agree after Cole had ordered for his mother to be brought in again and for the other men to start torturing her. He agreed and made them return his mother to wherever they brought her from. At first he thought he would be able to fight Cole and the other men once the ropes on his hands and legs were taken away, and save his mum whom he thought would be in that same building with them. But to his surprise when he was released, he discovered that the building they were in consisted of only two rooms and his mother was not kept in the same building. Instead Cole showed him a video of another building on a tablet device where his mother was kept and heavily guarded by mean men.
He checked his time. Rex would be waiting for him to arrive. He switched on the indicator and carefully turned into the road to begin the journey.
___
THE CARE CENTER, IKOYI LAGOS.
‘And why would you want to take her back now, after so many years?’ A woman putting on a white gown was talking on phone. She kept a frown on her face which made the eyeglasses which was supposed to be in front of her eyes now rest on her flat nose.
‘There’s an emergency that demands us to take her from there immediately,’ Madam Henrietta replied from the other end of the phone connection.
‘What kind of emergency is that? You should have given us two days notice at least,’ the woman replied.
‘It has to do with life and it’s about her daughter,’ Madam Henrietta said.
‘Is her daughter’s life in danger?’
‘Something like that, her daughter needs to make a quick decision and she has to be there.’
‘Madam, I will advise that you think about this very well before making a decision that would not be proper.’
‘I’ve thought about it already and I’m on my way there with her daughter, we would be there in fifteen minutes time. Make sure you don’t allow her go for the dinner, which would waste our time. We want to leave immediately.’
The woman sighed. ‘It’s okay, if that’s what you want, we can’t stop you.’
__
Rex glanced at his wristwatch, it was time. He got up from his seat and put the communication device close to his lips. ‘I’ll kill her at the exact time, be at the right position with the car.’ He said to Tobi.

TARASHA 2 CHAPTER 17 PART 2
® 18+ SNVL
© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel
8:05PM
Rex had taken his time to study the special care center before drawing out his plans. He knew how many people were being taken care of and how many staffs worked in the place. He also had specific details of the number of security men they had and all the exits and entrances into the place. And for his task that night, he knew the time the women were taken to bed and when the staffs providing care for them would be too occupied to notice strange movements.
He checked his wristwatch, it was exactly 8:05PM, the staffs would have led the women to their rooms. He stepped out of his car with his small brief case and proceeded straight to the gate. He pressed the bell and after sometime, a man showed up.
‘Good evening sir,’ Rex greeted first.
‘Evening sir, what can I do for you?’ the man asked him with suspicious eyes.
‘I’m here to see MrsFunsho,’ Rex said confidently.
‘MrsFunsho?’ the Man frowned. Mrs. Funsho was the head of staffs of the special care center, the same person Madam Henrietta had called to ask for the discharge of Atinuke. ‘Is she expecting you?’
‘Yes, she is. I was held back by traffic, I should have gotten here about an hour before this time.’Rex replied.
The man examined Rex from head to toe with his eyes, his gaze lingered on the small briefcase for a short while, then he placed his gaze on Rex’s face. Rex was dressed simple, in a sky blue long sleeve shirt and a navy blue plain trousers with black palm sandals. He looked more like a technician and his briefcase like his tool box. The main problem the security man had with the visit was the timing, Mrs. Funsho always discouraged late time visits, so it was strange to find her receiving a visitor at that time.
‘I have to go in to confirm first if she’s expecting you,’ the man said. ‘And if you don’t mind, I’ll also like to check what you have in your box.’
‘Oh! This?’Rex raised the briefcase up slightly. The man nodded. Rex went down on a knee and placed the briefcase on the ground, he turned the top to himself and opened the briefcase.
‘I can’t see what you have there,’ the security man said, looking at the briefcase which seemed to emit darkness from itself. He squatted to have a closer look but he was taken by surprise as Rex touched his chest with the mouth of a pistol. He lifted his hands in the air slowly in surrender.
‘Calm down man, I’m not here to hurt you,’ Rex said as they both rose up. ‘All I want right now is for you to move silently to the security room.’
___
‘Ma, we haven’t put Mrs. Atinuke to sleep yet.’ One of the nurses said to Mrs. Funsho.
Mrs. Funsho paused to check her wristwatch. She shook her head, ‘Allow me call her guardian again, they told me they would be here in fifteen minutes but this is more than one hour after.’
She picked up her phone and searched out for Madam Henrietta’s number, she dialed it and placed it close to her ear.
‘Madam, are you still coming?’ Mrs. Funsho asked, looking into the eyes of the nurse in front.
‘Yes, we’re still on the way please.’ Madam Henrietta replied from the other end.
‘How long would it take you to get here?’
‘We’re already in Ikoyi, we should be there in ten minutes time.’
‘Okay please, make sure you do not come later than that.’ Mrs. Funsho said and ended the call. She looked at the nurse’s face, ‘Let’s give them twenty minutes, once I leave, I’ll order for the gates to be closed and they won’t be attended to by anyone when they come.’
‘Okay ma,’ the nurse curtsied and was about to turn to leave when the lights suddenly went off.
‘What’s wrong?’ Mrs. Funsho asked aloud. ‘How can we have power outage?’ She picked her phone and put on the flashlight, ‘Please reach the security men immediately.’
__
Rex proceeded back into the room after disconnecting the lights of the building. He was now putting on the uniform of the security man whom he attacked in the security room and made unconscious. With the aid of tools in his briefcase, he had disconnected the building from it’s power source in such a way that it’ll take the security men or a technician more than thirty minutes to finish. One of the things he had learnt about the Care Center was that they had very little security protocols and that was because of the nature of the services they rendered there; they believed they were less prone to attacks because people had very little or nothing to get from old and sick women.
Rex unlocked his phone and stopped behind the door after he stepped into the corridor. He opened the note application on the phone to check the details of his movement again.
‘Atinuke George
Code Number – 628
Ward –D ’

17 part 2 cont'd

Two cars could be seen outside the compound, one at the left end of the fence and the other at the right end. Tobi was in the car at the left hand, waiting for Rex to finish and join him while Cole was in the car at the right side with two other men, waiting and monitoring Tobi. According to their plan, Tarasha should have arrived and gone in to stop Rex inside the place. Cole’s job was to trail when Rex came out of the place and joined Tobi.
‘Boss, the lights have gone off. I think Rex is up to something,’ Cole said into the phone.
‘Get into the place and stop him,’ Tarasha replied with a note of authority. ‘I’ll be there in five minutes.’
‘Okay boss,’ Cole said in reply. He was scared for a second but he remembered that he had two other people with him while Rex was alone. ‘We’ve got to go in,’ Cole said and stepped out of the car immediately. He arranged two pistols neatly into his pocket and took out a communication device from his pocket. He attached the mouthpiece on the collar of his shirt and plugged the earpiece into his left ear.
He took out his phone and dialed Tarasha’s number again, ‘Boss, my device is on, please connect.’
The other two men were already waiting for him outside ready. They all turned back and began to proceed towards the gate hurriedly.
_____
Rex navigated through the building with the picture of the building map on his phone and his flashlight as a source of light. He got into Ward D after four minutes of walking from the power source. The ward was a moderate sized one, only three women slept in it, two old women and Mrs. Atinuke.
Rex shone his light into the dark ward. He could see three bed stands, two women were in the beds, one at the right and left side while the bed in the middle was empty.
Rex moved closer, the woman on the first bed was seating and resting her back against the headboard and staring directly at him. He knew she couldn’t see his face but had to stare at him because of the light and his movement in her direction. He shone the light to see her well, she was an old frail women. She placed her palm over her face to shield her eyes from the light.
Rex moved away from her and proceeded to the third bed, but as he got to the second one which was empty, he saw the tag on the bed which was labeled 62. He realized that the second bed was the one meant for Mrs. Atinuke but still proceeded to the third bed.Another old woman was lying in the third bed, already asleep.
‘F*** it!’ he cursed under his breath as he rushed back to the first old woman who was still seated, he checked the first bed and confirmed the tag number 61 on it. ‘Where is Madam Atinuke?’ he asked the old woman in harsh words.
The frail woman stared at him without giving a response. She didn’t even hear him, because she had partial deafness of the ear. She closed her eyes as he shone the flashlight on her face. She wasn’t trembling nor afraid of what Rex could do to her. She was a woman close to a hundred and ten years of age and had lost all her fears including that of death.
Rex stared at the woman angrily for some more seconds, she wasn’t making any move or saying anything, she looked like she hadn’t heard what he said to her or understood his language. He turned back immediately and proceeded out of the ward. He stopped outside the door to check the pictures gallery on his phone. He stared again for some minutes at Madam Atinuke’s picture. He heaved a sigh, Madam Atinuke was way younger than the women he saw in the ward. The empty bed with the tag numbered 62 had also proved that she wasn’t in.
He wondered if he had gotten the right information or if something else had gone wrong. If the instruction wasn’t to make the death look natural as possible, he would have searched the whole building for the woman and even attacked more staff members of the place and force them to bring out the woman.
He opened his messaging app and typed in a message to the Vice President.
‘Wrong info given to me by your assistant, Madam Atinuke wasn’t found in the ward at the time she was supposed to be.’ he proofread it before sending.
He had considered all other things that could have happened and he was left with only two options; the first was the possibility of him having been given the wrong information which he had sent a complaint message to the Vice President about. The second option was one which Rex really hoped wasn’t true; the possibility of stainless to have betrayed him. He recalled that Stainless had not been answering his calls for several hours and even Tobi had confirmed not to have seen him. As it was, he had to leave the place silently without fulfilling his mission. He heaved a sigh and proceeded further.
____
‘Boss, we are headed towards the waiting room now, we haven’t identified or located anyone, the place is terribly dark.’Cole’s voice sounded in Tarasha’s speaker.
‘Locate the woman immediately you get to the waiting room and make sure she is kept safe,’ Tarasha replied from the other end.
*
“This is the place,’ Stephanie said impatiently, pointing a finger at the gate of the care center from the other side of the road. Their vehicle still had to make a U-turn to getthe other side.
‘Find a place to park and wait,’ Tarasha ordered the driver who immediately pulled over to the front of a closed company.
Tarasha took off the wig from her head and pulled out a skin mask from her bag. ‘I want you guys to stay in here until I call you or send someone else to call you in, you’d get into trouble if you disobey and move an inch from here.’
She stepped out of the car after passing her warning strongly. Shewalked some distance away from the car, looking towards the care center, she located two cars and based on Cole’s description, she could tell which one was brought by Cole and the one that was brought by Tobi. She walked back into the shadow formed by the fence behind her and quickly put on her face mask. She positioned her revolvers well in her pocket and stepped back onto the road.
She turned the mouthpiece to her mouth as she looked right and left for cars before crossing the road.
‘I just got to the place and I’m coming in now,’ she said to Cole through the mouthpiece.
‘Boss, we’ve located the waiting room and found the woman, the security guards have been distracted because of the power outage but we may have a problem with them if we try to take the woman and she makes noise.’
‘We need to be careful, Rex is powerful in darkness, just stay hidden in a way you can keep watching the woman.’ Tarasha replied.
‘Boss, no one is in sight here for now. Should we make the woman sleep and get her out of place?’
‘Are you sure no one is listening to you right now?’ Tarasha asked, now trying to cross to the other side.
‘No one is, I’m outside the waiting room while the other two guys are inside.’
‘Make her sleep and…’Tarasha paused and her eyes widened in surprise as she saw someone walk out of the gate hurriedly. Her eyes followed him as he looked in direction of the vehicle Tobi was seated in and began to walk towards the place. ‘You can take the woman out, don’t kill but you can put anyone who tries to stop you into unconsciousness.’
She ended the connection and stepped down from the median to cross the road, the vehicles were moving fast and none of the drivers seemed to be patient enough to allow her cross. She watched Rex as he got to Tobi’s car and entered into the Passengers’ side. She focused on the road again and was able to cross after ten seconds.
Her eyes were on Tobi’s vehicle as she got to the front of the care center, she could see the backlight on which meant they were about leaving, she quickly ran to the spot Cole’s car was parked. She broke the window glass to the driver’s side and took out a tool from the pocket inside her jacket, she unlocked the lock mechanism of the door from inside and opened it. She entered into the car and punched in the codes to unlock the start system, then she pushed the start button. The car roared unto life.
‘Cole, connect me with the other guys waiting on the way,I’m following after Rex now,’she said into her mouthpiece.
‘Okay boss,’ Cole replied.

‘Stephanie, don’t you think it’s the right time toinvolve the police?’ Madam Henrietta said to Stephanie who was watching Tarasha through the transparent window glass.
Stephanie did not give any reply. She was more eager to get out of the car than Madam Henrietta was but she decided to trust Samantha Osman. She remembered having disobeyed her instruction the first time they met and she almost got into trouble for it.
‘Stephanie, don’t you think your mum’s life is in danger?’Madam Henrietta asked when she realized Stephanie wasn’t going to give her a response to the first question. She waited for a response and noticed that Stephanie wasn’t still going to reply, she decided to take her own steps independently. ‘I’m getting out of this place,’ she said and moved closer to the door, trying to open using the handle but it couldn’t be opened.
The driver of the vehicle who was still seated in his seat turned back and flashed a warning look at Madam Henrietta. Both Stephanie and Madam Henrietta stared at his face and they knew instantly that stepping out wasn’t an option. They realized that the driver wasn’t just a hired driver from a transport service company, he was working together with Samantha Osman.
Stephanie’s phone began to ring and she reached out to pick it, the caller was Samantha Osman.
__
‘You can move on,’Rex said to Tobi after pulling on his seatbelt. ‘
Tobi turned in the indicator and looked out for cars coming from behind, there was none. He drove into the road and joined the line of moving vehicles.
‘Have you heard from Stainless?’Rex asked.
Tobi shook his head slowly in response.
Rex stared at his face thinly for a moment, he had noticed the moodiness and knew something was wrong. He hoped it wasn’t that Tobi was the betrayal. His suspicion was increased when Tobi let out a deep sigh like someone who was deeply worried.
He was already thinking of the best way to force out what was troubling the mind of the robust guy when Tobi spoke.
‘Boss, did it go successfully?’Tobi asked in low tones.
‘I couldn’t find the woman in the ward, her bed was empty, I must have been given the wrong information.’Rex replied.
‘No boss, you weren’t given the wrong information.’Tobi said after letting out a gasp.
Rex gave him a sharp look. He raised his brows, ‘What do you mean?’
Tobi sighed again, ‘I…’
Rex’s phone began to ring and he signified for Tobi to stop for him to answer the call. ‘Hello Chief,’ he said into the phone.
‘Rex, I just confirmed from my assistant now. He is sure that the information you got was accurate, he verified it before sending to you.’
‘I missed the woman already, I’ll call you back in few minutes, I have to settle something first.’
‘Please, don’t forget to call me back. It’s important that we take this woman down, she knows some secrets that are too dangerous to be let out.’
‘I’ll call you back Chief, relax.’Rex reassured.
Tobi had increased his driving speed while Rex was making the call. He had seen the vehicle that he was being monitored from trailing them from behind.
After being forced to accept Cole’s deal. The plan they gave him was to lead Rex into a trap already set for him by Tarasha’s team. Out of the seven newly recruited assassins, Cole had taken two with him, one went to Abuja with Tarasha and was the same driver with Stephanie and Madam Henrietta in the Sienna Jeep, the other four had been given specific roles to take Rex down and Tobi’s ultimate job was to drive Rex into their hands. Cole and the two men were supposed to follow Tobi behind after taking Rex while Tarasha was the one who was supposed to do the job of bringing Madam Atinuke to safety, but because of the traffic Tarasha had faced on the route taken, she had to exchange roles with Cole and his team.
‘You said I had the right information,’Rex continued the discussion after ending the call.
Tobi did not reply immediately, he kept his eyes focused on the side mirror.
Rex noticed that the speed was now different, and with the way Tobi was looking, it seemed that they were being trailed.
‘Is someone following us?’Rex asked.
‘Boss, I have a confession to make.’Tobi said, flashing a glance at Rex’s face.
Rex squinted at him. He already knew what he was going to be told. ‘So you sold meout?’ he said in a thick relaxed voice, mentioning the words one after the other.
‘I can explain boss,’ Tobi said in a pleading tone, half focused on his driving and still trying to speak with Rex. Rex continued to stare at him in silence. ‘They have my mother with them and they would kill her if I don’t comply,’Tobi quickly added.
Rex bit his lips in regret. It was one of the dangers of working with untrained or not-properly-trained assassins, they could be easily taken down when someone related to them is taken down. But for an assassin like him, especially those trained in the Villary Clan, they had no relatives or family, the only people they were allowed to protect were people working with them on the same team at a particular moment, and once the person joins the opposite team, he or she becomes an enemy.
‘So who is that person following us?’ Rex asked.
Tobi looked into the side mirror again. ‘I can’t see clearly, it’s supposed to be three of them. I did not know they were still going to follow us,’ Tobi replied.
‘But aren’t they following?’
‘Yes,’Tobi answered with a confused look. ‘I saw them enter into the compound and never saw them come out.’
Rex turned to look back, he narrowed his eyes. The car Tobi claimed was trailing them was about ten metres behind and two other cars were in between it and theirs. It took sometime for Rex to have a clear view. He turned back and sat well on the chair. ‘There’s only one person in that car and it’s a lady.’
Tobi flashed a surprise look at his face. ‘No, it can’t be a lady, they did not come with any.’
‘I just saw a lady, she must have come to join them.’Rex insisted.’What’s their plan?’
‘They have men waiting for us at Rael Gate, I’m supposed to drive you into their hands there.’Tobi said.
‘And why aren’t you doing that?’Rex stared at him with Cole’s eyes.
‘I can’t,’Tobi said thoughtfully. ‘I can’t bow to Cole.’
‘Who compelled you? Samantha Osman herself?’
‘No, I didn’t see her, Cole her man did.’
‘Do you know Stainless’whereabouts?’
‘They have him too,they took him this morning.’
Rex paused for some minutes to think. He raised his head a minute later.
‘What should I do boss?’Tobi asked.
‘Drive me into their trap,’Rex replied.
_____
‘Mum!’Stephanie screamed as the men carried his mum into the car and placed her gently in the middle seat. When Tarasha called her earlier, it was to ask her to move to the backseat with Madam Henriettabecause some other people were coming to join them.She did as she was toldwithout asking questions. The driver also received a call and started the car afterwards, he drove and made a U-turn to the other side to wait beside the gate of the care center.
‘Take good care of them,’Cole said to Nicholas whom was going in the Sienna. ‘We would return with the boss later tonight.’
‘Okay man,’Nicholas said and shook Cole’s hand before joining the driver at the front seat.
Cole and the other man waited until the car drove off, then they walked closer to the road to get a cab.
‘What’s wrong with her?’Stephanie cried out, trying to shake her mum awake. ‘Mum, Mum!’ Stephanie shouted noisily into the unconscious woman’s ears.
‘She’s only asleep,’Nicholas shouted at her. ‘Stop making noise and don’t get us into trouble.’
____
‘Cole,’Tarasha called, speaking into the mouthpiece. ‘Cole,’ she called again.
‘Boss,sorry, I was busy, hijacking a cab.’ he finally replied.
‘Have you gotten the woman to safety?’
‘Yes, Nicholas is leading them back.’
‘I hope nobody was killed at the Care Center,’ Tarasha said.
‘We killed no one, but we met a guard lifeless at the security room, Rex must have killed him before we got in.’
‘Okay, how many people were hurt?’
‘Not up to five people, we had Benryl injected into three people’s body. And they haven’t been able to rectify the power problem when we left.’
‘Okay,’ Tarasha said and there was quietness for a while. ‘This guy leading Rex into our trap, are you sure we can trust him?’
‘I don’t trust him boss, but with his mother in our custody, he won’t try to fail us.’
‘I had a feeling that he was trying to escape me some few minutes ago, he increased his drivingspeed. But now, his speed is back to normal and that’s really suspicious.’

17 part 2 cont'd

11:35PM
The roads were already been deserted, and Rael University Road which was usually a quiet place had been shut down of all commercial activities.
‘Their cars are parked at the gate of the university and they will block the road with the two carsonce they see our headlights,’Tobi said to Rex as theyjourneyed towards the place.
Rex turned and looked back. He could see the headlights of the car coming far behind them. He knew Tarasha was the one in the car. She had only given them space to make him not notice than she was trailing them. He had a plan in place already and he was sure it would work.
‘Slow down your speed, so that she can catch up with us well.’ Rex said to Tobi. He unlocked the tablet device in his hands, ‘I’ve showed you the sources oflight in this area already, do your part as you should and we would save your mother.’
The car trailing them was closer now, only a metres behind and they were very close to the university gate. Just as Tobi had explained to Rex, two vehicles which were parked in front of the gate had their engines on and were driven to block the road. But according to Rex’s plan, Tobi crashed their car straight into one the vehicles used to block them, destroying the plans he had with Cole. Only the bonnet of their car got destroyed. Tobi quickly stepped out of the car and with the gun given to him by Rex, he bent down in the corner formed by the car he drove and the one he crashed into, he targeted the lights at the front of the university gate and began to shoot them one after the other.
The purpose was to make the place dark, which would be an advantage to Rex and a disadvantage to Tarasha’s team.

Read up to Chapter 18 here - www.youngicee.com/category/tarasha-season-2

Tarasha 2 Chapter 17 Part 3
® 20 + SNVL
© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel
In less than ninety seconds, Tobi had turned off the lights with twenty one bullets in total. He had shot off target a number of times and had to shoot two particular bulbs twice before they went off. He entered back into the car after that and shut the door.
Rex was still seated in, he hadn’t stepped out yet like he planned with Tobi to do. Tobi stared at his face for a second and then looked in the same direction Rex was looking, something was wrong. None of Samantha’s men had tried to shoot at Tobi while he was shooting at the lights; that was exactly when Rex was supposed to come in. Making matters worse, none of the men were seen in or outside their vehicles yet and even Samantha Osman was still seated in hers at the opposite side.
The place was still not dark even after the targeted bulbs had gone off. Rex knew that it wasn’t a matter of him not having calculated very well, someone must have done something to counter the results of his calculation. Someone had introduced other sources of light to the place which were not there before. He also noticed that the headlights of his attackers’ vehicles were left on and that majorly contributed to the lack of darkness, especially at the point where he was. Another thing that baffled him was that none of the men shot at Tobi or try to disturb him while he shot at the lights. That was opposite of their expectation and contrary to Samantha Osman’s gang initial plan which Tobi had told him about.
Tobi had told him how the men planned to block the road like they had just done, but they changed the manner. The two vehicles in front of them faced each other, instead of both facing the same direction, one had waited for the other to get to the road and turn before joining. Tobi had also told him that he was supposed to run out of the car immediately after they were blocked and the men who were in the cars which blocked the road were supposed to step out of the cars immediately and rain bullets on the blocked car where he (Rex) would be.
Rex looked around quickly, there had been no movement yet. He couldn’t still see the men in the cars right in front of them. He made a flashback and made some calculation from the time the men had blocked the road and the time it took for Tobi to crash into their car. He realized that the drivers of the cars had enough time to step out of the cars immediately after blocking the road and hide somewhere else behind, and if that was exactly what they did, it meant that he was wasting his time waiting for them to come out of the car and shoot at him.
Was Tobi told the wrong plan? Or did Tobi decide to give him the wrong information? He asked himself. He knew it was the former which was more possible. Then what made the attackers change their minds?
He shone his eyes widely as a thought struck his mind. He looked at Tobi.
‘Did they come near or inside this car?’ he asked.
Tobi stared at him silently for a second. ‘Yes, Cole and the two other men were inside with me before your call.’
Rex let out a short breath. He now had a better understanding of the situation which he was in. It was either a recorder had been placed in the car and all the plans he made with Tobi while he was being driven into the trap was being heard by Samantha Osman or Samantha Osman was deliberately keeping him and Tobi in the car for a particular reason – a bomb or any other explosive had been attached to the car.
He opened the door to his side but did not step out immediately. He turned his body towards the door and raised his two hands out of the car first. ‘I’ve got no guns with me, I only want to talk,’ he shouted out, knowing he was being watched. He wasn’t sure if his words would be heard but he knew his voice would be and they would know he was trying to talk to them. He placed his feet on the ground outside the car and shifted his bum closer to the edge of the seat. ‘Can I come outside?’ he shouted again.
He heard no response and he waited there for more than thirty seconds, watching vigilantly and listening. He knew he had the opportunity of buying more time with Samantha Osman. He had told her earlier through one of the emails that he was the only one who knew the location he hid Chief Nonso and he knew she wouldn’t want him dead at that moment for that reason. After a minute, he noticed that Samantha Osman had stepped out of her car and was now standing outside with her bum resting on the bonnet of the car which she parked six metres away from them. He couldn’t see her fully and didn’t know what she held in her hands. And even if he knew what she held, it would be foolhardy for him to try act smart, he didn’t know where the other men around were hiding and he couldn’t even locate them if he tried to look around because they had made sure all the lights which were now on pointed directly to him.
He stepped out of the car with his two hands still raised and proceeded to the back. He stopped behind the boot, standing directly opposite the lady. He couldn’t see her clearly because she was standing in between the bright headlights of the car which shone in his own direction. He could however see the gun in her hands and see her shoes which had spaces outside it in which tools could be hidden in. He was now sure that a recorder was in the car and his plan with Tobi had been heard all along, she knew he was planning to use the darkness against them and decided to put him in the middle of bright lights. However, the brightness still wasn’t a disadvantage to him, the only disadvantage he had was their trap which he had willingly entered by wrong calculation.
‘Call your man out of the car,’ Samantha finally opened her mouth to talk.
Rex heaved a sigh. He hated to admit to himself, but he knew he was now in Samantha Osman’s hands and he couldn’t get himself out unhurt easily except she makes a silly mistake and that was exactly what he was hoping and waiting for.
‘Tobi, come out.’ He shouted out to Tobi’s hearing.
Tobi got out of the car slowly with his hands raised just like Rex’s and began to proceed to the back to join Rex. His movement was cut short when a bullet ran into his chest from Tarasha’s gun, he fell to the ground.
Rex didn’t bother to look back to see Tobi’s body, he fixed his eyes on Tarasha without blinking. Tobi’s death was something inevitable, she had only helped him make it quicker. He fixed his eyes on Tarasha who was now pointing the gun straight at him. Even though he was struggling to see her clearly because of the lights, he strained his eyes enough to monitor the movements of her fingers on the pistol she was holding and was ready to move the moment a finger goes close to the trigger.
‘Where is Chief Nonso?’ Tarasha asked as she began to step closer to him slowly.
‘I’ve got him where I kept him, I gave my men instructions already on how and when to kill him.’ Rex replied, hoping she would stop coming closer. He wouldn’t be able to dodge her bullet if she shot at a very close range.
Tarasha stopped and stared at him, she lowered her gun. ‘You won’t kill him because it will be the greatest threat to your paymaster’s presidential bid, but even if he is killed, it doesn’t stop any of my work.’
Both assassins stared at each other’s face for a long while. It was the first time of Tarasha seeing his real face, what she had seen at the hospital opening ceremony was a disguised one. There was something strange about his face that made Tarasha want to stop and think but she decided not to give any chance for him to overpower her.
Rex was confused as he now have a clearer view of her face. It wasn’t the face he knew, and what he was seeing was something more than the works of makeup kits. The person standing before him was either a totally different person or Samantha Osman putting on a skin mask, but her voice was the same.
‘I don’t have time for games, tell me what exactly you want,’ Rex said boldly to her. His hands were still raised up in surrender and he was already feeling pains in them. He however did not want to sound weak, so he didn’t ask whether he could put down his hands. If he tried to put them down without asking, Samantha Osman could think he was trying to take out a weapon.
‘You can’t give me what I want,’ Tarasha said with a chuckle and let out an evil smile. ‘I want the head of Elvis Richards.’
‘You’re never going to have that,’ Rex said spitefully.
‘Of course, I would, after I kill you first.’ She said with another evil smile and focused the gun direction to his chest.
Rex watched her carefully as her hand moved, he began to let down his hands slowly so as to take out his gun too and release a shot after successfully dodging the one she would shoot at him. But even before he could see any other move of hers, there was a gunshot from behind and it hit Rex at the back.
He felt weak all over his body immediately and his knees buckled but he struggled to remain standing after the usual duration in which he should have fallen, but his struggles were not enough to keep his eyes open and his feet standing, his eyes closed forcefully and then he fell to the ground heavily.
Tarasha moved closer to his body, still holding her gun. She stared down at him and walked a circle around him. She was sure he was fully unconscious before she stopped walking around. She uncocked her gun and looked up. Her team men who were hiding behind flowers and raised pavements came out of their hiding places.
‘Who of you shot the gun?’ Tarasha asked as they walked towards her.
‘I did,’ one of the men coming from the left hand side raised his hand boldly.
‘Did you have the accurate dose?’ Tarasha asked him.
‘I used it as I was given by Cole, I didn’t change anything.’
Their attention was divided as they heard the sound of a vehicle and saw the lights, coming from the direction where Tarasha’s car was parked. The vehicle stopped behind Tarasha’s car and out came Cole and the other man with him.
Tarasha paused and stepped a bit aside, waiting for Cole to join them before she could continue.
‘Boss,’ Cole said as he stopped by her side. A smile appeared on his face and he let out a sigh of relief on seeing Rex lie unconsciously on the floor.
Tarasha turned to the man who claimed to have shot Rex. ‘Get the other man,’ she said to him, nodding with her head towards the spot Tobi’s body was lying unconsciously. ‘He’s not dead yet, he’s unconscious too.’
‘Boss, what’s the plan?’ Cole asked Tarasha.
‘Have the men gotten to the base with Stephanie and the other women?’ Tarasha replied Cole, now turning to look at his face.
‘Yes, I was called about thirty minutes ago.’ He answered.
Tarasha remained mute for some seconds. She stared at Rex’s body thoughtfully. ‘We need to get Chief Nonso back before ending his life, and also kill the Vice President as soon as possible. We now have Rex, the only one who has stopped us from having Chief Elvis dead already.’
‘Boss, what do we do with him?’ a man asked Tarasha. He was carrying Tobi’s body by the legs and another one was carrying at the shoulder region.
‘Take him back to the base, we still need him alive. He would tell us more of the things we need as far as we’ve got his mother.’ Tarasha replied. Then she turned again to Cole after checking her wristwatch. ‘The police would soon be here in trace of the gunshots and the security men you put to sleep would be awake soon, let’s move Rex into my car and get him to the base also.’
She turned back and walked straight into the backseat of the car. Cole and the man he arrived with moved Rex’s body into the boot of the car Tarasha was seated in. The other men had also carried Tobi’s body into one of the cars they used to block the road. They moved the two cars to one side of the road and waited for Tarasha’s car to move first before they followed behind.
The Assassins left the Rael University Area with no blood spilled on the floor, with only two cars behind; the one Rex and Tobi came in and the one Cole and his partner had hijacked.
7:32AM
The room was a large one without any kind of furniture in it. The walls were sparkling white and even the ceiling was. The ground was made of sparkling marbles which felt cold on Rex’s body that morning.
He had opened his eyes to find himself on the floor in the neat white and empty room. The room was cold and the floor on which he laid made him feel colder. His both hands were tied with a strong rope which was also extended to tie the legs too and he had slept in that curved position. He didn’t know where he was and for a moment couldn’t remember what led him there until he managed to turn his curved body and he found two other people tied just like he was.
He could recognize Stainless and Tobi’s body from their back views. He was surprised that he wasn’t dead yet and more surprised that Tobi wasn’t too. He realized that they must have been shot strong sedative bullets instead of the usual bullets for killing. He struggled to turn and look around the room. He noticed that the building was a new unused one, which meant Samantha Osman team had just purchased or rented the place. Just as he was about to turn again to the other side, he heard the sound of a door opening and his eyes quickly located where the door was opened from.
He saw their legs first. The first two people that came in were men, the third person was a woman, he could see it from her heels and the way she walked.

17 part 3

He tried to raise his head to look at their faces as they walked straight to where he was but he couldn’t. He realized that the rope had been used to tie his neck also. He still felt very weak in his body and he knew it would take sometime for the effect of the poison to completely fade off.
Someone stopped right before his face and squatted. He turned his head up and saw her face. He let out a breath, it was still the same face of Samantha Osman he had seen the last night. He turned uncomfortably and stared keenly at her face, he was now sure that she was putting on a skin mask even though it was only her voice that suggested that she was the same person.
‘I see you’re awake already,’ Tarasha said, staring into his eyes with a mocking smile. ‘I hope you enjoyed your night,’ she said to taunt him. He looked away but she pulled his head and turned his face towards her. ‘You pay attention when I’m talking,’ she said in a cruel voice.
He stared at her without fear in his eyes but anger. He had made a big mistake by thinking he could turn her trap for him into one for her, he should have told Tobi to take another route but he was confident that he was going to get her, but here he was, at the mercy of a woman. He felt no pity for himself but anger, angry that he failed himself and angry that he let the Vilary Clan down.
Tarasha released his hair and got up from her squatting position. She looked at the other two men lying on the floor for some few seconds, she then turned to Cole and Nicholas. ‘I think we should start with Stainless, he should know more,’ she said to them.
They both nodded in agreement, they seemed to understand what she said to them. They proceeded to the spot Stainless was lying and carried him up in their hands. Rex turned helplessly where he was and saw their legs as it moved to the door. The men got out first with Stainless in their hands and Tarasha followed after, slamming the door behind.
Stainless was awake by the time they got him into another room. They dropped him on the floor and untied him, after that they carried and dropped him on a big chair, they tied his hands to the arm of the chair and his legs to the chair legs firmly.
Stainless watched them helplessly as they handled him roughly. He had lost hope totally. The little gleam of hope he had left disappeared the moment he saw Rex and Tobi being carried into the white room unconsciously. He was totally confused and frustrated, he wasn’t aware that Tobi had been captured earlier, so he was bewildered when he saw the both of them being brought in.
He wasn’t comfortable on the chair and tried to adjust his hand but couldn’t, the ropes had been tied firmly as usual. He looked up and saw a lady in front of him, she was holding a syringe and an ampoule. She had just drawn the contents of the ampoule into the syringe. She dropped the ampoule on a table and moved closer to him, she cleaned a part on his hand with a small wet cotton wool to see his veins. Then she inserted the needle carefully into the selected vein and injected the liquid into his blood stream.
Stainless could feel something rushing into his head as the liquid entered into his blood stream. He felt a relief immediately she stopped.
Tarasha stepped back and handed the used syringe to Cole. ‘He would be mentally feeble in the next two hours, if the drugs doesn’t break him directly, we’d add more torture.’ she said before turning and walking out of the place.
___
9AM
Henry was standing outside and looking leisurely at the street when the car drove into the compound. His eyes followed the movement until the car halted. Tara and Cole stepped out and proceeded straight to the entrance of the house where he stood.
The building was a new one which they had just moved into the day before. Tarasha had acquired new facilities after employing more assassins.
‘Good morning Tara,’ Henry greeted with a faint smile.
‘Hi Henry,’ she replied him and stopped at his front. They both stared into each other’s eyes for a couple of seconds silently. Cole walked past after giving Henry a side hug.
‘How have you been?’ Henry asked. He hadn’t seen her since the day she travelled to Abuja with one of the new men. His own job had been reduced since the new assassins arrived. The only thing he had done in the three days apart from helping her track her movements in Abuja was to monitor the movement of the gang, excluding the new assassins and their property into the new facility. It was Tarasha’s first time of coming to the new place.
‘I’ve been fine, how about you?’ Tarasha replied.
‘Fine too,’ Henry replied with a forced smile. He had not been too happy with the distance between them and because she had killed people to get her mission fulfilled in Abuja even after she explained that she met something entirely different and had no choice than to kill. What he really hated most was people seeing Samantha Osman has an evil person.
‘What about Doctor Ekwueme?’ Tara asked as she began to walk past him.
He turned and joined her to walk in, ‘He’s in, he and Tomi have been busy with the sick woman brought in last night.’
‘What about the two other ladies?’ Tarasha asked as they proceeded into the house.
‘Stephanie George has been crying about the sick woman since last night, we had to stop her from entering into the medical room. And Dr Ekwueme isn’t too sure that she would be well soon.’
‘I have to see the Doctor right away.’
Henry led Tarasha straight to the medical room. They met Doctor Ekwueme attending to Mrs. Atinuke when they got in. After few some few minutes, the doctor was able to talk to Tarasha.
‘Doc, I heard she’s been unconscious since yesterday.’ Tarasha said to him.
‘Yes, Samantha, she has been unconscious. The mixture used to make her unconscious was supposed to last for seven hours maximum when administered to a normal healthy person, but because of her ill health, it might have damaged some other things in her body.’ the doctor explained.
‘So can she be helped?’ Tarasha asked.
‘Yes, she can be helped. But we need to do some tests to check her first.’
‘So, what’s stopping the test?’
‘It can’t be done here, we have to take her to a hospital that has the facilities needed.’
‘No, that’s not possible,’ Tarasha frowned. ‘She can’t be taken to a hospital, she was already declared missing on the news this morning.’
‘There’s no way to carry out the test here,’ Dr Ekwueme replied sadly. ‘And we can’t keep her unconscious for long, if she doesn’t get the necessary treatment soon, we may lose her.’
Tarasha heaved a heavy sigh and looked for a chair to sit. Taking the woman out of that building wasn’t a choice, losing her would be bad also. She was confused and tired.

Read more here - www.youngicee.com/category/tarasha-season-2

:Dpure

TARASHA 2 CHAPTER 17 PART 4

® 18+ SNVL

© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel

Elvis Richards felt his blood rush through his veins as he confirmed the story through the headline on the news section of the youngicee website. The headline was short but it captured the whole message he needed without having to read the full news. It read: 'Hoodlums Attack Special Care Center And Escapes With A Patient'.

He stared for some seconds at the face of his assistant who was still standing in front of him, after that he returned his focus back to the tablet device on his laps, his finger hovered around the link for a while before he finally decided to click on it and read the full story.

It took less than ten seconds for the new web page to load. Elvis Richards quickly scanned through it and according to the article, a woman was taken from the Special Care Center after some hoodlums attacked and injured some of the security officers. It was also reported that the only registered family member of the kidnapped sick woman had called few hours before the accident requesting for the management of the care center to discharge the woman with immediate effect and telling them she was coming to pick her. The sick woman’s name was Atinuke George.

Out of frustration, the Vice President dropped the tablet device in his hands on the stool and took out his phone. He opened the call records and dialed Rex’s number again. It rang for several minutes without being answered. The same way it had been since he had been calling the number the last night.

Elvis Richards heaved a sigh of frustration. He should have allowed his assistant hand over the job to someone else, maybe it would have been successful and easier but he had asked the assistant to contact Rex instead,’ Chief Elvis thought. He stared at his assistant’s face for a while again with so many thoughts running through his mind.

‘Do you think they won’t trace the incident to us?’ Chief Elvis asked his assistant. ‘I hope you didn’t leave any trace behind at the Care Center when you went to make the investigations.’

‘Sir, we didn’t leave a single trace. No one can connect it to us except the guys that were sent to carry out the job are caught and they open up.’

‘And that’s why I’m bothered now, I don’t know what happened exactly. Rex called me yesterday to complain that you didn’t send him the accurate information.’

‘We gave him the accurate information,’ the assistant responded.

‘Maybe he was successful with the job then,’ Chief Elvis said. He stopped to think for a while and then a frown appeared on his face, ‘But he told me he was going to go in alone, the news reports that they were more than one.’

‘Maybe something went wrong and he had to involve more of his men,’ he assistant said.

Chief Elvis shook his head and heaved a sigh. He wondered what could have happened. Now, he had to make sure that the media doesn’t investigate the kidnap of the sick woman further to find out who she was. That was the reason he wanted the death of the woman to be as silent as possible.

Troubling him more was the news of Madam Henrietta’s death which hadn’t been announced. He had read on the news the last night that four dead bodies were found in the woman’s house while the woman and her daughter who were in the house that evening were nowhere to be found. It gave him serious headache as he couldn’t reach Stainless also, but it was evident from the news report that some men attacked Henrietta.


ABUJA


‘Are you back with the answer from the Housing Ministry?’ Inspector Dakolo said to his junior partner who stood beside him.

Inspector Dakolo was squatting on the field at the right side of the house. It was the second time he was coming there. Dead bodies had been found around the house at evening the day before and the neighbours and passersby had quickly informed the police. Inspector Dakolo led his team there that evening.

The house was in an unfenced compound and had some little grasses at the left side. Neighbours who rarely passed through or visit the compound had noticed the last evening that there was an unusual gathering of animals and flies in the compound.

When Dakolo and his men came there the day before, they first moved the dead bodies outside and inside the house carefully into the vehicles meant for carrying the dead. Then, they gathered evidences and pointers that could help them in their investigation of what happened. They also asked the neighbours about the inhabitants of the house and the most useful answer they got was that two ladies were seen there the day the incident happened, one was older and the other was a young woman.

‘Yes sir,’ the junior replied Dakolo, holding a flat file with him

Dakolo rose from his squatting position and looked around the house for some seconds. ‘Thomas,’ he called out loud to his team mate who was in the building, making his investigation.

‘What’s the name of the house’s owner and its history?’ Dakolo asked the junior while waiting for Thomas.

‘The present owner’s name is Henrietta Williams, it was initially built by Elvis Richards but ownership was transferred to Henrietta Williams ten years ago. Then, it was renovated four years ago.’

‘Okay, have you traced which Henrietta Williams it is?’

‘We’re doing that already sir,’ the junior replied.

‘Inspector, I’m here.’ Thomas announced as he joined them at the side yard of the house through the kitchen door.

‘We now know that the house is owned by a certain Henrietta Williams,’ Inspector Dakolo said to Thomas. ‘I was also called from the office few minutes ago that some of the dead bodies have been identified and two family members have showed up. With that, we can make some progress on this case.’


11:10AM

LAGOS

‘Please, I beg you. Allow them take my mother to a hospital to save her life, please.’ Stephanie pleaded, kneeling before Tarasha.

‘Get up on your feet,’ Tarasha said in an unmoved voice. Tarasha was in the room Stephanie and Madam Henrietta were given to use in the house. She was standing beside the door and resting against the wall with her arms folded. Stephanie had a knee on the ground and her hands curled around Tarasha’s legs. Madam Henrietta sat at corner edge of the bed, watching quietly.

‘It’s a pity your mother is unconscious but I can’t do what you and the doctor are asking for, the best I can do is to bring the equipments they need here.’ Tarasha added in a cold voice. She was just talking to make Stephanie calm. She knew it was impossible to get the equipment the doctor needs to the house, the doctor had explained that it wasn’t something that could not be gotten easily or even stolen from a hospital.

‘When will you bring the equipment?’ Stephanie asked, still holding her legs.

Tarasha shook her head and sighed. ‘Stephanie, you’re wearing me out, get up.’ She said in a harsh tone.

Stephanie was forced to stand up, she stood in front of Tarasha and folded her arms.

‘I’ll get it as soon as I can, soon enough to save your mother. I need her alive too,’ Tarasha said.

‘Okay,’ Stephanie sighed. She remembered that Samantha had come into the place to speak to her before she changed the topic to her mother. ‘You wanted to tell me something else.’

‘Yes, I came in here to tell you that the work against the Vice President has continued. I just posted an article on my blog and I’m going to be uploading some shots of the documents you have with you soon. There’s just one thing I need for you to do to make sure our plans do not fail,’ she said and paused to look at Madam Henrietta. ‘And you too.’

Stephanie flashed a glance at the woman behind and then looked back at Tarasha’s face, ‘What do you need us to do.’

‘It’s simple,’ Tarasha replied. She took a pause and drew in a short breath, she then narrowed her gaze at Stephanie’s face. ‘I want you to cut off all communication with anybody outside, you should not call or receive calls from anyone, send messages or receive from anyone or try to meet anyone outside this place.’

Stephanie paused to think for a while, she wondered if she could do as she was told to do. Her school had just resumed and she needed to be in contact with her course mates to be kept abreast of what was happening in school. She also needed to communicate to members of her SWAD team and give them directions on how to go about the new semester’s meetings.

‘We don’t have the time for you to start considering all you would miss,’ Tarasha said, as if she could read her thoughts. ‘You have to make a quick decision.’

‘How long will this have to be?’ Stephanie asked.

‘Until it becomes safe for the both of you to make contact with others,’ Tarasha replied.

‘But can I make a call or send a message right now?’ Stephanie asked.

‘No, you cannot.’

Stephanie sighed. ‘Okay,’ she said and shrugged. ‘That means we have to turn off our phones?’

‘No, it means you have to hand over your phones to me and every communication device with you. I would return them when the right time comes.’

‘Wow!’ Stephanie opened her mouth in surprise.

‘We would provide other devices for you with which you can communicate with me and others who you are allowed to talk with. You can also surf the internet, but would not be able to use some sites, especially social networks.’

Stephanie heaved a sigh of relief. She turned back and walked straight to where her bag was to take out her phone. She collected Madam Henrietta’s phone also and submitted the both of them to Tarasha.

‘Thank you,’ Tarasha said before turning to walk out of the room.

‘Please don’t forget the equipment my mother needs,’ Stephanie said as Tarasha was about to step out through the door.

Tarasha nodded her head but gave no verbal response before walking out of the room.

17 part 4 cont'd

She got back into the medical room and didn’t find Dr Ekwueme there. She proceeded to the bed where Mrs. Atinuke was laying. She stopped beside the woman and stared at the gentle face for a while until she got distracted by the sound of the door opening.

She turned and saw Dr Ekwueme coming towards. She noticed that the doctor had just shaved his beards and was looking younger than his age. She smiled as he approached her.

‘Doc, you’re looking younger and more handsome,’ she complimented.

‘Oh! Thanks,’ the doctor smiled back. It was his first time of hearing her make a compliment of someone and also his first time of hearing someone compliment him after a long time.

The smile on Tarasha’s face faded away quickly. ‘I’ve been thinking about the lack of the equipment needed to treat this woman, but an idea just came to my mind as I was looking at her.’

‘What’s the idea?’

‘First, I need to know how long you will need the equipment for.’

‘I can’t really tell, but not less than twenty four hours.’

Tarasha sighed.

The doctor raised a brow.

‘What if we make arrangements with a hospital, a private hospital?’ she asked.

‘There are very few private hospitals that have or know how to use this equipment and not even all government hospitals in the country has.’

‘You should be able to help us locate a private hospital that would have,’ Tarasha suggested.

‘That would be difficult, the doctors in charge of the few ones I know would not allow us, it would only work if we force them to.’

Tarasha closed her eyes for a minute to think, she knew it wasn’t advisable for them to apply force, especially because they needed to use the equipment for more than twenty four hours. Compelling them would only work for few hours.

She opened her eyes. ‘What about your hospital? Don’t you have it?’

Dr Ekwueme was quiet for a while. ‘Yes, I do but I’m the only doctor who handles it there.’

Tarasha shrugged. ‘That should be no problem, you’d handle it.’

‘But they’ve been searching for me for a long time, what happens when they see me?’

‘We would make sure nothing happens when they see you,’ Tarasha replied confidently.

‘I hope we can do that,’ the doctor said with a doubtful tone.

‘We would,’ Tarasha reassured. She glanced again at the face of Mrs. Atinuke as it was time to leave the place. ‘Now, I have to go check the reactions to my new blog post. I’ll need this woman conscious as soon as possible, I need to hear more secrets from her.’


Elvis Richards was trying to get some sleep in his room after taking the drugs that was supposed to be taken at 12pm but all his attempts were futile as he kept turning around restlessly in the bed. After ten minutes of restlessness, he reached for his phone and opened the call records. He was about to dial Rex’s number again when he heard a knock at the door. He locked the phone and kept it aside.

He sat up and stared at the door, waiting for the knock to sound again before responding.

There was no other knock, instead he heard the voice of his assistant, ‘Hello sir, are you sleeping already?’

He heaved a sigh. He wondered what the assistant had to tell him, but he was sure it was something important as he trusted his assistant not to call him for trivial matters.

‘Come in,’ he said on top of his voice.

The door opened gently and the assistant walked in. He was sweating, his shirt was soaked with sweat at the chest region.

‘Sir, we have a new problem.’ He said in a trembling voice.

‘What new problem?’

‘I just finished listening to the news at 12, I heard that Samantha Osman has released a new article about u… about you,’ the assistant answered, stammering as he got to the end.

‘What did she say?’ Chief Elvis Richards asked, really anxious to find out what new thing Samantha Osman had written about him.

‘Sir, I think it’s best you read it. I can’t explain it,’ he replied.

‘Get me my tab,’ Chief Elvis Richards said, pointing him to a table where the tablet device was.

The assistant hurried to the place to get the device, he handed it to the man and stood aside.

Chief Elvis unlocked the tab, he opened the browser and placed the cursor on the navigation bar. ‘What’s her website URL again?’

‘Samanthaosman.com.’

He typed it into the navigation bar and clicked send. It loaded in fifteen seconds. The first thing he saw was the featured blog post, the title read; ‘Nigeria’s Vice President kidnaps sick woman from Special Care Centre and kidnaps her family.’

Elvis Richards immediately began to sweat. His hands began to tremble but he managed to keep the tab in his hands. He clicked on the link and the page loaded.

‘A Special Centre for sick and old women in Ikoyi was reported to have been attacked last night by unknown hoodlums who injured four men and killed one security man and then left the place with a sick woman named Atinuke George.

The Samantha Osman team have made enough research and discovered that the Hoodlums are not unknown, in truth, the gang leader of the hoodlums is none other than Vice President Elvis Richards. Elvis Richards sent his men to take the woman from the place as she holds some of his very dirty secrets that he wants to hide.

Before kidnapping the woman, Elvis Richards first made sure that the only surviving family member of the sick woman, who is her daughter and popular SWAD National Leader Stephanie George and her guardian were first kidnapped from their residence in Abuja. He killed some men around the area to cover up the kidnap as a murder case. More details to prove this accusations would be released soon, subscribe to this blog.’

He heaved a sigh of frustration after reading, Samantha Osman was now playing his own games against him. Everything just seemed to be going wrong with him. He dropped the tab beside him and buried his face in his palms for some minutes.

‘I need to go on social media to refute these claims right now,’ he said as he raised up his head and picked the tab again.

‘Sir, why don’t you wait to hear from one of the advisers?’ his assistant suggested.

‘No, this has to be done quickly.’ Elvis Richards replied.

He logged on to his twitter account and typed in a tweet;

‘My attention was brought to a recent post made by Samantha Osman on her blog. It amazes me how low some enemies can go just to demean and spoil the name of others.

I know that this can only be the job of those who do not want the progress of Nigeria. They are trying by all means to make sure I do not get to the top and take the country forward.

I urge you all to be calm and disregard the post and other false messages that may be in circulation. They hold no water because they cannot be proven to be true. Please, avoid sharing these messages as they are false and ridiculous.’

He posted on twitter first in a series of tweets and then copied all together to post on Facebook and also on the youngicee social platform. He dropped his device after making all the posts and buried his face in his palms again. He felt his head ache, he could also feel his skin hot. The news seemed to have returned the sickness to his body. He managed to look up and reach for his phone. He flashed a glance at his assistant who was still standing before him.

‘Please leave me alone,’ he said, partially in anger and frustration.

‘Are you okay sir?’ the assistant asked, noticing his weak movements.

‘Just leave me, I would call you when I need you.’

The assistant bowed slightly and took his leave.

Chief Elvis opened his call register and dialed Rex’s number again.

It began to ring and shockingly this time, it was answered.

‘Rex, where are you and what is happening?’ he asked in a shaky voice.

The receiver of the call replied with a chuckle before speaking. ‘Hello Elvis Richards.’

He took the phone off his ears to see if he had dialed the wrong number, it was a lady’s voice he heard. He placed the phone close to his ears again after confirming that he didn’t dial the wrong number.

‘Who am I speaking with? I want to speak with Rex.’

‘You are speaking with Samantha Osman,’ the voice replied. ‘I have Rex with me, he’s been captured and he is undergoing torture.’

Her words hit Elvis Richards like a big hammer on the head. His heart began to beat abnormally fast and his bladder suddenly got full.

‘Arrange your home man, you have a few days to live. You’d die after the whole world knows your dirty secrets.’

He slowly and shakily took down the phone from his ears. His hands and lips continued to vibrate. He felt hot and weak all over. His fever seemed to have suddenly increased. He felt his eyes closing, he struggled to keep them open but he could not. His body felt too weak to remain sitting. He tried to open his mouth to call out for help but collapsed to the ground.


‘How many times has he called before?’ Tarasha asked one of the new assassins who had been given Rex’s phone to monitor.

‘He’s called about fourteen times today alone,’ the guy replied her.

Tarasha chuckled and handed the phone back to him. ‘He’s not going to call again, at least not so soon.’

She and Cole had returned to the other facility where Rex and their other prisoners were kept. Rex and Tobi were still tied and left without food in the white room while Stainless was still sleeping from the effect of the drug he was administered.

‘Boss,’ Cole called as he entered into the room Tarasha was in with the third man. Tarasha stared at his face. ‘Stainless isn’t awake yet, should we wake him up?’

‘No, let’s wait until he wakes up.’

‘Okay boss,’ Cole replied.

‘I read some minutes ago that Elvis Richards has denied the allegations.’

‘Yes boss, I read it too.’

‘I want you to download the NSCC footages which show that his assistant and some of his guards visited the Care Center few days ago.’

‘I’ll do that right away boss,’ Cole replied and turned to leave immediately.

Read more here - www.youngicee.com/category/tarasha-season-2

Thank you Oyin for sharing your epic story. I am really enjoying every bit of the updates.

You are a terrific writer.

TARASHA 2 CHAPTER 17 PART 5

® 18+ SNVL

© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel

LOCATION: OPIC ESTATE, AGBARA.

TIME: 12PM


‘Dad, Dad!’

Dr Francis heard himself being called from the living room in the most unusual way by his son. He got out from the kitchen and walked into the living room.

‘What’s the matter son?’ Dr Francis asked with a raised high brow.

‘Sorry, I’ve checked you in your room and I didn’t find you there.’

‘Yes, Esther went to the market to get some foodstuffs, so I had to fix something for myself since no one else is at home.’ Dr Francis replied.

‘When is Mum returning from Port Harcourt?’

‘She should return this week,’ Dr Francis replied. ‘So, what are you doing at home this afternoon and why were you calling me that way?’

‘I think we should get seated first,’ the son said and followed his dad to the seating area of the living room. They both settled on two different one seater sofas close to each other.

The doctor’s son took out his android phone, unlocked it and opened his browser. He opened one of the saved web pages and then handed the phone to his Dad. ‘Please go through that Dad.’

Dr Francis collected the phone but stared at his son’s face for some seconds, wondering why the boy could not just tell him why he was being called.

He finally looked at what he was given to read. The title of the news article was ‘Dr Ekwueme: Now Missing for more than Five weeks.’

Dr Francis was shocked at first. He took a quick glance at his son’s face who nodded at him, signaling for him to continue reading. Dr Francis shook his head before looking into the phone again, he considered in his mind that the Doctor being talked about could be another Dr Ekwueme but as he read on and saw the pictures attached to the article, he realized it was the same Dr Ekwueme who visited them few days ago.

‘But how is this possible?’ He asked with a frowned face. ‘Dr Ekwueme was here with a daughter of his some days ago.’

‘But reports says he’s been missing for weeks,’ the son countered. ‘He was led out of his house by a strange girl and he hasn’t been seen at home since then.’

The news article they read had explained how Dr Ekwueme’s estrange wife and kids have been looking for him around town. They claimed to have received phone calls from the doctor during the first three weeks and even had video chats with him more than once. Anytime he reached them he was always in a hurry like he was being timed by someone, but he always assured them that he was fine and asked them not to be worried about him. But for the last few weeks, no calls or messages have been gotten from the doctor and none had been able to reach him.

‘I think there’s a mix up somewhere,’ Dr Francis said thoughtfully. He quickly searched his pocket from his phone but couldn’t find it, he got up and hurried into his room and returned with his phone a minute later. ‘The number he gave me is not going through,’ he said as he sat back in the sofa, still dialing.

‘I don’t trust that girl he came with, she could just be the one who was seen taking him out of his house.’ The son said.

‘But Dr Ekwueme didn’t look like he was kidnapped that day or maltreated, he looked strong and healthy.’ Dr Francis said.

‘I don’t understand that too, but what I think is that she’s blackmailing him with a secret of his she knows. Dr Ekwueme could have done something bad in the past,’ the son suggested.

‘I don’t think that’s it, Dr Ekwueme is a good man.’

‘You never can tell Dad, he just might have done something very terrible in the past.’

‘I think I have to report to the police right away,’ Dr Francis said.

‘Yes, you do.’ His son supported.

__

AJANGBADI, LAGOS.

‘Popular Doctor, Dr Ekwueme has been missing for more than Five weeks.’

Dave saw the headline as he scrolled down the nairaland forum homepage. He paused and his finger hovered above the link for a while. The name rang a bell in his memory. He closed his eyes deeply to remember which Dr Ekwueme he knew. After some minutes of rigorous searching of his memory, he finally had a faint remembrance of the doctor he knew. He wasn’t too sure he recognized the man’s face anymore but he remembered the name very well. Dr Ekwueme was a man who had helped him in the past, several years ago. Even though he was a kid then, he could still remember how the man helped him. He finally clicked on the link and was redirected to the post page. He read the article and got details of how the man left home with a young woman. Then he got to the pictures and stopped to view carefully. The man looked like someone he had seen before, not the doctor that helped him long ago, but someone he had seen recently. He moved to the second picture of the man and he was more convinced that he had seen him before. He turned his head and stared at the wall blankly for some seconds, trying to recall where he had seen the man but he couldn’t. He scrolled back up to read the news article again and check the details which he could have overlooked when he read it for the first time. Then he noted the names of the man’s hospitals and his children’s names. He still couldn’t recall yet, so he went through the article the third time and just on the first line, he saw the exact word he needed to remember, ‘Anambra’.

He could now recall clearly that the man was the one he saw in the Chevrolet been driven by the lady on low cut who he admired. The doctor was one of the reasons he couldn’t stop to go and talk to the lady. The face of the young lady was still very clear in his memory.

He quickly scanned through the article again to check the day the doctor was seen leaving his house with a young lady. He noted the date and quickly opened his calendar to check which day he saw the low cut lady in the Chevrolet at the hotel in Anambra, it was the same day. He rushed back to check the time the man was taken and tried to remember the time he drove into the hotel that day.

He stared blankly at the wall for a moment with his mouth left agape. With all his deductions, it was obvious that the girl he admired that day was the same young lady who took the doctor from his home. He heaved a sigh and shook his head. He returned back to his browser and was about to click the back arrow to the nairaland front page but for some reasons, he felt he needed to know more about the doctor’s abduction.

‘I’ve got no business to do with this,’ he argued in his mind as his finger hovered above the screen. A thought suddenly popped up in his mind, he widened his eyes. He minimized his browser and opened his contact store. He scrolled to the contact saved as ‘mother’ and dialed the number. He placed the phone close to his ears to listen.

‘Hello David,’ the mother’s voice sounded calmly.

‘Mother,’ Dave replied with a bright smile. ‘How are you doing mother?’

‘I’m not fine David,’ the mother said in a troublesome tone. ‘All you do is send money home, you don’t call frequently or even try to visit home. Your younger ones are always asking about you, it’s your father that comforts them.’

‘Mother, I’m sorry, I would come home when I can, my job doesn’t give me time. But there shouldn’t be any problem, we chat often online.’

‘Is chatting online enough, you don’t even have time to do video calls with us.’

Dave felt guilty. ‘I’m sorry mother, I will change and I will come home very soon.’

‘That’s what you say all the time.’

‘I promise this time Mother, if I don’t come before the end of the year, I will spend the Christmas holiday with you people.’

‘Ah! Christmas! That’s too far.’

‘It’s not far mother, it’ll come very soon.’

The mother sighed.

‘Mother, I have a question for you.’ he said, changing his tone to a serious one.

'Ehen David, hope there's no problem.'

'There's no problem ma, I want to ask if you still remember Dr Ekwueme.’

‘Dr… Ekwueme…’ the woman stammered for a while. ‘Dr Ekwueme, yes, I remember him. What’s the problem?’

‘Mother, I told you there is no problem. Do you know where he is now and what he does?’

The mother was silent for a while. ‘I think he left Lagos for his hometown, I heard he has built big hospitals and he’s helping people in his state now.’

‘Mother, do you know which state he retired to?’

‘I’m not sure, but I’m sure it’s one of these eastern states.’

Dave sighed. ‘Okay, what if I send you his picture on whatsapp, can you recognize him?’

‘Yes, I can.’

17 part 5 cont'd

‘Okay, I’ll send it to you right now. Please come online,’ Dave said before ending the call.

He returned to his phone browser and downloaded the images of the man, and then he forwarded them from his pictures gallery to his mother’s number on WhatsApp.

A reply came after two minutes, it read: ‘Yes, he’s the one.’

Dave’s heart skipped a beat. He couldn’t believe his eyes. He read the reply again and again to himself. He had seen the doctor who rescued his life when he was younger without taking any hospital fee from anyone. It was painful that he didn’t recognize the doctor when he saw him, maybe if he had, he would have tried to stop the car and get to rescue the man from the girl.

He couldn’t tell what got him so carried away by the girl that he didn’t pay much attention to the man. She was beautiful but he didn’t think it was her beauty that got his attention that much.

Another thought struck his mind and it totally change his direction of thoughts. Something was wrong but he couldn’t connect it. He had a feeling that the Chevrolet he pursued Samantha Osman with was the same one he saw Doctor Ekwueme in, then why did someone else come to claim ownership? He tried to recall the face of the woman who had come to claim the Chevrolet, he could remember the shape of her eyes clearly. He tried to compare it with the face of the low cut lady he saw in the Chevrolet with the doctor but couldn’t. He didn’t see the face of the low cut lady so close, so it was impossible to say for certain that she was the one who came to claim the car. He remembered that the complexions of the women were slightly different but he knew that that could be the work of makeups, he was also a pro in using makeups for disguising.

Something seemed fishy. Was it a coincidence that Samantha Osman was in the state the same day the Doctor was abducted from the house? He asked himself. Or did she have something to do with the doctor’s disappearance? Was it also a coincidence that the doctor’s abductor was a young lady too?

He needed to find out, he thought to himself. And even if it happened that the doctor’s kidnap had nothing to do with Samantha Osman, he would just take it as a repayment to the doctor for saving his life years ago. He got up from his bed and headed for the table where his laptop was, he was going to book a flight to Anambra for the next morning, and at least take some days break from his worries and pursuit of Samantha Osman.

___

‘Hey boy! Look here,’ Cole said dragging Stainless by the ear.

Stainless stared up at him with his head still slightly bowed. He was very weak and unable to move his body. Even with his weakness and terrible hunger which they knew of, he was still tied firmly to the chair.

‘Look at me!’ Cole shouted again.

He tried to raise his head but it dropped again. He sighed heavily and closed his eyes. Cole placed a finger under his jaw and raised his face.

‘I can see you’ve lost all your strength, sorry about that. Even though we were never friends, I still don’t feel too good seeing you like this but it’s a pity that I can’t help you until you give us all the information we need.’

‘I can’t give you any information,’ Stainless replied with a weak voice. ‘You…are…just wasting…your time.’

Cole chuckled and let his head dropped. He took a step back and suddenly sent an uppercut to Stainless’ face.

Stainless head swung backward and the chair he was seated staggered. Cole pulled his head back after some seconds, his lips were swelling already.

‘Now, are you going to tell me or not?’ Cole threatened, raising his hand tightening his fist for Stainless to see.

‘What do you want me to tell you?’ Stainless voiced out weakly. His head felt heavy and his vision was blurry.

‘Good,’ Cole let out a faint smile. It was the first time of hearing a positive response from Stainless since he had been held captive, it meant that the drug used on him was already working. ‘Tell me where Rex kept Chief Nonso Onwuli.’

Stainless stared at him for a second, he closed his eyes and then opened again to give a response that surprised and angered Cole. ‘I saw you people bring in Rex and Tobi last night, why can’t you ask him directly since you also have him captured too?’

Cole was infuriated and he felt like dishing out a heavier blow but he restrained himself. He smiled and looked into Stainless eyes, ‘Like I said before Stain, even though we’re not best of friends, I don’t feel too good seeing you this way. If it happens that you don’t cooperate with us, we might be asked to kill you by Samantha but if you cooperate, your life may be spared. That’s why I’m giving you this opportunity for you to save yourself.’

Stainless looked into Cole’s eyes keenly, his jaw now resting on Cole’s finger again. He could see no sincerity in Cole’s eyes and knew all Cole was saying were just to get him to speak. He forced in a breath before speaking up again, ‘Go to hell Cole, I’m not telling you any…’

He was yet to land when another blow hit on his face. This time, he felt as if his nose had shifted from the normal position. His head became too heavy for his neck and his nose began to run with blood. He began to see visions of himself in the sky putting on a white robe and floating in the air. He got to a place and met a man putting on a shining white garment, the man looked was an Angel. The man stared at his face for a while and then tore off the white robe on his body, leaving a black robe that was under. Then the Angel pointed him to another direction where he saw Don Daniel also putting on black and gesturing for him to come. He was about to start moving when he heard Cole’s voice again.

Cole was pulling his head again but this time by the hair, Cole couldn’t put his finger to support the jaw again because of the bleeding from Stainless’ nose.

Stainless managed to open his eyes and stared at Cole’s cold face. He could now clearly remember the words of his father who was a Christian, reminding him that he would go to hell if he continued with his bad ways. His hallucination had brought him close to hell and it felt to him as if it was real for the first time, Don was in hell and was calling him to join. He decided that he must stay alive even if it was to repent before dying.

‘Chief Nonso Onwuli was first taken to Igbede, he was moved when Rex found out that Samantha was coming. I don’t know where exactly Rex has moved him to now, but there are only three facilities I know Rex procured in Lagos. The one in Igbede, one at Ikeja and one at Ipaja.’ Stainless finally gave in.

Cole smiled now. He took out his phone and opened the notepad, ‘Can you tell me the specific addresses of each location?’

Stainless described the location of the three places and Cole wrote them on his phone.

‘Clean him up, give him some food to eat and let him rest after that ,’ Cole said to the other man standing behind him in the room. He proceeded out and went straight to meet Tarasha who was in the computer room.



‘Cole, Elvis Richards is back to the hospital. We need to check which one he was taken to?’ Tarasha spoke first before Cole could.

‘Did it just happen?’ Cole asked.

‘Yes, it’s on the news. He was rushed out of the presidential quarters after being found unconscious in his room.’

‘I hope that man doesn’t die before we get to him,’ Cole said.

‘I hope so too, I want him to admit all his sins to the world before he dies.’ Tarasha replied. She paused for a minute to concentrate on the blog which she was updating. Cole found a seat and sat beside her.

‘Boss, Stainless has spoken. He gave the addresses of three different places where Rex could have taken Chief Nonso to.’

‘Do you know the three places?’

‘Yes, I do.’ Cole answered.

‘Then, we have to check them all this afternoon. After Chief Nonso is safe, we would go for the Vice President immediately,’ Tarasha said.

Her phone was already ringing before she finished talking. She looked at the screen, Henry was the caller.

‘What’s up man?’ she said into the phone.

‘Tara, the Inspector General’s secret flight to Netherlands is tomorrow by twelve noon,’ Henry said to her.

‘Oh!’ Tarasha let out a breath. ‘Thanks, I’ll get back to you soon.’

She turned to look at Cole who was also staring at her. ‘Our plan has changed.’

Cole already expected that, after seeing the way she responded to Henry.

‘You would have to go with one or two other men to look for Chief Nonso, I will take a flight to Abuja tomorrow with Henry.’ She explained.

‘What’s happening in Abuja?’ Cole asked.

‘The Inspector General secret flight to Netherlands is tomorrow,’ she replied. Her phone began to ring again and she picked it up, Dr Ekwueme was the new caller.

‘Samantha, where are you?’ Dr Ekwueme voice sounded with a note of emergency.

‘What’s wrong doc?’ Tarasha asked.

‘I need to see you right away, it’s urgent.’

‘Can’t you say what it is over the phone?’

‘I need you to see things for yourself.’

Tarasha sighed, she knew it must be something about Mrs. Atinuke. ‘I’ll be there in thirty minutes time,’ she said and ended the call. She got up from the seat and turned to Cole, ‘You can shut down the systems, I have to go meet the doctor now.’



43 Minutes later.

Tarasha was walking hurriedly to the medical room while the doctor was following behind as fast as his strength and weak bones could carry him. She opened the door and stormed into the place, she proceeded straight to the place the woman was laying. The doctor walked in after her and pushed the door slightly, leaving it partially opened.

Tarasha stared at the screen of the machine behind the headboard of the bed where Mrs. Atinuke laid. She could confirm what the doctor said from the reading on the screen. The woman needed help urgently.

‘She needs to be under the machine in less than twenty four hours,’ Dr Ekwueme said to Tarasha who was staring at the woman silently.

Tarasha heaved a sigh. She turned a bit from the woman and stared at the wall. She wondered if fighting for Mrs. Atinuke’s life was worth it, after all it was easier for her to kill the Vice President now that Rex was in captivity.

‘What would happen if we don’t get her under the machine in twenty four hours?’ Tarasha turned to the doctor and asked.

‘I don’t think she can survive it,’ the doctor replied in a sad tone.

Tarasha was yet undecided when she began to hear some faint sounds. She turned her ear in direction of the sound and looked towards the door, she saw that it was partially open.

‘Stephanie,’ she called out loud. She had heard the ‘silent’ sobs of the girl eavesdropping and hiding behind the wall.

The doctor looked towards the door and glanced back at Tarasha with his eyebrows gathered together. He wondered why she was calling Stephanie from there, was she expecting the girl to hear the name from her room.

He was awestruck when the girl appeared at the door with her face full of tears.

‘Come in,’ Tarasha said and then turned back to the sick woman.

The doctor stared at Tarasha in awe, wondering how she knew that Stephanie was outside. Maybe she had some diabolical powers, he thought to himself.

Stephanie walked in slowly and Tarasha waited for her to get to them before she continued speaking.

‘Can we take her to Anambra by land?’ Tarasha asked the doctor.

‘Ermm…yes, most of our roads are good now, flight is only better because of time but I knowit isn’t an option because of what is involved.’ Dr Ekwueme replied. He stopped to check his time, ‘But it means we would get there at midnight.’

‘Yes, that should even make it easier for us to use your hospital.’ Tarasha said. She wasn’t ready to travel to Anambra yet but she had no choice than to. Seeing Stephanie cry had made her make the decision quick.

‘How many of us are travelling?’ the doctor asked.

‘Just the two of us and the driver,’ Tarasha replied.

‘Please can I come with you?’ Stephanie quickly cut in with her teary voice.

Tarasha flashed a quick look at her. She wanted to refuse but couldn’t. ‘You’d have to follow every of my instructions.’

‘Yes, I would.’ Stephanie said, quickly wiping her eyes.

Tarasha stared at the sick woman for some more seconds before turning away. She took out her phone and dialed Cole’s number.

‘Cancel your plans to go look for Chief Nonso tomorrow, you would now go to Abuja with Henry to stop the Inspector General from travelling.’ She said into the phone.

‘Boss, what has come up again?’

‘Something urgent,’ Tarasha replied. ‘I need to arrange for an ambulance to drive us to Abuja right now.’

Read more here - www.youngicee.com/category/tarasha-season-2

TARASHA 2 CHAPTER 17 PART 6

® 18 + SNVL

© Oyinloye Oluwatosin Emmanuel


00:50AM

ANAMBRA

‘What part of the hospital do you have the equipment set up?’ Tarasha asked Dr Ekwueme who was already dozing off inside the ambulance.‘Doc!’

Mrs. Atinuke was laying on the bed still unconscious. The Doctor was sitting at the corner of the ambulance with his head resting against the wall of the vehicle. He jerked awake on hearing Tarasha call on him.

‘Are we ready?’ He asked as he rubbed his eyes and stretched.

‘Yes, we are,’ Tarasha replied.

The Doctor staggered up to his feet, supporting himself with the walls. ‘Let’s tell the driver to take us there now,’ he said in his sleepy voice as he managed to stand up.

‘Relax Doc, I think you should take your seat.’ Tarasha said and moved closer to him. She rested her bum against the bed the patient was lying in. ‘We need to plan before going in,’ she said and waited for the doctor to be seated before she continued. ‘How many of your security officials work overnight?’

‘We usually have up to six security guards on duty at night,’ the doctor answered.

‘How many exits and entrances do you have?’

‘Only three main entrances are allowed for most people and staffs but there are more than five exits.’

‘Secret or emergency exits?’

‘We have three main emergency exits,’ the doctor replied.

‘Which of the exits would be easy for you to lead us through?’ Tarasha asked.

The doctor pondered for a minute, ‘Well,’ he began in an unsure tone. ‘Maybe the first one,’ he paused again and heaved a sigh. ‘I’m not sure this is going to be easy.’

‘Whether it is or not, we still have to do it anyway,’ Tarasha said. She got up and returned to her former position, she picked her bag and walked back to the doctor’s front with the bag.

She dropped the bag on the floor and picked out her makeup kits bag. ‘We need to change your look before getting in,’ she said as she arranged the brush and tools to use. ‘It won’t be a difficult task if you cooperate with me, Dr Brian is expecting is already us.’

Dr Ekwueme frowned. He stared at Tarasha’s face with a questioning look, wondering how she knew Dr Brian who was the head of operations in his hospital. ‘How did you reach Doctor Brian and what did you tell him?’

‘He’s expecting a certain Dr Harry from LandMine Hospital in Lagos and that’s why I’m about to turn you into Dr Harry,’ Tarasha replied.

Doctor Ekwueme was more confused. She raised a tool to start applying on his face but he stopped her, ‘I don’t understand what is going on yet.’

‘Allow me work Doc, I’ll explain as I work.’ Tarasha said staring deeply into his eyes.

He released her hand and she began to explain as she continued cleaning his face. ‘I called your hospital immediately we decided to embark on this trip and I was able to connect to the head of operations, I introduced myself as Veronica calling from Land Mine Hospital on behalf of Dr Harry, I explained the condition of our patient and told them we’re on the way.’

‘But didn’t they ask for any certificate of proof from you?’ Dr Ekwueme cut in, getting more confused and his heart filled with more questions.

‘They did, and I already sent it to them,’ she said and continued with the making up. ‘I do think your questions are not necessary, the only important thing is achieving our goal here and if you’d allow me talk without interrupting, I’ll explain how we would go about it.’

The Doctor sighed and shrugged.



1:40AM

‘Good morning Dr Brian,’ Dr Harry greeted, extending his hand for a shake.

‘Morning sir,’ Dr Brian replied and took his handshake. ‘I stayed back because of you.’

‘Yea, I know. Thanks, I do appreciate.’

‘So, what’s the situation of your patient?’

‘It’s crucial now and she needs to go under the machine immediately,’ Dr Harry replied.

‘Has the patient been moved to the theatre?’

‘Yes, I handed her over to your matron.’

‘Okay, but…’Dr Brian paused and looked into Dr Harry’s face. ‘I need to see the documents where the patient’s family members have signed for the operation to be carried out.’

‘That’s no trouble at all, Nurse Veronica that came with me has all of them with her, I’ll call her to join us right away,’ Dr Harry said as he took out his phone.

Dr Brian waited for Dr Harry to finish with the phone call before he continued, ‘Well, I’ve been slightly confused, I don’t understand why you choose to bring her this late.’ He stopped to check his time, ‘This is almost two o’clock.’

Dr Harry smiled. He had been explained to that Dr Brian was made to believe that the ambulance was coming from Enugu State.

‘We had to stay back and allow the traffic reduce, we couldn’t subject the patient to the bad traffic condition.’

‘Oh! I see…’ Dr Brian shrugged. The landline on his table rang and he excused himself to answer the call. ‘Ermm…Okay, let her come in.’ he said and dropped the call. ‘Your nurse is here.’



9AM


The flight had just taken off and Dave was restless in the seat where he was. It was after he booked the flight to Anambra the day before that he read the new articles released by Samantha Osman. Since then, he had not been able to take his mind off Stephanie. He wondered if she was kidnapped because she had tried to go ahead with probing the Vice President all by herself. He had warned her before that it would be dangerous to do it without him and the protection he could offer.

Before he slept the last night, he tried all he could to connect all the details he had but couldn’t. He confirmed the ill health of the Vice President but wasn’t able to confirm whether Stephanie had tried to report him to the police or not. He then decided to cool off his mind and continue with his trip to Anambra, carrying all the documents he had stolen from Stephanie to hide them safely and hoping to release them on his own news blog once the need arises; which he believed was when the Vice President tried to deny the allegations Samantha Osman made against him (the vice president).

As he pondered on the whole situation, he decided in his mind that he was going to release a new article that night with pictures of the documents he stole uploaded, so as to get everybody’s eyes on the Vice President and also to draw the attention of international bodies. That way, the Vice President would make sure that Stephanie doesn’t die because if she died, the nation and international bodies’ wraths would be directed to him.


ANAMBRA

‘Good morning sir,’ Dr Brian greeted as he walked into the room assigned to Dr Harry and Dr Brian to rest in while monitoring their patient at the ward from time to time.

‘Dr Brian,’ Dr Harry yawned as he managed to stand up from his seat. He was previously seated behind a table where he placed his forehead on and slept off. The nurse was also seated behind another tableand had her head resting on it, she seemed to be unaware of the conversation between the two doctors.

‘I checked your patient few minutes ago, I can see she’s coming up already,’ Dr Brian said.

‘Yes, she is , slowly though.’

‘Well, I believe that she would regain fully by the end of the therapy.’

‘I hope so too.’

‘I was told that you’ve made the full payment already, thanks for that.’ Dr Brian said with a smile.

‘You’re welcome Dr Brian,’ Dr Harry replied.

Dr Brian paused for a moment and stared deeply into Dr Harry’s eyes with a frown on his face.

‘Dr Brian,’ Dr Harry called, waving his hand at the other Doctor’s face. ‘Is there any problem?’

‘No…’ Dr Brian stammered, shaking his head. ‘There’s no problem, there’s just this striking resemblance about you and Dr Ekwueme, I noticed it earlier but it just seems stronger now.’

‘Hehe…’ Dr Harry let out a forced smile. He could feel Samantha’s eyes piercing through his body from the back. He had slept off and forgotten her instructions on how to speak in such a way that his voice wouldn’t be easily recognized. ‘I’ve heard of Doctor Ekwueme very well, he’s as old as me, if not older,’ Dr Harry said with a smile. ‘And you know old people talk almost the same way.’

‘Well,’ Dr Brian shrugged. He wasn’t convinced by the man’s explanation but he was confused about hearing Dr Ekwueme’s voice from a totally different person. He had to conclude in his mind that the voice he heard was only in his head and not real. ‘I’m about to leave now and I decided to check on you first.’

‘Oh! Thanks,’ Dr Harry smiled, stretching out his hand to take the younger doctor’s hand.

‘You’re welcome sir,’ Dr Brian replied, shaking the man’s hand respectfully.

Just as Dr Brian turned to leave, someone knocked on the door. He stopped and glanced back at Dr Harry, Dr Harry raised his head slowly.

‘Don’t worry sir, let me check who it is.’ Dr Brian said and continued towards the door.

He opened the door to meet one of the nurses standing there.

‘Nurse, what do you want?’ he asked.

‘Sir, I’ve checked in your office for you. There’s a man outside who wants to see you, he claims that he could know the whereabouts of Dr Ekwueme.’ The nurse replied.

‘Oh! I’m coming with you right away,’ Dr Brian said and stepped out of the room immediately, he closed the door and followed the nurse.