Tarasha is a Webnovel created by Olahanloye.
This lightnovel is currently ongoing.
Tarasha was still furious about the news she had just gotten from Aisha, she was angry with Benny and was willing to skin him alive if she could see him at that moment. She continued to pace around angrily. She didn’t think Henry being alive would disturb her plans with the Senate President or the Inspector General but she didn’t just like the idea of keeping him alive.
Her doorbell rang, she paused and stared at the door, then she walked back to her seat and checked the person behind the door. They were two, Mr Sylvester and somebody else, she didn’t see the man’s face very well. She tapped the door’s open b.u.t.ton on her table and the door was unlocked. Mr Sylvester entered with the visitor.
‘Good afternoon sirs,’ she got up to greet, staring at the visitor’s face, within few seconds, she was able to identify him.
‘Good afternoon Kim, this is Agent Dakolo,’ Mr Sylvester introduced as they took their seats.
‘You’re welcome Agent,’ Tarasha said with a smile.
‘Thank you miss Kimberly,’ Dakolo smiled back.
‘Agent Dakolo has something for us to work out,’ Mr Sylvester said after they were all seated. He collected an envelope from Agent Dakolo and began to take out the pictures inside, he handed one the Tarasha and said, ‘these are the abductors of the Senate President.’
‘Hmm,’ Tarasha hummed in a surprised tone as she collected the picture and stared at it. ‘These guys are all young people,” she said.
‘Yes, young but killing people and throwing families into pain.’ Dakolo commented.
Tarasha smiled lightly, trying her best to conceal it. Dakolo’s comment sounded more like a compliment to her, killing and causing pain for people was what she was trained to do, so she felt proud when the agent confirmed that she was doing a good job at it. She studied the pictures for some more seconds before looking up.
‘Miss Kimberly, I heard that you’re very intelligent,’ Dakolo continued. ‘I hope you’re patriotic too?’
‘Yes sir,’ she stated firmly.
‘I believe you,’ Dakolo continued. ‘But before I explain the details of this job to you, I have to warn you about telling anybody that you’re working on it. I know you’re very aware of how dangerous this a.s.sa.s.sin group is. So please, do not tell anybody; your friends, family members or even partner anything you discover while on this job.’ Dakolo stopped to get her response.
‘I won’t sir, ‘ Tarasha replied in wx promising tone.
‘Good. Now, these pictures we are giving to you contains the members of the Samantha Osman group. Apart from this one, Aisha Bello,’ Dakolo pointed to Aisha on the picture in his hand, ‘we’ve not been able to get the real ident.i.ties of the others. This is because these people are heavily disguised. Now, the reason we’ve brought these pictures here is for you to track them, Mr Sylvester has said that the data from the past seven days would be provided to you. We want you to trace all these faces and spot anywhere they’ve been to recently.’ Dakolo paused as he noticed a deep frown appearing on her face.
‘Sir, I don’t understand; for which locations am I going to check?’
‘For all locations,’ Dakolo replied.
Tarasha’s expression turned into a shocked one. ‘Sir, I alone cannot do the job for a single town in Abuja, I mean that means observing up to hundred videos of at least fifteen hours each.’
Dakolo paused and took in a deep breath, he realized that he was just about giving her an impossible job. If only a town would have up to hundred videos, then the whole of Abuja would more than two thousand videos of fifteen hours each and that would mean they would need up to thirty thousand hours of watching and observing all those videos which was equal to 1,250 days of watching.
‘Sir, monitoring successfully for the past seven days in Abuja wouldn’t be possible even if we had twenty people working on it and if we are to divert the attention of all regionals to it, then there would be more trouble because anything can happen while they take their eyes off the ongoing transmission.’
‘Hmm,’ Dakolo inhaled deeply and rested his back on the chair, his idea wasn’t good after all.
‘But sir, we can work on monitoring the faces of these individuals for the coming days. We’ll have to build a system that would keep traces of their facial structures. Once any of them is located in any region, there would be an alarm in the regional office which would be sent here from the region.’ Tarasha offered.
‘Excellent! Then begin to work on it immediately,” Dakolo sat up and said excitedly.
‘Alright sir, we’ll start work as soon as possible,’ Tarasha replied with a smile. She had a plan, there was something like that she had seen installed in the system.
‘But…’ Sylvester cut in, he looked like he was trying to recall something. ‘I think Henry E.G was working on something like that already.’
“Ermm… Yes, ‘ Tarasha joined, ‘I think I saw something like that too, but I’ll confirm later.’
‘Then when can it be ready for use?’ Dakolo asked.
‘Once I check and find it already installed, we can turn on the process immediately.’ Tarasha replied. ‘If it has not been installed yet, it’ll take us about twenty hours to install but if it has not been developed at all, then we’ll need a week to develop and fix a new one.’
‘Okay, how long will it take you to confirm if it has been installed or not?’ Dakolo asked.
‘Just an hour,’ Tarasha stated.
‘Oops! I can’t wait for that, but I’ll call you to get the report,’ Dakolo said and began to stand up from his seat.
‘I’ll get back to you as soon as possible,’ Tarasha a.s.sured. She got up to receive a warm handshake from Dakolo, then the Agent and Sylvester walked out of the office.
Tarasha sat back and returned to work immediately, she had found the opportunity to call for Henry’s presence.
++++
‘Ah!’ Benny groaned as Don continued to dish out blows to his face. His face was bleeding and mouth swollen, his two hands were tied with strong ropes to two separate poles at the two sides, his legs were also tied in the same manner. That was how he met himself when he woke up, the last thing he remembered doing was fighting with Don. He was ready for death; he was sure death was coming soon as his body was drastically losing strength and his hosts were not ready to show mercy on him except he gives them the answer they were seeking from him.
‘He’s not spoken yet?’ Stainless asked Don, walking into the darkly lit room with a bottle of alcoholic wine in his hands.
‘No,’ Don replied in a frustrated tone. He stepped back and took a stick of cigar from the concrete table, he lit it and took a quick drag.
‘I think the guy loves to die,’ Stainless said mockingly, standing in front of Benny with his wine. He poured a quant.i.ty of the liquid on Benny’s face and it washed down some of the blood. ‘Homie, you wanna die because you want to proof loyal to a b**ch?’
‘I’m dead already,’ Benny spoke softly, like a drunken man. ‘It’s better you kill me here because I don’t want her to kill me for being a betrayal, that would be worse.’
‘Oh boy,’ Stainless said and laughed sardonically. ‘She doesn’t have to see you as a betrayal man, you can just tell us her operation base and we’ll send you back to her as if nothing happened, and we won’t attack her, even if we do, it would be on your conditions.’
‘You can’t get to her operation base or even attack her, she’ll kill you before you make the move.’ Benny said.
Stainless laughed again, ‘You think all men are sissies like you?’
‘Don’t mind the f*ol, that b**ch must have poisoned him with something that made him lose his mind.’ Don said, moving closer.
There was quietness for a while, Don kept smoking while Stainless was drinking. ‘Benny,’ Don called softly, blowing smoke at his face. ‘Do you know who sent us? It’s the Vice President,’ Don stated temptingly. ‘And he is offering us huge sums of money, you too can be a partaker if you’ll only cooperate with us.’
‘There’s no need for me to join a team I know has already failed from the start,’ Benny remained adamant. ‘You can’t beat Tarasha, she’s not your match.’
Don stared at him in silence for a couple of seconds and took in some few drags before he continued to dish out blows to Benny’s face.
++++
**Two Hours later**
‘This has not been properly developed sir,’ Tarasha said, explaining some things to the three men by her side. Mr Sylvester was sitting beside her in the second visitor’s seat in his office while Frank and the other guy was standing and staring into the laptop.
‘But I thought Henry installed it already,’ Frank put in, looking confused.
‘Yes, that’s where the major problem lies now,’ Tarasha continued to explain. ‘He installed it while still developing and optimized it with the systems, I know he wasn’t antic.i.p.ating anything evil, that’s why he installed it and even made the only way to unlock the API his finger print.’
‘That means we can’t continue to work on it without getting his fingerprint?’ Mr Sylvester asked.
‘Yes, that’s our pa.s.sword to continue developing.’ she replied.
‘Wow!’ all the men in the office exclaimed in unison, letting out sighs after.
‘What about creating a new one? Just stop his process and i run another?’ Mr Sylvester asked.
Tarasha turned to face Frank and the other guy, ‘I thought you guys worked with him on it,’ she said in a questioning manner.
‘Yes,’ Frank was the one who replied. ‘But he never carried us along, he only said he would tell us later when it was the right time.’
‘Oops!’ Tarasha sighed and turned back to Mr Sylvester to answer his question. ‘We can’t initialize another process, not when this has been optimized with the system already. We need to first take out the keys which Mr Henry has locked with his finger print.’
‘Hmm,’ Sylvester took in a deep breath and got up. ‘So that means that we won’t be able to help the police with their investigation.’
‘Yes sir, we won’t.’
‘Hmm… I just hope they’ll understand us, it may seem to them like we are only handicapped and inefficient because of Henry’s absence.’
‘But sir, that’s the least we should be worried about now,’ Tarasha said and turned back to the computer.
‘What do you mean?’ Mr Sylvester asked.
‘We are facing more danger than not being able to help the police, we’re facing more problems of the camera system being closed down for a year or more.’
‘What?? What are you saying?’ Mr Sylvester sat back on his chair and began to stare intently at Tarasha’s face.
‘Mr Henry has optimized the process with the whole cameras system of the nation and has configured it to start working next week, I believed he thought he would have finished working on the process by now. But now the process hasn’t being fully developed and he’s not here to rush the development process up. It would mean all security cameras in whole nation would start malfunctioning from next week.’
‘What? How can he start up such a process?’ Mr Sylvester slammed angrily. He got and began to pace around as he envisioned his job as the chairman of the NSCC at risk, which was his greatest fear.
‘He was doing it for the good of everyone,’ Frank said in a soft voice, trying to allay Mr Sylvester. ‘It would have been a great invention if he was here to complete it.’
‘But now that he isn’t here, what do we do?’ Mr Sylvester had frustration written all over his face. ‘Now that he’s not here, n.o.body else can continue the process because he secured it with his finger print, why on earth didn’t he used a simple pa.s.sword that Kimberly would have been able to decrypt even in his absence? Now, can we make duplicates of his fingerprints? No.’
‘Sir, he did it for security purposes. He had to do it with his fingerprints so that the a.s.sa.s.sins or anyone else wouldn’t have been able to decrypt the key.’ Frank explained.
‘I think what we should do is find a solution now instead of going back and forth on why Mr Henry did the things he did.’ the other guy suggested.
‘We have only one way out now, ‘ Tarasha said, drawing the attention of everyone else. ‘Get Henry to unlock it for us with his fingerprint.’
‘But that’s almost impossible right now, we don’t know if Henry is alive or not. The Agent refused to tell me anything concerning him.’ Mr Sylvester said.
‘Alive or not sir,’ Tarasha continued slowly; trying her best not to sound insensitive, ‘we need his fingers to unlock the process.’
‘So we can still use his fingers even if he’s no more?’
‘Yes,’ Tarasha stated.
‘Hmm…’ Mr Sylvester sighed, sitting back on the chair. He really hoped that Henry was still alive. ‘The problem now is that the police are not ready to reveal if he’s dead or not.’
‘I think you should try more to convince the Agent; if you tell him all these dangers we could avoid, he may consider us. Remember sir, we have less than six days until the whole of NSCC crashes.’ Tarasha said in a warning tone.
Mr Sylvester doorbell distracted them, he clicked on the open b.u.t.ton on his table in anger and one of the junior staffs entered.
‘Sir, our system has been hacked again; some regional offices have complained of static footages in their transmission.’ the junior staff announced.
‘What?’ they all exclaimed, including Tarasha who was aware that it was Cole at work.
++++
‘Here, we go sir,’ Cole said to the Senate President who was sitting beside him in the front seat of the car. ‘I’ll open the door for you and you get out immediately we get to to your house, I’ll speed off immediately.’
The man nodded in reply, that was the only way he could respond; his tongue has been cut off and his hands paralyzed by the poison.
++++
8pm
‘I’m ready sir, I’m about to give him the solution now and we’ll connect to you,’ Dr Tobi said into the phone. The call ended and Dr Tobi handed the phone back to Inspector Ken.
They both walked into Henry’s room, Dr Tobi holding a small bottle and a teaspoon with him. The small bottle contained Dr Tobi’s prepared solution which would aid Henry in recalling his memories. Ken was carrying a bag which contained a laptop and other gadgets.
‘How are you Henry?” Dr Tobi said as he approached Henry who was sitting on a settee close to his bed.
‘I’m fine,’ Henry replied with a smile to Dr Tobi but frowned on seeing Ken who was doing his best to look friendly and put on a smile.
‘Have you had your dinner?’ Dr Tobi asked, placing the bottle on a table beside Henry’s seat.
‘Yes, I have.’
‘Good, it’s time to take this drug; it’ll help you become stronger.’ the doctor said, handing him the teaspoon.
Henry collected the teaspoon from Dr Tobi, placing an awkward look on Ken. The doctor helped in opening the bottle and poured part of the content into the spoon. Henry ended up taking three teaspoonfuls of the solution.
‘Doctor, you said you were going to allow me talk to someone tonight,’ Henry asked after two minutes of resting. The doctor was already seated beside Henry while Ken was still standing. ‘I hope he’s not the one?’ Henry asked, pointing at Ken and staring at him frightfully.
‘He’s not the one you’re talking to tonight, but I think you should also be nice to him; he’s also your friend and won’t hurt you.’ Dr Tobi said.
‘Hmm…’ Henry hummed and stared at Ken’s face for a while, as if trying to see if he wouldn’t hurt him like the doctor said.
‘Let’s connect now,’ Dr Tobi said to Inspector Ken.
‘Okay,’ Inspector Ken replied and took out the laptop from the bag. He carried it to where the flat screened television was and squatted, he placed the laptop on the floor and turned it on. Then he took out an audio video cable from his bag and connected it to the laptop and to the television.
After few minutes of working on the computer, he placed a call to Agent Dakolo. ‘We’re ready sir,’ he said.
‘Where is the person?’ Henry asked out of curiousness, wondering what Ken was doing.
‘Be patient, you’ll see her now.’ Dr Tobi answered.
‘The person is a lady?’ Henry asked. He had never seen any other lady apart from the three maids in the house where he was.
‘Yes, she is your mother.’ Dr Tobi stated.
‘My mother?’ Henry’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘I have a mother?’ he asked but got no reply except a kind smile from Dr Tobi.
The video chat was on already, Mrs George was shown on the screen, she was sitting and just staring, most likely still waiting for video signals at her end.
‘Is this her?’ Henry got up suddenly and began to walk towards the television, Dr Tobi followed him immediately.
‘Henry,’ the woman called as Henry got midway. He paused and stared thoughtfully, Dr Tobi and Ken were looking at his face, expectant.
++++
‘I’ve been disconnected boss,’ Aisha said into the phone.
‘How?’ Tarasha replied her from the other end.
‘I think she took off the clothes I placed the recorder on,’ Aisha replied.
‘But you know her location now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Good, you and Cole has to leave that lodge this night, I’ve given instructions to Cole already. Benny is a traitor, we don’t know what he would do next.
‘Henry,’ Mrs George called as Henry showed on the screen. ‘Henry, how are you?’ she asked, the look on her face clearly showed she had been longing to see him.
Henry did not reply but kept staring at the screen intently. ‘Henry it’s me your mother,’ she said, placing her hand on her chest to emphasize. Henry just kept staring without replying, after sometime he glanced at Dr Tobi who gave him a look of encouragement.
‘You don’t recognize me Henry? Don’t tell me it’s true what this people has said about you losing your memory,’ she said in a grieving manner but the man she was talking to looked indifferent. She saw him turn and take some steps backwards.
‘I don’t know her,’ she heard him say to someone she couldn’t see as he proceeded towards a settee.
‘Ah! Henry, Ekene. His father’s son, boy with the large heart, man of so many dreams and visions,’ George began to speak words that he was used to hearing from her. Henry stopped just before the settee, he thought something sounded familiar. He turned back to the screen with a suspicious look, he couldn’t just point it out. He hissed and sat down.
‘I don’t remember her,’ he said to Dr Tobi again.
‘Henry, I carried you for nine months, breastfed you…’ the woman began to wail.
Henry got up and walked closer to the TV again, he stared at the screen for a while without even paying attention to all Mrs George was saying. He wondered why a woman he didn’t know was acting so emotional about him, there was nothing she said that he could relate with. She even called him ‘Ekene’, he had never heard that before. He turned back and walked straight to his seat, he paused midway again when he heard her screaming.
‘Ekene, please it’s me your mother, look very well at me. You took after me in all aspects, see,’ the woman said, pointing at her face. ‘We look alike.’
Henry turned to look at her face again and a confused smile formed on his face, to him there was no resemblance.
‘You look like her,’ he could hear someone say to him softly. It was Ken who was staying close to the television.
He gave Ken a deep frown and became more suspicious about the whole set up. He began to think Ken was trying to lure him into a trap with the woman.
‘Please, I don’t want to see for now,’ he said to the doctor and walked back to his seat. He picked up a towel from headboard of the bed and cleaned his face with it, then he sank into the bed and buried his face in the pillow.
*
‘Please disconnect, it’s enough for now.’ Dr Tobi’s face appeared Mrs George’s screen.
Dakolo went to the laptop and closed the chat. He turned back to see Mrs George weeping.
‘Don’t worry ma’am, everything would be alright,’ he said to console her after which he signaled for the junior officer who was with them in the room to lead her out. His phone rang.
‘h.e.l.lo Mr Sylvester, sorry I’ve not been able to speak with you well; I was busy. You were saying something the other time which I didn’t quite understand,’ he said into the phone.
‘Yes sir,’ Mr Sylvester’s said. ‘I was trying to explain to you our need for Mr Henry’s presence, the whole of NSCC may crash if we don’t have him in three days.’
‘But you know that isn’t possible sir, Henry is in a critical state and we can’t take him around. Even if he comes, he wouldn’t be able to do anything, and you know that already.’
‘Sir, we don’t really need him to do anything, we only need his finger print to unlock a process,’ Mr Sylvester said. ‘We found out today that he already began the process Kimberly suggested but the problem is that he locked it with his finger print and we need him to be here this week.’
‘What about taking the fingerprint from where he is?’ Dakolo suggested.
‘No, he has to be brought to the office. Our system is inbuilt and can’t be moved.’
‘Mr Sylvester,’ Dakolo called and then took a brief pause. ‘I can’t believe I even agreed to get his fingerprint for you, it’s impossible to get that for now. Let’s wait till everything settles.’
‘But sir, it could crash the whole NSCC,’ Mr Sylvester pleaded.
‘Just forget about it and wait,’ Dakolo said, not minding the seriousness in the man’s voice, he ended the call.
++++
‘But Doc, what’s up with Henry? Do you think your solution is working?’
‘Yes, faster than I imagined,’ Dr Tobi answered, smiling.
‘Faster?’ Ken stared at him in surprise, ‘how can you say that it worked when he was even callous to his mother?’
‘It worked,’ Dr Tobi answered confidently. ‘I know it worked, he responded as I expected.’
Ken kept staring at the doctor’s happy face in surprise, to him Henry did not respond as expected.
‘He would start recalling some things while he’s sleeping or when he’s alone and his mind has wandered far,’ Dr Tobi explained. ‘What he needs now is more of things like this, even if he doesn’t recall his memory fully, the fear in his mind for people would be erased.’
‘So you’re saying it’s possible he doesn’t regain his memory?’
‘It’s a fifty-fifty possibility,’ the doctor said. ‘But the chances of him regaining would be increased if we can take him to the places he has been recently and expose him to people he has related with before his poisoning.’
‘But what about me and Agent Dakolo? We’ve related with him recently, he was with us that afternoon before he was drugged at evening.’
‘Are you someone special to him? Or did you do something special to him that day?’ Dr Tobi asked.
‘No, we actually questioned him about some matters relating to Samantha Osman. We felt he was hiding somethings and we threatened for him to speak but he didn’t.’
‘Oh!’ Dr Tobi exclaimed. ‘You threatened him? That explains why he’s still scared of you. It also shows that my solution is working. He has a very faint memory of you guys, but he sees you as monsters.’
Ken gave the doctor a sharp look. The Doctor smiled and clasped his palms together apologetically, ‘sorry about that, I didn’t mean to insult you with it but that’s just how he sees you.’
‘Okay,’ Ken shrugged. ‘But how can we make his recovery faster without taking him to town?’
‘We can’t make it faster, we can only try. But I suggest that we keep showing him videos; show him videos of his hobbies; for example, if he loves to watch football and we know that his favorite team is a.r.s.enal FC, we can play several videos of their past matches for him to watch. We can also record videos of his house, his room, his resting place, his office; that could help too.’
‘Hmm…’ Ken nodded thoughtfully, ‘I’ll communicate this to Agent Dakolo.’
__________________
** February 3, 2031 **
‘Good morning sir,’ Mr Sylvester could hear several of the junior staffs greeting him from every corner of the building as he walked to his office, one of the messengers was following him with his bag. Mr Sylvester noticed an unusual frenzy in the corporation building that morning but he couldn’t tell what it was. He kept on marching to office, hoping that someone was going to come and brief him soon on the matter.
‘Good morning sir,’ Frank joined him from another block, he collected Mr Sylvester’s bag from the messenger and began to walk with Mr Sylvester to his office.
‘Good morning Mr Frank, why don’t you allow the messenger take the bag, you shouldn’t be doing that.’ Mr Sylvester replied.
‘Sir, there’s trouble.’ Frank stated, ignoring the man’s last statement.
‘There’s trouble?’ Mr Sylvester paused just before the door to his office.
‘Yes, there is. The cameras system have stopped working,’ Frank said.
‘Aww!’ Mr Sylvester exclaimed and his shoulders dropped. ‘Just as we have all discovered beforehand. Is Kimberly in her office?’
‘Yes, she is,’ Frank answered.
‘And what’s she doing about it?”
‘She’s been in her office since morning trying to control the situation but as we all know, the solution is to get Mr Henry’s fingerprint.’
_____
**Two days later**
‘Vice President to return into the country in three days time,’ Tarasha read the headlines of the news. Chief Elvis had been reported to have traveled out of the country for medical treatment, Tarasha couldn’t wait for him to return so that she could begin to execute all her plans. She had also began to study the Inspector General and was already making plans for his death too.
‘Senate President still in Coma,’ she read the next headline. Nasiru Attahiru had been flown to India for treatment but it was only a waste of money, the man would not survive the poison that was administered to him, Cole had waited for appropriate number of days for the poison to digest and mix with his blood before sending him home. The last headline she read before her phone rang was ‘NSCC in confusion as cameras begin to malfunction. She picked up her phone and stared at the caller’s name, it was Cole.
‘h.e.l.lo Boss, I was in the bathroom when you called.’ Cole’s voice came through.
‘Okay, any signs of Benny yet?’
‘No signs yet.’
‘Alright listen to me now,’ Tarasha said in a serious tone and lowered her voice. ‘The cameras system have began to malfunction since Monday but it seems that wouldn’t be enough motivation for the police to give me what I need. What I want you to do now is to cause confusion, install some bombs in certain areas of the town, maybe three to five places. But make sure that it isn’t close to where people are, so that it doesn’t kill much.’
‘Okay boss,’ Cole replied and the call ended.
That was Tarasha’s first strategy to force them to bring out Henry. She was sure that the police would run to the NSCC for help on footages that captured the people who installed the bombs but the NSCC would not be able to help because the cameras have been malfunctioning. That should make the police bring out Henry for the fingerprint but if they still don’t, it could cause distractions that would make her able to trace Henry and even start work on the Inspector General..
++++
Henry stood at the balcony of the house, wondering what life was all about, wondering who the people he lived with were and why they cared so much about him. He also wondered why there were so many policemen around the house.
Only three days ago had he began to come out of the house, he noticed that the house which he lived in was the biggest and most beautiful in that area, the other houses were ancient and small. The people were different also, their dressing and culture was different, they spoke a strange language which he never heard before.
He was enjoying the moment, the cool breeze was blowing on his skin and he was having a nice time viewing the women walking up and down with logs of woods on their head and some baskets of farm produce while most of the men were moving with their cutla.s.ses and hoes, some could also be seen coming out of bushes with local guns on their shoulders and small dead animals in their hands.
A certain old woman pa.s.sing with two of her children made him recall something which he saw the previous day while taking a stroll with Dr Tobi. He had seen a woman about the same age with this advising two young people; a male and a female; telling the male one who was the eldest to look after his sister when they got to the city. From then on, a voice had been echoing in Henry’s head, ‘Henry, look after your sister very well; remember that you’re the father she has at school.’
The voice kept echoing in Henry’s head and anytime he heard it, he would have a feeling of guilt and failure, maybe he had failed in the responsibility which the voice gave to him, he thought. Later that night, he began to relate the voice he was hearing in his head to the woman he had seen on the television days ago, the voice sounded like Mrs George’s own.
He took in a deep breath, closed and opened his eyes, something caught his attention. He stepped down from the balcony hurriedly and began to walk towards the road, soon he started running.
‘Henry,’ Dr Tobi and two officers called as they an after him but he wouldn’t stop. ‘Just follow him behind, don’t stop him,’ Dr Tobi said to the officers.
Henry was running after two people who were riding a bicycle. A girl was at the far front, her speed was more while the guy was following after her, trying to call unto the girl.
After some minutes, the girl stopped and dropped off her bicycle. The boy stopped also some metres behind her. Henry stopped running and watched them from afar. He saw the girl pack some quant.i.ty of sand and throw at the boy.
Something suddenly flashed through his mind, he saw himself riding on a power bike. He then saw a girl in front of him in a bush, she had her back turned to him. Suddenly she picked up a stone and threw at him, the stone met Henry’s forehead.
‘Ouch!’ Henry screamed and touched his forehead, the two officers behind him came to his rescue. Although, no stone had touched his head today, he still felt the same pain he felt in the picture he recalled.
The police officers began to lead him back home.
‘What do you remember?’ Dr Tobi asked him as he stepped back into the balcony.
‘A girl,’ he replied, still holding the part of his forehead where he felt the pain.
‘What does she look like?’
‘I didn’t see her face, I only saw her from behind.’ he replied the doctor.
‘Try, you can remember,’ the doctor encouraged.
Henry closed his eyes, his brain traveled fast. He saw the same shape of the lady’s behind, but this time in a room; he was lying on a three seater sofa, a drip bag was hung above and the liquid was running into his body through the drip line.
‘Can you see her face now?’Dr Tobi asked, bringing him back to the present.
‘No, but I saw her with a pin,’ Henry said, ill.u.s.trating a syringe with his hands. ‘I was sleeping on the chair and water was entering my hand,’ he added, showing the position where the fluid was entering into his vein.
Dr Tobi smiled, ‘come, let’s go in.’
++++
‘h.e.l.lo Mr Sylvester,’ Dakolo said into the phone in an urgent tone.
‘h.e.l.lo sir,’ Mr Sylvester replied back in a tensed tone.
‘I know you’ve gotten the news of the bomb blast which happened simultaneously at Roffman and Denril streets,’ Dakolo said. ‘It’s a surprise that the officers in charge just told me that the NSCC has not provided any data yet.’
‘Sir, we’re working on providing the data already,’ Mr Sylvester replied.
‘What do you mean by working on it? The normal procedure is that the data should be sent at least thirty minutes after a casualty.’
‘I know sir, we’ll try and get back to you now.’
‘Better do.’
+++
**45 minutes later**
‘Guys, we really need to do something quick,’ Mr Sylvester said as he walked into the general computer room. Tarasha and the guys who worked with Henry were seated in front of different computers, very busy with what they were doing. They all looked up to stare at Mr Sylvester on hearing his voice.
‘This is the third bomb blast that has been reported in Abuja today and we can’t provide the police with videos captured around the place before or after the blast,’ Mr Sylvester added.
‘We can’t provide what we don’t have sir,’ Tarasha was the first to reply.
‘The cameras have not been functioning and we couldn’t have recorded anything.’ Frank put in.
‘But we have to do something quick to get our cameras working again,’ Mr Sylvester said, trying to encourage them to work more.
Tarasha took her hands off the computer keyboard and placed her eyes on Mr Sylvester conspicuously. ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ she said flatly.
‘So Kimberly, you mean you’ve not found a solution by all you’ve been doing since?’
‘I’ve told you the only solution already, it’s Mr Henry E.G’s fingerprints,’ she replied him and got up from the seat. ‘All we’ve been doing since is just a waste of time.’
Mr Sylvester heaved a sigh and put his left hand on his head, his phone rang. Whoop! It’s the Inspector General,’ he said and decided to take some time to think of what to say. The phone rang twice again before he answered.
‘Mr Sylvester, why are you not answering my calls?’
‘Sir, we’ve been running around trying to fix things.’ he replied with no apologies in his voice.
‘What are you trying to fix? What’s difficult in sending the data you’re supposed to send?’
‘We don’t have any data sir,’ he stated flatly.
‘What do you mean?’ Rikau replied.
‘Our cameras have stopped working; I spoke to Agent Dakolo about it and I also sent you a pet.i.tion but got no positive reply.’
‘But you know that what you’re asking for is not ideal,’ Rikau said.
‘Sir, that’s the only way we can get our cameras to start working again; without that we may not function for the next one year,’ Sylvester said, almost shouting on top of his voice.
‘I’ll get back to you Mr Sylvester,’ Rikau said calmly and the call ended.
Mr Sylvester closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, he opened his eyes to see Kimberly and the two guys staring at him.
++++
10 minutes later.
‘Good afternoon sir,’ Agent Dakolo said into the phone.
‘Good afternoon Agent,’ the Inspector General was the caller. ‘I heard that there’s a friction between the anti bomb squad and the NSCC.’
‘Yes, there is,’ Dakolo replied.
‘The NSCC claims that their system is locked and that the only way to unlock it is with Henry EG’s fingerprint.’
‘Yes sir, they told me that.’
‘Find a way to get Henry E.G to the NSCC office as soon as possible.’
‘But sir…’ Dakolo tried to argue.
‘Shh… Don’t be insensitive, over thirty people have been displaced, five people killed. The bombers are capitalizing on the fact that the cameras are down, we need to rectify it immediately.’
‘Sir…’
‘Shut up and just do as I say,’ the IG commanded.
‘Okay sir.’