Tarasha The Brutal Assassin Part 2 Episode 10

 

Cole was walking up and down the front of the hospital premises, looking now and then towards the gate for sign of the boss, she was supposed to be there already, to make matters worst, her line was not going through. Maybe she had other plans, he thought for a minute. In another minute, doubts began to rise in his heart again. What if something had gone wrong somewhere? What if she wasn’t going to come? Does that mean they wouldn’t escape? No, Benny actually, not the three of them. He and Aisha could leave without waiting waiting for the boss, she didn’t ask them to wait. Benny was the one that needed a new car to escape and that was the only part the boss had to play in the task, bring a new car in which Benny could escape, as he would not be able to do so in the same car he came with. Cole started to think of an alternative to help Benny in case the boys did not show up. He took out his phone.

 Cole was walking up and down the front of the hospital premises, looking now and then towards the gate for sign of the boss, she was supposed to be there already, to make matters worst, her line was not going through. Maybe she had other plans, he thought for a minute. In another minute, doubts began to rise in his heart again. What if something had gone wrong somewhere? What if she wasn’t going to come? Does that mean they wouldn’t escape? No, Benny actually, not the three of them. He and Aisha could leave without waiting waiting for the boss, she didn’t ask them to wait. Benny was the one that needed a new car to escape and that was the only part the boss had to play in the task, bring a new car in which Benny could escape, as he would not be able to do so in the same car he came with. Cole started to think of an alternative to help Benny in case the boys did not show up. He took out his phone.

‘Go ahead with the execution even if you don’t get a signal from the Boss,’ he typed into a text message box. ‘I’ll be waiting for you to take you out once you’ve changed your disguise.’‘What’s the meaning of all these? Where is the Doctor?’ Dr Tobi continued angrily, too angry to even notice her pose, he turned away towards the door. ‘Didn’t you tell him I was in the theatre? Why did he still have to call urgently for me?’++++‘Yes sir, the Doctor said they won’t take long. He said that they won’t stay up to forty minutes before returning him here,’ the younger officer replied shakily.‘Okay,’ officer Clem heaved a sigh. ‘But you should have asked, Agent Dakolo would want to know where they took him to and do you remember that we are supposed to arrest the lab scientist immediately they finish?’‘And how is Henry?’‘Better,’ Benny replied, satisfied that he was able to make her take her eyes off him, at least temporarily. He walked closer to the patient and say stared at him for a while, then he looked at the nurse again, her eyes were on him once more, she quickly took them off as he caught her. Benny smiled, he knew that they must have being warned about him.
‘So brother, tell me.’ Tarasha sat back in the bed after returning the phone into her pocket. Jefa looked away for some seconds, staring blankly at the wall. Then he got up slowly from the bed and walked to the window. He opened the curtains and stared outside. 
‘I’ve been looking for the access card to my office,’ the Doctor replied and began to lead the way to his office. 
‘We heard that an operation on our patient, Henry is ongoing.’ Dakolo followed the Doctor behind, with inspector Ken and Clem who trotted after them like a little kid who had just been scolded. 
‘Yes, Dr Tobi is in charge of that,’ the doctor replied without stopping to listen. He never liked interacting with the police. 
‘We need to know where the theatre is, I need my men to stay around there.’ Dakolo pressed on. 
‘Agent please, we are carrying out our jobs as medical professionals and we would not allow you to interrupt or disturb us.’
‘Come on Doctor, we are not disturbing. This patient’s case is a serious one and we need to keep an eye on him always.’
‘Are you not the agent that signed for the operation to go on?’ the doctor paused to ask. 
‘Yes,’ Dakolo paused too and placed his hands on his waist. 
‘Then why are you getting worried about the operation again?’ the doctor asked and continued his walking. 
‘I told you before, this patient’s case is a special one.’ 
‘And we have a special professional to take care of him or do you think we’ll allow you enter into the theatre with them? Dr Tobi is one of our bests here, so let him do his job.’ The Doctor said and began to climb the stairs leading to office block. ‘By the way, why are you coming to me today?’
‘We couldn’t find the other doctors.’
The doctor sighed and continued to walk up the stairs. 
‘See doc, I’m not asking that we should be allowed inside the theatre, all we need is to stay around the place.’ Dakolo retorted. ‘And I heard you call Dr Tobi a professional, was it professional for him to have told the media about the patient? And he even had orders from the police not to, he still went ahead to tell the media.’
The doctor paused in the middle of the stair case and stared at Dakolo’s face. ‘I think there’s a mix up there, Dr Tobi couldn’t have told the media, he’s too professional to do that.’ 
‘Then how do you explain the Media’s presence here today and why would they even call his name when he’s not the one who told them? How did they get to know his name?’
The doctor took a step forward and paused again to think. ‘I don’t think it’s doctor Tobi, I heard of a foreign lab scientist working with him. It could have been the lab scientist who carelessly mentioned it to someone else.’ 
‘Exactly!’ Dakolo exclaimed. ‘It is that lab scientist that we really need to be careful of, that’s why you should get us to the theatre right away.’ 
The doctor took another step forward, he paused to think and then turned back. ‘I’ll take you there but you’ll not enter into the place until the operation is finished.’ He said and began to lead them down the stairs again. 
++++
Dr Tobi was relieved when he began to hear sounds of people coming upstairs, he stood by the door, ready to raise an alarm by banging on door. Few seconds later, the sounds began to subside. Dr Tobi listened carefully and began to bang on the door furiously but it was too late, the people approaching had already turned back and left. He returned to the visitor’s seat frustrated, he wondered why the most senior doctors’ offices in their hospital were always located far away from other places. 
All through his imprisonment in the office, he had been wondering who the disguised nurse was and the purpose for locking him up in the office. His mind began to raise doubts on Dr David, was it possible that the lab scientist wasn’t truthful and had an ulterior motive? But even if that was true, there was no way he was going to carry out an evil plan and escape from the hospital, the police will definitely lay their hands on him before he walks out of the building. 
His heartbeat increased as he thought of the patient and what could have happened if Dr David really had an ulterior motive, that would mean the patient would be killed or his situation made worse. Dr Tobi would never forgive himself if that was the case, he was the one who had trusted the wrong person.
He sank into the chair and let a deep breath from his mouth, he closed his eyes and prayed silently for God to avert any possible evil that wanted to take place. 
++++
The assassins nodded their heads to the hard core rap music blasting from the speakers in the car as they drove back to their lodge, Cole behind the wheels and Aisha by his side. Benny was seated at the back, having an awkward feeling but trying hard to conceal it by nodding his head to the music and humming the lyrics like the others. He tried to lighten up his mood by smoking cigarettes but anytime he lit up a stick and placed it in his mouth, he will feel quite uncomfortable and throw it out through the window. This continued all through their journey till he made a decision to be happy anyhow, when he saw that even Aisha and Cole who hadn’t played a major role in the task were feeling happy and enjoying themselves. But everytime, he tried to put on a smile, Dakolo’s face would pop up in his mind again and the smile would diminish. Instead of being happy and glad about his narrow escape from the man- they had met along the staircase when Dakolo was rushing upstairs, the man had paused to stare at his face even though the brown hair, beards and makeup he used to disguise were already removed- Benny kept on feeling like he had done something wrong that would make the agent become able to trace him and in the process nab the whole group. 
‘Come on Ben,’ Cole shouted taking his hands off the wheel and turning to the back to tap Benny. ‘You’ve nailed it already, stop looking like someone that was caught.’
Benny tried to fake a smile to make Cole return his focus to the road, Cole did. ‘Do you have any liquor in this car?’ Benny asked, raising his voice because of the loudness of the music.
‘No liquor man, this is a journalist’s official vehicle.’ Cole shouted back with a playful smile. ‘Just enjoy the music and your cigarettes for now, we’ll stop to get any wine of your choice once we see any store.’ 
Soon, they got to a popular bar and Cole pulled over close to the gate. Without turning off the engine, he opened the door and stepped out, he peeped at Benny through the back window and knocked. Benny rolled down the glass.  ‘What wine would you like to take?’ Cole asked.
‘Ermm…’ Benny struggled to recall the name of any wine, his mind was far away. 
‘Don’t worry,’ Cole cut in with a loud laugh, ‘I’ll get you your favourite.’ He said and walked away immediately. 
Six minutes later, Cole came out of the bar with a white polythene bag. From the shape formed on the bag, one could tell that there were three cartons of wine in it. He opened the door to the driver’s seat and passed the bag to Aisha, then he stood straight by the door and took out his wallet from the inner pocket of his jacket, he put back his debit card into the wallet and returned it back into the jacket before entering the car. 
Something struck Benny’s mind as he watched Cole remove and put back the wallet into his inner pocket. Then his mind began to flash back to the events of the day, he remembered observing the cure in the ampoule in Dr Tobi’s office and then exchanging it with the ampoule containing the death poison in his pocket. His body began to shake and sweat began to form on his forehead; he recalled the picture of himself in theatre taking out the cure from his pocket and administering it to the patient. 
‘Damn!’ he exclaimed and slammed his his palm on the backrest of the driver’s seat. 
‘What’s the matter?’ Cole and Aisha turned to him, asking simultaneously. 
‘Just drive this da*mn car out of here,’ he slammed at Cole who was staring at him in surprise. Aisha who was already taking out one of the cold wine bottles to give to Benny put it back into the nylon. Cole lowered the volume of the music and drove into the road, the rest of their journey was done in silence. 
++++
‘Doctor!’ A nurse came crying at the feet of the Senior Doctor as they met at a landing of two opposite stair cases. The nurse had with her three other doctors, including the first doctor who attended to Henry in the hospital, the Pathologist whom Dr David had the first contact with and another unknown one while the Senior Doctor had the three officers with him. 
‘What’s happening?’ the Senior Doctor pulled her up and stared at the faces of the three doctors behind for explanation. Four Security officials appeared from behind the three doctors. 
‘She came crying to us also, she said the lab scientist working with Dr Tobi has attacked the nurse left with him and injected the patient with a different mixture.’ the older Doctor was the one who replied. 
‘Damn!’ Dakolo exclaimed from behind and took out his gun immediately, the other policemen followed his example. ‘Take us to that theatre now,’ he shouted. 
Dakolo kicked the door to the theatre open and rushed in with the other officers, the nurse whom Dr David had taken out was still on the floor. The Senior Doctor rushed quickly to the patient and placed his hand on his neck, then he took the patient’s wrists and placed two fingers between the bone and the tendon over his radial artery to feel his pulse.
‘Where’s Dr…’ the Senior Doctor was asking when Agent Dakolo’s voice interrupted. 
‘Block all exits and entries into this building and the compound right now,’ Dakolo shouted at the hospital’s security officials. He placed his gun on officer Clem’s neck. ‘I’ll make sure you rot in jail if that so called lab scientist escapes,’ he threatened before rushing out of the theatre, officer Ken followed immediately while officer Clem followed slowly. 
‘Where’s Dr Tobi? Where did he go to?’ the Senior Doctor finally asked the question which was interrupted by the agent. 
‘He left since you sent a nurse to call him and hasn’t returned since then,’ the nurse replied. 
‘Me? Sent a nurse to him?’ the Senior Doctor glanced at the other doctor’s faces to see if the nurse was referring to them but they all had their gazes on him too and the nurse also fixed her eyes on him.
‘Yes sir, you.’ the nurse affirmed. 
‘How would I send for him when I know that’s he’s in the theatre, I would never do that.’ the doctor refuted. 
‘But the nurse came twice and insisted that you said he should come, she had your department’s uniform on.’ 
‘That’s impossible, I’ve been looking for the access card to my office since I left the journalists.’ the doctor said and faced the other doctors, as if to ask for their support. ‘Well…’ he turned back to the patient. ‘Let’s sort out this first,’ he held up Henry’s hand again and then his neck. He collected the stethoscope from one one the other doctors and used it to listen to the patient’s heartbeat. 
‘He seems fine to me,’ the Senior Doctor said. He stepped away for another doctor to move closer while he went to the trays containing the ampoule and other instruments. He raised up the full ampoule and then the half filled one. 
‘This was the one we brought in,’ the nurse explained, pointing to the full ampoule. ‘I don’t know how the other one got in.’ 
‘We need to conduct a quick test,’ the Doctor who had just finished examining Henry spoke. 
‘Yes,’ the Senior Doctor agreed. He picked up an unused syringe from the tray and cut off the nylon. 
++++
35 minutes later
The whole hospital was set into confusion as the police searched everywhere, even wards of patients who were seriously sick and needed no disturbance were not exempted. 
After searching around without finding anything, Dakolo turned his focus to journalists who were thrown into surprise at the sudden madness of the policemen. 
‘Hey!’ Dakolo called out to some journalists who wanted to enter their cars on seeing him. They had all wanted to leave immediately the police started searching around but couldn’t as the exits were locked already. 
‘Enough harassment of the Press already,’ one of bold journalists confronted Dakolo. ‘We came here to do our job and the police has scattered everything and turned it around, you are harassing us, claiming that we attacked one of your patients whereby none of us even crossed the reception.’ 
‘How did you get into this vicinity?’ Dakolo asked him, ignoring all his previous rantings. 
‘How does that matter right now?’ the journalist barked. ‘Let us go, you’re oppressing us and violating our rights.’ Other journalists came to stand by his side with their cameras chanting ‘yes’ and encouraging him. 
‘Someone gave you the information right? Did you bother to find out if was true before you smuggled yourselves in here? How did you even get to enter? It shows that someone inside here must have planned it with you. Who led you people in?’
The journalists looked around for a while, trying to see if they could locate Cole and Aisha who had planned with them and gave them the strategy to enter. 
‘That does not matter, the police has something to hide and we know it.’ the journalist said and was encouraged by the others. 
Dakolo who had gotten a clue about them being led by a particular person from their looking around smiled. ‘You can’t find the person right? It shows that you’ve been used to accomplish a purpose.’ Dakolo said and moved closer to the journalist. He placed a hand on his shoulder gently, the journalists shook off the hand and stepped back. ‘Henry EG has just been poisoned again, you guys distracted the police and the doctors, you are all suspects. It’s better you answer by questions now or provide the person who gave you the information and led you in to clear your names.’
The leading journalist and his friends looked around again for the people who led them in but they found no signs of them. 

Not too long after, Dr Tobi started hearing noises of someone coming up the stairs again. This time, he decided not to waste the opportunity, he went to the door and started calling for help immediately. The footsteps got closer and someone stopped at the door. 
‘Dr Williams,’ the person called. 
‘No, it’s Dr Tobi who’s inside,’ Dr Tobi shouted back. 
There was silence for some seconds, then the door opened. The head of security staffs entered into the office, giving Dr Tobi a questioning look. 
‘How did you get locked in here,’ the security man asked. 
‘That’s not important now sir, I have to be on my way to the theatre.’ Dr Tobi replied and tried to walk past the man. 
The security man blocked his way, ‘you have to explain how you got here.’
‘I was locked in by a nurse,’ Dr Tobi replied with a loud frustrated tone. ‘Can I pass now? I was in the middle of an operation before being deceived here.’
The security man stepped away for Dr Tobi to pass. He moved out too and locked back the door before following after Dr Tobi. 
‘Where is Dr Williams?’ The security man asked as he trotted down the stairs with Dr Tobi. 
‘I don’t know, no one has come up there since I was locked in.’
‘Dr Williams have been searching everywhere for his access card, a cleaner found it in a female ward toilet.’
Dr Tobi kept walking with speed, he wasn’t listening to the security man anymore. As they got down the stairs, he ran into inspector Ken. 
‘Doctor!’ Inspector Ken exclaimed in surprise. 
‘Officer,’ Dr Tobi called back but kept on walking. Inspector Ken followed at the same pace. 
‘That lab scientist has poisoned the patient,’ Inspector Ken announced in a kind of accusing manner, making the doctor stop abruptly. 
Dr Tobi turned and gave the inspector an awful look, then he continued to walk with speed. 
In five minutes they got to the theatre, all the Doctors there had already left and some cleaners were already cleaning the theatre, the patient had also been moved away. 
‘What happened here?’ Dr Tobi asked the people cleaning in an aggressive manner. 
‘I don’t know,’ one of the cleaners replied him. ‘They’ve moved the patient away already.’
Dr Tobi placed his hands on his waist and stopped to think for a while, then he began to walk again, increasing his speed this time.
Ken followed with the motive of watching where the doctor was going and ensure that the doctor does not escape, Dr Tobi was now a suspect also. 
In another three minutes, they got to the previous ward from were Henry was moved to the theatre. The older doctor who was in charge of treating Henry before the case was transferred to Dr Tobi was found in the ward with two officers. 
‘Doctor sir, where’s my patient?’ Dr Tobi asked as he barged in. 
The older doctor turned slowly to confirm who’s voice he heard and he paused on seeing three people walk in, he adjusted his lenses and placed a stern look on Dr Tobi. ‘Tobi, where have you been? How could you leave a patient in the theatre and walk away?’ The Doctor said in a reprimanding tone. 
‘I didn’t leave him like that sir, I was told that Dr Williams was calling for me.’
‘Dr Williams never called for you,’ the older doctor shouted. ‘For God’s sake, how would he call you when you are in the theatre?’
‘I didn’t believe at first; but the nurse…ermm, I mean the lady told me that he was calling for me in respect of the operation and that the officers were waiting for me too.’
‘A lady?’.
‘Yes, she was dressed in a nurse’ uniform, so I thought she was a nurse.’ Dr Tobi replied. While they conversed, inspector Ken moved closer and stood by the side listening to them. 
‘That lab scientist has injected the patient with an unknown substance, the patient’s blood and liquid injected are being tested in the lab now,’ the doctor said, taking a step forward towards Dr Tobi at the mention of each word. 
Dr Tobi’s face turned remorseful, his heart was broken and his mind dejected. He wondered why he hadn’t been suspicious of the lab scientist like agent Dakolo was. 
‘And what in the world went wrong with you? Why did you talk to the media about the patient’s case?’ the older doctor questioned as he stood at his front. 
‘I didn’t… I didn’t talk to anyone,’ Dr Tobi replied in low tones. 
‘The Journalists mentioned your name.’
‘I didn’t talk to anyone about the patient, not even my colleague here at work.’ Dr Tobi replied, surprised at the accusation. 
‘Where were you all through? Why didn’t you return to the theatre when you didn’t find Dr Williams?’
‘I was locked in, I was locked in Dr Williams’ office,’ Dr Tobi replied, looking back at the security man for support. 
‘Locked in? That’s impossible,’ the older doctor disbelieved Tobi. ‘Dr Williams’ entrance card is nowhere to be found.’
‘She locked me…’
‘Here’s the card sir,’ the security man joined in, raising up  the card to display. 
‘Where did you find it?’
‘In a female ward Toilet, a cleaner brought it to me.’ 
The older Doctor moved closer to the security man and collected the card, he confirmed that it was real and returned it. He turned to Dr Tobi, ‘how did she lock you in without the card?’
‘She was with the card, she opened the door to Dr Williams’ office and I walked in with her thinking that the doctor was inside. It was later that she brought out a gun and disconnected the landline so I wouldn’t be able to call anyone outside.’
‘Can you recognize that nurse?’ Inspector Ken cut in from behind. He walked from where he was and stood in between the doctors, turning to face Dr Tobi.
‘She wasn’t a nurse but I can recognize her, she had a low hair cut and was putting on a wig to cover her hair,’ Dr Tobi replied. 
‘Hmm…’
‘Please, I have to get to the lab now.’ Dr Tobi said and began to walk away. 
++++
‘Evelyn, I’ve been waiting all day for you.’ Mr Sylvester said as she walked into his office. 
‘I know sir, I’m sorry for taking so long. It’s just that I had to do some per time job to help raise some money for my family.’ She replied as she proceeded to his table. 
Mr Sylvester stared at her face in disbelief, ‘but why didn’t you tell me you needed some money? How much were you paid for the job?’
‘I’m used to it sir,’ Evelyn replied with a pleasant smile. ‘Things have not been rosy for my family since I finished schooling in Canada and my father’s illness has also caused us a lot. So as the first child, I have to man up and make things work.’
‘Hmm, that’s sad. What’s the nature of your father’s illness?’
‘Stroke, he’s down with Stroke,’ she replied after placing the laptop on the table and sitting down. ‘And now that my mother is ill also, I have to spend more time with both of them.’ 
Mr Sylvester heaved a sigh, he stretched out his hand and held her palm in his, squeezing it as a sign of friendship. Evelyn looked up at his face and smiled at the gesture. ‘You can always count on me when you have any problem, I’m ready to assist you in anyway I can.’ he said with an assuring look. 
‘Thank you sir,’ she smiled broadly. He released her hand and she was about to open up the laptop when he stopped her. 
‘Oh no, Evelyn. You don’t need to do that,’ he said with a wave of his hand. ‘It’s late already, who else did you meet while coming up here?’
‘Ermm… Only the security men and your secretary,’ she answered. 
‘That should tell you that everyone has closed for the day already, so you don’t need the laptop, we are not about to work now, besides there has been no information from the police, neither did the number call again,’ he said. She closed back the laptop before he continued,  ‘the Vice President was here today.’ he stated and paused to see if he had her full attention or if she would be excited at the news, she was listening but not with so much interest. 
‘He asked of you and wanted to meet and speak with you.’ he continued, now he got her full attention. ‘I explained to him that you’ve not yet resumed fully but he asked that I should make you resume as soon as possible; this Monday preferably.’
Evelyn gave a light smile, which showed her indecision. She took her gaze away from Mr Sylvester who was staring at her face, waiting for a response. 
‘I’ll resume on Monday,’ she replied, after thinking for less than a minute. 
‘Good,’ Mr Sylvester smiled, ‘we’ll be paying you one hundred thousand naira for a start, is that okay?’
‘Yeah, nice.’
‘Cool,’ Mr Sylvester pulled out his drawer and picked out an envelope. ‘Here’s your appointment letter,’ he said and handed it over to her. 
‘Thank you sir,’ she replied as she received the envelope. 
‘I hope to have a great time working with you,’ Mr Sylvester said and adjusted his seating position. 
++++
‘This doesn’t look so poisoned, contrary to the report’ one of the doctors in the lab said. All of them were behind a desk, observing some cells under the microscope. 
‘But it wasn’t the ampoule containing the cure that the doctor administered,’ another doctor said. 
‘We’ve not confirmed that yet,’ Dr Williams countered. ‘We need to confirm by testing the contents of the two ampoules.’
‘I have some documents describing the constituents of the liquid which was used to manufacture the cure,’ the Senior lab scientist said. 
‘Do you also have the details of what they extracted from the liquid to make the cure?’ Dr Williams asked. 
‘No sir, only Dr Tobi should have that.’ The lab scientist replied. 
‘And who knows where in the world Doctor Tobi is right now?’
‘I’m right here sir,’ a younger voice said from behind, they all turned to look. Dr Tobi was approaching them with Inspector Ken. 
The Doctors staring at Dr Tobi like people who had just seen a ghost made way for him to access the desk and observe the cell under the microscope. 
‘Sir, is this the patient’s blood?’ Dr Tobi asked after a minute of careful observation. 
‘Yes of course,’ the lab scientist was the one who replied. 
‘Who administered the cure to him?’ Dr Tobi asked another question. The senior doctors kept staring at him awkwardly as they considered the question to be a stupid one. 
‘No one administered the cure to him, that lab scientist was the one who injected him from an unknown ampoule and left after attacking the nurses.’
Dr Tobi stared blankly for a while, he bent to observe the cell again. He rose up after another minute, ‘the cure was what was administered,’ he stated. 
‘Here,’ the lab scientist handed him an ampoule, ‘he was injected with this mixture.’
Dr Tobi stared at the ampoule, he tightened the cap and then turned it upside down to check the bottom. ‘This is the cure we made, I marked the ampoule under.’
‘And this is the other mixture, the one that was on the tray. The nurse said you were supposed to use this,’ another doctor said, handing to Tobi the ampoule full of a different mixture. 
‘Where did they get this from? This is unnamed, I don’t know what is there. The cure was what was used, but it was administered the wrong way.’
There was complete silence for a moment, Dr Tobi went back to observing the cells under the microscope. 
‘I have to go back to my patients now,’ the Doctor who had handed over the other ampoule to Dr Tobi broke the silence. 
‘It’s okay doc, thank you.’ Dr Williams said. ‘I have to find a solution to my office door also.’ 
‘Your door has been opened,’ the Inspector cut in, ‘Dr Tobi was caught in there,’ Ken said in an accusing manner, giving Dr Tobi a cold stare, as if challenging him to deny. 
‘I was locked inside your office,’ Dr Tobi said to Dr Williams. ‘A lady dressed in the renal department nurses’ uniform came to tell me you were calling me, she lied that it was urgent and about the operation.’ 
‘She wasn’t a nurse but was dressed in the renal nurses’ uniform?’ Dr Williams questioned. 
‘Yes.’
‘How did you know that she wasn’t one of the nurses?’ 
‘She was with a gun, disguised with a wig on her hair too.’ Dr Tobi explained, ‘I don’t know how she got your access card but I believe she was sent to deceive me out of the theatre and she succeeded.’
‘Deceive you, but what for?’
‘To kill the patient of course, that lab scientist, the disguised nurse all must be from Samantha Osman’s group.’ Ken cut in again. 
‘But I don’t really get it,’ Dr Tobi said with confusion written all over his face, ‘why would they plot all that just to administer the cure to the patient?’
‘That you would help us in answering, that’s why I’ve been following you around. The police would need to ask you some questions. Let’s just pray and hope that it was really the cure that was administered and that nothing else was done to him.’
__________
‘So you never knew them right? Why didn’t you ask for the name of their organization?’ Dakolo questioned. Two of the journalists were seated in front of him under a tree in the hospital compound but far away from the  main building. 
‘We were more interested in the news and strategy that he and his colleague were sharing with us, that was of more import to us.’ the same journalist who tackled Dakolo earlier answered. 
‘So did he tell you how he got the information?’ 
‘He said it was from a Doctor friend in this hospital.’
‘Dr Tobi right?’ 
‘He didn’t mention anything to us until he called that name here when we were questioning the senior doctor.’
‘And how did you guys get the information that there were officers here guarding Henry E.G?’
‘He told us all of that, part of the strategy was that we should request to see the police officer in charge when we get here and also request to see the most senior doctor and he knew that you were going to come, he told us that immediately you show up, we should all rush you like we did.’
‘Hmm… Did you ask him why he had this strategy?’
‘No, it sounded intelligent to us, so there was no need for questioning.’ 
‘So they gave you the strategy of gaining entrance, strategy of who to ask questions and also to come and meet me but they absconded during the process?’ Dakolo asked without expecting why reply, nodding his head gently and thoughtfully. He knew now how it was all planned. The lab scientist was the one behind it all. 
He took out his phone, planning to place a call to the office and ask them to reach Government City Hospital in Capetown and collect more information about the lab scientist, now that he was a major suspect in a crime. 
Inspector Clem’s call entered before he could dial the office number. ‘Inspector Clem,’ Dakolo said into the phone. 
‘Sir, Henry E.G is safe. It was the cure that was administered to him and Dr Tobi has also been found.’
‘He’s going to recover soon,’ Dr Tobi said to the elderly Doctor who was handling Henry’s case before it was transferred to him. They were in the new ward where Henry had been placed and were running check up on him. An x-ray on his body had just been done and the doctors had found nothing dangerous in his system. 
‘Thank God he’s okay, I can’t imagine the kind of troubles we would have faced from the police and the questions we would have had to answer them.’ the elderly doctor replied. 
‘Thank God,’ Dr Tobi murmured under his breath and stepped back a little, staring at the patient in silence. 
‘I just wonder why that lab scientist should attack our nurses and flee,’ the elderly doctor put in. 
‘I wonder too, no one knows the content of the ampoule he left behind.’
‘That’ll only be for a short while, Dr Albert is working on it and I trust him, we’ll get the results soon.’
The door flung open immediately the elderly doctor finished talking. Both doctors turned to see the agent and two other officers approaching them. 
‘I was told he was administered the cure and he’s safe,’ Agent Dakolo said to the doctors, fixing his eyes on Henry who was laying peacefully on the bed. 
‘Yes sir, he’s alright.’ Dr Tobi replied him.
‘That’s good news,’ Dakolo gave a brief smile and glanced at the doctor’s face after feeling Henry’s skin with the back of his palm. 
Dakolo took some steps back, still fixing his eyes on Henry. He placed his hands behind his waist and stood at ease and then took his gaze to Dr Tobi. ‘We’ve searched all around and have not been able to find that lab scientist or even discover how he left this vicinity.’ Dakolo said to Dr Tobi who replied him with silence. 
‘In the absence of Dr David the lab scientist, we’ll have to take you in for questioning.’ Dakolo continued speaking, staring straight at Dr Tobi’s face to see his response. ‘You worked closely with him, so you may be able to tell us some things about him.’
‘I don’t know anything about him more than you do,’ Dr Tobi replied in a defensive manner. ‘Our relationship was strictly professional.’ 
‘So he didn’t mention anything about himself to you?’ 
‘Nothing,’ Dr Tobi answered. 
‘Okay, but we still need to question you. He may have revealed some things to you without you being able to decipher them.’ 
‘All the questions would be done here,’ Dr Tobi asserted, ‘it’ll be done in this hospital.’
‘No, in the police office, that’s the excellent place for that kind of session.’ Dakolo retorted. ‘Because of the respect we have for you, we’ll let you come for the session tomorrow morning.’
‘I won’t have that kind of session with you,’ Dr Tobi protested.
‘You don’t have a choice doctor, you worked with him, don’t make us do it the hard way.’
‘I won’t,’ Dr Tobi insisted strongly. 
‘Then, we’ll have no choice than to go hard on you,’ Dakolo said and turned to Inspector Clem to make a signal. Inspector Clem began to detach the handcuff attached to one of his belt holes. 
‘Agent,’ Dr Tobi called in a strict and determined tone. ‘We worked with him. You permitted it after confirming that he was from South Africa, so if I’m going to leave here handcuffed, you’ll have to be handcuffed too and we’ll have to be questioned together.’
Dakolo paused and took in a deep breath, staring at Dr Tobi narrowly, impressed by the Doctor’s intelligence. He signaled for inspector Clem to return the handcuff, remembering that he truly permitted Dr Tobi to continue work with the lab scientist. He felt a bit embarrassed and defeated.  ‘We do not mean to harass you doc,’ he said in an apologetic manner. ‘We only need you to answer our few questions. We’ll carry out the questioning here as you said.’
‘You do not want to harass me but you just tried to take me out of here handcuffed?’ Dr Tobi said angrily, shaking his head at the Agent in disbelief. 
Dakolo was quiet for a while, he felt he had goofed big time, he should have used a different approach. 
‘Excuse me sirs, it’s past closing hours already and I need to tidy up my office before leaving.’ Dr Tobi said and began to walk towards the exit. The officers allowed him pass and watched in silence, the older doctor followed suit. 
‘We’re moving him out of here tonight,’ Dakolo announced to the doctors before the exit door was opened. ‘I already requested for that officially and I’m sure that directives on what you need to do would be on your table already.’ he said particularly to Dr Tobi. 
Dr Tobi stopped at Dakolo’s announcement, he waited for Dakolo to finish talking before he turned back slowly. ‘You can’t take him away now, it will disrupt all that we’ve started.’
‘We will, we have to. It’s dangerous for him to continue staying here. We’re already making arrangements on how to fly him out of the country as soon as possible; most likely in two days time.’ 
‘Fly him out?’ Dr Tobi eyes widened in surprise, he took some steps back closer to the officers. ‘That would mean paralyzing him totally; it would totally eliminate all his chances of recovery. It’s not safe for him to fly yet.’
‘Ermm… Our minds are made up already,’ Dakolo said, unconvinced about the Doctor’s claim. ‘It’ll be safer there for him.’
‘Your minds are made up to kill him?’ Dr Tobi asked rhetorically. ‘Maybe you need to bring one of your Doctors from the office to read his case file, so that he’ll explain to you the danger of what you’re about to do.’ Dr Tobi said after which he turned back and walked out immediately. The officers were left with the elderly Doctor and unconscious Henry in the ward.
Dakolo pondered on what Dr Tobi said before leaving, maybe bringing one of their doctors to read the case file would tell if Dr Tobi was being truthful, he thought. Another thought struck his mind again, ‘what if Dr Tobi alters the reports in the file case to support his motion?’
He looked up at the staring face of the older doctor, he decided that he could trust him more. ‘Doctor,’ Dakolo called, proceeding towards the doctor where the doctor was standing close to the exit. ‘Please tell me, is it true that it’s not safe for him to fly now?’ 
‘That’s the truth you heard already, if you really want to render him completely useless, then you can go ahead with your plans.’ the doctor replied him in a stern voice. 
‘Far from it Doc, his life is very important to us and that’s why we want to take this step. We want to fly him to the US where he’ll be safer.’ 
‘You think he’ll be safer there?’ the doctor questioned. ‘You’re aware that the US also has this same assassin problem and you’re still talking about taking him there? As far as reports and news have it, we here; I mean you security officers are doing better than other counties’ officers.’
‘Ermm… I agree with you doc, but it’ll be harder for the assassin following him here to reach him when we fly him to the US.’
‘I thought your IG has said that the assassin group here in Nigeria is in same organization with the ones that are functioning in other countries too. Don’t you think you’ll be exposing the patient to great danger instead of putting him here where you can watch over him by yourself.’
Dakolo began to ponder on the Doctor’s words, he began to question himself if it was possible for him to personally safeguard Henry and still go about with the investigations. It would be hard but it could be made possible in a way.
‘Nevertheless, we’ll take him out of this place today.’ Dakolo spoke after coming to a conclusion in his mind. ‘We’ll move him to a secluded place, Dr Tobi would continue to treat him; that means Dr Tobi would have to be excused for some days, probably a month. Do you think we can trust Dr Tobi.’
‘Of course yes, I can personally vouch for him. He’s one of our bests here and he’s also honest. But taking him away for one month? You have to sort that out with the authorities of the hospital.’ The elderly doctor said. 
‘That wouldn’t be a problem,’ Dakolo said and began to walk towards the door. 
++++
Benny stepped out of car immediately the engine was killed. He began to walk towards the door of the house, forgetting that he wasn’t with the key. He was forced to stand at the entrance of the house. 
Cole and Aisha were watching him mystified, wondering what the reason was for his behavior. They walked towards the entrance where he was slowly and Cole took out the key to the door. Benny kept on avoiding their gazes until the door was opened. He rushed in at once and walked to the room he shared with Cole.
Cole and Aisha remained baffled, they stared at each other with questions in their eyes, they knew that neither of them had answers to the questions, so they bothered not to ask each other. 
‘I’ll go prepare our meal right away, I think Benny needs some rest.’ Aisha said with a shrug to Cole before walking away. 
Cole shrugged too and walked to the same room Benny entered, he opened the door slowly. He saw Benny where their clothes and bags were placed, searching furiously in the bags for something. Cole closed back the door and began to make his way to the room were the Senate President was kept. 
++++
Tarasha kept thinking about her next line of action as she sat at the back seat of the cab. Now she was supposed to resume as soon as possible in the NSCC and she’ll be working in a post close to that of Henry, performing most of his responsibilities and duties now that he wasn’t fit and won’t be available; in fact, what she was expecting was the public announcement of his death. And the most exciting part about her new job was that she was going to be working closely with the Vice President and the Inspector General. 
For the the two of them, she was going to attack them from a distance and also closely too, making use of the opportunity of her work with them. 
She took out her phone and opened her browser, she typed in the address to a news website and waited for it to load. In less than thirty seconds, it had finished loading and she saw the news she was expecting to see. 
‘Henry E.G attacked again in the hospital,’ she read the headline to herself. She clicked on the link to read the details of the news. 
++++
‘What details have you been able to gather?’ Agent Dakolo asked as he entered into the computer room. The two officers sitting in front of the master computer got up immediately in recognition of his presence. 
‘Sir, we’ve not gotten anything yet ‘ the lady was the one who replied. 
‘What do you mean by that?’ Dakolo asked, walking towards them with Ken behind. He stopped beside them and looked into the system to see what they were doing. ‘Have you not been able to reach the hospital again?’
‘I’ve reached them already but they denied having any previous conversation with us yesterday.’ 
‘What?? Were you not the one who spoke with them yesterday?’ Dakolo asked with seriousness in his voice. 
‘He was the one,’ the lady replied, looking to the man. 
‘Yes sir, I was the one who spoke with them. They confirmed him to be one of their lab scientists and even sent his profile to us, which I forwarded the summary to you,’ the man defended himself. 
‘Can I see the profile that was sent?’ Dakolo asked, folding his arms. 
The man sat back and minimized the application opened, he clicked on a folder icon on the desktop and began to search for the profile sent . ‘Here’s it,’ he announced as he clicked on it.
A saved webpage opened on the Google chrome browser and the profile of the lab scientist opened. Dakolo and Ken looked into it, they saw the same passport and details that had been seen on the lab scientist’s identity card. 
‘Then why are they denying having any conversation with you?’
‘I don’t understand sir, in fact, we’ve sent this profile back to the mail they used in sending and we’re expecting their reply. They can’t deny this.’ 
‘Since when did you send it?’ Dakolo asked. 
‘Thirty minutes ago sir,’ the lady replied. She also took her seat and took the mouse from her partner. She opened the email application to show the message sent. 
‘Call back now and ask them to confirm receipt and also send their reply,’ Dakolo ordered. 
The lady took her phone which was on the table and dialled the number immediately, she placed it on loudspeaker.
‘Hello, officer Kemi from the Nigeria Police Headquarters… I called an hour ago to ask about Dr David who is a…’
‘We do not have any lab scientist named Dr David,’ the receiver cut in. ‘I told you that before and you said you’ll send a mail to us which I’ve been expecting since and I’ve not seen.’
‘You’ve not seen it?’ the lady asked in a surprised tone.
‘No, it’s better you send it now. I’m about to close for the day and you’ll have to start from the scratch in explaining your request to another representative.’
‘But have you also been able to confirm the person who spoke to us yesterday?’
‘No, I already told you that we don’t have any care representative named Kelvin.’
‘Okay, please can you send your email address in a text message to this number, so that I can be sure that we’re sending to the correct email address.’
‘Okay,’ the call ended. 
‘But the man that I spoke with yesterday introduced himself as Kelvin.’ the male computer operator argued. 
‘Call the Network provider now and report to them, request for the recording of your call yesterday to serve as proof to us,’ Dakolo said to the man who immediately took the suggestion and brought out his phone. 
‘Sir,’ the female computer operator called to Dakolo. ‘The text message is here already,’ she said squinting into the computer. 
Dakolo bent down to also look. ‘These emails are different,’ Dakolo said, comparing the email in the text message to the one on the computer screen. ‘This one is contact@govcityh.com while the fake one of contact@gvcityh.com. You guys have been deceived.’
Dakolo turned to the male operator, ‘are you sure it was this same phone number you called yesterday?’
‘Yes,’ he answered in an aggrieved tone. ‘I was surprised when it was denied today. I was in a serious argument with the lady who answered until my colleague decided to help me.’ he said, pointing to his female partner. 
‘Then, call your Network provider immediately. Also tell them to provide you the exact location where the call came from.’ Dakolo said to the man and turned back to the lady. ‘You send the profile to the new email address for confirmation.’ 
The computer operators began work immediately. Dakolo stepped back and glanced at his wrist watch, it was some minutes past eight pm already, he was supposed to have closed for the day, same for computer operators and Ken but the urgency of the case wouldn’t allow them to. He heaved a sigh as his eyes met with Ken’s. He felt guilty for being careless and keeping all of them till that time, he shouldn’t have allowed that Lab Scientist at all, knowing that the assassins have high technology measures and hacking skills which they used in deceiving their victims. 
‘Sir,’ Inspector Ken interrupted his thoughts. ‘I think it’s time to go back to the hospital now, they asked us to be there by eight thirty.’
++++
‘It’s the boss,’ Cole announced to Aisha who was seated on one of the sofas in the living room. He was peeping through the front window and he could see Tarasha opening the gate to drive in her car. 
Aisha got up from her seat and they both walked out to meet the boss. Tarasha drove the car in while Aisha helped her to close back the gate. She took sometime before stepping out of the car. She looked quite simple and relaxed under the bright moonlight that night, she had stopped at the house in the city to change her clothes and pick the car. 
‘Where’s Benny?’ she asked Cole, taking in a deep breath as the cool breeze blew her jacket and hair sideways. 
”Ermm… Benny, I don’t really know. He said he wanted to get something outside and hasn’t returned since then.’ Cole replied. 
‘Boss, Benny has been acting strange since he finished the task.’ Aisha added. 
‘Why? But he was successful, it’s all over the news that Henry was attacked.’
‘Yes, I don’t just seem to understand. He was looking very disturbed.’ Cole said thoughtfully.
Dakolo was seated in the back of the ambulance with the doctor and Henry laying in the bed. Ken was seated in the front seat with the driver, leading the way to their destination. 
Dakolo glanced at Henry’s calm face from time to time and would take a deep sigh of relief after. He was glad that Henry was going to live after all, even though if he didn’t remember anything like the doctor said, he was a young man and still had the opportunity to start a new life. Dakolo made up his mind to help Henry have that new life and have it to the full. 
Just after fifteen minutes of driving, Dakolo’s phone began to ring. He took it out and checked the caller, it was from the office. 
‘Hello officer,’ he answered the call and spoke in a low voice. 
‘Sir,’ the female computer operator’s voice sounded. ‘The profile we got yesterday wasn’t from the hospital in Capetown, the signature and logo have some slight differences. The assassins must have created a fake profile and deceived us with it.’
‘Okay,’ Dakolo replied after few seconds of silence, feeling defeated but not surprise about the report. ‘What about the network provider’s report, where did they say the call was answered from?’
‘They haven’t been able to find the exact location sir but it has been confirmed that the call wasn’t answered from South Africa.’
‘It’s okay officer, thanks, you may now retire for the day and allow the officers on night shift take over.’ Dakolo replied. 
‘Yes sir, goodnight.’ Dakolo could hear the happiness in her voice before she cut the call. 
Dakolo took another glance at Henry immediately the call ended, he stretched forth his hand to the bed and to touched Henry’s fingers. Henry’s hand was warm but there was no reaction made to Dakolo’s touch. 
‘For how long is he going to stay unconscious?’ Dakolo asked the doctor. 
‘I’m not really sure, only Dr Tobi can give us the most accurate prediction,’ the doctor replied. 
‘I wished you were the one to stay with him, I can trust you more. Dr Tobi seems younger, inexperienced and more naive.’ Dakolo said. 
‘Dr Tobi is not inexperienced, he’s a professional who has dealt with several other cases successfully, he’s one of the best in Africa and in the world. Even though this case is quite unique, he’s still the best man for the job. I don’t think any other Doctor in the world would do better than him.’
‘Why are you so confident about him?’ Dakolo asked, raising a brow. 
‘He’s good, I know him, I’ve seen him perform excellently several times. He has even proved it in this case.’
‘How did he prove it?”
‘You see, in cases like this where the substance used to induce the brain damage and paralysis to the patient is unknown, the only person who would be able to produce the cure has to be the manufacturer of the poison. But in this case, Dr Tobi was able to come up with the cure. The highest point several other doctors in his line would have ever gotten to was knowing that the cure could be derived from that liquid, they would have never been able to know how to purify the liquid and make the cure.’
”Hmm… I see,’ Dakolo commented and took his gaze away. He stared blankly at the wall of the ambulance for sometime. 
‘You’ll pick him from his house tomorrow as planned,’ the doctor continued. ‘Now that he would even be left alone with the patient and the patient would be the only responsibility he has, he might be able to come up with several other things to make the patient recover faster.’
Dakolo bit his lips and nodded silently in agreement with what the doctor said. Quick recovery was what he wanted for Henry, very quick recovery. So that they would be able to fly him out of the country once and for all to save him from any other possible attacks. 
++++
‘I’ll have to return tomorrow then,’ Tarasha said, stepping into the car. ‘Call me at once Benny is back and also inform him that I need to have a meeting with all of you tomorrow.’ she said and closed the door to the driver’s seat. After waiting an hour for Benny to return, she had no choice than to leave and come back the next day. ‘Make sure you keep an eye on the Senate President, we should administer to him the poison very soon, it’ll take about three days before he finally dies.’ she said before starting the engine. She wind up the window glasses and began to reverse, Cole went to open the gate for her. In one minute time, she had driven out already. 
Cole and Aisha returned back into the house quietly, still wondering where Benny could have gone to and what could be wrong with him.
++++
Benny kept on walking hurriedly down the streets, he had gone out of Gwagalada already and was on his way to a motor park. He planned on boarding a bus that night or very early the next morning to Lagos, then from Lagos he was going to travel out of the country to another African nation where they would not be able to trace him to. He had enough money in his bank account to settle down there for the moment and maybe take up a responsible job or start a business.
The roads were already almost empty, there cars were passing by occasionally. There were also very few people on the road and by the side, most of them were people coming from work who could be seen at the joints of Mallams who were selling late night food to people. 
He crossed the road to the other side of the junction, he stopped to wait for a cab or a good Samaritan who would be driving towards the direction of the motor garage he was going to. 
Not more than two minutes of waiting, the good Samaritan came by. A black car stopped at his front. 
‘Hello,’ the windows were wind down and the car reversed a little. A man at the passenger’s side of the front seat waved at Benny. The man’s cap covered his face partly, making it impossible for Benny to see the face properly. 
‘Hello, I’m going to the Lagos motor garage there.’  Benny said, approaching the car. 
‘Do you have some money?’ the man asked. 
‘Yes,’ Benny replied, confident of himself. His gun was in his pocket and he wasn’t scared of entering into a robber’s car. He had received extra training under Tarasha, so entering a robber’s car would even make things better for him; it would give him good enough reasons to snatch the car and use it personally for himself, maybe drive himself to Lagos. 
‘Hop in,’ the man said and the door to the back seat opened. 
‘Thank you,’ Benny said as he entered and placed his bag beside him. He saw the eyes of the driver peeping at him through the rearview mirror but couldn’t see the face properly. The light in the car was turned off before the car drove off. 
The driver began to play one of Tupac’s album, raising the volume so high that it could damage one’s ear. Benny did not complain but just used his palms to cover his ears. 
Twenty minutes later, the car began to approach the point where the motor park was. 
‘Can you slow down your speed? We’re almost at my destination,’ Benny said but the driver and his partner weren’t listening, the loudness of the music would not let them hear. Benny tapped the driver on his shoulder gently, the music volume was reduced a little.
‘We’ve passed the motor garage already, please stop and tell me how much you want to collect.’ Benny said. The driver did not reduce his speed, he increased it instead and increased the volume of the music too. 
Benny took out his gun and wanted to place it on the neck of the driver but unluckily for him, they were close to a police road block. He hid the gun under his legs until they passed the police joint several metres away. 
‘Now pull over,’ Benny commanded the driver, putting the gun’s tip at the back of his neck. The driver refused to stop and continued to drive until Benny cocked the gun, he finally pulled over and raised up his hands surrendering. 
‘Bro, take it easy.’ the man on the passenger’s side said in a relaxed voice.
‘Hey man, calm down. I’m just playing a late night game with you,’ the driver said in a voice that sounded familiar to Benny. ‘Or would your boss scold you for playing a little, harmless game with me this night?’ the driver added in a mocking tone. 
Benny was taken aback, his hand began to drop slowly. Then his heart almost failed him as the driver turned back and Benny saw his face. 
‘Nice to meet once again, did you miss me?’ Don asked tauntingly. 
++++
~~~~ Monday Morning ~~~~
Tarasha resumed her work in the NSCC that morning, she was given a special office, just like Henry’s. On resumption, she met several uncompleted projects on the table, most which were rolled over from Henry.
The last night had been refreshing for her. For over fifteen years of her life, she had not had so much rest like she did, after spending much time with her brother. They decided to suspend all their talks about the past first and talk about the future. Even though both of them still had those past memories haunting them in their hearts, they decided to pretend to be okay to each other. 
Jefa still had a wish to see the Inspector General punished but he left it unvoiced, not wanting to stir up bad memories in Omotara’s head again and not knowing that she had it in mind too. One other important reason why Jefa agreed to stop sharing his past was because he did not want to lie to her, which he’ll be forced to do if he continued. There were a lot of things he did which he thought could make her hate or become scared of him when she hears about them. 
Omotara on her own part, decided not to go further with hearing about his past immediately, she was going to hear it from him little by little, so that he would not suspect anything when the people whose names he would mention would pay for their sins with their blood. Her next target was the Inspector General of Police. She was going to add him to the Vice President’s job, after killing the both of them, then it’ll be the appropriate time to hear more stories about the past. 
Tarasha began her work immediately, she started to go through all the jobs Henry had not completed and check the structure of the softwares. She was able to make quick progress because of the reports she had gotten from the other developers who had been working with Henry, she was going to be meeting with them by 1pm that day. She also had a meeting with the Vice President the next morning by 9am. She, Mr Sylvester and the other developers would be going for the meeting at the Vice President quarters. 
Her phone beeped twice, a text message had entered. She picked it up to read. The sender was one of those numbers which was usually used to send spam messages by the network providers. She wanted to ignore but the first word of the message caught her attention, she opened it to read more. ‘Henry E.G moved from the hospital by the police, rumour has it that he was taken out lifeless… read more on youngicee.com.’
She clicked on the link to get more details of the news. ‘Our sources have gathered that the intelligent programming expert after being attacked was moved out of the hospital that same night. Whether he was moved out dead or not, we’ve not been able to confirm. All efforts to reach the hospital authorities have proved abortive but we were able to reach one of the nurses who was present while he was being moved out. Nurse Titi (real name withheld) spoke to our correspondence, explaining details on how he looked lifeless on the night he was being moved out from the hospital. Only one of the senior doctors in the hospital (name withheld) went with the police in the ambulance and returned to the hospital the next morning, this would mean that there is no Doctor from the hospital who is presently with Henry. 
Reports also has it that the doctor who was previously in charge of Henry’s case may have been suspended or sacked by the hospital management as his name has been removed from the duty roster and all other patients he was previously in charge of treating has been assigned to it other doctors…’
Tarasha stopped reading and dropped her phone on the table, she wondered why the police was hiding the news of Henry’s death, why they had to take his body away from the hospital and hide it somewhere else. 
She picked up the phone again and dialed Benny’s number, it still wasn’t going through. She dialed Cole’s. 
‘Hello Boss,’ Cole answered in a lively voice. 
‘Hey Cole, how are you this morning?’
‘Fine boss, you?’
‘Excellent, how about Aisha and the Senate President? Have you poisoned the man already?’ 
‘Yes, the poison was added to his food last night.’
‘Okay, the effects will start to show tomorrow. That means you’ll take him out of the lodge tomorrow after inserting the microchip in his hand.’
‘Yes boss, I’m still very aware of the plan.’
‘Okay, any news from Benny yet?’
‘None yet.’
‘Conduct a search for him, I’ll send you the data for the cameras in that…’ Tarasha paused suddenly, remembering that the street cameras were not present in some parts of Gwagalada, including the street where their lodge was. ‘Well… Just begin a search for him, make sure that he hasn’t gotten himself into trouble.’
‘Okay boss,’ Cole replied and the call ended. 
++++
He sat quietly on the bed, resting his back on the headboard. He stared at everything in the room which he was. It was a very neat room painted white, the door was a transparent glass door which allowed for people in the room to see those outside. Occasionally, he would see one or two people pass through the corridor. Who they were he did not know, neither did he know who he was. 
Soon, a young man dressed in a doctor’s coat came in leaving the door opened. He recognized the Doctor’s face as the person who had been administering drugs and injections to him since the day he had found himself there. He didn’t know when he got there or how he did, he also did not know how many days he had spent there as he never left the bed since when he found himself there. He never saw darkness too, the room was always brightened by the florescent bulbs placed at strategic corners of the ceiling. 
Two other men entered after the doctor and closed the door. They were dressed corporately in black suits and white shirts, he wondered who they were. They came closer to his bed and stood at his front with smiling faces. 
‘How are you?’ the doctor finally broke the silence. 
He didn’t reply, he wasn’t sure of what to say. He didn’t even know if he could speak. 
‘Hope you’re feeling better?’ the doctor asked again. 
‘I’m fine,’ he said, not knowing where the words came from. 
The doctor smiled on seeing his tensed state, he placed a hand on his shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be fine. We are your friends.’
He looked at the faces of the two other people to see if he could find friendship there. The men were nodding their heads in consent to the doctor’s words. 
‘I’m Doctor Tobi,’ the doctor started the introduction, ‘and this Agent Dakolo and Inspector Ken.’ 
Henry took another quick glance at the two other men, he didn’t like their faces and he wasn’t sure he could trust them, the Doctor’s introduction made them look more dangerous to him. 
‘What do you want from me?’ he asked in a frightened tone. 
Agent Dakolo moved closer, ‘Henry, we are your friends. We don’t want anything from you, we want to help you.’
‘Who is Henry?’ he asked looking back to see if they were referring to someone else. 
‘You,’ Dakolo gave a brief chuckle. ‘You are Henry and we are your friends, we’ve come…’ Dakolo’s phone rang interrupting him. He stopped and stepped back. He brought out his phone and checked the screen. He silenced it and stepped forward again. 
‘I want to be alone,’ Henry said, he laid flat on his back and used the blanket to cover his whole body including his face.
Dr Tobi signaled to the officers that it was time to leave. Slowly and without making noise, they marched out of the room. 
He took the blanket off his face after the three visitors had left. ‘Henry,’ he muttered to himself. ‘What does the name mean?’
*
‘Please Dr Tobi, ensure you do not make calls to anybody. Keep your line switched off completely.’ Dakolo warned. 
‘I’ve heard you Agent, you said I can only make calls when I go into the town.’ 
‘Yes, but never from this location. We would reach you on the landline provided whenever we want to.’
‘Okay Agent,’ Dr Tobi said. 
‘Thank you,’ Dakolo concluded and marched away with Inspector Ken. He had several officers guarding the house, they had also introduced military personnels to the job. After their meeting with the Vice president that day, Inspector Ken would return to the location to monitor the doctor and keep an eye on other security officials.
**1pm**
The two staffs of the NSCC were sitting while waiting patiently for the Vice President to show up. They had arrived in his mansion over an hour ago and there were no signs of him yet, they were only told by his assistants that he we going to join them soon. 
Mr Sylvester poured in the remaining content of the bottle into the glass cup and sipped it slowly, fixing his eyes on the TV. A particular advert was gaining his attention. 
‘Do you watch Young C.c’s movies?’ he asked Tarasha who was seated at the other end of the three seater sofa. 
‘Ermm… Yes, I do.’ she replied him. ‘I love his action thrillers.’
‘Yeah, I and my wife finished watching ‘A New Creation’ which he produced with Donkross. It’s thrilling as usual.’
‘I’ve not seen that yet but where can I get it if I want to buy?’ 
‘The full story is on the website; www.youngicee.com, you can get it from there.’ Mr Sylvester replied her. 
‘Okay, thanks. I’ll do that,’ Tarasha said. 
‘Have you heard about the new story coming up too?’ 
‘Nazaretha’s Hood?’ she was already getting tired of his questions about movies, she felt he was only trying to display his knowledge. 
‘Yes, I’m looking forward to that one too.’ 
‘Good afternoon people,’ the Vice President greeted as he entered into the living room and began to proceed towards them. 
‘Good afternoon sir,’ Mr Sylvester and Tarasha got up and greeted in unison. 
‘Sylvester,’ Chief Elvis called fondly, offering him an handshake. ‘Kimberly,’ he calleda after shaking hands with Mr Sylvester, smiling at Tarasha. ‘I’ve heard so much about you, I’m pleased to meet you.’ he also offered her an handshake. 
‘My pleasure sir,’ Tarasha replied, bending her knees slightly as she took his big hand in hers. She never forgot to curtsy like a proper Nigerian girl when greeting elders, all that she had learnt through reading about the different tribes and their cultures before she began her job in Nigeria. 
‘You may be seated,’ Chief Elvis said, pointing his hand towards their seat while he took the sofa opposite them. ‘Sorry I kept you waiting, I was with the President for something very important and I’ll still be going back to him after this meeting. Now, straight to the matter. I called this meeting to get acquainted with you, Kimberly.’ he said and paused to look at her face. 
‘You’ll be working in Henry’s position now and it means you’re holding a critical position at a critical moment in the country. I want to work closely with you to make your job more efficient and for you to make my job easier too. I’ve also started my own personal investigations on Samantha Osman’s case, so I would be needing to communicate to you directly.’ Chief Elvis paused again and turned to Mr Sylvester. ‘I hope you told her everything I want to do with her.’
‘Sir, you didn’t tell me anything else. You told me that you were going to tell her directly.’ Mr Sylvester replied.
‘I said that?’ 
‘Yes sir.’
‘Hmm… Okay,’ Chief Elvis heaved a sigh. ‘Then you have to leave us alone now.’ he said to Mr Sylvester. 
‘Sir?’ Mr Sylvester questioned as if he didn’t hear, just to confirm if the Vice President really meant what he said. 
‘I mean you have to excuse us,’ Chief Elvis repeated. ‘You can wait in the other living room.’
‘Okay sir,’ he said and got up. He made some eye gestures at Tarasha, as if he was advising her to behave well before walking out as instructed. 
As soon as Mr Sylvester was out of sight, Chief Elvis joined Tarasha on the three seater sofa. 
‘Kimberly, I’ve got a proposal for you,’ he began. ‘While you work for the NSCC, I want you to also work for me. I’ll like to always get direct information from you and not through Mr Sylvester or the police.’ he paused to see if she was following. 
‘I don’t understand sir,’ she stated. 
‘Okay, what I mean is this,’ Chief Elvis adjusted himself on the seat to enable him explain properly. ‘In your work, while you report to your Boss Sylvester and maybe the police if they give you a direct job, you’ll also report to me, directly.’
‘Does that include everything I do in the office?”
‘Ermm, No… Not all, only with matters particular to the assassin group of Samantha Osman. Like I said, I’ve started a personal investigation on the matter.’ 
‘Okay sir, I understand now. But are you the only one carrying out this one investigation or you have some agents carrying them out for you?’
‘Yes, I have some secrets agents that are not known to the police. I’m only telling you now because you’re going to work with me and I believe it would remain a secret between us.’ he said and paused to see her reaction. 
‘Yes sir, I won’t tell anyone.’
‘Good, you’ll be paid well for your services and may even receive bonus from time to time if you work efficiently.’
‘I’ll do my work efficiently sir,’ she replied in a promising tone. 
‘Good.’
‘Sir, ‘ Tarasha called, trying to make a suggestion. ‘The reason I asked if you had other people working with you was that I thought it may not be possible to reach you directly at all times because of your work as the Vice President, what if I send the messages directly to the other agents working with you?’
‘No, you can’t send them for now. You still have to get directly to me first, once you can’t reach me, you can always drop a message which I’ll get immediately I’m free.’
‘Okay sir, then I’ll have to get your contact now.’ she said staring at his body. She would have killed him right there but it would be impossible for her to escape, the number of security officials and thugs in the compound were five times of those in the Senate President’s house.
‘Yes,’ Chief Elvis agreed, searching his pocket for his phone. ‘My phone is not with me now, but I’ll send you directions on how to reach me. I’m traveling tomorrow to the United States for medical treatment and I don’t know how long I’ll be staying precisely, I only know that I’ll be there for at least seven days.’
+++++
‘We’re so close to bringing back your father already, we just need a few more details to enable us launch properly and bring him back safely,’ Dakolo was saying to Fatima when Ken walked in and whispered something into his ears, for almost one minute.
Fatima stared at the officers hopelessly, she had been listening to them repeat the same promise for several days now and nothing was seen coming out of it. But she had to keep answering them because she wished to see her father again.
‘Thank you Ken,’ Dakolo said, before turning back to Fatima. ‘We would need you to identify some pictures,’ he continued, making a signal to Ken. 
Ken opened the bag with him and took out some photos, ‘I remember that day that you said a lady on low cut was one of the visitors.’ Dakolo said. 
‘Yes, I did,’ she answered, staring intently at the bag from where Ken was taking out the pictures. 
‘Can you recognize her? I mean the lady on low cut.’ Dakolo said. At that moment, the head security officer which doubled as the Senate President’s personal guard, the one who almost killed Cole on the night of the abduction walked in. He stood close to Ken and said some things in low tones to him. 
‘No, I don’t think so. I can only recognize the face of their leader who tied the bomb around me. I can’t even tell if I’ll recognize her if she isn’t putting on the same kind of makeup she used that night.’ Fatima replied Dakolo.
‘Let’s try, if you’ll know her.’ Dakolo said and collected two pictures from Ken. He showed it to her and waited for her response. 
‘These are drawings,’ Fatima said. 
‘Yes, we couldn’t get the photo anywhere, so we had to get her description from people who saw her and put it down into drawing.’
‘I’ve never seen anyone like this,’ Fatima said and handed back the pictures to Dakolo. 
‘What about you?’ Dakolo said to the head security official. 
The man stepped forward with heavy steps and collected the pictures with his plastered fingers, which was one of the results of his fight with Cole. He stared into the pictures for some minutes. ‘The only resemblance between the  girls in the picture here and the the visitor on low cut is the low cut, nothing else looks the same.’ 
‘So you’re saying the visitor on low cut isn’t any of those in the pictures?’ Dakolo asked. 
‘I don’t know, you know it could be difficult to recognize from sketches. But we have real pictures of the visitors, our cameras captured them.’ the security officer answered. 
‘What? Why didn’t you tell us that all these while?’
‘You never asked, I believe you should know that there are cameras in this house.’
‘Yes,’ Dakolo stated with a tone of regret. He had allowed Henry’s case take over his whole mind and had skipped doing the right thing. ‘Can we get it now?’ he asked. 
+++++
‘But how can he disappear just like that?’ Tarasha said, looking baffled, folding her arms as she stood in the living room before front window of their lodge in Gwagalada. Aisha and Cole were seated on the sofas behind, looking baffled too. ‘Did something go wrong in his task?’ she asked no one in particular. 
‘Has he been acting or talking strange before that day?’ she turned and asked Cole. 
‘No, he was okay until he finished the task.’ Cole replied. 
‘Something looks fishy about the whole situation, the press has not said anything about Henry’s death also, is the police planning to hide his body forever?’
‘Boss, I have an idea.’ Cole said with his face lit up. 
‘What idea?’ 
‘We can confirm if Henry is dead or alive if you check the databases of the NSCC, it’ll be an easy job to do since you’re there now.’
‘Yes, I was thinking about that too. I should have done it but for the several meetings we’ve been having.’ Tarasha replied. 
‘I also have an idea,’ Aisha cut in happily. 
‘What’s that?’ Tarasha asked, hoping it’ll be an idea on how to find Benny. 
‘I read the news few minutes ago and I learnt that Henry E.G’s mother is in town, she was at the hospital and police headquarters today, crying and demanding to see her son. It was reported that the police have not given her a clear response yet but they managed to convince her to return tomorrow.’ Aisha said. 
‘Okay, what do you suggest we do now?’ Tarasha asked, although already determining what to do with the news in mind. 
‘I suggest we track the woman and follow to see if they’ll allow her see her son. With that we can confirm if Henry is alive or dead.’ Aisha spoke succinctly, exactly the same thing Tarasha had in mind. 
‘Good suggestion,’ Tarasha commended, she felt cool that they were beginning to think more now, not like when she just started working with them. Now she could entrust more tasks to them, even Aisha. 
‘Thank you,’ Aisha said with smiles, proud that she had been able to make a useful contribution. But her joy disappeared few seconds after, when Tarasha spoke again. 
‘You’ll handle that for us,’ Tarasha said to her. ‘Find out before the day runs out where the mother stays and place a tracker or a bug to monitor her movement.’
Aisha wanted to argue but the look Tarasha gave her warned her not to dare. 
‘Cole, you complete the job of the Senate President.’ she said, turning to Cole. ‘The poison should have done a lot on his body already, cut off his tongue tonight and send him home tomorrow morning. Make sure that his hands have been paralyzed before sending him.’ she instructed and walked towards him. She dipped her hand into her jacket and took out an envelope, ‘send him home with this letter,’ she said and handed the envelope to Cole. 
++++
‘I’ve been observing him for the past few days and he’s recovering fast, he’ll be strong enough to travel soon.’ Dr Tobi said to the officers. 
‘I know he’s going to recover soon,’ Dakolo said, ‘I only wished he could become his old self once again.’
‘You mean regain his memory?’ Dr Tobi asked. 
‘Yes.’
‘It’s possible for him to regain his memory, ‘ Dr Tobi said slowly. Dakolo and Ken suddenly got excited. ‘I’ve been administering to him some of my specially prepared formulas which would make his brain more relaxed and able to recall.’ 
‘Wow!’ Dakolo exclaimed in joy. 
‘But…’ Dr Tobi said in a sad tone and heaved a sigh. 
Dakolo paused to listen to what the doctor had to add. 
‘He would never be able to recall those memories now that he’s going to be taken out of the country, he has to be close to the environment which he was previously used to.’
‘So are you suggesting that we live him here?’ Dakolo asked in an indifferent tone and returned to his seat. 
‘Leaving him here won’t solve the matter. His case is a complicated one and it’s a pity that it’s not good to expose him to the public now because of safety reasons but if he stays here, chances of ever recalling would fade with the length of time he stays here.’
‘I don’t understand you Dr Tobi, you just told us that flying him out wouldn’t help me recover and now you said staying here would also make him loose chances of ever recalling.’
‘What I mean is that for him to be able to recall, he has to exposed to things and the environment he has been exposed to before, particularly his recent environment. That means he would have to be taken to places like his apartment, his place of work and other places he has been to recently before he was poisoned. It would also help him if he could see people who has been on his mind before the poisoning.’ 
‘But all these things are not possible now, taking him back to Asokoro would endanger his life. He has to stay here or overseas till everything is settled.’
‘How long would it take for everything to be settled?’ Dr Tobi asked the agent. 
‘Ermm… A couple of months, five to six hopefully.’ Dakolo replied. 
”Hmm… If he spends two months here or anywhere else without being exposed to his usual environment, he would have completely lost his memory.’ Dr Tobi said in a sad tone. ‘Well, I think his life is more precious than his memories right now.’
‘I have a suggestion sir,’ Ken said to Dakolo. ‘What about bringing his mum here? Wouldn’t that help?’
‘Hmm…’ Dakolo nodded, remembering that Ken had whispered about the mother’s presence to him in the Senate President’s house. He turned to the doctor to hear his say. 
‘Well, that could help. But taking him to meet her in an environment he’s used to would be better. Even if he doesn’t regain his memory immediately, it’ll take him a step further.’
**Wednesday Morning**
Immediately Tarasha got to the office the next day, she began to find a way to trace the movement of the police with Henry from the hospital. She needed access to the raw files from the regional blocks but as a new staff and person whose job isn’t related to it, she couldn’t ask Mr Sylvester directly. After getting the area where the hospital was located, she began to look for the section of the NSCC that was monitoring the area. Before 10am that morning, she already found it. But she still needed to break into the regional office and steal the raw file. She decided to strike by break time when most of the staffs wouldn’t be on seat. 
++++
‘Good morning sir,’ Ken greeted as he walked into the large room were Dakolo was. 
‘Good morning Inspector Ken,’ Dakolo replied without taking his gaze off the pictures he was staring at on the board. ‘How is Henry doing this morning?’ Dakolo finally turned and asked Ken after a minute. 
‘Henry is fine, he’s still the same. He doesn’t know anybody or himself, doesn’t want to see or even talk to me. The only people he sees and likes to talk to are the maids and the doctor,’ Ken replied. ‘He even shouted at an electrician today when the man tried to fix some wires in his room.’
‘But what did the doctor say is the reason for his hostility?’ Dakolo asked. 
‘Fear, he said he’s afraid of people. The reason he’s more comfortable with the doctor and maids is because he’s been hearing their voices ever before his eyes opened and they’ve also been the one taking care of him.’
‘Then how would we take him out of there if he’s hostile to us? The doctor and maids won’t be with him for a long time.’ 
‘The doctor said I should try act more friendly and smile whenever I come near to him, that way he’ll start becoming comfortable with me and learn to trust me too.’ 
‘Well, you have to enroll for smiling lessons then,’ Dakolo joked. “I just hope everything works fine.’ 
Ken waited for some seconds before he started to speak again. ‘Sir, what do you think we do about Henry’s mum? Should we allow them meet like the doctor said?’
‘Yes, I believe it’ll be cool if we could allow them to.’ Dakolo replied, ‘but on the other hand, I still think it’ll would be stupid of us to do so.’
‘Why did you say that sir?’ 
‘Ken, the whole nation is aware of her presence in town, the media reported everything she did at the hospital and the office here yesterday. It means that the assassins are also aware of her presence, they could be keeping tabs on her and that means taking her to Henry or bringing him to her would expose Henry to danger.’ 
‘That’s true sir,’ Ken commented thoughtfully.
‘It’s a complicated situation Ken,’ Dakolo heaved a sigh. ‘Had it been she had come in quietly, it would have been easier.’
There was silence for the next two minutes, Ken’s eyes were fixed on the pictures pinned to the board while Dakolo was lost in thoughts. 
‘Sir,’ Ken called Dakolo. ‘These pictures, there is only that looks so close.’
‘Yeah, only the girl on low cut’ Dakolo agreed with him and touched disguised Aisha out of the four persons in the picture. ‘The baffling thing is that her facial features is always different, the makeup she uses must have very thick layers.’
‘Yes sir, that’s what I’m thinking too. But what about these other people? Any close person found?’
‘I’ve asked for a search on matching photographs to be done on them.’ Dakolo answered, he picked his phone from a table nearby. ‘I’m sure the search should be completed already,’ he said and turned back. ‘Let’s go get the result.’ 
Both of them walked out of the room and headed for the computer room, to meet the same officers who had been charge of contacting the Government City Hospital in Capetown. 
‘Are you done?’ Dakolo asked as soon as his eyes came in contact with the lady. 
‘Yes sir,’ she replied, she minimized the application she was using on the computer and opened another. The separately cropped pictures of the four disguised assassins showed immediately, then other pictures began to show underneath each one.
‘For this lady who was called their leader,’ the lady computer operator began her explanation. She clicked on the picture of Tarasha which was captured in her disguised form, two other pictures displayed underneath. 
‘Oh!’ Dakolo exclaimed as he saw the pictures, he had seen them before. ‘Isn’t this the fake desert Reporters journalist who interviewed John Obiano?’ he asked. 
‘Yes, it happens to be the same person, Samantha Osman. The facial structures are the same, only the colour and hair are different,’ the lady affirmed. ‘But the problem now is that her pictures do not match with any in the citizens’ directory, it doesn’t match with the immigrants’ or even visitors’ directory.’
‘Her pictures has never matched with any, she’s always heavily disguised,’ Dakolo said. ‘It’s not her face.’
‘But how come the security officials never knew that she was Samantha Osman?’ Ken asked thoughtfully. 
‘Even both of us wouldn’t have known if we were in their shoes,’ Dakolo answered him. ‘She wasn’t looking like the same, here she is fairer as the desert Reporters journalist than the way she was when she visited the Senate President’s House, no one could have connected it.’  Dakolo explained, pointing at the pictures. ‘The reason we’re able to connect it now is because we’ve conducted a search.’
‘Hmm… This is strange,’ Ken heaved a sigh of frustration, placing his fingers on his nose and mouth. ‘And I’m sure the facial structures aren’t even original.’
‘Yes Ken, her real facial structures must have been covered by the thick layers of makeup.’ Dakolo added. 
The lady computer operator closed the picture and opened another, Cole’s disguised form to the Senate President’s mansion. ‘This one does not even have any matching picture,’ she said before closing it. She opened Benny’s picture as Mr Alfred, ‘this does not have any match too.’ she closed it again and opened Aisha’s own. ‘This one doesn’t really match too but we can identify her to be Aisha Bello if we compare the pictures and sketches. Her features here looks similar to the real Aisha Bello’s pictures, there are still big differences anyway. The matching factor is that her nose in the sketch looks like her nose in this picture but her cheeks are different while her nose in the real Aisha’s Bello pictures looks far different from the two but her real cheeks are like the one in the sketch.’ 
‘Well, it must be Aisha Bello. Although, a sketch isn’t really that reliable but with all these connections, it must be her.’ Dakolo joined. ‘And this also confirms that Aisha Bello is different from Samantha Osman, Samantha Osman is the real leader of the gang.’
‘But sir, ‘ the computer operator gave a confused look. ‘ We only found little similarities, there are lots of discrepancies between the Aisha Bello’s pictures too. The jaws, the foreheads…’ she was saying but paused and opened her mouth like she was shocked about something. 
‘Sir, see,’ she urged Dakolo to look at the computer screen. ‘The ears are the same.’
‘Wow!’ Dakolo stared in surprise too. ‘Why didn’t we ever notice that?’ he said, smiling at Ken who had joined in the surprise too. 
‘It’s Aisha Bello, no doubts’ Ken stated with certainty in his voice. 
Dakolo’s smile soon turned into a frown, ‘well all these discoveries would not lead us any closer to getting her,’ he said in a discouraged tone. Everyone’s smiles also disappeared. ‘Or is it possible to post her ears to the public and declare it wanted? Who’s going to be searching for people’s ears?’
There was a deafening silence for the next three minutes, the slow and calm breaths of each officers could be heard. 
‘But,’ Dakolo suddenly began again, with excitement. ‘We can do something about this,’ he said and began to take out his phone.
The others stared at him in awe, wondering what the reason was for his excitement. 
‘Hello Mr Sylvester, are you at the office?’ he said into the phone. ‘Okay, I’ll be there very soon.’
‘Do something about the ears sir?’ Ken asked as soon as Dakolo was done with the call. 
Dakolo paused and stared at him awkwardly, ‘no, do something about the pictures.’
‘How?’
‘Don’t worry, I’ll explain to you later.’ Dakolo said and patted Ken on the shoulder. He turned to the computer operator, ‘please make five photocopies of the pictures for me, I’ll be back to get it in ten minutes time.’
‘Okay sir,’ the computer operator replied. 
‘Ken, let’s go plan about Henry’s mother,’ Dakolo before he and Ken walked out of the room. 
++++
Aisha had been monitoring Mrs George since the day before. Mrs George was staying in her friend’s house and brought with her no car which Aisha could place a tracker on and monitor with. Aisha had no choice than to resume her monitoring by 5am in the morning. 
It was until12pm, Mrs George came out of the house with a young man in his late teens. Aisha who was already dressed in a pullover whose hoodie covered her hair, and a dark eyeglass to cover her face began to follow them closely. Soon, Mrs George and the young man stopped by the road side to wait for a cab. An idea came to Aisha, she took out her phone and uncovered her head. 
‘Good morning ma,’ she said approaching the woman where she was standing. 
‘Good morning,’ Mrs George replied calmly, but her body language showed that she wasn’t comfortable with the stranger approaching her. 
‘I’m Seun, a journalist from YTV.’ Aisha made an introduction, she pressed the recording button on her phone and brought it closer to the woman to show that she was ready for an interview. 
The woman sighed on hearing the introduction and looked away but Aisha pressed on. 
‘Ma, I have some few questions for you,’ she said, turning to stand at the woman’s front. 
‘Young lady, I’m not in the mood for questions. As you can see, I’m on my way to somewhere very important.’ the woman said in a warning tone. 
‘Where are you going to ma?’ Aisha asked, disregarding her warning. 
‘It’s none of your business, please leave me alone.’ the woman replied and tried to walk away but Aisha followed. 
‘Would you leave her alone please,’ the young man shouted at Aisha, standing at her front in readiness to give a fight. 
‘Oh!’ Aisha slowly backed out acting defeated but she had accomplished what she wanted to do already, a tracker and a voice recorder had been fixed on the woman’s clothes. 
Aisha walked back to where her car was parked and waited inside until Mrs George and the young man got a cab. She clicked open the screen of her phone and opened the tracking application, she could see the position of the woman on the road. She took her makeup kits bag from the back seat and began to apply a quick solution to disguise her face briefly, she had to do that because it was possible she ran into someone who knew her face. She took off the pullover, leaving on only a small blue blouse. Then she put on her wig before driving off, in the direction her tracking application was pointing her to. 
After driving for a total of thirty minutes, she stopped when she noticed that the woman’s movement had stopped first. But the stop was brief, there was another movement but a very short one, she could tell that the woman only moved a short walking distance. Aisha took out her headset and plugged it into the phone to listen to the recording, what she could hear at first were brief greetings and questions in low voices, she could easily tell that the woman was in an organization. 
Five minutes later, the movement stopped totally, by this time, Aisha had been able to decipher that the woman was in the police headquarters. 
‘Good morning ma, I’m Inspector Ken.’ she could hear someone say to the woman. 
*
‘Good morning ma, I’m Inspector Ken.’ Ken introduced himself to Mrs George. They were inside his office, Mrs George and the young man were seated on the visitors’ seats. 
‘Where is Dakolo?’ the woman asked in a distressed tone, thick Igbo accent. ‘He should come and tell me where he has kept my son.’
‘Please calm down ma,’ Ken said politely. ‘I’m working with Inspector Dakolo on all issues that has to do with your son, Henry.’
‘So you people are in it together? Where have you kept my son?’
‘Ermm…’ Ken hesitated for a while, staring at the young man. ‘You have to excuse us for a moment,’ he said to the teenager. 
‘Tell me, did anything happen to my son?’ Mrs George was impatient. 
‘I can’t say anything until he leaves ma,’ Ken maintained his position. The young man got up reluctantly and walked out of the office. 
‘Ma,’ Ken continued in a serious tone, after the young man was out of the office.
‘Tell me what you people have done to my son,’ the woman said in a low but tensed tone. 
‘Ma, first of all, we have to agree now that everything I tell you here would be kept secret between us.’ 
The woman stared at him without replying, she twitched her lips and squinted. 
‘You have to agree ma,’ Ken repeated. ‘It’s to make sure everything turns out well.’
‘Okay,’ she finally said. 
‘Good, your son is fine, hale and hearty.’ Ken announced and paused to see the reaction on the woman’s face. As expected, her face was lightened up and her lips covered with smiles. 
‘Where’s he? I want to see him,’ the woman said happily.
‘That’s the first problem, you can’t see him now.’
The woman’s smile changed into a frown, she instantly began to doubt Ken’s words. ‘Why can’t I see my son?’ she asked. 
‘You can’t see him now because f he’s in danger,’ Ken replied, he took a brief pause before he continued, Mrs George’s face was already showing her eagerness for more explanation. ‘Ma, you know the circumstances that led to his condition. His life is being threatened by the dangerous Samantha Osman assassin group.’ 
‘But what have my son done to them?’ the woman began to wail. ‘My son does not look for trouble.’
‘Calm down madam,’ Ken hushed. ‘Your son is fine and recovering very fast.’
‘But how would I know you’re not lying to me?’
‘You’ll know Madam.’
‘How would I know?’ the woman argued. ‘You’re saying my son is fine but the news says he was in a condition of mental instability; I tried to contact him but I couldn’t, I tried to contact you people but you wouldn’t respond. Now the news says he was already poisoned by Samantha Osman, how am I going to know if my son is not dead.’
‘You’ll see him ma,’ Ken replied. 
‘You’ll take me to where he is?’ the woman’s face brightened up again. 
‘No, I won’t take you there neither would I bring him to you. It’s very dangerous for you to go to him now or for him to come to you, the assassins may be trailing either of you.’
‘Ah! Assassins trailing me too?’ the woman became alarmed. 
‘Don’t worry madam, we have everything under control, we’ll provide security for you.’ 
‘They should even come and take me,’ she said in a frustrated tone, raising up her two in surrender. ‘I’m old enough to die but let them leave my son alone.’
‘Madam, both of you won’t die if you do what we say.’ Ken tried to encourage.
‘But wait,’ she put down her hands and stared at Ken with all seriousness. ‘Is it true that my son has now become a dummy?’
‘No,’ Ken couldn’t do but smile at the manner which she asked. ‘It was true, but now your son has recovered, he has his senses back.’
‘How am I going to know you’re telling me the truth?’
‘You’ll take to him via video chat,’ Ken replied. 
‘Video chat?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘This night, we’ll connect you to him. We’re also making arrangements for you to ensure your safety, you won’t leave here now. Some policemen would accompany you to get whatever you need from where you came from this morning.’ Ken explained. ‘But please, do make sure that nobody else hears this.’
+++
It was past break already and Tarasha had gotten all the data needed. After watching the video files over and over again, she wasn’t satisfied with what she got. The officers had taken Henry to a very far distance, far from the cameras’ reach. She was getting more impatient about Benny’s return now, she needed to know if the task of killing Henry was a successful one. She picked her phone and dialed Cole’s number. 
‘Hello Cole, hope you’re getting prepared to send the Senate President back home?’
‘Yes, all is set already.’ Cole replied. 
‘Okay, have you heard from Benny yet?’
‘No.’
‘What about Aisha?’
‘No news also.’
‘Okay, if you don’t hear from Benny or locate him before the day runs out, you guys have to move from the lodge.’
‘Okay, back to Asokoro?’
‘Maybe, but to an hotel, not where I am.’
‘Okay boss,’ Cole said and the call ended. 
Aisha’s call came in few seconds after. ‘Hello girl,’ Tarasha answered. 
‘Boss, Henry is not dead.’ Aisha stated flatly. She waited for a response from the boss but got none as the boss was too dumbfounded to speak. ‘His mother would be speaking live to him through a video chat tonight,’ Aisha continued her message. 
Tarasha was still furious about the news she had just gotten from Aisha, she was angry with Benny and was willing to skin him alive if she could see him at that moment. She continued to pace around angrily. She didn’t think Henry being alive would disturb her plans with the Senate President or the Inspector General but she didn’t just like the idea of keeping him alive. 
Her doorbell rang, she paused and stared at the door, then she walked back to her seat and checked the person behind the door. They were two, Mr Sylvester and somebody else, she didn’t see the man’s face very well. She tapped the door’s open button on her table and the door was unlocked. Mr Sylvester entered with the visitor. 
‘Good afternoon sirs,’ she got up to greet, staring at the visitor’s face, within few seconds, she was able to identify him. 
‘Good afternoon Kim, this is Agent Dakolo,’ Mr Sylvester introduced as they took their seats. 
‘You’re welcome Agent,’ Tarasha said with a smile. 
‘Thank you miss Kimberly,’ Dakolo smiled back. 
‘Agent Dakolo has something for us to work out,’ Mr Sylvester said after they were all seated. He collected an envelope from Agent Dakolo and began to take out the pictures inside, he handed one the Tarasha and said, ‘these are the abductors of the Senate President.’
‘Hmm,’ Tarasha hummed in a surprised tone as she collected the picture and stared at it. ‘These guys are all young people,” she said. 
‘Yes, young but killing people and throwing families into pain.’ Dakolo commented. 
Tarasha smiled lightly, trying her best to conceal it. Dakolo’s comment sounded more like a compliment to her, killing and causing pain for people was what she was trained to do, so she felt proud when the agent confirmed that she was doing a good job at it. She studied the pictures for some more seconds before looking up. 
‘Miss Kimberly, I heard that you’re very intelligent,’ Dakolo continued. ‘I hope you’re patriotic too?’ 
‘Yes sir,’ she stated firmly. 
‘I believe you,’ Dakolo continued. ‘But before I explain the details of this job to you, I have to warn you about telling anybody that you’re working on it. I know you’re very aware of how dangerous this assassin group is. So please, do not tell anybody; your friends, family members or even partner anything you discover while on this job.’ Dakolo stopped to get her response.
‘I won’t sir, ‘ Tarasha replied in wx promising tone.  
‘Good. Now, these pictures we are giving to you contains the members of the Samantha Osman group. Apart from this one, Aisha Bello,’ Dakolo pointed to Aisha on the picture in his hand, ‘we’ve not been able to get the real identities of the others. This is because these people are heavily disguised. Now, the reason we’ve brought these pictures here is for you to track them, Mr Sylvester has said that the data from the past seven days would be provided to you. We want you to trace all these faces and spot anywhere they’ve been to recently.’ Dakolo paused as he noticed a deep frown appearing on her face. 
‘Sir, I don’t understand; for which locations am I going to check?’ 
‘For all locations,’ Dakolo replied. 
Tarasha’s expression turned into a shocked one. ‘Sir, I alone cannot do the job for a single town in Abuja, I mean that means observing up to hundred videos of at least fifteen hours each.’
Dakolo paused and took in a  deep breath, he realized that he was just about giving her an impossible job. If only a town would have up to hundred videos, then the whole of Abuja would more than two thousand videos of fifteen hours each and that would mean they would need up to thirty thousand hours of watching and observing all those videos which was equal to 1,250 days of watching. 
‘Sir, monitoring successfully for the past seven days in Abuja wouldn’t be possible even if we had twenty people working on it and if we are to divert the attention of all regionals to it, then there would be more trouble because anything can happen while they take their eyes off the ongoing transmission.’
‘Hmm,’ Dakolo inhaled deeply and rested his back on the chair, his idea wasn’t good after all. 
‘But sir, we can work on monitoring the faces of these individuals for the coming days. We’ll have to build a system that would keep traces of their facial structures. Once any of them is located in any region, there would be an alarm in the regional office which would be sent here from the region.’ Tarasha offered. 
‘Excellent! Then begin to work on it immediately,” Dakolo sat up and said excitedly. 
‘Alright sir, we’ll start work as soon as possible,’ Tarasha replied with a smile. She had a plan, there was something like that she had seen installed in the system. 
‘But…’ Sylvester cut in, he looked like he was trying to recall something. ‘I think Henry E.G was working on something like that already.’ 
”Ermm… Yes, ‘ Tarasha joined, ‘I think I saw something like that too, but I’ll confirm later.’
‘Then when can it be ready for use?’ Dakolo asked. 
‘Once I check and find it already installed, we can turn on the process immediately.’ Tarasha replied. ‘If it has not been installed yet, it’ll take us about twenty hours to install but if it has not been developed at all, then we’ll need a week to develop and fix a new one.’ 
‘Okay, how long will it take you to confirm if it has been installed or not?’ Dakolo asked.
‘Just an hour,’ Tarasha stated. 
‘Oops! I can’t wait for that, but I’ll call you to get the report,’ Dakolo said and began to stand up from his seat. 
‘I’ll get back to you as soon as possible,’ Tarasha assured. She got up to receive a warm handshake from Dakolo, then the Agent and Sylvester walked out of the office. 
Tarasha sat back and returned to work immediately, she had found the opportunity to call for Henry’s presence. 
++++
‘Ah!’ Benny groaned as Don continued to dish out blows to his face. His face was bleeding and mouth swollen, his two hands were tied with strong ropes to two separate poles at the two sides, his legs were also tied in the same manner. That was how he met himself when he woke up, the last thing he remembered doing was fighting with Don. He was ready for death; he was sure death was coming soon as his body was drastically losing strength and his hosts were not ready to show mercy on him except he gives them the answer they were seeking from him.
‘He’s not spoken yet?’ Stainless asked Don, walking into the darkly lit room with a bottle of alcoholic wine in his hands. 
‘No,’ Don replied in a frustrated tone. He stepped back and took a stick of cigar from the concrete table, he lit it and took a quick drag. 
‘I think the guy loves to die,’ Stainless said mockingly, standing in front of Benny with his wine. He poured a quantity of the liquid on Benny’s face and it washed down some of the blood. ‘Homie, you wanna die because you want to proof loyal to a b**ch?’
‘I’m dead already,’ Benny spoke softly, like a drunken man. ‘It’s better you kill me here because I don’t want her to kill me for being a betrayal, that would be worse.’
‘Oh boy,’ Stainless said and laughed sardonically. ‘She doesn’t have to see you as a betrayal man, you can just tell us her operation base and we’ll send you back to her as if nothing happened, and we won’t attack her, even if we do, it would be on your conditions.’
‘You can’t get to her operation base or even attack her, she’ll kill you before you make the move.’ Benny said. 
Stainless laughed again, ‘You think all men are sissies like you?’ 
‘Don’t mind the f*ol, that b**ch must have poisoned him with something that made him lose his mind.’ Don said, moving closer. 
There was quietness for a while, Don kept smoking while Stainless was drinking. ‘Benny,’ Don called softly, blowing smoke at his face. ‘Do you know who sent us? It’s the Vice President,’ Don stated temptingly. ‘And he is offering us huge sums of money, you too can be a partaker if you’ll only cooperate with us.’
‘There’s no need for me to join a team I know has already failed from the start,’ Benny remained adamant. ‘You can’t beat Tarasha, she’s not your match.’
Don stared at him in silence for a couple of seconds and took in some few drags before he continued to dish out blows to Benny’s face. 
++++
**Two Hours later**
‘This has not been properly developed sir,’ Tarasha said, explaining some things to the three men by her side. Mr Sylvester was sitting beside her in the second visitor’s seat in his office while Frank and the other guy was standing and staring into the laptop. 
‘But I thought Henry installed it already,’ Frank put in, looking confused. 
‘Yes, that’s where the major problem lies now,’ Tarasha continued to explain. ‘He installed it while still developing and optimized it with the systems, I know he wasn’t anticipating anything evil, that’s why he installed it and even made the only way to unlock the API his finger print.’
‘That means we can’t continue to work on it without getting his fingerprint?’ Mr Sylvester asked. 
‘Yes, that’s our password to continue developing.’ she replied. 
‘Wow!’ all the men in the office exclaimed in unison, letting out sighs after. 
‘What about creating a new one? Just stop his process and i run another?’ Mr Sylvester asked. 
Tarasha turned to face Frank and the other guy, ‘I thought you guys worked with him on it,’ she said in a questioning manner. 
‘Yes,’ Frank was the one who replied. ‘But he never carried us along, he only said he would tell us later when it was the right time.’
‘Oops!’ Tarasha sighed and turned back to Mr Sylvester to answer his question. ‘We can’t initialize another process, not when this has been optimized with the system already. We need to first take out the keys which Mr Henry has locked with his finger print.’
‘Hmm,’ Sylvester took in a deep breath and got up. ‘So that means that we won’t be able to help the police with their investigation.’
‘Yes sir, we won’t.’
‘Hmm… I just hope they’ll understand us, it may seem to them like we are only handicapped and inefficient because of Henry’s absence.’
‘But sir, that’s the least  we should be worried about now,’ Tarasha said and turned back to the computer. 
‘What do you mean?’ Mr Sylvester asked. 
‘We are facing more danger than not being able to help the police, we’re facing more problems of the camera system being closed down for a year or more.’
‘What?? What are you saying?’ Mr Sylvester sat back on his chair and began to stare intently at Tarasha’s face.
‘Mr Henry has optimized the process with the whole cameras system of the nation and has configured it to start working next week, I believed he thought he would have finished working on the process by now. But now the process hasn’t being fully developed and he’s not here to rush the development process up. It would mean all security cameras in whole nation would start malfunctioning from next week.’
‘What? How can he start up such a process?’ Mr Sylvester slammed angrily. He got and began to pace around as he envisioned his job as the chairman of the NSCC at risk, which was his greatest fear.
‘He was doing it for the good of everyone,’ Frank said in a soft voice, trying to allay Mr Sylvester. ‘It would have been a great invention if he was here to complete it.’ 
‘But now that he isn’t here, what do we do?’ Mr Sylvester had frustration written all over his face. ‘Now that he’s not here, nobody else can continue the process because he secured it with his finger print, why on earth didn’t he used a simple password that Kimberly would have been able to decrypt even in his absence? Now, can we make duplicates of his fingerprints? No.’
‘Sir, he did it for security purposes. He had to do it with his fingerprints so that the assassins or anyone else wouldn’t have been able to decrypt the key.’ Frank explained. 
‘I think what we should do is find a solution now instead of going back and forth on why Mr Henry did the things he did.’ the other guy suggested. 
‘We have only one way out now, ‘ Tarasha said, drawing the attention of everyone else. ‘Get Henry to unlock it for us with his fingerprint.’
‘But that’s almost impossible right now, we don’t know if Henry is alive or not. The Agent refused to tell me anything concerning him.’ Mr Sylvester said. 
‘Alive or not sir,’ Tarasha continued slowly; trying her best not to sound insensitive, ‘we need his fingers to unlock the process.’
‘So we can still use his fingers even if he’s no more?’
‘Yes,’ Tarasha stated. 
‘Hmm…’ Mr Sylvester sighed, sitting back on the chair. He really hoped that Henry was still alive. ‘The problem now is that the police are not ready to reveal if he’s dead or not.’
‘I think you should try more to convince the Agent; if you tell him all these dangers we could avoid, he may consider us. Remember sir, we have less than six days until the whole of NSCC crashes.’ Tarasha said in a warning tone. 
Mr Sylvester doorbell distracted them, he clicked on the open button on his table in anger and one of the junior staffs entered. 
‘Sir, our system has been hacked again; some regional offices have complained of static footages in their transmission.’ the junior staff announced. 
‘What?’ they all exclaimed, including Tarasha who was aware that it was Cole at work. 
++++
‘Here, we go sir,’ Cole said to the Senate President who was sitting beside him in the front seat of the car. ‘I’ll open the door for you and you get out immediately we get to to your house, I’ll speed off immediately.’ 
The man nodded in reply, that was the only way he could respond; his tongue has been cut off and his hands paralyzed by the poison.
++++
8pm
‘I’m ready sir, I’m about to give him the solution now and we’ll connect to you,’ Dr Tobi said into the phone. The call ended and Dr Tobi handed the phone back to Inspector Ken. 
They both walked into Henry’s room, Dr Tobi holding a small bottle and a teaspoon with him. The small bottle contained Dr Tobi’s prepared solution which would aid Henry in recalling his memories. Ken was carrying a bag which contained a laptop and other gadgets. 
‘How are you Henry?” Dr Tobi said as he approached Henry who was sitting on a settee close to his bed. 
‘I’m fine,’ Henry replied with a smile to Dr Tobi but frowned on seeing Ken who was doing his best to look friendly and put on a smile. 
‘Have you had your dinner?’ Dr Tobi asked, placing the bottle on a table beside Henry’s seat.
‘Yes, I have.’
‘Good, it’s time to take this drug; it’ll help you become stronger.’ the doctor said, handing him the teaspoon. 
Henry collected the teaspoon from Dr Tobi, placing an awkward look on Ken. The doctor helped in opening the bottle and poured part of the content into the spoon. Henry ended up taking three teaspoonfuls of the solution. 
‘Doctor, you said you were going to allow me talk to someone tonight,’ Henry asked after two minutes of resting. The doctor was already seated beside Henry while Ken was still standing. ‘I hope he’s not the one?’ Henry asked, pointing at Ken and staring at him frightfully. 
‘He’s not the one you’re talking to tonight, but I think you should also be nice to him; he’s also your friend and won’t hurt you.’ Dr Tobi said. 
‘Hmm…’ Henry hummed and stared at Ken’s face for a while, as if trying to see if he wouldn’t hurt him like the doctor said. 
‘Let’s connect now,’ Dr Tobi said to Inspector Ken. 
‘Okay,’ Inspector Ken replied and took out the laptop from the bag. He carried it to where the flat screened television was and squatted, he placed the laptop on the floor and turned it on. Then he took out an audio video cable from his bag and connected it to the laptop and to the television.
After few minutes of working on the computer, he placed a call to Agent Dakolo. ‘We’re ready sir,’ he said. 
‘Where is the person?’ Henry asked out of curiousness, wondering what Ken was doing. 
‘Be patient, you’ll see her now.’ Dr Tobi answered. 
‘The person is a lady?’ Henry asked. He had never seen any other lady apart from the three maids in the house where he was. 
‘Yes, she is your mother.’ Dr Tobi stated.
‘My mother?’ Henry’s eyes widened in surprise. ‘I have a mother?’ he asked but got no reply except a kind smile from Dr Tobi.
The video chat was on already, Mrs George was shown on the screen, she was sitting and just staring, most likely still waiting for video signals at her end. 
‘Is this her?’ Henry got up suddenly and began to walk towards the television, Dr Tobi followed him immediately. 
‘Henry,’ the woman called as Henry got midway. He paused and stared thoughtfully, Dr Tobi and Ken were looking at his face, expectant. 
++++
‘I’ve been disconnected boss,’ Aisha said into the phone. 
‘How?’ Tarasha replied her from the other end. 
‘I think she took off the clothes I placed the recorder on,’ Aisha replied. 
‘But you know her location now?’ 
‘Yes.’
‘Good, you and Cole has to leave that lodge this night, I’ve given instructions to Cole already. Benny is a traitor, we don’t know what he would do next.’
Henry did not reply but kept staring at the screen intently. ‘Henry it’s me your mother,’ she said, placing her hand on her chest to emphasize. Henry just kept staring without replying, after sometime he glanced at Dr Tobi who gave him a look of encouragement. 
‘You don’t recognize me Henry? Don’t tell me it’s true what this people has said about you losing your memory,’ she said in a grieving manner but the man she was talking to looked indifferent. She saw him turn and take some steps backwards. 
‘I don’t know her,’ she heard him say to someone she couldn’t see as he proceeded towards a settee.
‘Ah! Henry, Ekene. His father’s son, boy with the large heart, man of so many dreams and visions,’ George began to speak words that he was used to hearing from her. Henry stopped just before the settee, he thought something sounded familiar. He turned back to the screen with a suspicious look, he couldn’t just point it out. He hissed and sat down. 
‘I don’t remember her,’ he said to Dr Tobi again. 
‘Henry, I carried you for nine months, breastfed you…’ the woman began to wail. 
Henry got up and walked closer to the TV again, he stared at the screen for a while without even paying attention to all Mrs George was saying. He wondered why a woman he didn’t know was acting so emotional about him, there was nothing she said that he could relate with. She even called him ‘Ekene’, he had never heard that before. He turned back and walked straight to his seat, he paused midway again when he heard her screaming.
‘Ekene, please it’s me your mother, look very well at me. You took after me in all aspects, see,’ the woman said, pointing at her face. ‘We look alike.’
Henry turned to look at her face again and a confused smile formed on his face, to him there was no resemblance. 
‘You look like her,’ he could hear someone say to him softly. It was Ken who was staying close to the television. 
He gave Ken a deep frown and became more suspicious about the whole set up. He began to think Ken was trying to lure him into a trap with the woman. 
‘Please, I don’t want to see for now,’ he said to the doctor and walked back to his seat. He picked up a towel from headboard of the bed and cleaned his face with it, then he sank into the bed and buried his face in the pillow. 
*
‘Please disconnect, it’s enough for now.’ Dr Tobi’s face appeared Mrs George’s screen. 
Dakolo went to the laptop and closed the chat. He turned back to see Mrs George weeping. 
‘Don’t worry ma’am, everything would be alright,’ he said to console her after which he signaled for the junior officer who was with them in the room to lead her out. His phone rang. 
‘Hello Mr Sylvester, sorry I’ve not been able to speak with you well; I was busy. You were saying something the other time which I didn’t quite understand,’ he said into the phone. 
‘Yes sir,’ Mr Sylvester’s said. ‘I was trying to explain to you our need for Mr Henry’s presence, the whole of NSCC may crash if we don’t have him in three days.’ 
‘But you know that isn’t possible sir, Henry is in a critical state and we can’t take him around. Even if he comes, he wouldn’t be able to do anything, and you know that already.’ 
‘Sir, we don’t really need him to do anything, we only need his finger print to unlock a process,’ Mr Sylvester said. ‘We found out today that he already began the process Kimberly suggested but the problem is that he locked it with his finger print and we need him to be here this week.’
‘What about taking the fingerprint from where he is?’ Dakolo suggested. 
‘No, he has to be brought to the office. Our system is inbuilt and can’t be moved.’
‘Mr Sylvester,’ Dakolo called and then took a brief pause. ‘I can’t believe I even agreed to get his fingerprint for you, it’s impossible to get that for now. Let’s wait till everything settles.’
‘But sir, it could crash the whole NSCC,’ Mr Sylvester pleaded. 
‘Just forget about it and wait,’ Dakolo said, not minding the seriousness in the man’s voice, he ended the call. 
++++
‘But Doc, what’s up with Henry? Do you think your solution is working?’
‘Yes, faster than I imagined,’ Dr Tobi answered, smiling. 
‘Faster?’ Ken stared at him in surprise, ‘how can you say that it worked when he was even callous to his mother?’
‘It worked,’ Dr Tobi answered confidently. ‘I know it worked, he responded as I expected.’
Ken kept staring at the doctor’s happy face in surprise, to him Henry did not respond as expected. 
‘He would start recalling some things while he’s sleeping or when he’s alone and his mind has wandered far,’ Dr Tobi explained. ‘What he needs now is more of things like this, even if he doesn’t recall his memory fully, the fear in his mind for people would be erased.’
‘So you’re saying it’s possible he doesn’t regain his memory?’
‘It’s a fifty-fifty possibility,’ the doctor said. ‘But the chances of him regaining would be increased if we can take him to the places he has been recently and expose him to people he has related with before his poisoning.’
‘But what about me and Agent Dakolo? We’ve related with him recently, he was with us that afternoon before he was drugged at evening.’ 
‘Are you someone special to him? Or did you do something special to him that day?’ Dr Tobi asked. 
‘No, we actually questioned him about some matters relating to Samantha Osman. We felt he was hiding somethings and we threatened for him to speak but he didn’t.’
‘Oh!’ Dr Tobi exclaimed. ‘You threatened him? That explains why he’s still scared of you. It also shows that my solution is working. He has a very faint memory of you guys, but he sees you as monsters.’
Ken gave the doctor a sharp look. The Doctor smiled and clasped his palms together apologetically, ‘sorry about that, I didn’t mean to insult you with it but that’s just how he sees you.’ 
‘Okay,’ Ken shrugged. ‘But how can we make his recovery faster without taking him to town?’
‘We can’t make it faster, we can only try. But I suggest that we keep showing him videos; show him videos of his hobbies; for example, if he loves to watch football and we know that his favorite team is Arsenal FC, we can play several videos of their past matches for him to watch. We can also record videos of his house, his room, his resting place, his office; that could help too.’
‘Hmm…’ Ken nodded thoughtfully, ‘I’ll communicate this to Agent Dakolo.’
__________________
** February 3, 2031 **
‘Good morning sir,’ Mr Sylvester could hear several of the junior staffs greeting him from every corner of the building as he walked to his office, one of the messengers was following him with his bag. Mr Sylvester noticed an unusual frenzy in the corporation building that morning but he couldn’t tell what it was. He kept on marching to office, hoping that someone was going to come and brief him soon on the matter. 
‘Good morning sir,’ Frank joined him from another block, he collected Mr Sylvester’s bag from the messenger and began to walk with Mr Sylvester to his office. 
‘Good morning Mr Frank, why don’t you allow the messenger take the bag, you shouldn’t be doing that.’ Mr Sylvester replied. 
‘Sir, there’s trouble.’ Frank stated, ignoring the man’s last statement.
‘There’s trouble?’ Mr Sylvester paused just before the door to his office. 
‘Yes, there is. The cameras system have stopped working,’ Frank said.
‘Aww!’ Mr Sylvester exclaimed and his shoulders dropped. ‘Just as we have all discovered beforehand. Is Kimberly in her office?’ 
‘Yes, she is,’ Frank answered. 
‘And what’s she doing about it?”
‘She’s been in her office since morning trying to control the situation but as we all know, the solution is to get Mr Henry’s fingerprint.’ 
_____
**Two days later**
‘Vice President to return into the country in three days time,’ Tarasha read the headlines of the news. Chief Elvis had been reported to have traveled out of the country for medical treatment, Tarasha couldn’t wait for him to return so that she could begin to execute all her plans. She had also began to study the Inspector General and was already making plans for his death too.
‘Senate President still in Coma,’ she read the next headline. Nasiru Attahiru had been flown to India for treatment but it was only a waste of money, the man would not survive the poison that was administered to him, Cole had waited for appropriate number of days for the poison to digest and mix with his blood before sending him home.  The last headline she read before her phone rang was ‘NSCC in confusion as cameras begin to malfunction. She picked up her phone and stared at the caller’s name, it was Cole. 
‘Hello Boss, I was in the bathroom when you called.’ Cole’s voice came through. 
‘Okay, any signs of Benny yet?’
‘No signs yet.’
‘Alright listen to me now,’ Tarasha said in a serious tone and lowered her voice. ‘The cameras system have began to malfunction since Monday but it seems that wouldn’t be enough motivation for the police to give me what I need. What I want you to do now is to cause confusion, install some bombs in certain areas of the town, maybe three to five places. But make sure that it isn’t close to where people are, so that it doesn’t kill much.’
‘Okay boss,’ Cole replied and the call ended. 
That was Tarasha’s first strategy to force them to bring out Henry. She was sure that the police would run to the NSCC for help on footages that captured the people who installed the bombs but the NSCC would not be able to help because the cameras have been malfunctioning. That should make the police bring out Henry for the fingerprint but if they still don’t, it could cause distractions that would make her able to trace Henry and even start work on the Inspector General.. 
++++
Henry stood at the balcony of the house, wondering what life was all about, wondering who the people he lived with were and why they cared so much about him. He also wondered why there were so many policemen around the house. 
Only three days ago had he began to come out of the house, he noticed that the house which he lived in was the biggest and most beautiful in that area, the other houses were ancient and small. The people were different also, their dressing and culture was different, they spoke a strange language which he never heard before. 
He was enjoying the moment, the cool breeze was blowing on his skin and he was having a nice time viewing the women walking up and down with logs of woods on their head and some baskets of farm produce while most of the men were moving with their cutlasses and hoes, some could also be seen coming out of bushes with local guns on their shoulders and small dead animals in their hands. 
A certain old woman passing with two of her children made him recall something which he saw the previous day while taking a stroll with Dr Tobi. He had seen a woman about the same age with this advising two young people; a male and a female; telling the male one who was the eldest to look after his sister when they got to the city. From then on, a voice had been echoing in Henry’s head, ‘Henry, look after your sister very well; remember that you’re the father she has at school.’ 
The voice kept echoing in Henry’s head and anytime he heard it, he would have a feeling of guilt and failure, maybe he had failed in the responsibility which the voice gave to him, he thought. Later that night, he began to relate the voice he was hearing in his head to the woman he had seen on the television days ago, the voice sounded like Mrs George’s own. 
He took in a deep breath, closed and opened his eyes, something caught his attention. He stepped down from the balcony hurriedly and began to walk towards the road, soon he started running.
‘Henry,’ Dr Tobi and two officers called as they an after him but he wouldn’t stop. ‘Just follow him behind, don’t stop him,’ Dr Tobi said to the officers. 
Henry was running after two people who were riding a bicycle. A girl was at the far front, her speed was more while the guy was following after her, trying to call unto the girl. 
After some minutes, the girl stopped and dropped off her bicycle. The boy stopped also some metres behind her. Henry stopped running and watched them from afar. He saw the girl pack some quantity of sand and throw at the boy. 
Something suddenly flashed through his mind, he saw himself riding on a power bike. He then saw a girl in front of him in a bush, she had her back turned to him. Suddenly she picked up a stone and threw at him, the stone met Henry’s forehead. 
‘Ouch!’ Henry screamed and touched his forehead, the two officers behind him came to his rescue. Although, no stone had touched his head today, he still felt the same pain he felt in the picture he recalled. 
The police officers began to lead him back home. 
‘What do you remember?’ Dr Tobi asked him as he stepped back into the balcony. 
‘A girl,’ he replied, still holding the part of his forehead where he felt the pain. 
‘What does she look like?’
‘I didn’t see her face, I only saw her from behind.’ he replied the doctor. 
‘Try, you can remember,’ the doctor encouraged. 
Henry closed his eyes, his brain traveled fast. He saw the same shape of the lady’s behind,  but this time in a room; he was lying on a three seater sofa, a drip bag was hung above and the liquid was running into his body through the drip line. 
‘Can you see her face now?’Dr Tobi asked, bringing him back to the present. 
‘No, but I saw her with a pin,’ Henry said, illustrating a syringe with his hands. ‘I was sleeping on the chair and water was entering my hand,’ he added, showing the position where the fluid was entering into his vein. 
Dr Tobi smiled, ‘come, let’s go in.’ 
++++
‘Hello Mr Sylvester,’ Dakolo said into the phone in an urgent tone. 
‘Hello sir,’ Mr Sylvester replied back in a tensed tone. 
‘I know you’ve gotten the news of the bomb blast which happened simultaneously at Roffman and Denril streets,’ Dakolo said. ‘It’s a surprise that the officers in charge just told me that the NSCC has not provided any data yet.’
‘Sir, we’re working on providing the data already,’ Mr Sylvester replied. 
‘What do you mean by working on it? The normal procedure is that the data should be sent at least thirty minutes after a casualty.’
‘I know sir, we’ll try and get back to you now.’ 
‘Better do.’
+++
**45 minutes later**
‘Guys, we really need to do something quick,’ Mr Sylvester said as he walked into the general computer room. Tarasha and the guys who worked with Henry were seated in front of different computers, very busy with what they were doing. They all looked up to stare at Mr Sylvester on hearing his voice. 
‘This is the third bomb blast that has been reported in Abuja today and we can’t provide the police with videos captured around the place before or after the blast,’ Mr Sylvester added. 
‘We can’t provide what we don’t have sir,’ Tarasha was the first to reply. 
‘The cameras have not been functioning and we couldn’t have recorded anything.’ Frank put in. 
‘But we have to do something quick to get our cameras working again,’ Mr Sylvester said, trying to encourage them to work more. 
Tarasha took her hands off the computer keyboard and placed her eyes on Mr Sylvester conspicuously. ‘There’s nothing we can do,’ she said flatly. 
‘So Kimberly, you mean you’ve not found a solution by all you’ve been doing since?’
‘I’ve told you the only solution already, it’s Mr Henry E.G’s fingerprints,’ she replied him and got up from the seat. ‘All we’ve been doing since is just a waste of time.’
Mr Sylvester heaved a sigh and put his left hand on his head, his phone rang. Whoop! It’s the Inspector General,’ he said and decided to take some time to think of what to say. The phone rang twice again before he answered. 
‘Mr Sylvester, why are you not answering my calls?’
‘Sir, we’ve been running around trying to fix things.’ he replied with no apologies in his voice. 
‘What are you trying to fix? What’s difficult in sending the data you’re supposed to send?’
‘We don’t have any data sir,’ he stated flatly. 
‘What do you mean?’ Rikau replied. 
‘Our cameras have stopped working; I spoke to Agent Dakolo about it and I also sent you a petition but got no positive reply.’
‘But you know that what you’re asking for is not ideal,’ Rikau said. 
‘Sir, that’s the only way we can get our cameras to start working again; without that we may not function for the next one year,’ Sylvester said, almost shouting on top of his voice. 
‘I’ll get back to you Mr Sylvester,’ Rikau said calmly and the call ended. 
Mr Sylvester closed his eyes and took in a deep breath, he opened his eyes to see Kimberly and the two guys staring at him. 
++++
10 minutes later.
‘Good afternoon sir,’ Agent Dakolo said into the phone. 
‘Good afternoon Agent,’ the Inspector General was the caller. ‘I heard that there’s a friction between the anti bomb squad and the NSCC.’
‘Yes, there is,’ Dakolo replied.
‘The NSCC claims that their system is locked and that the only way to unlock it is with Henry EG’s fingerprint.’
‘Yes sir, they told me that.’
‘Find a way to get Henry E.G to the NSCC office as soon as possible.’
‘But sir…’ Dakolo tried to argue.
‘Shh… Don’t be insensitive, over thirty people have been displaced, five people killed. The bombers are capitalizing on the fact that the cameras are down, we need to rectify it immediately.’
‘Sir…’
‘Shut up and just do as I say,’ the IG commanded. 
‘Okay sir.’

Cole sent the message and hoped that Benny would be able to receive it immediately. He continued to look around for signs of the boss. A minute later, he saw a some police cars coming through the gate. He began to walk towards the gate and the cars coming to check the leaders of the entourage. He turned back immediately he saw Agent Dakolo and other officers seated in the first car. He quickly returned to his co journalists to announce the agent’s arrival. In a spilt second, the crowd of journalists had began to gravitate towards the park where the police cars were driving to.

++++

Dr Tobi followed after the nurse hurriedly and in some minutes, they both got to the senior doctor’s office. The door was locked and there was no sign of the doctor’s presence, Dr Tobi placed his hands on his waist, waiting for an explanation from the nurse. Just before Dr Tobi opened his mouth to complain, she took out an access card and opened the doctor’s office, that kept his mouth shut. She must really be a trusted nurse for the senior Doctor to give her his access card, he thought. She ushered him in first before she entered behind.

The doctor entered and stared around the office, placing his hand on his waist again. He turned back to see the nurse locking the door.

‘Where is the senior Doctor?’ He asked her.

‘The senior Doctor asked me to call you here,’ she replied.

‘That’s not the answer to my question,’ Dr Tobi barked angrily, ‘where is he?’

‘I don’t know,’ she answered nonchalantly and walked towards the office table. She leaned against the table and posed in a seductive manner.

Dr Tobi turned back few seconds after he heard no response, his face was filled with anger as his eyes met with the nurse’s. Then his anger increased and was mixed with disgust as he now noticed her pose.

‘By the way, who are you and when did you start working here? I’ve never seen you in this hospital before.’ Dr Tobi said, his disgust expressly heard in his voice.

‘Wrong question at the wrong time,’ Aisha said with a chuckle and catwalked towards him. She stopped at his front and bent her face to kiss his neck. He pushed her away and stepped back.

 

She gave an evil laughter and brushed the hair covering her eyes backwards with her hand. ‘You’re looking good Doc, I just thought it won’t be a bad idea if we had a quick one here.’

”Are you crazy? Please open this door and let me return to my work.’ He barked.

‘You’re not going anywhere doc,’ Aisha said and took out a gun, she took off the wig on her head and then she pointed the gun at him, walking slowly towards him. She made him raise up his hands and she searched his pockets to see if he had any communication device or phone to use but found none She then asked him to move back to the direction of the table, motioning him to sit on the visitor’s chair. Then she cut the wires of the landline on the office table and walked back to the door, still pointing her gun at him. She unlocked the door and put back on her wig. Then she hid the gun back under her nurse uniform before stepping out of the office.

Dr Tobi got up from the visitor’s seat immediately and turned round to the other side, he quickly pulled out the drawer to see if he could get a phone but unluckily for him, there was none.

Officer Clem got back to the ward with one of the younger boys that had gone to control the journalists with him. To his surprise, the patient’s bed was empty when he entered.

‘Where’s he?’ He shouted at the officer that was left alone to watch over Henry in the ward.

‘Sir, the doctors have taken him to the theatre.’ The officer answered.

‘Okay,’ officer Clem’s heart was calmed a little. ‘Where’s the theatre where they took him to?’

‘Ermm…’ The younger office stammered. ‘I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘How many minutes is it now?’

‘Twenty sir,’ he replied after taking a glance at his wristwatch.

‘Yes, Dr Tobi said he’ll make a call to us before the man decides to start leaving.’

++++

‘Where are you?’ Dakolo asked the receiver of his phone call.

‘I’m back at the ward now,’ the receiver replied.

‘He has been taken to the theatre,’ the reply came a little bit hesitant.

‘To do what?’

‘To administer the new cure, the Doctor said it was time to wash off the poison in his blood cells.’

‘And which officer is manning the entrance of the theatre when you’re in the ward?’

 

‘Sir… Ermmm… None sir, I wasn’t here when they came to pick him up, so I don’t know which theatre they have taken him to.’

‘Are you…’ Dakolo gritted his teeth angrily; he looked out through the window and saw the source of the noise coming towards him. He quickly wind up the window glass before the journalists got nearer. ‘You better go and search for the theatre now and make sure that he’s safe, if anything happens to him; I’ll make sure you spend the rest of your life behind bars. ’Dakolo threatened and put down the phone.

‘Clem has messed up?’ Ken anxiously asked.

‘Yes,’ Dakolo replied, taking deep heavy breaths, we need to go in there immediately.’ He said and took his pistol, he opened the door aggressively not minding the journalists who were standing by the car.

++++

Benny was getting impatient waiting for the signal from the Boss, he was supposed to have gotten it now that the Aisha have tricked the Doctor away . He didn’t know if he should continue without the signal or not. After some minutes of staring at and receiving back awkward stares from the nurses, he finally felt a vibration in his belt. He was about heaving a sigh of relief but stopped in the process, the vibration came twice, meaning that it wasn’t a signal to go ahead but to listen to a message. He stepped back a little from the nurses who were still staring at him. He took out a small wireless one side earphone from his pocket and placed it into his ear, listening to the voice play of the message sent from Cole. He returned it into his pocket after listening and walked back to his former position, making a loud, long hiss. He stared at the nurses’ face; they were looking at him quietly but their looks were accusing enough as he wasn’t supposed to bring in any gadget talk more of using it in the theatre.

He took off his nose mask and hissed again. ‘Please someone needs to get Dr Tobi, I’m running late already, my people are already getting impatient.’ He said in a complaining tone.

The nurses communicated quietly with eye signals and one of them proceeded to the door and walked out after taking off her nose mask. One more nurse left for Benny to get rid of. He gave her an evil eye as she stared at him.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ He accused.

The nurse took her face away immediately, ‘I wasn’t looking at you sir,’ she managed to say courteously.

++++

Cole was satisfied with the way the journalists had surrounded officer’s Dakolo’s car. Just when he got his recorder and was about to join them was when his phone vibrated. He took it out to see what it was.

‘I’m not fit to join you for the task anymore, use your car to get Benny out.’ He read as he flipped down the notification bar. He clicked on the message to reassure himself that it was really the boss who sent it. Although, a message like that coming from the Boss was strange, he was glad that she at least communicated to them.

He quickly forwarded the message to Benny and started to proceed further but he stopped after taking only few steps. The manner with which Agent Dakolo was walking and ignoring all the journalists showed that the man wasn’t ready to give them his time at all.

++++

Omotara poured in the broken parts of the phone that fell from her hands into the dustbin and returned to the living room. She picked up the new phone which she had brought out and inserted her sim card. It was the same phone she used to call Cole. She then proceeded towards the room Jefa was, after switching off the TV.

The return of Rikau Saliu into her memory hadn’t come back alone, it had brought so many other things to her. It had brought back the ill feeling of being molested again, the angry feeling of watching her parents and one of her brother’s die and also that determination to kill all those men who had attacked their house. All these feelings which had disappeared a long time ago during her trainings in the Nefary Clan had now come back stronger. Now she wanted to find out more from her brother.

She gently opened the door to the room and walked in, Jefa was lying on the bed with his face buried in the pillow. He turned upward on hearing her come in and slowly sat up, avoiding her gaze.

She walked towards the bed slowly and sat in it, directly opposite Jefa. She was quiet for a short while, thinking of the right way to begin her discussion until Jefa spoke first.

‘Aren’t you going to work anymore?’ He managed to look at her face.

‘No, I had to take today off. I called the office already.’ She replied. ‘Since you still insist that you’ll be going immediately after you get well, then I think I have to spend more time with you now that you’re still here.’

Jefa kept quiet and stared blankly, glancing occasionally at her face. ‘I recognize him now,’ Omotara said, making Jefa give her a quick look. ‘I remember him very well.’

‘I’m sorry ,’ Jefa said slowly in a sad tone, his face showing regret. ‘I’m sorry for bringing back those sad memories to you; that’s why I have to leave your life forever. You see, I’m a sorrowful man, always filled with grief and pain in my heart, I don’t want to infect your happy life with my sorrow. I’ve lived my life always praying, wishing and hoping that this evil man and others like him are brought down, but my sorrow and pain keeps increasing everyday as I see them keep rising and becoming greater everyday.’ Jefa went on lamenting

++++

The message vibration came again, Benny stepped back to listen like he did previously. The forwarded message from Cole was read into his ear. Another message came in immediately as he was about to take off the earpiece, he paused to listen.

‘You have to be fast now, Agent Dakolo has instructed the police to start looking for the theatre and he’s also coming upstairs.’ The second message read.

There was a sudden rush of adrenaline in Benny’s body as he took off the earpiece, he proceeded towards the nurse immediately and took her out with a heavy blow. Then he took out the ampoule from his inner pocket and picked the syringe which was earlier used to inject into Henry the sedative. He drew out some of the contents from the ampoule into the syringe and quickly moved to Henry.

He held one of Henry’s arm and injected the liquid into his veins.

++++

‘It’s okay brother, I understand your pain. I feel the same way too but there’s nothing we can do about it,’ Tarasha said in a sad tone and moved closer to him. ‘But one thing I know for sure is that they can’t escape from their punishment for life…’

‘I’m sorry Tara,’ Jefa who seemed not to be listening to her but lost in his own thoughts cut in. ‘I’m sorry for not being able to protect you as your elder brother, I’m sorry for failing to keep my promise.’

A light smile appeared on Omotara’s face as she tried to recall if he ever promised protection for her or the rest of his younger siblings. Then she remembered how he always claimed to be Superman and that we could rescue his younger ones when they were in trouble. Her smile broadened but was short-lived and transformed into a evil one as she remembered something else; she remembered his face that fateful day when their father was being killed, how helpless he looked when their mother was being molested and even when she herself was being mishandled by Rikau. Her eyes began to turn red in anger again but she quickly composed herself, remembering that she was in his presence and had to keep the innocent and helpless girl’s look on her face. The redness in her eyes formed into tears that stuck there, without dropping off.

After about three minutes of silence by the both of them, Tara cleaned her eyes and sniffed in. ‘I want to know what happened to you, where have you been all these while?’ She asked.

Her phone began to ring before Jefa could answer. She checked the screen, it was Cole. She excused herself and stepped out of the bed to answer the call.

‘Hello boss,’ Cole’s voice came through.

‘Hello,’ she replied.

‘Benny just completed the task successfully and he’s with me and Aisha now, we’re returning straight to the base now.’

‘Nice Cole, I’ll call you later.’

‘I was sent unconscious that day, so I don’t know how, when and where we were separated. I woke up to find in a strange place with several other of my age mates. Nothing much happened that day, it was late already. Our… My sufferings began the next day. We…’

**Flashback — From May 28, 2014 **

The captives were woken up the next morning with the noise from a giant bell. Those who did not wake up after the bell rang were woken up with strong whips by two evil looking lanky men. Jeffery was part of those who woke first so he didn’t have to receive the early morning ‘tea’ like some others. He even hardly slept, the huge mosquitoes feasting on his body and singing and dancing around like Indian lovers were enough to keep one awake all through the night. 

They were led outside the room, could it even be called a room? It was something worse than a Nigerian police cell.  One after the other, they all had to bend down to walk out through the narrow-dwarf door. 

Jeffery opened his eyes as he got out through the door to see his new environment. Before his eyes could notice any other thing, the faces of five wicked looking men standing in a straight line in front of the boys were the first thing he saw. Most of them had long unkempt beards, their heads were also covered with a scarf like material and a black piece of material wrapped around the scarf to hold to their heads. There were also several cutlasses , rakes and hoes on the floor. 

‘Oya, make una bend down pick the one you fit use well.’ One of the man stepped forward and spoke in a thick northern accent, instructing them to move forward and pick their desired tool.

The boys stood still, confused about what they were going to do with the farm tools. Except for those who had been whipped before, no one else picked a tool immediately. 

‘Ehen, una no hear abi?’ the man who gave the instruction yelled at them. Slowly and hesitatingly, the boys stepped forward and picked up different tools of their choices.

‘Good,’ the man continued. ‘Now, make una look around.’ he said pointing round the place. 

Jeffrey looked around like the other boys, he noticed that apart from the small prison where they been allowed to sleep and the space in front of them, there was only a narrow pathway, the rest of the place were filled with huge bushes and trees, looked like they were in the middle of a thick forest. 

‘We wan clear three plots of land to build bigger place for una and to get bigger space,’ he continued, after being satisfied with the view of the place that the children already had. ‘We wan make una clear the thing for three days.’

Jeffrey looked around once more, then he turned to look at other boys with him, they were numbering up to fifteen, all within the age range of 12 to 16. He began to wonder how fifteen young boys were going to clear the huge bushes on the land in three days, especially with someone like him who didn’t even have the experience and knowledge of holding a cutlass and how to use it. 

‘Oya make una come o,’ the task manager continued, assigning some boys to his men. ‘We go give everybody im portion and na until you finish am una go chop, una hear?’

The boys answered him with silence and he didn’t even wait to get a verbal response before he turned to the the boys he assigned to himself and led them to the portions of land they were to clear.  Jeffrey followed his own man and he was showed his portion, he almost fainted on seeing it, it was surely going to take him days to finish that day’s portion only. However without waisting time, he began to strike the ground with the blunt side of the cutlass until he was corrected by the man. He then began to use the correct side but it wasn’t so much of a difference as he was only striking too much without making the desired impact.

The thought of his younger sister and brother came back to his mind as he did his job. He wondered where they now were, he wondered if they had been made to do the same kind of tedious job like this. He remembered his father and mother’s death too, he thought of their unfulfilled promises and dreams, he remembered how they had promised to give each and every one of their kids an excellent future. 

Just few minutes into the job, he was already tired, he looked around to see most of the boys still working, the only ones who had paused like him were the ones who needed the whip to wake up. He summoned courage and continued to work but his strength was failing him gradually. At the time he was thinking of finally stopping was when he started to hear sounds of whips accompanied by loud groans and screams. He also saw the man standing by his side with his whip in his hand in readiness to land it on the first weak person under his watch. 

He took a quick glance at other boy who had his portion allocated to him by the same man; the skinny looking boy did not seem to be tired yet and was making quite some progress on his own portion. Jeffrey was inspired by the boy’s attitude and tried to add more strength, he thought to himself that if a boy who didn’t look as healthy as he was could work like that, then he should be able to do more. 

As the frequency of the whips heard behind increased, so did Jeffrey’s strength reduce. After twenty minutes of working in total, he fell to the ground for the first time. The man who had been waiting for him to stop working or wait to rest moved close to him and landed him a whip on the back. Jeffrey turned and twitched in pain, groaning loudly as he rolled on the floor. For the man, he was too slow in responding, so he landed another whip on his body. Jeffrey passed out. 

***Present***

‘Sorry brother,’ Tarasha interrupted her brother’s narration. ‘Which forest was that? Can you remember?’

‘Ermm… Sambisa forest, I think. That was their main operation centre then,’ Jefa replied. 

‘That’s in Nigeria here right?’ 

‘Yes,’ Jefa stared at his sister with a surprised look. ‘In Borno State.’

‘Okay, and were the men that were with you Nigerians?’

‘Yes, they were. Why are you asking?’ 

‘Nothing, I just wanted to relate some things. You can continue please.’

**Flashback continues**

Jeffrey woke up later that afternoon feeling very feverish. At first he thought he was dead and had gone to heaven because his vision was blurry and he was feeling wet, but as the rains poured more on his face, his vision became clearer and he staggered to stand up, that was when he realized that he was in a new environment. He could see some boys running from the rain into an old brick building at the left side. This new place was more of a developed land and had several buildings surrounding a large open space. 

Jeffrey trudged forward to the same building he saw the other boys running to, shivering as he walked. He was the last to get there, the door to the building was already closed. He knocked tiredly and waited for a response. A young boy of his age opened the door and popped out his head, he closed back the door and opened it again after ten seconds, motioning for Jeffrey to come inside. 

Jeffrey entered, still shivering and the boy closed the door behind. There were several other boys in the room, numbering up to twenty seated on the neat carpeted floor. All eyes were on Jeffrey as he looked around the room, a man seated on a short stool and dressed like a cleric beckoned on him to come closer. 

As Jeffrey moved forward, he saw one of the other boys that was at the previous place with him, one of those who were whipped before they woke up. 

Later that day, he got to realize that their abductors are from a very organized group which had several sections. He had earlier been selected to the other place because he was seen as strong due to his body structure and rigidity but when his weakness showed during the clearing of the land, they had no choice than to transfer him to this other section where he would fit in more perfectly. 

***Present***

Tara’s phone rang again, disrupting Jefa’s narration. She sighed as she took out the phone, she glanced at the screen to check the caller and then excused herself from never and stepped out of the bed to answer the call. 

‘Hello sir… Yes, I’m going to still come but not as early as I proposed… Maybe one hour late…okay.’ she ended her call and returned to the bed. She apologized to Jeffrey and asked him to continue. 

‘Isn’t that your boss?’ Jeffrey asked instead of going on with his narration.

‘Yes,’ Omotara sighed, ‘I’ll be going back to work briefly in an hour time.’

‘Ermm… I hope I’m not the one disturbing you, we could continue our discussion some other time, it’s better you start leaving for work now. I even thought you took the day off already,’ Jefa said. 

‘Yes, I won’t be going for night duty today. I only have to drop something there.’

‘Then why don’t you go now?’

‘I already told them I’ll be coming in an hour time.’

Jefa sighed. 

‘So continue, please.’

Jefa closed his eyes and took a deep breath before he continued his story. 

‘I was given drugs to take care of my illness that day, there were no much activities as the rain continued to pour down until night time. The next day, we were not woken up in an aggressive manner like the day before, although, we woke up very early too. I and several other new intakes like myself slept in the same room. We were ushered outside the room and led to another room by the far left end. It was a prayer room. There, we met people praying the Islamic way and we were asked to join them. Those who were Muslims joined them while I and two other people only watched them in confusion. Later that day, we began our Arabic lessons and I started from the lowest class. A year later, I had become a Muslim by force and was still being trained. Although I enjoyed it because we lived in peace; I thank God because I thought my sufferings could have come to an end. The third year when I was beginning to think that our hosts were just nice Muslims like our friends at home was when they started to contort the message they earlier preached to us. They started teaching us violence against non-believers as against their message of peace and kindness which they taught us at the low levels and which every good Muslims believe in. They told us that those who refused to believe in the same message like they did were worthy of death; including fellow Muslims like them; though they majored more on those who didn’t believe at all. They turned the peace loving Islam god to us a monster and a blood sucking viper…’

‘Sorry brother,’ Tarasha interrupted again, ‘is God ever peace loving?’ 

Jefa stared at her in surprise at the kind of question she asked. ‘Of course, God loves peace and doesn’t command evil.’ 

‘But…’ Tarasha was looking confused and lost, Jefa was someone who had faced the same challenge as her and he was still thinking that God was peace loving while she always had the mindset of god; if he ever existed, as a blood hungry tyrant and wicked soul. 

‘God loves peace Tara,’ Jefa smiled for the first time since he began his narration. 

‘But then, why did he kill our parents?’ Tarasha asked. ‘Why did he send his men to do all those things they did to us?’ 

Jefa smiled again and moved closer to her, he stretched his hand to her face and rubbed his palms on her cheeks. ‘God is peace loving, he is love, he didn’t send those men to us.’

‘But they said…’

‘They lied,’ Jefa cut in, ‘I know this because God has been good to me; he brought me out of prison and gave me another chance.’

‘You went to prison?’

‘Yes, I did. For some years, I’ll tell you how it happened.’

 ‘Doctor, where have you been?’ Dakolo asked as he saw the Senior Doctor coming out of an office. ‘We’ve been looking for you everywhere. 

2pm

They were all seated at a round table, Mr Sylvester was sitting at the middle, Tarasha, Frank and the second guy who worked with Henry were also there. 

‘She’s Kimberly Evelyn Alexander, but I love to call her  Evelyn because my first daughter is Evelyn too.’ Mr Sylvester introduced her to her colleagues, smiling.

‘Nice to have you Kim,’ Frank was the first to speak, offering her a handshake. 

‘Kim or Evelyn, I don’t know which to choose.’ The other guy joined. 

‘Choose Kim, I prefer to be called Kimberly.’ Tarasha said politely, receiving the handshake from the other guy too. 

‘Okay, Kim it is.’ the guy replied.

 ‘I’ll choose Kim too, since it’s what you prefer,’ Mr Sylvester continued. ‘Some… I mean most of Henry’s jobs have been rolled over to her,’ he said to the two guys. ‘So she would need the coperation of the both of you to work well.’

The guys nodded in satisfaction and agreement to work with her. Frank had met with her before and was sure of her abilities. The other guy had also heard about her exploits from Frank, so he had less reasons to doubt the lady’s ability. 

‘Miss Eve… Kimberly,’ Mr Sylvester faced Tarasha. ‘I know you must have gone through the documents and reports on your table already. Do you have any question now or you would like to leave it for later?’

‘Thank you sir,’Tarasha adjusted her seating position to address them properly. ‘I have questions, so many but I don’t think I can ask all now rather do I think it’s the appropriate time for questions.’

‘Well, you may do it anytime you want. They are gentlemen and would always be willing to help you.’

++++

Like students who had just broken their parent’s rules and were being reprimanded, Dakolo and Ken stood before the Vice President and the Inspector General of police answering questions and making explanations of their recent movements. Dakolo felt awkward having the Vice President question them always, he wondered why the man could not just collect and read the monthly reports that was sent to the IG. As far as he was concerned, the Vice President had never made why meaningful contribution to their investigation, but he had no choice, he had to always answer because he was under the man’s authority. 

‘So no news has been heard about the Senate President yet?’ Chief Elvis asked. 

‘None sir, we’ve not been able to make any reasonable conclusion yet.’ Dakolo replied. 

‘Rikau, these your boys are just messing up and wasting time,’ the Vice President turned to the Inspector General. ‘These assassins are gaining more grounds everyday and getting bolder, very soon they may come for me and then the President himself.’

Rikau was silent, he didn’t know what to say. He also had not been able to make reasonable contribution to the case himself, so he could not chastise the officers. 

‘Please, you guys should leave my presence.’ Chief Elvis said angrily. 

The officers bowed and walked out of the place silently, happy that they could now leave finally. Dakolo’s happiness was mixed with a little unhappiness though, he didn’t like how he was made by the IG to reveal Henry’s new location to the Vice President, he was of the view that the man wasn’t supposed to get that information yet. But he consoled himself on remembering that the Vice President was once a police officer and a very respected one at that, with several of the new innovations and successes of the day’s police force to his credit. 

‘That girl is coming after me soon, something has to be done quickly,’ Chief Elvis said to the IG after the officers had gone out. 

‘But what about the guy you said you’re ordering for?’ Rikau asked. 

Chief Elvis sighed, ‘he’s coming. He’ll come but he may not arrive very soon,  even when he arrives, he still has to take some time to study the area and understand the country.’

‘Hmm, we just have to take extra security measures then. Let’s study the cases of the past victims and see how the assassins got them, that way we won’t work into any trap or be deceived by anyone.’ 

‘I’ve started that already,’ Chief Elvis cut in. ‘I already began to study the cases of the past victims and I’ve discovered a lot. She always comes to them with something like a business proposal and ends up gaining their trust before killing them.’

‘Did she come with a business proposal to Chief Nasiru too?’

‘Come on, why are you asking me that? Are you not the Inspector General? I should be asking you.’

‘No, I just want to point out to you that it wasn’t really a proposal for business.’ 

‘Yes, but it was a proposal of a kind.’ 

‘Yes, you’re correct.’

‘What I’ve decided now is not to start any personal deal with anybody, even if I receive an international body, I’ll ask one of my boys to handle it somewhere far away from me.’

‘Hmm… That’s a good protective measure. One thing I think you should add is that if anyone comes with a proposal, no matter how harmless or innocent it looks, investigations on it should start immediately.’

‘Yes, you’re correct.’ Chief Elvis said, he paused and took in a deep breath. ‘I’ll be traveling soon.’

‘Traveling? Is it an official trip?’

‘No, it’s personal. I’m not feeling too fine and I’m going to the United States for medical treatment.’ Chief Elvis replied. 

‘Oh! You’re not fine sir? Since when has the illness began?’

‘Come on, I’m not sick.’ Chief Elvis said, shaking his head in disgust of Rikau’s response. ‘Don’t you understand what I mean?’

‘I don’t understand what you mean sir?’ Rikau replied. ‘You just said you’re not feeling fine.’

‘It is you who is not feeling fine,’ Chief Elvis slammed and got up, Rikau got up too. ‘I’m going to the United States to hide for some weeks and my excuse would be that I’m not feeling too well, I hope I’ll be permitted to stay as long as I planned.’ he said and began to walk away slowly. 

‘Hmm… But sir, wouldn’t they question your decision not to stay in Nigeria for treatment?’ Rikau asked, following after Chief Elvis slowly. 

‘No one won’t, what happened to Henry E.G last week is enough excuse not to want to stay in Nigeria for treatment.’

++++

Dakolo was quiet as he drove in the car with Ken back to the officer. They had people who were lined up for questioning, one of them was the bold journalist who was replying Agent Dakolo on the day the attempt on Henry’s life was made.

Dakolo was more determined to nab the assassins now, they were really getting bolder and dangerous as the Vice President had said. There was no day that passed by that he wouldn’t wonder and ask himself what kind of person the leader of the assassin group could be. Whether it was Samantha Osman, or Aisha Bello or even Henry’s girlfriend Evelyn, she must really be a genius, he thought. But no matter how genius she was, he was going to bring her down one day, that he was sure of. 

They got to the office after twenty minutes drive and went straight to the interrogation room to question their invitee who had been waiting for them. The journalist appeared to be seated patiently in the room, waiting for them. There was an untouched bottle of soft drink and a glass cup on the table. 

‘Sorry for keeping you waiting man,’ Dakolo apologized as he walked towards the man with Ken and another junior officer behind. ‘Why are you not taking your drink?’

The journalist have a crooked smile and raised his brow, giving Dakolo a stern look. ‘I can’t take the drink Agent, I’m not aware that the Nigerian Police now entertain those invited for interrogation.’ he spoke calmly, his voice showed that he didn’t trust the source of the drink. 

‘Well, that means you’ve not been invited to the police office for quite some time,’ Dakolo said, taking the seat directly opposite the man. ‘Police officers are humans, so they are sensitive to the feelings of their invitees and other citizens.’

‘Go straight to your questions sir, I’ve wasted about an hour here already.’ the journalist said impatiently, in contrast to the way he appeared.

‘Okay, I’ll just like to ask some more questions about those two who came to alert and gather the rest of you to the hospital.’ Dakolo began his questioning, he rounded up all in thirty five minutes. 

‘Thank you so much for your clear answers, as I said earlier you may have to return tomorrow, so that you’ll try to identify the both of them from the pictures we would show you. We may also require you to describe both the male and the female to an artist that would be present here tomorrow.’

‘But how am I going to be able to describe very well people I’ve only seen once?’

‘Don’t worry, the artist has his way of getting what he requires from you.’ Dakolo replied. 

++++

‘Ben, Ben’ Don called slowly and softly. ‘What did she give you to make you this loyal to her? Tell me so I can give my my boys too.’ Benny was seated in a wooden chair while Don was seated directly opposite him in leather settee, his two legs were on a footstool and his cigar was in his hand. The room was dark and filled with smoke, there was only a small window in it which did not allow for proper ventilation. 

‘She didn’t give me anything, I was loyal to you also, remember?’ Benny answered him. 

‘But you ain’t loyal anymore,’ Don countered. ‘You ain’t loyal to me anymore, the girl has turned you to a dog, a very loyal one at that.’

‘I was loyal to you,’ Benny corrected, ‘I can’t be loyal to you anymore because you’re no more my master.’ 

‘Hahaha,’ Don laughed hysterically, he got up from his seat and moved closer Benny. He placed a foot on Benny’s seat beside his laps and lowered his face, blowing smoke from his mouth at Benny’s face. ‘So a girl is your master right?’

‘She is more than a girl, she’s a man, more capable than you are.’ Benny said boldly to Don. 

Benny’s words earned him a resounding blow from Don. Benny fell off from his seat and rolled on the floor. 

Don followed up with more blows on Benny’s face and belly. Benny tried to resist for a while but when the blows were getting too much, he used his feet to push Don away and quickly struggled to get up. He had never attacked Don before, Don had been his master from the beginning and Benny was no match for him. But he knew Don’s secret, Don was a drug addict which had over the years continued to make him weaker. Benny was sure he could beat up Don now, especially with his new experience and tactics learnt. 

Don staggered back and struggled to maintain his balance. After standing properly, he stared straight at Benny, amazed that Benny now had the effrontery to attack him back. He rolled up his sleeves, picked up the footstool and charged towards Benny in anger. 

Benny waited patiently for Don to make the attack with the footstool first, he bent down and the footstool passed over his head while he swiftly pulled Don’s leg with his two hands. Don fell backwards to the floor, his head hitting the wooden chair Benny was previously seated on. Benny pulled Don up immediately and attacked him with jabs in his belly. Don tried to defend himself and attack back but all his moves were countered excellently by Benny. 

Don finally landed on the floor, weak. Benny rose up and climbed over him, placing his strong fingers around Don’s neck, he fastened his grip and began to squeeze life out of Don. 

Don was hitting his fists on the floor in his struggle to escape death but his struggle was not enough to save him, his strength continued to reduce as his struggle increased. 

Benny continued to tightened his hand on Don’s neck, though not with the intention of killing him. He was about to release Don’s neck and stand up when something hard hit his head. He blacked out. 

Don was gasping for breath, his eyes still closed in readiness for death. Then he suddenly felt a relief on his neck and then his body felt free, he managed to open his eyes slowly. Then he saw Stainless standing behind with the butt of a gun in his hand. 

+++++

**Tuesday Morning, 11am**

Inspector Ken had just arrived from his new place of primary assignment, the secluded area where Henry was. Dakolo had left him there the last evening after they both visited Henry, Henry refused to talk or even look up. He remained covered on the bed till they left. They had also involved Dr Tobi in an interrogation where they asked him to tell them everything the lab scientist told him, he was also asked describe the nurse who deceived him out of the lab. 

That Tuesday morning also, Dr Tobi was connected to the office via a video chat where he described the nurse’s face to an artist who interpreted it on a drawing sheet.

The artists was also made to interpret the interrogated journalist’s description of his unknown male and female colleagues who led them to the hospital. After taking down all the sketches, they couldn’t match them with any in their memory. Agent Dakolo and the other officers began to take out pictures they had in the archives. They took out all of Don photos and Facebook pictures that they had and compared it to Benny’s, there was no resemblance in any way.

It was when they took out Aisha’s pictures and compared it with the sketch of the unknown female journalist that it began to make sense. Being black and white, the sketch did not really show the complexion, but some of the facial features on the sketch was the same as Aisha Bello’s. But a notable difference was that Aisha Bello never had her hair cut in all the pictures that they had, but the person in the sketch had a low cut. 

‘Sir, the journalist must be the same with the nurse who deceived the doctor,’ Ken finally noted a huge similarity between the two sketches. ‘Both had their hairs lowly cut and if you look well,’ Ken said and moved to the board on the well where the pictures and sketches had been pinned to. ‘Their nose is the same,’ he said as he touched the noses on the two sketches. ‘I believe that Dr Tobi didn’t see the nurse’s face very well, that’s why he missed other descriptions. You know he also said the nurse was putting on a wig before.’

‘You’re correct Ken, very correct.’ Dakolo commented as he moved closer to the pictures too. ‘People’s descriptions can never be the same but the highest point is that the nurse and the female journalist both had their hair cut and not plaited.’

‘Yes sir, ‘ Ken said and stepped back for Dakolo who wanted to touch the sketch on the board. 

‘Now we can also connect this sketch,’ Dakolo continued talking, touching the sketch gotten from the journalist they interrogated. ‘We can connect this sketch to Aisha Bello’s pictures especially the most recent ones, the eye brows, nose and lips look alike.’ He paused and let out a breath, ‘but the cheeks are quite different, the person in the sketch has puffy cheeks.’

‘Yes sir, there’s also a big difference in their jaws,’ Ken noted, stepping closer again. ‘The lady in the sketch also has dimples.’

‘True,’ Dakolo turned and returned to his previous position, he folded his arms and stared at the board for a minute. ‘Go check if the journalist is done writing his report. If he’s done, bring him here to see the pictures.’ Dakolo said to the junior officer with them. 

The junior officer left and returned six minutes later with the journalist. 

‘Are you done with your statement?’ Dakolo asked the journalist. 

‘Yes and I was about leaving,’ the journalist replied with an unhappy face. 

‘We’re sorry for taking your time, we just need you to see something.’ Dakolo said with a light smile. ‘Please come closer,’ he said, leading the journalist to the front of the board. 

The journalist stood in front and folded his arms, he began to stare at all the pictures scattered all over the board. 

‘This is the sketch of your description,’ Dakolo brought his attention to the two sketches gotten from him. ‘This guy,’ Dakolo continued slowly, pointing to the male picture now. ‘Does he in anyway look like this?’ He asked, making reference to the place where Daniel’s pictures were pinned. 

‘No, not at all.’ the journalist replied in a strong tone, shaking his head to emphasize point. 

‘Okay,’ Dakolo moved his hand to the female sketch. ‘Does she look like this?’ he asked, making reference to Aisha Bello’s pictures. 

‘Nnn…N.. ermm…’ the journalist stammered for a while first comparing the pictures of Aisha Bello’s younger days with the sketch. He narrowed his eyes when he got to the recent pictures. ‘No,’ he finally said, after a total of two minutes. 

‘Are you sure?’ Dakolo asked. 

‘Yes,’ he answered with confidence. ‘The girl is the picture is way darker than the journalist and the journalist’s face even looks kind of funny, not as half as pretty as the girl in the picture.’

‘Are you sure you’re not saying this because the journalist was on low cut?’

He paused and stared at the pictures for another two seconds. ‘No, they are not the same.’ He stated with certainty in his voice. 

Dakolo remained quiet for a while, someone who had had physical contact with the person they were trying to identify just disconfirmed that the she wasnt the same with Aisha Bello  while he and Ken was just trying to connect them. After some seconds of thinking, he suddenly remembered that a lady on low cut was also one of the abductors of the Senate President, he remembered Fatima, the Senate President’s daughter telling him that the ladies who visited were on heavy make-up.

‘Did you notice if the female journalist was on makeup?’ he asked the journalist again. 

‘No, I don’t know about that but it’s normal for ladies to use makeups.’ the journalist replied. 

‘Hmm…’ Dakolo sighed, the journalist did not understand what kind of makeup he was talking about, they had to go back to Fatima for more questioning. ‘Well, thanks.’ he said smiling, offering the journalist an handshake. ‘Thank you for your cooperation with the police force, we’ll get back to you if we need your assistance again.’

‘You’re welcome,’ the journalist replied, taking his handshake. With that, Dakolo dismissed him. The junior police officer led the journalist out, leaving only Dakolo and Ken 

Dakolo turned back to see Ken staring intently at the board. He joined him and stared at the same place. 

‘It looks like I’ve seen someone like this recently,’ Ken said, referring to Daniel’s picture, the supposed boyfriend of Aisha Bello. 

‘Where?’

‘I can’t really place it but I’ve seen someone like this recently.’ 

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Henry, I carried you for nine months, breastfed you…’ the woman began to wail. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

*

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

++++

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

‘Yes, faster than I imagined,’ Dr Tobi answered, smiling. 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Hmm…’ Ken nodded thoughtfully, ‘I’ll communicate this to Agent Dakolo.’

__________________

** February 3, 2031 **

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Yes, she is,’ Frank answered. 

‘And what’s she doing about it?”

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

_____

**Two days later**

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

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

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

‘Okay, any signs of Benny yet?’

‘No signs yet.’

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

‘Okay boss,’ Cole replied and the call ended. 

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

++++

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The police officers began to lead him back home. 

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

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

‘What does she look like?’

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

‘Try, you can remember,’ the doctor encouraged. 

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

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

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

Dr Tobi smiled, ‘come, let’s go in.’ 

++++

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Better do.’

+++

**45 minutes later**

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Mr Sylvester, why are you not answering my calls?’

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

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

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

‘What do you mean?’ Rikau replied. 

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

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

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

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

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

++++

10 minutes later.

‘Good afternoon sir,’ Agent Dakolo said into the phone. 

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

‘Yes, there is,’ Dakolo replied.

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

‘Yes sir, they told me that.’

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

‘But sir…’ Dakolo tried to argue.

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

‘Sir…’

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

‘Okay sir.’