Tarasha - Chapter 110

The light in the room was dim, a thin line of smoke could be seen rising from a dark corner of the room, sometimes it was a huge brief mold. Someone was seated at that corner quietly while two others were standing close to him at his different sides. There was someone else seated at the opposite side to the dark place, the room was brighter at that part but the face of the person could still not be seen. His shadow was formed on the ground and the wall behind. He was putting on a black trouser and a white shirt, his right hand on his knee while his left hand on a table which was by his side.

An unexpected faint beam of light appeared from the table. The man’s hand reached for the source of light and picked it up and turned it to his face. The light from the Android phone revealed his face as he typed in a reply to the popup message.

‘The Vice President is cool with my decision,’ Chief Rikau spoke aloud after replying the message.

‘It doesn’t matter how many people are cool with it, you took a foolish decision.’ The voice from the dark place replied coldly.

The Inspector General felt uneasy as he adjusted his position on the chair, he loathed Rex’s audacity to address him without respect.

‘We could have taken instead of killing him,’ Rex said, standing up from the seat. He threw the remnant of the cigar to the ground and bent his neck sideways, it made a crack sound.

‘Killing him was the best, those guys are dangerous. We shouldn’t give them any chance.’ Chief Rikau said.

‘You’re a fool man,’ Rex voiced out boldly. ‘How can you say killing him was the best option? He wasn’t even the assassin and I’m very sure he wasn’t her brother, assassins don’t keep close family members who are dear to them.’ Rex paused and took out another cigar, he could tell from the movement of the Inspector General that the man wasn’t comfortable with his manner of addressing him. ‘I’m sorry for insulting you man but it’s just that I’ve never seen such a level of stupidity displayed…’

‘I won’t take that from you anymore,’ Chief Rikau blurted out angrily, standing up from his seat. ‘Don’t talk to me like that again, I was asked to give you orders, you should obey my instruction.’

Rex looked calm and undisturbed, he stared at the man’s face for a while. He placed the cigar in his mouth and lit it. It didn’t take him a minute when he took out the cigar again and threw to the ground. ‘D–n! I feel too hot here, even with the air conditioners, it’s so hot.’

‘It’s a lot different here boss, the weather cannot be suitable for smoking during this season.’ Don’s voice sounded quickly.

‘I know the bleeping weather is hot, I only wanted to relief myself from the memories of the stupid steps taken today, ‘ Rex replied, stylishly taking another jab at the Inspector General.

Inspector General Riquietlyt an angry look at Rex, he took brief glances towards other parts of the room before he hurried out to meet his escorts and junior officers who had been patiently waiting for him.

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**8am, next day**

Tarasha was seated on a bamboo chair in an abandoned hut, she had a black bra on and the black trouser of the last night, the rest of her body was bare. Cole and Aisha were still sleeping on a blanket which they had laid on the floor, they used two different neat wrappers to cover all the parts of their bodies to save themselves from the desperate mosquitoes.

There was a laptop on Tarasha’s lap and her eyes were fixated on it. After composing a long message into the compose box of her email, she put in the NSCC email at the receiver’s address column and click on send. She minimized the window and maximized another; the Google chrome browser. There were several pictures of the Inspector General on the display by the Google image search engine. After saving some of the pictures into her laptop, she switched to another tab where she had searched for images of the man’s house. She saved some views and then minimized the window again.

She opened the map application on the system and searched for the location of the Kuje Maximum Security Prison, she copied the position as soon as she got it and maximized the NSCC application, she pasted the position copied to the column provided and after a minute of loading, an option of nine clips displayed on the first page, four more pages were available. Each option of clip showed a particular view of the prison facility, some of the clips on the third and fourth pages showed briefly some parts inside the facility. She made some few observations and typed some words into her phone to store for remembrance.

‘Good morning Boss,’ Cole interrupted her thoughts. She replied by flashing a look at him. He understood that she wasn’t in the mood to talk and quietly proceeded out of the hut. He stretched and yawned as the cool breeze outside blew on his body, he turned to the back of the hut to release urine before proceeding to the heavy duty truck the boss had come with the last night.

He observed the soil in the place, it would have been impossible to access the location with that kind of heavy vehicle if it was rainy season.

The place was somewhere in previously abandoned community, the people had to evacuate the place because of an epidemic that struck, now the people had started returning one after the other after the community was purified two weeks ago but a larger percentage of the community’s population had not still returned.

The truck was locked behind with a huge padlock, he had seen the content the last night and was baffled by what he saw in the darkness, he wondered what it would be like when it was day. The boss did not act like she was ready to tell him what was there as she only opened it to pick up something and locked it back. He wished she would allow him access the place.

As if his wish was heard, a key was flung to his front from behind. He glanced back to see his boss standing in front of the hut, her arms folded.

‘We have to offload the weapons because we’ll need to change some parts of the truck,’ she said to him.

He quietly picked up the key and opened the truck behind, his mouth was left agape as he confirmed to his greatest bewilderment the quantity of guns, ammunitions and other weapons stored in it. He took a glance at his boss with shock written all over his face, she kept an indifferent look and urged him to continue her instruction.

‘And ermm…’ Tarasha called back his attention as she remembered something. ‘Maybe you have to leave that for now. I’ll need you to check around Kuje Maximum Prison facility now. We have somewhere to go first and we’ll have to also visit one of their top officials in the maximum prison facility.’

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**10:38am**

NSCC headquarters

‘D–n!’ Mr Sylvester slammed his hand angrily on the table for the umpteenth time. Frank and his colleague were standing beside him and staring at the screen of the laptop on the table. ‘Why did she have to leave like this?’

‘Sir, it is her decision and we have to respect it.’ Frank put in.

‘She’s needed here, she’s needed by our nation. She could have told me whatever the problem was and we would have offered her a helping hand,’ Mr Sylvester said stubbornly.

‘We just have to respect her decision, she said her mum is bedridden again and the whole family is blaming her for it because her job didn’t give her the opportunity to spend enough time with her recovering mum ‘ Frank said.

‘We would have still found a solution to it, going like this wasn’t the solution.’

‘Let’s just try visit the address provided, we may have luck in convincing her,’ Frank’s colleague suggested.

‘I hope so…’

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**10.45am**

Cole and Aisha stood far behind watching as Tarasha squatted before the grave behind the tree. It had only been covered with sand and it looked fresh, they had no idea whose dead body laid underneath but they were sure it was someone very dear to their boss’ heart as they could hear her soft sobs as she touched the soil and mumbled some words.

Tarasha’s eyes were teary as she dropped the flowers on Jeffrey’s grave. She had killed the man, she took the whole blame on herself. He wouldn’t have died if he didn’t find her, and he probably would have still been running his local business if she had not insisted he stayed with her. She also could have saved his life the day he was killed if not for her visit to Henry, she wasn’t allowed to take any device into the visiting hall of the prison, so she did not get an alarm when the intruders entered the house. She also didn’t check her device when she was returning home because she was moved by Henry’s discussion with her, all she wanted to do was get home and fulfil Henry’s wish; that was taking Jefa with her to somewhere far away.

She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath of the cold breeze.

‘Everyone involved in your death would pay, I promise.’ she said aloud, hoping her brother could hear the reassurance of the promise she had made him while digging the place the previous day.