Tarasha - Chapter 69

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Sylvester dropped the landline receiver after speaking

with Agent Dakolo, he sat back into his seat, trying to

decide whether to attend to the Agent’s request first or to

follow after Henry. He chose the latter and got up from

his seat. He picked up his phone from the table and

proceeded out of the office.

Two minutes later, he was seated in the visitor’s seat

behind Henry’s table. Henry wasn’t paying much

attention to him but was focused on his work on the

laptop.

‘Here’s what I wanted to show you’ Henry quickly handed

a paper to Sylvester and turned back to his laptop. ‘How

was the interview? What position did she apply for?’

Henry asked.

‘There was no interview’ Sylvester answered without

taking a look at the paper he was handed. ‘She only came

to submit her credentials in person’

‘I see’ Henry said in a low voice, acting less interested.

‘You thought I invited her over for an interview?’

‘Yes, of course. You are the Boss here and you don’t need

my permission to interview anybody’ Henry answered

with a slight chuckle.

‘But we already agreed to work with those available and

not to take in anyone else for now. I wouldn’t go against

our agreement’

Henry paused and looked up, he fastened his eyes on

Sylvester’s face. ‘I didn’t suggest that in anyway’ He said

and turned his face back to the laptop. ‘Oh! You thought

that was the reason I didn’t agree to see her?’

‘What else could be the reason?’

‘I wasn’t aware of the interview before, neither do I know

the position the interview is for so I didn’t think I had any

business to do with her’ Henry answered, keeping a light

smile on his face.

Sylvester remained quiet for a while, staring at Henry’s

face. He had thought Henry was angry but Henry’s

demeanor and words have proved him wrong.

‘So what do you …’ Henry paused on seeing that Sylvester

had not checked the paper given to him. ‘Come on, read

what’s there’

Sylvester picked the paper and scanned briefly through

it. ‘When did you start working on this?’

‘It wasn’t my work, Dayo did it’ Henry replied. Dayo was

the new employee that was taken in the week before.

‘It looks good but we have to find how crackable these

codes are’ Sylvester commented.

‘That’s why I was in your office then, I wanted to check

through your history log but I’ve been able to check it

from here’

‘So, are they crackable?’

‘Yes, it’s even made up of very easy combinations’

‘Does that make it usable or not?’

‘It’s not usable. It would be easily cracked by the

opposition’

Sylvester folded the paper and dropped it on the table.

‘Agent Dakolo called some minutes ago, he’ll be here in

the afternoon to get a report on all that we’ve been doing

concerning the breach we’ve been experiencing’

‘Okay, I’ve been expecting him to ask for it. I prepared a

report already and he doesn’t even need to come here,

we could mail it to him’ Henry said.

‘I think he’ll also like to get some explanations, that’s why

he wants to come physically’ Sylvester put in.

‘No problem, we’ll be ready for him’

‘So what do we do now with Mr Dayo’s piece?’ Sylvester

asked as he got up from the chair, ready to leave for his

office.

‘We’ll just keep it and keep working, we need something

deeper’ Henry tapped the enter key on her laptop

keyboard in a loud manner and then relaxed into his

seat, signifying that he was through with what he was

doing. He stared up at Sylvester’s face. ‘You know we are

trying to entrap this group, so we have to be wiser than

they are. We cannot afford to use simple keys and scripts

in tackling them, that’ll be making mockery of ourselves’

‘Alright then’ Sylvester shrugged and turned to leave.

~~~

**Kabakawa, Batagarawa Katsina, Katsina State. **

After lodging in an hotel for two days, the team finally

moved into the rented apartment for which they had

paid the rent fee for a year. The house wasn’t too

expensive but it was big enough to contain all of them. It

was already furnished to their taste before they moved

in.

They had chosen a flat with three bedrooms in the two

storey building house with a total of six flats. Theirs was

located by the left side on the middle floor. Tarasha had

carefully chosen an apartment for them in an open area

this time, it would reduce the rate of unnecessary

suspicions. But they also had to be extra careful and

watchful.

It was Monday morning and work had begun already.

Cole was seated behind a table, composing an email on

his laptop to inform the Ata’s foundation of their team’s

arrival into the country. Benny was in one of the rooms

where he and Cole had chosen for themselves, arranging

the new arms and ammunitions into the wardrobe. He

neatly arranged the various sizes of bullets and sealed

explosives in a section. He arranged the pistols in another

section and long guns in another. The last section was

used to store his clothes and Cole’s.

Aisha was also in her room, setting the place in the order

she wanted. She hissed on seeing the little bag of clothes

which she brought to the place. Although the bag was

actually the biggest bag amongst all bags of clothes the

team had brought, she still thought it to be small. Their

kind of job would not satisfy her desire to always take

her best clothes around town.

She hissed again as she saw herself in the mirror on

bending to arrange the makeup kits placed in front of the

mirror. What did she even need the clothes for now that

her hair was gone? She looked like a man, she thought.

She gave a brief mockery laugh at herself as she rubbed

her palms on the head. She then turned back to pick a

small case which contained more makeup kits. That

wasn’t for her but for the team, the team would

frequently need to change their appearances on this

operation. Another small bag was lying beside the case, it

contained camouflage materials like artificial beards,

masks, wigs and even skinlike gloves.

Benny walked into the living room after he was done with

arranging the tools, he met Cole already closing his

laptop.

‘Have you finished typing the email?’ He asked as he

moved to sit on the couch.

‘Yes, we’ll see it when we come back from the boutique’

Cole answered, standing up with his closed laptop in his

hand.

‘You want us to go now?’ Benny seemed not too

comfortable with the idea.

‘Yes, what else should we do now?’

‘Why don’t you send the email now and let’s see their

reply, they may probably engage you in a chat’ Benny

tried to convince Cole.

‘I’ve sent the mail to the Boss first for vetting, until she

replies us we cannot forward it to the foundation’ Cole

responded with a wry look on his face. ‘Dust your lazy s

and let’s go out to get the clothes now. I’ll go get Aisha.’

With that Cole walked away, leaving Benny who remained

on the seat tiredly. For Benny, it was always fun to get

new clothes but this one was different, the clothes would

have to be disposed off at the end of the operation.

~~~

**Abuja**

2pm

‘You went this far?’ Dakolo stared Henry in the face as he

read the report provided to him. ‘Even the US CCTV

officials have not discovered up to this, nice job’ he

commended cheerfully jamming his palms together.

‘Thank you sir’ Henry smiled.

‘The only thing that looks similar in this their report is…’

Dakolo began but stopped abruptly. He bent to bring out

the report from the US CCTV from his small brief case

which was placed by the leg of the chair he was seated.

He placed the binded four pages report on Henry’s table.

Sylvester was the first to pick up the report and open it.

Dakolo opened back Henry’s report which was still in his

hands. He began to flip the pages until he got to the last.

‘Here’ he said, pointing a particular area on the page.

‘This code looks similar to theirs’

Henry bent forward to look at where Dakolo was

pointing. Dakolo handed it over to him to have a better

view.

” BN 10354

‘ Encrypt XL

<< — t.a.r– n.e.f — >>

Run script = enter ‘

>>”

That was one of the most mysterious encryption code

Henry had ever come across. He had never seen the key

words anywhere else before and since he discovered the

script, he not been able to decrypt it.

Dakolo collected the report Sylvester was holding and

opened to the second page. ‘Here ‘ he pointed another

area to for Henry to look at. The encryption script Henry

saw in the US report was similar to the one in his report.

“BN 20679

‘Encrypt XL

<< — s.e.r— n.e.f — >>

Run script = enter ‘

>>”

‘What??’ Henry’s lips vibrated as he fixed his eyes on the

code, looking slightly baffled. He took his eyes off to

Dakolo face. ‘The assassin group is larger than we

thought, it’s a worldwide organization’

Dakolo licked his lips slowly and silently as he watched

Henry fix his eyes again to the report.

‘Can I…’ Sylvester who was anxious to see the correlation

stretched forth his hand impatiently to collect the

reports from Henry.

‘So now that we know that we are dealing with a

worldwide assassin group, we have to up our game’

Dakolo finally spoke. ‘Your engineers have to be

informed about what they are dealing with. And I think

the corporation has to establish a strong connection with

the US corporation’

‘Wow! I wasn’t aware that there have been breaches in

the CCTV operations in the US too’ Henry spoke in low

tones, relaxing his back in the seat.

‘There have been’ Dakolo replied him, tapping a finger on

the table as he stared into the air and inhaled. ‘The breaks

always comes during the period of assassinations just like

ours’

‘Hmm… Same strategies, same codes’ Henry said

thoughtfully.

Dakolo stared at Henry’s face for a moment. ‘Henry E.G, I

need to ask you some questions’ Dakolo stated after a

brief moment of silence.

Henry sat upright and adjusted himself to pay attention,

surprised at the Agent’s sudden change of tone. ‘What

questions sir?’

‘You were kidnapped recently’ Dakolo paused and stared

at Henry’s face, noticing a change. It was obvious to him

that Henry wasn’t comfortable with the new subject.

‘Yes sir’ Henry confirmed reluctantly.

‘It happened after you got a job from the late Chief Jubril

Lawal?’ Dakolo continued, making sure he maintained

eye contact with Henry. Henry noticed this and decided

to try as much as possible to hide his expressions, else

the Agent would extract every information from him

even if he tried to lie.

‘Yes, I don’t know if the job was for Chief Jubril but it was

brought to us by one of his workers’ Henry answered.

‘Chief Jubril sent him’ Sylvester quickly put in.

Dakolo took a glance at Sylvester and fixed his eyes back

to Henry’s face. ‘Let’s talk about your abduction first. It

lasted for less than a day. How did you escape?’

‘I was told that they left us to go after they had a

disagreement amongst themselves’ Henry replied.

‘You were told?’

‘Yes, I was knocked out. I only opened my eyes after

we’ve moved far away from there’

‘You and your girlfriend?’

‘No, but a very close lady friend’

‘Well, I don’t need to go into details of how you were

abducted that day. I know that you have been questioned

about that already.’ Dakolo adjusted to a more

comfortable seating position and placed his chin on his

right fist. ‘You mentioned during your interrogation with

the police that your suspect was Dare, Chief Jubril’s son?’

‘Yes’ Henry confirmed with a nod.

‘But you didn’t mention to me that you’ve seen him

recently’ Dakolo frowned.

‘Sir, we’ve not really been able to discuss personal

matters since you came into town’

‘That’s true.’ Dakolo paused and turned to Sylvester who

was already clearing his throat to announce his desire to

leave since he felt he wasn’t concerned with the

questioning.

‘Mr Sylvester’ Dakolo called with a chuckle. ‘You have to

wait, I also have some questions for you too.’ Sylvester

nodded in reply and comported himself. Dakolo turned

back to Henry.

‘Let’s push the personal matters aside for now’ Dakolo

continued with Henry. ‘Did you ever think that the kidnap

could be related to the job brought by the late Chief’s

PA?’

‘No’ Henry replied sharply after narrowing his eyes

thoughtfully.

‘You don’t think so?’

‘Yes, I don’t’ Henry shook his head in negative to

emphasize. He thought again briefly. Omotara was the

suspect behind the number he was investigating, so was

it really possible that she had planned their kidnap.

‘So you insist that it could have only been Dare Lawal?’

Dakolo pressed. ‘Wait’ he cut in before Henry could

speak. ‘What was the result of your investigation?’

Henry’s heartbeat increased thrice in speed. The question

he was scared of have been finally asked. Was he now

going to turn Omotara in? Knowing fully well that Agent

Dakolo would not stop until he fishes out who Alexander

Evelyn really was and probably even associate her with

the Chief’s assassination which Henry believed Omotara

was innocent about.

Chapter end