Tarasha – Chapter 14 pt 7

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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 a$$ 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.

END OF CHAPTER FOURTEEN

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