Tarasha - Season 1 - Episode 59

Episode 5 years ago

Tarasha - Season 1 - Episode 59

Vehicles and fuel tankers drove by the road occasionally as they waited in silence. Tarasha was still seated on the boot, Aisha remained in the passenger’s seat of the van while Cole and Benny walked around the place, sightseeing and discussing among themselves. Tarasha’s
phone rang after seven minutes.

‘Did you drop anyone today?’ Chief Gab’s voice rang in impatiently.

‘No, why?’ Tarasha was taken aback by the question.


‘The police are on the lookout for an assassin gang that’s disrupted the cameras security system’ he replied.

‘I know, that’s why we need a new accommodation urgently’

‘I’ll call you back’ the call ended again.
Tarasha came down from the boot. Cole and Benny had come closer to hear the result of the conversation. ‘We can’t sit idly like this, we’re going to be suspected soon’
she said to them

‘Yes, we were about to also tell you that. Travellers have
been staring at us and we don’t think that it is safe especially as you said that we’re being monitored’

‘Why don’t you bring out some tools and act like we are repairing the car’ Tarasha suggested, tapping the boot.

Benny and Cole nodded in agreement. Cole walked to the driver’s side of the car to take the Boot’s key.


He returned with a slight frown on his face. ‘This method ain’t gonna work for long, it would be suspicious if people still see us here after several minutes’ he said
before opening the boot.

Tarasha nodded in agreement with him. ‘Just take out the
tools and start working’ she said. Her phone rang again.
‘Chief Gab’
‘Tarasha, the only place close to you where I have
another house is Asokoro’ Chief Gab said.
‘We’ll encounter the police if we are to drive back there’
she complained. Chief Gab was silent.
‘Okay’ Tarasha finally gave up. ‘Send the address and how you want us to get into the house’ she ended the call.

She walked to Cole and Benny who were about to take out a tyre. ‘Guys, we’re going to Asokoro’ she called, they looked up. ‘You’ll remove the tyre and fix it back immediately. That would give me enough time to prepare
‘I and Aisha would leave here in this car while two of you would take the van. Before you follow us, you’ll get to the village at the back of this bush and fill the space in the
van’s boot with firewood, that will hide our bags. There’ll be a tracker on the car that’ll lead you to us’ she gave the
order and left them to continue working. She went to the boot of the van and pulled out a bag, she took out some makeup kits from the bag and entered into the driver’s seat of the van.


Aisha was seated by the passenger’s side, sweating as a result of the heat. ‘Dry your face and neck, you need to disguise now’ she said to Aisha who was staring at her anxiously.

Minutes later, Aisha face had changed into someone else’s. Tarasha also added makeups, they took out female handbags from the boot and they both looked like they were coming from a party.

Tarasha and Aisha entered into the car after the men were done fixing the tyre. They drove off and left the men to carry their own cross.


~~~~~~~
5pm, same day
Dakolo, Henry and Sylvester stood in a large room, staring into a screen on the wall in silence. Except for their three chairs which they had abandoned behind to stand closer to the screen, the white painted room was empty of any other materials or furniture.

The large screen of 100cm by 150cm was inbuilt into the wall, it was displaying a DVD selection menu of fifty options, each showing the captured sections and parts of the streets. From time to time, Sylvester would swipe up
the screen, revealing another different DVD selection menu and they would look into it again. Occasionally, they would see a violent or deadly scene as a part of the options and select it, only for them to find out that the police were already aware and in charge of such situations.

They were beginning to get fed up but they remained quiet in hope that they would find something useful.


After twenty five minutes of constant swiping and
changing, Henry was first to express his dissatisfaction.

He gave a slight hiss and returned to his seat, Sylvester and Dakolo took a glance at him and turned back to face the screen.

‘Don’t you think it’s a waste of time?’ Henry finally spoke, making them turn their gazes at him. ‘There are still
hundreds of thousands options to see. How do you think we won’t get weary watching all of them? Is it even possible to watch all? It’s not! We can’t watch up to a quarter of it.’

Dakolo moved back and sat on the seat beside Henry, still looking at the screen.

‘They took off the signals for three hours and returned it on their own will, it means that they must have finished whatever they wanted to do’ Henry continued, he took out an handkerchief and cleaned the water formed in his
eyes as a result of tiredness and several yawnings.

The day had been a bad one for Henry, it was the first time he would experience such failure and defeat. Well, it wasn’t really a failure, the program be created did not fail, it had done the job he built it for only that those he wanted to trap with it used an higher method.

‘I think you’re right’ Sylvester joined in, turning back against the screen. ‘It’s better we leave it for the regional, city and streets offices to monitor’

Sylvester faced the screen again and turned it off, he picked a white board from the floor and covered the screen with it, concealing it in a way that someone else wouldn’t know that there was a screen there. He turned and joined Dakolo and Henry, he sat on the third seat.


After some minutes of silence, Dakolo’s phone rang. He answered the call and spoke with the caller for about two minutes.

‘Another murder case has been reported, this time in Benue state’ Dakolo said as he returned the phone into his pocket. ‘But none of these murders have involves a top profile person. Samantha Osman’s group always goes
for top citizens’ Henry and Sylvester listened without giving any response.


Dakolo turned his chair to face the both of them and looked to their faces one after the other. ‘Tell me’ he finally said, staring at Henry calmly. ‘What happened today? I thought we had it in control already’

Henry wiped his face with his hand and licked his lips heaving a sigh. He began to speak reluctantly, ‘we
thought we had it in control but they outsmarted us’
‘How?’ Dakolo asked, squeezing his face.
‘The ware I developed was meant to locate them when
they intercept our transmission again and to be able to
retrieve the transmission’ Henry began to explain. ‘But
they did not intercept our transmission this time, they
stopped at trying and did something else’
Dakolo narrowed his gaze. ‘What did they do?’
‘They halted the whole system operations’ Henry stated.
‘Previously, they would only redirect the transmission of
the area under attack from our server but what they did
today was different. They crashed the whole process. All
the street security cameras in the nation did not work for
three hours’
Dakolo’s mouth was left agape as he let out a deep breath
and shook his head. ‘Unbelievable, an assassin group is
terrorizing a whole nation’ he exclaimed.
‘We underestimated the technical power of this assassin
group. They are very intelligent and always ready. I
believe they have several alternatives, so when we block a
way, another way is opened immediately’ Henry
lamented.
‘I didn’t underestimate them’ Dakolo spoke slowly after
some brief seconds of silence. ‘I always knew they were
technical giants. I once asserted in a meeting that their
technical ability was far greater than their physical
abilities and artillery. But nevertheless, something has to
be done to stop this deadly group.
‘We still need to do more work. And I mean more serious
work. The assassin group is far ahead of our team’
Dakolo narrowed his gaze at Henry. He didn’t believe that
there could be someone who was ahead of Henry in
respect to hacking and software engineering in Nigeria.
He smiled briefly. ‘So you mean someone can be ahead
of you in hacking?’
Henry stared at him for a while. ‘Yes, there are lots of
people that could be ahead of me, they’ve not just been
given a voice like I’ve been. They’ve not been discovered.
And by the way, I just started work in the NSCC few
weeks ago’
‘It’s okay’ Dakolo cleaned his face with an handkerchief.
‘So what’s the way forward now? The NSCC plays a major
role in the nation’s security’
‘What we need to do is to be ahead of the group. We
need to block all their possible ways’
‘How do you intend to do that?’
‘We need more hands’ Henry stated.
‘More hands?’
‘Yes, we need more programmers to join us. More ideas
from experts are needed. I believe a combination of
several expert ethical hackers and programmers would
form a formidable team against the assassin group’
Henry expatiated.
‘Huh?’ Sylvester who had been listening in silence joined
in.
‘Yes Mr Sylvester. The NSCC needs to hire more hands.’
‘But…’Sylvester stammered. ‘We hired you because of
this, we are expected to have produced results’
‘We’ve produced results sir’ Henry retorted, turning his
focus to Sylvester, it was Dakolo’s turn to be silent now.
‘We’ve produced results, but the assassin group’s result
seems to be far greater than ours’
‘D--n! There’s no way we can hire more people now, the
government is not releasing enough funds to us’
‘Then you have to convince them to release more to you
because we need more hands to make this work’ Henry
continued with confidence. ‘You can’t employ me as one
man and expect me to tackle a group, an expert assassin
group at that. And furthermore, we need to be on the
attacking side and not defence. We need to develop bugs
to attack their operations. If all we do is keep making
ways to defend their attacks, they’ll keep changing their
mode of attack.’
Sylvester’s phone interrupted with its loud ring tone. He
took out his phone hurriedly to end the call but had to
calm down when he saw the caller’s ID.
‘It’s Sir Rikau’ he whispered to Henry and Dakolo, gasping
lightly. He stood up from his seat and walked closer to
the door to answer the call. He returned to the seat a
minute later. His countenance had changed.
‘So who are those you want us to hire? Can you give us
names of experts? We need to contact them by
tomorrow’ Sylvester cut into their discussion.
Henry and Dakolo were surprised at his sudden change
of heart. It looked like the phone call had done a miracle.
‘You want to get in touch with them as soon as
tomorrow?’ Henry asked again to be sure of what he
heard.
‘Yes, is that not what you suggested?’ Sylvester answered
with a rhetorical question. ‘See, the IG just called now
and he told me that I’ll be having a meeting with the
President and other security staffs this Friday. I need to
present tangible results, else I may lose my job’
Henry could not hold his laughter at Sylvester’s mention
of ‘job’ again. ‘So it’s about losing your job again?’
‘No o, we just have to find a solution to this problem’
Henry shook his head, unconvinced by Sylvester’s words.
He began to think of expert hackers who could be called
on immediately, those who were creative enough. His
mind suddenly drifted to Omotara again, he
remembered how she cloned the Canadian number; that
was something that he himself could not do perfectly,
that means she or the person who did it for her was a
sort of a good hacker, although unethical.
He hoped that it was Omotara who cloned the number
by herself, that would also give him the opportunity to
help her get her decent job and make her be of more use
to the nation.
~~~
8pm
There was nothing much to do in the new Lodge in
Asokoro. Although it was a flat with three rooms like the
previous one, it was moderner, finer, more comfortable
and neater. It hadn’t been deserted for long also, the
rooms were also larger and air conditioned. All they did
was to remove the cobwebs from the walls, sweep and
mop the tiled floors, Tarasha and Aisha took care of the
cleaning while Benny and Cole went to dispose off the
firewoods they had bought to escape.
After all was done, Tarasha sat in the living room on the
three seater black leather sofa, her both legs placed on
the chair while her back rested on the right armrest. Her
laptop was on her laps, she was gathering information
about their new targets.
*


**Monday morning** 5am Tarasha was laying on the giant sized bed, the pillow under her arm as she stared into her tablet device, studying the information she had gathered the last night. She had gotten so much already about the targets, their jobs, investments and family, all that remained now was to plot the best way to carry out their murder. This time she planned for it to be neater than the previous jobs. She turned off the device and turned to face the ceiling, putting the pillow under her head. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath. Nasiru Attahiru, the Senate president who was also a business tycoon had three major companies in Nigeria and several other branches in other African countries. He had a cement factory, a large cocoa plantation; the largest in the country and an Agro products factory. He had three children, Fatima, Aisha and Kamal who were all schooling in the United States. His wife was also a business woman who travels out of the country on regular intervals. He had several houses; one in Abuja, three in his hometown, Katsina , one in Lagos and many others in different parts of the country and in Africa. He had a mother who he held in very high esteem. She recently celebrated her seventy fifth birthday and it was reported that he spent money lavishly in honouring his mother and entertaining all the guests that were in attendance. He had only one sibling, a younger brother who was also a businessman though not as successful as he was but was doing well enough to fend for himself and his family and also live comfortably. Elvis Richards, the vice President was a greatly feared and at the same time loved in the nation. As a result of his great contribution towards curbing the crime rate in the nation and bringing the country’s security to a dependable level, he earned respect from several countries and world leaders. He was also known for his intelligence and wisdom; he was never outsmarted in anyway. He had three children also, James, Nathaniel and Vivian. His first son James had gone into the police force like him and was gradually growing in rank while Nathaniel his second son was the director in an oil company. The only girl and last born Vivian, was a hip-hop artiste who had several hits across the nation and regions beyond. His wife was late, she died two years ago after suffering several years from b----t cancer. Elvis was brought up by a single mother in a poor home. His father who used to be a politician was thrown in prison before he was born, after several of his political enemies had come together and plotted against him for his unshaken honesty and incorruptibility. The man was subjected to serious hardship and labour in prison, he was later found dead after few weeks. His wife who was a foreigner and had forsaken her country and family to marry him was left to bring up the boy alone after all the father’s properties had been seized by the court. He finished his primary education easily through scholarship that was provided by the government of his state but had to stop schooling for some years after primary six. But he was desperate to survive especially when he heard about how his father died and those who caused the death. He was also desperate to continue schooling and become successful. He left his mother’s home at a very tender age to live under the bridge, there he learnt the very harsh lifestyle. He started with hawking sachet water by the road and later graduated to selling beef roll and plastic bottled soft drinks. He also involved himself in petty thefts at times and was arrested by the police on several occasions; they always had to release him because of his age and because no one was coming for him. From the little money he made, he was able to enroll himself for evening classes which he did for three years after which he wrote the university entrance exam and passed after the second attempt. Elvis’s strong will and determination to survive continued to push him forward. After he graduated from school, he joined the police force in determination to pursue and ensure that the perpetrators of the crime against his father. But he discovered that it wasn’t possible because of the rot in the system. He lost his desire and will to fight back. He was now influenced and corrupted by the system, since he couldn’t fight them, he began to live by their rules. Tarasha got up from the bed and began to take off her night gown, it was time for morning exercise. ~~~ Henry stopped and turned to face the opposite side in front of the old gate before turning off the engine. He took off his seat belt and opened the door. He took out his phone and dialed Jefa’s phone number. ‘Hello sir’ he spoke as Jefa answered his call. ‘Are you there now?’ Jefa’s asked anxiously. ‘Yes but I’ve not gotten into the house. I’ll call you when I’m with her. Just pray that everything goes well’ Henry answered. He spoke for another few seconds before the call ended. Then he stepped out of the car and began to walk towards the gate. He stopped in front of the gate, it was properly closed unlike the way it was the day before. He stared around for a while, it looked like something had changed. He didn’t know what it was. He pushed the gate open and walked in, the compound seemed different, he couldn’t tell what was amiss. He shrugged and continued walking further, undisturbed. Nothing was going to stop his excitement, the excitement of breaking the news of a new job to Omotara. He hoped that she would appreciate it and that he would be able to totally convince her to totally leave her job as a fraudster. He also had plans for all her accomplices, with his reputation he could get a job for everyone of them no matter what qualification they held. He was positive that Omotara would accept his idea especially when she hears about the handsome pay attached to it. He stepped on the balcony, that was when he realized what had changed in the compound. He turned back, the two vehicles he had met there the day before were no longer there, his heart skipped a beat. Does that mean that Omotara had left the house? He proceeded to the day immediately with curiosity. He began to knock. After knocking several times without getting an answer, he started to call out her name, he got no reply also. He touched the door knob and it opened, revealing that it wasn’t locked before. He walked into the living room, it was devoid of any living thing. ‘Omotara’ he called repeatedly as he walked towards the room section. He entered into the first room, it was empty apart from the furniture in it. Same as the second and third rooms, they only had the beds and wardrobes in them, it was obvious that Omotara had left the place with her team. He ran his fingers into his hair, frustrated. He had lost her again.
Cole the pressed navigation button and gradually began
to pull over to the small space left beside the buses
parked in front of the motor park. He halted beside a
white bus and killed the engine. He took off the seat belt
and took a glance at Tarasha to get the next instruction.
‘Go into the park and make enquiries on what it takes to
hire a good car to Katsina’ she said to him as she also
took off her seat belt. He opened the door and stepped
out at once. He paused and took a look at the big sign
board again, Rasmag Transport.
He returned eight minutes later with a paper in his hands,
he handed it over to Tarasha.
‘It’s fifty thousand naira to hire a fully air conditioned
car’ he explained to her. ‘And we have to book at least
five hours before the movement time so that the car can
be prepared for us’
‘It’s okay’she replied as she folded the paper and tucked
it into her front jacket pocket.
‘Boss’ Cole called as he put back on the seat belt. ‘Why
don’t we book a flight instead? It’ll be less stressful and
faster’ he suggested.
‘It’s not an emergency journey, so we don’t need to get
there fast’ Tarasha answered him. ‘It’ll give us more
stress trying to smuggle in weapons into the plane’
Cole nodded thoughtfully in agreement, he wasn’t
thinking that the traveler would need weapons. He
started the car engine and turned on the radio before
reversing the car out of its parking space.
“…interested programmers and developers should send
in their CVs to nscc@nomail.com‘ a female presenter’s
voice came up as they drove off. ‘I repeat once again, the
NSCC has urgent vacancies to be occupied this week,
interested programmers and developers should send in
their CVs to nscc@mail.com, as soon as possible”
“You know Funke” a male’s voice joined in. ‘The
vacancies are really urgent, considering the way the
nation’s activities were brought to a stand still yesterday
because the security cameras stopped working’
‘Yeah, but it wasn’t really because the security cameras
failed, it was because of the fright that the notorious
assassin group of Samantha Osman was believed to have
initiated the failure’ the lady added.
‘Yes, that’s true. But no case of assassination by the group
have been reported yet, it was just something like a false
alarm. Maybe something happened wrong with the NSCC
machines and procedure and they thought that it was
being tampered with again by Samantha Osman’
‘Yeah… That just buttresses the fact that the NSCC needs
more capable hands, they …’ On and on the presenters
continued their talk.
~~~~
‘Mr Henry’ Sylvester called as Henry walked past the
reception, heading for his office. Henry waited and
turned to answer him. ‘How far with the person you went
for?’ Sylvester asked, extending his hand to Henry for an
handshake.
‘I didn’t meet her’ Henry replied and they began to walk
together towards his office.
‘Don’t you have her phone number?’ Sylvester
questioned.
‘I don’t have her contact’ Henry said as they walked into
the corridor leading to his office.
Sylvester remained quiet for a while, wondering why
Henry was looking so distraught and answering him
lifelessly. ‘Who is this lady?’ Sylvester asked as Henry
opened the door.
‘She’s a programmer’ Henry answered. He opened the
door and allowed Sylvester in first after which he
followed behind and shut the door. He turned on the air
conditioner and light before going to sit down.
‘I mean who is the lady to you?’ Sylvester asked again
after he was settled.
‘She’s a friend’ Henry replied in a very low voice. .
‘Then why don’t you have her phone number?’
‘You won’t understand’ Henry replied as he took out two
laptops under his table.
Sylvester shrugged. ‘Well, we’ve gotten some CVs
submitted already. The total CVs we have numbers up to
nine already’
‘Have you checked them?’
‘Not all, but I forwarded them to your mail’
‘Okay.’ Henry busied himself with his laptop for few
minutes while Sylvester also took the second laptop and
began to work on it.
‘I’m downloading the first five attachments, you work on
the remaining ones’ Henry said.
After fifteen minutes of proper scrutinization, three out
of the nine were picked, two from Sylvester and one
from Henry.
‘Send letters to these people immediately, invite them for
an interview by three pm tomorrow’ Henry said, closing
his laptop.
‘Why three pm?’ Sylvester questioned.
‘I think one or two of them would be traveling, so we
should give them enough time to travel’
‘It’s okay’
~~~
Dakolo sat quietly in his new office, studying the
documents on his table. He had been able to confirm the
claim of his colleagues about the good use of arms by the
assassin gang through the doctors reports on the bodies
of those that were killed in the event centre. He could
also tell from the reports that an insider was involved in
helping the gang.
He looked up as a knock sounded on his door. ‘Come in’
he said into the megaphone.
Inspector Ken walked in briskly and took the visitor’s seat
in front of the table. He dropped a document on the
table. ‘Here’s the report from the ball test’ he said.
‘Which ball?’ Dakolo raised his eyebrows.
‘The one that was launched in to release the gas that
made the people faint’
‘It was a ball?’ Dakolo questioned, taking the documents
from Ken.
‘Yes, it was’
‘Do we have the pictures?’
‘Yes, it’s in there’ Ken took the document from him and
opened to the page where the picture was.
‘This?’ Dakolo asked in surprise, staring at the picture.
‘Yes’
‘This is a grenade ball’ Dakolo stated boldly.
‘It looks like but it isn’t. The ball contains something else
entirely, a strange gas’ Ken corrected. ‘Just read the
report and see for yourself’
Dakolo let out a deep breath and began to read silently.
Often times he would look up and stare into Ken’s face,
whenever he read a surprising truth. He looked up finally
after ten minutes.
‘Here’s a strong proof that Chief Jubril’s assassination was
carried out by Samantha Osman’s group’ he said. ‘This
unknown compound is always used by the gang, the ball
also contains it. But the major constituents are tear gas
elements’
‘Which unknown compound are you talking about?’
‘It’s an unknown compound which was discovered to be
used in the previous two assassination. In the first one, it
was used to put three police officers to sleep after which
their car was hijacked, their uniforms were also stolen
and the car was driven into the minister’s compound to
carry out the killing. In the second assassination, it was
also used to put to sleep some of the other people in the
plane’
‘Now, it is here also?’
‘Yes, this analysis of the substance is the same we got
from the forensic teams in Port Harcourt and Lagos’
‘Wow! Or is it the same with the substance found in the
US investigation today?’ Ken asked with inquisitiveness in
his eyes. ‘It’s sounds like they are the same’
‘Was there any substance found?’ Dakolo asked, bringing
out his phone. Ken took out his phone too. ‘I saw the
news of the assassination on the headlines today’ Dakolo
continued, ‘but I’ve not been able to read it.’
‘Yes, there was’ Ken said and handed his phone to Dakolo
to read the news. Dakolo dropped his own phone and
took Ken’s.
‘The symptoms are the same’ Dakolo said after one
minute of scanning through. ‘We need to contact the US
authorities to see if we can link these cases ‘
‘But what’s the name of the gas?’
‘It’s unnamed yet but it was said to have no natural
occurrence and has not been found to be legally
produced anywhere’ Dakolo spoke, mentioning his
words carefully, one after the other. ‘The only place signs
and effects of these gases have been found are in these
assassination cases’
‘Hmm…’ Ken cleared his throat. He looked into Dakolo’s
face and Dakolo was also looking into his. ‘Agent sir, are
you thinking the same thing I’m thinking?’
‘I think so’ Dakolo smiled, his teeth showed slightly. ‘I
don’t think it’s a coincidence that these assassinations are
occurring at the same time in several countries. Although
the intensity here in Nigeria is high because it involves
top citizens’
‘Yes, the pattern here is different. The similarity is that
there’s so much neatness in the way the job is being
carried out’ Ken out in.
‘No Nigeria’s cases are a lot more accurate’ Dakolo
disagreed. ‘Do you remember that Robin Kahn was able
to stop an assassination attempt in his country before he
came here?’
‘Yes, he did stop two assassination attempts. One in his
country, US and one in South Africa before he handed
the cases over to other people and traveled down to
Nigeria’ Ken spoke. ‘But he wasn’t able to arrest the
assassins, they always escaped with claims of receiving
several wounds from Kahn and his men’
‘The cases in the other countries were different because
the assassination attempts were not on heavily secured
people, you can’t compare the way Jubril Lawal himself
and the event centre were heavily secured and the
assassins still penetrated neatly. Come to talk of the one
that happened directly under my nose, the assassination
of the Rivers state Governor. It is unexplainable how they
got on board with the governor’
‘So are saying the assassinations are not connected now?’
Ken queried.
‘No’ Dakolo stressed, wiggling his head. ‘As a matter of
fact, I think they are connected but we just have to
verify first. We can’t conclude that they are because our
cases are somehow different from other countries’
‘It’s true’ Ken inhaled deeply and took a brief pause. ‘No
government official or politician has been killed in other
countries but that’s what we have here’
‘Yea, if Kahn couldn’t do anything here but instead got
himself killed. Then we don’t have any strong evidence to
connect them yet until we confirm first that the same
substance was used by the assassins’
‘But… ‘Ken stammered, he paused and heaved a heavy
sigh. ‘How the killer escaped from the event’s centre after
killing Chief Jubril still baffles me.’
‘Yea, I was coming to that’ Dakolo adjusted himself on
the seat. ‘Has everyone working there been thoroughly
investigated?’
‘Yes all except one, who was very sick but now recovered.
He has being invited to our custody and I believe he
should be here very soon’ Ken glanced at his wristwatch.
‘In fact, he should be here already.’ Ken took his phone
from the table and drew the pattern. He was about to
open the dial pad when he saw a SMS notification on top
of the screen. A junior officer had just sent him a
message of the expected man’s arrival.
‘He’s here already’ Ken stated.
‘Yes, tell me. Who is this man? What is his job there?’
‘He was in charge of serving food that day’ Ken replied.
‘Okay, can we go and question him now?’ Dakolo said
getting him from his seat.
~~
An middle aged man was seated behind the interrogation
desk, he was staring at Dakolo who was seated at the
other end of the desk, Ken was standing close to Dakolo
with his arms folded.
‘Was there anybody you saw that day among your staffs
who looked or was acting suspicious?’ Dakolo asked the
fifth question.
‘No, everything was going perfect until we heard saw
people who were at the entrance of the hall run outside.
Most of them fainted before they could move too far. We
didn’t quickly realize what was going on, everybody who
entered into the Hall to check also inhaled the gas and
experienced the effect. We thought that something had
gone wrong with our machines inside’
‘How did you know what was happening?’
‘I came to monitor those serving the drinks and snacks
then and I was returning when I saw people coming out
of the hall and falling to the floor’
‘Yess…’ Ken interrupted with a clap, he just remembered
something important. He made an eye signal to request
permission from Dakolo, Dakolo authorised him to go
ahead with a nod.
‘You mentioned earlier that there were ten people who
served food and drinks’ Ken began.
‘Yes, ten’ the man confirmed.
‘Five guys and five ladies?’
‘Yes’
Ken lifted his head up as he inhaled abruptly, he looked
back to the man. ‘We were only able to interrogate nine
of them, I was thinking that you were the tenth person’
‘No, I’m the supervisor’ the man frowned. ‘Do you have
the names of those interrogated?’
‘Yes, we have their names written somewhere. The list is
in my office’ Ken said.
‘Go get it quickly’ Dakolo said to him. Ken obeyed
immediately, he returned two minutes later with a file in
his hands. He took out a paper from it.
‘Here, we have nine names. Five men and four ladies’ Ken
placed the paper in front of Dakolo first. Dakolo
transferred it to the man.
‘There’s a name missing here’ he said, slowly. ‘She’s a
new girl, she just joined us two days before the event,
one of our workers had an accident’