Tarasha - Season 5 - Episode 33

Episode 4 years ago

Tarasha - Season 5 - Episode 33

If the police gets to know of our involvement, they would come looking for us first.’ He said, wanting it to sound like a threat which would make her willing to listen to him.
Fear crept into Stephanie’s heart slowly and she began to imagine different negative scenarios.

‘You don’t have to be scared, we only need to plan and we’d have no troubles.’ Dave said on noticing she was beginning to fear.

Her gaze dropped from the ceiling where it was focused and fell on his face. She was almost regretting why she had agreed to follow him for the interview. If he was a real journalist, he might get the backing of his media house if he got into trouble but she had used a fake identity card which he provided and it could get her into more trouble.
‘I have a plan and if we follow it carefully, we would have no problems.’ Dave continued. ‘I read on the news some few minutes ago that the police has credited the kidnap to Samantha Osman. They mentioned that her signatures were all over the place but thank God, they didn’t mention anything about us.’


Stephanie looked away for a second on remembering something, then she looked at his face again. He was about to continue talking when she interrupted. ‘That guy said Chief Nonso is one of Samantha Osman’s sponsors and he also said you knew about it. You haven’t explained that yet.’
‘I was coming to that part,’ Dave cleared his throat. ‘But since you brought it up now, let’s do away with it.’ he said and dropped his laptop beside him on the sofa. He took something out of his pocket and proceeded towards her. He placed a knee on the ground close to where she was seated on the bed and placed his elbows on the mattress with the item he took out of his pocket still in his right hand.


‘Stephanie, that guy that held you, can you identify him if you see him again?’
‘Yes, I should be able to.’
‘But do you recognize him from anywhere? I’m sure you must have seen him before,’ Dave asked, squinting into her eyes.
Stephanie paused to think for a moment. She closed her eyes and pictured his face in her mind for some seconds but she couldn’t see any resemblance to anyone she had met before. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen him.’


‘You have, but you couldn’t recognize him, I believe you couldn’t because of his changed hairstyle. He also have his eyebrows and moustache totally shaved off, I also did not recognize him at that moment.’

‘Who is he?’
‘He was a friend of the late criminal Don Dan, he was there when you were kidnapped, they worked with the cult group.’
Stephanie tried again to recall if she had seen his face but she still could not.
‘What about the other guy that hit my head from behind, can you recognize him?’
Stephanie frowned for a moment. ‘No, I only remember he had a band covering his forehead. I couldn’t look at his face boldly because he was pointing a gun at me and the other one also had his on my head.’
‘Well, I suspect that those guys are from another group of assassins employed by the Vice President to follow Samantha Osman.’ Dave said.


There was a brief silence in the room. Stephanie pondered on his words and tried to see the picture of another assassin being after Samantha Osman. ‘But you said the police reported that Samantha Osman kidnapped the Chief.’
‘Yes, that was what they reported but it’s not true.’


‘Well, does this mean that you truly knew that Chief Nonso was a sponsor of Samantha?’
‘I don’t know but I suspect he is. I think he’s been suspected by the Vice President too and that’s why the Vice President’s assassins came to get him.’
‘So, they’re going to kill him? What if he’s innocent?’ Stephanie asked in a terrified voice.
‘I don’t think they’ll kill him, they would rather want to use him to lure Samantha to them, or threaten her to take back the allegations she made against the Vice President.’


‘How do you know all these? Aren’t they too much for a journalist?’ Stephanie asked, in doubt of who Dave really was.
Dave reached for her two hands and sq££zed her palms in his softly, then he placed his hands gently on her knees, still holding her palms.


‘I’m sorry I lied to you, but I’m not a journalist,’ he said softly, looking deeply into her eyesas she stared into his too.
She released one of her hands from his grip and reached for the item he had dropped on the bed, the one he took out from his pocket earlier. It was an identity card and it had Dave’s passport photograph at the upper right hand side. She stared at it for a few seconds and then looked at Dave’s face.
‘So you’re a secret Agent?’ she asked in low tones, giving him a thin stare.
He nodded and gently sq££zed her palm which was still in his left hand. She stared at the identity card for few more seconds before returning it to the bed.
‘So, what about your desert reporters’ID card? Is it fake too?’ she asked.
He was silent for a moment. He had expected her to be angry and blame him for involving her in something so dangerous without considering her safety.


‘I’m a journalist for Desert Reporters, I submit news articles also but I’ve only been to their office once. My work with them is majorly online,’ he finally replied.
‘I knew there was something more to it,’Stephanie began, now staring blankly at the wall. Dave reached for her second palm, hoping she wasn’t going to flare up at him. ‘A journalist had no business coming into the hospital to help me like you did, so I didn’t believe when you told me you were one. I only got a bit confused when I saw the Desert Reporters’ ID card with the original seal this morning but we had gone too far for me to start asking questions then.’
Dave stared at her lips as she spoke, wondering why she was still speaking calmly instead of getting mad at him. She looked down and stared at his face also. He felt bad once again seeing the spot on her eyes.
‘So why did you have to tell me that you’re an Agent, I thought your service is supposed to be secret?’
Dave felt surprised at her question. He blinked his eyes and chuckled, then he rose from his knees and sat at the edge of the bed facing her directly and part of his body touching her legs.


‘I want you to decide what to do, it’s dangerous to work with me. You can choose to return to Abuja today if you want to,I would still join you work on your case against the Vice President.’ he said and waited for her response.
‘I’m not going anywhere,’ she replied, squeezing her face. ‘If you wanted me to decide, you should have told me before we left Abuja.’


Dave closed his eyes for a second. ‘When it comes to my job, we don’t allow people decide to work with us or not. I actually thought I could do to you like we do to the others, but I can’t.’ Dave confessed. He stared down for a moment before looking at her face again. ‘So, I’ll fix the flight for you to return to Abuja tomorrow morning. I’ll check you once I get back there,’ he said and got up from the bed.
‘No, I’m not going anywhere. What about the plans about making the allegations public?’


‘I’ll do that here, we don’t have to be together.’
‘I’m not going anywhere, I’m here already.’ she said stubbornly.
‘Stephanie,’ he returned to the bed. ‘Listen, it’s really dangerous to go around with me. I could get killed at anytime.’
‘But you’ve been at this job for a long time and you are still alive.’
‘Yes, I’m alive but I’m not sure of being alive tomorrow.’
She shook her head stubbornly and folded her arms.
‘Stephanie, what you saw is little today. My job gets so dangerous at times.’ Dave said, trying to convince her. ‘I was the one who led the chase on Samantha Osman from Crescent Moon Hotel in Anambra State someweeks ago, I almost got killed.’
‘Do you chase after her everyday?’Stephanie asked.
Dave heaved a sigh and remained silent for a moment. ‘Do you really want to stay here even after knowing I’m not a journalist?’
‘I didn’t come here with you because you were a journalist, I wouldn’t leave because you’re not one.’
Dave let out a breath and stared at her silently for some seconds. Then he moved closer and held her hand again. Stephanie tried to shift her legs to give space for him but her night gown opened and her left thigh was revealed. She quickly covered it back and remained in the previous position.
‘I’ve seen only one lady in recent times that caught my attention like you do, I wanted to go after her that day…’ Dave suddenly paused. He narrowed his gaze for some seconds as if he was thinking about what next to say. ‘Not that I really had anything to say to her but I just wanted to know her,’ he said and paused again. ‘The truth is, I didn’t ask you to come with me just for you to help me in my investigations, I only wanted to be close to you.’


She folded her lips in, staring at him speechlessly while he continued to talk. ‘I want to ask you again, do you really want to stay here?’

She sq££zed her eyebrows and pouted her lips for some seconds. ‘Yes, I’m not leaving here…’


She couldn’t complete her words as he pulled her into a tight hug at that moment. She felt shocked at first but got to relax her body.

‘You’re choking me already,’ she complained a minute after. Dave seemed to be totally lost.

‘I’m sorry,’he released her and quickly jumped to his feet.
She gave him an awkward stare for a moment while he also stood on a spot and stared back at her. ‘I thought you said we had to make plans for tomorrow.’
‘Oh! That’s true.’
Dave returned quickly to the sofa and continued to work with his laptop.
‘Can you come here, I’d like to show you something?’ he said motioning her to join him on the sofa.
She got up and joined him there. She looked at the computer screen to see what he was doing but couldn’t understand.
‘You lost the phone I gave you, you see why I asked you to leave your own phone in your room?’
‘It dropped from my hands when the man hit my face. Did you know I was going to lose the phone?’
‘No, I did not; I didn’t take my phone with me too. As a secret agent, I don’t go around with things that I could be easily traced with.’
‘Hmmm, I get you.’
‘Here,’ Dave pointed to something on the laptop.
She looked at the screen. There was a large map now being displayed and a green shaded circle covering a point.
‘The Chief should be right here,’ Dave said. ‘They’re hiding him somewhere in Igbede.’
‘Is that in Lagos State?’ Stephanie asked.
‘Yes, this is Lagos map. Igbede is a community close to Ajangbadi in Ojo.’
He let her stare at the map for some more time before speaking again. ‘The man was taken with his phone, the installation you made on it before you were attacked apart from recording his phone calls for us, enables us to track the location of the phone on earth at point in time even if it is switched off.’
‘That’s interesting,’ she glanced at Dave’s face. ‘So, do we give this information out to the police?’
‘Police? No,’ he stared at her face. ‘The Vice President controls the police through the Inspector General, we would handle it ourselves.’


‘How? Just the two of us?’ Stephanie asked.

Dave nodded.

‘Can’t you get the other people from your agency involved?’
‘That should have been the case, but sadly my colleagues have also been compromised.’
‘Are you sure we can go there alone?’
‘We won’t go alone, Samantha Osman would be there before us.’
‘I don’t understand,’ Stephanie frowned.
‘I’ll send her a message and give out their location. If she responds to it as expected and he’s truly her sponsor, she would be the one to go save the Chief.’

‘Oh!’ Stephanie was about to ask another question when a ring tone distracted her. ‘That’s my phone,’ she said as she got up and walked to the bed to pick it.
‘Hello,’ she said after answering the call. ‘Mom!’ she exclaimed as she turned back, her eyes filled with happiness as it met with Dave’s. ‘Are you just landing?’
‘I heard you are in Abuja,’ the mom said from the other end.
‘Oh yes..sss… I was in Abuja,’ she answered hesitatingly.
‘Oh! I landed in Abuja and I was wishing I’d meet you at the house.’
‘No mom, I left already but I’ll soon be back.’


‘It’s okay, I’ll see you later dear.’
‘Yes mom, Goodnight. It’s good to have you back.’

Stephanie heaved a sigh after the call ended and returned to the seat.
‘So, now that Madam Henrietta is back, would you like to return to Abuja tomorrow?’ Dave asked her.
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