Don’s shooting became more rapid as he got closer to the edge of the wall but his steps became slower. He changed his gun as he reached the edge, he turned swiftly, shooting in differing directions but there was no one there. He looked towards the space where the vehicles were parked but he still didn’t see anyone. He began to walk slowly but carefully towards the Jeep, pointing his gun forward in anticipation.
Tarasha could hear him coming towards her from behind the Jeep she was hiding; her legs were hidden behind the tyre while she bent. Don was looking around as he proceeded towards the parking space slowly, just about nine metres to the back of the car where she was. Tarasha readied her gun when she was able to approximate his distance to be four metres closer. Her plan was take him down temporarily and extract some information from him. But just as she was about to move out and shoot at Don, something on her wrist vibrated, the electronic bangle. The signal meant that Aisha was giving her a warning about something. She folded her jacket sleeve and checked the screen displayed on the bangle, it showed the message “Police officers are here”.

‘D--n it!’ she cursed. The police arrival would not give her enough time to drag Don out and do all she wanted to do with him and she didn’t want to take the other option which was to attack the police. She had to leave the place as soon as she could.
She stepped back a bit, still conscious of Don’s movement, she searched the outer pocket of her bag hurriedly and took out something.
Then she focused on the faded shadow of Don approaching with his gun formed in front, she rolled out the small ball taken out from her bag towards Don and turned back swiftly.
She could hear Don heavy steps as he staggered backwards and shot at the ball which was rolling towards him and emitting blue smoke.
She jumped on the bonnet of the second car and caught the tip of the very high fence, she pulled herself up without much struggles and climbed over the fence, landing inside another compound.
She landed into a small rectangular grass field, there was a short tree at the middle of the field, the small section looked like a relaxation part of the facility. There were two long unmovable concrete seats at each side facing each other under the tree. A bright bulb hung directly at the middle of the tree.

She began to crawl out of the place towards a shadow formed by a building some metres behind. She stopped as she got under the shadow and took sometime to look around the compound but she wasn’t able to determine what kind of building it was or even if it was residential or commercial.
She relaxed for a few seconds and took out her device, she unlocked it and began to search Aisha’s location with her app.
Soon, sounds of police cars could be heard closely. She rose up from under the shadow and proceeded forward carefully, she stopped at the front of the building behind whose shadow she hid, it had a raised corridor about half a metre above the ground level. The building itself was about nine metres wide and six metres long, it had two doors each at both ends of the width. She took a peep in through the slightly opened first door, she could see a line of urinals for men. That was when she looked up to the inscription at the top of the door, it read “Men’s toilet”. She looked towards the other door and it had the inscription “Ladies” hanging above. From that observation, she could conclude that the place was a public one which received so many visitors on daily basis. From the sparkling cleanness of the floor tiles in the men’s toilet, she also concluded it wasn’t a factory or warehouse like the neighboring building.
She paused for a second to listen carefully as she heard the loud noises made by the police officers and their vehicles as they surrounded and entered into the warehouse she had just left. She took a look at the device in her left hand again, the app had picked the exact spot Aisha was and the compass pointing the direction back through the warehouse.

She proceeded forward slowly. The main building in the compound was just three metres spaced from the toilet building. Both ends started at the same point from the back but the main building was ten times longer and wider. The building was a bungalow with a high roof for a public place but not up to the heights of big cathedrals. There was a security building directly opposite the toilet but with the entrance adjacent to the gate, just at the same position the security building at the warehouse was.
Tarasha stopped as she got to the front edge of the main building wall. She took out her gun and rested on the wall. She stared intently towards the security building for some seconds, waiting to see if any security official would show up if any alarm goes off but there was none. She proceeded to the front of the main building, it had a slightly high and large balcony. At the middle top of the roof was a broad rectangular sign board which displayed the name “New Prestige Library” in bold, the address and some other descriptions in smaller fonts below. She continued towards the steps at the middle of the pharmacy and climbed up onto the balcony.
She could hear noise made by the police officers outside the gate of the warehouse but could not hear anything outside. It seemed the officers had come for serious business. She could only hope silently that Aisha was able to hide herself from the police, else that would be a more difficult job for her and she would have to attack the police which she didn’t want to.
________________

‘Boss, we’re moving out already,’ Stainless spoke into the phone as he dragged a bag along with him. At his front was Stone and the other men who were at the place with him. Stone had a gun placed to Cole’s back as he motioned him forward. Cole had an handcuff binding his hands but his legs were free. He was already deep asleep on the cold floor where he was allowed to lay when one of the boys had barged into room suddenly and commanded him to get up.
‘We’ll should get a safe location once we are able to get out of this place first,’ Stainless answered Rex again.

‘Do keep me updated everytime and anytime anything comes up,’ Rex voice sounded from the other end of the connection line.
‘Okay boss,’ Stainless replied and the line went off.

He dipped the key into the hole and turned twice it as quickly. He paused to look around the place again while the others were already halfway down the stairs. He stared at his phone’s screen one more time, then he exited the dialer and locked the screen before dipping it into his pocket. He took out his pistol from the other pocket and cleaned the tip, he tucked it into his back pocket after deeply sniffing in the cold air.

__________

Rex took in a deep breath as he dropped the phone on the table, he adjusted his seat and tapped the keyboard, the monitor’s light came on and he entered the password. It unlocked and it displayed the Henry’s full portrait picture on the left side, on the right it displayed the portrait image reproduced with only black dots.
He clicked on a crop tool on the side bar and began to use it to cut out the image on the left. His phone vibrated twice before he got halfway. He wanted to finish with his cropping before attending to the message but the sender’s ID caught his attention. He abandoned the mouse and picked the phone.

‘Tarasha has gotten away and I’m also trying to escape. Someone has contacted the authorities and members of the Rapid Response Squad are here.’ the message read.
Rex shifted his chair backwards to create space for him to type on his phone. He slid his finger round the popped up keyboard, inputting a short message in few seconds, ‘Where exactly are you now?’

He stared at the screen in silence for some seconds, expecting a prompt reply. He wasn’t disappointed as the reply came in less than thirty seconds.

‘I’m hiding in the roof of the building behind the warehouse,’ the reply read.
‘Stay safe and avoid being caught, leave only when the place is clear.’ Rex sent in reply. He placed the phone back on his table and adjusted his seat to the table properly.

___________

Tarasha rolled the flattened tiny metal into the keyhole and the door gave way easily. She held back the door with the handle and carefully drew out the metal, then she pushed the door in slowly and entered. She was welcomed into the library by the total darkness due to the absence of light and closed windows. She closed the door carefully and walked some steps away from the door, then she took off her backpack and dropped it on the floor, squatting before it. She turned on her device flashlight and then opened the bag, she took out a material which look like a face cap and closed the bag again. The material could be attached to the head just like a face cap but it had no top covering. She wore it on her head and pressed something by the left side of the material. A bright source from which light diverges like light from a torch appeared at the middle of the material on her forehead. She turned off her device’ flashlight and strapped the bag to her back as she rose up, she then walked towards the window which were covered with fancy library curtains and peeped through to see if there was anything or anybody in the compound, she covered the light from her forehead before bending to peep. After that, she returned back to the door and pulled the handle to make sure it was properly locked, it was.
She turned to look around the library, her little source of light limited her view of the facility but she didn’t want to take the risk of having the place more brightened. She wasn’t really interested in the content of the library but only wanted to hide herself in until she thought it was safe enough to go out and pick Aisha. The officers would still be flooding everywhere now that they just arrived, it would take them some time before they narrowed their search or scrutinization to the warehouse alone.
She located the short shelf just few metres away from her standing point and proceeded to the place. She could see an inscription at the top of the shelf which read, ‘Drop your bags here and other objects not allowed in the library’. Under that was another inscription, ‘Your properties are safe with our security’.

She raised her head up after reading the inscriptions and her light revealed a seat behind the shelf. She was about turning round the shelf to the seat when she raised her head and her light met with a very short round table and a chair behind it, there were neatly arranged newspapers on the left side of the table, two different colours of pen, a red and blue one la!d on the arranged newspaper. She moved her head slightly and the light revealed a long desk which was behind the short round table, there were four chairs well spaced behind the desk. It looked like the reception point of the library and the desk for the librarians and maybe other staffs. Instead of turning round the shelf, she turned to the other side instead and settled into one one of the chairs behind the reception desk after putting her backpack on the desk.
She placed her device on the desk and exited the flashlight app. She navigated back to the tracker and refreshed the dashboard to see if Aisha was still in the same location as she was before. It refreshed and displayed the same location as it did previously. That enabled Tarasha to make a conclusion that she (Aisha) was hiding somewhere and was in a stationary position, unseen by the police.
She dropped the device on the table, her eyes met with a pile of record books as she attempted to relax her back. She sat back upright and picked the first record book, she adjusted the torch on her head as she flipped the cover. She closed partly to check the title of the book on the cover. The first page on the register was dated 1st of January, 2031. There was a table of twelve columns and several rows numbered from the top of the page to the end and continuing on the other pages. The first column was titled ‘S/N’ , the second ‘Name of User’ , third ‘library number’ , fourth ‘book borrowed’, fifth ‘name of author’, sixth ‘category’. The other columns contained other information like section, return date and signature of user.

Her eyes scrolled down the page, just to while away time, she particularly focused on the names of the books borrowed. She scanned through the first page casually, the second and the third, stopping briefly anytime she saw a book title that caught her attention. She skipped some of the pages after the third page and landed at a page dated 30th of January, 2031. She scanned through a page, making no stop as she found no title of interest. Then the next page and three more pages before she dropped the book and picked her device, she turned on the screen and refreshed the tracker again, Aisha was still at the same position. Her eyes drifted to the time, it was 2:47am, she had used up to forty five minutes already in the library facility; about twenty five minutes walking in the compound and twenty minutes in the library itself. In the next ten minutes, she would be moving out of the place to get Aisha even if it means confronting the officers. She knew their alertness must have reduced since they had come for forty five minutes without seeing anyone or probably seeing Don and the dead bodies alone. A thought struck her mind, what if the position Aisha was stationed was in a police van, maybe she had been caught by them. She tapped her screen on again and clicked on a icon at the top bar of the app. A loading circle showed and it began to roll slowly, it got faster with time and the circle got bigger. In a minute time, it loaded complete and a line image of a human appeared. The person appeared to be squatting in something like a hole with her hands holding the top for support. It gave Tarasha an idea of where Aisha was hiding and eliminated the thought of Aisha having been captured. Staring at the picture again, she wondered where Aisha could be hiding in such a position. The only option that carne to her mind was the drainage which ran through the front of the warehouse.


She dropped the device on the table to wait for five more minutes, she decided to go through the register once more. She flipped a page and scanned through as usual, something caught her attention as she was about to flip to the next page. It was on the twentieth and twenty first row. The books on both rows were borrowed by the same person and was written by the same author. The title of the books were ‘Doctors in Love’ and ‘That Village Girl’, both in literature category. But that was not what caught her attention, it was the name of the author. Dr Tom Danjuma.
She dropped the device on the table to wait for five more minutes, she decided to go through the register once more. She flipped a page and scanned through as usual, something caught her attention as she was about to flip to the next page. It was on the twentieth and twenty first row. The books on both rows were borrowed by the same person and was written by the same author. The title of the books were ‘Doctors in Love’ and ‘That Village Girl’, both in literature category. But that was not what caught her attention, it was the name of the author. Dr Tom Danjuma.

☆☆
‘Please thread carefully, be careful when you make public speeches…’ a voice kept echoing in Stephanie’s head as she restlessly stretched and turned in the bed.
‘Be careful miss,’ she could hear an unknown male’s voice as she felt two hands hold her down at each side.
Her eyes finally opened but her vision was blurred, she could feel the pains in her neck and a sharp pain in her hand as she tried to move it.
‘Be careful miss,’ she heard the man talk again. She could see his face far above hers but not clearly, he was putting on a white coth and had a rope hanging around his neck.
‘Thank God you’re awake now,’ a female’s voice at the opposite side sounded. Stephanie turned her head to look at the woman, her vision was now clearer. The nurse kept a kind smile as she brushed with her fingers Stephanie’s hair away from her eyes.
‘How did I get here?’ Stephanie asked in low tones, turning her face back to the Doctor.
The Doctor smiled and took a step back instead of answering her. ‘You’re Stephanie George right, leader of the SWAD group in Rael University?’ the Doctor asked with a smile.
‘Yes,’ Stephanie replied without much life in her voice.
‘Nice to meet you Stephie, I’ve heard a lot about you. I was also a member of SWAD when I was in school,’ the doctor said, flashing his whole set of teeth at her.


‘How did I get here?’ Stephanie asked again, ignoring his compliments and remarks.
‘You were brought here by your pa…’ the doctor paused to cough. ‘
‘My what?’ Stephanie asked impatiently. She tried to sit up but she was stopped by the pain she felt at her back and neck, the doctor and nurse also helped restrain her from attempting further. ‘How did I get here doctor?’ she asked again, even though she was feeling pains as the doctor helped her place her head on the pillow. For the first time since she woke, she noticed the bandage on her neck and the intravenous fluid line connected to the vein in her right hand.
‘You don’t remember anything?’ the doctor asked, looking surprised.
‘Of course I do,’ Stephanie said, inhaling air deeply with her mouth as she placed the face of her palm not connected to the IV line on her forehead.
‘How are you feeling? Is your head aching you?”

‘No doctor,’ Stephanie tried to pretend but the doctor could tell she was lying. ‘I remember falling down and hitting my neck against something, but I don’t know who brought me here, did she?’ Stephanie asked, staring blankly at the ceiling as she tried to recall Tarasha’s face from her memory. She looked at the doctor when no answer to her question seemed to be coming forth, the Doctor looked like he hadn’t heard her question, he was giving some instructions to the nurse in a low voice.
Soon, the nurse curtsied and left the ward, leaving Stephanie and the doctor.
‘Be calm, you’ll take some drugs now to relieve you of the pain.’ the doctor said, feeling her forehead with the front of his palm and then widening her eyes with his fingers to look in.
‘Doctor, did she bring me here?’ Stephanie asked.
‘Ermm… Who’s the she you’re talking about?’

Stephanie stared blankly at the ceiling for sometime before looking at the doctor’s face again, ‘Who brought me here?’ she asked again, this time in very soft and low tones.
‘Don’t give yourselves troubles Steph, ‘ the doctor placed a hand on her shoulder. ‘You need to rest well, we still have to do a lot of check ups on you,’ he added, turning back to look at the nurse who just entered.
‘But…’ Stephanie tried to speak.
‘Shhh…’ the doctor hushed her. ‘Save your strength now, you’ll ask the questions later.’

_________
‘Dr Tom Danjuma,’ Tarasha repeated severally under her breath. She looked up and stared straight into the darkness for some seconds, wondering if the author could be her father or the name was just a coincidence. She had seen her father writing on sheets several times but it was only medical reports she saw. Maybe there were some other things he wrote that she wasn’t aware of. The guilt of Jefa’s death engulfed her again, at this moment, Jefa would have been the best person to ask questions.
She looked back into the register and noted the category and genre the books were selected from, the first ‘Doctors in love’ was a romance fiction while the second book addressed political issues. She got up from the seat and adjusted the torch on her head, searching around the library to locate the sections and see how they were categorized. Just as she was about to step out from behind the table to check if she could get an extra copy of the book on locating the romance fiction section, her alarm went off indicating it was time to check Aisha. She heaved a sigh and sat back reluctantly. She quickly arranged the register to where it was positioned previously, she unlocked her device to check Aisha’s location again, the position still remained the same. She got up from the seat and began to walk back towards the door with the device in her hands.

___________
Aisha covered with her palm the light produced by the device in her hands, she released it from time to time to check the reading even though she wasn’t sure if she should expect Tarasha to come out for her while the police were still around. Only eight of them had come and with only two cars which were parked outside before the gate. Only three of the of the officers were outside the gate watching.
Things had changed in the country. About fifteen years ago, a reverse would have been the case when the police were summoned for something as urgent as this. They would have showed up twenty four hours later putting blames on logistics.
Aisha could see and hear the officers from time to time pass over the permeable covering placed over the drainage for the passage of vehicles. She remained still under, hoping that a chance for her to leave the place would come quick.


_______
**12 minutes later**
‘Shhh…’ Tarasha hushed the man with a finger on her lips, she had a pistol to his side with the other hand. He was the security man on duty whom she had met sleeping on a mat beside the security building close to the gate. He had a long gun close to him on the mat and the keys to the gate beside it.

The man sat up slowly and cautiously as directed by Tarasha, his eyes was on his gun and his mind searching for a way to pick the gun without Tarasha shooting him first.

‘Don’t bother to pick the gun,’ Tarasha said in low tones, putting an eye on the security building to ensure no one else comes out of the place without her seeing. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, I only need something from you,’ she continued, still motioning for him to stand with her fingers.

‘What do you want young lady?’ the man asked as he got to his feet, raising up his two hands.

Tarasha felt angered by his confidence and cocked the gun to make him see her seriousness. He probably was taking her for a girl who couldn’t handle him like her stature depicts.
‘Calm down,’ the security man said, now staring at the gun intently and her finger which was close to the trigger. ‘Just tell me exactly what you want.’

‘Move this way,’ Tarasha said, directing him with her gun towards the main library building.
‘Okay,’ he said and began to move towards the direction slowly without taking off his eyes from her.

‘Stop,’ she commanded after they had taken some steps forward, now on the same line the back wall of the security building. The man halted, with his body towards the building but his face turned towards her at the back.
‘Look there, what do you see?’ she stopped beside him, pointing towards something at the veranda of the library.
The man squinted to see but saw nothing except a red blinking light. He turned his face back to her with a questioning look.
‘Here’s it,’ she took out a small control box from the outer pocket of her bag and pressed a button on it. Then she motioned him to look towards the building again, the light had turned green. He looked back to her for an explanation, his hands still up in the sky but lower.
She tapped another button on the box and the light turned blinking red again. ‘The whole of this building and it’s surrounding will go up in flames in the next fifteen minutes, whether it will or not lies in your hands.’ she said to him and watched the look on his face gradually change to a confused one. ‘Who else is with you here?’ she asked, taking a quick glance towards the security building.
‘My colleague,’ he answered briefly.
‘He’s sleeping inside?’
‘I don’t know, we do take turns to watch but he has a visitor with him inside.’ he replied.
‘Fourteen minutes, seventeen seconds left.’ she announced after taking out her smaller phone. ‘Your task is to distract the police officers in the next building…’ Tarasha stopped and gave him a thin look, she wanted to ask him how it was possible for him to continue sleeping with all the gun shots that was coming from the building next to the library but she didn’t because of lack of time. She also realized that the last sound she heard of the police was their cars outside the gate of the warehouse, she had not heard any sound since they entered, meaning that the fence walls must be coated with additional sound proof materials and the gunshots would even if it was heard, would have sounded like it came from a very far distance.
‘Distract the police officers from the next building, tell them you saw some people here and also discovered a bomb. Distract as many of them as possible from the entrance of that building and bring them into this place,’ she concluded with her instructions.

The man stared at her for some minutes, he seemed not to agree with her task. ‘I don’t know what the police are doing there, how do I distract them?’ he questioned.
‘You have thirteen minutes and forty five seconds left,’ Tarasha said in a threatening voice and ordered him with her hands to get to work. She put her gun into her pocket and placed her hands on her waist.
The man turned back slowly and proceeded towards the place he kept the keys to the gate.
Tarasha didn’t turn back to look at him but remained in her position, waiting to hear the sound of the gate opening. Her thoughts drifted to what she had seen in the library, her father’s name in the author’s column, that was a reason she couldn’t possibly bomb the place, she wasn’t sure if she would get the book from another library and she felt a strong need to confirm the authorship.
‘Don’t move,’ she heard the man talk from behind her instead of the gate opening sound she was expecting, the security man had decided to play a fast one on her. Since his gun was at the same place with the keys, he decided to pick the gun first.
‘Don’t be foolish,’ Tarasha said as she turned back to him. ‘That gun is empty,’ she added as she dipped her hand into the side pocket of her bag and took out a very small paper bag and dropped it on the floor, three bullets rolled out of it.

The security man confirmed her words as he tried to shoot at her and nothing came forth. The gun dropped from his hands in fear as he stared at her frozen to a spot. His superstitious mind had made him conclude that she was a witch and had made his three bullets disappear from the gun into the paper bag as there was no other way he thought possible that she could have removed the bullets from the gun without him knowing when she did.
‘You have thirteen minutes and ten seconds left,’ Tarasha announced to bring him back to consciousness.
He turned back shakily and hurried to the mat, he picked the keys and proceeded to open the gate immediately. In less than thirty seconds, he was on his way to the warehouse building to report her, not out of obedience to her instructions but fear for his own life.
‘Hey! Stop there,’ an officer dressed in all black shouted, pointing his gun at the security man at the gate from the police car parked at the gate of the warehouse.
‘I know where she… Where they are,’ he said as he raised up his hand and approached the police car.
‘Who are you?’the police officer asked, coming out from behind in the car with his gun still pointed at the man. Two other officers showed up from the other car parked outside. The two bright gate lights of the library facility went off with the wires sparking at the moment. The security man ran forward to the police man with his both hand raised in the sky.
‘She got into our building and they’ve installed a time bomb,’ he said as he got to the police man pointing a gun at him. The police man searched his body quickly to check if he was armed.

‘Who is she?’ the police man asked, his two colleagues were already coming closer to them, one of them trying to connect with his communication device.
‘I don’t know her but she’s still there, she said she came with some others.’ the Security man replied.
‘I think they permeated into the neighboring buildings,’ the policeman said to a colleague over the phone.