Henry raised his wrist to check the time immediately after his eyes popped open. He had slept for over two hours with Tara’s head on his chest. For the first few minutes after she had forced him to remain in that position, he kept staring at her face and wondering what to do. His eyes also wandered for some minutes around her exposed thighs under the mini skirt but he returned his gaze to her face and fondled her hair for sometime. He had been aroused sexually for a moment when she had la!d on top of him but it went down after he was certain she was deep asleep and wasn’t even responding to his touch and caress. He only kept glancing at the ceiling and walls of the room until he slept off too, for over two hours.

He looked at Tara’s face again, she took in a deep breath at that moment and turned her head, facing the other side. Henry raised his neck uncomfortably as her hair got into his mouth. He used his fingers to arrange back the hair and made sure her head remained beneath his jaw.

She took in another long deep breath and exhaled, and they rolled away from his body, she was awake though her eyes still looked sleepy. She turned to face him as both la!d side by side with their head on the same position. The distance between their faces were so close that they could feel the exhaled hair of each other’s on their lips. They stared keenly at each other for some seconds without any words spoken until Tara moved her head a bit forward and met his lips with hers. She drew closer and shifted her thigh in between his legs as he placed a hand at her back of her head and one at her waist, pressing her body firmly against his.
Their moment of pleasure was cut off abruptly when an alarm went off. Tara broke up first and sprang out of the bed immediately, she dragged down her skirt skirt which had rolled up her waist as she looked towards the wall where the sound came from. Then she proceeded to the device which was located beside the control for the air conditioner. It was blinking red and still sounding out loud. She turned back, looking around the room and her eyes met with Henry who was now seated at the edge of the bed.
‘What’s that?’ Henry asked, standing up from the bed and touching his lips. He straightened his shirt properly as he joined her where she was.


Tara gave no answer to his question but walked away after putting off the alarm sound. She proceeded out of the room, leaving the door open. Henry followed behind at a very slow pace.
He met her in the computer room, already seated in front of the main control system, a laptop. She was staring intently at the screen with her hand hovering above the mouse. The main control system was displaying a red rectangle at the left side of the screen which signified danger. The florescent lights in the computer room had also changed from white to red and was blinking in quick successions.
‘Why did you turn off the alarm sounds?’ Tara shot him a cold look from where she was seated. He couldn’t see her face properly because of the colour and instability but from the tone of her voice, he was sure she didn’t have a pleasant look on.

Henry was dumbfounded at the entrance where he stood, the alarm must have been on for more than an hour but made no sound because he had turned off the sounds. He did turn them off because they were disturbing when he was trying to check what she had in the underground inner rooms and didn’t remember to turn them back on. The only alarm sound he wasn’t able to turn off completely was the one in her room because he couldn’t enter in her absence and it only sounded because it was a critical situation.
Tara typed in some commands with the keyboard and soon the rectangular sign showing danger cleared off. The lights in the computer room also turned back normal.
‘I don’t understand what you did here,’ Tara turned to Henry again, speaking in a cold voice. He could see her face now, there were thin lines of frown on it. ‘After accessing the hidden programs, did you also set it to break up at intervals?’


Henry felt like a kid with the way she was scolding and staring at him. He closed the door and walked slowly to her.
‘I’m sorry I turned off the sound for the alarm but I only programmed a one-time access, I don’t know the cause for the alarm that sounded.’ he replied.

Tara maintained her cold stare at him and sized him with her eyes from head to toe. From the way she looked, it was obvious she was angry with him and did not believe the explanation he gave.

‘Believe me please, I only set up a one-time access.’ Henry repeated as he got closer. He tried to touch her shoulder but she avoided him and rose immediately from the chair.

‘Return everything the way you met them,’ she said to him in a commanding tone and began to proceed towards the door. ‘I’ll be back in ten minutes time,’ she said after opening the door and slammed the door afterwards.

Henry stared blankly at the door for a while. The atmosphere in the house which was romantic few minutes ago had changed into something opposite, a very tensed one.

Tara returned ten minutes later like she said. She was now dressed in a plain white V-neck top and a black jean trousers. Her ruffled hair had been neatly arranged. She met Henry still busy with the system.

‘Have you returned everything to the normal program?’ she asked as Henry turned his face towards the door and their eyes met.

‘The alarm sounds are now on and I’ve hidden the opened files but I don’t understand the cause for the alarm which went off earlier,’ he said, standing up from the seat slowly as he watched Tara approaching him.

She sat on the seat in silence and fondled with the mouse for a moment. ‘Everything looks perfect now but I hope they’re as perfect as it looks.’ she said, taking a glance at him. ‘I’ll just check to make sure you don’t have any surprises for me,’ she added before returning her focus to the computer.

‘I didn’t do anything today, you have to believe me.’
‘Just save your voice and strength, I don’t need explanations, allow me concentrate on studying the settings you might have applied. I still have Cole to bother about, remember?’
Henry tried to talk but his lips vibrated without words coming forth. He let out a sigh and folded his arms.

The two maintained total silence for the next thirty minutes, nothing else could be heard except for the soft sounds made occasionally when she typed on the keyboard.
‘How can I help you to locate Cole?’ Henry finally broke the long silence.
Tara took a brief glance at him without responding to his offer immediately. Henry moved closer and sat on the seat beside her.
‘I also think we need to know that person who’s working with Chief Rikau now,’ Henry continued, staring at her face intently as he spoke.

Tara turned to him again, she shifted her chair backwards and put on the computer system in front of Henry’s seat. She stared at his face for some seconds while the computer booted, then she sighed and returned to her work on the control system.
‘After the system boots, you can help by getting into the NSCC database, I need to watch the movement of Don and his men that day.’ she said to Henry without looking at him.
_______

‘Done!’ Rex announced. Cole looked up at his face with a frown, he shivered a bit as his eyes met with the pop-up window displaying the success of Rex’s operation. ‘It took us three hours and thirty eight minutes to delete her access account to the NSCC system, she worked very well to strengthen the security of their database.’ Rex said, turning towards Cole and Stainless with a finger on his left hand pressed softly against his lower lip and the elbow resting on the arm of his chair. ‘What should be our next step?’ he asked, directing the question to Stainless.
‘Ermm…’ Stainless quivered and his eyes blinked severally as he positioned himself upright on the chair.

Rex turned to Cole, ignoring Stainless who appeared clueless. ‘What do you think we should do next?’

Cole stared at him thinly with his eyebrows raised. ‘How does that concern me? It isn’t part of the deal you know.’
‘Oh True! Good of you to stick to your formality but I hope you get a bit friendlier because it will help the both of us.’ Rex gave a brief evil smile and moved his gaze to Stainless. ‘We’ll start our journey to Abuja tonight,’ he said to Stainless and turned back to Cole. ‘At the same time we’ll work on paralyzing all her connections and network lines.’

‘That’ll be quite difficult to do,’ Cole stated.

‘Yes, difficult but not impossible.’ Rex countered.

‘Might be impossible because she could try stop it if an alarm is raised,’ Cole put in.
‘And she wouldn’t be able to stop it if she isn’t anywhere near the control point, at least we would have done a lot of damage to keep her very busy’ Rex argued.
Cole sighed. He was frustrated but he refused to allow tears drop from his eyes. ‘It is very possible that she has returned to Abuja already, I don’t think there’s any need to start something that’ll definitely fail.’ he said, sniffing in to hold back the water in his eyes.

‘There’s also a high possibility that she’s still in Lagos,’ Rex stated.