Con 67

‘It worked, she’s going tell something good when I call back tonight.’ Dave said in a calm tone and dropped the phone on the table. He pulled the laptop closer to his front and began to type using his keyboard.
‘But this babe could kill you when she finds out that you’re playing with her feelings,’ Lizzy who was seated beside him replied.
‘But I don’t have a choice, I just have to do it this way.’ Dave countered.
‘You do have a choice, you don’t have to lie to her and make her think you have feelings for her and that she has a future with you when you’re planning to dump her after the whole game.’
Lizzy, I do not have a choice. I’m just doing the same thing you do to the men to fulfill your purpose.’ Dave said, facing her.
‘I don’t do the same, I don’t toy with feelings of innocent men. Whoever I play the game with must be a criminal himself.’
Dave looked away from her and kept his stare on the laptop’s screen as he pondered on her words. He shook his head after a brief moment and took a brief look at her, ‘I’ve gone too far to stop now, there’s nothing I can do about it.’
‘I know you’ve gone far, I just have pity for the lady, it’ll cause her a lot of of pain at the end.’
‘Do you also pity the guys you break?’
‘No, they are criminals and they need no pity.’
‘I see,’ Dave said and turned back to his laptop.
‘What are you going to do about Jumoke?’
‘I’ll think about it later, let’s settle the matter at hand first.’
A deafening silence dominated the next five minutes, Dave worked on the laptop while Lizzy watched and jotted down the necessary details from his work.
‘What you need to do is gain Cole’s trust first and gain access to his devices, from that we can extract his usernames and passwords for a lot of things. I want you to also chip in general talks about Samantha Osman during your conversations and hear how he responds.’
‘Alright, I understand all that you need from him but it may take a very slow process, depending on how gullible he is. I’ll have to show him some care first before he gets to trust me.’
‘I don’t really think it’ll be slow, the guy is in love with you already,’ Dave said in a confident tone.
‘Well, I’m still doubting that and I’m getting more afraid. I told you before that he acted too simple to get, I don’t think an assassin trained like Samantha Osman should have given in so easily.’
‘Hey Liz, I think you’re getting something wrong here.’ Dave took a brief pause to open the saved profile of Cole on the computer. ‘Cole is not as trained as Samantha Osman and if he even received any training, that’ll be just gun training and some little self defence stuffs. So stop looking at him from the same angle you’re viewing Samantha, he was just a cultist in Don’s cult who graduated and started to practice assassination.’
‘I see… He really can’t be as trained as I was thinking.’
‘Yea, that’s even if he ever received any form is training.’ Dave emphasized. ‘He might just be an errand boy for Samantha.’
‘Hmm… But there’s still one thing bothering me that makes me think he has fallen yet.’



‘What’s that?’
‘He hasn’t called or sent any message since we parted ways yesterday.’
‘Is he supposed to send any?’
‘Yes, his actions yesterday depicted him as someone who was in love but since we departed yesterday, he has not called or sent any message till now, not to even ask of my well-being.’
‘I told you he went directly to the club yesterday, he would need to rest after the heavy boozing.’
‘I know, but this is past six, evening already and someone who is supposed to be crazily in love with me hasn’t called to find out if I arrived safely or even thank me for the outing.’
‘You’re saying the truth, is it possible that something has happened to him?’
‘I don’t think so but I think we should just wait and see how it goes.’
‘What if you call him?’
‘Hmm… Maybe I should send a message instead. I’ll have to register this number on Whatsapp now.’
‘Okay.’
Dave got up from his seat to stretch his body and before he could finish, his phone began to ring. He took the phone from the table and glanced at the screen, it was Inspector Dakolo calling.


_______
‘Cole, what’s happening now? Have you spoken to her again? She’s not answering my calls.’ Henry said on entering into Cole’s room. He closed the door and stood right behind it. He could see Cole still working on the NSCC footages and trying to connect them.
‘You should have sent her a message. But I know she’s gotten a car already and she’s driving back to Abuja.’
Henry took a glance at his wristwatch, ‘It means she would get here before five tomorrow morning, isn’t it?’
‘Well, I think she’s not driving by herself. She might get here earlier if the driver is conversant with the roads.’
‘Okay,’ Henry said and sat on the bed quietly. Both of them remained in silence for more than five minutes.
‘So did you eventually take your lunch?’ Cole asked, getting up from the chair to stretch.
‘I did.’

‘Cool. I think I need to take a little rest now.’ he said and picked his phone from the table, then he eventually rolled into the bed. He positioned the pillow well and placed his head on it. He then took out his phone and unlocked it, he swiped down the notification bar and began to check the notifications one after the other and later clicked on the Whatsapp message notification.
‘Oh! D--n it!’ he closed his eyes and cursed aloud on seeing the last message received few seconds ago which was from Patricia. It had totally skipped his mind to reach out to her since the last night and didn’t feel good she had to be the one to send him a message first. He could still feel the touch of her soft lips on his and the scent which filled his nostrils when he got closer to her and could see her walking down the road again, with her steps showing more elegance than that of a professional model. His heart longed for every part of her, her heart, soul and body.
‘Is there any problem?’ Henry turned to ask Cole.
‘No problem,’ Cole quickly opened his eyes.
Henry could see from his smiling face that there was no problem and that something on his phone was the cause of the reaction.
Cole exited the app and opened the dialer. In less than thirty seconds, he was connecting to her number.

‘Good evening Patricia, I’m sorry I’ve not reached you since yesterday. How are you doing?’
‘It’s okay, I’m fine. How about you?’
‘I’m also fine.’
‘So how was work today?’
‘Not bad, yours?’
‘Beautiful.’
‘I sent you a whatsapp message not too long ago.’
‘Yea, I just saw it now. I’ve been busy all through the day.’
‘It’s okay, so can we chat on Whatsapp?’
‘Yea, sure.’

The call ended and Cole opened the WhatsApp application again. He could feel Henry’s eyes on him, but decided not to return the look. He clicked on the chat with Patricia and typed in a message in reply to hers. After sending his message, he clicked on her picture above the chat to view her profile. The first thing he did was to enlarge the picture and stare at it for a long while, smiling to himself as he admired her beauty. Then he exited it as he got the beep for her reply. He noticed from her profile as he was about to reply the chat that the WhatsApp account was newly registered and wondered for a second why she only recently created an account on the messenger.
Henry watched as Cole smiled all to himself and his phone. He felt bad but looked away immediately, he shook his head and ran his fingers into his hair simultaneously. He knew it would be out of place for him to expect Cole to be sad as he was, the guy had done what he could do already by being busy all day trying to connect the footages which could help them locate his mum. Henry took out his phone also, hoping to also relax his mind a little by chatting with Omotara or anyone else available.


As he unlocked the phone, he could see the email icon blinking at the notification bar. He swiped it down and clicked on the new message. The message did not waste time in loading and then he saw something that shocked him, a video of his mum’s whole body tied to a chair alone in a room, she was sweating profusely and her mouth and eyes were covered. The video showed every part of her body and the tight ropes on it, then it also showed the sides of the room, there were no windows or visible openings except a small closed door. The view was repeated again and then a message appeared at the end, ‘We know you ignored our first message, you may also choose to ignore this. But it’ll be nice for you to know that the oxygen in this room would be used up in nine hours time and she would be left to fight for her life without oxygen. It’s in your hands; you either kill her or allow her live. You have the address already.’

Henry was shivering and sweating all over by the time he finished reading the message. He jumped up at once and first rushed to the door not knowing what to do, then he rushed back to Cole’s table.

Cole looked up at that moment and saw the panic, he sat up and stared at Henry while the other searched the table. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘I’m going to get my mum now, I won’t forgive myself if she dies because of me.’
Cole stared at him for a moment like he didn’t understand the language he spoke, then he turned back and looked at the phone, he knew it had to do with something Henry had seen there. He reached for the phone and tapped the play icon on the video.
By the time Cole finished watching the video, Henry had already gone out with the car keys and a pistol. Cole rushed after him and met him outside, walking towards the car.
‘Hey bro, wait,’ Cole shouted, running after him. ‘I called the boss already and she’ll call back in five minutes to tell us what we need to do.’
‘I’m not waiting for Omotara any longer, I don’t care if I die or not, I have to make sure that nothing happens to my mum.’ Henry replied without looking at him.

‘Calm down bro,’ Cole held his hand as he was about to open the door to the driver’s side.

Henry dragged his hand out of Cole’s and opened with the second hand. As he anted to enter the car, Cole held him firmly again by the arm above his elbow.
‘Come on, get out of my way.’ Henry stepped back and sent Cole a heavy blow on the face which sent the latter staggering backwards. He entered into the car and started the engine while Cole gently massaged his hurt face.
Cole raised his head and watched as Henry drove towards the gate. He knew Henry’s mind was made up and there was no way he could be stopped took out his phone and redialed Tarasha’s number.
…

___________________________________
I asked a question sometime ago about Tarasha’s age.

Omotara was given birth to in 2006 and the year is 2031. There has been no details about the day and month but if you’ve been following properly, you should be able to guess right. You can still put down your answers