RESTLESS : The Hunt For Peace Episode 115

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FOX Corporation Headquarters,
Bexford, Bethanna.

Steve stepped into the chairman’s office and closed the door gently.

“Good morning sir,” he greeted as he took some steps closer to the man.

“Good morning Steve,” Paul Edwards looked up.

“Sir, there was another kidnap case in Vincil yesterday,” Steve continued.

Paul readjusted himself on his seat and squinted at Steve’s face. “Lot of crimes are committed daily in this nation, was the kidnap related to any of our cases at hand?”

“Yes sir,” Steve nodded. “And I started my investigations on it already.”

“Who was kidnapped?” Paul asked.

“Mr Taveo Jude, a businessman and politician based in Vincil.” Steve answered.

Paul recalled he heard something about the kidnap that morning on the network news. He thought it was just another kidnap in the nation and did not give much attention to it since it had no element of terrorism.

“He was abducted in his own residence?” Paul questioned to confirm if it was really what he heard on the news.

“Yes, last night.”

“So, is he in anyway related to Pitt Raph?”

“They’ve been spotted together recently and Taveo Jude,” Steve replied.

“Oh!” Paul raised his brows. “When did you connect all these and do you have shots to prove?”

“I made the connections this morning, and I saved all the screenshots.”

Paul took in a short breath and his eyes met with Steve’s as he remembered something. “I heard no one was killed at the house, the bullets were tranquilizers.”

“Good, what then is your next step?”

“I seek permission to extract all information from the police,” Steve requested.

Paul stared at him for a moment, he expected to hear something more than that.

“You may proceed to the department, I’ll send them a message before you get there.” Paul said and leaned forward immediately. He tapped on his laptop to send the message. “Make sure you return with tangible results.”

“Thank you sir,” Steve saluted before turning to leave.

Paul was able to send the message a minute after and he rested his back thoughtfully. He placed the thumb of his right hand under his chin with the second finger across his lips and nose.

His mind flashed back to the meeting with his grandson the day before. It made him realize that Simon Perry was just being used as a distraction, Carl Winston was truly in town. All the moves that were carried out already made it obvious that this man wasn’t going for the innocent ones but was back for vengeance against a particular set of people.

He concluded that there was need for him to make personal moves. He was also sure there was no way the Red Wolves alone would be the only recipients of Carl Winston’s wrath.

He changed his sitting position and switched the hands with which he supported his jaw. He wished he could tell the rest of the FOX executives about his new discovery and certainty that Carl Winston was alive, but he couldn’t because it would not only make them lose trust in him but get him into more problems from the other side.

He made up his mind again to make personal moves secretly.

____

10:46AM

Taveo had spent the night in an uncomfortable position. His abductors were however more lenient with him than they had been with their other captives.

He was allowed to sleep in a bed and not in a chair, both hands were cuffed at the wrists with long chains which gave him enough freedom to move his hands slightly and even placed them at the center of his chest.

His legs were free however, but the freedom was useless without the total freedom of his hands. He still slept in an uncomfortable position.

He raised his head slightly as he heard the door open. He watched three men walked in. Two walked to the sides of his bed and detached the chains from where it was attached under the bed, making him free to move his hands with the cuffs still around his wrists.

They pulled him up in the bed and forced him to sit with his back resting against the headboard.

He blinked his eyes and shook his head vigorously as he saw the man standing in front. His jaw dropped unconsciously, leaving his mouth opened in surprise.

He had heard and had been warned about Carl Winston’s presence in town but he never thought he would have to face him so soon.

“Good morning Mr Taveo,” Henry stepped forward and placed his feet on the bed frame and his hand on his knee. “You seem to recognize me, I guess you all must have been showed my pictures. I really won’t like to waste much time talking to you, all you need is tell me everything I’m supposed to know about the Red Wolves.”

Taveo could not look at Henry’s eyes which was directly on his face. He wished he wasn’t in that position, but there was little he could do to get himself out. Releasing information about the Red Wolves was not also going to make things easier.

“I’m waiting sir,” Henry said impatiently, after expecting a reply for more than a minute.

Taveo finally looked up and stared at his face for some seconds, he then looked down again and sighed as he shook his head.

“I can’t give you what you want,” Taveo replied, shaking his head slowly.

“Oh!” Henry raised his brows and stepped back. He stared at him silently for a while and then nodded gently. He glanced at Dave and Cole and made a signal with his head. “Get him into the torture room.”

He turned and proceeded out of the room, leaving Dave and Cole to carry out his instructions.

Taveo closed his eyes and breathed out in self pity as Dave and Cole reached for him. He had no choice than to face everything they brought his way, giving them information about the Wolves was not an option.

Cole and Dave walked into the living room thirty minutes after. Henry was sitting at the dining area with a laptop on the table. Samantha and Hannah were in the sitting area of the living room, both busy with their devices.

“What position did you leave him?” Henry asked them.

“He’s chained at the center of the room, with both hands and feet spread wide.” Dave replied.

“Good,” Henry said. He unplugged his laptop charger and got up with the laptop in his hand. He walked to the area where the others were. “Go get Jenny,” he said to Samantha after he dropped his laptop on the center table.

Samantha returned with Jennifer two minutes after. The rest of the team were gathered behind Henry who was now sitting on the footstool at the left side of the center table.

Samantha and Jennifer joined the team behind the laptop. There was a slideshow of images playing on the laptop, different pictures of the man who was their next target. Henry turned to them and began to speak.

“We’ve got Taveo Jude with us, and as expected, he is yet to speak up. We have three other people on our list, but we have confirmed details of two of them. The next man is Julius Brad, cousin of the late Richard Brad. This time, we do not need to make an abduction, we’ll get any information we can get from him before his death.”

He paused to see if everybody was following.

“Boss,” Dave interrupted. “Are you sure that would be effective? These men are hardened and would most likely keep their secrets to death.”

“I know, and that’s why we still have Taveo Jude with us.” Henry replied. “If he doesn’t get broken for the fear of death, he could get broken with the death of his family members. But being broken does not guarantee he would give us information, and accurate information.

“So, why don’t we try break him first before proceeding to get the other men?” Dave asked again.

“I considered that, but it would mean slacking and giving the other men on our list enough time to move out of their current cities, which might make things less easier than they are now.”

Henry took a brief pause after answering Dave’s question, he stared at their faces, waiting to answer any other question they had before he continued talking.

“Julius Brad was a former transportation minister of the country, he’s still very respected today. As a former government official, he has a good security system around him, it would be difficult but not impossible to reach him in his house. Getting him on the road would also be very difficult because he stays in Bexford, the FOX have tightened the security in Bexford to an extreme level.

We however have a very good opportunity right now that we shouldn’t miss, it’s called ‘The Treak’.”

He got up halfway and stretched his hand towards the laptop. He exited the slideshow and switched to another file folder which contained only pictures. He selected all the images and clicked on play before returning to his seat.

The distant image of the front view of a large and beautiful ship was the first to display among the pictures. It stayed for only three seconds before it zoomed out and another view of the same ship showed.

“This is ‘The Treak’, it’s the first ever massive ship to be completely built here in Bethanna. Constructed by online indigenous Engineers, no single part was imported into the country. It allows for nothing less than three hundred passengers and very large and heavy freights. I’m sure it’s not the first time of you all hearing about it.”

They all nodded in affirmation, except for Jennifer who only kept staring at Henry’s face instead of the slideshow of picture.

Information and announcement about the launching of ‘The Treak’ had been the talk of the country for several weeks and had intensified that particular week

“I asked Jenny to download fifty images with different views of the ship and that’s why we have the slideshow playing,” Henry continued. “So, how is this ship our opportunity?

The Treak is scheduled to be launched on sixth which is less than four days away. It would be launched with a trip to Oso. About ten dignitaries in the country have been invited to be part of the launch. One of those who have confirmed attendance is our target, Julius Brad. Two other governors, two stakeholders and the present minister of transportation would also be in attendance. A total of thirty five people including eight security officials, seven journalists and the crew will be on board.

The trip to Oso from the Bexford shore is estimated to take a total of thirty two minutes. The dignitaries will step down to make a visit to the on going bridge construction project in Oso. Our best chance to get him killed will be this trip and we have to come up with a final plan today.”

“Wouldn’t we be trapping ourselves if we carry it out on sea? What would be the medium of escape?” Samantha questioned thoughtfully.

“We can avoid that by carrying out the job before they get off at Oso,” Hannah suggested.

“I propose that we do not use guns, we should use a silent death weapon. I have a poisonous gas available for it already,” Henry put in. “Then, it can be done like Hannah suggested, before the stop at Oso.”

“How long will they supervise the project at Oso for?” Dave asked.

“It should be done in less than an hour, the supervision is only a ceremony,” Cole replied instead of Henry. He had gotten enough information about the events as Henry had given him the assignment the night before.

There was silence for up to thirty seconds.

“So, how do we get in since there’s already a fixed number of people expected to be on board?” Hannah asked, directing the question to no one in particular.

Henry looked at their faces for a moment. He already had things planned out but he wanted to listen to them and give opportunities for them to be involved in the planning.

“Only two of us will be going on board,” he began to talk when no one else did. “One of us disguised as a journalist and the other as one of the security officials.”

No one seemed to object for a moment, but it was obvious from the expression on Cole’s face that he was confused about something.

“What’s up Cole?” Henry asked, raising his brows at him.

“How easy will it be to get in disguised as journalist and security officer? The journalists are already registered for the event and the other security officers will recognize a strange man amongst them.”

“You’re right, I was coming to that.” Henry replied. “You would have to find out all the eight journalist registered for the event are, then we select the one we will substitute on board. As for the security officer, we will have to get into the ship before the crew and other passengers get on board.”

“It’s… Sounding more complicated,” Cole said with a sigh.

“It’s easy if we take every stop strategically,” Henry insisted. “I, Dave and Hannah will be traveling to Bexford today and we would make arrangements to smuggle in one of us in as a security officer. After finding out the journalists expected for the event, you, Samantha and Jenny would take out a journalist of your choice and one of you will substitute that journalist for the event.”

“Good plan, but it has to be neat and we must not leave any trail,” Dave said.

“So, how would the two people who gets on board communicate?” Cole asked.

“We would finalize that before we leave this evening,” Henry said and got up to his feet. “For now, I’ll send the full images of The Treak to everyone’s device and will also send you the numerical values of the locations for you to study on the map. We’ll discuss everything else after we have all done the study.”

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____

15:00

FOX Corporation Headquarters

Bexford, Bethanna

“Guys, we’ve got some additional problems,” Paul Edwards announced as he walked into the investigation room where Agents Mark, Mensah and Sylvanus were sitting.

They fixed their eyes on him as he walked closer to the table which they sat behind. He told stopped opposite them and placed both palms on the table.

“The president has ordered that the FOX Corporation should cease all arrests, search or raiding operations for now, until Simon Perry and his cohorts are caught.” He announced to them.

The look on their faces changed to unpleasant looks.

“But that could slow down all our current investigations and cases,” Mensah raised a brow.

“It would, but we can’t blame the President,” Mark put in. “With the two abductions which took place yesterday, that is the most reasonable decision for him to take.”

“Yeah,” Agent Sylvanus agreed with Mark. “The onus is on the FOX to prove that those men aren’t one of us and stop the use of our identity for crimes.”

“I received an update from the team led by Steve a couple of minutes ago,” Paul Edwards took out a piece of A4 paper and stretched it in his hand to Agent Mark. “It shows the connection between the first and second kidnap victims and our wanted man Daysman.”

Agent Mark took sometime to scan through the paper before passing it to the next agent.

“The three of them are graduates from the Fems Technology High School in Nexus, Taveo and Daysman were in the same class while Pitt Raph was in a different class,” Paul Edwards continued. “The three of them however were in the school basketball team.”

Agent Sylvanus also passed the paper to Mensah to have a look. The written content was what Paul Edwards had just summarized.

“But, Daysman is suspected to be a member of the Red Wolves. If he is connected to these two kidnap victims, does it mean they are all terrorists?” Mensah questioned.

“We aren’t sure what it means for now,” Paul answered. “We just know they are connected and if we can find more people in the connection, we will get them before the kidnappers get to them.”

“It brings some more questions,” Mark drew in a breath and sat up. “We also suspect that Simon Perry is one of the Red Wolves,why then would he kidnap his own people?”

The question brought about some tension in the atmosphere and the men kept exchanging stiff glances for a couple of seconds.

Paul was feeling so confused. He knew it was the best opportunity he had to tell them about his new stance about Carl Winston being alive, but there was no way he would be able to explain what changed his mind.

“We’re really in the dark concerning so many things,” Paul said in a sad tone. “I’ll be getting involved fully with the team in the investigation after I hand over the office temporally to Agent Mensah.”

Agent Mensah raised his gaze at that moment and kept it on Paul’s face for a while.

“That’s a welcome idea, we need to take every step that’ll make us get to the end of this craziness.” Agent Mark commended. “We however need to call an urgent meeting with the other executives and make this decision known to them.”

___

16:45

SheiDev Firm,

El Deols, Anthanna

She picked up her phone after hearing a beep sound. She swiped down the notification bar and confirmed it was the message she was waiting for. Adrian had arrived to pick her for another outing. The closed from work at 5pm but he was always there early to wait for her.

She picked up the landline receiver on her table and dialed a number. The call was answered after only few seconds of ringing.

“Please come to my office right away,” she said and ended the call immediately.

She opened the mail app on her laptop to read a mail for the second time. She was still at it when her secretary opened the door and stepped into her office.

“I’m here ma’am,” the secretary said after coming close enough to the table.

Sheila finished reading the mail before looking up. “I just finished reading the mail again and I’m really not sure what they want. You can invite them over tomorrow and tell the PR manager to get ready to receive them.”

“Alright ma,” the secretary replied.

“That’s all,” Sheila dismissed her.

She closed the applications running on her computer before shutting it down. She then began to arrange her stuffs into her hand bag.

She was done and ready to get up when the phone she just kept in the bag began to ring. She took it out of the bag again and checked the screen, her Dad was the caller.

“Hello baby,” Emery Jack’s voice sounded so calm.

“Hey Dad!” She greeted back.

“Uhmn, Sheila, where are you?”

“Still at the office but will be leaving in a couple of minutes,” she replied.

“Going out with Adrian this evening?” Emery asked.

“Yes Dad.”

“Alright, when will you be returning to your apartment?”

“Uhmn, I’m not going to be staying out late.”

“Please don’t,” he cleared his throat. “Well, I wanted to see you this evening but since you have a date, I’m not sure I can see you later.”

“Hope there’s no problem Dad.”

“There’s no problem honey, I only wanted to tell you I’ll be traveling tomorrow and I’m going to be away for a couple of days, probably more than a week.”

“Where are you traveling to and why is it so sudden?” Sheila questioned.

“I’m traveling to the United States, I’ve got an opportunity to take as quick as possible,” the man answered.

Sheila let out a breath. Her Dad was already a wealthy man but was always seeking for more opportunities to get more. His ever increasing investments and wealth was one of her biggest motivations.

“Okay Dad, I wish you a safe trip.”

“Thank you. I also want you to stay safe while I’m away, please follow security operatives.”

“I’m always safe Dad, you don’t need to bother.”

“Well, I’ll still have my men watching you even while I’m away but just be safe.”

“Sure Dad, you don’t need to worry about me.”

“Alright baby, I’ll talk to you later.”

____

21:05

Bexford, Bethanna.

Marlon stepped out of the grocery store with a nylon bag each on both hands. He had his car keys still in his right hand and a phone in the front pocket of his shirt. He stepped down the balcony and walked straight to where how car was parked.

He opened the door to the driver’s side and dropped the bags on the empty passengers seat. He put the key into the ignition and then raised his hand to turn on the light at the top. He was about to turn the key when he noticed something touch him at the left side of his belly.

“Shhh,” a man at the backseat of the car had a finger on his lips, urging Marlon to remain quiet. He had the pistol held in his hand pressed against Marlon’s belly. “Drive!”

Marlon turned his face back slowly and let out a breath. He had not bothered to look at the backseat when he turned on the light. He wondered who the gunman was, how he got into the car and what he wanted from him.

“Drive!” The gunman repeated again, cocking the gun to make Marlon know he was serious.

Marlon started the car engine and drove out of the garage.

“You go left,” the gunman said to him just as he drove out through the gate. He had no option than to obey. He continued driving for about twenty minutes until they got close to a junction. The gunman instructed him to take the route at the right hand side.

Marlon obeyed and he drove on for another five minutes.

“You stop behind the Jeep,” the gunman said.

There was only one Jeep in sight, so Marlon had no question to ask. He drove steadily and parked behind the Jeep.

The gunman opened the door at the backseat and stepped out of the car. He closed the door and stood just behind the front seat entrance.

“Step out,” he ordered Marlon.

Marlon took out the keys from the ignition and stepped out slowly.

“Please, what do you want from me? I can give you anything you ask,” Marlon begged humbly as he stepped out.

“Let me have your car keys,” the gunman instructed and Marlon quickly handed over the keys. “Now, move towards to that car.”

Marlon heaved a sigh of frustration. He had thought the man was only interested in his car and that handing over the keys will be all.

“Please, tell me what you want from me.”

“Move forward!”

His question was ignored and another instruction was given, this time in a harsh tone. He began to move forward and the door of the Jeep was pushed open. He stopped and glanced at the man behind him, wondering if he was supposed to get into the car.

“Go in,” the gunman affirmed.

Marlon walked forward and stepped into the car. The gunman followed but only closed the car and turned to the passenger’s side at the front seat of the car. He dropped something in it and closed the door again, then he walked back to Marlon’s car.

Henry was sitting at the backseat of the car when Marlon stepped in but he made no movement like someone had joined him. It was until the Jeep began to move that Henry turned to him. Dave followed behind them in Marlon’s car.

“Hi Marlon, sorry for taking you without your permission but we only need something simple from you.”

Marlon was quiet but afraid. He couldn’t imagine what it was they wanted, he had not offended anyone and wasn’t keeping anyone’s property.

“So, would you give it easily?” Henry asked.

Marlon nodded. His lips parted to speak but he seemed to have lost his voice.

“Marlon,” Henry called the name softly like he was about to say something important. “You work with the Bexford Port Authority and you’re presently in charge of The Treak, am I right?”

“Yes,” Marlon answered, nodding his head again.

“I’m also aware you have the keys with you, is that true?”

“Yes, it is.”

Henry let out a crooked smile. “All I need is to have the keys from you.”

“I have the spare keys in my car,” Marlon said shakingly.

“Good, once I get it from you. You’re free to go.”

____

22:45

Nexus, Bethanna.

“Hello Hutton,” Kahn answered the phone call from his friend.

“Hey Kahn! I’ll be back tomorrow,” Hutton said from the other side.

“How did the execution go?”

“Perfect! Sheila Jack will be ours soon, and we will be able to end Carl Winston once and for all.”

Tbc