“Hey baby!” Emery Jack sounded in a pleasant voice as the call was answered.
“Hello Dad! We were on our way from the airport but now going to the police office. Some police officers followed us from the airport and have arrested Henry.” Sheila replied him hurriedly.
“What is the reason for his arrest?” Emery Jack asked, the cheerfulness in his voice reduced.
“They didn’t tell me, they sounded like he’s been wanted for long and they accused him of trying to hide.”
Emery Jack noisy release of breath could be heard over the phone. He was silent for almost thirty seconds before he spoke again. “Sheila, keep me updated with anything that happens, we can only watch right now.”
“Dad! Can’t you call the police overseer and demand for his release?” She queried in a frustrated tone.
“Things don’t work that way Sheila, we don’t know why he was arrested. I can’t ask for his release. You know he could be truly guilty,” Emery Jack answered.
“But Dad, we know he’s a different person now. He doesn’t even remember whatever happened in the past,” she pressed further.
“We know nothing Sheila,” the man answered flatly. “Let’s allow the police go ahead with their work and watch how things unfold, if there’s need for us to come in, I’ll gladly step in.”
__
Henry’s mind was full of tension as they continued in the vehicle. He wasn’t just wondering what he was arrested for but also trying to get back the picture that just flashed through his mind. He closed his eyes and struggled a bit mentally to recall, but a totally different scene played in his mind.
He saw himself and a host of other uniformed men standing in neatly arranged queues, numbering up to a thousand in total. There were some older men in front of them, in a slightly different uniform from theirs. A man with an entirely different uniform was addressing them. Henry could not pick any of the words been spoken by the man.
The vehicle made a sharp turn and jolted Henry out of the playing scenes. He noticed that they had left the direction of the airport totally. He looked back to see if Sheila was still following behind them and located her car behind two other vehicles.
He turned to the front again, he saw the face of the officer in the rearview mirror. He noticed something, a moustache and beard on the man’s face. His gaze lingered on the man’s face for a while. He recalled that he had read sometime ago about the Anthannian police and army, that was when he was having the strange urge to join the military. The beards on the man’s face was quite more than what was allowed in the Anthannian police. He turned to look at the face of the man by his left side and it was quite different, he wasn’t having strange beards on but was having a hairstyle totally unacceptable by the police.
He narrowed his gaze to the pocket side of the uniforms shirt to check the breast tag which was supposed to carry the name and show the rank of the officer. There was a name on the tag of the officer by his left but the sign to indicate the rank was missing. He turned to his right again. He checked the breast tag and strangely, it carried the same name on the chest tag of the other man.
Henry knew certainly that these men were fake police officers but was confused as to who they could be. Why would they dress up as police officers to come get him? What was his crime against them? And what were they planning to do to him?
He recalled again that Sheila had told him he was found after some men had dropped his body in a body bag at the Nura River. Could this be some of the men who wanted him dead? He asked himself.
He turned to look back again. Sheila’s vehicle had overtaken the two that previously overtook hers. He was more afraid on realizing that the men may not just stop at hurting him, they could also try to hurt Sheila. He had the responsibility of protecting Sheila from harm and couldn’t afford to get her hurt for his sake.
“Dude, you gotta sit well and stop moving,” one of the men complained.
“I’m feeling so uncomfortable with the manacles and my hands behind,” Henry complained in a bitter tone.
“And what are we supposed to do to that?” The same man replied him.
Henry did not reply immediately. He searched their bodies with his eyes to check the positions of their guns. He located a pistol attached to the belt of the man by his right. He leaned forward to see the pockets of the men at the front seats, the one at the passenger’s side had the pistol in his pocket while the man at his left had one attached to his belt side.
“I need to unbuckle my belt to stop it from hurting me,” he said again after some seconds. “I fastened it too tight.”
He got the men’s attention and they glanced towards his belt area but looked away after without saying anything.
“Can’t you help me with this?” He nudged the man by his right. He quickly looked back again to see the position of Sheila’s car.
He nudged the man again when he was ignored. The man gave him an angry look but Henry wasn’t perturbed.
“Help me unbuckle it,” he repeated, nodding his head and pointing in direction of the buckle with his eyes.
The man was going to ignore him but for the looks on faces of the other men, he decided to unbuckle the belt so that Henry could keep quiet.
His two hands reached Henry’s belt slowly and he was about to touch the buckle when Henry made a jump to the body of the man on the right, sitting on his laps and holding the man’s body back with his.
He stamped the soles of his shoes heavily on the face and chest of the man by the right. He shifted his body and his hand pulled out the gun from the belt side of the man he was sitting on. He fired a quick shot into the leg of the man as he stretched a kick with his left leg to the face of man on the passenger’s side of the car who was already making moves. He stamped more kicks on the body of the man at the right as he dragged his bum off the man’s leg but still held the gun so that the mouth still touched the lap of the man. The injured man behind tried to drag the gun but Henry quickly fired another shot into his leg, making him scream out loud. The man’s hands reached for the handle of the door and he opened it quickly in order to escape as the driver drove the car to a halt quickly.
Henry stretched his right foot to the front to kick the man at the passenger’s side and stop him from taking out his gun, he used his leg to hold the man’s neck to the side.
The car pulled over at a curb and the driver stepped out immediately. The man at the right side launched some quick blows to Henry’s belly. Henry tried to resist but the driver of the car attacked him from behind. He stopped resisting and soon, the man at the passenger’s seat had come out of the car and was ordering him with the gun to step out. The driver also picked the gun which had dropped off from Henry’s hand and pointed it at him from behind.
Henry stepped out of the vehicle slowly, staring intently at the gun in the hands of the man in front of him. The one who was sitting by the right had moved to the bonnet side of the car.
Henry flashed a look sideways and noticed that Sheila’s vehicle had also parked behind them.
“Go on your knees fool!” The man who was now pointing the gun at Henry shouted out in anger. He was still feeling the pains of the kicks Henry had sent to him at the front seat where he was.
Henry could see the driver of the car coming behind him as he knelt down.
“This guy is more dangerous than we assumed, I would have preferred we finish him straightaway if the boss did not ask us to bring him alive,” the driver said.
There were now two people pointing guns at Henry, one at his back and one in front of him. Henry was kneeling beside the parked car, his right knee very close to the drainage.
“What’s happening here?”
“Please go back into your car Sheila,” Henry said quickly in response to her question. He looked at the back and saw her coming towards them already.
“Shut up idiot!” The man at the front landed Henry a blow on the face and he fell to the back, the handcuffed hands at the back preventing his back from touching the ground fully, He straightened his legs on the floor as he took note of the man with the gun behind him.
“I suggest we gag his mouth, tie his legs and put him in the boot of the car. We’re on the road and we are attracting too much attention already.” The man at the back suggested.
The man in front shook his head in disagreement, he seemed to be considering Henry’s weight and how difficult it will be to tie him and put him in the boot.
Henry managed to sit up on the floor, he noticed the key of the handcuff hanging on the belt of the man in front. The man was standing close and was holding his gun just where Henry’s legs could reach him. The man behind him was the only issue, hands behind would not allow him handle the man. He needed something to distract him.
“What’s happening here?” Sheila asked again, after taking some seconds to see the shot man on the floor at the other side of the vehicle.
“Sheila,”Henry called aloud to get her attention. “Sheila, get the bag I dropped under the seat of your car for me.”
Sheila squinted,”What’s that?” She asked, standing behind the man holding the gun.
“Just take out whatever you see in the bag and use it,” Henry replied. He could see the look of uncertainty appear on the men’s face. “Get it quick Sheila.”
Sheila was confused, she wasn’t sure she had seen him keep any bag somewhere. She however turned back and walked towards the car.
“Hold it there,” the man behind Henry said and pointed his gun at Sheila, following her towards the car to see what was there.
Sheila’s car was parked so close to the drainage that there was no space to walk between the car and the drainage unlike the way the police car was parked, Sheila had to go through the other side and the man had followed her.
It was the opportunity Henry was looking for. He stared at the face of the man in front of him and began to make funny faces at him. The man squinted, it seemed as if Henry had gone insane.
He loosened his grip on the gun for a moment and Henry took quick advantage. Before the man could realize what was going on, Henry kicked the gun up from his hands. Instead of focusing on Henry, his eyes followed the gun and before he came back to his senses, something hit his g—n heavily. Henry had gotten up and kicked him with the knee.
Henry pushed him to the ground with another kick at the middle of his waist close to his genital. The third man was already coming closer and wasn’t holding a gun.
Henry stopped beside the fallen man and squatted, he held the key hung on the man’s belt and dragged it off forcefully, damaging the belt hole.
The third man stood over the drainage, bending to pick the gun which dropped into. The pistol was halfway soaked in the dirty water. He held it at the tip and was taking it out when Henry’s knee hit his face.
“Hands up everyone!”
Henry heard a loud voice giving the command. He turned back and looked. Some real policemen had arrived, their vehicle was parked behind Sheila’s.
___
Ruthernard Estate, Bethanna.
“We have everything set for the next attack,” Bernard said as he walked into the room where Elvis Kahn was.
It wasn’t the conference room this time. It was another room of the same size but having only two chairs. The chairs were arranged behind a arranged system of controls and a large screen on the wall in front. The two seats were for the leader and the strategist and the screen in front was for viewing and assessing the organization current plans, the feasibility and prospects.
In that room, the plans were put into practicals using models. There the two men watched how their plans and strategies were going to play out in real life and also the expected response, a review was done and correction made when there was need to. However on this day, only the leader was sitting in the room when Bernard entered, the other chair was empty. There strategist was somewhere else.
“Why are you telling me instead of executing it?” The leader turned to the back in his swivel.
“Hutton called and ordered for us to take a pause,” Bernard replied.
“Hutton! He hasn’t called me yet. He’s supposed to be here with me,” Elvis Kahn breathed out through his mouth.
“He called us…”
Bernard was yet to finish talking when the door behind him opened and Hutton walked in.
“D–n you Hutton! Where have you been?” Elvis Kahn asked as he watched Hutton approach, he turned the swivel back to face the screen.
“I ordered for them to take a pause,” Hutton replied.
“He just told me, why did you do that?” Elvis Kahn asked.
Hutton remained quiet until he got to the chair beside Elvis and sat on it.
“I think I located Agent Carl,” Hutton said.
“Agent Carl?”
“Yes,” Hutton answered and brought out a tablet device. He unlocked and navigated to the gallery. “Here,” he continued, zooming a picture to Kahn. “He was spotted at South Husan.”
Kahn stared at the picture. It wasn’t so clear because it had to be zoomed. It was a picture taken in an event centre with several people dressed for an occasion. Hutton was showing him only one man’s image.
“What makes you think this is Hutton? This person may just look like him.” The leader said. To him the man the strategist called Carl did not in anyway look like Carl. He felt the strategist was only unnecessarily been afraid of the dead Carl.
“Kahn, this is Carl.” Hutton insisted.
“Okay, where was this picture taken?”
“A world developers conference on BUS signals which held on South Husan, I should have traveled to attend if I wasn’t busy. But I’m quite convinced this is Carl.”
“I still think that person only looks like him to you, Carl is dead, he’s gone forever.”
Hutton stared at the picture for sometime again. He shook his head in disagreement with Kahn. He was sure it was Carl, only with a changed hairstyle and unusual choice of clothes.
“I will confirm if he’s Carl,”Hutton replied. “The execution of the next explosion can now go ahead, I had to stop it to confirm what location that picture was first.”
“Good, the location is South Husan and even if that was Carl. He cannot interrupt our operations.”
Stay tuned, it’s just getting interesting
Tbc
