The FOX men were still busy with the investigations even though none of the details made sense to them. They had found out Jones Gatar’s death and how it was related to the case at hand. Since then, they dedicated themselves to investigating Jones’ recent activities before his death.
Sitting in the room were seven FOX agents including Agent Dan. The place was totally silent as all Agents had their eyes glued to their desktops screen and hands on the mouse.
Dan had received a call from Steve at the headquarters an hour before then, telling him that he had less than two hours to give a useful report. With less than an hour left, the required report was not yet ready.
The door to the room opened and a man stepped in. He looked around and walked to Dan after locating where he was sitting.
“Agent Dan,” he whispered as he bent over beside him.
“Sir?” Dan turned his face to the man.
“You have to follow me right now,” the man said and stood up straight.
“Oh, okay.” Dan let out a sigh as he quickly saved his work and got up.
The man who came to call him led the way and he followed. They stepped out of the office and the man led Dan to his own office which was some metres away. He opened the door and asked Dan to step in.
Dan walked in and took two steps forward before he stopped. A man was sitting in a swivel behind the table. Only his back view could be seen but Dan could tell who it is, Paul Edwards.
“He’s here sir,” the man who led Dan in said as he walked past Dan to the table.
“Thanks, I can sense him already,” Paul said as he turned the swivel back.
“Good afternoon sir,” Dan made a quick salute as the man turned him.
“Good afternoon Dan,” Paul Edwards replied his greeting. “Only the two of you in this office knows of my presence here, I needed to join this investigation to make it quick and I’m doing it secretly. You shouldn’t include my input in your report for now, is that clear?”
Dan squinted at him for a while, his lips partially apart. What the chairman was asking him to do was against the ethics of their job.
Paul sensed what Dan had in mind and he explained to clarify the instruction. “I mean you can’t include my input in your report until the case is finished successfully.”
“Oh, alright sir.” Dan nodded.
“Great, I understand from your last report that the Simon Perry team seems to be a step ahead of us. I’m not sure if any progress has been made today, please tell me if there has been.”
“No sir, I’m sorry we haven’t taken any step ahead yet.”
“This means Simon Perry’s team must be miles ahead of us now, and not just a step.” Paul said and Dan couldn’t reply. “I’m here for this reason anyway,” Paul turned slightly and picked a pen and jotter from the table. “This case involves the daughter of one of the most powerful men in Africa, the FOX will be under fire from every part of the world if she happens to die in the hands of culprits the FOX have been after for months. I just hope she isn’t dead yet.”
Dan was still silent and staring at the man.
“Now, I need a verbal report of what you’ve done today so far. After that, you can send me a copy of the detailed report.”
Dan took in a breath and swallowed in. He has doubts in his mind and wasn’t sure he could trust Paul Edwards, especially now that Paul’s involvement in the case was secret. He also recalled that Paul had been once linked to terrorists by his team, but no further proofs had been seen since then.
“You need to start talking, we don’t have much time.” Paul Edwards said impatiently when he noticed Dan wasn’t talking.
“We met Jones Gatar and we’ve been following his recent activities, we have successfully traced his call records to men who were present at the SheiDev firm on Sunday and we’ve been trying to trace the activities of the men linked to him.”
“Which of the men at the SheiDev company was linked to him?” Paul interrupted.
“From his recent call records, he made contact with the Ministry Inspectors impostors who went to the company on the day of the casualty. They ended up being the abductors.” Dan answered.
“Have you tried tracing these two Impostors?”
“Yes, we’ve been trying to. But the sim cards were registered with identities of already dead people. They also made no calls with the numbers until the next day,” Dan answered.
“Then we need to trace the location they made the calls from,” Paul stated.
“Yes, they were at different locations the next days and we have about nine other different locations till today.”
“Have you been to any of these locations?”
“Not yet sir, we need to narrow down the options, so that we can hit rightly.”
Paul stood to his feet and picked his phones from the table. “You would send those locations to my personal email address, I’ll also work on them and keep in touch with you.”
____
12:18PM
Unspecified location
Dave, Hannah and Cole had taken down three of the four men and left only the driver untouched. They still needed him alive as he could possibly make it easier to get into the camp.
The team had done an in-depth study of the area and had identified narrow but longer paths in bushes through which they could get into the camp. The major entrances into the camp were already heavily guarded by Soldiers of the Wolves. These bush paths had less supervision which offered them a better chance of penetrating through. The only challenge they had to face were the Wolves’ soldiers at different points of the major road through which they could access these bush paths.
A mini explosive device had been wrapped around the driver’s body with Dave holding the control in his hands. The explosive device was a type used in breaking small hard materials, and would in this case, tear the driver’s body in pieces once it was activated. The driver was forced to continue driving the vehicle and obeying their instructions.
The trio had changed into the clothes worn by the men they took down. Dave who had the control was sitting in front with the driver. He had his thumb hovering around the button to keep the driver constantly in fear. Cole and Hannah were sitting behind.
They had also taken out weapons from inside the bus before they left the previous points. The weapons had been hidden inside the goods which the four men had taken from the Waait market. They also now had communicators attached on their bodies, with two voice chips each hidden at different places and a side earpiece in their left ears.
They had left the road full of potholes and moved into a smoother section. The new area of the road seemed to have never been constructed with concrete before but made movement easier as the ground was well leveled with the soil.
“I think we’re close to the first point,” Dave announced as he spotted two men afar off. He glanced back and made a signal to his partners, then he stared again at the driver and raised the switch in his hand visibly for the man to see. “I’ll push the button if I notice any suspicious move.”
The men Dave spotted in front were sitting on a rock under a tree by the left hand side of the road. They seemed to have seen their vehicle coming but bothered not to get up.
The driver slowed down as he approached the point.
“Umefanya vizuri (Well done),” the driver waved to the men and they waved back at him without suspicions. None of them got up to check since they knew it was the vehicle that had passed to get food stuffs.
Dave heaved a sigh of relief. He hadn’t thought it was going to be so easy passing that point. He had expected to see more men at the check point and that they would carry out a brief check on the vehicle and the contents.
His relief was however short-lived as they proceeded. He realized the men at the check point weren’t all, some were hiding in the bushes.
“Be on your guard guys, some men are in the bushes. They could recognize any of us as strangers,” Dave whispered a warning to the other two.
He counted up to five other men hiding in the bushes as their vehicles passed, he knew there would be some other men at other points where he couldn’t get his eyes to.
Safely, they left that check point and continued for another thirty minutes before they saw another check point ahead. There were five men standing in the visible areas at this point. Three men were sitting on a huge, large stone at the left hand side and one was standing beside them. The fifth man was at the right hand side, he was resting on a tree and smoking tobacco.
Dave placed his elbow on the window and rested his right cheek on his spread out palm like he was tired. That way, he covered part of his face from the man standing at the right hand side.
The driver slowed down again as it was required when approaching the point. He hailed the men who were also staring at the vehicle and continued on a normal speed after he passed the point.
Dave again noticed more men in the bushes, he counted more than ten men this time around.
“We have one more check point before the gate right?” Dave asked the driver, ten minutes after they left the previous check point.
“Yes,” he answered, almost in whisper.
“They would check the vehicle there, won’t they?” Dave asked.
The driver glanced at Dave, wondering how he knew so much. Dave was staring back at him.
“Yes, they checked us when we were leaving.”
Dave looked back to see Cole and Samantha looking into a device together. He stared at them silently for a while before he spoke. “We’re just ten minutes away from where you drop,” he reminded them.
“Yeah, we’re having another look at the chosen route.” Cole replied him.
“And are you sure it’s the best for you to follow?” Dave questioned.
“Yes,” Cole nodded. “It’s the longest of all the paths, but as long as you’re able to keep the men distracted for long, we’d get in unnoticed.”
“Great!” Dave let out a breath and turned forward. He glanced at the time on his phone and then fixed his eyes on the road for a moment.
After about three minutes of silence, he glanced at the driver and ordered him to pull over.
The driver glanced at him, wondering if he had heard him rightly.
“Pull over,” he insisted.
The driver obeyed, pulled over to the right hand side.
Dave turned back again. Cole and Samantha were busy behind with some sort of preparation. Cole took out three out the four short knives in the pack and carefully hid them under his clothes. He handed a second pack to Samantha.
Cole was the first to finish and he opened the door in readiness to step out. He glanced at Samantha and waited a few seconds for her to be ready before they both stepped out of the vehicle simultaneously.
Cole walked to Dave’s side and stopped at the door. He placed the arm on the opened window while staring at his face.
“Let the boss know we just split, we’d try all we can to make this successful.” He said and paused to take a deep breath. “I hope to see you again after this ends.”
He let out a light smile and then hurried to join Samantha who was already walking at the other side of the road, close to the bushes.
Dave watched them for a while as they walked on, until they had gone very far away. He took out his phone and dialed Henry’s number.
____
Cartak, Anthanna
Paul Edwards now had his suit taken off and was dressed in what seemed like a military outfit. He was sitting behind a computer and had his hand on the mouse, he had a pistol on either side of the desktop. His phones were also on the left side beside the pistol.
He picked one of the phones and dialed a number. “Dan, have you gone through the two locations I sent you?”
“Yes, I have and we’re sending men to spy the places right away.”
“I’m leading men to Sisa, you lead them to the other location. I’ve sent messages to security offices Nationwide and we’d have enough backup when we need them.”
“Okay sir,” Dan replied.
“Do keep me informed,” Paul said and then ended the call. He turned to see his friend already standing behind him. He was also dressed in the military outfit and looked ready for war.
“You look smart in that, but you don’t have to come with us.” Paul said to him.
“I can’t stay back, we’d have to do this together.”
Paul shook his head gently, he knew he couldn’t convince his friend to stay back when his mind was made up like this.
“So, what route are we taking to Sisa?”
“I’m not sure yet, but we would decide on our way out of Cartak.”
TBC