I hope they did not leave this place with anything,” Steve asked, looking around the room furiously while Evelyn sat in front of the table with the laptop on it, trying to gain access to use the system.
About three uniformed FOX officers were also in the room with them, standing at different point. One was checking around the room with Steve, the second stood behind Evelyn and the third stood close to the entrance.
“I didn’t see them take anything with them,” the woman answered Steve’s question. She was sitting at the edge of the bed in her husband’s room, the same room where she had taken the two impersonators to.
She got confused after the security guard had told her about the two new FOX officials and she had walked to the gate with him to accuse the new visitors and ask them for their purpose since two FOX other officials had just left the place.
FLASH BACK — 50 Minutes ago
“What?” Steve exclaimed on hearing the woman’s words. “Those guys who left here in the blue car?”
“I don’t know what kind of car they drove in,” the woman replied.
“Yes, the blue car.” the security man interjected. “They got out just before you guys came here.”
“D–n it!” Steve turned and walked back to the road to check. He had seen the men walking out through the gate when he and Evelyn were parking their vehicle at the other side. He returned back to the gate when he saw no signs of the blue car.
“They must have gone far,” he said as he returned to the entrance. He saw the woman already making a call.
“Who could they be?” Evelyn asked in whispers, staring at him with a narrow look.
He shrugged, also with a confused look on his face. “I don’t know.”
“What’s your name?” Mrs Vincent asked, looking at Steve’s face. It was obvious the name was being requested by the person she was talking to on phone.
“Agent Steve Morris,” he answered her.
She turned her questioning gaze to Evelyn.
“Evelyn Alexander.”
“Agent Steve Morris and Evelyn Alexander,” she mentioned both names into the phone. After some seconds she handed the phone to Steve.
“Agent Steve Morris,” the person at the other end called.
“Yes sir,” Steve replied, he recognized the voice of the man talking to him.
“This is Benuit Police Commissioner, I’ll like to confirm you with your ID number, can I have it please?”
Steve called out the number and the commissioner excused himself for two minutes to confirm.
PRESENT
“Where else did they check?” Steve asked, walking back to the center of the room where the woman was sitting on the footstool.
“Apart from the wardrobe?” The woman asked.
“Yeah, apart from the wardrobe.” Steve answered.
“That’s all they checked,” she replied.
“And they did it all in your presence, you didn’t leave here at all?”
The woman squinted for some seconds, then she lifted her face and turned to her son who was sitting at the edge of the bed close to the headboard.
“I left here for few minutes to ease myself, but I left my son here with them.”
Steve turned his gaze to the boy. “Did you watch them while you were here with them?”
“Yes, I did but I didn’t see them take anything.”
“Alright,” Steve nodded unsatisfied. He then walked to the table where Evelyn was sitting. He knew in his mind that the men would have been crafty enough to leave the room with things without the family noticing even while they were watching. “Any luck?” he asked Evelyn.
She glanced at him. “I tried to check the recent activity but the memory was wiped, even the computer owner may find it difficult to know what they did on it.”
“That is expected,” Steve said as he rested his palms on the top of the chair backrest. “But those guys must have extracted some valuable information from the computer, we should be able to find out what information was extracted and also get the same. That would enable us know why they did so and probably point to who they are.”
“I’m yet to see anything that could be of value to us,” Evelyn replied.
“Keep checking, it has to be there if they did not clean after extracting. She said they used the computer for almost an hour. They couldn’t have used it for that long without getting anything valuable.”
Someone walked in through the door and Steve turned back to look at him, it was one of the FOX agents that had joined them, one of the security men of the house walked in right after him.
“Sir, there are no pictures or records of the men in their CCTV data,” the FOX man said to Steve.
Steve squinted his eyes at the security man beside the FOX man, his look demanding for explanation.
“We don’t know why but I think the footages stopped saving when they came in, we can’t find any in the storage,” the man explained with a baffled look on his face.
“How could that have happened?” Steve questioned. “Don’t you have enough storage space?”
Evelyn was the one who spoke instead. “Do you really think the footages didn’t save or they were cleared before the men left?”
Steve turned to glance at her and then turned back to the security man. The man’s confusion had increased.
“There are no footages showing when they came in but those in charge said the cameras covered it live, the cameras only stopped working some minutes before they left and we fixed it already.” the security man tried to explain. “We think it’s the bug that stopped it from working that must have tampered with the data also.”
“This computer here, does it have access to the CCTV settings?” Evelyn asked.
“Yes, Mr Vincent uses it from there.” the man replied.
Steve heaved a sigh and turned back. He and Evelyn exchanged glances. They understood that the men must have cleared the data and ensured the cameras stopped working not to capture them while leaving.
The security man continued to make more explanations but Steve and Evelyn no longer paid attention to him. After some more minutes, Evelyn turned and looked at Steve’s face.
“There’s nothing here, every left over was wiped out.”
They stared at each other’s face for a while without knowing what to say. They were still thinking when the security man who had received the guests at the gate appeared at the entrance of the room noisily.
“Mrs Vincent,” he called, having on a troubled look. They all looked towards him. “I just received a call from one of the security officials from Mr Vincent’s office, he said two unknown men attacked them about an hour ago and gained access into Mr Vincent’s office, they have been reported already to the police.”
“Two unknown men!” Mrs Vincent exclaimed.
“Did they take anything with them?” Steve asked, stepping forward.
“It’s not yet confirmed if they took anything with them, but they gained access into Mr Vincent’s office using his access cards.”
Mrs Vincent’s raised her head up immediately and her eyes met with Steve’s. She knew at once that the two unknown men must have been the impersonators who had left the house and they must have gotten the access cards from the room.
____
The Lodge, Vincil.
20:02PM
Samantha eyes followed Henry as he walked again into the common room. They had gotten back an hour ago and Henry had not stepped out since then. Everything about him had been awkward ever since their meeting with Dominic and he had decided to keep to himself.
“Boss, I got the alert already, the money is in.” Samantha said to him as he walked to the chair to sit.
“Oh!” he let out a wry smile. “Remind me once Cole and Dave returns, we need to transfer the money out of the account to somewhere else and make the transaction untraceable.”
He raised his face after noticing that she had not replied him after some seconds, he caught her staring at his face with a narrow look.
“I’ll explain my reasons for all these to the group as a whole,” he said with a promising look on his face.
“It doesn’t look like everything is okay boss, is there a problem somewhere?”
Henry chuckled and then continued with the phone he was busy with. “Yes, there is a problem but I’ll let it out to all of you when they arrive.”
“Okay boss,” she let out a breath. “The evening flight must have arrive the Vincil airport since six o’clock, they must be on their way here now.”
Just at the same moment, they saw the reflection of light coming in through the window. Henry got up and looked outside, the reflection was from the headlights of a vehicle. Cole and Dave had returned.
___
20:15PM
The Wolves’ Strategy House,
Newland Estate, Rutherford
Bethanna.
Four hours after the meeting with the Wolves Executives had ended, Kahn and Hutton were yet to leave the Strategy House. The meeting had been a long one of restrategizing, rescheduling planned events and rearranging their structure. At the end of the meeting, they had come up with the conclusion that a secret agency had been contacted by the Bethanna Government somewhere which were fighting against them, only Kahn and Hutton knew that this secret organization was led by the resurrected Carl Winston and was in no way contacted by the government for their operations.
The Wolves executives had set up a team after making the decision to find out which foreign organization the government had secretly contacted to help them fight. The team mainly consisted of the representatives of the Wolves who were in the FOX Corporation.
Kahn walked again into the room where they had the meeting and still found Hutton sitting in the chair and didn’t appear to have gotten up since the past hour he left him there. The remote control was in Hutton’s hand and Hutton had been replaying all the videos and pictures they had watched together during the meeting.
“Seen anything in them yet?” Kahn asked, walking towards Hutton with two cups of wine and a bottle. He dropped a cup in front of Hutton and filled it with wine.
“There’s nothing really in this video, our enemy is wise enough not to leave any trail.” Hutton replied his friend as he picked the cup of wine.
“So, why do you keep watching over and over again?” Kahn asked, settling in a seat beside his friend.
“I’m not just watching the videos, I’ve been going through the documents and the pictures too,” Hutton replied and then took another sip from the cup. “And besides there’s more to get from the video, we can study the strategies and patterns our enemies implemented.”
“Hmm…” Kahn took in a breath. Hutton was the one who always did the most thinking for the group which was why he was called the strategist. “So, have you been able to draw out any conclusion?”
“None yet, but I’ve identified more steps by which we can get our enemy.” Hutton replied.
“You’ve been identifying strips for a long time, when do we start carrying them out?” Kahn asked, sounding so impatient.
“We’ve got to be careful man, else we make mistakes.” Hutton said in a warning tone. “We have to let the enemy play around enough and then walk into our trap.”
“You sound so sure that he’d walk into the trap,” Kahn raised his brows.
“If things keep going the way they are, that would surely happen. And…” Hutton suddenly frowned as he something came to his mind. He squinted at his cup of wine for a while before looking at Kahn’s face.
“And what?”
Hutton drew in a breath, he dropped the cup but still had his hand on it.
“He would surely enter into our trap if all things remain equal,” Hutton repeated, with a slightly changed tone now. He didn’t sound as confident as he was before. “My plans may only fail if he isn’t the only one alive.”
“If he isn’t the only one alive?” Kahn squinted, wondering what he was suggesting. “But we are sure of what happened to the rest of them.”
Hutton looked again at his friend’s face, his countenance had changed. “We can never be so sure,” he said and then picked his cup of wine again. He gulped the whole content in an angry manner.
_____
22:21PM
The Lodge
The team gathered again at the common room after they had all taken their dinner for the night and freshened up. They sat in a round table fashion. The seats were not able to go round for each person so they sat in pairs except for Dave and the Doctor who sat alone. Each group began to give reports from their tasks.
“So, we have gotten some money to take us further for a while. It wasn’t up to what we expected but it’s okay for now,” Samantha began to conclude the report of her task with Henry. “I believe this money was raised from Mr Louis Winston’s personal investment some years ago, however there are some deeper things involved which the boss has promised to explain to all of us as a team.”
She finished her report, landing her gaze on Henry’s face.
“Who’s Louis Winston?” Cole questioned Samantha before Henry could say anything.
“I am Louis Winston,” Henry replied. All eyes turned to him. Prior to that time, no one including the Doctor knew that Carl Winston was also Louis Winston, except for Samantha who had just found out earlier that day. “In Bethanna, Louis Winston is just a native billionaire businessman who’s got lots of investments and properties and who doesn’t stay in Bethanna. No one knows that Louis Winston is the same person as Carl Winston except for some of the FOX executives, my friend Rex and my wife.”
There was total silence in the room for about a minute.
“What’s next step to take, Dave?” Henry requested. He had gotten some updates from Dave and Cole through emails even before they arrived and he did not need them to go into so much details.
“We need to make a trip to the capital tomorrow, I don’t think we have more to get if we stay here. ” Dave answered. “We extracted a lot of details from Vincent Shawn’s laptop and only in Bexford do I think we’d be able to unravel the hidden meanings.”
“Well, the rest of you would have to return to Bexford without me and continue the mission.” Henry said.
All eyes turned to him, all carrying unasked questions.
“Earlier today, Samantha was part of the conversation I had with Barrister Dominic.” Henry began to explain. “I discovered that something has happened few months back, someone changed the agreement I had with my lawyer ” he paused again and drew in a breath. His eyes were fixed thoughtfully to the ground. “There’s only one person who is permitted by the deal to sign in my absence and the person is supposed to be dead.”
There was another long silence and it seemed Henry was finding it difficult to speak with them about it.
Several thoughts were running through each one’s mind but none could ask him questions except the doctor.
“Your wife, Sarah?” The Doctor spoke in a very low and calm tone.
“No, Sarah never knew I had anything to do with Osmos Estate.” Henry answered the doctor and looked briefly at his face. He looked down again.
“The only one who knew about it was Rex,” he finally stated. “The new agreement was confirmed with his signature and I’m sure it wasn’t forged.”
To be continued….
tbc
