Restless - Season 1 - Episode 13

Episode 4 years ago

Restless - Season 1 - Episode 13

Tom’s Apartment

El Deols, Anthanna
Tom hurried into his bedroom to get his ringing
phone. He had dropped it there when he went
to get a bottle of wine from the bar. The table
was dirty with traces of weed and some
powdery substances. He smoked and drank
everyday since Sheila had left him. Since he was
exposed already, he thought there was no need
suppressing his lifestyle anymore.

He picked up the phone and checked the screen.
His friend Stan was calling.

“Hey Stan! What’s up?” He said after answering
the call.

“Hey dude! Phil has landed himself in trouble.”
“What has he done again?” Tom asked.
“He arranged some men to dress up as cops to
get that Sheila’s bodyguard yesterday,” Stan
replied.

“What are you talking about?”
“Remember you told us when we met at the club
that Sheila was going to return from South
Husan with the dude yesterday?”

“Yeah, I did.” Tom replied and picked a wrap of
weed.

“And you remember Phil told us he would pull
up a surprise.”

“Oh! I remember.”
“So he planned to kidnap Henry yesterday by
sending men who dressed as police officers.
They got him and were on their way to the
destination he gave them. I guess the idiot
attacked them on the way and real police
officers caught up with them.”

“Now, that’s messy. Where’s Phil now?”
“He has been taken by the police, they took him
last night.”

“Really messy, he should have told us before
going ahead to do that.” Tom said. He sat on the
chair in front of the table as he placed the wrap
of weed in his mouth.

“So what do we do?” Stan asked.
There was silence from Tom’s end.
“Hey Tom, you’re there?” Stan asked. “Tom,
Tom?”

“Shut up idiot! I was lighting up my wrap of
weed,” Tom slammed.

“D--n you fool! Must you smoke before you
can think?” Stan slammed back. They were used
to hurling insults at themselves and most of the
time did so when they joked but at times when
there was also a messy issue to be solved like
this.

“Is Sheila pressing charges against him?” Tom
finally asked after another additional forty
seconds.

“How would I know? I haven’t been there.”
“Why haven’t you gone there yet?”
“Bleep you Tom! You want me to go there and
get myself involved in the mess?”
Tom took in another drag of the smoke before
answering. “You didn’t plan it with him, did
you?”

“Of course, I did not.”
“Why are you scared then?”
“What if he mentions my name? Or I meet
Sheila there and she gets to point at me.”
“You’re a bleeping sissy Stan.”
“You’re worse Tom!”
“Stop talking like a fool…”
“Shut up Tom! Can we talk about our next step
now and stop beating about the bush.”
Tom was quiet for some seconds again. Stan did
not rush him this time, he assumed he was busy
with his weed.

“We can’t do anything about Phil for now, we
have wait till tomorrow to get now information
about his arrest.”

“Are we still going ahead with our plan?”
“Yes, there’s no going back.” Tom replied
sharply and in a confident tone. “We must deal
with that scumbag before the court session.”
“Are you sure we need to go ahead with this
Tom? That guy seems to be more dangerous
than we see him,” Stan voiced his fears.
“You bleeping sissy! You’re scared already? I got
my plans well perfected and there’s no turning
back.”

“We’re not planning to kill him, are we?”
“No, I don’t hope to be a murderer, we just
need to teach him a lesson, one that he will
never forget.”

“Have you made plans to ensure he doesn’t
reach the police that day?”
“Yeah, like I said, I got everything perfected
already.” Tom repeated.

“What if he tries to reach the police and open
up a case afterwards.”

“I’ll take care of that by making sure he has no
case at all. The police would deny they were
ever involved.”

“Tom, how do you intend to do this?”
“You ask so many silly questions Stan. He’s
gonna try reach them from the onset and when
the call goes through, it will be answered by
police officers who I’m going to pay heavily. The
police officers would encourage him and lure
him into our trap.”
“I really do hope this works out well Tom, I
hope it does.”
“It would Stan, it surely would.”
___

The Next Morning
“Henry, I do think it’s time we look into making
you complete your training and make your
movement as quick as possible.” Sheila said to
Henry. “Or make it possible for you to continue
with the training in any country of your choice.”
Both were sitting at the backseat of the car as
usual, after a visit to the police office to make a
more detailed report of the incident that took
place the day before.

“I need to understand you better please” He
said, squinting at her face.
“I mean you need to finish up your training
quickly, so that we can finalize plans for you to
leave the country.”

“Why do you say so?”
“You’re getting into so much troubles for me
already, it is better you leave so you can be out
of these troubles.” Sheila replied. “I believe
you’d do better than you’re away from here.”

“I don’t plan to leave you to face these troubles
all by yourself, we have to finish it together
before I think of leaving.”

Sheila stared at his face intently for a moment,
she had a questioning look on her face but was
yet to give a voice to the questions in her heart.
“Yeah Sheila,” Henry continued. “That will start
with watching how Tom’s case goes first.”
“Tom?” Her face softened as she looked away.
“I really do hope he gets a soft landing.”
“No, I hope he gets it tough!”
Sheila flashed a quick look at his face. “You’re
talking about someone I was in love with.”
“Yes, you were in love with him but he proved
to be undeserving of your love.”
Sheila sighed.

“Listen Sheila, Tom and his friends are
dangerous. If I did not detect that those men
were fake officers, they probably would have
done something crazy to both of us.”
Sheila stared at him in silence for a while before
speaking in very low tones. “That’s why you
have to leave as soon as you can Henry, you
shouldn’t be getting into all these troubles
because of me.”

“That’s why I can’t leave yet Sheila, I can’t leave
you to face these dangerous Tom and his
troubles alone by yourself.” He retorted. “I
have to see that Tom is punished adequately
and his friends are also punished.”

Sheila sighed. She stared at his face for a while
and then moved closer to him. She wrapped her
hands round his body and placed her head on
his shoulder.

Henry held his breath for a moment. She had
not been as close as that for some days and that
strange feeling of always wanting her in his
arms suddenly returned.
“Sheila,” he called after two minutes of total
silence.
“Yes,” she answered.
“I couldn’t sleep last night.”
She raised her head to look at his face. “Why?”
“I kept having strange dreams when my eyes
are closed and visions while I’m awake but I’m
never able to recall them everytime I try to do
consciously.”
She stared at his face for a while with a worried
look. It was obvious she was concerned for
him.
“I can only recall seeing myself in a uniform of
some kind, it looks military.”

“I think you are gradually recalling your past.”
Henry hated to admit that truth. He was scared.
The flashbacks in his memory in the last twelve
hours had been so tiring and even scary.
He had never thought he could be scared to
recall his past. What troubled him was the
possibility that he was a bad person in his past,
he was terrified to go back to being that bad
person which remembering his past would
make him be.

___

Denril Communication Centre, South Husan .


“Good morning Madam,” Eddy greeted, taking
off his dark sunshades as he moved close to the
secretary.

“Good morning sir, how may I help you?” The
secretary answered, only taking a brief glance at
him.

“I’m Edward from Affid group of companies, I’m
here to see the manager in respect to the World
Developers Conference hosted by the firm few
days ago.”

The secretary looked up at his face sharply after
he finished speaking, her fingers left the
keyboard of the computer she was working on
and she rested her back.

“From Affid Group Of Companies in Bethanna?”
She questioned. The man nodded in reply. She
frowned after his confirmation. “You called
yesterday and we told you to wait until we fix a
time with the manager. We’re yet to do that and
I’m sorry you can’t meet with him now, your
meeting has to be prescheduled.”

“Why don’t you tell him I’m here first before
dismissing me?” The man asked.
“I arrange his schedule for the day and he’d be
mad at him if I’m trying to fix something in
now.” She replied.

“Why don’t you try? You may be surprised to
know he’s expecting me.”

The man sounded so confident and his
audacious look tempted the secretary to pick up
the phone. Her gaze lingered on his face for a
while before she dialed and put it close to her
ear.

“Sir, one Mr Edward from the Affid Group Of
Companies in Bethanna is here to see you.” She
said into the phone, her heart pounding as she
feared to be scolded by her boss.
“Please send him in, I’ve been expecting him.”

She was surprised to hear the reply and she
quickly looked at Eddy’s face, he was smiling
down mischievously at her.
“Right away Sir,” she replied in low tones and
ended the call.
*
“Good morning sir,” Eddy greeted as he walked
into the office.

The man on the seat got up to receive his guest,
he stretched out his hand for a handshake
“Welcome Mr Edward, I wasn’t expecting you
this soon,” the man replied as they shook each
other’s hands firmly. “Please have your seat,”
he said and watched as the man took his seat
before sitting. “So, would you like to take some
coffee?”

“No thanks, I’d rather want us to go straight to
business.” Eddy replied.
“Your wish sir, let’s get started.”
“Like I said in the mail and on voice call, I saw
videos and pictures of the World Developers
Conference hosted by this establishment few
days ago. It’s a pity I only saw it after the event,
we from Affid Group of Companies would have
loved to participate.”

“I truly do wonder how you missed the
advertisements, it was publicized on several
Network TVs of different countries in the world.
I’m sure the publication was done well in
Bethanna which is a neighboring country to us,”
the manager replied.

“Yeah, I’m sure it was. It’s sad that we missed
it,” Eddy replied. He changed his position and
rested his elbow on the left armrest. “Well, no
regrets, we’ve been able to purchase some of
the videos from the conference and I’ve listened
to a bulk of them already, the revelations are
quite amazing and the level at which
programming is taking over the world and it’s
systems is astonishing.”

“I agree with you,” the manager cleared his
throat. “The exact reason the world developers
conference held was to foster growth of
Programming and Developing firms and
products.”

“You’re right,” Eddy said and leaned forward. “I
already stated in my mail that we need your
partnership in organizing a similar conference in
Bethanna. We are building a programming
school for the world in Bethanna and before it
is launched, we will need to sensitize the public
on issues surrounding the program.”
“Yes, I read that in the mail and I asked to see
the documents.”

“Here,” Eddy pulled out a file from his bag and
placed it on the table. He opened to the middle
and stared intently for a moment before passing
the file to the manager.

The manager went through the documents for
about eight minutes before he spoke again.
“This looks great, however our legal team
would still have to look into it.” he said and
closed the file. “Can we get a copy?”
“Yes, that’s your copy.” Eddy replied.

The manager picked his phone and made a call
asking his secretary to come into his office. She
came in one minute later, he handed her the file
and asked her to send it to one of their offices
for the team to go through.

“I’ll also like to find out how you gathered the
audience for the conference sir,” Eddy
continued after the manager was done with the
secretary. “We would like this to guide us in
choosing ours too.”

“We sent out invites to others and some others
applied and were approved after we went
through their necessary details.” the manager
replied.

“Was the offer thrown to the public?”
“No, it was only published publicly, we didn’t
invite the public. Throwing the invitation to the
public would have given us too much crowd to
deal with, we also would have had to go
through several applications to select. We drew
up a list of companies to invite, after which we
stated in the advertisement that the offer was
only opened to programming and developing
firms. So we only had a maximum of five
delegates from each programming firm from all
over the world.”

“And did you keep records of all attendees?”
“Yes, we did. We formed a team and made them
in charge of crowd and access control, they
worked with the event centre team and
controlled access on the day of the event.”
“Is there a way we can make use of your
database to send our invitations too?”
“Ermm… You mean using our records to make
your invitations?”
“Exactly.”
“That’s kind of huge,” the man squinted. “Is it
really necessary?”
“It would make us focus on a better audience.”
“It would be quite difficult, we are responsible
for the personal data collected from our
attendees, it won’t be right to let them out.”
“I’m aware sir, and that’s why we are seeking
your partnership. If you agree to partner with
us, it becomes our event and it would not be an
issue to make use of the database. There would
be no issue of mistrust of your company by the
attendees.”
“You’re right, but if that’s the case we need to
discuss further. I thought what you needed was
just our support for your event.”
“No sir, that’s why we clearly stated it as
Request for Partnership. I’m here and ready to
discuss your terms.”
“No, I think you should tell us what you want to
offer us first. If we grant you this partnership
you long for, what do we stand to gain? What
are you offering us?”
Eddy looked down to bing out another file, he
placed it on the table and turned it to the man.
The manager stared at his face for a moment
before he opened the file.
_
Some days later
El Deols, Anthanna
09:45AM
“You may come in Henry,” Sheila answered in
response to the doorbell.
Henry opened the door gently and stepped in.
He closed it and walked straight to Sheila’s
table.
Her eyes were on him as he advanced and she
wondered why he was there at that time of the
day. He rarely came into her office during work
hours, he had only been there once, on the first
day he resumed his job as her bodyguard, and
even though their office was only separated by
her secretary’s, they mostly never saw each
other at work until closing hours except on days
they went out for lunch together.
“Sheila, I just got a message that Miss Tayo has
been kidnapped.” He said to her.
“Kidnapped?” She squinted at him. “Isn’t she
supposed to be in your office with you?”
“Yes but she did not come, I started calling her
number since ten o’clock and it wasn’t
answered until five minutes ago.”


“Who answered it?”
“He said his name was Lion and that he had Miss
Tayo with him and he wanted to strike a deal
with you.”

“With me?” Sheila asked, surprised.
“Yes, I was surprised too.”
Sheila fell back in the chair to consider the
situation, she leaned back forward after a
minute. “Can you call them m them back?”
Miss Tayo was instructor. A Nigerian she was,
she had migrated with her family to Anthanna
and lived there from a young age. She worked
in a freelance organization from where Sheila
employed her services.
Henry held the phone up to dial back the
number but he stopped as some messages
entered the phone. He was frozen on a spot for
a while.
“What’s happening? Why don’t you call back?”
She asked.


He moved closer and stretched forth the phone
to her. She stared at his face for a moment
before collecting the phone.
A picture had been sent from the kidnappers
and it showed Miss Tayo tied to a chair,
blindfolded and with her mouth gagged. Her
clothes had been ripped off and she looked
disorganized already, even though it didn’t look
like she had been beaten or battered.
“Please dial the number,” she said, handing back
the phone to Henry.
Henry dialed the number and listened until it
was answered. “Hey, I’m with Miss Sheila now.”
he said before giving her the phone.
“Hello…” Sheila’s voice sounded low.
“Miss Sheila, I believe he must have explained
everything to you. We are nice kidnappers and
we do not kidnap to kill, we only need some
little amount of money from you.”
“What do you need?” Sheila asked. She had
more suspicion in her mind and was wondering
why the kidnappers were demanding the money
from her and not Miss Tayo’s family members.
“Ten thousand US dollars, no negotiations.”
“Ten thousand US Dollars?” She questioned. The
money seemed so small to her, she had expected
they would demand a lot more.


“Yes.”
“Can I call you back please.”
“Sure, you can. Make sure you don’t involve the
police,” the man warned.

“Okay,” she replied before ending the call.
“They want ten thousand dollars,” she said to
Henry.

“We’ve got to inform the police,” Henry put in
as he sat in the visitor’s chair.

“Yes, we have to. You should get that started
while I ask for the details of their location.”
“Okay, ” Henry got up and proceeded out of the
office. He needed to make use of another phone
to inform the police.

“Where can we meet you? Do we come with
cash?” Sheila said into the phone, returning the
call after Henry had walked out of her office.
“I would give you the transfer information
when you get here. I’m at Andrews Warehouse
beside the bridge.”

“Oh!” She exclaimed. The location was not
somewhere far from the office. “We’d meet you
there in twenty minutes.”
“You have thirty minutes to get here, you are
allowed to come with one person who isn’t a
police officer. If you come any minute late or
appear with the police, we would drop Miss
Tayo on the bridge unconscious after making
sure she’s stark naked, i hope you know she
would not like the embarrassment.”
‘We’d be there on time.” Sheila replied before
ending the call.
She dropped the phone on the table. She wasn’t
in a hurry to get up. She tapped on her
computer in front of her and opened an
application.
Twenty Two Minutes Later.
Sheila and Henry got to the warehouse alone,
after informing the police and being sure that
officers had surrounded the place and were
watching closely.
The door to the warehouse opened as they
approached it, they stopped at the entrance and
looked in, not wanting to get in until they
confirmed what or who waited for them in
there. They only saw one man. He was sitting
on.a chair adjacent to the chair of the
kidnapped lady who was half naked and tied.
Henry looked sideway, his eyes met with the
police officer that had followed them there and
was hiding in a corner, he saw the man nodding
for them to proceed into the warehouse.
“Lets go in,” he said in a soft tone to Sheila.
The door of the warehouse closed as soon as
they stepped in. They advanced towards the
man who was now looking at them. They had
gotten to the centre of the hall when the man
spoke.
“I warned you not to inform the police.”
They stopped walking immediately his voice
sounded. Sheila felt some fear. She wondered
how the man had known they informed the
police after the police had assured them that the
kidnappers would never know of their
presence.
Henry was less afraid. His fingers reached for
the button attached to his belt which the police
officers gave them to press when they needed
quick intervention.


A loud alarm sound echoed through the hall as
Henry’s finger touched the button. Henry
touched it again and he realized that it was the
response to his touch. He was confused for a
while, wondering how the button could spark a
response from the hall.
“Stop alarming the police, they can’t help you
here.” the man said with an evil smile, now
proceeding towards them. “We only want to
teach you some lesson while Sheila would sit
and enjoy yhe show.”
Sheila heaved a sigh of frustration. Henry was
getting into trouble again, just few days after
they got out from one. What made it bad was
that the enemies had the police with them this
time. She thought that was bad enough until
they began to hear sounds from different
corners of the large hall and saw different men
coming out of the corners. They looked angry
and fierce, most of them heavily built.
Sheila quivered in fear at their number. The
men were numbering up to thirty and most of
them had weapons in their hands. She began to
feel her knees buckling and her bladder was
suddenly full.
A scene flashed quickly through Henry’s mind.
It was blurry. He saw some angry looking men
in the vision, holding metal rods and lashing
someone on the ground desperately. The man
on the ground was him.