Restless - S01 E99

Story 3 years ago

Restless - S01 E99

Read Story: SEASON 1 EPISODE 99

Ten minutes after

11:16AM

Henry had his earpiece plugged in his left ear and a mouthpiece attached to his collar. He was ready to step out of the car even as he impatiently waited for Cole’s report, they were already so close to the junction he was to be dropped.

It finally came. He saw the email notification on his android phone and clicked it open immediately. At the same time, a call from Cole came in. He answered it.

“Hey Cole, I’ve seen it.” he said into the attached mouthpiece as he opened the downloaded CSV document from the mail.

It opened and he quickly looked through the document. It showed a total of fifteen calls made from the main location to different other locations. He checked the details of the other locations and he saw none with an address close to the mall he was heading to.

He looked away and squinted for a minute, feeling baffled.

What in the world could be the Wolves man’s plan? He asked himself.

Without any close address to the location. He would still have to get to the mall directly.

He unlocked the andriod phone and read again through the opened CSV file, this time he read through for a longer time.

“Boss, we are approaching the junction already,” Dave said to Henry.

“Pull over,” Henry said sharply to him as he glanced up briefly. He returned his focus back to his phone. Dave obeyed immediately. Henry raised his head and turned back briefly to Jenny. “Check right now for the schedule at the Bexford train station today. Check when the next train is boarding and moving or when any training is returning.”

Dave had thought Henry asked him to pull over for him to conveniently step out of the car but was surprised to see Henry still so busy with the andriod phone.

Henry had minimized the CSV document and was searching for an information on the internet. He used almost two minutes before he could complete his search. Jenny finished the task he assigned to her at the same time and she began to give a report just before he asked her.

“Sir, the train journey from Bexford to Vincil which was supposed to start this morning was cancelled but there’s a train passing through Bexford today, it is supposed to stop briefly at the station to drop and pick more passengers and some goods. I don’t think there’ll be passengers to pick today but I guess it will still stop to pick the goods.”

“What time is it stopping?” Henry asked impatiently.

“It is meant to arrive the Bexford station around two thirty pm,” Jenny replied.

“D--n!” Henry cursed and clenched his fist. He double tap his phone to turn on the screen and checked the time. He turned to Dave. “Turn back and drive as fast as you can to the University Of Bexford.”

____

The FOX Corporation Building,

EPA Hill.

“Hurry up, hurry up guys!” Paul Edwards shouted out orders, jamming his palms together as they moved to emphasize his point.

Fully kitted FOX agents were rushing out of the main building after going into the mini arsenal to get weapons and protection kits. Some of the FOX agents including the Bomb Disposal Squad were already on their way to the place, another group of agents were following to ensure that no escape is made by the terrorist.

Paul was also well kitted and hoped to visit the scene after the preliminary work was done there. He took in a deep breath and covered his mouth with both palms, breathing out hot air again into his palms.

He had watched the video sent from an anonymous sender to the FOX email alongside with five other FOX executives and had immediately sprung up to give orders. He didn’t believe Carl Winston was alive but there was no way they could confirmed the veracity of the information given to them by the women in the video except by visiting the place. Whether it was Carl or not, they had to stop any planned explosion.

He also knew the video could be a trap set to lure force men and so immediately after watching, he gave commands for well trained and intelligent agents to head first to the place.

“Sir, the woman is still yet unknown,” someone said to him from behind.

He turned to find Steve standing behind him.

“And what have you found from monitoring Daysman’s calls?”

“Nothing yet, he’s only made calls about the car.” Steve replied.

“And don’t you think he’s supposed to be interrogated?” Paul asked in sharp tone, heading for the exit door. Steve followed him. “He could give some information concerning today.”

“No sir, I think it’s too early. We have nothing concrete against him yet, questioning him now will only make him become more careful and hide his steps.”

“You’re right,” Paul agreed with him.

They both walked into another office, the large open one where the agents were monitoring the live stream from the CCTV.

“Any person found yet in that location?” Paul asked aloud as he got into the place.

“No sir,” one of the agent’s monitoring the CCTV answered him.

Evelyn walked into the office from the other entrance. Steve and Paul’s eyes moved towards her.

“Sir, the CCTV server was hacked from outside Bexford. The location is still unknown yet,” Evelyn reported.

Paul stared at her for some few seconds before he looked away. He began to walk towards the man who answered his first question when he got to the room.

“I’m beginning to think the lady in the video could have some elements of truth, it’s just so crazy to say Carl Winston is alive and that he is a terrorist.” he stopped and laughed, shaking his head in disbelief as he thought about the video again.

He stood behind the seated man to look at the computer for a while. He then turned briefly to Evelyn again. “The CCTV server went off twice,” he said and then glanced briefly at Steve. “Don’t you think something was done at that time?”

He turned back to the system and squinted. He could see what was happening around the Bexford City Mall on the live stream. The FOX men had already arrived and had their vehicles parked outside. About ten of the FOX agents with three bomb disposal squad men were walking in through the gate.

“Sir, I think the CCTV might have been hacked for a bomb installation process,” Steve suggested aloud.

“I think so too,” Paul glanced back. “We must find where the hacker is and we must find that woman in the video. They are the real terrorist, not Carl Winston who is resting in peace already.”

“Hmm,” Steve drew in a breath.

Paul turned back and walked towards the centre of the office again.

“Listen up men,” he called the attention of all the agents working in the office. “Let’s keep an eye on the next time the CCTV server goes off, I’m sure it would still happen soon. We need to nab the hacker behind it real quick.”

He proceeded towards the exit door, beckoning on Steve to follow him.

“I need you to find that woman who made the video, find who she is and where she is in fifteen minutes.”

___

El Deols, Anthanna

11:25AM

Sheila was dozing off in her bed again when her other phone rang. She rolled to the other side of the bed and picked the phone from the top of the footstool where it was placed. Her Dad was the caller.

“Dad,” she said in a fatigued voice.

“Baby, how are you doing?”

“I’m fine Dad,” she answered dryly.

“You don’t sound fine, can I know what the matter is?”

“I’m fine Dad, I assure you there’s nothing wrong with me. I’m only feeling bored and tired of staying at home,” she sniffed in after saying.

“But you can’t go out for now, it isn’t safe for you.”

“I know Dad, I’m just tired.”

“Be aa little more patient dear, the police and the Anthanian FOX are still on with their investigation.”

“I’ll try Dad,” Sheila sighed.

“So, cheer up baby.”

“Thanks Dad.”

“Uhm… What about your friend?”

“Victoria?”

“No, the guy I met with you yesterday.”

“He’s fine,” she answered wryly. “We’ve not spoken since yesterday.”

“Oh! Why?”

“Well, nothing really.”

“He hasn’t called you? And don’t you think you should call him?”

“Ermm…” She hesitated for a while. “I missed his calls but I’ll return a call soon.”

“That guy likes you Sheila, don’t shut him out.”

She sighed. “Oh yes, Dad. Thank you.”

“Take care dear, I’ll see you after I talk to the police overseer today.”

“Thanks, you too, take care.”

She let out a deep breath after the call ended. Thoughts of Henry returned to her mind immediately and she remembered what her Dad had said to her about him. She also remembered the love note she found. She imagined again what it would have been like for Henry when he saw she and Adrian kissing on the sofa. She imagined how he would concluded in his mind that all she felt for him was a lie and that she was someone who could easily jump from one man to another.

For some reason, she found fingers typing his mobile number which she knew offhand into the dial pad. Her thumb hovered around the green button for a while. Several thoughts were running through her mind and she couldn’t even think of what to say to him if he eventually answered the call. She finally exited the dial pad and dropped the phone.

____

Bexford, Bethanna

11:31AM

The confident look which had been on Hutton’s face since that morning began disappeared as he checked the time. It was a minute past the deadline he gave to Carl Winston to show up and there were no signs of Carl Winston.

He was following the live Stream from the CCTV and all he could see were the FOX officials arriving the place in response to the video he had sent them. Carl Winston did not show up as expected.

He bit his lower lip in anger as he reached for the phone on the table. He dialed the number he had been using to reach Carl Winston. The call connected and began to ring. After almost one minute, the call stopped without being answered. He dialed for the second time and the process repeated itself.

He leaned back in his swivel comfortable and rolled to the left and back to the right again, making a complete one-eighty degrees movement. He then rested his head and stared blankly at the ceiling and began to think.

He knew Carl Winston was up to something. The Carl he knew would have appeared at the city mall to save the life of just one person, but now that the threat was three hundred people, Carl had not shown up. It made Hutton feel some discomfort. For Carl not to have shown up and also not answer the call. It was obvious Carl was trying to play some tricks.

He dialed the number again and he placed it close to his ears. This time around was more surprising for him, the phone was switched off.

For someone reason, he laughed so loud and playfully turned himself round in the swivel and stopped, facing the table. He moved closer to the table and picked another phone, he dialed a number from the call register.

“Hey dude! Where are you?” He asked the call receiver.

“I’m around the hostel, I’m waiting for your instructions,” a female voice answered from the other end.

“You can leave that vicinity now, we would let the bomb go off.” Hutton instructed.

“Huh?” the lady expressed surprise. “I thought you were going to ask me to turn it off.”

“Plans changed girl, someone went against agreement.”

“Okay boss,” the lady replied.

Hutton ended the call and stared at the laptop screen in front of him again. He watched as the FOX men stormed the street in expected large numbers. It would have been exactly as he planned but Carl Winston was suddenly nowhere to be found.

He chuckled to himself again and minimized the CCTV live stream. He switched to the window showing Samantha to him. He could see her still sitting on the chair with her arms resting on the table and her forehead resting on her arms.

He shook his head in pity for Samantha, he had thought Samantha would escape death. He really had other reason for letting the bomb in the school hostel explode, the only reason he had was to teach Carl a lesson. Carl Winston had ignored his warning and instructions, he seemed to be unconcerned about her or probably thought he (Hutton) was joking around. Making Samantha die in the explosion would sound a great warning to Carl and he would make sure Carl received videos of Samantha’s last moments before her death.

Wilson who was still with him still provided him a weapon to use against Carl, and he was going to make sure he used Wilson to cause more harm or finally kill Carl.

A thought popped up in his mind and he considered the possibility of Carl Winston coming to his current location. He had left his location unhidden for Carl to find him but he believed Carl should be more concerned about stopping the explosions and saving people’s life than finding him. Now, he actually realized that Carl could be tracing him with the unhidden location. If it were true, he had no worries about it. He was not afraid to face Carl Winston even though he didn’t think it was time. However, if Carl and his team was truly heading to his place, they would have the huge task of beating the mighty set of security guards around where he was.

__

11:36AM

The lack of vehicles on the road made it easy for Dave to drive the car on top speed with the car and they had less than ten minutes to get to the University of Bexford.

Carl had began to explain his moves to them. He explained why they had changed direction to the University of Bexford.

Carl had checked all eleven locations from the fifteen calls details sent to him by Cole. Four lines from the Wolves man’s location had made calls fifteen different times within a space of one hour. One of the numbers that had been called more than once from the location was the one with Henry and it showed the exact times and duration Henry had spoken with the Wolves’ man including the one he had done some minutes past before he received the mail from Cole. The line used to speak with Henry had not been used to make any other call. A particular line had made eight calls out of the remaining twelve and two calls had been to the university of Bexford, two had been to the railway station, two had been to the FOX and two had been to a building beside a camp of professionals who had been in hotels around the location for two days and were still presently there for a training.

These three locations the number made calls to were the only locations out of all where a crowd of people were going to be gathered at a point. He checked for the activities of the professional campers online and saw that the time for gathering of the professionals for morning training was past and not until five o’clock before another training began. At five o’clock, they would leave their different hotels and converge at the camping hall.

Jenny had also checked the rail station schedules and had seen that the time the train filled with people would pass would be two thirty. The only place where people could be gathered at twelve noon which was the stated time of the first explosion was the University Of Bexford.

A beep sounded on Henry’s phone and he quickly unlocked it to check the message. At the same time, Cole called on the other line.

“Hey Cole,” he answered.

“New calls have been made, I forwarded the details.”

“Seen it, thanks.”

Henry ended the call and quickly downloaded the new CSV file. It showed only four call details. Three werel from the number which had been talking to him. The details showed that the first two calls connected but weren’t answered and the third did not connect. Henry knew that was the call made to him, it had rang on two occasions which he didn’t answer. He turned the phone off after that which was the third time which it didn’t connect.

There was a fourth call. It was from another line but from the Wolves man location and the destination of the call was the University of Bexford. The call connected and was answered. The call records further proved that part of the University of Bexford was the location planned to be bombed by twelve noon.

Henry let out a breath as he looked up and saw the gate of the University of Bexford from afar. He checked his time, it was eighteen minutes to twelve. He copied the numerical details of the location in the University and opened the compass application on his phone. He inputed the details to the request box for the compass to lead them to the exact position where the call was being made to. Luckily, the position was not far, it was just behind the fence.

He raised his head as they got to the gate and displayed his FOX badge to the security guards at the gate. They were allowed to pass and they drove straight to the position. Henry jumped out of the car immediately and looked up, he saw the sign board at the gate of the place, announcing that it was a female hostel – a very large two storey building which contained sixty rooms in total. It was at the center among the queue of eight similar buildings with similar fences around them.

“Boss, it’s only fifteen minutes to twelve,” Dave warned on seeing Henry proceeding towards the gate.

Henry turned back to him briefly. “I’m going in to find Samantha, get back into the car and move far away!”

____

FOX Corporation Building,

Paul Edwards was sitting in his office, busy with his computer. He had three phones placed in front of him and a landline somewhere on his table and he was expecting calls on all of them.

The phone at the centre of the three rang first and he quickly picked it. He answered and placed close to his ear.

“Hey Steve, fifteen minutes has elapsed already.” he said in a gruff voice.

“Sir, I called to give you a report.”

“I’m listening to you.”

“The lady doesn’t seem to be in our criminal records,” Steve stated. “I tried to match her voice with samples we have from the police and ours, but there’s no perfect match. Going through the citizens directory, there are matches with some of her facial features and assumed height but I’ve got up to hundred matches, I can’t pick out who she is easily.”

Paul sighed. He needed not to force Steve to do anything quick as he knew for himself how long it would take. Another phone began to ring.

“Take your time, but be fast about it as much as you can.”

He ended the call and picked the second phone. He checked the caller, it was from one of the senior agents who went to the mall beside the Henders Hotel.

“Hey! What’s the update?” He answered the call.

“Sir, we finally found a device but the trigger was inserted into the wall and connected to several wires around the facility. It’ll go off if we try to pull it out.”

“What?” Paul got up to his feet. “So, what are you planning to do?”

“We are tracing the wires to the source, we will disconnect from the source first and we can turn it off.”

“Be fast about it, the lady mentioned twelve noon.”

“We’d get it done as fast as possible sir.”

____

University Of Bexford.

Henry hurried into the compound through the opened gate. He pushed away a female security staff who tried to stop him and proceeded towards the building, looking into his android phone.

“There’s a bomb in this building and I have to stop it in five minutes,” he shouted to the security staffs who stubbornly followed him.

“Hey guys! We are from the FOX and we are here to defuse a bomb,” Dave came to Henry’s rescue, diverting the female security staffs attention to him. He had also stepped into the compound and was standing by the gate, holding up his FOX badge for them to see. They seemed to pay attention to him and turn away from Henry. “The bomb goes off in five minutes and he has to find it and stop the device.”

Henry stopped at the volleyball court and turned back on realizing that Dave had not followed his instruction. The court was empty but it was obvious that a game had been played there that morning.

“Dave, get back into the car and move as far as possible with Jennifer!” He shouted another warning to Dave.

Dave seemed to hesitate for a while but finally stepped out of the gate. The security staffs also began to step out one after the other, without bothering to warn the students whose lives they were supposed to secure.

Henry zoomed in the compass to see the direction clearly. It led him to the left side of the building. He stared at the building, he couldn’t tell exactly what part of the left side it was. There were ten rooms on each floor at the left side, he didn’t know which one it could be and couldn’t even tell if the bomb was placed in any of the main rooms or in the roof, the toilets or even at the back of the building. He checked his time, he had ten minutes to go. He knew that if he was to start searching all the rooms for the bomb, it would never be possible to locate in ten minutes. He realized that he had to narrow down his search to make it possible.

Some of the students who were outside the room had already seen him and were staring weirdly at him. Firstly, he was a man and the security staffs never allowed men come into their hostels except at visiting times and then he also had the FOX uniform and mask on.

“Hey!” he called the attention of one of the students staring at him as he walked to the entrance of the ground floor. “Are there any rooms not occupied by students in this part of the hostel?”

“Yeah,” the girl answered him with squinted eyes. “There are about three on the first floor and five unoccupied rooms on the second floor.”

“Thank you,” Henry said and without any further explanation zoomed up the staircase. He believed that if Samantha was really used to set up the bomb in any of the rooms, it would have to b an empty room as she and the presence of the bomb would go easily unnoticed.

____

FOX Corporation Building

It was almost twelve and Paul had not heard from any of the agents at the mall again. He had dialed the number of the one who earlier called to give him a report but it wasn’t answered. He dialed another person’s number.

“Hey! What’s happening?”

“Sir, we haven’t found the source, it’s far at the top floor of the complex and the lifts aren’t working today.”

“What the hell!” Paul eyes widened in shock as he jumped up to his feet. “It’s eight minutes to twelve already.”

“Yes sir, we’ve just sent men to evacuate people from the Henders Hotel as fast as possible and we’ve told more of our men to wirhdraw in case it is unsuccessful.”

“Oh sh*t!” Paul cursed as he fell back into his seat.

He took the phone slowly off his ear and placed it on the table. If the bomb was to go off by twelve noon like was stated, he was going to lose a lot of FOX officials and there would also be deaths of people in the hotel and around the area.”

___

Female Hostel,

University Of Bexford,

Henry got to the first floor and walked past the first four rooms, he could see signs that they were occupied by people. The fifth had no visible signs of being occupied but he opened the door to find two ladies sleeping in the room. He closed it and proceeded further immediately. He walked past to the eight room and opened, he peeped in, staring at the floor especially and stepped back outside. He proceeded to the next and did the same. He opened the tenth door but closed the door immediately as he was welcomed by the scream of a naked lady who was posing before the mirror and checking herself.

He proceeded back to the sixth and seventh room which he skipped, he opened the sixth and found it unoccupied. He stared at the ground and noticed no signs of recent footsteps, he closed the door and raced towards the stairs as fast as a hare.

He checked his time as he ran up the stairs and it changed from 11:57 to 11:58 at the same moment. He got to the second floor and stared from the landing of the stairs which was the centre of the floor. It didn’t take him much effort before he saw the explosive device, it wasn’t hidden.

He saw the briefcase placed at the door ninth room to the wall. Some ladies stepped out of the rooms and stared at him as he hurried to the place. Some of the ladies from the first floor had also followed him up, inquisitive to know what he was looking for.

Henry knelt quickly in front of the brief case. He saw the wires running from both sides of the door into it.

“Who dropped this here?” he asked aloud, to no one in particular, but expected an answer from any of the girls who were surrounding him. He got no answer, they seemed not to know who dropped it there.

He opened the brief case carefully and stared at the device set up. He could see the several tiny wires running through and connecting to the three main cables plugged to three ports on a panel.

Some of the girls screamed and they began to ran helter skelter immediately. Most of them had never seen something like that but they had an idea that it could be an explosive device or something equally dangerous.

The cables in the device were all of the same colour and that made it difficult for Henry to know which one he was to unplug. Unplugging the wrong one would making the bomb go off immediately.

The long hand of the clock moved. It was 11:59AM