+++Sylvester dropped the landline receiver after speaking
with Agent Dakolo, he sat back into his seat, trying to
decide whether to attend to the Agent"s request first or to
follow after Henry. He chose the latter and got up from
his seat. He picked up his phone from the table and
proceeded out of the office.
Two minutes later, he was seated in the visitor"s seat
behind Henry"s table. Henry wasn"t paying much
attention to him but was focused on his work on the
laptop.
"Here"s what I wanted to show you" Henry quickly handed
a paper to Sylvester and turned back to his laptop. "How
was the interview? What position did she apply for?"
Henry asked.
"There was no interview" Sylvester answered without
taking a look at the paper he was handed. "She only came
to submit her credentials in person"
"I see" Henry said in a low voice, acting less interested.
"You thought I invited her over for an interview?"
"Yes, of course. You are the Boss here and you don"t need
my permission to interview anybody" Henry answered
with a slight chuckle.
"But we already agreed to work with those available and
not to take in anyone else for now. I wouldn"t go against
our agreement"
Henry paused and looked up, he fastened his eyes on
Sylvester"s face. "I didn"t suggest that in anyway" He said
and turned his face back to the laptop. "Oh! You thought
that was the reason I didn"t agree to see her?"
"What else could be the reason?"
"I wasn"t aware of the interview before, neither do I know
the position the interview is for so I didn"t think I had any
business to do with her" Henry answered, keeping a light
smile on his face.
Sylvester remained quiet for a while, staring at Henry"s
face. He had thought Henry was angry but Henry"s
demeanor and words have proved him wrong.
"So what do you …" Henry paused on seeing that Sylvester
had not checked the paper given to him. "Come on, read
what"s there"
Sylvester picked the paper and scanned briefly through
it. "When did you start working on this?"
"It wasn"t my work, Dayo did it" Henry replied. Dayo was
the new employee that was taken in the week before.
"It looks good but we have to find how crackable these
codes are" Sylvester commented.
"That"s why I was in your office then, I wanted to check
through your history log but I"ve been able to check it
from here"
"So, are they crackable?"
"Yes, it"s even made up of very easy combinations"
"Does that make it usable or not?"
"It"s not usable. It would be easily cracked by the
opposition"
Sylvester folded the paper and dropped it on the table.
"Agent Dakolo called some minutes ago, he"ll be here in
the afternoon to get a report on all that we"ve been doing
concerning the breach we"ve been experiencing"
"Okay, I"ve been expecting him to ask for it. I prepared a
report already and he doesn"t even need to come here,
we could mail it to him" Henry said.
"I think he"ll also like to get some explanations, that"s why
he wants to come physically" Sylvester put in.
"No problem, we"ll be ready for him"
"So what do we do now with Mr Dayo"s piece?" Sylvester
asked as he got up from the chair, ready to leave for his
office.
"We"ll just keep it and keep working, we need something
deeper" Henry tapped the enter key on her laptop
keyboard in a loud manner and then relaxed into his
seat, signifying that he was through with what he was
doing. He stared up at Sylvester"s face. "You know we are
trying to entrap this group, so we have to be wiser than
they are. We cannot afford to use simple keys and scripts
in tackling them, that"ll be making mockery of ourselves"
"Alright then" Sylvester shrugged and turned to leave.
~~~
**Kabakawa, Batagarawa Katsina, Katsina State. **
After lodging in an hotel for two days, the team finally
moved into the rented apartment for which they had
paid the rent fee for a year. The house wasn"t too
expensive but it was big enough to contain all of them. It
was already furnished to their taste before they moved
in.
They had chosen a flat with three bedrooms in the two
storey building house with a total of six flats. Theirs was
located by the left side on the middle floor. Tarasha had
carefully chosen an apartment for them in an open area
this time, it would reduce the rate of unnecessary
suspicions. But they also had to be extra careful and
watchful.
It was Monday morning and work had begun already.
Cole was seated behind a table, composing an email on
his laptop to inform the Ata"s foundation of their team"s
arrival into the country. Benny was in one of the rooms
where he and Cole had chosen for themselves, arranging
the new arms and ammunitions into the wardrobe. He
neatly arranged the various sizes of bullets and sealed
explosives in a section. He arranged the pistols in another
section and long guns in another. The last section was
used to store his clothes and Cole"s.
Aisha was also in her room, setting the place in the order
she wanted. She hissed on seeing the little bag of clothes
which she brought to the place. Although the bag was
actually the biggest bag amongst all bags of clothes the
team had brought, she still thought it to be small. Their
kind of job would not satisfy her desire to always take
her best clothes around town.
She hissed again as she saw herself in the mirror on
bending to arrange the makeup kits placed in front of the
mirror. What did she even need the clothes for now that
her hair was gone? She looked like a man, she thought.
She gave a brief mockery laugh at herself as she rubbed
her palms on the head. She then turned back to pick a
small case which contained more makeup kits. That
wasn"t for her but for the team, the team would
frequently need to change their appearances on this
operation. Another small bag was lying beside the case, it
contained camouflage materials like artificial beards,
masks, wigs and even skinlike gloves.
Benny walked into the living room after he was done with
arranging the tools, he met Cole already closing his
laptop.
"Have you finished typing the email?" He asked as he
moved to sit on the couch.
"Yes, we"ll see it when we come back from the boutique"
Cole answered, standing up with his closed laptop in his
hand.
"You want us to go now?" Benny seemed not too
comfortable with the idea.
"Yes, what else should we do now?"
"Why don"t you send the email now and let"s see their
reply, they may probably engage you in a chat" Benny
tried to convince Cole.
"I"ve sent the mail to the Boss first for vetting, until she
replies us we cannot forward it to the foundation" Cole
responded with a wry look on his face. "Dust your lazy s
and let"s go out to get the clothes now. I"ll go get Aisha."
With that Cole walked away, leaving Benny who remained
on the seat tiredly. For Benny, it was always fun to get
new clothes but this one was different, the clothes would
have to be disposed off at the end of the operation.
~~~
**Abuja**
2pm
"You went this far?" Dakolo stared Henry in the face as he
read the report provided to him. "Even the US CCTV
officials have not discovered up to this, nice job" he
commended cheerfully jamming his palms together.
"Thank you sir" Henry smiled.
"The only thing that looks similar in this their report is…"
Dakolo began but stopped abruptly. He bent to bring out
the report from the US CCTV from his small brief case
which was placed by the leg of the chair he was seated.
He placed the binded four pages report on Henry"s table.
Sylvester was the first to pick up the report and open it.
Dakolo opened back Henry"s report which was still in his
hands. He began to flip the pages until he got to the last.
"Here" he said, pointing a particular area on the page.
"This code looks similar to theirs"
Henry bent forward to look at where Dakolo was
pointing. Dakolo handed it over to him to have a better
view.
" BN 10354
" Encrypt XL
< —="" t.a.r–="" n.e.f="" —="">>
Run script = enter "
>>"
That was one of the most mysterious encryption code
Henry had ever come across. He had never seen the key
words anywhere else before and since he discovered the
script, he not been able to decrypt it.
Dakolo collected the report Sylvester was holding and
opened to the second page. "Here " he pointed another
area to for Henry to look at. The encryption script Henry
saw in the US report was similar to the one in his report.
"BN 20679
"Encrypt XL
< —="" s.e.r—="" n.e.f="" —="">>
Run script = enter "
>>"
"What??" Henry"s lips vibrated as he fixed his eyes on the
code, looking slightly baffled. He took his eyes off to
Dakolo face. "The a.s.sa.s.sin group is larger than we
thought, it"s a worldwide organization"
Dakolo licked his lips slowly and silently as he watched
Henry fix his eyes again to the report.
"Can I…" Sylvester who was anxious to see the correlation
stretched forth his hand impatiently to collect the
reports from Henry.
"So now that we know that we are dealing with a
worldwide a.s.sa.s.sin group, we have to up our game"
Dakolo finally spoke. "Your engineers have to be
informed about what they are dealing with. And I think
the corporation has to establish a strong connection with
the US corporation"
"Wow! I wasn"t aware that there have been breaches in
the CCTV operations in the US too" Henry spoke in low
tones, relaxing his back in the seat.
"There have been" Dakolo replied him, tapping a finger on
the table as he stared into the air and inhaled. "The breaks
always comes during the period of a.s.sa.s.sinations just like
ours"
"Hmm… Same strategies, same codes" Henry said
thoughtfully.
Dakolo stared at Henry"s face for a moment. "Henry E.G, I
need to ask you some questions" Dakolo stated after a
brief moment of silence.
Henry sat upright and adjusted himself to pay attention,
surprised at the Agent"s sudden change of tone. "What
questions sir?"
"You were kidnapped recently" Dakolo paused and stared
at Henry"s face, noticing a change. It was obvious to him
that Henry wasn"t comfortable with the new subject.
"Yes sir" Henry confirmed reluctantly.
"It happened after you got a job from the late Chief Jubril
Lawal?" Dakolo continued, making sure he maintained
eye contact with Henry. Henry noticed this and decided
to try as much as possible to hide his expressions, else
the Agent would extract every information from him
even if he tried to lie.
"Yes, I don"t know if the job was for Chief Jubril but it was
brought to us by one of his workers" Henry answered.
"Chief Jubril sent him" Sylvester quickly put in.
Dakolo took a glance at Sylvester and fixed his eyes back
to Henry"s face. "Let"s talk about your abduction first. It
lasted for less than a day. How did you escape?"
"I was told that they left us to go after they had a
disagreement amongst themselves" Henry replied.
"You were told?"
"Yes, I was knocked out. I only opened my eyes after
we"ve moved far away from there"
"You and your girlfriend?"
"No, but a very close lady friend"
"Well, I don"t need to go into details of how you were
abducted that day. I know that you have been questioned
about that already." Dakolo adjusted to a more
comfortable seating position and placed his chin on his
right fist. "You mentioned during your interrogation with
the police that your suspect was Dare, Chief Jubril"s son?"
"Yes" Henry confirmed with a nod.
"But you didn"t mention to me that you"ve seen him
recently" Dakolo frowned.
"Sir, we"ve not really been able to discuss personal
matters since you came into town"
"That"s true." Dakolo paused and turned to Sylvester who
was already clearing his throat to announce his desire to
leave since he felt he wasn"t concerned with the
questioning.
"Mr Sylvester" Dakolo called with a chuckle. "You have to
wait, I also have some questions for you too." Sylvester
nodded in reply and comported himself. Dakolo turned
back to Henry.
"Let"s push the personal matters aside for now" Dakolo
continued with Henry. "Did you ever think that the kidnap
could be related to the job brought by the late Chief"s
PA?"
"No" Henry replied sharply after narrowing his eyes
thoughtfully.
"You don"t think so?"
"Yes, I don"t" Henry shook his head in negative to
emphasize. He thought again briefly. Omotara was the
suspect behind the number he was investigating, so was
it really possible that she had planned their kidnap.
"So you insist that it could have only been Dare Lawal?"
Dakolo pressed. "Wait" he cut in before Henry could
speak. "What was the result of your investigation?"
Henry"s heartbeat increased thrice in speed. The question
he was scared of have been finally asked. Was he now
going to turn Omotara in? Knowing fully well that Agent
Dakolo would not stop until he fishes out who Alexander
Evelyn really was and probably even a.s.sociate her with
the Chief"s a.s.sa.s.sination which Henry believed Omotara
was innocent about.