RESTLESS
Restless -Episode 3 (THE FOX CORPORATION
Story By
Oyin Oluwatosin Emmanuel
04: 08: 2015
The Fox Corporation Headquarters, Epa Hill, Bexford, Bethanna.
The Gigantic building of the Fox headquarters, seated on the Epa Hill at the center of Bexford the capital of the country named Bethanna was one of the best architectural and structural facilities in the world. The front view had an hexagonal shape and had the sculpture of a fox close to the roof at the centre of the building where the main entrance was. It was also the most secured building in the world, with no bullet having the ability to pass through the walls no matter it’s intensity.
The FOX corporation was a Bethanna government owned security agency, known for carrying out it’s activities in the pattern of the Fox animal, using both mental and physical strength to solve security problems and nab dangerous criminals and criminal organizations. The FOX agents after undergoing screening for recruitments were always trained on a basic level to use both mental powers which included the ability to formulate mental strategies, the use of technology, the mastery of mind games and several others and then to use physical powers under which were categorized mastery in the arts of weapons, hand combats and fist fights, speed and agility and so many others. All agents of the FOX had a basic training in all aspects but had to specialize in a particular subcategory under one of the two aspects at a certain level as they progressed in the training. However, a number of the agents proved to be geniuses and became masters in more than one category, some almost mastering every aspect of the FOX. This skillful agents became the most respected agents as well as the most dreaded in the corporation, each having their degrees of respect based on their level of mastery.
Two of such agents were Agent Carl and Agent Rex. These agents were the finest agents of the corporation, both of the same rank. They proved to be masters in every aspect of the FOX. They also qualified to be categorized as part of the best fighters, gun masters and intelligent security officials in the world. The two formed a formidable team and had led the other agents of the FOX to defeat the most dangerous groups in the world. They led their teams to victory in several battles in their country and in neighbouring countries such as Anthanna and South Husan and in other countries outside of Africa. Apart from being great assets to the FOX, they were great assets to their country and to the world at large.
They appeared to be fierce in battle, dangerous to oppose and always in charge in all physical and mental wars. No one seemed to know their secrets or weaknesses apart from themselves and they seemed undefeatable, but only until the upsurge of the invisible terrorists also known as the Red Wolves.
The Red Wolves had surfaced in the early 2014, the election year in the country Bethanna, when a lot of political activities were slated to take place. They were named as the invisible terrorists based on their mode of operation. Their first two bomb attacks took place in the first month of the year and were carried out at very low populated political gatherings with no one escaping the venues of the explosion. Their attacks were neatly carried out in such a way that no traces to the source of explosions could be determined. They had left the security agencies thinking at first that the attacks were done by opposition political parties and investigations were done in that direction. It wasn’t until the third and fourth attacks which were done in the first week of the second month that the security agencies realized that they were not just mere attacks from opposition parties but were backed by a strong unknown terrorist organization.
Three more attacks were done in the second month. The targeted places of attack advanced from low populated political gatherings to larger ones and caused a resultant increasing fear in politicians and the masses for attending political campaigns and rallies. These first set of attacks made the security agencies direct their efforts towards securing the lives of politicians and venues of political gatherings while they investigated politicians and other influential citizens.
After the Red Wolves achieved their aim of distracting the security officials through the political attacks, they changed their manner of operation and began to explode top companies facilities in the nation, they began this set of attacks with the major employers of labor in the country. In two weeks, six major companies including one close to Epa Hill had their buildings blown up with little or nothing remaining. The strange parts of all the company attacks was that the explosion always occurred at night times when the most of the companies had already closed their operations for the day. Not so many people got killed in the explosions but properties which worth billions of dollars were destroyed. It became evident to all that the terrorists were not so interested in killing the people but in destroying the companies and rendering thousands of the citizens jobless.
The terrorists were untraceable in every way, they left no clue at any point in time and never was a security camera able to capture their process of setting up the bombs or any one who looked suspicious enough to be a member of the terrorist group. This made the security agencies nickname them the invisible terrorists. The Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) of the Anthanna Military Service handled the case alone for the first five weeks and had to involve the FOX corporation after realizing they needed more of the FOX ideals to nab the terrorists.
A week after the FOX was involved, a member of the invisible terrorists was caught for the first time after the seventh company explosion. After being interrogated, it was found that the terrorist caught was one of the terrorist organization lowest ranked members and knew very little of the organization’s secrets. He was not able to tell how the explosives got into the seventh company, his own task which was being carried out when he was caught was monitoring the live explosion of the building and give a report of how successful the destruction of property was. The only important information that the FOX was able to get from him was an idea of the number of years the terrorist organization had existed for. He had told them he began his training with the organization five years before he was caught, that gave them the idea that the organization itself had existed for more than five years. When interrogated about who the top officials could be, he wasn’t sure of his reply. He had only told them that the people in the organization were not just Bethanians but were mixed with people from other countries.
Three more explosions occurred after the capture of that member and the FOX was put in a tight corner as the countries’ were on them and agencies all over the world had eyes on them. They had to call back their best Agents, Carl and Rex who had been on a mission with the United Nations Force.
Agents Carl and Rex returned to the country immediately and swung to action. They started by back-tracing street surveillance camera records of the past. They worked with the past ten years records of the visitors and client records of the already affected companies. After one more successful attack of the terrorist, they were able to predict and stop the next. They discovered that the terrorists in the past ten years had been implanting well trained and intelligent people in some of the companies where they did not have their members before. The explosions in the organization always occurred on a day of the week when these agents of the terrorist group were on leave. The FOX through Agents Carl and Rex were able to find the common identity among all the terrorist agents and that was their year and month of application for their current jobs. All of them had applied for their jobs four years before the explosions started but were employed at different times by the individual companies. The uniqueness about their applications were that they were submitted at a time that most of the companies had no vacancies or advertised spaces, the applications were always submitted with proposals containing mind blowing ideas that could move the company forward. These proposals which were too good to ignore made the companies create space to employ them.
With the information they had, past actions and surveillance records were investigated and the defeat of the terrorists organization slowly began and in two weeks, commendable success was recorded. Agents Carl and Rex finally led the FOX to their supposed final victory on the thirtieth day of March 2015. However, as they returned to their families the next day to celebrate the victory, the invisible terrorists struck back and attacked the two Agents and their families. Agent Rex’s wife and two kids were killed with their bodies butchered into pieces while Agent Carl’s wife and his son were burnt to ashes in a house. The terrorists captured the Agents and recorded them in two separate videos being tortured and shot after which their bodies were thrown into the Bexford Sea in broad daylight. The agents dead bodies since then had never being found and they never got to be given befitting burials.
Few days after the death of the Agents were announced publicly, other FOX agents were able to trace the terrorists through the trails left in killing the Agent’s families and caught up with them, totally wiping them out this time.
In a conference room at the FOX Headquarters, not less than fifteen men were seated, all dressed in black suits and ties. A large screen hung at the center of the wall in front, showing a video of the Bexford sea and three choppers hovering around it.
The youngest of the men in the conference room was forty five, and the oldest man was sixty two. Each and every one of them were top agents of the FOX, having had many years of experience in the security and defense world, they held major role in decision making and strategizing for the FOX corporation. The video being played was without sound, but it had every single person’s attention. After over twenty minutes of watching, the man was seemed to be the chairman of the board turned off the screen with a remote control and turned to face the rest of the board.
There was a deafening silence for about five minutes, not all of the men seemed to have come up with a decision. They carried undecided looks on their faces even though the decision was not supposed to be a difficult one to make.
“We’ve never had to wait for this long to make a decision,” Paul Edwards, the man at the front said in low tones.
There was no verbal response to his remark and the silence seemed to continue for another two minutes. It was in this same room and on the same table that a meeting had held about five months ago. Most of the men already had their decisions in that meeting even before it started and they all were in one Accord. Their decision after that day’s meeting was that Agents Rex and Carl were the most suitable men to bring down the invisible terrorists. Now they were sitting and trying to make a decision to stop the search for the dead bodies of the same two Agents.
“We have to end the search,” Mark, the man sitting at the left rear end said. He adjusted his sitting position and placed his elbows on the table, holding a pen up with his fingers. “Even though it’s a terrible blow to us that we could not give the world best two Agents their last respects.”
“I think at this junction we’ve done all we can do to find their bodies, it is impossible to find them anymore. It would be a waste of time and resources if we continue,” another agent put in.
“I’ve always known we are never going to find those bodies after the first two days of searching,” a grey haired man spoke. He wasn’t the oldest man in the gathering, but his grey hairs were as much as that of a ninety year old man. All eyes turned to him, they all knew he had been negative from the start of the search. “The Bexford sea is big and some big fishes were newly discovered in it at that time. The fishes could have eaten up their bodies.”
It wasn’t the first time of the board members hearing the “fish eating” story from the grey haired man and they were tired of it but it was beginning to make sense. It was the most sensible explanation for the disappearance of the bodies of the Agents.
“Agent Sylvanus may be right,” Agent Elkim, the oldest amongst them stated. “It’s obvious something happened to those bodies, the sea has been thoroughly searched like never before. If we can’t find the bodies, it means they are no longer there.”
Paul Edwards tapped the tall finger of his right hand in the table slowly and gently continuously for a moment. He recalled how Rex and Carl had gone on several missions in various parts of the world and had come back victoriously, even in missions which seemed to be impossible, they always turned around the story just at that moment when every one thought it was over.
Paul looked at the faces of all the other men with him, he knew what they had in mind. He knew they must feel so disappointed, they all would have felt that Carl and Rex would appear back alive so soon but it was four months now and there were no signs of them. He took in a deep breath and leaned forward to talk.
“We all saw the viral videos uploaded by the terrorists online here again this morning and I’m sure we all agree that there is no way Rex and Carl could have escaped death, if we can’t find their dead bodies, something must have happened to them.” he paused for a moment and blinked his eyes. He had a quick flashback in his mind and saw again how Rex was being beaten with long iron rods on his body and especially his head and how he was shot on the bridge and thereafter tossed into the Bexford sea. The video also showed the same treatment being given to Rex’s friend after which hewas also thrown into the sea.
“But after our investigations, we still do not know where these bodies are. It is safe to say something happened to these bodies before we got the information. We all would love to give them the last respects and a befitting FOX funeral but we may have to go ahead without their bodies. We’ve given them so much honour already in burying their families. It’s sad but we have to move on and be ready for other things. The most important part is that the invisible terrorists have been wiped out and we can all say that the death of the Agents were not in vain. With this in mind, we’d put a stop to all the search operations and go ahead with their last honours.” He took a pause and his eyes moved quickly across the faces of his listeners.
“Would anybody like to say something?”
There was total silence.
“I declare a stop to the search operation and pronounce this meeting closed.”
To be continued
EPISODE 4
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