Chapter - 13
Anna parked her car in the space she had found for herself, she locked the door and walked over into the elevator, she was seriously tired from all that travel. She wanted to get a short peaceful nap; she undressed and decided to get a short shower for a better sleep. She stepped into the shower, unleashed the gush of water and slowly drenched herself. She soaped her face and washed in some really cold water. Seven minutes into the shower, she stopped the water and stepped out and reached for the towel to dry her out. Dried, she opened her closet and pulled out some easy dress for her wear and spends the next minute to get through the dress. She changed the temperature and threw herself on the bed. Soon then her phone began to ring, it was her friend, Regina;
“Anna dear, when did you dock in; how was the whole trip?”
“It was all great sweetheart, how are you?”
“I'm fine; wait, you had company right, a nice young man. No suspense, spill everything about the trip.”
“Well, we went and came back; we became good friends too; is that satisfactory?” “Just that, as far as I know he is handsome. You are not telling me nothing happened off the schedule, I pity you dear. You need to change, a great big change is necessary or you're dying single. That's bye, my beau is calling, bye.”
“Bye. Take care.”
The call ended, she didn't but put the phone down; the next minute she was dialing Clyde, the call was taken at the fourth ring, she waited for his voice,
“Hello, Clyde here; who is on the other side please?”
“Hey Clyde, it's me Anna. I just dialed so you can like, you know, get my number and I can invite over tomorrow.”
“Oh yeah! Wow, I'd love that, what time would you prefer?”
“Say, evening; we can have dinner and go out or something.”
“Well that'll be great. So what're you doing now?”
She was about to answer when she heard the doorbell ring,
“Clyde, can you just hold on for a moment; there's someone at the door, I'll be right back.”
“No problem.”
She placed tossed her phone onto her bed and went towards the door, she looks through the hole and saw none; remiss she opened the door and suddenly felt something heavy bang against her head, she instantly felt dizzy, and the next second she was on the floor. But then soon enough she regained senses, maybe because the hit wasn‟t enough to knock her out; however she wasn't able to see her attacker as the person was now behind and had pressed cotton against her nose covering her mouth also, slowly she blacked out and the last thing she saw was darkness.
The clocked went half a dozen hours until Anna finally gained cognizance; she tried opening her eyes, but it was cinched tightly allowing no light. Naturally, she went for her eyes, but then even her hands were bound and so were her legs. She tried extricating herself and began to struggle, soon enough she felt a hand on her, no, she felt a finger; the finger was on her forehead, it scud over her head and came to a stop at the back of her head. The cinch on her eyes was alleviated and light hit; she slowly opened her eyes and looked around; she could see nothing at first as the light was just adjusting, but then she began to make out the surroundings. The first thing she saw was her abductor; he was giving her a smile that made her uncomfortable.
After some moments of silence, George spoke;
“Hello Miss Anna; are you feeling cozy, please adjust to these limited facilities.”
“Who the hell are you?”
“He is George Miles,” said Clyde walking into the room, “he runs a private detective agency, and aims at catching international terrorists; like you.”
“Clyde, are you in this too, I'm surprised,” she yelled stupefied.
“Oh! Are you; even was I when the surveillance cameras visual from the Simpson tower also had you visiting it many a times. It was a real shock, I should really say, I had one such just two months ago.”
“Clyde, I don't understand, what are you guys hinting at, I don't understand anything.”
“Bloody poltroon, stop your drama. We have clear evidences about you and your works. You want to see, well see it for yourself,” saying Clyde dragged a table towards her; he placed a laptop facing her and played the visual he had seen earlier that day. She watched the visuals flabbergasted, there on the screen she saw herself entering and exiting the building that had been annihilated the same day itself. When the visuals finally ended, there was pin drop silence until George broke it a minute later,
“Any yet prevailing arguments that can overrule these visuals, Miss Anna,” George asked with a mock.
She sat numb, said nothing further, irritated Clyde charged towards her but George blocked the movement, he continued with his conversation,
“It is never difficult for a former engineering student to create a bomb that'll blast. Once you were even suspended from college, for experimenting self-made explosives on campus grounds. Am I right, correct me if I'm wrong;” the silence continued, George banged the table hard and turned away; Clyde whacked her hard at her silence this time. George quickly pulled him away, tears rolled down Anna's face; she cried hard without a noise;
“The love of money and fate, both together, got me sitting in front of Cepher Cohen. He wanted me to make the explosives I had made at college, but this time I was offered ten million dollars; it was beyond my imagination, I agreed to the deal. According to all my knowledge, I didn't create an explosive that can shatter buildings; withal a software that can be used to create an attack. The attack happens via cyber but the end result will be physical. It is a different kind of an attack; the attacker needn't be even in that continent. When the whole thing was finally ready, the game changed, Cepher stopped coming over to the work site. He gave only one out of the ten million, and then one day, I called up his home and asked him to settle my account and that is when the real boss revealed himself, the mastermind of all these. He was a psycho, he didn't care about human feelings; he asked me to leave with what I've got, I refused; the next day I was being tortured in his very house and that too by his wife. Both of them gave me three days of hell, when I finally came out of that place, I was not the old me.”
“Who is the psycho you are talking about?”
“Reuben Andrews, the bloody pervert without a heart. He is the worst human on earth, the devil.”
“That's enough of your lies,” Clyde burst out, “I am not taking any more of that, keep your folks to yourself. I've informed the police, they‟ll be here any minute.”
“Trust me, I'm not the one who set the bomb or did the blast, even my software is not used in this; but they'll use it soon, that I'm sure.”
“What makes you say that,” George questioned. “I was frequently visiting the Simpson tower because I found out that my software active there, my monitor radar to which I still have access told me that; and the purpose of my visit was to hack it the maximum way possible. During those times, I came to know that they had hacked into the data of all networks in that area, which means that area, is targeted for a future attack. Likewise there are other places they are visiting, other networks they are hacking and other places they are targeting.”
“What are their gains; why are they doing this all?”
“I don't know, but it needs to be stopped.”
“How in the world,” Clyde asked calmer;
“He is unstoppable, he has got influences even up to the PM and President.”
“Hack the software and destroy it, we need to hack it completely without a loophole. Can you trust me and help me with it?”
“We should trust you again,” Clyde shot, “You worked for them, why would you destroy that work of yours for nothing?”
“They'll conduct all these and blame it on some poor Muslims who live in that area. Those people and many other lives are being targeted to destroy. As a true follower of the Qur'an and Islam and for a small cleansing I‟m in this. This not a mere revenge, we're gonna unmask some truths along with this, at the end the world should realize; no religion is responsible for any of the terror, it's the people; terrorism have no religion.” George and Clyde looked at each other; George spoke their thoughts out, “we're in this together.”
She smiled. Just then there was a knock at the door, the three of them froze, George cast Clyde a look, he had forgotten too,
“Clyde you rascal, I thought you was joking; why in the….”
The knocks repeated and Clyde opened the door, five cops heavily armed and protected stood at the door; one of them spoke up,
“If I'm not wrong you are Clyde, do you still have her…” an answer wasn't necessary as the cop saw Anna who still sat constrained to the chair. They pushed past Clyde into the room, they stopped near Anna, and they saw the laptop screen which had the paused visuals, the guy who spoke earlier turned the laptop towards him,
“I think I need to see this, please excuse me,” and the officer resumed the paused visuals. Afterwards, the officer looked up from the screen, he motioned his fellow officers to take Anna away, he then called aside Clyde and George,
“Congratulations, you guys have done a good job. I'll have to take those visuals also, may I ask who you guys really are?”
“He is George Miles, private detective; I'm Clyde Stewart, former journalist.”
“Well Mr. Stewart and Mr. Miles; thank you. We'll take it up hereon. We'll be remanding her until the arrangements to transfer her over to the Canadian government are done. Got to go, see you all.”