by Sweth Water
Coal walked back and looked at the first floor. The light was off and there was no voice that he heard. Maybe Wind was right that March was asleep. Wind might have the frustration because of his work; he would work for so long in these days. It was the first time when Wind talked so rudely to him. In Coal’s mind, Wind was a nice man.
But what if Coal was wrong?
What if there was something that he didn’t know about Wind? Something that March wanted to tell him.
Chapter
16
Taking sat on a bench, seeing the children playing in the garden. The place was near the Headquarters. In few minutes, he was going to get inside the building and take over the alleged hackers. Rolls’ words were making sense to him. He’d convinced Tom too. He was here with him. Summer and Tom were gone to get some sandwiches.
Summer was needed in this operation. She would do the work, if needed, in the city. She would get the clearance for them. Although he was from Top One and all the agencies would listen to him, but her wits were needed in this case to find Agent Gin, if she was alive.
“Here it is, as you requested.” Summer handed the sandwich to him. She was not in the uniform. Her yellow shirt and black pants looked good on her.
“You sure, Taking? We should be doing this?” Tom asked, biting on his sandwich.
“We have to assume that no undercover operation is going on. You didn’t know about it until I told you. So, the President won’t be doing it on her own without telling us, at least RAAD.”
“It is just an assumption, Taking.”
“Assumption?” Summer asked.
“The intel that you have from the guy.”
“I trust him, Tom.” Taking sighed. “And I want you to trust him. He is the only person who can crack this whole thing. And the people sitting at the Headquarters are going to talk with us.”
“How?” Summer asked. “They didn’t tell anything to them.”
“Tom will make them talk.”
“What do you mean?” Tom asked.
“I know, Tom.”
And Tom smiled.
They sat in the car, Taking driving the car.
“Who is the Commissioner of Police here, Summer?” Tom asked.
“Tolander Scott was last year. I met him. He’s retired, I guess. I will call the office and ask them. Give me a minute.”
“Tom, I have the documents that we are going to need at the Headquarters. You need to sign them too.” Taking said.
“Without informing the director of RAAD we’re doing it. We can lose our jobs. I don’t want to sound like a coward, but that is the truth.” Tom said.
“That’s why RAAD is not running this operation, Top One is. After Gin, I am the ranking agent. I needed someone to help me out in the case, so called you. RAAD doesn’t have any documents to go through, no rule book at all. We worked on some other case a few years back, I called you and asked if you were working on something. You said no and now you are here with me.”
“Perfect!”
“What?” Summer’s voice reached his ears. “When? Wait. Taking, you should hear this out.”
“Who is it?” Taking asked.
“The guy you gave the data to do the analysis of the server. He found something.” Summer said.
He took the cell phone from her. “Taking.”
“Sir, I found some frames missing in the recording. It might be the breaking we were looking for.”
“You sure of it, Officer?”
“Yes, sir. I checked twice.”
“Who knows about it?”
“Only me.”
“Keep that to yourself and wait for Summer to come.” He gave the phone to her and stopped the car. “I need you to go back to your office and see whatever the officer has. The officer on the phone said missing frames. You check everything from your end too. Make a list of all the people working on that shift and going into the server room.”
“You need me here, Taking.” she said.
“No, Tom and I will handle the situation here. Go. Now.”
She opened the door and clambered out. “Call me if you need anything.”
“I will.”
He drove the car.
“How much time?” Taking asked.
“Not more than ten minutes. Get ready for some serious shit. And it is going to be between us.”
“It will.”
They reached the Headquarters in less than ten minutes. At the gate, they signed the documents and the officer led them to Fog’s cabin.
Taking eyed everyone sitting there. Commissioner of Police’s office was breached too, now how secured the Headquarters was he wondered. Nobody can be trusted. Tom was with him. He had some doubts about him too. Agent Gin’s safety was the most important thing.
The officer knocked at the door.
“These are Agent Tom and Agent Taking, sir.”
“Thank you.” Fog stood up and shook hands with them. “Gentlemen, how can I help you?”
Fog was a fat man, but his looks told him that he was a brilliant officer. His brain was better than his body, Taking guessed. “I am working with Top One,” Taking said. “He is from RAAD. You have someone from Anonymous group?”
“Yes, few members were arrested and our interrogation is still going on.”
“We want to take them into custody, Fog.” Tom said.
“There is no information on my system regarding that. No-one sent an update that they would be taken away from here.”
“I closely worked with Agent Gin, Fog,” Taking was saying. “You know that she has been missing for a couple of days. We believe these people have some connection with that. We are just chasing ghosts here, you and me both. You don’t have any lead, and we are running out of options.”
“Without official orders, I can’t let you have them, Taking. I am sorry.”
“You heard of Section 23-A?” Taking’s voice was sharp now. “We have the control of every situation. If you wish to speak with Madam President you can. I am going to get them out of here. Understood?”
Fog swallowed. “Yes, Agent Taking.”
“Have your men assemble them near our car. They should be in chains. All the paperwork is done on this. Tom.”
“Here are the documents,” Tom put them on the table. “We have signed wherever was required. Call us if we missed anything.”
Taking was in the Holding Room. By the faces, they were not intimidating. He could bet that they didn’t have any criminal record. They were not hackers for sure. No interrogation was needed to prove that. One girl was also there, and she had no fear on her face. Even the big criminals would have the fear at the Headquarters or local police department. They were fearless.
They were not from Anonymous.
Tom drove the car, and Taking had the gun pointing back at them. Window glasses were up. A good twenty miles they rode and stopped near a ramshackle house. Summer and Taking had seen this house before going to the Headquarters. There was no house near it, and no reason someone had to build the house there. Whoever made this house abandoned it decades ago.
They clambered out of the car and looked along the road. Nobody was there.
“Let’s go.” Tom said, pointing the gun at them as they moved to the house.
“Where are you taking us?” the girl asked, shivering.
“It is against the law,” the lad said. “We need to have our attorney. It has been days without us talking to him. It is the violation of the rights given to us by the lawmakers. You can’t just take us away from the population to talk. We aren’t talking without our attorney!”
“Even the dead people speak when I ask questions, boy. Stay calm.” Tom said.
Taking found a room to his right side when they entered. It was a normal room. Not big, but they could sit and talk with them. Window glass was broken and the air was coming inside. Even after abandoning the place, it was not reeking. No visitation it’d got in the past few years for sure.
On a big wooden
bench they sat down.
Taking stood at the door.
“Let’s start the game.” Tom said. “I ask the questions and you answer them. Simple. There will be no options. One question and one simple answer.” He eyed Taking and then looked at them. “Who are you?”
Nobody spoke.
Tom loaded the gun. “Let’s try again. Who are you?” He pointed the gun at the girl. Maybe she was a weak link. People will be ready to save any girl. It seemed the same case here too. Others might talk if they really cared about her.
Taking observed that it was not merely to frighten them. The way Tom was handling the gun made certain that he was ready to fire. His muscles were tight and eyes were ready to find deceit in the words that she would say. One wrong word and bullet would be in the head. The splatter of blood would make others talk, if not the girl. Is it really necessary? Taking let the thought go. His focus was to get to those people who had Gin, nothing else.
And he was ready to do anything.
“We are from Anonymous group. We ... we were caught in the Department.” the lad who never spoke told him.
“Your names?”
“I am 137.” the same lad said.
“What?” Taking said. “Your real names, dumbass.”
“Kim. My name is Kim.”
He pointed the gun at the girl. “Mane.”
“Hopper.” The last guy said.
“What were you doing in the Department?” Tom asked.
“We were told to get some device from there. There was nothing.” Mane said. She was shivering a little.
“By whom?”
“We got a call from a private number. He said to get the device, and we will get enough money to live our lives.” Hopper said.
“How the alarms went off?” Tom asked.
“It ... it ... we ... we don’t know.” Kim said.
“How many bullets are needed to kill you all?” Tom asked, a smile on his face.
“Please ... please don’t kill us. We don’t know anything. Please.” Mane said.
“‘Don’t know anything’? Thought you were from Anonymous.” Tom sighed and shook his head. “How many people are working with you?” he asked.
“We are the only ones. We are friends from school. Nobody else is there.” Kim murmured, not looking at him.
Tom fired a bullet. It hit the wall.
The girl screamed and gripped the wooden bench hard, her knuckles white as snow. The boys were pleading and murmuring together which was not possible to hear. It was not what he liked. Taking didn’t want to go far. But Tom would go. And he didn’t need to interfere. He could have directly asked them about Madam President’s role in this; President Earl must know about this operation. It would be a wrong step. Top One had many sources, and none was revealed to anyone. Not even to Madam President.
“We ... we are not terrorists.” Kim said. “We ... we are patriotic people. We don’t have any intentions to harm our country.”
“Breaching the Department. Don’t have wrong intentions. Irony.” Tom shrugged. “How you define the terrorists by the way?”
“People ... people with extreme beliefs. From ... from different religions. Please.” Kim was shaking badly.
“So religion is responsible for hate and killing of innocents?”
“Y-yes.”
“But not the patriotism?”
“No. No. We ... soldiers protect our country. They die for our country. They are good people. They deserve the respect.”
“Of course they do; they are the heroes of our country. But sorry, child, you have understood this whole concept in a very wrong way. Patriotism has killed more people than religions ever did. Fake patriotism actually, when no question was asked and orders were followed. That is what the World War I and World War II and other battles around the world taught us. The jingoism that killed millions of civilians who just wanted to live with their families and didn’t want anything from the wars.
“It doesn’t mean all the so-called religious people are right. No, there are some ugly people too among them. The desire for power leads to insane things sometimes. Some fanatics know this better than any of us. You—”
“Tom!?” Taking snapped.
Irony? I am saying this! “Sorry, I was being a little philosophical. My wife is crazy and she makes me crazy.” He focused again. “The names I need, boy. You all three can live if you tell me what the real story is. I liked whatever the shit you told me about the device. It is interesting. Officers back at the Headquarters might have believed you. I don’t.”
He put the muzzle of the gun in her mouth. “Now. The real story. I am done with it. I will do it in my way. Just to be on the same page, I care for your lives only if you have something for me. You better start believing that.” His one hand was behind her head, index finger of right hand on the trigger.
Kim and Hopper started crying. It was real for sure, their crying. Their faces had the fear of death. They would die. Tom was a butcher who wouldn’t stop at anything. His finger trying to press the trigger, her head would open up. He let the hand go, both hands on the butt of the gun. The girl closed her eyes, shaking and crying.
He would fire. Taking was sure of that. The moment he asked his help he knew how far Tom was willing to go. They were the trained mercenaries of Madam President. He never liked RAAD. But this was how it worked in the country.
“Wait ... wait.” Kim said.
“Good boy.” Taking let the girl breathe and pulled out the muzzle from her mouth. “I am listening.”
“The ... the President knows it. Please. Call her.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Taking was not expecting that. He had hoped it wouldn’t be true, though he was happy that Rolls was right.
“Someone ... someone stole the documents from the Department. They didn’t know who it was. So to capture them they had us go inside and then get caught. It would earn the trust of Anonymous and we would be able to talk with them.”
“How do you know it’s Anonymous?” Tom asked.
“There was a mask in the server room. And the password made sure someone broke into the Department.”
“Who?”
“If ... if I have to guess then it is Officer Coal’s wife before she died. Some rumours we heard while preparing for this operation. They gave us the numbers to make others believe we are from the group.”
“What password?” Taking asked.
“Everyone has a number in Anonymous group. A prime number. Coal’s wife’s was one, zero, four, seven, two, nine. And that was the password.”
“Please don’t kill us.” Mane said.
“How you know it was her number? You are not from Anonymous.” Tom asked.
“We’d found a bag in the server room before the operation. A hard disk was there where I saw her name and the number.”
He had heard it on the news. Was it real? Did Coal’s wife have some role in this? There was a lot to discuss. These were innocent people. They wouldn’t know anything about Agent Gin. Another dead end.
Tom dialled the number.
“It’s Agent Tom from RAAD. Want to have a word with Madam President on the Anonymous group.”
“Give me a minute.”
There was a long pause.
“President Earl speaking. What is it, Tom?” Her voice was calm on the other end.
“Madam President, I have three people with me talking about some secret operation to have Anonymous take the bait. It’s related to the breaking into the Department few days back.”
“Did you hurt them?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Who else knows?”
“Agent Taking.”
“From Top One?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Meet me in the morning. There is a lot to tell you. And bring Taking too.”
Chapter
17
Chase was listening to whatever Taking was saying.
“What are we going to do about it?�
� she asked him.
Only two of them were in the cabin. She was among those people who knew what was going on. She kept that to herself. In the soundproof walls of the cabin they were talking. Taking was called by Madam President in the morning. He confided in her.
“What she had stolen is not known. Rose, they said her name, was the reason that we are running a secret operation. Classified files were taken, not physically but they were taken for sure. Nobody had anything related to those files. Chiefs of all the three forces were called in the morning before my meeting with President Earl. They are planning something. Something bigger. The information that was shared by Rose can lead to another war with other countries.”
“Spies, you mean?”
“I don’t know that, neither does President Earl. Our border forces are alerted.”
“Did someone talk with Coal? He might have the information.”
“He is in his house. Fog released him from his duties. Temporarily. He might not have any information about his wife’s involvement.”
“You know what Gin was working on?”
“Yes. President Earl said they knew about the breach in the Department. I am sure that even Gin didn’t know about this operation. This whole thing was staged just to get their hands on the group. They had three locations where it could have happened, the bad thing is they came to know about it after the breach. I looked into Gin’s cabin and found two other places. The agents are covering those two locations.”
Officer Chase nodded and gave a file to Taking. “You may want to check that.”
It was an autopsy report of the body that they found in the burned barn. Couple of days it took to do the complete analysis. He opened the file, hoping it would not be Gin. It shouldn’t be Gin.
To all the gods that existed in the world, he prayed to them.
The first page showed the reasons and time of death, at the top was the name. It was not Gin.
“You okay, Agent Taking?” Chase asked.
He nodded and left.
Chase sank in her chair. Taking said that people who were arrested were not from the group, some undercover operation was going on. After the questioning, they were sent to the Headquarters. She had planned everything to talk to them. It wouldn’t matter now.
