Man-Napped! - Santiago (Chapter 01)

CHAPTER ONE: MISSING?

Day zero: minutes after the emergency alert

Adams refused to open his door. He went back into his car and brought out his phone. His mind was racing, trying to compare all possibilities of what could have happened, none of them sounded plausible, or good either. One thing he knew for sure, Daniel would never joke with such a thing. Daniel was a man of principle, his jokes had boundaries, and he would never allow someone to fret over a false alarm.

Or perhaps it was a joke after all, or a mistake. But was it even possible? Could you mistakenly dial *24#? Or perhaps it was the speeddial, You had to specify a speeddial when you activate the app. But Daniel’s speeddial was holding the character # for 3 seconds. He doubted this could also be a mistake.

He had already dialed Daniel’s number; the annoying voice had told him the number was ‘not available at the moment’. There was only one thing he could think of doing now, only one person he could call: His only other friend, Rachel.

Rachel was a private detective. She had solved many cases that even the police department, with all their resources couldn’t. of course, he couldn’t call the police and say “Hey guys I think my friend is missing, he just sent me a text by using my emergency alert app. You see, it probably could have been a mistake since all you had to do was dial *24# or hold # for 3 seconds. However, I’ve been trying to reach him but his phone is not reachable. Could you find him for me?” The story sounded cock-and-bull enough to make him a laughingstock.

However, he could tell Rachel all those things. Rachel trusted his feelings and hunches. She wouldn’t take him lightly. He dialed Rachel’s number. It was late in the night. He hoped Rachel would answer his call. She answered on the third ring.

“Hey. ” She said drowsily. No surprise, Rachel always slept early.

“Rachel, how’re you?” he said trying to add some life into his voice.

“Is it so important that you couldn’t wait till tomorrow to tell me whatever it is?” she asked, obviously annoyed.

“I’m sorry, Rachel. I wouldn’t call you if it wasn’t important. I can’t tell you on phone, I’m coming over to your place right now.”

Rachel offered a slight protest but Adams still hung up and drove over to her house. Rachel opened the door for him and beckoned him in.

“For all I know, you might have just been lonely and needed someone to talk to. If you happened to destroy my sleep for no real reason, I will kill you.”

“No, no, this is serious. Remember my friend?”

“The virologist? Yes I know him”

“I think he’s missing”

Rachel suddenly became very alert. “why do you say so?”

“You see, three months ago, I designed an app, an emergency alert app that can be used to send a distress notice when in dangerous situations. All you had to do was type in a short preset code and dial it. It sends a preset distress message to preset phone numbers.”

“Wait, calm down and talk to me in English. You mean, I install this application, set your phone number as my emergency contact, and set some emergency message so when I’m in distress, I can dial the short code and it sends you the message. That right?”

“Yea, roughly. It could also be a speed dial.”

“How would the emergency contact understand the message?”

“Immediately you chose the emergency contact, the app sends a message to the contact informing him of this process. Now that’s enough questions! They are irrelevant!”

“Who says they are irrelevant? So I take it you have received such a message from your friend.”

“Yes”

“When?”

“This evening, it was sent around 7:45pm but I just saw it 30 minutes ago”

“And you don’t think it could have been a joke? Or perhaps he was just testing the app for functionality”

“Neither. We tested the app together on day one and it functioned perfectly. Moreover, Daniel never jokes with such things.”

“You said it could be a short code or a speed dial. What’s the short code?”

“Daniel chose *24#” Adams replied.

“Okay, that can’t likely be accidentally dialed. How about the speed dial?”

“He had to hold # for three seconds.”

“That could have been accidentally done. Have you tried his number?”

“Yes, it was unreachable. I’ve tried over and over again, with all his three numbers, none is going through.”

“Now, that sounds suspicious. When last did you see him?”

“Last Friday, around 9:00pm. We were supposed to meet today also, we always met every Friday for beer and suya”

Rachel shook her head, she marveled at the men’s sense of relaxation. “Have you gone over to his house?”
“No, I called you as soon as I saw the message.”
“What time were you guys supposed to meet?”
“8:00 pm. I was late”

Rachel shook her head in disgust. What kind of friend went late to a -just once a week- chance of meeting your friend?

“There’s very little we can do tonight. But I say we drive by his house first and check up the place. We might want to keep this to ourselves for now, it might be nothing serious.”

Rachel picked up her car keys, but Adam insisted that they go in his own car. They drove to Daniel’s house but found the front door locked.  Adam said he had a copy of the key but Rachel insisted that she wouldn’t go into the house in the owner’s absence unless they had established a 60% probability that the owner was missing.

“It’s not breaking and entering since I have the key” Adams insisted but Rachel insisted they merely peep in through the windows and see if there was any sign of forced entering or disorder. There was none. So, they left the house, thirty minutes after they came there. They also drove by his research facility. It was located in a remote area where there were no residential houses. DANIEL LABS was boldly displayed in front. Apart from that, nothing made the facility stand out, after all, it wasn’t the only factory building in the area.

The building was locked, with two security guards at the gate. Besides Rachel said, you don’t want to break into a virologist’s research lab, you might come off with unspeakable infections. So they resolved to return the next day and Adams dropped Rachel off at her house.

******************

Day one (Saturday) – 10 hours after emergency alert

The following morning, Rachel was at Adams’ house by 7:00 a.m. After some delays caused by Adams, they both got into his car and were off by 7:20 a.m. First stop was DANIEL LABS, Rachel said. So they went there to see if they could get anything from the workers.

The guards at the gate allowed them in when they said they were merely around for a visit. When they got to the office floor – which was the ground floor anyway – they were accosted by Dr Daniel’s Personal Assistant who recognized Adams as her boss’ best friend. The Assistant was a short, perky female who introduced herself as Janet. She had an infectious smile that made you believe everything she said.

Rachel introduced herself as a childhood friend of Adams and Daniel and said that they had lost contact a while back. She also said she was a pharmacist and as such was interested in Dr. Daniel’s research.

Miss Janet took them on a brief tour of the facility, telling them how the research at the facility was funded. They were not allowed into the main laboratories as it would be too risky to have untrained people in the lab. They stopped in front of Dr Daniel’s office. Not many people were around since it was a weekend.

“It’s where he spends most of his time, that is, when he’s not off lecturing at the university or at home studying.” The assistant informed them. Of course, Adams knew all this. The assistant had been very comfortable with them because of his presence. One could tell she found him attractive by the constant looks she gave him and the way she tried to impress them with her knowledge. Rachel told him about it at a later time.

They shifted attention to the real reason they were there. Dr Daniel’s office was locked.

“can we go inside?” Adams asked in a moment of impulsiveness.

“No way!” The assistant flared up. “No unauthorized person goes into Dr Daniel’s office, even when authorized, no one goes in when he’s not in there.”

“It’s okay, I think he might have meant it as some joke, you know, him being Dr. Daniel’s best friend and all.” Rachel quickly said to cover up the issue, and then she added. “By the way, where’s Dr Daniel himself?”

“He’s not around” the assistant said, looking at both of them with renewed curiosity. “He sent me a text this morning that he was out of the country and he asked me to settle some things.”

Rachel and Adams looked at one another. They both had the same question on their mind; the assistant voiced it for them.

“Why would he travel without telling you?” she asked, pointing to Adams. “He’s not in some sort of trouble, is he?” she was getting concerned.

“No, of course not. We were just wondering about the same question. I was really looking forward to meeting him, we informed him last week we were going to visit, so we’re very surprised he would travel without mentioning it.” Rachel said.

“Did he mention where he went or his purpose of going?”

“No” the assistant said. “However, he texted me with a south African number so I assume that’s where he would be.” She brought out her phone and showed them the message.

After some minutes, they came out of the facility. Adams kept feeling something was off, he told Rachel so. Suddenly, he realized what he felt was eluding his mind.

“We have to go back” he said to Rachel.

“What?” Rachel asked, they were at the gate.

“I think I find something suspicious about the text message, I have to go back and see it”

They turned and went back into the facility. Adams apologized to the assistant and said he had to inspect the message again. He said he needed to check the number and copy it down. The assistant was willing to oblige.

Adams collected the phone and inspected the text message. He clicked on reply and found the number field empty. His eyes lit up, he brought out his phone and copied the number. They thanked the assistant and walked out of the facility.

Back in the car, Rachel asked what that was all about.

“When I first saw the message” Adams began “I felt, why would Daniel text with a separate number since he always took his phone with him? Besides, the message didn’t have a feel of Daniel to it, the pattern didn’t sound like Daniel. Daniel was more precise, straight to the point. And then I started feeling suspicious, when we went back I went to see if the message could be replied, it couldn’t.”

“What do you mean?” Rachel asked.

“How much do you know about bulk sms?”

“I’m not absolutely ignorant.” Rachel replied.

“When you send bulk sms, you  provide a name that would be displayed as the center. The name could consist of any alphanumeric character. You cannot reply to such messages since they’re not sent from any network provider but through the internet.”

“Same way as I cannot reply messages from companies theat have their names on it like MTN N, or AIRTEL NG” Rachel replied.

“You get it…”

“So, you’re saying the message was sent through the internet and the phone number was not real, it was forged. Meaning the message probably didn’t come from south Africa”

“Well, I guess you could put it that way. That also kind of makes the message more difficult to trace.”

“Why would Dr. Daniel want to forge a number and pretend he was in south Africa?”

They both looked at one another for a while and then Adams said “Unless it wasn’t Daniel. Someone else was probably trying to make us ignore his absence”

“I would say that’s quite a crude way of doing it” Rachel mentioned.

“What better way of doing it other than making us believe Daniel himself sent us a message that he travelled. He even mentioned not to call him as he didn’t want to be disturbed. There’s one more thing.”

Rachel looked at him and he said “Daniel didn’t know a thing about the internet other than social networks. I mean he can handle basic browsing properly but he there’s no way he can send a message through the internet.”

After  brief minute of silence, they both said at the same time “Daniel was kidnapped”

to be continued...

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