MAN NAPPED - SANTIAGO (CHAPTER 03)

Day one (Saturday) – 19 hours, 35 minutes after emergency alert

They had been sitting in Rachel’s car for thirty minutes – since she had picked them up from tantalizers. Rachel was in the driver’s seat, Adams sat beside her and Janet sat at the back. The time was 4:35 p.m, and they were arguing – rather, Janet was arguing with Rachel. She insisted that they should report to the police. Rachel asked her to state her reasons for suspecting that Daniel was missing, the way she would have to state them to the police.

“His car is missing...” Janet said

“He could have driven to the airport”

“He didn’t show up for work”

“You said it yourself, he sent you a message”

“But the message wasn’t from him”

“What evidence do you have?”

“He sent Adams an emergency alert…”

“Which could have been a mistake, he could have accidentally sent it”

Janet sighed. “I don’t believe the police would discard the case for such flimsy reasons.”

Rachel shook her head. “They’re not going to discard it. They’ll tell you they’ll look into it, but you first have to wait for a couple of days and see if you don’t hear anything from him, then they’ll take it serious.”

“Well, I still think we should report it. Then we can go of doing our own investigation!” Janet protested.

“And have the police blocking us at every turn?” Rachel asked, shrugging.

“What are you really afraid of?” Janet asked, narrowing her eyes. “You’re afraid of something, aren’t you? That’s why you don’t want us telling the police.”

Rachel remained silent for a while, watching Janet through the front mirror. Then she said, sighing “I’m not afraid of them dropping the case, I’m afraid of them taking it up. See, I have reason to believe we’re dealing with organized crime here, with the way the tracks were almost perfectly covered. And in my experience, organized criminal always have roots in the police force. We could worsen the case by reporting to the police, even putting ourselves and Daniels in danger. That aside, there’s something else I’m worried about. I’ve been doing everything the police would do if they were handling the case. And so far, there has been no serious lead. Knowing the Nigerian police well enough, there’s only one thing I’m sure they would do at this point, they would bring Adams in for questioning.”

“What?” Janet asked in shock.

Adams nodded and Rachel continued “And from there on, they place him under supervision, if not arrest. And believe me, you don’t like their questioning methods.”

“So, what do we do now?” Janet asked after some silence.

“I will need you to tell me all you know about your boss, his routines, anything odd he did recently, most especially what research he’s currently working on, like I said, we’re dealing with organized crime, they must have a very slid reason for kidnapping a virologist.… Also, we might need to get inside his office.”

“His office…?” Janet asked, wide eyed “that’s like impossible. No one…”

“…enters his office without his permission…” Rachel interrupted. “I know, you said it. However, we might have his permission”

Adams jangled the keys.

“What! Where did you get his keys?”

“Let’s just say he dropped them for us, so that his assistant would let us into his office. We just need to enter without anyone noticing… Any idea?”

Janet looked at the two of them for a while and then said “Okay, tomorrow’s a Sunday. Only the two guards at the gate will be around. And a few workaholics…”

“Workaholics?” Adams asked.

“Yea, there’s this guy in bioinformatics, he comes to work every day, Sundays included. Says Dr. Daniel has him working on some sequencing that is taking him a lifetime. I must say the guy is very suspicious. He was questioning me earlier, about you guys”

“What did you tell him?” Adams asked

“I said that you were Dr. Daniel’s friend and you brought a friend over to have a discussion with him and that unfortunately, the doctor wasn’t around.”

“Good… looks like someone we should be wary of. Anyone else?”

“Well, a couple of the scientists might be around too, but they’ll be holed up in the lab upstairs. Dr. Daniel has worked them up into a frenzy. No need to worry about them.”

“So, how do we get past the guys at the gate?”

“I’ll ask them to come lift something for me upstairs, then you can get in before they return. Once you’re in, I’ll get you some hiding place until Mike is locked behind his door in his office. Then you can enter Dr Daniel’s office. You should know that you shouldn’t spend more than 30 minutes in there. What do you hope to find anyway?”

“Anything that might hint us as to what he’s working on and if he had any idea that he would be kidnapped.” Rachel said

“Actually, I was hoping to make a backup of his hard disk, so that we can inspect it at a later time. But that would take longer than 30 minutes.” Adams said

“You can fix the external hard disk and make the backup, I’ll retrieve it for you at a later time.” Janet suggested.

“That’s great… But can’t we do it at night?” Adams asked.

“No, the day will work just fine. I have an excuse to be there, just in case we’re seen. I don’t have any excuse to be there at night.” Janet replied.

“Okay, that’s settled then.” Rachel said. “Thanks a lot Janet. I’ll call you again if anything new comes up.”

“It’s alright. You’re welcome. But please know this, if we’re arrested, I know nothing.”

Rachel nodded and Janet got out of the car.

“So, what now? Adams asked as Rachel started the car “Where are we headed to?”

“My house.” Rachel replied. “We’re going to see what’s on Daniel’s computer.”

They drove off…

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

After twenty minutes of browsing through the computer and visiting all notable folders on the computer, Rachel was ready to decide there was nothing important on the computer. Then, Adams suggested they visit the recycle bin. However, the recycle bin was empty too.

“Someone recently emptied the bin” Adams said.

“You think it’s Daniel?” Rachel asked.

“No, I think it’s whoever kidnapped him, in which case they probably won’t know the files haven’t disappeared.”

“What do you mean?” Rachel asked.

“I made some modifications to Daniel’s operating system. I was trying to impress him. I told him I could find his deleted files, even after he has removed them from the recycle bin.”

“How’s that possible.” Rachel asked

“I modified his O.S and created a new- hidden- partition on his hard disk.” Adams explained. “When he deletes a file, it is moved to the recycle bin for a while – as expected. However, when that file is deleted from the recycle bin, it is moved to the new partition where it is stored temporarily, for one hundred and twenty hours – five days.”

“So, you’re saying if the recycle bin was emptied not more than five days ago, we can find the deleted files?” Rachel asked.

“Yes” Adams confirmed.

“Good, then find them” Rachel said shrugging.

“At your service” Adams said as he set to work. Five minutes later, he said “Here you go ma’am”

They both examined the files for a while. Rachel found a folder called ‘log’.

Rachel selected the first file in the folder; it was a video file titled ‘01/05’. She played it and Dr. Daniel’s face came into view. He was in the library when the video was recorded.

“Hey, this will be my first log concerning the project Night terror. I will make these logs every day I discover something new. I shall make no records on days without significant activity…

So, I started conducting experiments on the virus yesterday. Yesterday I managed to do the sequencing and analysis of the virus strain – well, I didn’t do it myself, I had the help of my expert in Bio-informatics. Oh, not to fear, I merely gave him a set of gene sequence to analyse, and he knows when to keep his lips shut. So, I can say we’ve been able to identify the set of DNA responsible for making the virus airborne and well, we know why it kills faster than the regular strain.

As we know, the virus is based on the core of the ebola virus, however, this strain is very much different in many ways. First, unlike the ebola virus, this new virus which has been codenamed night terror is airborne. Moreover, an human DNA has been introduced into the virus’s genes and while this virus attacks its host cells like regular ebola, the human gene makes it do something new. Once it attaches itself to the host cells, it exposes its human genes which triggers an autoimmune response, signaling the immune system to launch an attack on every cell in the body. Thus completing the destruction process faster. If this virus were to be weaponised, oh, it has already been; whoever added the human gene weaponised it. If it were to be used in warfare of acts of terrorism, the results would be catastrophic. I would like to say in lay man terms, ebola has become bigger and badder. That would be all for now”

Rachel and Adams looked at one another for a while and sixty second later, Adams broke the silence.

“I think he meant ebola has grown wings”

“Yeah, and it has learnt to make its enemies fight themselves” Rachel added. "What do you think he meant by the weaponising aspect?”

"Well the whole video connotes a tone of secrecy. I would say Daniel probably knows about a plot to use the virus as a weapon and he's working to find a cure or somehow stop it. But that would be too far-fetched. Daniel wouldn't keep such a thing secret from me."

"Unless he wasn't working alone." Rachel said. She played the beginning part of the video again and suggested the video was meant for someone, an higher authority perhaps who had probably strictly ordered him to keep his research secret. They played several other videos and eventually agreed that Daniel wasn't working alone. He was working for an higher authority, probably an organization and the task was meant to be top secret.

They also discovered that he usually used a certain lab on campus for his research which meant he wasn't conducting his tests at Daniel labs.

“We should try to find out which lab he used on campus and who else was associated with the project.” Rachel suggested.

“Wait, why are you so sure the kidnapping is related to this project?” Adams questioned.

“You tell me, what other suspicious thing was going on in his life? This wasn’t a random kidnapping; you don’t just randomly kidnap a virologist who happens to be looking for a cure to a top secret, very deadly virus. Like I said, this is well organized crime. We need to know what we’re dealing with”

“So, what happens when you find someone else associated with the project. If the project is as secret as these videos suggest, they probably won’t talk to you.”

“Not if I had leverage.” Rachel said firmly, looking into Adams’ eyes. “Whoever they are, they probably don’t know yet that their top man on the project is missing. Besides, if I have a name and I approach them, telling them I know about their secret project and that their man is missing and I’m trying to find him, I bet they’ll be more willing to talk.”

“You’re assuming they are the good guys here. What if you’re wrong?”

“Well, in my experience the guy working with the good guys usually gets kidnapped. From the video, Daniel said someone weaponised the virus, meaning, he’s trying to fight against whoever did so. That’s what the guys he’s working for must also stand for. Besides, you know Daniel well, are you saying he would work for the bad guys for any reason?”

Adams nodded and kept silent.

“I need to talk to Janet” Rachel finalized.

Rachel called Janet and asked if she knew about any lab Daniel frequently visited on campus. Janet remembered driving him to a building on campus the previous week. The place wasn’t built like a laboratory but Dr. Daniel had let it slip that he was going to conduct some experiments

Rachel thanked her and ended the call. She then turned to Adams and said “We have a location, now we have to figure out how to make whoever is behind this project talk. I have a feeling we’ll find something tomorrow.”