FicStorm's The Chase

Chapter Eleven

GAUTENG, JOHANNESBURG

To the outside world, Henry Paul senior was a wealthy businessman who made a lot of business trips. He had just landed in South Africa hours ago and lodged into a hotel with his wife Emilia who had cancelled all her appointments to make the trip. South Africa was a place she loved to be over and over again, so when her husband told her he was going to South Africa, she decided she wasn’t going to miss it for anything in the world.

Henry’s wealth-as he always bragged- didn’t come from his father. Yes, he came from a generation neck deep in wealth, but at the age of twenty five, he already had his first million and now that he was twice the age, he was not sure there was a calculator that could calculate the wealth he had both in assets and in cash leaving his father’s money aside. Apart from being very wealthy, Henry was blessed with a happy family-A beautiful wife and a son with a promising future. He couldn’t ask for anything more. But his wife, she was never satisfied.

“You should be worried about Junior. This is a sign of rebellion and you’re taking it lightly.” She said

“Rebellion is a strong word. Don’t you think?” He arched an eyebrow and his lips twitched as he tried to fight the smile forming on his lips. Emilia hated nothing more than when she was sober and he, drunk.

“Look, He’s meant to start dipping his hands in the family business. Get to know what it’s about but he strayed too far. His choice of doing his industrial attachment at…”

“You should be happy that he’s trying to be independent.”

“Independent my foot.” She spat, got up from the bed and took graceful strides to the window of the suite.

“O n da ra e la mu.” You worry too much. He said in his dialect.

Henry Paul Senior watched her move. He admired how she could easily mask her anger. There was no sign of it in the way she walked. He looked past her at the skyscrapers around and walked slowly up to her and placed his hands gently on her waist. A soft kiss to her neck provoked a sigh from her and her hands came to rest on his.

“Look at the bright side, Honey. This could be a means for the Paul Group to expand. The whole thing started with my grandfather opening a multinational restaurant with branches across the globe and…”

“Not now. I’ve heard that story several…

“Then my father came along with his expertise in petroleum and there came our filling stations and refineries. Our PG airline is as a result of me venturing out of both of my forerunners’ legacies. What next, baby? Couldn’t there be more? Couldn’t we have our automobile brand or our own telecommunication company? What about us having…”

Emilia turned in his arm to stare up at him in the face.

“You don’t get tired, do you?”

Paul smiled, raised a hand to her chin and leaned in to kiss her but was interrupted by the ringing of the phone.

“I’d get it.” Emilia said and pranced away to answer the phone. Paul watched her as he always did. She hadn’t changed one bit since he first met her. All the things he loved about her were still intact. The grin dancing on his lips dwindled the moment she spoke into the receiver.

“Junior?” He heard her say and watched as the creases slowly appeared on her face as she listened. Something was wrong.

“Calm down, Junior. You’re not making sense… Okay, I’m listening…Yeah, what about him... No way.”

Her body stiffened as her gaze bore into his. He hurried over to her side and pushed the button for loudspeaker. His son’s voice came out clearly

“…Ikeja precinct.”

“What’s it son?”

“Dad, Richard’s in trouble There’s a murder, dad.”

Paul looked at his wife for a brief moment. She was clearly worried.

“Where is Richard? Let me talk to him.”

Emilia said “He’s nowhere to be found” the same moment their son said, “I haven’t seen him.”

“Okay, just calm down. We’d sort this out. Don’t try to look for Richard on your own our lawyer would get in touch with you. Just make sure you’re available and don’t try to do anything stupid. Do you get me?”

“Yes, I do.”

“And whatever you do, do not talk to the police, do you get me?”

There was silence on the other end and then Emilia said, “He has already talked to the police.”

Paul nearly swore. He used his hands to stroke his beard thoughtfully.

“Okay. Don’t just do anything again till you hear from our lawyer.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Okay, baby. We’d stay in touch, okay?” Emilia said as Paul walked over to sit on the exquisite bed in the suite.

Paul heard his son biding him goodbye, but he did not reply. There were no words to say. He just sat there with his face buried in his palms.

“This is bad.” Emilia said as she replaced the receiver.”

“Very bad.” Paul was rubbing his face with his dry palms now and then he pinched the bridge of his nose.”

“Just calm down, Honey. This shouldn’t spoil your plans. I could take the next flight back home and I’d…”

“No. I need you here. Just two more days.”

“We have to inform him.” Emilia said after letting out a puff of air from her mouth. She walked over to him and sat by his side.

“We can handle this by ourselves.”

“I know, but this is serious. He has to know.”

Paul placed a hand on her lap and patted it gently.

“Not yet, honey. Not yet.”

***

14:33

Ann nearly bumped into someone in her hurry to get into the precinct. She apologized without looking back and increased her pace till she got into the elevator, ignoring the protests from the police officer that didn’t recognize her as a staff. She rode up in the elevator to the fifth floor and there she marched up to Detective Chase’s cubicle with the most serious face she could conjure.

“You again.” The detective said leaning back into his chair and making it sway left and right.

“Yes. Me again.” Ann said and showed him the newspaper she had carried in her hand.

“You shouldn’t be here.” It was the detective’s partner speaking. Ann ignored him and spoke to Chase.

“Take a look at this.” She raised it so the Detective could read the headline as he refused to collect the paper from her.

“So?”

“There’s a connection, godammit.”

“We don’t allow such language here.” The partner spoke. Ann didn’t even glance at him.

“We already know about the Zyberdine connection, ma’am, but it shouldn’t bother you. It might not mean anything. So, until we confirm, I’d advice that you be careful about what you write.”

A police officer approached. Ann saw him out of the corner of her eyes and decided it was better she left before she gave the haughty Detective and his pugnacious partner a spectacle they could use to taunt her for the rest of her career. She waved away the officer before he could touch her and sauntered away.

After the reporter left, Benjamin raised an eyebrow at Detective Chase.

“Don’t say anything. Not even a word.” Detective Chase said sternly.

“Sir, yes, sir.” Benjamin said and buried his head in the paper work he was attending to before the reporter arrived. His body shook visibly with giggles

Detective Chase watched him for a moment before his gaze drifted to the view beyond the plate glass window. Zyberdine was clearly the connection between both the kidnapping and the recent murder, but the murder victim was no longer a staff of Zyberdine before she was murdered. She had resigned four days prior to her death. That wasn’t a reason to dismiss the connection. Rather, it was a good reason to look further into the case. He wasn’t the detective that looked into the kidnapping and he knew that once the connection was established the case would be taken away from him. He swore to himself that he wasn’t going to let that happen. Dr. Boyle’s resignation was questionable on its own and that was why he felt he needed to look into the company called Zyberdine.

Detective Chase sprang to his feet and walked up to the computer maven’s desk and asked him to dig up anything he could on Zyberdine. He could have done it by himself on his own system but he was really slow and there was no time. Smith was fast and in a matter of seconds he was dishing out words from his screen.

“Zyberdine, as it appears, is not a company.” Smith said “It’s a laboratory. An amalgamation of laboratories. On August 6, 2029, eight laboratories came together as one and that was where Zyberdine began.”

“2029 is nine years ago.” Chase said and Smith nodded while scrolling through the information on display.

“Zyberdine was working on something big. It’s all over the net, it appears.”

“How big?”

“Very big. Nobody seems to have the full idea of what it is or what it was. I’m on their website now and it seems the laboratory itself is quite shady about the whole thing. I’m scouting through the web to see what it’s about. It seems there was meant to be a premiere scheduled for two weeks ago. They had a success but cancelled the unveiling of their success. Hold on. I can see that there are speculations. People talking about this ‘Zyberdine project’ are saying that the debut was cancelled because of the disappearance of Dr. Ezekiel Agbetunde. Others are saying that the project failed, but some others claiming to be ‘Beta testers’ and ‘living proof’ of the success of Zyberdine’s thing are saying that the product was stolen.”

Detective Chase gave Smith a cheerful pat on the back.

“You’re really very useful around here. See if you can find the name of doctors that worked on this project.”