Chapter 5. Useful Information

With the information they had, past actions and surveillance records were investigated and the defeat of the terrorists organization slowly began and in two weeks, commendable success was recorded. Agents Carl and Rex finally led the FOX to their supposed final victory on the thirtieth day of March 2015.

However, as they returned to their families the next day to celebrate the victory, the invisible terrorists struck back and attacked the two Agents and their families. Agent Rex’s wife and two kids were killed with their bodies butchered into pieces while Agent Carl’s wife and his son were burnt to ashes in a house.

The terrorists captured the Agents and recorded them in two separate videos being tortured and shot after which their bodies were thrown into the Bexford Sea in broad daylight. The agents dead bodies since then had never being found and they never got to be given befitting burials.

Few days after the death of the Agents were announced publicly, other FOX agents were able to trace the terrorists through the trails left in killing the Agent’s families and caught up with them, totally wiping them out this time.

In a conference room at the FOX Headquarters, not less than fifteen men were seated, all dressed in black suits and ties. A large screen hung at the center of the wall in front, showing a video of the Bexford sea and three choppers hovering around it.

The youngest of the men in the conference room was forty five, and the oldest man was sixty two. Each and every one of them were top agents of the FOX, having had many years of experience in the security and defense world, they held major role in decision making and strategizing for the FOX corporation.

The video being played was without sound, but it had every single person’s attention. After over twenty minutes of watching, the man was seemed to be the chairman of the board turned off the screen with a remote control and turned to face the rest of the board.

There was a deafening silence for about five minutes, not all of the men seemed to have come up with a decision. They carried undecided looks on their faces even though the decision was not supposed to be a difficult one to make.

“We’ve never had to wait for this long to make a decision,” Paul Edwards, the man at the front said in low tones.

There was no verbal response to his remark and the silence seemed to continue for another two minutes. It was in this same room and on the same table that a meeting had held about five months ago.

Most of the men already had their decisions in that meeting even before it started and they all were in one Accord. Their decision after that day’s meeting was that Agents Rex and Carl were the most suitable men to bring down the invisible terrorists. Now they were sitting and trying to make a decision to stop the search for the dead bodies of the same two Agents.

“We have to end the search,” Mark, the man sitting at the left rear end said. He adjusted his sitting position and placed his elbows on the table, holding a pen up with his fingers. “Even though it’s a terrible blow to us that we could not give the world best two Agents their last respects.”

“I think at this junction we’ve done all we can do to find their bodies, it is impossible to find them anymore. It would be a waste of time and resources if we continue,” another agent put in.

“I’ve always known we are never going to find those bodies after the first two days of searching,” a grey haired man spoke. He wasn’t the oldest man in the gathering, but his grey hairs were as much as that of a ninety year old man. All eyes turned to him, they all knew he had been negative from the start of the search. “The Bexford sea is big and some big fishes were newly discovered in it at that time. The fishes could have eaten up their bodies.”

It wasn’t the first time of the board members hearing the “fish eating” story from the grey haired man and they were tired of it but it was beginning to make sense. It was the most sensible explanation for the disappearance of the bodies of the Agents.

“Agent Samuel may be right,” Agent Sylvanus, the oldest amongst them stated. “It’s obvious something happened to those bodies, the sea has been thoroughly searched like never before. If we can’t find the bodies, it means they are no longer there.”

Paul Edwards tapped the tall finger of his right hand in the table slowly and gently continuously for a moment. He recalled how Rex and Carl had gone on several missions in various parts of the world and had come back victoriously, even in missions which seemed to be impossible, they always turned around the story just at that moment when every one thought it was over.

Paul looked at the faces of all the other men with him, he knew what they had in mind. He knew they must feel so disappointed, they all would have felt that Carl and Rex would appear back alive so soon but it was four months now and there were no signs of them. He took in a deep breath and leaned forward to talk.

“We all saw the viral videos uploaded by the terrorists online here again this morning and I’m sure we all agree that there is no way Rex and Carl could have escaped death, if we can’t find their dead bodies, something must have happened to them.” he paused for a moment and blinked his eyes.

He had a quick flashback in his mind and saw again how Rex was being beaten with long iron rods on his body and especially his head and how he was shot on the bridge and thereafter tossed into the Bexford sea. The video also showed the same treatment being given to Rex’s friend after which he was also thrown into the sea.

“But after our investigations, we still do not know where these bodies are. It is safe to say something happened to these bodies before we got the information. We all would love to give them the last respects and a befitting FOX funeral but we may have to go ahead without their bodies. We’ve given them so much honour already in burying their families. It’s sad but we have to move on and be ready for other things. The most important part is that the invisible terrorists have been wiped out and we can all say that the death of the Agents were not in vain. With this in mind, we’d put a stop to all the search operations and go ahead with their last honours.” He took a pause and his eyes moved quickly across the faces of his listeners. “Would anybody like to say something?”

There was total silence.

“I declare a stop to the search operation and pronounce this meeting closed.”