Chapter 12: Trapped 1
Jark and Thompson were very far away from Washington as their car was speeding to Delaware when Thompson decided to ease the tension in the car.
"You are still thinking about ma’am," he asked Jark, whose eyes were still shut closed. "You don’t have to blame yourself again. It wasn’t your fault. You are trying your best to protect her."
Still no response from Jark.
"Oh, before I forget, I blocked every photo of you and ma’am from leaking, but..." He paused and looked at Jark. He knew very well that Jark was still listening to him. "But the picture of you carrying Kathe from the pool leaked. I tried all my best to stop it, but I couldn’t. But the good thing is that I erased it on time," he reported everything to Jark.
"What time did the picture leak?" Jark asked, his eyes still closed.
"That was at 11:16 prompt, as I clearly remembered."
Immediately, Jark’s eyes flared open.
"And at what time did you say the hacking started to take place?" Jark asked, his brain already calculating.
"The hacking started at around 11:45," Thompson answered, now serious.
Jark sat up straight immediately, tapping the armrest of the car, which indicated that he was thinking. Even Thompson didn’t want to interrupt him.
"Call the person in charge of protecting the firewall," Jark ordered Thompson, his voice serious.
Thompson, understanding the situation, quickly called the person in charge. Luckily, he picked up on the second ring.
"Hello," the person’s voice came through from the other end.
Jark collected the phone from Thompson.
"How long did the hacking last? Is it still happening now?"
"It started at exactly 11:45 but suddenly ended the moment you told me that you were on your way."
Everything began to make sense to Jark.
"Quickly plug the green drive and encode the Saetim symbols and check if you will find any attack on it."
There was a moment of silence as the keyboard sounds could be heard over the phone.
"Boss, nothing is wrong. There is no sign of an attack," the person exclaimed in surprise.
"It was faked. The attack was faked. It was just able to raise a false alarm." Jark disconnected the call. "Turn over, return back to Washington immediately. It was a trap, nothing was wrong," he ordered the driver, who quickly turned around.
Thompson himself was surprised that he didn’t notice the tiny details.
Jark took out his phone and called one of the security personnel at the mansion.
"Hello, boss."
"Is everything alright at home?" Jark asked directly.
"Yes, boss, everything is alright," the security guard replied.
Jark went silent for some moments before speaking again.
"Is everyone at home?"
It was the security guard who went silent this time.
"I ask again, is everyone at home?" Jark repeated the question.
"Ma’am went out," the security guard replied, his voice cracking a bit.
"Which ma’am went out?" Jark asked calmly, but there was urgency in his voice.
"Mrs. Kathe. She went out in a cab," the security guard replied, this time remembering what had happened to his other colleague.
"You let her leave in a cab? What happened to the car? Did any guards follow her?" Jark questioned.
"Boss... she insisted on leaving in a cab and without security too," he replied, knowing that he was in trouble.
Jark disconnected the call in anger and called Kathe’s number, but it was unreachable. He quickly called back the security guard.
"I want you to track the cab fast," he ordered the moment the guard picked the call.
"On it, boss."
Jark disconnected the call, tossing the phone to the other side.
"Should I call the old lady to ask? Maybe she might know Kathe’s whereabouts," Thompson suggested to Jark as he operated on his phone.
"Don’t. She was already stressed out by yesterday’s incident. I don’t want to stress her more," Jark replied as he rubbed his chin lightly, lost in thought.
Within the span of one hour, the car was back at the mansion security quarters. Jark went out of the car with Thompson running after him. The ride back to the mansion was already filled with tension.
Click!
Jark clicked the door open. The staff quickly stood on their feet the moment they saw Jark. They all fell silent.
They all bowed their head to the ground, knowing very well that they had made a mistake. But Jark was not in the mood to scold them.
"Have you tracked the cab I asked you to?" he asked the chief guard.
"Yes, boss. But there is something confusing too."
"What is it?" Jark asked.
The security in charge handed him a tablet.
"We tracked the cab to this route, but on connecting to the roads’ CCTV cameras, we noticed that four cabs had the same plate number, the same car color and model. The car got exchanged in the process, and we have tried tracking that particular cab, but it’s giving us four signals so we don’t know which one to follow," he explained everything to Jark, who was still focused on the tablet.
After a moment, he turned to Thompson.
"Thompson, go and find out how the photo got leaked. I don’t think any of this is by accident."
"What about Kathe, sir?" Thompson asked. He already knew Jark was going to go look for Kathe. He just asked to be sure.
"I will handle that. For now, go check on what I’ve just asked you to do," Jark replied.
"Okay, boss." Thompson left.
Jark asked the guard to play the video again, this time on a monitor. He kept watching it and replaying it over and over again.
"Boss, you have watched the footage for the tenth time now. There’s nothing useful there," the security said after watching the footage with Jark. He was clearly tired.
"Are you sure there’s nothing useful?" Jark asked, his voice cold.
"Y...e...s, boss, I think so." He replied, his voice cracking as cold sweat broke out from his forehead.
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