Red to Fade (3 page)

Ryan says, “I'll tell Tom what's going down.” Tom is Ryan's partner. “Whenever you're talking about this with Dylan, either go and meet up in a safe place and talk or both of you guys talk about this from a public phone. You'll call me when this is going down, yeah?”

Connor answers, “Yeah, I'll definitely call you. Keep on trying to get in contact with Carlton. The more guys we have the better; plus it would be great if we got that access code for the main server room door.”

Ryan says, “All right then, I'm going home. I'll see you later and good luck.”

Connor says, “Yeah, I'll see you later.”

Ryan exits the West Coast Leisure Centre and goes home in his car. Connor stays behind and waits for a few minutes. He takes a moment to think about what he's going to do and what's going to happen. Connor decides to leave the West Coast Leisure Centre and drive in his car to look for a public payphone to contact Dylan to talk about Carlton's discovery. Connor wants to talk about Carlton's discovery using a payphone because he thinks that there could be a possibility that the phones of the people who know about Carlton's discovery could be wired for sound by Joel and his army. Connor drives around LA looking for a public telephone. He sees a public telephone in a car park near a Walmart supermarket.

There are not many cars in the car park; it's not too busy tonight in Walmart. Connor parks his car in the supermarket car park. He exits the car and walks over to the public telephone. Connor goes inside the telephone box. He picks up the headset of the payphone before putting in a quarter; then dials Dylan's number.

*

In Dylan's house the phone is ringing. Dylan walks to the house phone and answers it.

Dylan says, “Hello.”

Connor replies, “Hey Dylan, it's me, Connor. Get to a public telephone and dial 310-042-1598.”

310-042-1598 is the number of the payphone that Connor is currently using. Connor knows this because the number is written on the phone he is using.

Dylan answers, “Sure, man, no problem.”

Dylan doesn't even ask the question ‘why do you want me to call you from a public phone?' He has an idea of why Connor wants to be contacted through a public telephone. Dylan grabs his jacket and exits his house, gets into his car and drives out of his driveway. Dylan drives out of his residential area of Oakburn. Oakburn is a nice quiet residential area with beautiful two-storey houses and peaceful working-class families.

Dylan drives to an Irish bar, O'Malley's, which is a mile away from his house. Dylan drinks in O'Malley's sometimes; he knows some of the people that work there. Dylan knows that O'Malley's has a public phone in the entrance area. Dylan parks the car in a car park across the road from O'Malley's, then crosses the road and goes into the entrance area of O'Malley's bar.

The public phone is in the entrance area. It's a bit noisy and busy tonight – a lot of youngsters drinking. It's not too noisy in the entrance area though. Dylan picks up the headset of the public payphone before putting in eight one-dollar coins; he suspects that this is going to be a long call. Dylan then dials 310-042-1598 on the public payphone. Connor, who is still at his public phone waiting for the phone to ring, hears it ringing.

He answers the phone and says, “Hello Dylan, is that you?”

Dylan answers, “Yeah, it's me.”

Connor asks, “Were you talking with Ryan today?”

Dylan answers, “Yeah, man, he told me what Joel and his crew plan to do.”

Connor says, “I'm going to download the R-1 file from the main server room. I need you to get me an access code for the door and a password and username to log in to the computer.”

Dylan says, “Do you need the cipher code to get access to the Red 1 folder?”

Connor says, “No, Ryan gave me the cipher code.”

Dylan says, “Man, it's going to take a bit of time to get all of these codes for you. Another thing I'd like to mention is I reckon that Joel and his guys will be watching the main server room.”

Connor says, “Yeah, I know. Before I go onto the floor where the main server room is I'm going to need you to make the main server room and IT floor camera monitors that are in the FBI security personnel room run old footage of an empty main server room and empty IT floor hallways in a repeated loop. If the footage displays empty rooms, empty hallways and is running in a loop whoever is watching will think they're looking at an empty room and empty hallways. Also I want you to turn the power off in the FBI security personnel room before you make the video footage of the main server room and IT floor run in a repeated loop, so that FBI security personnel and whoever is watching camera footage won't have a clue what's going on.”

Joel is able to see video footage of the main server room from his computer because his computer has a network connection to the FBI security personnel room. If the power of the FBI personnel room is turned off, this will also turn off the video footage of the main server room that is shown from Joel's computer.

“Dylan, do you have any Clandar earpiece mics?”

Clandar earpiece mics are used by Clandarian agents to communicate with each other. To use a Clandar earpiece mic, you fit it in your ear so that you can hear other people using Clandar earpiece mics. You simply speak and other people using the mics will be able to hear you. They are wireless.

Clandar earpiece mics are more advanced than the standard earthling earpiece mics. Two people who are communicating using Clandar mics can be miles away from each other. Clandar earpiece mics can also be called Sound Comms.

Dylan says, “Yeah, I have some.”

Dylan may work in robbery and homicide, but he is still really into technology. Dylan loves to get his hands on any new piece of technology.

Connor says, “Good, when you get the codes I need you to call my cell phone and say, ‘I have everything.' When I hear that I'll hang up and I'll go over to your house.”

Dylan says, “Should I tell Ryan about what's going on?”

Connor says, “No, after you get everything call me and I'll drive over to your house and then we'll call Ryan, OK?”

Dylan says, “Sure, no problem.”

Connor asks, “How long will it take you to get everything I need?”

Dylan says, “I don't know, man, it could take up to six or seven hours. I have to hack into the servers of the main server room to get these codes. The servers are protected by Velcrop software.”

Velcrop software is Balaxian software protection; it protects software from hacking and viruses.

Connor says, “That's fine, just let me know when you have everything.”

Dylan says, “No problem, man, I'm going to get everything you need right now.”

Connor says, “Thanks, man, I'll see you later.”

Connor hangs up the phone. When Dylan hears that Connor has hung up, he does likewise. Dylan exits O'Malley's and crosses the road to go to the car park where his car is parked. Dylan gets into his car, starts the engine and drives home. When Dylan reaches home he parks his car in his driveway. He goes into his house and goes to his IT room.

Dylan's IT room looks like the cockpit of a jet airliner. He has standard servers, Clandarian servers and four huge flat-screen computer monitors. Dylan turns on all of the IT equipment. He's got a lot of work to do; he has to get everything Connor needs.

*

Connor finally reaches home, which is at Sunrise Apartments, and heads straight for bed. He wants to get as much rest as he can before he carries out his mission.

He's waiting for Dylan's call. As soon as he hears Dylan's call he knows he has to get to work.

*

In Ryan Clarke's house, Ryan picks up his house phone in the kitchen area and dials his partner's phone number.

*

In Tom Rogan's house, Tom's wife Melissa hears the phone ringing. She answers the house phone and says, “Hello?”

Ryan knows it's Melissa, and he replies, “Hi Melissa, it's Ryan here, how's it going? Is Tom there?”

Melissa answers, “He is, I'll just get him for you now, Ryan.”

Ryan replies, “Thanks, Melissa.”

Ryan waits for Tom to pick up the phone. Melissa tells Tom that he is wanted on the phone by Ryan. Tom walks over, picks up the phone and says, “Hello?”

Ryan replies, “Hi Tom, how's it going?”

Tom says, “I'm good, man, how are you?”

Ryan says, “Yeah, I'm good, but I really need to speak to you about something in person.”

Tom says, “You can't talk over the phone?”

Ryan replies, “No, man, I really need to talk to you in person. I think I've figured out why some agents have gone missing from our branch. I'm not going to talk about it over the phone; can you come over to my house?”

Tom says, “Sure, man, I'll be over there in fifteen minutes.”

Ryan says, “OK then, I'll see you in fifteen minutes. Talk to you soon.”

Ryan hangs up his house phone. Tom then hangs up his phone. Tom tells his wife that he needs to go to Ryan's house to talk about a case that they're working on. Tom leaves his house and gets into his car and drives to Ryan's house. Ryan has all of a sudden become lazy by not arranging to meet up in a safe place like the West Coast Leisure Centre. Ryan has decided to talk about Carlton's discovery at his house. Ryan thinks that it's all right to talk about Carlton's discovery face-to-face in any place. Ryan has also decided that it's safe enough to talk about the discovery as long as you don't talk about it over the phone.

*

Ryan picks up the phone again and dials Carlton's cell phone number. Carlton's phone keeps on ringing and there is still no reply. Ryan hangs up, goes into his kitchen and sits down on a chair at the kitchen table and waits for Tom. Minutes later, Tom finally reaches Ryan's house. Ryan lives in a private area. It's quiet and he doesn't have any neighbours. Tom knocks on Ryan's door. Ryan answers.

Tom says, “Hi Ryan, how's it going?”

Ryan replies, “Not too bad, man, come on in.”

Shauna is Ryan's wife. Shauna hears somebody come into the house from her and Ryan's bedroom. She goes out to investigate. Ryan and Shauna's bedroom is on the second floor of the house. She walks over to the top of the stairs.

Tom sees her and says, “Hi Shauna, how are you doing?”

Shauna replies, “Good, Tom, how are you?”

Tom answers, “I'm good.”

Shauna asks, “How's Melissa keeping?”

Tom says, “She's keeping well.”

Tom and Melissa are good friends with Ryan and Shauna.

Shauna says, “I'm going to bed. Well, it was nice to see you.”

Tom replies, “Yeah, it was nice to see you too.”

Shauna says, “Goodnight guys.”

Ryan answers, “Goodnight baby.”

Shauna heads back to bed.

Ryan says, “Come on, man, we'll talk in the living room.”

Ryan and Tom both walk into the living room.

Ryan says to Tom, “Man, I've got some crazy-ass shit I have to tell you.”

Ryan tells Tom everything. He talks about Joel's mission; Carlton planting a camera in the main server room; agents going missing; the R-1 file; the DC file; everything.

Ryan has made the worst decision and biggest mistake of his life by talking about Carlton's discovery in his house. Little does Ryan know he has a bug planted in his living room. The bug was planted by Joel's crew under the coffee table so that they could hear everything Ryan talks about. Joel's crew killed Carlton and took his cell phone. They killed Carlton because they found the camera in the main server room. One day Joel got one of his agents to scan for wire taps and hidden cameras with a bug detector device in the main server room. After the agent carried out the scan they found a wireless network camera and realised that the camera shouldn't be there because there should only be one camera in the main server room.

They ran configuration tests on the camera and found out that it had a wireless network link to Carlton's computer in his office in the FBI building. When Carlton was not in his office some of Joel's crew checked Carlton's computer and saw the recorded meetings of Joel and his crew in the main server room that were stored on Carlton's computer. Joel's crew did some research on the computer and found out that the recorded meetings had also been stored on disks. They deleted the recorded meetings from Carlton's computer and searched his office for the disks, but they couldn't find them anywhere.

On the night they killed Carlton they tortured him to find out where the disks were. After many hours of pure torture, Carlton told Joel's crew where the disks were. Joel's crew found the disks, then killed Carlton and made his body disappear. On the day that Joel's crew found out that Carlton was recording meetings in the main server room, some of them had followed him.

While they had been keeping Carlton under surveillance they had seen him talking to Ryan. They had also seen that Carlton's cell phone had many missed calls from Ryan's phone. They suspected that Carlton told Ryan about what they planned to do. That's why Joel's crew planted a bug in Ryan's living room: so that they could find out what Ryan knows about their mission.

Joel's crew can hear Ryan saying everything about their mission.

Tom says, “Why do these guys always meet up in the server room?”

Ryan says, “It's the most secure place; agents with main server room access codes are the only ones that can get into that room. It's the only place where you can take a look at the R-1 file; plus you need more access codes to view the file. Joel and his crew are the only ones who have access codes to view the R-1 file.”

*

Some of Joel's crew are parked in a van a few miles away from Ryan's house. There are four guys in the van; two in the front and two in the back. Charles Richardson is one of the guys in the back of the van who's listening to Ryan's conversation. Richardson is Joel's right-hand man and his second-in-command. Charles wants to be like Joel. Charles also joined the FBI to make money by any means possible.