|
Excerpt from:
The Return of the Pleiadians,
The first book of the 2012 Saga
by Richard Brown
"This means we're going to have to drive into the no-go zone in the dark of night."
|
Chapter 1
October 25, 2012, 7:30 p.m.
"Damn!" Walter slammed down the phone.
"What is it this time?" Jeffery asked idly. He was shifting and sorting through the large stacks of paper on his desk.
"He's not in." Thin and nervous, it was hard to guess Walter was only in his mid-thirties. He looked much older as he paced up and down the small office.
"Well, at least the phones are working," Jeffery mumbled. The cold florescent lights flickered in the windowless room and went out for a couple of seconds. Then they flickered back on. "Which is more than we can say for the electricity," he added absently. They had long since gotten used to the intermittent electrical supply at work.
"We're going to have to do this ourselves," Walter hissed.
"Weren't we expecting that anyway?" Jeffery did not even bother looking up as he continued to thumb through the deep stack of papers in front of him. Paperwork, the bane of any office work was more than evident with a ten-inch stack in each of two baskets on Jeffery's desk. The top of Walter's desk was not even visible for the stacks of papers. Put a computer in the midst of each of those desks, and it was a wonder anything at all ever got done. "So what's the fuss about this time?" Jeffery said absently. Greying and in his late forties, but still fit, Jeffery was not the sort to let details bother him.
"It would have been much easier if he had been in," Walter said.
Jeffery pulled a single piece of paper out of one of the stacks and smiled. "Ah, here it is," he said softly. He started reading it.
"This is just like him," Walter hissed. He was still pacing.
Jeffery looked up and smiled. "Relax, Walter. How many times has it been like this before? If there were no problems, then this would be easy, and likely we'd be out of a job," he said.
Walter scowled. "You know this means we're going to have to drive into the no-go zone in the dark of night."
Jeffery shrugged with a small smug smile on his face. "With the ID we carry we can drive anywhere we wish in the city at any hour of the day or night, regardless of what the army says, and we also have the gasoline to do so. So what's your problem?"
"Security."
"Frank and Charles will be with us." Jeffery said evenly.
Walter stopped cold and looked Jeffery in the eye. "Frank and Charles?" he asked quietly. Jeffery nodded solemnly. Walter whistled softly. "It's that big?" Jeffery nodded again."How about time? As I figure it, we only have eight hours to get this done."
"It's not going to take that long. Two hours," Jeffery replied. "Max."
"In theory," Walter said.
Jeffery nodded. "That's right," he said in his quiet voice. "In theory." He handed the piece of paper in his hand to Walter. "This make any sense to you?"
Walter looked down at the paper. His brow furrowed as he read it. He slowly shook his head. "Not a thing. It needs to be decoded."
"It is decoded," Jeffery said evenly.
"What's in the rest of those papers?" Walter said pointing to the mass confusion on Jeffery's desk.
"Routine, the usual garbage from the usual people," Jeffery said, "which is why that is the page we pay attention to," he said as he pointed to the paper which Walter now had in his hands. "Commit it to memory. We're going to need it later tonight."
Walter raised his eyebrow. He pointed at the paper. "Tonight?"
Jeffery nodded slowly. "If all goes well, we get the matcher to that one."
Walter took a deep breath, pursed his lips, and started reading the paper carefully, moving his finger line by line as his lips moved. He closed his eyes, sighed, and quietly mouthed some sounds. Then he opened his eyes, looked at the paper and smiled broadly. He handed the paper back to Jeffery. "Check me," he said with assurance.
"On cue," Jeffery said mechanically. They had done this before a few times. Jeffery looked at the paper he was holding in his hand, paused, and said. "Now."
Walter proceeded to rattle off a series of what sounded like random letters and numbers as Jeffery followed on the paper with his index finger line by line. When Walter finished, Jeffery smiled. "Excellent, Walter," he said. "One hundred per cent, as always."
Jeffery then ran the page through a shredder, took the shreds and placed them in a metal ashtray, and put a match to the shreds. The two watched in silence as the shreds burned. When they were reduced to ash, he stood up. "We're ready to go now. Frank and Charles are upstairs."
The lights in the little room flickered again, but this time they went out completely plunging the room into darkness. Even the ventilation system, which had always provided a hum in the background was off. The two men waited in total black silence. Then the lights flickered and came back on. "Power's out again," Walter said absently. "Christ, we can run half the governments in the world, but we can't even get electricity in our own office," he muttered.
Jeffery sighed. "Oh well, we're on backup generator again, at least until the power comes back on," he said.
"Assuming it does," Walter muttered.
"So far it always has."
"One day it's not going to," Walter replied.
Jeffery shrugged. "We'll deal with that when we get there." He smiled. "After all, that's our job, right?" He stood up, and the two walked toward the door of the room.
"You said two hours max for tonight," Walter said quietly.
Jeffery took a deep breath. "That's right. That's what I said."
The two men locked eyes and paused for what seemed a very long time. Neither one was very sure about the two-hour estimate, but neither one was about to say that.
"Maybe we should get going," Walter said softly.
Jeffery nodded silently. The two men then put on their bulletproof vests, clipped on their shoulder holsters, and put on a jacket hiding both. Jeffery grunted as he picked up his heavy briefcase, and the two men walked out the door of the office.
Free choice:
Click here to order the book now!
Home
|
Site Search:
"Christ, we can run half the governments in the world, but we can't even get electricity in our own office."
|
|
