251 The Continuous Plan
As I was heading out to the front door of the YMPA to go home, my phone rang immediately. That could be none other than Greg.
What was he calling me for?
I answered the phone, anxious about what’s happening. “Hey Greg, what’s the problem?” I asked. Greg sighed before he spoke. “Remember that drive that was inside the blue box? It’s been shipped somewhere else, so we have no clue of its location.”
“What does that mean?”
“That means we can’t do anything, and we still do—”
“Nothing,” me and Greg finished together. “So what else?”
“I want to see how you guys are doing in the Matthew Lock case.”
“Terrible, to be frank with you,” I said. “Matthew Lock was doing the deal, and we had it in the bag until the actual TSA decided to show up early to the scene.”
“Well, what’s your plan now?” Greg asked. I sighed, gritting my teeth before answering. “Follow Luthor Bane so that he can find Matthew Lock, and then we capture Lock and leave the TSA hanging.”
.....
“That’s pretty smart. How are you guys going to find him?”
“Ask Dr. Mord. Maybe he can tell us some sort of schedule that Luthor Bane is usually at or something like that,” I said.
“A bit of a flaw in your plan,” Greg said. “We spies know not to make a pattern in our lives, because eventually someone will know.”
“I guess that makes sense,” I said. “But he would have guys to protect him.”
“Then we would bring even more guys,” Greg said. “We have to be very vigilant on his location, because he definitely must be changing locations. Invite all the others over, and we talk about a plan.”
“When you say others, do you mean?–”
“Yes, Nikki, Tisiah, and even that mean dude, Malachi.”
“He’s not mean.”
“He was mean, though,” Greg added. “Last time I remember, he knocked you upside your head a few months ago.”
“It doesn’t matter, okay?” I said. “I’ll call up the others, alright? Where are we meeting?”
“There’s a diner that closes at eight, but I usually get a bit of extra time because I’m such friends with the owner. Usually he’s in his office counting the money he gathered after that day, so the day is just for us.”
“Okay…” I muttered. “But they all live in different places, right?”
“Who told you that you were coming back to California? I’ll meet you in Maine,” Greg said.
“How do you know a man from across the US?”
“Missions, missions,” Greg responded before he shut off the call. I sighed.
***
I went to the local diner that was apparently near to here, although it took thirty minutes to walk. I told Mr. Drails I would not be leaving yet, in which he allowed me. Hopefully, the others convinced him.
I approached the diner, which had big red letters upfront that said: BIG-AL’s DINER.
Not sure why he called himself big, but whatever, I guess.
I walked in, and the place was pretty checkered, if you could say it like that.
The floors were checkered red and white, but the walls were just pure white. The counter was red; the tools were red, and I mean, everything was red–in fact–the tables were red.
I saw Greg at the corner table, and as I got closer, I noticed the other three. September was sitting next to Tisiah, who had a plate full of fries in front of him. Nikki was sitting in between the two of them, with her mouth wide open as she stared at the plate. I knew that look. She was drooling at the sight of the food.
Malachi was at the end, whose eyes lit up once he saw me. “Well, man of the hour,” he said with a chuckle.
“I thought I would be the one to say that,” I replied. He chuckled again. I sat down and looked at Greg, who in return looked at everyone. “Now, if you guys are going to find Luthor Bane, you can’t find him in a pattern. We spies know not to make patterns because someone will catch on. So what’s your plan?”
“I already told you, follow him and wait for the perfect opportunity,” I said. “I also don’t think that you can trust Luthor Bane.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that. We can’t really trust anyone, Connor.”
“Well, that’s true.”
“What I was thinking was that we use Dr. Mord to bait him. Make him create a meeting with Luthor Bane, and therefore, we get him and put the tracker on his back. Simple as that to be honest,” Greg said with a chuckle.
“Never thought about that,” September said.
“I’m sure we can use that idea,” I said, while I nodded at Greg. “I’m not sure about using Luthor Bane.”
“What do you mean?” Nikki asked.
“Where’s Tisiah?” I asked.
“He’ll be joining us soon,” she said. “As you were saying?” I nodded. “Luthor Bane might find out. We can’t put it on his bare neck because he’ll know, and we can’t put it on his suit because I doubt he’s wearing the same suit.”
“But he does wear the same utility belt,” Greg said, which realization arrived in my mind.
“So what?” I asked. “We don’t need to track the belt, we only need to track the person wearing it.”
“How would we do that?” Malachi asked.
“We just have to have a way to identify him.”
“Oh, I know,” Greg spoke up. “I have a way to do that, but it’s not for long.”
“Huh?” we all asked, our heads facing him. “Can you please elaborate?”
“I was thinking of something similar to a dog whistle. Something that would be hard to hear but not to see, and be able to tell who it is.”
“What kind of sound is that?” I asked.
“I’m not entirely sure, but I’ve read about it somewhere.”
“You want to tell us?” Nikki asked.
“It’s an electronic sound.”
“What is?” I asked.
“I’ve seen it on a TV show, and it was something like a very high pitch,” Greg explained. I nodded. “And how is that going to be useful to put the tracker on Luthor Bane exactly?”
“Well, I’ll be able to listen to that sound, and if I find that sound, I’ll be able to tell who is speaking.”
“And by doing that, we can find Luthor Bane, put the tracker on his belt and then—we exit the scene. But how are we going to put it on his belt at the fake meet?” I asked.
“We can just put it on the inside of the pocket, or even the inside of the back of the pants. There are a lot of places to hide things here,” Greg said, pointing at his body.
“Yeah, but we don’t want to do it too many times. It can be found and then he’ll know we’re following him,” I said. “We can’t put it on his pants because he doesn’t wear the same pants everyday. Should we knock him out and put it on his utility belt?”
“It’d be much easier to take him out,” Greg said. “If we can just get close to him, we can just shoot him.”
“Whoa, slow down. Let’s just hit him with a gun, how about that,” Nikki said.
“Not good enough. If he finds out that we are using a weapon, he won’t trust us anymore.”
“We can still shoot him,” I said. “Just with a dart instead.”
“Ahhh,” everyone agreed simultaneously, as if the thought finally entered their brains. Can’t blame them though. We all needed to breathe, and this was a new plan.
“We’ll have to come up with something to keep him quiet when we approach him, because he would definitely notice a gunshot. But what?!” I said.
“We can tie him up and gag him. That should do the trick. And then we put the tracker on his belt and left,” September suggested. “Then we use the dart to make him sleep and forget.”
“Ahhh,” everyone agreed simultaneously, as the thought finally entered our brains. Can’t blame us though. But we all didn’t need to breathe though.
“That’s not going to work,” I said. “He will realize that we are trying to set him up.”
“Then what do we do?” Greg asked.
“We need to find some way to get close to him without him noticing. Maybe a distraction, but that doesn’t seem possible right now,” I said. “Should we make a car blow up?”
“No, he’ll notice that. But what if we have someone dress as a bomb? He’ll go and check it out, and then we can just take him out.”
“How would we do that?” I asked.
“Well, I was thinking of just having a bomb strapped to a guy. He’ll be wearing a suit, so it will be hard to spot,” Greg said. “Luthor Bane will notice him, we will knock him out, put it on his belt, and then shoot him with a dart gun.”
“Ahhh,” everyone agreed simultaneously, as the thought finally entered our brains. Can’t blame us though, this was a new plan. We all needed to breathe, but it was a plan.
“I don’t think it will work, but let’s give it a try.”
“How will we make sure he’s the right person?” I asked.
“Well, the easiest thing to do is to get a picture of him, and then see if it’s the right person.”
“We don’t have a camera,” I said. “Do you want us to use our phones?”
“Perhaps,” Greg said. “But I think we should just use my laptop.”
“Oh, that’s a great idea. Just have someone walk around with a laptop,” Nikki said sarcastically.
“Why is that a bad idea?” Greg asked.
.....
“Because people might get suspicious if they see a guy with a laptop walking around.”
“But we’ll be in disguise.”
“But no one brings a laptop around!” Nikki said. “Come on, just use our phones. We can just use the phone, since it looks a whole lot farther than a laptop.”
“Ahhh—”
“That’s enough guys,” September said. “We can’t argue over every little thing. We have to decide on the plan. That’s the only way to succeed.”
“I agree with September,” I said. “We all know the plan, right? Let me explain. 1. We find where Luthor Bane is. 2. We wait for a time where he isn’t busy. 3. We follow him. 4. We follow him until we get a chance to plant the tracker. 5. We make a distraction by making a guy reveal the fake bomb. 6. We knock Luthor Bane out, put the tracker on him, and then we knock him out with a dart.”
“Ahhh,” we all said together. That was now finished in our brains, and this time there was no one to blame. This was a foolproof plan.
“Alright, that’s the plan. I’m sure that we’ll figure something out, but for now, we need to find Luthor Bane. He’ll lead us to Matthew Lock, and we can make this happen. Oh, and for the record, I’m not sure that we should do this, but we have to do something. I’m tired of sitting here, and we can’t sit around any longer.”
“I’m with you, Connor. Let’s do this,” Greg said, as he stood up and stretched.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Nikki asked.
“Getting something to eat then going home. My behind is killing me. I’ve been sitting here for hours, and I can’t sit on my behind any longer.”
“You’re just going to leave?” September asked.
Greg and I nodded. “You have our number, just call us when you need it. Don’t worry about it, just do what you have to do,” I said.
“Okay. We’ll just do what we have to do,” Greg said. “I’m going to go get something to eat.”
“Good luck, brother,” I said, as he left.
“He seems nice,” Nikki said.
“He is,” I said, before leaving the diner.
I walked down the street, thinking about how the plan would work out.
I didn’t like it. It would work, but I wasn’t sure that it was the right way to do it.