CHAPTER 7

The disclaimer continues.

Over the next few days the identifications came back on the three other men. Just as Don has expected they were ex-military, Special Forces soldiers. All with the type of training to allow them to think on the fly, to carry out and execute hasty plans and succeed at their missions.

Colby also dug up rumours of a group inside the FBI protesting criminals being offered immunity and protection deals for information leading to the arrests of bigger fish. But try as he might he could not find any evidence to suggest that such a group existed beyond the wishful thinking of some agents.

Unfortunately all the leads were rapidly drying up. They had not been able to ascertain how Stern provided his information, no phone calls to mysterious persons on his phone records, no mysterious e-mails. All interviews were likewise unable to shed any light on his contact. The military men were also mysteries. They had been honourably discharged several years ago and had not had any contact with each other that they could establish whilst in the armed forces. Then they had each dropped off the face of the Earth within two months four years ago. No known bank accounts or places of residence, no criminal records and no parking tickets. They had become ghosts.

Nothing could be found on Telford. Don scoured every photograph of recent and present FBI agents in the LA area even remotely resembling Telford without success. The exercise only proved to give Don a headache.

--100--1111--1110--

It was about two weeks later when their next lead developed. Don had arrived at work, early as usual and logged onto his computer. He got his coffee whilst his e-mails were downloading. He worked his way through them, stopping when he got to one from an external source that looked like an internet café.

He opened the message and saw that it was blank with an attachment. Don checked that the attachment had been scanned by the FBI virus checker then saved it to his computer before opening it. He frowned when he saw it was in code. He looked at the first line and was astonished to see that it was a header identifying to those in the know that this was a FBI encryption. It was also the latest edition, released just this week. Don made a copy of the message before he washed it through the translation program on his computer.

'AGENT EPPES. THIS IS THE LAST WARNING. DO NOT INVESTIGATE FURTHER. WE DO NOT WANT TO REGRET ALLOWING YOU TO LIVE – TELFORD.'

Don waited for his team to arrive and showed them the message. "How did they get a FBI encryption? We must have missed something, there has to be an inside source." He insisted heatedly.

"We've checked everything." Megan protested. "We got nothing."

"There must be something." Don said frustrated.

Megan took the printouts Don had made both of the blank message carrying the e-mail header from the internet café and the coded message. "We'll run this out."

A few hours later Megan bought Don up to date. "The message was sent from an internet café on campus at CalSci."

Don looked at her sharply.

Megan correctly interpreted the look. "They've hinted that they know who your family are, this just proves that they know where Charlie is. They haven't directly threatened them, but they sure are letting you know that they can."

"Does the café have video surveillance? Who sent the message?"

"His name is Rob Waters, geology major. He was paid one hundred dollars and given a flash drive." Megan held up a plastic bag containing an old 128Mb flash drive. It had been in use for a long time judging by the wear on the casing. "No prints except for Waters. He was given your external e-mail address and told to send the file on the flash drive as an attachment."

"Didn't he think it strange someone was asking him to send a coded message to the FBI?" Don wondered. His external e-mail address had the extension fbi.gov.us, it would be obvious where the message was going.

Megan nodded. "He said the man told him that he was a confidential informant that had urgent information to give to you. He said that he couldn't risk being seen on surveillance camera. Waters said he was very convincing."

"Description?"

"Matches Telford. Right down to the politeness."

"I want every bit of surveillance footage from the campus and the surrounding streets. He has to show up somewhere." Don ordered. Megan left along with the rest of the team.

It was late, almost 6:00pm when Don left his desk. He hadn't heard a result from his team so he headed to the AV lab to see what they had found.

"Hey Don." Colby said as he entered before turning back to the monitor in front of him. He was watching students walking in fast forward along the footpath towards CalSci from an ATM camera. Megan and David were both watching monitors also playing on fast forward.

"I take it there is nothing." Don said.

Megan looked up tiredly, freezing her monitor. "Nope. We know he wasn't wearing a disguise, Waters described him exactly. He must have known where the cameras were and avoided them. There are a lot of black spots around the university, Don."

"I know." Don looked at the stack of videos and CDs that they had viewed. "Alright. Pack it up. Go home, let the techs follow this up tomorrow."

The three agents shut down their monitors and climbed tiredly to their feet. "G'night Don." Megan said.

"Thanks guys, good work." Don said. He knew it had been a long shot, Telford was too good but they had to try. As Telford had been at CalSci his team knew how much it meant to him so they had been viewing all the footage personally rather than let the techs do it.

Don was the last of his team out of the building, driving his SUV onto the main street. It was already dark and traffic was easing. He started heading towards Charlie's house feeling a sudden urge to visit him and his father. But he had second thoughts before he'd gone a block. Telford knew where his brother worked, it was beyond coincidence that he had been at CalSci, but he may not know where Charlie and their father lived. Don realised that he didn't really believe that, it was more than probable that Telford knew their address. But on the off chance, Don didn't want to lead him to it. At the thought he carefully checked his mirrors, as he had been doing ever since that day. As always no sign of a tail.

He was nearly at his apartment when he remembered he needed milk. He pulled into the gas station a few blocks away and bought some milk and some bread. He went back to his SUV, pressing the button on his remote to unlock the doors. He was still preoccupied with the case and didn't notice the softened sound that the lock actuators made, indicating that the doors were already unlocked. He climbed in, placing his purchases on the seat beside him. He put the key in the ignition and was about to turn it when cold metal touched him on the neck. Don froze, eyes darting upwards to the rear vision mirror.

Straight into Telford's eyes.