The cache is
not at the above coords
I idly stirred my drink while I waited for my
contact to arrive. The
deli was busy
and I had
moved to the counter where I could both see and be
seen. That
afforded me
a complete
view of the place. Old
habits die hard. I was
seeking out the face of my
regular
contact among the crowd when a nervous-looking, young college-type
kid sat down
next to me
and said, “Excuse me … Sir ... Are … are you G?”
My hand moved slowly to cover a small automatic
in my pocket while I swung around to
respond.
This was definitely not who I was expecting,
and in my line of work unexpected
and
dangerous go hand in hand. I looked him over for a few
intense seconds before
smoothly
replying, “The name’s O’Cash. Gary O’Cash. Only my friends call me
G - and
you don’t
look like a friend to me.”
“O. G. Cash, that’s quite a name”
“You got that flipped around, Friend”, I
snarled.
“Oh, I’m terribly
sorry. I have a
bit of a speech problem and I sometimes get first
letters
switched around, by mistake, like. It happens when I'm nervous. I
meant no offense.
Actually, I
am here to give you something…” he said reaching for his
pocket.
Before he could moved his hand very far I
lunged forward pinning it to the counter. “Let’s
not make
any sudden moves that both of us will regret,” I whispered
menacingly.
“No, no … you’ve got the wrong
idea. I am your
new contact from headquarters,” he said,
pulling his
hand free but leaving it on the counter. “I came to deliver the
location
of the
hidden micro-film canister.”
“What happened to Carl?”, I asked warily,
scanning to see if anyone was listening.
“Carl…? They told me I was replacing
someone named Greg.”
I relaxed a little. Greg had been my contact for
almost two years.
“First field job?” I asked.
“Yeah, and I’m a little edgy. Sorry… um … I am supposed to give
you this”, he said
reaching
into his pocket and producing a small thin strip of paper with
printed markings
on
it. “They said all you
needed to do to read it was to …”
“I’ll take that”, I said cutting him off and
taking the strip from his hand. “I have
been doing
this for a while and I am well-versed on how to read
these. You need to
learn
that some
information should not be said aloud in public places…”
“Oh dear. I’ve done it
again. They
warned me that I might not have what it takes for
fieldwork.”
“Look, just turn over the other strip
and I’ll be on my way”, I said. This guy was starting
to make
me nervous.
“What other strip? They only gave me the
one.”
“What do you mean? It takes two of these strips to
indicate an exact location.”
“All I know is that headquarters said that this
one strip is all that you would need,”
he
stated.
That made me pause. Could this kid have lost the
second strip and just be trying to cover
his
tracks? “Are you sure
there was just the one? Is that all they said?” I
asked.
“N-no”, he
replied. “They said to
go there, and then walk 100 ft. toward the posted fake
coords.”
I left the deli thinking that the kid wasn’t
going to last very long in the business.
But to be
fair, he was correct.
Much to my surprise, the one strip was enough.
