Memories Ch. 06

We were never seen on the camera footage. It was as if Sonar sabotaged our cameras, making them send a static image instead of a live recording. About twenty minutes after the phone call, with my waiting colleagues getting increasingly impatient and nervous, one by one the cameras went black. The raid was ordered, and minutes later the unit we were told to go to was raided. The door was locked, after breaking the door open, my associates found the unit was vacant. There was nothing there.

Out of options, as just raiding all the other units was not a legal possibility, the team retreated. The best they could do was to set up a guard outside the car park, and record the license plates of all vehicles entering and leaving.

Early morning, about an hour before dawn, the exodus stared. Some thirty cars left the car park. One of them, a black BMW SUV, was tracked down to a research manager at a multinational pharmaceuticals firm. He lived a couple hours drive from our town, on a farm in the countryside. He matched Julia's profile perfectly, however without so much as a shred of hard evidence there was nothing we could do.

Both Sonar and Radar on Facebook went silent. They did not reply to messages. All the phone numbers we had, were disconnected. The next Monday when I visited Hotel Aralla, the suspected mobile phone repeater had disappeared without a trace.

Thelma ran her feature in the paper. It was very well received not only locally, but by other news outlets around the world as well, leaving not only the Daily Gazette but also our poor receptionist inundated with phone calls asking for more information. Its success proved pivotal for Thelma to get a nice raise soon after.

The drug involved never hit the streets. It disappeared with the disappearance of Sonar and Radar.

Julia and I remained close friends, flirting and all. I'm grateful for her great work in this case, I can't blame her for the epic failure of our final plan. Some things are just not meant to be. This adversary managed to outwit us, and was smart enough to stop his activities before making a fatal mistake.

Thelma and I have been doing great ever since. It took us a few days to get over the shock of what had happened, and the realisation of what we had done at that party. We concluded that the best way to get over that was to repeat all the good things that happened there, but without the drugs and within the privacy of our bedrooms. Erotic fantasies, we agreed, are great. They are fun. However often they are best kept as fantasies, and not lived out, other than maybe in the bedroom.