He travelled along the Gateway Motorway. He knew the motorway well and was surprised by the many changes taking place, with new residential areas cropping up on both side of it. He got in the middle lane and put his car in cruise control and relaxed. Like being on a plane except for the steering—and it wouldn’t be long before the self-steering vehicles appeared.
Technology changes, places change, people change. Lucas Fell had changed a lot now he was off the drugs and in prison. Aaron saw a photo of Lucas, taken when he first came to prison. He looked like one of those mad wrestlers that crop up on television every now and then. A more recent photo had Lucas trimmed down and looking like a middleweight boxer.
Aaron thought about Lucas and wondered if his change was a spiritual thing. Aaron’s was and it was due to this change that he was able to forgive Lucas for his past misdemeanours.
For now, the focus was on finding the Professor who had yet to surface after so many years, but the tip off had indicated that he may be coming out of the woodwork.
Aaron went into meeting prepare mode. So what was the purpose of the visit? Someone in the prison system had been approached about providing precise GPS information by an outside source. Voice recognition software had identified the source as the Professor. Aaron wanted to talk to the contact as this could open up some clues to the Professor’s location. They needed the Professor, as the transporting device they’d confiscated from the earlier vanishings had been inoperable.
7 – Correction Centre communications
SHINY STEEL FENCES WITH RAZOR WIRE APPEARED. Aaron drove into the Correctional Centre’s car park, retrieved his leather flap-over briefcase and headed towards the entrance. He had a number of high-level security passes with him but it still took time to gain access.
He was taken down a long corridor with temporary cells on one side, and offices and consulting rooms on the other. He was ushered into an office. A man dressed in a light blue shirt covered by a sleeveless navy blue jumper with some kind of red logo just above his heart stood up to greet him.
“Aaron Fitzpatrick?”
Aaron gave a nod. “Yep.” He shook the man’s hand.
“Steve Marshall, nice to meet you. Good flight?”
“It was. Provides a good time for thinking or reading. Sadly, I chose the former.”
Marshall gave a small chuckle. “Yes, I’m the same. Have great plans to read but thinking seems to take over. It’s like we don’t get enough time to think. Too many distractions.”
“You’re right there. But I’m originally from sunny Queensland, so between you and me, it’s good to be back. The climate must encourage thinking.”
Another chuckle. “I understand.” Marshall gestured towards a seat.
Aaron sat down. He sensed tension in the air. “Thanks for seeing me on such short notice.”
Aaron watched Marshall’s eye darting around.
Marshall remained standing. “No problem, but I need to address an urgent matter so if you could excuse me for a few minutes. Just make yourself at home and I’ll be back shortly.”
“No problem.”
Aaron watched Marshall rush out of the office and then returned his gaze to the surrounding office. There were two large monitors on the wall, one with a news channel on and the other showing segments of the prison CCTV streams. In one of those streams he saw Marshall appear and noticed him giving slow down signals to some officers as they were rushing past.
Something was not right.
Aaron continued to watch the prison CCTV streams. It looked like they were doing a muster check. Marshall disappeared off the screen. A few moments later he appeared back in his office and sat down at his desk.
“Sorry about that.”
“That’s okay.” Something definitely was not right. “Bad timing for a meeting?”
“It is. But you’ve come a long way.”
“Okay. Let’s see if I can keep it short.” Aaron retrieved a sheet of paper from his briefcase.
Urgent beeps came from Marshall's desktop computer.
Marshall looked at the screen and then turned towards Aaron. “I’m sorry about this but I need to give something my attention. Could I get one of my staff to give you a tour of the prison and then take you to the canteen and then I’ll come and retrieve you.”
“That’s all good.”
Within a short time another prison officer arrived. He was quite a large man in which a bullet would be the only way to bring him down. He shook hands with Aaron.
“John.”
“Aaron.”
“Look after him, John. Just give him the routine tour and then settle him in the canteen and I’ll find him,” Marshall said looking at his monitor.
The smell of breakfast still floated around the group dining setting but was slowly being overtaken by the smell of disinfectant. Aaron noticed a sign showing direction to the Prisoner Telephone System. Aaron knew the man walking away from the telephone system. He believed they called him the Governor in here but Aaron knew him as Grant Windsor, an ex-government minister who had a connection with Lucas.
“I take it the prisoners don’t have smartphones?” Aaron asked.
John smiled. “Some prisoners do, either dropped from drones flying above, or sold to them by corrupt prison staff—staff who were happy to take the money and not tell the prisoners the prison technology sniffed out and blocked mobile calls.”
The Governor looked stressed.
The tour continued and Aaron got to see the prisoner’s living quarters, the prison grounds from the guard tower and some of the prisoner’s training rooms. He felt he was intruding.
John’s phone beeped. He read the message.
“Need to take you back now.”
Aaron’s phone vibrated.
<°)))><
Aaron sat back in the chair in Marshall’s office. He'd received the text message from his department and now realised the urgency in the prison was directly related to his charter.
Marshall pointed to the monitor on the wall that previously displayed the news. It now displayed a link diagram.
“We have a prisoner by the name of Grant Windsor who just made a phone call that triggered an alert which instructed us to contact the Department of Defence. We also have just experienced an escape event which I’ve been authorised to talk with you about.”
Too late. The intelligence was accurate. “And that’s what I’d come to talk to you about. But it looks like they beat us to it.”
8 – Linking it together
THE LINK DIAGRAM LISTED all Windsor’s associates and relatives. Aaron knew of them all.
The now missing Lucas Fell was on the list. All the links were tied into the technology driven by Grant Windsor and Bruce Starke, also known as the Professor, who’d disappeared. This Starke fellow played a key role—the brains behind it all. There were links below him to a daughter and granddaughter.
The daughter worked with a pharmaceutical company but she had the death icon next to her. How did she die? Automobile accident, not long ago. The granddaughter was under intermittent surveillance—they expected her granddad may try to contact her at some point.
