billy
Immediately as I heard the voice on the other end of the line I knocked once on my desktop. Odie turned around, his head still cocked to one side, his face searching. I raised my paw and extended a single toe bean. Wait one. The voice sounded like a computer talking up to me from the bottom of a well. It was scrambled. Standard procedure when communicating sensitive information over the telephone, which was always monitored by Nermal’s security forces, but it had been a while since I’d heard it.
“Enjoying sitting on your ass, Garfield?” the voice spoke.
“Who is this?” I asked.
“If there’s anything left of the old freedom fighter under that glossy orange coat of yours, meet us at the old hideout tonight at 9.” Click. As I put down the receiver, two things were clear to me.
One, no meeting would be taking place at “the old hideout” tonight at 9 – the Resistance never met in the same place more than once, and no one bothering to use a scrambler would be dumb enough to give the time of a meeting on a tapped line. Somebody was using code.
Two, neither Odie nor I would be going home tonight.
