Page 106 of Single Teddy
I shook my head. So did everyone else except for Ash.
“Isn’t GhostLink some sort of encryption service used by criminal organizations?”
“Bingo.” Slade pointed a finger-gun at Ash and winked at him. “Watch this.”
He picked up the phone and switched it off. Then, once the screen was completely black, he pressed the power button and volume button at the same time.
This time, instead of the Android logo, a silver chain appeared, and when it cleared out, it gave way to a whole new homescreenwith the same logo and a whole new set of apps. There was an app named GhostChat, another named GhostCaller, GhostCam, GhostWeb, and everything under the sun.
“What exactly am I looking at?” Wyatt asked.
“The phone is a GhostLink phone. It’s been specifically modified to have two modes. A dummy Android phone when you boot it up the normal way. And a GhostLink encrypted device when you press the power and volume buttons together. Anything you do on this version is encrypted, bounced off several servers across the world, and completely undetectable and untraceable. That’s how these people are communicating. That’s why we haven’t seen any real chatter on their devices.”
“I thought you hacked their devices,” Wyatt said.
“I didn’t hack them exactly, but yeah, okay. The thing is, I only ‘hacked’ the dummy mode, which is why all the chatter we used to get led to dead ends.”
“Wait, you’ve hacked their phones?” I asked. I was so out of the loop.
“Well…yeah, kind of. I created this bug that’s supposed to spread from device to device with a simple text message. That was earlier this year, when King and I first met. But everything has been quiet since, and we couldn’t figure out why.”
“I’m guessing this explains it.”
“Yes. I couldn’t have hacked the GhostLink mode even if I tried. Even if I knew it was there.”
“But now—” I started.
“But now we’re in. Anything Barnes gets, we do. Wesley cloned the entire device so we have a perfect, synced-up dupe.”
“So we can get the kids out,” Joey said.
Wyatt turned to Slade, awaiting an answer, and my friend’s expression sank.
“I mean, we can. Or we can monitor the activity and find out who we’re dealing with at long last.” I knew he didn’t enjoy saying it any more than we liked hearing it.
“But doesn’t having the dupe mean we can take the kids, and if anyone comes for us, we can be prepared?” Joey asked.
“Do you really want to put the kids through that? We’d essentially be abducting them from their home, so we wouldn’t just have the syndicate after us, we’d also have the police and CPS on our asses,” Wyatt said.
I hated to agree, but Wyatt had a point. Having the phone access didn’t mean squat when it came to the kids’ safety.
“So let’s send CPS to him,” Joey continued.
“And get innocent people involved in this mess?” I said. “We don’t know what they’re capable of. Whathe’s capable of.”
“So we just sit and wait? That doesn’t sound like a plan. That sounds like cowardice.”
“That’s not what we’re saying.” Wyatt glared at Joey. “What we’re saying is we need to be extra vigilant to ensure we don’t get those boys in even more danger than they are already.”
“Po-ta-to, po-tah-toh.” Joey groaned and leaned back in his chair.
“So what do we do?” Ash asked.
Wyatt crossed his hands on the table and huffed.
“You keep monitoring chatter on GhostLink,” he said to Slade. “And you make sure Wesley keeps his cover as the boys’ tutor in a safe manner. He doesn’t need to snoop or nothing anymore. Just be there for the kids.”
I nodded.
