CHAPTER 1

After Norm parked his car, in his own driveway no less, he had to look around and actually question where he was. There were boxes all over the driveway, a pile of trash out on the curb, and his garage door was open! How the hell did it get open? There were, of course, two reasons why Norm did not reach in his jacket and pull out his gun. The first was because he didn’t think a thief was stupid enough to break in his house and clean up. The second was because one of the stations four by four’s was parked out by the trash pile. That pinned the blame squarely on one person.

Jake showed up shortly after that. He had been somewhere in the bowels of the garage and now he was back pedaling as he pulled a plastic storage crate across the concrete and out onto the driveway. He stopped when he saw Norm, took a breather, and told the man, “did anybody ever tell you to put the heavy boxes on the bottom?”

That little bit of irrelevant information was not what Norm was interested in, “what the hell are you doing, Jake?”

“Well,” Jake gestured back inside the garage, “you been telling Darcy that we been cleaning up. You don’t think she might wonder why nothing’s changed down here?”

Norm’s eyes were larger than normal and his jaw was gaping as he looked at the mess. He was even more astonished by the garage door, “how the hell did you get that open?”

“I fixed it,” Jake replied quickly.

“What was wrong with it,” Norm asked. He then told him, “I never could figure it out.”

“Nothing,” Jake replied. “Your door won’t open if you pile boxes up so high that the door keeps hitting them when it rolls up the track.” Jake was not interested in garage doors so he cut the conversation there and motioned for Norm to follow him inside.

Once inside, Jake hit the button that had previously been buried and unseen for years. The door’s motor cranked to life and it began close. Norm was shocked but, he was also a bit irked, “Jake, this ain’t going to work. My neighbors going to see me walking in this garage, thru that door, with another guy? They going to get some funny ideas.”

“That’s fine Norm,“ Jake told him, “it’s a better cover than the one you told Darcy.“ The door shut and Jake took his hand off the control as he wandered back over to the computer that he had set up on an old table. He had found the computer out at the station, also buried in a pile of junk, and then fixed it so he could use it here. He sat down on a stool and pointed to the screen that was already on and running several of the security video’s that Jake had acquired. Jake then said, “we got a problem.”

“That’s an understatement Jake,” Norm shot back, “that cover might work for you but, you ain’t the one that’s got to answer to my wife.”

“Would you forget that already,” Jake exclaimed. “I’m talking about work here, Norm.” When Norm did not respond, Jake continued by first saying in an agitated tone, “thank you. Now, as you know, I got this surveillance footage from where we had the cars parked after we boosted them from everybody.”

The stations two official vehicles, one of which was currently parked in front of Norm’s house, were plainly on the screens. Since Norm had not been the one watching, all of the footage, he really did not see much. He just asked, “did you identify a tail or not?” That was all he was really interested in here.

“Well,” Jake rambled around a bit, “that’s kind of the problem I was talking about.”

“Yes or no Jake,” Norm bit back. “It’s a simple god damn question.”

Jake collected his thoughts, “I think so but, that’s not really the problem here.” Jake turned to the computer and began sliding the progress bars back to the beginning of each video. Several of them showed the white Colonial Government car being towed into the city impound yard. The others showed an almost identical vehicle being left, by a little girl in a Foo King waitress uniform, in an almost empty parking lot. Both vehicles were being covered by multiple camera’s and a few of them had some commanding views of the area around the cars.

Norm had never realized there were so many camera’s around. He knew they were there but half the time he never paid them much attention. Of course, Norm had also never figured that some guy like Jake would be using them for something like this. It would take someone from Earth to be this damn devious. Norm was not happy about it.

Norm was also rather bored as he studied the video’s that were now running in slow motion, “I don’t see a damn thing, Jake. Are you telling me we went through all that bullshit for nothing?”

“Sometimes Norm,” Jake told him in an almost lecturing like fashion, “even nothing is something. In fact, nothing is the problem here.” When Norm just shrugged, Jake told him, “whatever these guys are doing, however they’re keeping tabs on our activities, it’s not because they’re tailing us on the street.”

“Jake,” Norm told him with an ‘I told you so’ tone, “did it ever occur to you that the reason why you got nothing, is because that’s exactly what it is, nothing. I done told you, we ain’t that important.” He pointed to the screen, “I think that little scam you pulled on everybody pretty much proves that. We sure as hell ain’t dangerous to these guys. They got no reason to watch us.”

Jake seemed rather smug. He maintained eye contact with Norman and kept his hand on the keyboard. He almost had a smile as he said, “watch this.” Jake never looked at the video screen when he tapped the space bar not once, but twice. Two of the video’s paused and they were both showing the same car. At first Norm thought nothing of it since he figured they were two different angles from the same camera. Then he noticed the background. Both images came from separate locations.

That only led Norm to ask the most obvious question on his mind. He was quite irate as he did, “all right Jake. How the hell did you know when to stop those video’s without even looking at that damn screen!”

At first Jake tried to be serious but, then he burst out in laughter and pointed behind Norm, “I was watching in that mirror you got over there on that box.”

Norm grunted, “you been waiting all day to do that, I bet!”

“Na,” Jake put up his hands, still laughing, and then finally turned back to the computer, “seriously though. We got the same car passing by two locations, that are a good ways apart, and in less than an hour.”

“Ok it’s fishy,” Norm was still a bit ticked off but, he was focused, “but it could still be a coincidence.”

“Nope,” Jake told him as he sent the video to one of his bookmarks, then another, another, and a few more after that. He was happy when he said, “same car Norm. He’s driving by both lots, at least once an hour, until we picked them up and took them back to the station.” Jake suddenly remembered something as he switched to yet another bookmark and froze the image there. “See that guy? Anything look wrong about him?”

There was a man hanging out in front of a liquor store. For Norm, that did not look all too strange since most liquor stores had some little crew that loitered in front of them. This store was no exception and the guy Jake was pointing too, was just another guy in the crowd. He was dressed pretty shabby and in ill fitting clothes. He also wore sun glasses and a ball cap. Norm had Jake advance the footage slowly, then go back, and finally proceed at normal speed. Then they jumped around the video some and, finally, Norm said, “he ain’t took one drink. He never went in the store ether.”

Jake added, “and he doesn’t talk to a single person the entire time he’s there.” Jake froze the image again and then told Norm with a little bit or excitement, “look at this guy Norm. Look at everybody around him.”

It suddenly occurred to Norm. It was such a normal sight that Norm had not thought about it, “all these guys look like they got one foot in the grave.”

“This guy here,” Jake added, “is the poster child for your perfect gym buddy. Look at his hair cut too. It’s buzzed like, say, maybe…?”

“Military,” Norm replied. He then asked, “Wehrmacht maybe?”

“I don’t know,” Jake shrugged.

Norm assumed a thoughtful pose as he studied the man’s face. There was not a lot to go on with this video. The guy was obviously conscious of the fact that he might be watched and he made sure he was as non descript as possible. Even his ratty clothing was pretty authentic looking and that suddenly left Norm with another question, “do they issue bums clothing in the military? Urban camouflage or whatever you want to call it?”

“Checked in to that,” Jake did not sound very happy, “day after this, the city found a naked body in a garbage dumpster about three blocks from there. It was some junkie. The guy had his neck snapped clean. Remember me telling you these guys were dangerous. Now you got absolute proof. They killed a man just for a damn surveillance job.”

“Speaking of which,” Norm said in a more somber and subdued tone, “you said we didn’t have a tail. This all looks like a tail to me. We knew that already so what‘s the problem here?”

“A matter of timing Norm,” Jake pointed out. “It took this guy, here, hours to show up. Why?”

Norm could only shrug, “well, we did pull a fast one Jake. I guess we caught them off guard.”

“Norm,” Jake said bluntly, “if they weren’t tailing us to begin with, how did they even know we were pulling a fast one? For that matter, there’s one other thing on this video that isn’t here and should be.” Norm just shrugged again so Jake went on, “where’s the goons that work for you buddy Kingsley? I don’t see them anywhere.”

It was questionable that Jake would even recognize a Texan Mobster if he saw one. Even so, Norm had now seen this video several times and he didn’t see a single face he recognized. The guy in front of the liquor store sure as hell wasn’t one of Hyrum’s boys. As much as Norm did not want to admit it, Jake had a point. That only begged the question of how did the Texan’s know something was going on. It only made Norm think more about the little memory drive that Baxter had given him. He was even more curious to see what was on it now.

When it was clear the conversation was dead, Jake finally changed the subject, “so what did you find out?”

Norm was still in deep thought but, he did say, “I might have us a name.”

Jake rolled his eyes as he commented, “you people keep shitty records on this rock. With all them damn government forms they shuffle down at the Palace, you’d think somebody might leave a paper trail.”

Norm actually smirked and gave a short, quick, laugh at that notion, “Jake, you got to keep records in the first place for them to be shitty. Anything important that happens here, there’s not going to be a paper trail. That’s exactly why this is taking so long but, I think we got a connection.”

“Name?” Jake was still a bit irritated at the sloppy crap excuse of bureaucracy they had here.

“Guy named Murtaugh,” Norm stated definitively. When Jake motioned for him to continue, Norm explained, “he’s the only name that I can connect to our two crime scenes. Then you add the fact that he doesn’t seem to want to connect his name to much of nothing at all.”

“Ah,” Jake perked up, “just like that real estate office that April worked for.”

“PBS?” Norm was confused, “We know who was behind that. That was Horst, not these guys.”

“True,” Jake replied, “not what I’m talking about though. When we were looking for them I knew something was wrong, right off the bat. They were hard to find, they didn’t have signs plastered all over the place, you could only seem to get a phone number if somebody gave it to you. You got to ask yourself, how does a business stay in business when nobody even knows they’re there?”

That made Norm think some more and he said, “and we got an architect that doesn’t want anybody to know what he’s building.” Then Norm considered another pertinent fact, “course if I built that loony bin that Roger Bateman was living in, I’m not sure I’d want anybody to know ether.”

“Yeah,” Jake replied, “prefab haunted houses are not even in style back on Earth. What was the other location?”

“He was working on the tower that we think Conner O’Rouke got turned to dust in,” Norm replied.

That only led Jake to ask the obvious, “what the hell is that building supposed to be anyway?”

Norm just shrugged, “the renovation ain’t finished yet, so, who the hell knows? It was just an office sky rise. Like every other building down there on that street.”

“We might need to ask this guy,” Jake suggested.

“Only way to do that, Jake,” Norm told him, “is find the guy and that ain’t easy. I’ve been trying. Everything I just told you is all I really know. I’ve been talking to people in his business and, guess what? They all seem to know who he is but nobody really knows him.”

Jake became inquisitive, “Off worlder maybe?”

“Maybe,” Norm relented. He also took a little bit of offense from the question, “and you know Jake. We do know how to train our own engineers in this colony. You might have noticed that we did throw up one or two buildings without Earth’s help.”

“You’re assuming one thing Norm,” Jake pointed out, “that buildings is what this guy builds.”