CHAPTER 16

“You forget how to knock,” Barbara snapped at Norm as he walked in the room.

Norm took it with a grain of salt, since he judged the tensions to be high at the moment. He had listened to them yelling at each other from the time he entered the back hallway till he opened the door to Barbara’s room. As a result he just blew her rebuke off with, “you the one that yelled for me to come down here. If you want I’ll be more than happy too…”

“Get in here and close the damn door,” Barbara commanded.

Not that it would do a lot of good, at least in so far as muting the sound, Norm closed the door behind him anyway. He then judged the faces around him. Chuck looked confused which was about the only normal thing besides Barbara’s hostility. Jake was red faced but, at least he appeared to be thinking. That was a good sign. It was Calvin that confused Norm the most. The guy was normally about as easy going as you could find but, at the moment, he was angry too. That made Norm very curious.

Cal demanded of Chuck, “why the hell did you drag her in to this?”

Norm seemed confused about that so Jake noted, “current events check Norm, it would seem that Calvin’s lawyer is in on it.”

“That’s not true,” Calvin yelled, “and she’s not my wife anymore! Again!”

Jake replied calmly enough, “which is why I called her your lawyer, numb nuts.”

Calvin thought about it, deflated, and then meekly replied, “yeah you did, sorry.”

At the same time Chuck protested, “whoa dude, I didn’t…”

Barbara reached out and put her hand over Chuck’s mouth. She then said, “and it gets us nowhere. Barton, I was hoping that your expertise might be of some use to me but, I think my hopes were sorely misplaced here. So far you haven’t said anything of any use!”

Norm was still a bit confused so he asked Jake, “Cindy Brandt blew up that German? Why is it I have a hard time believing that? She’s a lawyer. Hell if she wanted to get him it just seems to me she’d do something more lawyer-ee like go and marry the guy.”

Cal was not impressed, “ha and ha Norm, very funny.”

Norm ignored the response and pulled his phone out of his pocket instead. He pointed to the screen and told the room, “don’t matter who did it no how. The German’s already done decided who they gonna blame and the palace just released the list.” Norm looked right at Barbara and said, “and since Chuck here vanished last night, had explosives in his bunker….”

Chuck pushed Barbara’s hand away, “hey whoa! Those weren’t mine!”

Norm, as well as everyone else, ignored him, “and Henna O’Rouke’s name is at the top of that list, I can guess what this is all about.”

Barbara’s eyes grew wide as she grabbed her own phone off the desk and pulled up the list of names, “oh my god there’s over twenty names on this list.”

Calvin protested, “there’s no way anybody is going to turn those people over to the Germans. Everybody knows Horst is going to shoot them if he gets his hands on them.”

Barbara put her phone down and gulped, “Helen will. If she thinks this is her way out then that’s exactly what she’ll do.”

Jake sullenly noted, “yeah, if what you said is true then Horst is giving her one that she can live with. I’m surprised the palace isn’t calling us right now.”

“No,” Barbara snapped, “Helen wouldn’t give this too me. She knows who Henna is. She’d contract this out.”

That drew Norm’s attention and he asked rhetorically, “Cannon Trucks?” When Jake looked confused, Norm told him, “you know, the mercenary we ran in to over at PBS?”

Jake slapped his forehead and was annoyed when he asked, “the guy that used to work here? That guy?”

Barbara turned to face everyone, “exactly. He won’t hesitate ether and it’ll give Helen a way to distance herself when they turn those people over.”

Norm tossed in, “if the Texas Legion don’t do it first.”

Jake then stood up from the corner of the bed he had been sitting on. He had a smile on his face now. He slapped his hands together, “which is the good news people. This situation might be overly complicated but I think the answer here is really very simple.”

Barbara was pretty sure she knew where this going and a snarl developed on her face as she stepped up to Jake and told him in no uncertain terms, “Barton, the last thing I will ever do is hand my niece over to those jack boot thugs. Is that clear?”

Jake might have dropped his smile and became serious but, he was still rational when he told Barbara, “what is clear, Agent Reilly, is that this kid might be your niece but, she also helped plant a damn bomb that killed seven people, six of whom had nothing to do with anything. It also happened to endanger three other kids, all of whom are our responsibility. Your niece isn’t a sweet little innocent thing anymore, Barbara. Like it or not she’s a criminal.”

Barbara would not back down, “and that’s what you’re going to tell yourself when they line her up on a wall and shoot her?”

“What I’m going to tell myself when this is done,” Jake shot right back, “is that I followed the one thing that everybody here seems to have forgotten. That includes Horst, our precious Governor, and everybody in this damn room but me, apparently.” As an afterthought Jake noted, “oh except for maybe Cal’s lawyer.”

Calvin blurted out, “ex lawyer!”

Norm was confused but, he was also curious so he was very serious when he asked, “what the hell you talking about Jake?”

Jake grunted in frustration, “we’re law enforcement Norm. What good are we if we don’t follow the law?”

Norm just shook his head in resignation, “Jake, in case you ain’t noticed something. The law ain’t worked out too good for nobody lately. That’s why everybody ignores it.”

Jake was ready for that apparently, “and didn’t you tell me that of all the armed groups on these islands, we were the worst armed of the bunch?”

Barbara took a step back and acted like Jake was causing her pain. She put her hand to her forehead and rubbed her eyes as if he were a headache, “what are you saying Barton?”

Jake let it be known, “what I’m saying is that Norm’s point would be relevant if we were just another bunch of thugs out to skin the remains off the carcass of this colony. We’re not. Gun’s are not our main weapon.”

Norm just shook his head and told Jake, “and I almost thought you was on too something. Jake if you talking about the law then you’re grabbing for a knife in a gun fight… No, a knife in a tank fight would be closer. If we try to go all jail house lawyer on these people they’re going to take a dump on us and we’re going to come out looking pathetic. Then we right back to square one.”

“Not if we do it right Norm,” Jake replied in a very serious way. “Just cause you follow the law doesn’t mean you have to be stupid. Somebody has got to show this colony that it still matters. If it don’t, then all we really do have left are guns and, guess what, as you pointed out Norm, we do not have the advantage there.”

Barbara did not actually say that Jake was right. Jake wondered if the woman could ever bring herself to admit when he was. She did the next best thing though. She asked, “all right Barton, what’s the move then?”