Chapter 4


Tony was kind of reconsidering his initial relief when he saw Freddy Oswald standing around at the airport entrance. They had gone to school together and even took basic training at the same time. After that Tony had not seen Freddy till just after the war and they both had come home. Freddy had actually applied for a job with the Colonial Government just like Tony had. They never told Freddy to "take a hike" and, in fact, they had never told him anything at all. That was how Freddy wound up working for the city police.

For several years Tony had actually envied the guy when they ran into each other. Tony's first job with the CG was as a Detention Officer and, to sum up that experience was quite easy, it sucked. When he finally managed to transfer to the Rangers he was almost at the point of quitting the government completely and finding another line of work. These days, things seemed quite the reverse as far as Freddy went. The poor guy had managed to piss off his sergeant somehow and he had been stuck out here at Riggins for over a year now. For the city cops it was about as low on the totem pole as you could get.

For Tony it seemed fortuitous until he actually started talking with Freddy, "come on Freddy, there couldn't have been that many people who got off that shuttle. There never are."

Freddy was comfortably leaning up against his spot on the wall. He did it so often, in the exact same spot, that there was probably a permanent impression of him on it. At least Freddy did the courtesy of moving his shoulders in a slump when he answered, "I told you man, I haven't seen anybody that fits anything close to what you're talking about. I mean come on Tippet, you don't even have a picture of the guy. How am I supposed to know who he is?"

Tony just clicked his teeth and turned to walk away, "keep up the good work Freddy."

Before Tony could get very far Freddy did call out and ask, "is it true, dude? Did Danni Nguyen really get shot?"

When Tony looked back he was almost floored by the fact that Freddy was no longer leaning on the wall. Well maybe the guy had not lost all sense of decency since going to work for the city. Tony walked back to him and remosefully replied, "yeah it's true. She's over at Kaiser Intergalactic right now."

Freddy took a deep breath and replied, "shit." It looked as if he was not too sure what else to say about it. He did manage a couple of completely useless questions though, "is her Mom still living? I know her old man got killed back when we were still in high school. Think I should send flowers or something?"

Tony took it all in and codified his response in a list that he rattled off, "yes but she moved to Teller's Star right after the war. Yes her dad got killed and I don't care if you send flowers or not. Maybe chocolate would be better cause I think she has allergies."

Freddy seemed to have missed all of that. He just meekly asked, "is she going to be ok?"

Tony just grumbled, "I don't know man. Look I got to find this guy, asap, ok? Seeya." As Tony walked out the front door of the airport he nodded and forced a smile at the Germans who were standing guard there. He got as far away from them as he could without actually having to stand in the rain and then checked his phone. Normally Tony would have been perfectly happy to see that his recent call list was empty. In fact, this was probably the only time he could ever remember that it ticked him off. As he called the first person on his mind he mumbled, "the one time. Wouldn't that figure."

Cal Brandt answered pretty quickly with, "have you got him?"

Before Tony answered he asked a question of is own, "are you there yet?"

"Yeah," Brandt responded. Then he added what he knew was really on Tony's mind, "and the last that Patsy heard was that Danni's stable but a long way from being out of the woods. They're still working on her." Now Cal addressed the main reason for the call, "Now what the hell went wrong?"

Tony grumbled in frustration before replying, "it's not my fault Cal. The guy's just not here. He got off the shuttle. I got that much confirmed but he's not here now."

"You got there late didn't you," was all that Cal could think of.

Tony quickly got defensive, "no I didn't get here late. The guy just isn't here, ok? I waited for him up by the front and he never showed. I know he got as far as check in but, well," Tony looked back at the Germans and lowered his voice before saying, "but let me tell who is down here, Horst."

"What?" There was no small amount of alarm in Calvin's voice. "What the hell is he doing down there?" After a moment of thinking Cal said, "that's not our only problem we got. I can't find Norm anywhere."

The one thing that Tony knew about Norm was that he was the guy that you normally did not want to see on your caller ID. For that reason alone he was usually the guy who was calling. "So call him."

"I did that Tony," and Cal sarcastically added, "like I never would of thought of that, you know." Now Cal became more serious, "I called him, all right. His phone went off, all right. The only problem was it was still here at the hospital. It was sitting on the bench in the shower changing room."

The hairs stood up on the back of Tony's neck, "oh shit."