It was a small one-room apartment, with a tiny kitchen, a little bathroom that had no door and an unmade Murphy Bed. One thing was for sure. Colus Valda was a pig! Cloths, food containers, and all sorts of garbage were strewn about the apartment. In the corner next to the Murphy Bed were several metal alloy cases marked with the initials IPF. Trent bent and opened one. The case was designed to carry seven stun grenades, two of which were missing. The other cases contained ammo and a PK 30A. Under the Murphy Bed they found one of the missing SK 5 shotguns from the transfer ship. Trent pulled up the yellow-stained mattress to see what might be under and made an interesting discovery. “Well, it looks like Colus Valda and Bollar may be working together.” Under the mattress were three bundles of twenty dollar bills wrapped with an Old Town First National Bank paper band.
They continued searching the room carefully, making sure not to disturb anything, they didn’t want Colus Valda to figure out that they were on to him. They searched closets, drawers, and cabinets looking for any evidence of Valda’s next arson target, but found nothing.
They locked up the apartment and went back to the cruiser, sat, and waited. At two in the morning, with no sign of Valda on any of the computer systems, Jeff and Genghis decided to call it a night. They would start again early the next morning.
What neither one knew was that Colus Valda had set an alarm system. Trent had not set the D30 to detect any such systems. He didn’t think of it. It just never crossed his or Genghis’s minds.
The alarm system was a small, efficient, yet simple device. Valda purchased it at an electronics store in Old Town. It was basically two thin magnets, one of which had a microprocessor built in. With self-adhesive strips, one was affixed to the door jam, the other to the door. With the door closed and both magnets facing each other, an electric circuit flowed between the two. But, when the door was opened the circuit was broken, and the microprocessor would transmit a signal to a receiver. The receiver that Colus Valda always carried in his pocket.
Valda had been two blocks south sitting on a bench. At this vantage point he could see the vintage automobile parked across from his boarding house. He watched as the tall man and canine crossed the street and climbed back into the vehicle, sat, and waited.
Colus Valda knew that someday the Interstellar Police Force would track them all to this little planet, and obviously they had. Who else could it be? But how, he thought to himself, did they find him? He had Bollar's Electronic Pulse Interrupter, only the size of a small cell phone, out and activated. When he got back to his apartment he realized that he had forgotten a pack of cigarettes. He didn’t smoke, but he did need them. He put the brown paper bag from the hardware store on the kitchen counter, finished his last bear claw, exited his building through the back door, and walked to the corner convenience store.
As he sat on the bench watching the agent he thought again, this time out loud, “How did he track me?” He started to look around. “There must be something I’ve been missing.” He then saw a large white rectangular box high up on a telephone pole with a shiny black lens on the front. He then saw another one down the street on the side of a building. “Ahh, well, well, there we go. A camera of some kind. Most likely he can tap into the signal.” He stood and dropped the Interrupter into his pocket, being very glad that he activated it just out of habit when his little alarm receiver went off while he was inside the convenience store.
Valda turned his back to the IPF agent and started to walk south on Grant Street. “I think I’m going to let that agent sit there and stew for a while.” He pulled down from the top of his head a cheap pair of sunglasses and put them on. Looking up to the blue sky, he said, “Yeah, I think I will. I’ll go and see if the human female Chloe is around. I’ll spend the night with her, then tomorrow I’ll head down to the Compton Square area and see what kind of fun I can spark up.”
He stopped and looked back at the agent still sitting in his automobile and thought out loud. “Hmm! Why has that agent befriended a human canine? Now that’s odd.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Trent was up early the next morning in the kitchen making coffee when he heard heavy footfalls on the outside stairs. There were three sharp knocks on the front door. Trent walked to the door and opened it to find Mrs. Remke standing there in an old bathrobe with big yellow embroidered daisies strategically placed throughout it and large pink curlers in her white hair. He took one involuntary step backward. “Well, good morning, Mrs. Remke. May I help you?”
“Mister Trent! You have now been here for several weeks, and I have noticed something quite disturbing and very much unsettling,” she said, in her rapid machine-gun style voice.
“Ah . . . unsettling, Mrs. Remke?”
“Yes, unsettling and unnerving. As I said, you've now been here for several weeks, and I have yet to see you take that animal out to relieve himself.” She raised a bony figure and shook it at him, “If I find that, that animal has soiled the carpeting in this apartment . . .”
Just then she heard the toilet flush. Mrs. Remke craned her neck to her right so she could peer around Jeff and look into the apartment. She thought that she was very clear about her rules concerning overnight guests. Then the bathroom door opened. Genghis emerged from the bathroom with the morning newspaper rolled in his mouth. He stopped dead in his tracks when he locked eyes with Mrs. Remke. Remke’s jaw dropped open, and so did Genghis’s. The newspaper rolled from his mouth and fell to the floor. Genghis continued to stare, then nervously produced a woof.
Trent looked from Genghis, back to Mrs. Remke, and said, “Ah, as you can see, Mrs. Remke, I’ve taught my human canine to use the facilities.”
Mrs. Remke was dumbfounded and just continued to stare at the big dog with her mouth opened. “Yes . . . facilities . . .”
“Yes, well,” Trent said, looking again at Genghis, then back to Mrs. Remke. “Will there be anything else, Mrs. Remke?”
“Ah . . . human ca . . . what?” See looked up at Trent. “Oh, no. No, nothing else, Mister Trent.”
“Very well then, good day, Mrs. Remke.” Jeff didn’t wait for a response and closed the door. They did not breathe until they heard her go down the side stairs and back into her house.
Genghis exhaled, “Geez O’ Cow! That woman scares the crap outta me.”
Trent was still leaning his back against the closed door. “Yes, that she does!
“Do you think one day we’ll have to get rid of her?”
“Perhaps,” Trent said while walking back into the kitchen. He poured coffee for both and grabbed two bowls and the box of Captain Crunch.
Trent was sitting in his normal spot, and Genghis was sitting next to him on the floor with his back against the couch. “FBS has nothing,” Genghis said. “Nothing since we saw him yesterday.”
Trent turned on the television and started channel surfing. Spoons clattered against cereal bowls, coffee was loudly slurped. They found the local news and a report on a fire that was already in progress. “Son-of-a-bitch,” Genghis blurred out. “How did we miss him again?”
“A daylight burn,” Trent said. “He’s escalating. The pyromania is intensifying.”
The report was live and the reporter on scene was saying that the alarm came into Fire House 21 forty-five minutes earlier. By the time the first engine arrived the building was already engulfed. The reporter also stated that when an interior wall collapsed, one firefighter was killed and another gravely injured.
“Oh, that’s not good,” Genghis said. “Do you remember about ten years ago when Valda burned down that school, killing the five kids? After that he hit nothing but populated buildings. He now has his first kill here.”
“Yes,” Trent said. “It’s now imperative that we find him before anyone else gets hurt.”
Just then the computer alerted. The Full Body Scanning system had just located Colus Valda. They both stared at the screen. Colus Valda was nowhere near the fire scene, admiring his handiwork. He was just standing on
the sidewalk at the corner of Mason Avenue and Seventh Street. “What the hell is he doing?” Genghis asked.
Valda started to walk down the street. Genghis switched to another surveillance camera and began to track him. This one was located high on the corner of a three-story red brick law office. The computer automatically updated his location. Street, time, direction of travel. As they watched, Valda calmly walked the sidewalk, traveling away from the camera when suddenly he stopped and stood for about five seconds. He then slowly turned and looked up into the camera’s lens. “Oh, now that’s just plain disturbing,” Genghis said.
Trent and Genghis both knew that it was impossible for Colus to see them. But that was what it appeared he was doing. All three just locked eyes with each other. Valda then slowly raised his hand and in it, a small device. Colus Valda smiled broadly at the camera, gave a slight nod and pushed a button on the device. The camera on which they were watching Valda instantly went to static. “Hey! He pulsed us,” Genghis said. He started switching from camera to camera. All the surveillance cameras in a three-block radius showed the same snowy picture.
“He knows,” Trent said. “He knows we’re here. But how? And why does he have the Electronic Pulse Interrupter? I thought Bollar was using it.”
“We must have done something in his apartment. Moved something, something that he noticed. And we already thought that Bollar and Colus may be working together. I don't know, maybe Colus triggers the pulse as Bollar pulls off the heist.”
“Could he have known all this time that we were here tracking him?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t see how.” Genghis said, trying to comprehend. “Oh! Wait a second. That’s why the Full Body Scanning system couldn’t find him yesterday after we found his apartment.” He turned away from the static on the screen and looked up at Trent. “He had the Electronic Pulse Interrupter set to stealth mode, masking himself. That explains why none of those cameras by his apartment stopped operating yesterday like these.” He gestured toward the computer. “He just now took it off stealth to make a point.”
“To make the point that he knows we’re looking for him,” Trent said. He thought for a moment, then said, “So, let’s go look for him.”
“Ah, excuse me, Mr. Trent?”
“Let’s do it the old fashioned way. We now know what he looks like. So, let’s get in the cruiser and drive around and just look for him.”
“Simple yet brilliant, Mister Trent,” Genghis said with a smirk. “I’m glad I brought you along on this little mission.”
“Oh, Mister Khan, you silly human canine! I wouldn’t have expected you to come up with such a plan. It’s because of that small cranium of yours.”
“This small cranium, Mister Trent, and its accompanying set of jaws, can clamp down on your calf with a bite force pressure of fourteen hundred and fifty pounds per square inch.” Genghis grinned the best he could to show his teeth. “Care for me to demonstrate?”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Jeff Trent and Genghis Khan drove through Old Town. Down Seventh Avenue, across Grant Street, up First Avenue. They drove the busy shopping district of Eighth Street, looking at everyone who fit Valda’s description. Then continued on into the Compton Square district of Old Town. They were driving up 11th Ave., two blocks past the Compton Apartments, and entered the dismal and run-down shopping section for the Compton area. They drove by a large grocery store called the Food and More with hand-painted sale signs in the window. Then they passed a small playground with rusted swing sets and monkey bars. Past the playground was a long single-story brown brick building that was built in the early 30's and shared by two businesses. One was Ted’s Pawn Shop the other Ray’s Bar. Ted and Ray Evanovich were brothers and bought the building twenty years earlier and opened both establishments. Everyone in the area just referred to the building as TR’s. This was a crowded area with heavy vehicle and pedestrian traffic. People were exiting Ted’s and walking right into Ray’s.
Traffic slowed to a crawl and that’s when Genghis noticed three kids sitting on the sidewalk with their backs resting against the wall of TR’s. “Hey look, isn’t that Twinkie?”
Jennifer was sitting in between Trisha and Pimples, her arms around bent knees. When she saw the Thunderbird she happily waved and got up. She was wearing a very tight yellow t-shirt with extremely short cut-off jeans and flip-flops. Trent pulled to the curb as Jennifer approached. “Hi Jeff, hey Genghis,” she said as she rubbed Genghis’s head. “What are you two doing out here?”
“Ah . . . we’re out looking for an old friend,” Jeff said. “We thought he might be in this area.”
“What does he look like? Maybe I know him?” She looked around. “ You know?”
“Well,” Trent replied, “that’s always possible. We have a couple of photos back at our pad. I can get them to you later. Say, Twinkie, we were just thinking of going over to Dave’s Coffee Pot to get some coffee. Would you like to join us?”
“Yeah, sure,” she looked over toward Trisha and Pimples. “Hey guys! I’m going with Jeff. I’ll see yah later tonight, okay?” Trisha and Pimples just looked at Jennifer with their blank stares and said nothing.
As Jennifer reached for the Thunderbird's passenger door handle Genghis stood on the seat and jumped over the console into the back seat. “Wow!” she exclaimed, as she got in and closed the door. “It’s like he understood what I said.”
“You’d be surprised.” Jeff said as he looked over his left shoulder and started to pull from the curb. He had to stop abruptly as a man in his mid thirties was passing in front of the cruiser. Trent came within inches of bumping him. “Oh, pardon me, sir! Are you alright?”
The man had to jump back a little. “No problem, pal! My fault, I’m good.” He continued walking. “Have a good day.”
Trent eased into traffic, informing Jennifer of the dangers of jaywalking, and drove on to Dave’s. The man walked across the small sidewalk and entered Ray’s Bar. He had to wait a few seconds by the door for his eyes to adjust to the dark interior. He then walked over to the bar, sat on a stool and ordered a Killian’s. There was nothing striking or different about this man. He was of average height and build, with no real identifying features that would make him stand out in a crowd. The only thing that set him apart from others in the bar was that he was one hundred and two years old. In Earth years, of course.
The bartender placed a brown beer bottle in front of him, and he took a long drink of the cold carbonated amber liquid. “Psst!” He savored the taste for a moment, becoming very fond of the popular beverage. “Psst!” He reached for a bi-fold laminated covered menu when he heard that annoying sound again. “PSST!” He looked over to where the sound was originating and saw Colus Valda’s pudgy form sitting at a small round table by the wall. He was frantically waving with both hands for Bollar to join him.
Bollar rolled his eyes, grabbed his beer, and walked over and sat with Valda. “What’s the problem, Colus?”
“They're here! They're here!”
“Oh, calm the hell down. Who’s here?”
“The IPF,” he said. “Who the hell else! I saw an agent coming out of my dwelling.”
“Was he wearing a hazmat suit?”
“Oh! Funny!” Valda hated not being taken seriously. “We’ll just see how much you laugh when he catches up with you and replicates you back to your slimy self.”
“Alright, alright. How do you know he’s IPF? Maybe the local law enforcement agency finally figured out what you’ve been doing.”
“Oh, Please! They're inept.” He chuckled, “They haven’t a clue to who’s doing the burning. Oh! Did you see the morning news media broadcast?”
“Yes, Valda,” Bollar said, while taking a pull on his beer. “It was a very nice fire.”
“Nice!” Colus Valda said while getting excited thinking back to the blaze. “It was masterful!” Colus was sitting with his knees together and slightly hunched over. “It was the fastest burn yet.” He slowly
started rotating his hips. “There was so much combustible material in that building that it just went! And did you hear about the firefighter? Burned to a crunchy crisp!” He now started slowly twisting his back and gave a funny little laugh. “Have you ever noticed since you became human, that when you get really excited about something your . . .”
“That reminds me,” Bollar interrupted, as Valda was pointing to his lap. “I want the Interrupter back. I have a job I want to do. You don't even need the damn thing.”
“No! No! I do now,” Colus said, straightening up, “That’s how he’s been tracking me. I’m sure of it! He’s using those cameras in town to follow me. I have to keep the Interrupter on at all times just to move around. Give me two, three days. Let me find some place to hole up, then you can have it for your little heist.” He thought for a second, then lied, “I need more currency, that agent stole all mine.”
“Again, Colus?” he said. “You need to start stealing stuff from these buildings before you burn them. Take it over to Ted’s.” He gestured with his head to the side wall that separated both establishments. “Sell ‘em. Get your own currency.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I will. And keep an eye on the entertainment box. I have a great target lined up for next time. It’ll be my best work ever.”
Bollar tipped the bottle back and finished his beer. He then reached into his pocket and pulled out two hundred-dollar bills and handed them to Colus. “This is the last, I’m not supporting you anymore.” He stood. “I’ll be back here again in three days for the Interrupter.” He leaned down and placed his palms on the table and looked Colus Valda in the eyes. “Be here!” He turned his back to Colus and started to walk away.
The Interstellar Police Force, Book One: The Historic Mission Page 14
