The Interstellar Police Force, Book One: The Historic Mission by Raymond Klein (good books to read for women TXT) 📗

dog. Picking up his mug of coffee with both paws he took a long slurpee drink, draining it. “It was brilliantly done.” He stood and slid his hind quarters onto the seat of the couch keeping his two front paws firmly on the ground. “There was only one camera in the bank's parking lot and it stopped recording five minutes before the robbery. I don’t even think the local police got that one. We don’t even know what kind of auto-mo-bile he was operating.”

Just then the computer emitted an alarm. Trent’s coffee mug froze in place, as both their mouths gaped open. The computer screen automatically switched to an Old Town surveillance camera on the corner of  First Avenue and Compton Road. The man they thought to be Colus Valda just walked out of the hardware store with a brown bag of goods. Trent’s hand came up shakily and pointed toward the screen. “Track him . . . track him!”

“I’m already onit!” Genghis had hopped off the couch and frantically worked the keyboard anticipating the route Colus was taking. He started accessing different cameras. They started to follow him, up First Avenue to a small deli. Ten minutes later, he came out with another bag, this one white, while eating some kind of pastry as he calmly continued walking up First Avenue, seemingly without a care in the world, and leaving crumbs in his wake. At the corner of First and Grant Street he took a left. Genghis quickly switched over to another camera. All the views were high angle shots, and the streets of Old Town were crowded with people. But with the Full Body Scanning system they knew they were tracking the same man with the fat cheeks and the one long eyebrow who was at all of the arson fires. He walked up to a boarding house and climbed the narrow steps to the front door and disappeared into the building. “We got him,” Genghis said excitingly.

Trent was up and out of the room, and then back in seconds with the duffle bag. “I got the address,” Genghis announced. They were both downstairs and in the Thunderbird and on the road in less than three minutes.

They found the boarding house on the corner of First Avenue and Grant Street. It was a three-story brown brick building with six apartments within. They parked across the street one block down, parallel to the sidewalk. Genghis quickly looked around and saw no pedestrians, then said, “Main frame online.” The holographic computer came up before him, and Genghis started accessing a series of different screens. “Okay, scanning the building.” A few seconds later the data he was waiting for appeared in front of him. “Top right apartment. I’m detecting at least two IPF weapons, stun grenades and several other accelerants. Whoa!” Genghis made another adjustment. “He’s not in the apartment!”

“That’s impossible,” Jeff said. “We got here within fifteen minutes. How did we miss him?”

“Not sure, let me pull up the schematics of the building.” A second later, “Damn it! There’s a back door.” Genghis took his paw and touched the holographic screen and minimized the schematics screen. “The FBS system is not picking him up. He might be in an auto-mo-bile, in another building, or walking where there are no cameras.”

Jeff turned and reached into the duffle bag in the backseat and retrieved a couple of different items. “Let’s go take a look!”

They entered the building and climbed the stairs to the top floor. It was an old, shabby building. There were water stains on the ceiling, peeling wallpaper, and the smell of cooking oils and decaying food. They approached the top right apartment. Trent held up the D30 detection unit and pressed the trigger. It made a series of beeps and tones, then went silent. Jeff looked at the small computer screen, “Nope! He’s definitely not home.” He put the D30 in his trench coat pocket and retrieved a small chrome object that resembled a pen. It was known to the IPF as the “Master Key”, used to electronically unlock bolts, latches, and locks. He aimed it at the locked door knob, activated it, and the door clicked loudly as it unlocked.

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