A Fistful of Trouble (Outlaws of the Galaxy Book 2) Paul Tomlinson (reading strategies book .TXT) 📖

bring Floyd out of the bunker and then use your little gadget. Danny said they’ve been using Floyd to terrorise the locals. They’re sure to bring him out to do it again.”

Harmony had a Plan B, I liked that. I didn’t like the idea of leaving without Floyd, but I also had to admit that it was a bad idea to go up against all of the Colonel’s men. Especially on their own turf.

“All right,” I said. “I will go and see what Sheriff Galton has got to say. You go and talk to Danny about how to boost the signal from the remote control.”

Harmony held out her hand. “I’ll need to take it with me.”

I held it up. “It’s very similar to the one you have. The one you were going to use to trigger the Berserker virus in Floyd.”

“Ah,” she said. “You know about that.” She lowered her hand.

“Floyd is important to me,” I said. “If anyone takes him from me, I will hunt them down – for as long as it takes to get him back.”

“I understand,” she said.

I handed her the remote. “If all goes well, we’ll meet up at Danny’s at six,” I said. “Then we can all go and get some of Madam Fifi’s chicken pie.”

“Is that a euphemism?”

“No, it’s a dinner date.”

“Should we synchronise our watches or something?” Harmony asked.

“You stole my watch.”

“Oh, yeah. I took it as a keepsake. To remind me of the time we spent together. Here, you should have it back.”

I took the watch from her. The leather strap had absorbed the scent of her perfume. I’d have that to remind me of the time she and my watch had spent together.

Chapter Twenty-One

Sheriff Galton was sitting on a boulder outside the cave when I got there. It had taken me longer to get back than I’d planned because I decided to leave the stream bed and take a ‘short cut’. But the sheriff didn’t need to know that.

“I’d forgotten about this place,” the sheriff said. “Used to play in there when I was a kid. We were convinced outlaws had buried treasure in the cave.”

“Treasure hunts never live up to expectations,” I said. I looked around, half-expecting to see mercenaries hidden in the bushes. Though if they were good mercenaries, I wouldn’t see them.

“It’s just me,” the sheriff said, holding up his empty palms.

“You’re not here to arrest me?”

“No. Someone put in a good word for you.”

“They did?”

Sheriff Galton was amused by my look of surprise. “She asked me to make it very clear to you that only the charges against you in Cicada City were being dropped,” he said.

“Agent Rodriguez,” I said.

He nodded. “Connie explained your situation to me.”

It didn’t escape my attention that he was calling her ‘Connie’.

“She wants to talk to you,” Sheriff Galton said. “Urgently.”

“About what?”

“She didn’t tell me. I’m only a lowly small-town sheriff, not an agent of the Alliance government. Or an inter-galactic jewel thief.”

“I’m not a jewel thief,” I protested.

“Didn’t you once dally with a senator’s wife and then steal her diamonds?” he asked. I wondered how much of my file ‘Connie’ had shared with him.

“It was worse than that,” I said. “I dallied with his mistress and took her diamonds.”

Sheriff Galton laughed. “We’ll take your car back to town.”

“My car?”

“I went into the cave to see if I could find where I carved my initials.”

“What about your car?”

“I got a deputy to drop me off down the valley. We’re a little short on vehicles at the moment.”

“Oh. Why’s that?” I asked, not at all innocently. I didn’t wait for his reply.

*

“I have news for you,” Agent Rodriguez said.

I was sitting in the council house in front of their old interstat unit. Sheriff Galton had left me alone, in case Connie and I had secret Alliance business to discuss. I think he suspected that I was some sort of undercover agent.

“Tell me the good news first,” I said. I felt in need of a bit of a boost.

“There isn’t any. I checked out your story about the missing robots,” she said. She hadn’t said ‘cockamamie story’ so I guessed she’d found something to back me up.

“And?”

“It seems that you were right.” This admission was made grudgingly.

“And you wanted me to get in touch so you could apologise for doubting me?”

“Not exactly,” she said.

“Tell me about the stolen robots.”

“They haven’t been reported stolen. Not officially. The Alliance Army has them listed as ‘misplaced in transit’. They don’t want to admit that twenty-six million dollars’ worth of Alliance property disappeared from under their noses.”

I thought I detected a hint of amusement in her expression. There wasn’t a great deal of love lost between ACID and the Army. I was surprised the Generals had even admitted that the robots were AWOL. The status of ‘misplaced’ also explained why the theft hadn’t previously been flagged on the ACID database.

“The military investigation is ongoing,” Agent Rodriguez said, “and they’re not keen on sharing intel.”

“But you got hold of it anyway?”

“Of course we did, we’re the A.C.I.D.”

I always expected to hear a little trumpet fanfare when they spelled out the letters like that.

“What do we know?” I asked. She didn’t much like the ‘we’, but she told me anyway.

“First of all, please tell me you weren’t involved in this theft,” she said.

“You’ll have to be a bit more specific,” I said. “Lots of thefts in the galaxy.”

“Official records show that thirteen containers, each containing twenty-five M-9000 combat robots, were picked up from the military base on Soren. But only twelve reached the intended destination – the station at Tryphena.”

“Where’s Tryphena?”

“Same system as Pellonia,” she said.

“You may as well have said Narnia. I have no idea where that is. I’m guessing the Army didn’t notice the container was missing because soldiers can’t count and one dozen is a nice round, even number.”

“No one noticed because they’re incompetent and lose taxpayers’ assets on a regular basis,” she said.

“Didn’t you once lose an Interceptor?” I asked.

“Yes, but I