Daniel Ganninger - Icarus Investigations 03 - Snow Cone (4 page)

-Chapter 6-

Jane
‘s flight was set to arrive at Nashville International a little after 3 P.M.  I was beyond excited to see her and bound toward the terminal like a boy going after an ice cream truck.  I didn’t know how I was going to present our proposal to her about moving to the city but figured the proper way would come in due time.

The airport was bustling with activity,
especially for a Wednesday afternoon.  I observed the throngs of passengers moving about in every direction as they ventured into the Country Music Capitol of the World.  From out of the crowd I spotted Jane, looking like an angel as she came down the escalator.  I realized that was one of the more sappy thoughts to enter my brain, but I hadn’t seen Jane in over a month so I cut myself a break.

I greeted her with a long hug and kiss.  She was
obviously glad to see me, which made me feel at ease.  For some reason, I feared she would take one look and head back up the escalator thinking, “I chose this guy as my boyfriend?”  It was just one of my many insecurities rearing its ugly head.  “Silly Roger,” I thought to myself.

“
How was your flight,” I said, engaging in the requisite post-flight banter.

“
Good,” she said with a smile.  “How are you?”

“
Good, good,” I answered.

I
was amazed how awkward the time away made me.  We stood there nodding our heads at each other, both of us unable to find an adequate follow-up sentence.  Luckily, Galveston approached from behind and broke us out of our clumsy exchange.

“
Boo!” Galveston said as he snuck up on Jane.  She jumped at the word and turned to see Galveston with his arms open, ready to give her a big, bear hug.

“
Jane, come here you little…” he said, motioning her toward him.

“
Oh, Galveston,” she paused.  “I thought our time away from each other had been enough,” she said sarcastically.

Galveston
wrapped her up in a hug.  “I’m glad you’re here.  Let’s get your bags.  We have some talking to do.”

“
Uh-oh,” Jane responded as Galveston continued to squeeze her.  She gave me a look of concern.

Galveston
released his grip and immediately began to tell Jane of our exploits crossing the country as traveling investigators.  She had already heard all the stories from me, but she was polite and let Galveston relive our moments together. 

We gathered her bags from the baggage claim and walked to the car.  The thought of telling her about our proposed move to
Nashville continued to weigh on my mind.  I was scared to death of her reaction.  Galveston continued to rant about our varied cases as I mulled over the different tactics I could use to ask her the question. 

We got to the car and
Galveston placed Jane’s bags in the trunk.  I opened the front door for her before I heard Galveston change to a slightly different subject of conversation.

“
So, Jane,” he began as he shut the trunk.  “I have a proposal for you.  Actually, we have a proposal for you.”

The words
barely got out of his mouth when I realized what subject he was bringing up.  I moved to break up the conversation, but it was too late.  Galveston was going to pose the question for me.  I guess that’s what friends are for.

“
We want to move to Nashville, and we want you to move to Nashville.”

I
had no idea what Jane’s reaction would be, and a look of shock crossed my face that he had brought it up so soon.

Jane looked at
Galveston and then at me.  “Okay,” she said, shrugging her shoulders.  She then further shocked me by her next statement.  “Sounds good,” Jane smiled and nodded her head. 

She moved past me, with the smile still etched on her face, got in the passenger front seat of the car, and closed the door. 
Galveston gave me a goofy grin and opened the back door.

“
Alright, buddy.  Let’s go grab a bite,” he said nonchalantly, as if nothing had transpired.

He closed his door, and I stood by it in a stupor. 
Was I in a parallel universe?  I slowly walked to the driver’s side and got in.

“
I’m in the mood for some Italian food.  Would that be okay, Roger?” Jane asked politely.

“
Sure, sure,” I responded.  “We can find some Italian—somewhere.”  I was still in a state of shock over her answer.

Jane and
Galveston were quiet during the drive to our unknown eating establishment.  I finally couldn’t hold my thoughts any further.  I had to know what these two were thinking. 

“
Okay, what the heck is going on?” I blurted.

“
Whatever do you mean, Roger,” Galveston asked with a bit of sarcasm.

“
You know exactly what I mean,” I replied quickly.  “Did you guys take some drugs or something?”  I turned to Jane while almost running off the road.  “You heard his question, right?”

“
Of course I did.  He asked me if I wanted to move to Nashville, and I said yes.  No big deal.”

By this point my head was spinning.  I was glad Jane was on board in our decision, but this was weird.  Then I
slowly began to realize—I had been duped.  I had forgotten who my partner was, and unfortunately, he was rubbing off on Jane.

“
So how long did you have this planned?” I asked Galveston as I peered at him in the rearview mirror.

“
I would say about ten miles outside Salt Lake City.  I was wondering when you were going to catch on.  You’re losing your touch in noticing my unique ability in spreading cow manure,” Galveston replied.

“
Yes, you do have a quite a gift.  How long did it take him to convince you, Jane?”

“
About twenty miles out of Salt Lake City.  He’s very good you know.”

“
Yes, I know.  I sometimes feel I need to go behind him with a shovel to clean up.”

Galveston
had pulled one over on me.  He had been talking to Jane the entire time.  Our trip hadn’t been happenstance.  Galveston planned for us to end up in Nashville the entire time.  My heart rate stabilized since I didn’t have to stress over asking Jane the question.

Over our Italian dinner, Jane explained why she was so quick to agree to the move.  Unbeknownst to me, Jane’s acting career in
San Diego was leaving her unfulfilled.  Many of her friends had moved and life just wasn’t the same.  But the primary reason for her decision for moving, was of course, me.  She knew Galveston would convince me into the plan, just like he had done before with so many other situations.  Jane wanted to go back to teaching drama, something she had done earlier in her career.  I gave Galveston the task in helping her achieve that goal.  It was my form of punishment for completely manipulating me. 

We drove back to the hotel after we finished eating. 
We had a case to solve, and now that Jane was here, we had an extra set of arms and legs to get some work done.

-Chapter 7-

We all had a restful night, and Jane and I
finally reconnected after our initial awkward faze. The case in Greenland was now on our mind. It had to be easy. I mean, what could be so hard about finding out about a group of thugs in Greenland. It didn’t seem to be that tough.

We started the same as every other case; research, research, research.  I made a few calls to the Dutch embassy in
Washington D.C. to try to get a starting point.  They were nice enough, but they weren’t very forthcoming with helpful information.  Galveston was striking out too.  He tried to get information on people entering the country of Greenland but hit a dead-end at every turn.

The answers just weren’t coming, and we were running out of options. 

“These legal ways just aren’t cutting it are they?” Galveston asked me as I searched through a list of companies that did business in Greenland.  There weren’t many, so it was an easy search.

“
I have to agree.  It’s time to get you-know-who involved,” I replied.

The you-
know-who we were speaking of was our resident computer expert, Alex Judokowski.  He was an ex-NSA employee and our man for acquiring information by less than legal means. 

Alex still lived in
San Diego, in a mansion overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  We knew we would never convince him to move to Nashville; he wouldn’t be pried from that area without a nuclear explosion taking place.

Judokowski was a connoisseur of the finer things in life;
fine wines, food, art, music.  He had the money to do it, and we hated him for it.  As much as we berated Alex about his lifestyle, he was still a good friend and very reliable.

Galveston
gave him a call, and Alex was excited to have the opportunity to break some new laws.  He told us he had never infiltrated a computer system in Greenland.  There was always a first time for everything. 

We gave Alex two days to locate information to help our case.  He was confident he would
have some answers for us, and hopefully, a credible lead.

Over the next two days we wiled away the time searching for a new office.  There wasn’t much more for us to do until Alex informed us of his search.

Alex called as the second day of his work drew to a close.  We huddled around Galveston’s phone with the speaker turned on, eagerly awaiting Alex’s results from his search.  To this point, Alex never failed in bringing us a vast amount of useful information.  But then again, everybody has an off-day once in a while.

“
What did you find?” Galveston asked with an air of anticipation that we could finally begin our case.

“
Well,” Alex began, “I found…” He paused, which only made us lean closer to the phone to wait for the juicy morsel of information that was sure to follow.  “Nothing.”

Galveston
scrunched his face as if he had just eaten a bad piece of fruit.  “Nothing?  What do you mean, nothing?”

“
Just that…nothing.  I’ve looked everywhere.  Heck, I even broke some Dutch laws hacking into their systems and still found nothing.”

“
You didn’t find anything?  No names, dates, or unusually activity?” I asked with pure surprise at Alex’s failed attempt.

“
If the definition of nothing is something that is nonexistent, then yes, I found nothing,” he replied with annoyance and sarcasm.

“
Well, that’s not good,” Galveston replied looking at me.

“
Greenland doesn’t have that much of a sophisticated computer network.  I don’t even have the tools anymore to access some of their networks, since they are so old. The Dutch government systems were of no help too.  I even resorted to calling people on the phone for information.”

“
Oh, the horror,” Galveston said.  “You had to physically speak to another human being.”

“
Yeah, it was horrible and no help.  I don’t know what to tell you guys at this point.  I struck out—big time.”

Alex
was clearly dejected.  He wasn’t used to coming up empty-handed.  This was a severe blow to his overly inflated ego.

“
Well, stay by the phone.  Roger and I need to talk about what we’re going to do next.”

“
Okay.  Maybe I can do better next time,” Alex replied, like a kid that didn’t get all A’s on his report card.

Galveston
ended the call and looked at me.  “That was rather pitiful.”

“
I’ll say,” I agreed.

“
I really wanted to give him a hard time and say, ‘thanks for nothing’, but even I’m not that heartless.”

“
That probably was a good decision.  At least he’ll work harder for us next time,” I concluded.

“
Very true.  This is something we can hold over his head for years to come.”

We both had a quick laugh about the situation, but we still had a major pressing problem—we were at another dead end.

I thought about our situation and realized what we had to do.

“
I hate to say this, and I know you would be telling me this in a few seconds, but we have to go to Greenland.”

Galveston
face, for once in our partnership together, flashed in surprise.

“
Greenland?  Whatever for?”

“
You know as well as I do that we have to go to the source.  It’s what you’ve preached for years,” I said emphatically.

“
There’s nothing in Greenland but ice.  It isn’t really green, you know,” he said in a whisper.

“
I know, but that’s where we have to go to find these guys harassing Stanwick.”

“
Ah, hell, you’re right.  I’ll call Stanwick and arrange the trip.  You realize we’ve just become geology research assistants, right?” Galveston said flatly.

“
It’s been a dream of mine for years.”             

“
I bet it has.  You are about as boring as a rock,” Galveston shot back.

I gave
Galveston a slap on the back, ignoring his playful barb as he dialed his phone to Professor Stanwick.  If we had only known the trip to Greenland wouldn’t be as boring as a rock.