Chapter 3

It didn't take long for our luck to change as we settled into our life together. Olivia and I were married as soon as her divorce was finalized. After her time with Roscoe, she found me to be completely different companion. I never humiliated her and she knew that I would always protect her.

The Cobra was stolen from my garage one night while Olivia and I were out at a Disabled American Veteran's benefit. We were hosting a silent art auction to fund a center for the preforming arts in downtown Minneapolis.

The heist was a professional one that had successfully bypassed our numerous security measures that were in place to protect our asset. Judging by the scope of the theft, I harbored little faith that the Cobra would be found at all let alone in its pristine condition while it was in my possession. I hired a professional security company to look into the theft of the sports car, hoping to gather some information about its disappearance.

Olivia was devastated at our loss as she associated it closely with our connection. I held her as she cried at the loss of our prized possession that she found herself behind the wheel of frequently. But I had grown, and had other treasures that far outweighed our loss of just a car.

It was insured and I filed a claim with the underwriter which brought a horde of investigators down on us, adding to the chaos of the city Police and my own security force. Something didn't sit well with me as I contemplated the theft. A couple of things didn't add up. Security measures that were secret, and rather advanced had been overcome as well as the rudimentary features that one would expect when securing a house and garage. Even a GPS Tracking device that I installed a week earlier was rendered useless. To me, this all pointed to a bug in my garage and perhaps my house.

I relocated Olivia and myself to a Minneapolis Hotel and contacted a friend, Tom that helped me with the initial security of my home. We went way back to the time that we were in the service together. He was a security geek back then too. I was extremely paranoid by this time and used a payphone to make the connection. I told him of my suspicions and asked him about scanning for bugs. He agreed to meet me at a hotel the next day for a discussion of our situation. We met at his room at the Minneapolis Hilton Hotel. As we walked into his room, Tom motioned for us to be silent as we proceeded into the center of the room. Tom produced a scanner and checked us from head to toe. To our surprise, he detected a bug on each of us. I had a GPS transmitter imbedded in my phone and Olivia had a GPS and an audio transmitter in her purse and on her keychain. Tom took our bugged items and placed them on the bed. He led us to another hotel room before he spoke to us.

Tom told me things that I had suspected as I became aware of the details of the theft. We were being tracked by professionals. All of the devices in use were expensive and of high caliber. The only clue to who was behind this surveillance rested in finding the pick-up of that audio transmitter. It had to beam to a repeater that would send the signal to a monitor, probably a lap top computer. I assumed that the pick-up would be located in our house and Tom agreed. We decided to search the house after dark, when the insurance investigators had retired for the evening.

Tom surprised me by taking the GPS transmitters that he found on us and attached them to the ankles of a couple of pigeons that he had, and released them. They both flew off in different directions and I chuckled as I asked Tom where they were headed. He told me that it was better that I didn't know. It was just like him to say something like that.

We arrived at the house at about an hour after I thought the last of the investigators left the premise. I neutralized the alarm and Tom began scanning right inside of the front door. He immediately detected a camera overlooking the alarm keypad. It was motion activated and came on as soon as the front door was opened. I knew that we were in for a long night of searching for bugs when this discovery was made. I expected bugs to be everywhere, like our life was an opened book.