The Guardian

bad. It was a good thing he’d bought extra film. He had managed to waste a considerable amount of it until he finally got it figured out.
    The film was perfect. It was a silver colored privacy film and you damn sure couldn’t see in at all. He liked that. With the old stuff, you could still see in a little bit. This stuff you couldn’t see anything. Things were off to a good start.
    Making sure the van got washed well before hand, he set to work. Using the butcher paper taped across the hood and fenders, he secured it about half way down with the masking tape and drew some flames with a pencil onto the paper.
    He looked back and forth at the article in the magazine. He got the flames drawn, trimmed the edges away with an X-acto knife. Next, he masked off the rest of the van. The only thing showing was the front half of the hood and the fenders.
    Quickly he backed the van out of the garage. He didn’t want any overspray getting on things in the garage. He pulled on a pair of coveralls, rubber gloves, and a cotton painter’s mask. Jack had forgotten to get a respirator so he just used an old rag instead.
    Once outside, he double-checked his masking job. Taking a deep breath and he grabbed the first can of paint. Here goes nothing” he said to no one and began his Rembrandt of auto body painting.
    Chapter 62
    It was eight thirty on the button when Singletary and Smythe showed up at the viewers’ site in Red Rock. There wasn’t a car around. It was going to be hard for them to be invisible. They would pull in and hope that more cars would show up in the mean time. They were sure that was the reason the Guardian had picked this place. It was going to be very tough not be seen.
    They sat there drinking too much coffee out of a thermos they had brought. They had finished their Jack-In-the-Box breakfast sandwiches. Stake outs were the pits. Definitely not like they showed it in the movies.
    Across the desert, up in the rocks off in the distance sat the Guardian. He was watching the two as they took turns going to the can. Drinking coffee and were no good at invisibility.
    That was okay. He knew the other two wouldn’t come without backup. That would have been stupid and against procedure. At least he knew where they were. He' be able to deal with them should the necessity arise. He wasn’t going down there anyway. Everything he needed to do would be handled from right where he was, on the phone.
    At exactly five minutes to ten Halloway and Griffin pulled into the parking lot. Finding a spot near the road as instructed, they parked to be relaxed and quite comfortable.
    John and Laura got out of the car. They looked around scanning the area and walked over to the rail at about the half waypoint.
    “Well, here we are. Let’s see if he keeps his word.” John said.
    “I’m sure he will. Why wouldn’t he? We’ve been all over that. We need each other. We all have the same objective. Frankly, he is not the bad guy. He just made some bad career choices is all.” Laura said.
    “Bad career choices, you’re kidding right.” His phone was ringing. It was 10 am, straight up.
    “Here we go. Halloway”
    “What do we have so far?”
    “Meaning what exactly?”
    “Look, you give me information that I need, I give you what I have and we pool our resources. Do we have any leads on the van?” He said, knowing that there was. He was fishing to see what they would do.
    “Yes, as a matter of fact we do. We have a list of all the owners of the white Plymouth mini-vans. We’ve broken it up into three areas. One is for each of us. We can cover more ground that way.”
    “Okay, that’s good. I’ll take the south east and south west area. It’s a larger area. I can get around quicker alone the way I travel.”
    “Don’t matter to us, either way it’s gonna be a lot of leg work. So we thought we’d get some other officers to help us.”
    “That’s fine. As long as they know not to move on anyone until we give the word.”
    “That’s a given. Sorry pal already got it covered.” Halloway said. “And no vigilante shit from you. You call us in if you find this guy, understood?”
    “What was that you said to me, no guarantees, something like that?”
    “Ya, but….”
    “No buts. I’ve been watching your two guys in the brown Ford sedan over there since eight thirty this morning. I thought we had an agreement. You pull this shit, and now you want me to trust you?”
    “Okay, look, you know we couldn’t come