The Premise

by Andy Crossfield

  That was the only fact Colleen knew to be true. Mark was not there. A dusty, sweaty kid with a fantastic tale had taken his place. Colleen didn’t know what to think.

  The lunch crowd began filtering in and filled the restaurant, prompting Colleen and Kyle to order. Colleen sat there looking at the data while Kyle pointed out the scribbled notes in the margin, but she kept returning to the incredible prospect that fourteen men died, possibly to get these very documents and destroy them. She had to get them to someone who could help her interpret them and unlock their secret.

  After another hour of answering Colleen’s questions, Kyle got up.

  "I have to go back to Crimson Desert," Kyle said. "I need to prove my innocence in all this, and the best way to do that is not to run, but to face the warden and get whoever is responsible for this punished."

  Colleen agreed. If "they" had been able to use the vast resources of the military to "get" Mark she reasoned, trying to run would surely be futile. They decided Colleen should keep the briefcase, and that it was better to keep her far from whatever was at work here.

  "I’ll keep in touch," Kyle said as they exchanged each other’s cell numbers. "If you don’t hear from me by Monday, assume I’m in trouble. Here’s my brother’s number. Call him on Monday and tell him what you know. They won’t suspect if he comes looking for me. We’re not close, but he’s all the family I got left, and he should be able to help bail me out."

  Kyle thanked Colleen for her time and hoped they could meet again to try to solve the mystery. He said he hadn’t known Mark long, but nobody deserved to die like he did, and Kyle was going to discover the truth no matter where it led. Kyle spoke with a certainty that made Colleen to want to believe him.

  Kyle left the restaurant and walked down The Strip a half-mile or so, far enough away from Colleen’s hotel to eliminate anyone from piecing together his actions. He took off his sock and put the locker key between his toes, and then hailed the first police car he saw and asked if they could take him to police headquarters… he said he was a witness to a killing in the desert.

  Colleen paid the bill and was pulling the contents of the briefcase together when her phone rang.

  She looked at the caller ID, took a deep breath, and put a smile on her face. "Oh, hi Karen," she said in a tone that belied the anxiety she felt.

  "Dr. Baker, is that you? Are you all right?"

  "Yes, Karen, what’s wrong? You sound panicked…."

  "Colleen, we’ve been robbed! Somebody came in during my afternoon break and trashed the place, stole the computers, smashed the equipment, and took all our files! They took the video feed computer too! Dr. Baker, who would do this?"

  "What?" Colleen could not handle this. Too much was happening and too many questions were swirling up without answers. "Are you okay?" Colleen asked instinctively.

  "Well, I guess so. I was in the Break Room waiting on the microwave to finish heating my lunch. I got hit on the head and never saw anyone, but when I came to, the place was trashed. I tried to view the reception room video feed, …that’s when I realized they stole the computers. All the computers! All the data…Ow my head."

  "Karen, get to the emergency room. Call 911, take a cab if you have to, but get there, lock up and get out of there, do you hear?"

  Colleen thought about calling Kyle to tell him the news. She couldn’t figure out how or even if Mark’s death and the break-in were related, but it might be a key piece of the puzzle. She finally decided to hold off, thinking he could be at police headquarters by now and a call from her would undo his efforts to keep her out of this mess.

  Heading back to her room, Colleen was still shaken and thinking of what possible connection could tie these two shocking events in her normally dull life, when the elevator doors opened on her floor. Down the hallway she could see two suspicious looking men in hoodies come out of a room very near her own, carrying what appeared to be sheets and an overstuffed gym bag.

  As she proceeded down the hall, she counted doors to determine where her room would be– the room these guys were leaving was hers!

  She looked for something to use as a weapon but finally decided to start screaming, hoping another guest would open their door and become a witness. The two men froze at first, and then ran past her toward the open elevator. Colleen swung Mark’s briefcase at one of the men as he rushed past and then grabbed the other man’s arm as he ran by; she caught a glimpse of a tattoo on his wrist.

  One of the men got to the elevator in time to stick an arm in and hold the door for the other, then quickly closed the doors and headed down.

  Colleen ran to her room and pushed open the door. The room was a wreck. Her clothes were strewn all over and most of her luggage was tossed in a corner. Her briefcase was gone, all her notes and her laptop was missing with all its data!

  Chapter 13 The Trouble With Truth

  Hank Caswell’s phone rang four times before he was able to pick up in the bedroom. He had just finished a tennis lesson and was dripping wet from the shower.

  "Yeah?" He said in a low, gravelly voice.

  "Hank, it’s Cooley," Bill said, hesitant where to begin. He might be the Crimson Desert Prison warden, but he knew he took his chances calling Hank at home.

  "We’ve had a problem, thought you should know. Thirteen inmates and a CO are unaccounted for. Well, that’s not quite right. I just heard from the CO, he called and had some fantastic story about the military going rogue on ‘em. Said they killed that doc at the base, then took out the CO’s van full of prisoners heading to the base for a checkup. He said he thinks they used drones and missiles! Funny, I never took that kid for a drinker…."

  "Hold on, Bill… you hit me with all this out of the blue! God, man, I’m just out of the shower and dripping wet. Let me call you back in ten." And with that he hung up the phone, leaving the warden with his mouth open and feeling even more stunned than before.

  Hank dried off and threw on some clothes. He opened the nightstand and looked up a number in a notebook, then dialed his cell.

  "Yes?" Replied the voice on the other end that seemed digitally altered. Hank couldn’t determine whether it was a man or a woman.

  "We have a witness to this morning’s operation," Hank said. "And what about the woman, …the doc from Chicago?"

  Again the reply was hard to make out but it sounded like "neutralized."

  "Well, the witness is trouble, got that? Take care of him." Hank hung up the phone. He decided no good could come from calling the warden back. Better he is kept in the dark as long as possible.

  _____________________

  Kyle was brought to the main Las Vegas police station on Sierra Vista. He decided not to say anything else to the cops in the car, and to save his story for Warden Cooley. He still had his phone and on the way he called to confirm that two prison staff members were headed down to pick him up. Great, he though, yet another time he’d have to tell what happened. He was really tiring of having people think he was crazy.

  Kyle had grave misgivings about going back to the prison, but several considerations influenced his decision to turn himself in. The first was the prospect of being on the run, having every law enforcement officer in Nevada looking for him, and being judged a criminal even though he was innocent. The second was his relationship with the warden. Bill Cooley was Kyle’s ex-father in law, and although his marriage broke up when he went to prison, the five years he served in Crimson Desert allowed the warden a chance to get to know Kyle. He came to realize that while Kyle may have been impetuous, gullible, and a terribly poor judge of character, he was no criminal.

  Warden Cooley was the reason Kyle got an early release, and the CO job as well, making Kyle the first and only CO with a record in all of Nevada. Kyle owed him a lot, and now he was relying once more on their relationship to get him a fair review of the facts.

  Being in the back seat of a police car brought back all kinds of unpleasant memories. He didn’t have the cuffs on, but everything
else was as if he had gone back in time– to a very difficult time, when he lived life on a dare and mightily suffered the consequences.

  Life-changing events rarely identify themselves as such as they happen, and true to form, Kyle's started out innocently enough. He had agreed to join friends one Saturday night. He thought they were going to a party. Kyle didn’t know until too late that they had planned to stop and rob a 7-11 on the way.

  His buddy’s friend got shot in the neck and died in the car, slumped across Kyle’s lap during the getaway. His buddy got 25 years hard time, but Kyle’s wife testified she’d heard his plans for the party and even said she had planned on going too if her migraine hadn’t acted up. That, and the fact that her father was the warden, got his sentence reduced to seven years at Crimson Desert State Prison.

  Kyle was a changed man after that. Prison had the desired effect in that it rehabilitated him… or at least made him grow up and see people’s motivations are usually for their own best interests, not others.

  Kyle knew he couldn’t square laying his freedom on the line to save a dead man’s reputation. Hell, he’d barely known Mark. It didn’t make sense. And yet there he was, going to Crimson Desert to explain why he was still alive, even if everyone else was dead. He knew what he saw; he knew in his heart he had to tell the truth, but this was a helluva thing, he thought, having to defend the fact that you survived and becoming a suspect because of it.

  There were, of course complications to his story. Why were none of the prisoners found? How could he explain the military’s involvement? If they were involved, how far up the command did this go? Who else could order the removal of burned vehicles and bodies so quickly? It had military operation all over it… and yet, it was so unbelievable!

  Kyle waited in an interrogation room at the police station for the staff from Crimson Desert to arrive. After about 20 minutes, two men, both members of the staff in Warden Cooley’s office walked in and sat down. Ted Wainright spoke first.

  "Kyle, we hear you’ve had an interesting morning. Care to explain yourself?"

  Kyle looked over at Ted. He didn’t get along with Ted, and not just because Ted was dumber than toast.

  "Not if I have to explain it four times," Kyle said in a mocking voice.

  Just like one of Kyle’s childhood puppies, Ted tilted his head to one side while he thought about what Kyle said. Then he frowned.

  "Either he got it or he didn’t… it didn’t matter", Kyle thought. Their job was to transport Kyle back to Crimson Desert, not start asking a bunch of stupid questions. After ten seconds or so, Ted realized he’d been insulted and made a lurching move over the table toward Kyle.

  Carl Palin stopped Ted in mid-lunge and stood him up.

  "Pull your shit together Kyle, we’re taking you back to Crimson Desert." Carl said pulling Ted toward the door.

  Ted was still protesting Kyle’s remark as Carl led him out of the room. They started talking with an LVPD officer outside in the hall. Kyle could only see part of their conversation through the slit in the doorway, but it looked like they were having trouble convincing the police that they should release Kyle to their custody. Probably the part where he said he had witnessed a mass murder was complicating the handoff. Cops are rarely inclined to release "witnesses" of that sort.

  Kyle was beginning to think this would work out pretty well for him. He obviously was trying to cooperate with Warden Cooley’s orders, and that alone showed innocence on his part, but now he would be kept safe in police custody as a person of interest until his claims could be checked out, and anyone from Crimson Desert that wanted an interview would have to come to him in Vegas.

  Trying to figure out who had jurisdiction would take even more time he figured, and either the LVPD or the Clark county sheriff would hold him. Not only that, but LVPD hadn’t even talked to him yet, they had no statement, no particulars, and no idea where the incident occurred… all things they would have to investigate to their satisfaction before he was released to Crimson Desert.

  Then Kyle had a thought that made him grow cold inside. What if the attacks had occurred on base property? He tried to think exactly where the explosions had occurred, but wasn’t sure where the actual base boundary was. Out there in the desert, the actual base property extended far beyond the fences around the buildings. If a case could be made that the incident happened at Randall, then LVPD would send for the MPs and hand off the investigation to them. He knew he had to avoid being held by the military at all costs.

  Kyle began to think fast. If he stuck to the truth, he would dig his hole deeper and become more suspicious to the police. All they needed to hear was fourteen people died out in the desert to make them lock him up forever. He had no idea what the warden told them, maybe they already knew about his story…but the warden would also tell the police they found nothing out there and suspected an escape… more hard time for Kyle.

  It seemed the only thing he could do was force the police to charge him or let him go. He hadn’t been accused of anything; he had asked to be taken to the station. The warden could make claims that inmates were missing, but there was no evidence, and Kyle was acting like he was innocent by volunteering to come to the station. Maybe they would let him go, but then what would he do? He had no car, not much money, and someone very powerful was after him, possibly still trying to kill him.

  "Damn… that’s a rock and a hard place all right" Kyle thought.

  Against his better judgment, Kyle finally decided to stick with the truth. Make a splashy statement and lay it all out there. The cops would have to keep him locked up until they investigated, and that would take time. He would even go out there with them to see if the warden’s men missed anything. It was his only option, and not a very good one.

  About half an hour later, Ted and Carl came back in the room and motioned for Kyle to get up and come with them.

  "Wait a minute guys, I haven’t given a statement to the cops" Kyle said, keeping his seat in defiance.

  "Tell it to Cooley." Ted said… "You’re out of LVPD jurisdiction and they’re washing their hands of you. We’re taking you to back on suspicion of aiding an escape."

  "Get up and turn around Kyle." Ted said as he pulled him roughly to his feet.

  He patted him down, taking his phone and the contents of his pockets while Carl pulled out some plastic restraints and pulled Kyle’s wrists behind him, and then cinched them together tightly. Ted checked Carl’s work and then marched Kyle past the officer on duty and out to their car.

  ______________________

  Colleen stood for several minutes looking at her trashed room unable to move or decide what to do. Finally, she picked up the phone and asked for Security. When the pleasant voice came on the line, she broke down and tried to make herself understood. Between sobs, Colleen thought he said he was sending someone right up, but fifteen minutes passed and no one had arrived.

  She dialed the phone again, got Security, and this time she was more angry than frightened. As she laid into the unsuspecting man on the other end of the line, there was a knock at her door. She dropped the phone, checked the peephole, and threw open the door.

  A Hispanic man in a security uniform, mid-thirties, trim, with broad shoulders, tipped his hat and asked if she had called for help. Colleen turned and led him into her room, still tossed by the two intruders.

  "You have to get my laptop back," Colleen demanded. "It has my life’s work on it and there is no way I can replace it. There were two men, I must have surprised them because I saw them coming out of my room with a pillowcase full of my things." Colleen said, sitting on the bed as she relived the horror of her confrontation.

  "Now, Dr. Baker, can you describe these men?" asked the security guard. Colleen noticed a name badge that read Willis Santiago, and what looked like medals on his chest.

  "Can I call you Willis?" Colleen asked as she gathered her thoughts.

  "Yes Ma’am, Did you get a good look at them?

  "Well, one
was heavy-set, about six-two I’d say, white, …they were both white, and both had hoodies, gray hoodies. The other was thin, five-eight or so, he had the pillowcase. The other guy had what looked like a stack of folded sheets. Probably hid my laptop, …the bastard."

  Colleen tried to remember more, but was already starting to forget their faces.

  "We have video of the floor about the time you made the call, about how soon after the incident did you call us, Doctor?"

  "About two or three minutes at the most. Can you review the tapes? Please catch these guys, please, Willis."

  "We’ll do what we can, ma’am. Is there anything else you remember?"

  "Well, as I said, I got off the elevator and saw these two men halfway down the hall. I thought something was strange because … I mean, who wears a hoodie up inside a hotel… unless you’re up to something? Well I began to realize my room was about where they had come from, so I started counting down and realized they were coming out of my room! I started screaming hoping to bring a witness out into the hall but they pushed past me and jumped in the elevator and headed down."