Caged to Kill

by Tom Swyers

  Diner patrons started to notice the activity. Like children drawn to a TV screen, they filtered toward the picture windows that faced Central Avenue. The main road sat empty now, cleared of all traffic. Roadblocks on either side under the traffic lights at the intersections diverted vehicles from the scene. A female state trooper, her arrow-straight spine swathed in a typical navy uniform topped by the signature Stetson hat, marched into the diner out of nowhere. “Please move away from the windows and sit down,” she ordered the crowd.

  Patrons gawked at her briefly before they drifted back to their tables, where forgotten coffee and muffins cooled. The murmur of voices muffled the diner music from the overhead speakers. “What’s going on?” the diner owner barked from her perch behind the cash register. “Looks like World War Three out there. Bad for business.”

  “There’s a hostage situation,” the trooper replied sharply.

  A chorus of gasps swelled across the room. The wave of murmurs rose to a dull roar as people scrambled for cell phones and tablets.

  David’s eyes popped. The two gawked at one another across the table with mouths agape.

  “Shouldn’t we say something?” Phillip whispered.

  David shook his head vehemently. “For all we know,” David whispered back, “the hostage situation is happening next door to the barbershop.”

  “I need to go over there and see what they’re doing,” Phillip said. Again, he started to unfold his lanky body off the booth seat.

  “Keep it down, Phillip!” David said in a hushed tone. “Forget it. They’ve established an outside perimeter and we can’t breach it. This is the only safe place to be. The security cameras Christy hid in the shop the other day will record everything that happens.”

  Phillip squirmed in his seat like a kid in church. He could barely contain himself. Doing nothing in response to unjustified force had been all he could ever do inside the box. He thought things would be different once he got on the outside. But it seemed like nothing had changed. Nothing. Like his box, he saw the barbershop as his space. These troopers were invading it without any reason. Same as it ever was.

  To make things worse, Phillip had hardly slept the previous night. His bedtime routine didn’t do anything to help. He showered for what seemed like hours to relax then took his nighttime vitamin. Didn’t help. The static on the TV didn’t work; neither did the music on the Easy Listening radio station. When he killed David in his dreams again at 3:15 a.m., he was done sleeping for the night. He had planned to tell David all about it that day like he promised. But now didn’t seem like the time, especially since killing David was no longer on his mind.

  Now Phillip locked in on a different target: the petite trooper assigned to the diner. It wasn’t her small size or her gender that made her a target. He would have taken on the biggest trooper on the force. She was simply the closest person to him who was part of the raid on his space across the street—a sacrificial lamb. He reached down to stroke his lucky charm; the carving knife secured in his sock, riding up his calf.

  Suddenly, a SWAT team member stood up and flung a hammer-like device to break the front door window at the barbershop. The guy next to him rose and tossed in what looked a lot like a softball, except that it was solid black. Both SWAT team members then retreated behind the vehicle.

  A diner customer called out to the trooper to ask about the ball. “It’s a tactical throwable camera,” she explained. “It will move around via remote control, transmit images, and help the team assess the hostage situation inside.”

  Once they broke the front door window, everyone knew the hostage situation was taking place at Phillip’s Barbershop. David had to come clean soon or be the subject of intense questioning. The cops would want to know why he and Phillip didn’t tell the trooper in the diner that the shop was empty as soon as they saw it was the target of the hostage call.

  “Did you see that?” Phillip pleaded. “They broke our window and threw in that . . . that camera thing. Can’t we do anything?”

  “Keep it down and listen up. We have to slowly make our way over to the entrance—where the trooper is standing. We need to tell her that it’s our shop and there’s nobody inside.”

  “Why slowly? They’re going to trash our shop.”

  “You don’t want to make it look like we’re rushing her. Nothing’s more dangerous than a spooked cop. We’ve got insurance to cover the damages. I made sure of that.”

  “But we worked so hard to make that shop happen,” Phillip whined, his eyes beginning to fill. “This isn’t supposed to happen on the outside.”

  David understood the pain on Phillip’s face. The show of force had surprised him too, but it seemed to have shocked the heck out of Phillip. David whispered, “Remember, this is my world. You have to follow my lead here.”

  Phillip swallowed and nodded hard as if he was trying to convince himself that David was right.

  “I’m going to get up and slowly walk over to the trooper. Trail behind me and follow my lead. Don’t say anything unless I ask you a question. Okay?”

  “All right.”

  David stood and carefully stepped toward the trooper. The waitresses, busboys, and patrons were all transfixed by the scene that unfolded across the street. An old man sitting with his buddies in a booth shouted, “Look! They’re going in.” David and Phillip eased upright, turned their heads to look out the window but kept moving toward the door. The SWAT team had formed a line with semi-automatic rifles still drawn to eye level, some barrels jerking left and right, some aiming straight ahead. The two men at the head of the line gripped a battering ram.

  The lady trooper made eye contact with David. He and Phillip were the only people moving in the diner. The distant thud of the battering ram against the shop door echoed through the restaurant like a drum beat. The lady trooper’s eyebrows popped up in a flash and then she squinted hard at the two of them. Her right hand moved toward her holstered Glock 37. David glanced over his shoulder at Phillip. His face was red, eyebrows lowered, forehead furrowed. He twitched at each thud of the battering ram.

  When they got within a few feet of the trooper, David stopped and Phillip halted at his side. “I need to talk with—”

  Bam! A loud explosion from the shop rattled the diner’s windows like a sonic boom. Phillip lunged toward the trooper, but before he could reach her David tackled him from behind and face-planted him into the checkerboard-patterned linoleum floor.

  The startled trooper drew her gun in a flash and aimed it at Phillip. “Freeze!” she hollered.

  David didn’t have to move from his perch on Phillip’s back to whisper into his ear, “Please, follow my lead here. Shake like you’re having a seizure.” Peering up at the trooper, David announced, “It’s not what you think. He’s having a seizure—an epileptic seizure. That loud bang must have triggered it. What was that sound anyway?”

  Keeping both hands on the Glock, the trooper lowered her gun just a hair. “It was a flashbang grenade.”

  “What on earth is that for?” David asked.

  “With the explosion and a flash of light, its job is to momentarily stun anyone in the barbershop so that the SWAT team can enter.”

  Phillip started to tremble. He had seen seizures a few times outside his cell in the solitary wing. David reached around him to grasp his shirtfront. “It’s okay, Phillip, you’ll be okay.” He rolled Phillip over onto his back. “They just threw a stun grenade into the barbershop. It wasn’t aimed at you. You are not in any danger.”

  Phillip did his best imitation of a seizure: thrashing, then letting his head loll. But he knew the truth. He had lunged at the trooper to strike her, cut her up—maybe even kill her. He was livid about the raid and the flashbang pushed him right over the edge. Inhale through your nose, hold it and count to four, exhale through your mouth. Think positive thoughts.

  “He’ll be okay in a minute,” David assured the trooper. His gaze moved to include the customers who scrutinized them now instead of
the ruckus outside.

  Phillip started to tremble less and when he finally lay still the trooper holstered her Glock. Phillip gazed calmly up at her stance and David kneeling over him. He gave them a thumbs-up signal.

  David said, “You see, he’s coming around. He’ll be fine now.”

  “I need to see some ID,” the trooper replied.

  “Sure. Just let me get it out of my wallet,” David said, standing up. He reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, then retrieved his license, and handed it to the trooper. “I started to say before the explosion that I needed to talk with you.”

  The trooper scanned both sides of the license. Her skinny frame was lost in the baggy uniform despite her exaggerated posture. She wore a name tag that said “Tucker.” There was a patch of acne on her neck right under the requisite bun that kept her feminine glory under control. “Thank you for your cooperation,” she said, trying to project her voice. It was a lesson she had likely learned at the academy a short time ago. She handed the license back after scribbling down David’s name. “I need to check his ID too,” she said, pointing to Phillip, who still sat on the floor.

  David grasped Phillip’s hand and pulled him up. They both sneaked a peek at the scene across the street. A few members of the SWAT team exited the shop with their gun barrels pointed at the pavement. Phillip removed his New York non-driver photo ID card from his wallet and handed it over.

  David muttered to Phillip, “They look like they’re all done over there.” More men in camo exited the barbershop, weapons lowered. A few stood before the store window talking, gesturing to one another with their hands. Troopers wandered around out in the open, along the perimeter of the scene. Some pedestrians clustered on the sidewalk, eyes glued to the unfolding drama. As the woman trooper scribbled down Phillip’s name, her walkie-talkie crackled, “All clear. There’s nobody in the shop. False alarm.”

  Trooper Tucker thrust the ID back at Phillip and turned to ask David, “What is it you wanted to say to me?”

  “I wanted to tell you that we’re the owners of the barbershop you just raided and that there’s nobody in there.”

  “Really? How come you’re over here when there’s an open sign hanging in your picture window?”

  “It’s a one-chair shop. There were no customers, so we decided to hold a breakfast meeting over here. We could spot any customer arriving from here and quickly leave to serve them at the shop.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “I guess a couple hours. The owner and our waitress can vouch for us.”

  From behind the register, the diner owner hollered, “That’s true. They’ve been warming those benches a long time.”

  The trooper palmed her walkie-talkie, “Command, Tucker here. Do you copy?”

  “10-4, Tucker. What’s up?”

  “I’ve got one David Thompson and a Phillip Dawkins with me, across the street, in the diner. They say they own the barbershop. Owner confirms they’ve been here for hours having breakfast. They approached me and informed me that the shop was empty.”

  “Copy that. Do they deny making the 911 call from the barbershop landline?”

  David said, “Absolutely. We’ve been over here the entire time. There’s no way we could have made any call on the barbershop landline.”

  Trooper Tucker responded, “Affirmative, Captain. Sounds like a spoofed call. Over.”

  The radio crackled. “Agreed. Interview them and put it in your report. Over and out.”

  Phillip asked, “What’s a spoofed call?”

  Trooper Tucker explained, “It’s when someone uses a service to make it look like a call is coming from a certain telephone number—in this case, your landline number. We got a call this morning from someone saying he was Phillip Dawkins and that he was holding David Thompson hostage and was going to kill him. Dispatch said the call sounded legit. So, we responded in force.”

  “My God,” David said, “we could have been killed if we were in the shop.”

  “Unfortunately, that’s happened before when people have been swatted,” Trooper Tucker said.

  David responded, “Swatted? I don’t understand.”

  “‘Swatting’ means to falsely report an emergency so as to cause a SWAT team to respond in force.”

  “It sounds like a way to order a hit on someone,” David said.

  Tucker gave him a sharp look as she asked, “Do either of you know of anyone who might do something like this to you?”

  “Nope,” David replied.

  “No,” Phillip echoed, following David’s lead.

  Neither of them was going to tell Tucker that they suspected some COs, or the Bureau of Prisons, or maybe even the State Police itself. That would be too much like kicking a hornet’s nest then hoping for the best.

  After some more questions and paperwork, Trooper Tucker told David and Phillip they were free to go. Dismissed, they walked across the street as the last of the police departed. When they entered the shop, the room reeked of rancid smoke. The place had been sullied and ransacked. David’s mouth hung open as he slowly turned in a circle to survey the damage. Phillip just collapsed in the barber’s chair.

  “How can they do this to us?” Phillip lamented. “How are we ever going to re-open?”

  “I’m sorry, Phillip. I don’t know what to say.” It was far worse than what David expected to happen. It was a huge setback and David knew it.

  “I should have stayed in prison. I don’t have a chance out here. The world outside is just as rigged as solitary ever was at Kranston.”

  David had no response to that statement. He called Little Falls Lumber down the street to arrange delivery of some plywood to secure the front entrance. That would buy them some time to get a new entrance door installed. He knew the landlord would be royally PO’d because it was his door. The last thing any landlord needs is tenants who are constantly in trouble with the law.

  David made a quick trip home to grab some tools that they used to cut the plywood and nail it up. He stopped to give Annie the short, sanitized version of the debacle at the barbershop, so she wouldn’t worry if she saw something on the news.

  After they barricaded the door, David took Phillip out the back exit to pick up Christy. His son reacted to the destruction with quiet anger. In a jiffy, the young man downloaded footage gathered from the raid. He had installed multiple hidden cameras in the shop—three in electrical outlets, two in air ionizers placed on countertops, four flush-mounted cameras in the ceiling, even one in the electric coffeemaker. All the cameras recorded audio, too.

  The three of them sat in the ruined shop later that evening to review the footage on Christy’s laptop. The security cameras showed the SWAT team raiding the shop. It also showed the tactical throwable camera rolling up and down the shop floor like a bowling ball before the raid. Its sudden stops and starts and side-to-side movements revealed that it was controlled remotely from somewhere else by an operator with a joystick. Then Christy patched in the audio recording.

  The tactical throwable camera not only recorded video, but it also transmitted audio. Every few seconds, the ball would stop and emit a noise. It sounded like the rolling ball said something. The audio was hard to understand, but it sounded like a repetition of the same phrase over and over again until the SWAT team raided the shop.

  David leaned closer to the laptop speakers, “Can you turn the volume up?” he asked Christy. “I want to make sure it’s saying what I think it’s saying.”

  “Let me try to tweak the audio with some software,” Christy replied.

  But Phillip didn’t need the audio enhanced. He recognized the voice’s cadence and instinctively knew the words. It was the voice that had played in his head ever since he could remember. He now believed it was the same voice that led him to David Thompson’s house the day after his release.

  After Christy erased the static from the audio, the male voice was unmistakably clear to all three of them: “Kill David Thompson,
Kill David Thompson!”

  Chapter 13

  It was one thing for Phillip to hear the voice while dreaming or in his head while awake, but it was quite another to hear it out loud. “Do you hear that? Can you hear that?” Phillip desperately asked.

  “Yes,” David replied.

  “Tell me what the voice says. Tell me!” Phillip pleaded.

  “’Kill David Thompson.’ The voice says to kill me.”

  Now Phillip had confirmation that someone else could hear the voice too. “That’s the message that’s been playing in my head for as long as I can remember,” Phillip said. “I thought I was going crazy, but you say you can hear the voice too.”

  “Yes, I heard it,” David gulped.

  “Dad, what’s this all about?” Christy asked. He was shaken by the voice. Someone wanted to kill his father.

  “It was in my dreams, Christy,” Phillip explained. “I’ve heard that voice in my dreams and in my head during the day sometimes. I’ve had dreams about killing your father too.”

  Christy turned to David. “I told him about my dreams of killing you.” He looked at Phillip. “You’ve heard that exact voice or that exact message?”

  “The message, for sure. I’m not totally sure it’s the same voice. It sure sounds like it, though.”

  “But maybe hearing the exact same message just makes it seem like the exact voice,” Christy surmised.

  “Maybe. I heard the voice in my sleep, so I’m not sure. When I’m awake and hear the message, it might be my voice that I’m hearing. Maybe I sometimes hear my voice when I’m awake and at other times I hear this other voice in my head. I’m not sure. Until now, I thought it was my voice generating this message all the time.”

  “Christy,” David said, “I hear a muffled sound before I hear the message. I think I can make out another word. Can you enhance the audio a little more?”

  “Sure,” Christy said, clicking his keyboard.

  “Play it back when you’re done.”

  “Okay, here it goes.”

  The message they all now heard was, “Don’t kill David Thompson.”