Careful Measurements

by Layne D. Hansen

  “You’re sure?” Asher asked, wide eyed.

  Brian White nodded. He opened a file and laid it on the desk in front of his boss. Asher leaned forward in his plush leather office chair and looked down at the surveillance photos.

  “Construction. Across the hills?” Asher asked, pointing towards the west.

  White nodded again.

  “How many workers? How much equipment?”

  “I’d say about a hundred workers or so. Maybe more. Tons of equipment. About everything you could imagine.” He picked up the photos, shuffled through them and then handed one to his boss. “As you can see here, this place is going up pretty fast. Don’t ask me where they got the money for this, but this company is top notch. They’re out of Ogden, Utah.”

  A pensive David Asher leaned back in his chair.

  With his eyes still on the photo he said, “Those guys have been raking in the cash ever since they got here. I wouldn’t doubt if they had millions. Wilson made a fortune trading on the outside. That’s part of the reason we shut it down. These guys were getting too rich and powerful.”

  Brian White nodded. Personally, he’d never had more than three thousand dollars in any account he’d ever owned. Now, because of the city’s largesse, he was becoming very wealthy.

  “What should we do about this?” White asked.

  Asher stood and walked towards his liquor cabinet. He poured himself a drink without offering one to his subordinate. He took it down in one swallow and poured himself another.

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think it would send a good message to stop them, but it would show people that we’re weak if we don’t,” he said pensively. “Either way it’s going to be bad, I just think we need to decide which set of people we can afford to piss off.”

  White stared at Asher and watched him pace back and forth. Asher continued.

  “If they go through with it, we’re going to lose a lot of people and a lot of money. The richer people support Larsen. The bastard would have beaten me without that little pissant Redding in the election.”

  White smiled, remembering the day he’d put an end to Tyler Redding. It had been his pleasure to personally fulfill that little duty.

  “Nope,” Asher said, finally. “We need to stop this. We need to shut it down and quick. Plus, we need a pressure point on Larsen. Something that will let him know we can control him, no matter how much influence he thinks he has.”

  The “pressure point” immediately came to Brian White’s scheming mind. Hell, she worked in City Hall. He saw her almost every day.

  “The wife?” he asked his boss.

  Asher stopped pacing and grinned wickedly. He nodded and White walked out of the office.

  The light for line two on Jennifer Larsen’s office phone lit up, accompanied by a low buzzing sound. She’d been concentrating so hard on her paperwork she didn’t noticed it.

  “Jennifer,” said her pretty brunette office mate, “you gonna get that?”

  “What?” she said confused. “Oh, the phone,” she said, smiling at her own absent-mindedness. She finally answered.

  “Larsen,” she said tersely. She had no etiquette in the office. What were they going to do, fire her?

  “Jennifer. We’re about to start that meeting downstairs. Didn’t you get the memo on that?” came the voice of her bitchy, frumpy boss.

  Jennifer shuffled through some papers that were on her desk but didn’t see any memo about a meeting. “No. Sorry. I’ll be right down,” she said hanging up without a goodbye. She shut off her monitor and pushed in her computer chair. “You coming?” she asked her officemate, who looked up at her with a confused expression.

  “Where?”

  “To the meeting. The beeyotch just told me I’m late,” she said, grabbing her attaché case and her jacket.

  “She told you, not me,” the brunette said, not meaning to sound snotty, but did so anyway.

  Jennifer walked out without a response and made her way to the basement. It really was a beautiful place to work. The office she had with the Department of Agriculture in Los Angeles was old and run down. Although she hated almost everyone she worked with, Jennifer Larsen didn’t mind the surroundings.

  Instead of taking the elevator, which was slow and full of people she didn’t want to talk to, she used the stairs. The stairs were closer to the basement conference room, anyway. Jennifer made her way down a long hallway and turned left to find an empty conference room. She walked inside and found a phone on a small table on the side of the room. As she dialed her boss’s extension, a figure approached her from behind. Without a word, and nearly without a sound, the man clubbed her on the back of the head, knocking her out cold. Unable to cushion her own fall, Jennifer hit her head again on the floor.

  Jennifer’s assailant picked her up in a fireman’s carry and carried her to an isolated area of the basement. He laid her down on the thinly carpeted floor and rolled up her sleeve. He removed a leather case from his back pocket, opened it, and pulled out a syringe that was already prepped with a heavy sedative. The assailant stuck the needle into Jennifer’s shoulder and watched her go limp. All he had to do now was wait for darkness to fall and for everyone to leave the building.

  Patton was annoyed when Jennifer didn’t return his texts or emails. When she didn’t call at five on her way out of the door, something she always did, he was even more annoyed. But when five-thirty and then six and then seven o’clock rolled around with no contact, Patton began to feel very nervous. They were both sticklers for their routine, and she was definitely breaking it right now. When the clock hit seven-thirty he grabbed his keys and charged out to his truck. Rocks flew as he tore out of his driveway. He frantically dialed her number again but it just rang and rang. He called Frank.

  “Have you seen or talked to Jennifer?” he asked frantically.

  “No Patton, what’s wrong?”

  “She’s always home by five-thirty. And when I say always I mean always!”

  “Where you at? Come pick me up and I’ll help you find her.”

  “Okay,” he said breathlessly, “be there in five minutes,” he said and ended the call.

  Six minutes later, Patton screeched to a halt in front of Frank’s house. Frank was already waiting outside and he jumped into the large pickup.

  “Calm down, Pal,” Frank said, but when he saw the look in Patton’s eyes he decided that talking him down would do no good. “Tell me what you know.”

  Patton looked at him and then back at the road. He pressed the accelerator and headed towards City Hall. After a loud and violent stop in front of the city building, Patton jumped out and made his way to the front door. It was locked but he could see a uniformed security guard inside. He pounded on the glass to get the guard’s attention. The guard saw him but took his time getting to the door. From the inside he pushed a button to an intercom.

  “How can I help you, Sir?” he asked in a slow and annoying drawl.

  Patton’s glare was the only response he got. Against his better judgment, he opened the door. Without asking, Patton charged in.

  “Sir, you can’t just come in. The building is closed!”

  Patton turned back to him and grabbed him by the collar of his maroon suit coat. “I don’t give a damn about your hours! My wife was supposed to be home three hours ago! I haven’t heard from her since noon. Now, are you going to help me find her or do I need to stick your Taser up your ass and see how it works from the inside out?”

  The man, young and inexperienced at conflict, began to shake and stammer. “Sir … Sir. I don’t know anything about this. Just … let … me . . . go.”

  Patton did so but gave him a little shove in the process.

  “Did they teach you how to use that radio or is it just decoration?”

  The guard unclipped his radio and pressed the button.

 
“Anton. Anton we have a situation in the front lobby. Can you come down here please?” A hiss of static punctuated his last words.

  There was a crackle over the radio. Apparently this Anton was responding.

  “Use proper radio protocol on this net, over.”

  The young security guard rolled his eyes at this. “Anton, just please come up here. I have an unauthorized person in the lobby.”

  “Will be there in two mikes. Out,” came the response.

  He looked at Patton and shrugged his shoulders. Patton rolled his eyes at this inexperienced moron. “That means two minutes,” he told him. “It’s the military way of saying minutes.”

  The kid shrugged again and turned away. Just over a minute later, a powerfully built black man descended a short set of stairs and approached Patton.

  “Can I help you, Sir?” he asked politely.

  Patton held up his phone, which had a picture of Jennifer on the screen. “Yes, I’m looking for my wife,” holding his phone in the security guard’s face.

  The second guard looked at the picture. It was obvious to Patton that he recognized her, but he was waiting for the obligatory lie that he didn’t.

  “Yeah I’ve seen her before but not today. She usually signs out right at five o’clock.”

  Patton nodded. She did sign out right at five because she didn’t want to be in this God-forsaken place for any longer than she had to be.

  “So she didn’t sign out today?” Patton asked, feeling the panic beginning to rise.

  Anton shook his head. “No, Sir. Like I said, I haven’t seen her today.”

  Patton gazed up and saw a surveillance camera. If there was one camera, he figured, there had to be many more. Enough, probably, to cover the entire building. Rather than continue on with these people, Patton said thank you and walked out the door. He briskly walked back to the truck and Frank could tell that something was wrong.

  “What’d they say?” he asked Patton.

  “She didn’t sign out and the security guard hasn’t seen her all day.”

  Patton was driving angry again, tearing down residential streets, headed towards Frank’s house. When Patton turned the last corner, he saw three Blue Creek Security Service vehicles in front of Frank’s house, their lights blaring.

  “What the hell?” Frank said, looking at Patton with wide eyes.

  Patton wasn’t about to stop and find out what was going on. Instead, he trolled by slowly. Three city vehicles were parked at the curb, but Patton could only see two uniformed city officials. They were outside milling around. That meant that at least one person was inside, looking for Frank or for something inside of Frank’s house. Patton pressed on the gas and sped away from the scene.

  “Where are you going?” Frank asked. “Let’s go see what the hell they’re doing in my house!”

  Patton ignored him and kept driving. Once he turned the first corner he accelerated and headed for Jennifer’s house. When they came into sight of her house, though, they saw a familiar sight—more city vehicles. Patton pulled over and stopped at the end of the street. They were too far away to be seen, but they were too far away to see what was going on. The two friends looked at each other with two completely different expressions. Frank was scared and confused. Patton was angry and focused.

  There was only one more place to go, but Patton figured they had people at his house also. They would have to hole up and wait for dark where Patton could think. Apparently something had set Asher off and had forced his hand. Asher didn’t know that Patton had prepared for this very thing and that he was the wild card.

  Jennifer woke up groggy and in unfamiliar surroundings. When she tried to lift her head she saw stars and felt a wave of nausea pass over her. She laid her head back down on the hard pillow and took inventory. She definitely wasn’t at home and if she was at the hospital, doctors and nurses would most likely have been milling around her. No, she definitely wasn’t at the hospital. Rather than lift her head again and run the risk of bringing on another wave of nausea, Jennifer turned her entire body at once. Lying now on her left side, she was able to take in her surroundings. She found that she was on a very small bed that was part of the wall. There was no frame or headboard or footboard to speak of. Across the very small room was a stainless steel sink. To the left of that was a stainless steel toilet. Towards her feet was a desk and a chair. The room couldn’t have been any larger than … a prison cell.

  She gasped audibly, stifling it with an open hand. She pushed herself up to a sitting position to get a better view of the room. It was indeed some sort of cell, probably measuring no more than eight feet by eight feet.

  “What the hell am I doing here?” she asked herself, subconsciously rubbing her head. There was a large bump … no … two large bumps there. She raised her wrist to her eyes to check the time but saw only bare skin. Of course there was no clock on any of the walls. A small window above the desk let her know that it was night. What she didn’t know was that she was now an inmate in the new prison. Construction started that spring, and while the facility wasn’t completely finished, the offices, the medical facility, and one wing of cells were far enough along that a few dozen prisoners could be housed.

  Jennifer went to the small window and looked out. She couldn’t see very far in either direction and the only thing across from her were more cells. Beginning to feel claustrophobic, she walked across the cell to the window. A sliver of sunlight was beginning to break over the eastern horizon. Suddenly she thought of Patton. Some mornings they would wake at daybreak and take the dogs for a walk, or go for a run on the highway above the lake. It had become one of the favorite aspects of her life and the thought of her husband, her being taken away from him and him not knowing where she was, made her cry. She tucked her chin into her chest and watched her tears splatter onto the desktop.

  Daybreak found Patton and Frank sleeping in their offices after a long and busy night. They knew that city officials would eventually look for them here, but for now they were safe. Patton parked his truck inside their warehouse so there were no outward signs that they were there. In case they were discovered, Patton had a small stash of weapons and ammunition in his office.

  The night before they drove out to Patton’s house and found a familiar scene—four city vehicles. Numbered among them was a large, black Chevrolet SUV. The ominous looking vehicle encouraged Patton to keep driving. He needed to get inside his house, but didn’t want any trouble—at least not yet. A mile past his house, Patton turned up a narrow gravel road. They curved and switch-backed and eventually made their way back towards Patton’s house. After thirty minutes of meandering through the hills in the dark, they crested a rise. Disoriented, Frank finally realized where they were—on a hill about three hundred feet above Patton’s house.

  From this vantage point, the valley opened itself up to their view. Down below them was the lake. Further to the north and to the west was the city of Blue Creek, looking peaceful and calm. There were still cars out on the streets and the streetlights were blazing. It was a breathtaking view and the two men took it in, thinking about how such a beautiful place could have come to this.

  “What we doin’ here Patton?”

  Broken out of his reverie, Patton took a moment to respond. “When those people down there leave, we’re going to go down there and grab something,” he said, his gaze never leaving the panorama below him.

  “Get what?” Frank said, his interest piqued by his friend’s curious mood.

  Patton finally looked at him. He loved Frank’s innocence. He hated to spoil it, but he felt it the right time to tell him what he really did before coming to Blue Creek.

  “On my property I have a trunk full of stuff that I need to get. It’s … well … tricks of my old trade, I guess you could say.”

  With his eyes, Frank urged Patton to continue.

  “Well, I did work in p
lastics. That much is true. The part I left out is what I did with plastics.”

  Frank shrugged, gesturing for him to continue.

  “I went into the Army right after I graduated from high school. While I was in basic training I was asked if I wanted to try out for the Rangers. I was told by my recruiter that if they ever asked me to try the Rangers I should. He said it was his best time in the Army.

  “Then I was a Ranger for a while. We went on a deployment with some guys who weren’t like the rest of us. They wore the same uniform, but they had different gear, had long hair and they used to modify their own weapons. That kind of stuff was unheard of in my unit. Anyway, I got to talking to one of them and he said he was in Delta Force. I guess he knew he could trust me. He gave me the number to one of their recruiters back home and when we got back I called the number.”

  Frank had heard of Delta Force, of course, but to think that this mild-mannered man who had become his best friend in the world was part of that … he couldn’t believe it.

  “You don’t look—”

  “—Like the type?” Patton interrupted, laughing. “I’ve heard that a lot, believe me. We’re not all big beefy guys running around with guns. Some of us were techies. I could shoot and do all the other stuff like the other guys – of course I wasn’t as good as a lot of them – but I grew up fixing stuff. I was always making stuff in my dad’s shop. Anyway, I did my time with Delta and then I got out to be with my family.”

  Patton trailed off, looking down at his fingernails, trying not to let his emotions get the better of him. He’d lost his family, and to escape the pain he’d signed up for this experiment. Now he’d fallen in love again and gotten married. He had no idea where his wife was, but he was going to find out.

  Patton’s appearance was his greatest asset as a Delta Force operator. He was of average height and average build, much different than the image that most people have of Special Forces operators. It allowed him to perform jobs that a lot of the others couldn’t, which made him a very valuable member of the unit.