168 Hours- Zero Hour

by Raylan Kane

  TRENTON CHAMBERS

  TUSCOLA PENITENTIARY

  TWO MILES WEST OF TUSCOLA, TEXAS

  11:05 AM LOCAL TIME

  “Four aces,” Hector Sanchez smiled, laying his cards on the blue metal table in the Tuscola prison yard. The stiff Texas breeze flipped over the ace of hearts. The hot sun beat down on the two hundred men scattered across the brown dirt, ringed by high brick walls patrolled by uniformed men carrying high-powered rifles.

  “Man, quit cheatin',” Jesse Bradshaw said in disgust, tossing his hand down on the hard surface.

  Trenton Chambers chuckled at the young man while folding his cards into his palm. Sweat poured off his forehead and he flinged away a bead of it with his thumb. “Beat you fair and square.” He said to Jesse. “What'd you have?”

  “I ain't tellin'.”

  “Nobody likes a sore loser, man,” Hector said. He reached out and scooped up the last of Jesse's cigarettes.

  “To hell with this.” Jesse got up from the bench that was bolted to the concrete and he walked away in anger. Both Hector and Trenton shook their heads.

  “He's got a hot head,” Hector said.

  “Yep. He'll learn. He's got time.”

  “Just like the rest of us, hey?” Hector said. “What'd you have?”

  Trenton turned over his cards.

  “Pair of Jacks, that's it?” Hector looked at him, confused. “Why you stay in on that?”

  Trenton laughed. “That's a good hand most of the time. How'd I know you'd come up with a miracle?” He slid the last of his smokes across to Hector.

  “Because I'm good, homes.”

  “Uh huh. You keep tellin' yourself that. Talk to ya.” Trenton swung his tired legs over the bench and stood up. He swiped dust from his light blue coveralls and walked over to one of the friendlier guards, Gynkowski. The guard kept his eyes up, scanning the yard for any signs of trouble. He held his hands near his belt line, prepared. Trenton sidled up to him with a sly grin. “What's on for chow today, boss?”

  “Oh, you know, the usual.”

  “Gray potatoes and brown peas?”

  “You guessed it.”

  “You know one of these days they're gonna surprise me and serve us prime rib.”

  “In your dreams, Chambers.”

  “I tell ya what, Gynkowski. When I get outta here, first I'm gonna sue the state for locking up an innocent man, and then I'm gonna take 'em to court for cruel and unusual punishment serving that slop to us everyday.”

  “You need someone to go in on it with you? Make it a class action kinda deal?”

  “You'd do that, Gynkowski?”

  “Anything to help. You know how I do.”

  “Let me guess what you're havin' for lunch, big man. A nice, juicy steak back at the guard shack.”

  “Close. The wife's bringin' me a Big Mac.”

  “And fries?”

  “Of course.”

  “You're a lucky man, Gynkowski, don't let anyone tell ya any different.” Trenton walked to the water fountain nearby.

  “Don't I know it,” the guard replied.

  Chambers greeted a couple of other prisoners and bent down to grab a drink. The water poured lukewarm against his parched lips, but he didn't care. Anything to beat the heat. He wiped water droplets from his mouth and looked out to the basketball court where a crowd of younger men feigned interest in their game, mostly wilting though in the midday August heat.

  Trenton was older then a lot of inmates and he still had another seven years on what he termed a 'bullshit charge'. Heroin trafficking is what the assistant D.A. tried to get to him to admit, but even though his arresting officers, the county and the state believed he was a dealer, he knew he was innocent, they were using him as a scapegoat and for seven more years that would have to be enough. Maybe if he could've afforded a real lawyer instead of relying on a wet behind the ears public defender he might've beaten the rap. Maybe. He'd be 56 by the time he'd be out, all he could do was try to make the best of things.

  MAGGIE STONE

  HIGHWAY 201

  3 km EAST OF RED RIVER FIRST NATION, MANITOBA

  11:05 AM LOCAL TIME

  Maggie Stone pulled her sunglasses from the holder in front of the sunroof, squinting until she had her shades on. She could hear her daughter, Rosie, giggle from the passenger seat of the Dodge Ram.

  “They make you look funny,” Rosie said.

  “I think they're nice.”

  She was within 2 kilometres of Dominion City where members of her nation had formed a blockade at the junction of the 200 and 201 highways. She felt nervous the closer she got to the site. As band Chief she knew she'd be looked to for guidance and she also knew from the calls she'd received that morning that the local RCMP would be out in force.

  “I need you to stay in the truck when we get there, okay?” Maggie said to her daughter.

  “Why? I wanna talk to Kiara.”

  “Kiara's not going to be there. She's with her mother.”

  “Nuh-uh,” Rosie said. “She sent me a text.”

  “I thought I told you you were grounded from using your phone? You remember that?”

  “I had to, Mom.”

  “Sure. You had to.”

  Up ahead on the flat horizon, Maggie could see the silhouette of police cruisers occupying the shoulders of the highway on both sides. “Here we go,” she mumbled to herself.

  She slowed her vehicle as she approached an RCMP pickup truck parked horizontally across the highway, still another 900 metres from the blockade site. She rolled down her window as a large police woman walked over, her deadened expression signaled a kind of seriousness that worried the Chief.

  “Good morning,” the RCMP officer said, looking judgmentally into the cab of Maggie's truck. “You're Chief Stone?”

  “Yes,” Maggie said.

  “This your daughter?”

  “That's right.”

  “Might not have been the best idea to bring her here, you know that right?”

  “Her father's at work,” Maggie said, “and I'm sure you know the school's closed because of all of this.”

  “Right, okay,” the officer said as though she was half-listening. She looked away from Maggie's truck for a moment to a group of officer's dressed in tactical gear a few hundred metres farther up the road. Then she turned her attention back to Maggie. “So, what's your intention here? Are you going up there to speak with your council, or?”

  “I'm going to talk to whoever's there,” Maggie said. “I don't really know who's there right now. I'll know more when I get there.”

  “Uh-huh,” the officer said. “We just hope you understand our position, okay? We want to make sure we end this thing peacefully.”

  “Of course,” Maggie said, though in her heart she resented the police's strong show of force. “That's what I want as well.”

  “Okay, well hopefully with you up there we can get this thing calmed down and maybe we can send folks home, you know?”

  “I'll see what I can do, officer,” Maggie said. “These are my people, but obviously I'm not promising anything. I understand what they want. We've been lobbying the government for a fix to our water treatment for a long time now.”

  “I understand that,” the officer said in the kind of assertive tone that basically expressed the opposite, “but you have to understand this a public highway, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “We have to be able to allow people through.”

  “I get it.”

  “Okay, well, let's hope we can resolve this, alright?”

  “Yep.”

  The officer stepped away, and Maggie slid her window back up and turned up the air conditioning. She wheeled her pickup around the RCMP truck and slowly coasted past the armed tactical officers towards the large crowd gathered at the intersection up ahead.

  “She didn't seem nice,” Rosie said.

  “She's doing her job,” Maggie said. “And, she might not be nice.”

 
; “If the Magic One was here she could fly them all away,” Rosie said.

  “Rosie,” her mother scolded.

  “What? She could.”

  “I don't want to hear anymore about the Magic One, okay? Especially not today.”

  “She can make things fly, with her mind. She's a thousand miles away from here, but if she was here, she could do it.”

  “Rosie! What did I just say?”

  Maggie reached the first throng of faces she recognized from the reserve. One of the elders, Chester Fox walked toward her pickup. She pulled the vehicle off the side of the highway into the yellow grass. Chester walked over along with a few other locals. Maggie looked at her daughter before opening her door. “What did I tell you earlier?”

  “To stay in the truck,” Rosie said.

  “Right. So what are you going to do?”

  “Stay in the truck.”

  “Good.”

  Maggie smiled at her daughter and opened the door, ready to face an angry crowd.

  KEITH OLDHAM

  THE CAPITAL GARDEN PLAZA HOTEL

  TORONTO, ONTARIO

  12:05 PM LOCAL TIME

  Keith Oldham, one of the Plaza's doormen and valets, checked his watch as he stood inside the automatic sliding door, his back to the hotel lobby. Luther Wood, an old hand at the bell desk, approached him holding a set of keys hanging from a card.

  “Got one for you,” Luther said to Keith, about twenty years his junior. Luther passed him the keys. Keith read the card and saw “Mr. Miller, Room 312” written in blue ink. “This is Mr. Miller,” Luther said, “he phoned ahead, said he'd be down in five minutes.”

  “Okay, great.”

  “You know about him?”

  Keith looked at the checkin date on the card. “This guy checked in three weeks ago?”

  “Yeah,” Luther said, “here for a conference, and a bike race too.”

  “I don't think I've dealt with him before. Wasn't here when he checked in.”

  “Oh, well, just to let you know,” Luther said, “this guy's a bit of a problem. Complains about a lot of stuff, you know what I'm saying? Was here with his wife. Both of them, nothing but whining.”

  “Okay, I'll keep that in mind.”

  Keith looked at the card again and frowned. “This says 'LD'. Loading dock? Why isn't his car parked down below?”

  “You got me,” Luther said, “nobody tells me a thing around here. Just be real careful with his ride, alright? And I'd bring it around now. You make him wait, you can forget a tip.”

  “Gotcha.”

  Keith through the sliding door, past the workers applying new tiles to the courtyard, down to the loading dock. There he saw the reason Mr. Miller's car wasn't taken all the way down into the parking garage. The vehicle, an Audi sedan, had a bike rack attached to its roof. Too tall for the garage. Over the six-foot clearance. Makes sense, Keith thought to himself. Still, he doubted Mr. Miller would've appreciated his car sitting in such close proximity to where garbage dumpsters were routinely emptied and loading dock workers flicked their spent cigarettes.

  Keith gave a friendly wave to one of the hotel employees finishing a smoke break nearby, seated on a milk crate. He unlocked the red A6 and started it up. As he looked around the car's luxurious interior, the thought of bikes standing on the vehicle's roof left his mind and he put the sedan in gear. While the workers were renovating the hotel courtyard, he'd become accustomed to taking vehicles out through the parking garage door on the other side of the building. No big deal, but he forgot, the other door had the same low clearance as the garage below. Obviously, someone parked Mr. Miller's car in the loading dock before the renovations had started so the bikes on the roof weren't a concern then. But, Keith was so enamored with the Audi's luxurious interior, the bikes weren't a concern of his either. Not a care in his mind, Keith drove up the ramp toward the open door with the low clearance.

  He zoomed the Audi up the ramp towards daylight, stopped suddenly by a sickening crunch and a loud scrape from above.

  Oh my god, he thought. Please, no.

  He hopped out of the car, horrified as he saw the bikes had rammed into the garage ceiling above the door. One of the expensive bikes hung from the roof rack with its frame twisted, another had its handlebars pushed downward almost touching the crossbar. Beyond repair. Worse, he saw the roof of the Audi dented beneath where the bike rack had been attached. Thick, deep indents where there should have been none. The worker who had been sitting at the loading dock came running up to Keith as he stood there in absolute dread.

  “Whoa,” the worker said, “this is crazy that you did that, man. That's expensive, man,” the worker said. “That's thousands in damage right there. Can't believe you did that.”

  “Thousands?”

  “Yeah, man, big time. You really screwed up. Good luck.”

  Keith could feel his pits moisten with sweat. A chill ran down his back. He pictured his boss yelling at him, firing him. He imagined this already difficult guest absolutely losing his temper and tearing a strip off of him. This was an Audi A6. Those racing bikes were crazy expensive. He knew the hotel carried insurance for mishaps with guests' property, but what if they docked the money required from his pay? How would he keep up on his rent? Am I going to lose my apartment? My job? His mind raced.

  He closed the car door and walked back down the ramp. He left the car sitting there in front of the entrance/exit. The mangled bikes hung in place. Keith walked past the loading dock and up the hotel ramp, back into the lobby and to the Concierge desk where his boss stood in front of a computer terminal.

  “What's up?” Keith's boss, Ben, said in a friendly manner. “Is Mr. Miller's car ready? Should be down any minute.”

  “Uh,” Keith opened his mouth to speak, but he hardly uttered a word.

  “What, man? Spit it out,” Ben said.

  Keith shook out his arms trying to rid himself of adrenaline, and took a deep breath, setting the car keys on the marble counter top between them.

  “Well, Ben,” Keith said, “here's the thing.”

  CLARA TIERNEY

  CENTRAL KALAHARI GAME RESERVE

  41 MILES NORTH OF KIKAO, BOTSWANA

  6:05 PM LOCAL TIME

  A crispness entered the evening air, carried on a light breeze, passing over Clara Tierney's bare arms as she laid in the savanna grass, her camera steady, trained on a male giraffe keenly interested in her presence. The animal had stopped feeding from an acacia tree and turned its head. Clara didn't wish to spook the male and though she could feel the evening's briskness coming on, she did not want to risk reaching for her sweater.

  Static came through her radio, then a male voice, her First A.D., Simon. “Clara, the guide is recommending we go back to the lodge, over.”

  Clara rolled her eyes. She'd never met a more skittish guide. She pulled the radio close and spoke softly, keeping her eyes trained on the giraffe. “Negative,” she said, “I'm in a great position here. This is usable footage, over.”

  “I understand,” Simon said, “but he says there's a pride of lions close by. Might be a wise idea to steer clear, yeah?”

  Clara let out a sigh. As much as she wanted to stay put, she did recognize the danger she could've been placing the rest of her crew in were she to ignore the guide's advice. She slowly pushed herself off the ground. The giraffe, as expected, thought the better of sticking around and strolled away. Clara lifted the radio to her mouth. “Tell him I'm coming,” she said. “Be there in a few, over.”

  DENNIS KING

  STONEWALL PARK – HOME OF THE CHARLOTTE SPIRIT

  CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

  12:05 PM LOCAL TIME

  Batting practice had just ended at the stadium and a throng of kids and autograph hounds gathered along the wall at first base line seeking a signature from the best player in the game, Dennis King. “King!” They called out to the good-natured superstar who'd been hanging around the cage watching his teammates take their turns at the plat
e. With a smile and his usual easy going way, he ambled over to the crowd followed by a few photographers working for local media. He accepted a Sharpie pen and a Philadelphia ball cap from a ten-year old boy. “What's your name?” He asked the kid. Then he signed the underside of the cap's bill, handing it and the pen back.

  This was Dennis's first visit to Charlotte since the expansion team began play back in the spring. Already a legend in Philadelphia where he was only five years into his career, fans flocked to watch him play wherever he went, and Charlotte was no different.

  “Can you sign this one for my daughter?” A Charlotte fan asked, handing him a Charlotte Spirit game program.

  “No problem.”

  Ten minutes later he was called away by a handler for the Philadelphia ball club as Dennis was booked for a brief interview with members of the national baseball media prior to that afternoon's game slated to start in under an hour. Following the interview, during which he spoke genially about his manager and his teammates and conducted himself in the same 'boring' way some members of the media had said made him less of a marketable star than would be needed for the continued growth of the sport, he sauntered into the visiting clubhouse to find the buffet table. The rest of the team had ended batting practice and already found their way to the catering.

  As per usual, he headed straight for the junk food, something his teammates always poked fun of him for, yet his physique belied his poor dietary decisions. At six foot one, 230 pounds and little body fat, most attributed his build to youth. He was still just twenty-five years old.

  “Someday you're gonna be fat as hell,” his teammate, Eric Foster, the team's starting catcher said pointing at Dennis's side plate holding two powdered donuts.

  Dennis chuckled at the comment. He was used to the ribbing. “Yeah, yeah. We'll see.” Two donuts, that was his current norm. Just like all ball players, Dennis was notoriously superstitious. For the previous ten days he'd been on a hot streak at the plate, four home runs, six extra-base hits. He chalked some of his good fortune up to his new habit of eating two sugary donuts roughly a half-hour before game time.