GHOST TRAIL: A Military Spy Thriller Novel

by Brian Tyree

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  THE WATER HOLE

  Golden dawn rays broke through trees and glanced off Spanish roof tiles in an older, residential neighborhood of Holloman AFB. A white Chevrolet Impala pulled to a stop at the curb, bearing a New Mexico license plate with an ABQ ALAMO RENT-A-CAR frame. Hal stepped out, wearing the same jeans and brown jacket from his flight, pulling the black Geckskin gloves tight over his hands. He breathed deep, taking in the cool morning air, then scanned the street in both directions. The coast was clear. No early morning joggers and no suspicious activity. He strode across the street, his Geckskin boots were a good match with the jeans. Hal went straight to the stucco wall beside a home and easily scaled it. He had the Geckskin thing down, looking superhuman as he went over the wall in a flash, landing on the move in the backyard. He swiftly traversed a lawn blanketed in morning dew and hopped over the back wall, landing square in Henry’s backyard. He un-holstered his Glock 19 and crouched low, stalking toward the house.

  Hal peered into a corner of the window—or tried to. The desert window screen was opaque from the outside during the day. Hal jiggled the door handle. It was open. He entered cautiously, moving to the kitchen on his right first. Clearing it.

  Hal backtracked to the living room and stepped down to the sunken area. Henry’s lifeless body emerged into view, stuffed up against the couch where he fell. Hal rushed to his side, setting his gun down to check Henry’s pulse. The stiff body told Hal he had been dead for a while. Rigor mortis set in—no need to check his pulse. Hal noticed severe bruises and scrapes around Henry’s neck, telling him the cause of death. Hal shuddered at the sight of Henry’s hollow and empty eyes staring at the ceiling. Hal closed his friend’s eyes and angled him back the way he found him.

  Coffee coasters and magazines were strewn about. The struggle displaced the coffee table and couch. Signs for Hal that Henry put up a fight. He couldn’t stand the sight of his mentor’s lifeless body lying curled and crumpled. Hal’s eyes skipped around the room, landing on a decorative Indian blanket on the wall. He tugged it down and draped it over the body. Hal took a knee and said a prayer for his friend.

  Hal searched the floor and surrounding area for Henry’s cell phone. He leaned down, peering beneath the couch and chairs nearby. He started to clean up, putting the magazines and coasters back on the coffee table, then froze. Realizing he could be framed for the murder if he made his presence known there. And maybe that was the plan. It would explain the killer abandoning Henry’s body to whoever discovers it. Hal stared at the mound draped by the Indian blanket, pondering whether to remove the blanket. Hal left it on, not able to disgrace his friend, even if it somehow led back to him.

  Hal scanned the surroundings for Henry’s cell phone. He didn’t expect to find it, but gave a quick search just in case. He rolled up his sleeve, reading the smudged cryptic message he scrawled on it at the airport—Henry’s last text… Remmngg321524444... What was he trying to say? Rem... Remember? Hal rose with an epiphany. Remington—his gun case!

  Hal sprang to the hall closet nearby, pulling the door open. No gun case. He searched the mudroom, and it wasn’t there either. In all the years he knew Henry, he didn’t have a clue where his gun case was. He considered the only room he had never been in—Henry’s bedroom.

  Hal opened the door to the master bedroom decorated in southwestern flair. He spotted the walk-in closet and strode to it, opening the light wooden-shutter door. Revealing an antique gun case with a glass door surrounded by ornate dark wood trip. A brass key was in the lock. Hal turned it, easing the door open to a small arsenal of rifles. He checked a shelf above the rifles, reaching beyond what he could see, pulling down boxes of ammo. He returned them and opened a wooden compartment below the rifles. It was a small rack of hand guns. Air Force standard issue Beretta M9, a Winchester .357, and a showpiece Colt .45. It had Henry’s name, rank, and a shield featuring a lightning bolt striking down from the stars over a knight of armor. Engraved Latin text read, “Tutor et Ultor.” Hal recognized the shield immediately—it was the sigil and motto of Holloman Air Force Base. Protect and Avenge. Hal noticed the barrel, engraved with Fifty Years of Service. A retirement gift to Henry from the Air Force.

  Hal’s mind refocused on the task at hand—deciphering the clues Henry left him. Nothing stood out from the gun case. Unless his clue is on one of the guns, Hal thought.

  He started with the rifles, angling the .22’s out first checking their manufacturer stamps. Ruger and Marlin. Then the shotguns—a new Franchi Intensity Affinity duck-hunting gun and a double-barreled Browning Superposed. He had two hunting rifles, a Winchester Model 70 deer-hunting rifle and a collector’s item—the 1860 Henry repeater. He doesn’t own a Remington? Hal thought, checking the hand guns—none were made by Remington.

  Hal closed the gun cabinet, leaning against the wall, ruminating on Henry’s cryptic text. His eyes wandering around the large walk-in closet, landing on a narrow painting on the thin strip of wall between the walk-in door and the closet wall. It was an oil painting of an old west stagecoach descending a rugged country hill at dusk. A silhouetted gunman rode on top and a warm yellow lantern glowed from within the coach. Hal rose to read the brass placard on the frame. The Old Stage Coach of the Plains. Hal squinted to the corner of the painting, reading the one-of-a-kind signature of the artist, Frederic Remington.

  Hal pulled the frame away from the wall—hoping to find the door to a hidden safe, but instead stared at a blank wall painted with Behr eggshell Brown Teepee. Hal took off, scrambling down the hallway. Storming the house. Convinced he solved the cipher. Now he just had to find the Remington Hank was leading him to.

  Hal checked every western-themed painting he could find. Rattling and tilting them from the wall. Searching for a hidden safe, concealed key or anything peculiar Henry concealed within one.

  Hal upended bronze statues depicting bucking broncos, rugged cowboys, and Indian warriors of the Old West. Eyeing them for clues. He checked the guest bedrooms and bathrooms, looked behind paintings in the living room and dining room, and even checked the mudroom, peering behind the apropos painting of a stagecoach bogged down in mud. No safes. No clues.

  Where else could it be? Hal thought. And then dashed down the hallway, remembering the one room he didn’t check—the master bedroom. He had blasted out of the walk-in closet so fast he skipped over the bedroom he was in.

  Returning to the master bedroom, Hal stood before Henry’s bed. Staring in awe at a massive, forty by twenty-seven-inch Remington classic above the headboard. It featured five cowboys lying with rifles drawn, around the parched banks of a shallow pit of water. Guarding it from unseen foes on a sun-scorched western plain. Hal read the placard… Fight for the Water Hole. Hal’s eyes wandered to the lower corner. Remington’s signature was simple and beautiful. Easy to read on the large-format painting. Brushed on in the same dark-brown of a horse’s mane in the painting.

  Hal grabbed the corner of the painting to sway it to the side, but it held firm in place. He pulled the frame out, realizing it was on hinges. It opened like a door, revealing a large black safe, inset deep in the wall.

  The safe door was modern and sleek. Featuring a biometric pad for easy access along with a backup numerical keypad. Hal read the text on his arm… Remmngg321524444. He typed 321524444 into the pad and hit enter. A red light illuminated and the handle remained locked. Hal realized Henry must have typed extra digits, texting under duress. In the same way he added extra letters to the abbreviated “Remng.” He tried again, inputting the same numbers, but with only one “4” at the end. The light flashed green and the latch clicked open. Hal swung the door wide to Henry’s most treasured possessions. A familiar cardboard box sat perched atop a stack of file folders. Henry’s vital legal documents, Hal could only assume. He removed the box. It contained Dr. Elm’s video research. Hal lifted the tapes from the box and found the flash drive in the bottom. The only known material evidence of the corrupt Project Cl
oudcroft, Hal thought.

  Hal sat the box on the bed and the stack of folders started to slide out. Hal caught them, pushing them to the back of the safe where they stopped abruptly, blocked by something inside. Hal angled his head to peer into the back of the safe at the blockage. Realizing it was a pyramid of narrow, solid-gold bars. Five wide and four high. It triggered a fond memory of Uncle Hank, trying to convince Hal to invest in gold for the “coming crash.” Hal chortled, remembering the first time he witnessed Henry’s doomsday prepper side. Hal closed the safe door and replaced the painting, hoping that Henry’s heirs would be worthy of his legacy and the material treasure he left behind.

  Hal returned to the gun case, pulling a pair of military grade binoculars off the top shelf and setting them in the cardboard box, along with a box of 9mm ammo.

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  “I’d like to report a break-in,” Hal said. Disguising his voice. He was at a payphone at the Phillips 66 gas station on a barren stretch of Highway 70, between the air base and Alamogordo.

  “You’re calling from Holloman?” The Security Force dispatcher asked on the other line.

  “Yes. Hurry. I just saw him enter. He’s still inside. The address is eleven Sage Court.”

  “Eleven Sage Court,” the dispatcher repeated, “and where are you calling from?” CLICK. The other line went dead.

  Hal got in the rental car, wondering if an anonymous call was the best way to report the murder of his friend. It seemed to lack dignity and transparency. There is no good way, he thought. Hal pulled back onto the desert highway, driving west for a mile before pulling off at an abandoned corrugated metal shack on the side of the road. He parked the rental around back and stuffed his jacket in the trunk beside the large suitcase. He grabbed a bottle of water, the binoculars and his Glock 19. He pulled the Geckskin gloves on, flicked the action of the Glock, snapping one in the chamber, and started north on foot through the desert scrub. His destination was a faint dot, a couple miles away—the Barrett Ranch.

  Hal spied the ranch through the binoculars. Dale Barrett’s truck and his wife’s car were both under the carport. No other vehicles were in the driveway. Hal crouched low in the bushes, pushing on. Circling around the back of the barn, shielding himself from view of anyone in the house. Hal tracked alongside the barn, looking for a gap in the boards to see through. He found one, peering in to the still and vacant barn. It was an empty shell with rays of sunlight cutting through a dusty haze.

  Hal reached the front corner of the barn, scanning the dirt road to the highway through the binoculars to make sure no one was coming or going. He panned back to the driveway, the front of the house and the bunkhouse beyond. All seemed quiet and empty.

  Inside the bunkhouse, the room was empty and the beds neatly made. Berserk lights flickered from all the motion sensors Hal tripped outside. One “woke up” a sleeping laptop. Hal appeared in one of many security camera windows on-screen.

  Hal removed the Glock and crept along the front of the barn, noticing wide tire tracks of an 18-wheeler in the powdery, dry dirt. He followed them as the tracks arced away from the barn, down the dusty road. Hal noticed a three-way merging of tire racks. The set from the barn, one from the house and one from the bunkhouse. He knelt down to inspect the tire-prints. The tracks from the bunkhouse overlapped the wide 18-wheeler tracks. Whoever was staying in the bunkhouse left after the tractor-trailer.

  Hal darted to the corner of the Barrett house, stealthily moving along the front of it, ducking below windows. He bolted across the gap between the ranch house and the bunkhouse. Hugging the window-less side wall of the bunkhouse, inching toward the back.

  Hal rounded the corner, clinging to the back wall of the bunkhouse. Looking for windows to tell him what was inside the ranch hands’ quarters. He spotted the row of windows high up on the second story loft. Hal glanced over his shoulder to make sure Dale wasn’t out working the hay field that stretched a couple hundred yards to the border of Holloman. No sign of Dale.

  Hal tucked the Glock in its holster and climbed up the bunkhouse wall with the Geckskin gloves and boots, quickly reaching the window pane. He craned his neck up giraffe-like, coming eye-to-eye with the video camera pointing at the Holloman runway. The glowing red light told him whoever was recording video of the runway had him dead to rights. You’re on candid camera! Hal’s eyes flicked around the empty bunkhouse bedroom of perfectly made beds when he heard the all-too-familiar CHK-CHK of a pump-action shotgun. Cocking directly behind him. He froze.

  “What in thee hell are you doin’?!”

  Hal slowly looked over his shoulder at a rancher in overalls and a John Deere hat. Training a double-barreled shotgun on him. Dale Barrett. “Don’t shoot,” Hal said. “I’m coming down.” He eased down the wall like a skulking spider. Dale watched him in awe.

  “How are you able to climb like that, boy?” Dale spotted the 9mm on Hal’s hip. “Hey now—nice and slow! And drop that gun!”

  Hal set his feet softly on the ground, his back to the rancher. He reached back in slow—motion and removed the Glock, dropping it in the weeds. He raised both arms. “I’m unarmed and turning around.”

  “I know you,” Dale said. “You’re Henry’s friend.”

  “That’s right,” Hal said, lowering his arms. “We’ve met before. I have bad news, Dale. Henry’s dead. Murdered.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’m here to find out why.” Hal said. “Please. Lower the gun. I think the people staying with you had something to do with it.”

  Dale lowered the shotgun. “Hal, right?”

  Hal nodded, and shook his hand.

  “I’m sorry about this,” Dale said, flicking the safety on his shotgun.

  “It’s alright—I am trespassing, and you exercised restraint. I didn’t call ahead because I didn’t want to involve you and your wife in this, or tip off anyone who may be tapping your phone.”

  Dale nodded to the weeds. “Go ahead. Get your piece.”

  Hal picked up the Glock from the weeds, stuffing it under the back of his belt.

  “Who’s staying in your bunkhouse, Dale? Can I look around?”

  ♦ ♦ ♦

  Dale unlocked the front door of the bunkhouse, swinging it open for Hal. He stepped inside, taking in the kitchenette and tiny dining room that appeared unused.

  “Some outta’ towners,” Dale said. “Three guys. Said they’re here to build houses for Habit of Humanity or something. Nice guys. They’ve all been real polite. Good to the Misses and always lend a hand on the ranch when we need it.”

  “What did they look like? Do you know their names?”

  “One was Matt, uh Charlie and I forget the other guy’s name—the oriental. Matt’s white or a mix, Charlie black, they’re all American. From Oregon or Washington.”

  Hal saw the ladder-like stairs leading up to the loft. “Do you mind?”

  “Help yourself.” Dale set the shotgun down and followed Hal up the ladder.

  Hal reached the top and paused. Looking around in disbelief. He saw the lights from the motion sensors going haywire and heard the beeping electronic alarms. Hal stepped closer to look at the laptop with a grid of security camera feeds from the ranch. His eyes followed a cable to the pinhole camera in the wall. Hal took a closer look at the laptop keyboard and text on the screen. All in Chinese.

  “What is it?” Dale asked.

  “See the monitor and computer keys? It’s Chinese. The guys bunking here are Chinese spies. From an agency like the CIA called the MSS. Ministry of State Security. They’re recording video of the runway at Holloman, watching every aircraft that takes off and lands.”

  Dale shook his head in disbelief.

  Hal rummaged through the small room, pulling rugged black crates from under the beds, popping them open for Dale to see. “Night vision goggles and scopes...” Hal said, giving him an inventory of each crate... “Sniper rifle—Chinese made... Submachine gun... 9mm firearms and ammo... Comms—p
ortable satellite communications.” He looked up at Dale. “High-tech spy gear.”

  Hal moved to the tables with the laptops. Opening the closed laptop in a military-grade shell. He fired it up. A gateway screen appeared in Chinese, requesting a password. “This one is probably comms to Chinese headquarters, or a feed to their intel resources… Spy planes, satellites. Who knows? What time do they come back?”

  “Varies. Usually around six. Sometimes they drop in for lunch.”

  “Can I borrow your truck?”

  “Keys are in it.”

  “I want you and your wife to go stay at a hotel for a couple days. Alamogordo Inn. Off of White Sands and Indian Wells. I’ll come get you when it’s safe.”

  Dale nodded. “You never told me what happened to Henry. Why wasn’t it in the news?”

  “He was strangled. He knew too much about a—” Hal searched for the words. He didn’t even know what to call it. “Clandestine operation. Hank put up a good fight, but he was up against a professional.”

  “What did he know?”

  “It’s better that you don’t know, Dale. For your own safety. The airmen you leased your barn to are tied up in it. You and your wife should stay away from them too. Avoid all contact with anyone.” Dale nodded, understanding. “We have to move. Pack up you and your wife and head out before the MSS guys get here.”

  “What will you do?” Dale asked.

  “I’ll be okay. I’ve got a little surprise for them.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  PASSWORD

  “Consider this a CYA mission,” Trest said to the handful of men stuffed in the box at its new desert location. It was the usual crew, plus the two Force Recon Marines he contracted to track Hal on his hog hunt. “Let’s get these doors opened! It’s like a can of Filipino hookers in here.” Baldo leapt to his feet and unlatched the wide double doors, swinging the entire back wall of the box open. Revealing vast desert and star-filled sky. “That’s better.” Trest stepped out of the box and the Force Recon Marines backed up a step too. “The President has tasked us to an eyes only mission that is known just to himself and nine men, including the six here tonight. We have to make the China problem go away. POTUS said he doesn’t care how, when or where we do it, but if the President of China takes the floor at the UN and spills about our op, it’s world war three.”