Dead Man Walking

by Gary M. Chesla

  The look on the man’s face relaxed and turned into a smile at Robert’s answer.

  He looked at the warden and the warden nodded and smiled.

  The man handed the warden an envelope on the way out.

  When the day for Robert’s execution came, he was quietly transferred out of the prison in the middle of the night.

  Over a three-day period, Robert, Ben and Joe all found themselves in their new cells.

  They weren’t sure where they were, all they knew was that they weren’t in the Georgia State Prison and on death row.

  It was explained to them that they would have to remain in secure quarters until their new assignment and their new identity was ready.

  They were told it would only be a few days.

  None of them had any problem with the new arrangements.

  After only two days, Joe was the first one to receive his new assignment.

  “Hey Ben,” Robert called through the bars. “Are you awake?”

  “I am now,” Ben replied sounding annoyed. “I was dreaming I was on a nude beach in France. I just got out of the car and was about to go through the gate to go out on the beach to join all the babes when you woke me up.”

  “Sorry,” Robert laughed. “You’re lucky I woke you up. You can’t speak French, besides when the babes saw your naked ass coming their way, they would have all started screaming and ran for their lives.”

  “In real life, maybe, but not in my dream,” Ben chuckled. “Now that I’m up, what the hell do you want?”

  “Nothing much. I just woke up and was wondering what that lucky bastard Joe was doing right now? Maybe he is in France on a nude beach,” Robert chuckled. “I hope I get my assignment soon. I can’t wait to get out of a cage for a change.”

  Ben laughed, “I think Joe is probably somewhere in South America right now. At least that is where he told me he thought he was going. He thought he was going to be infiltrating some drug cartel.”

  “How could he do something like that?” Robert said sounding skeptical. “He can’t speak Spanish.”

  “The night before Joe left, a guard gave him an I-pod with something called Rosetta Stone on it to listen to while he slept. He said it would teach him Spanish over night while he slept so he could handle his new assignment,” Ben replied.

  “I guess they have made a lot of advancements since I went to prison,” Robert said.

  “The last thing Joe said to me before he left was adios amigo,” Ben laughed. “You missed it, I think you were sleeping. He sounded pretty convincing to me.”

  Before Robert could say anything further about Joe, he heard the door to the cell area click and then swing open with a loud squeak.

  The sound of the door opening was followed by the sound of a man whistling.

  When the guards came into the area with their lunches, they had never heard any of them whistle.

  The only one they had heard whistling was a guy named Charlie.

  Charlie was the man that had explained to them that he would be the person to assign them their new identity and would help them prepare for their new assignments.

  Robert perked up and became excited when he heard the whistling.

  “Ben, I think it’s Charlie,” Robert said. “I hope he is here to give me my new assignment. I want to talk to him about me getting that “XXX” tattoo before I leave. I wonder what my new name is going to be?”

  “I don’t care what they call me,” Ben replied, “just as long as they let me out of here.”

  Chapter 2

  Pine Rose Resort near Lake Arrowhead, California.

  The Pine Rose Resort was an exclusive resort in the San Bernardino Mountains east of Las Angeles, California.

  The resort consisted of seventeen cabins nestled in the pines. It was a popular area for outdoor weddings in one of the two outdoor arenas the resort had that were built back in the mountainside, complete with a running stream, dance floor, layered dining areas, flowered arches, all under the canopy of pines and tall oak trees.

  The webbing of tiny lights that were hung over the small arenas, at night would make it look like the entire universe sparkled above the wedding party and their guests.

  Many of the wedding guests rented one of the cabins at the resort when they attended a wedding here and the resort also set aside a cabin for the bride and groom to spend their first night together as husband and wife.

  It was the perfect setting for a rustic wedding atmosphere for those that longed for an escape from the hustle and bustle of life in the city.

  It was also a romantic atmosphere for a wedding that was booked solid for the next two years.

  Logan and Jamie were lucky to find an opening here at Pine Rose Resort for their big day.

  Logan stared into Jamie’s eyes.

  “Logan, do you take this woman to be your lawful wedded wife?” the minister asked.

  “I do,” Logan smiled as he squeezed Jamie’s hand between his hands.

  “Jamie, do you take Logan to be your lawful wedded husband?” the minister asked.

  “Maybe,” Jamie replied as she looked up at Logan and smiled.

  “Maybe!” Logan shouted as a horrified look spread across his face.

  Jamie giggled.

  “You better not say that tomorrow,” Logan laughed. He was laughing on the outside, but there was a worried look, a shadow of doubt showed in his eyes.

  Jamie and Logan had been planning the wedding for over a year. Being the worrying type and feeling lucky that he had somehow managed to land a girl like Jamie. Logan was looking forward to the day it would all be official,

  hopefully before she would change her mind.

  The day when he would have one less thing to worry about.

  “I’m just teasing,” Jamie said softly. “I just want to make sure you’re not taking me for granted.”

  “I would never….” Logan started to reply.

  The minister laughed and then continued, “After this part I will introduce you as Mr. and Mrs. Logan Frick to the wedding guests and if everything has gone well up to that point, I will say you may now kiss the bride.”

  The minister looked at Jamie.

  “We’ll see, I’ll let you know,” Jamie grinned.

  “Will you stop that,” Logan said looking stressed. “I’m going to have nightmares all night now. Do you want me to look tired and have black circles under my eyes for the wedding tomorrow?”

  “I’ll lend you some of my eye makeup,” Jamie grinned.

  The minister laughed again as he looked at Logan’s apparent discomfort.

  “You think this is bad,” Logan’s father Levi said, “wait until you have been married for a few years. They seem to get a thrill out of making us squirm.”

  Logan looked at his dad.

  “Just saying,” Levi smiled.

  Jamie, Levi’s wife whose name was also Jamie, shot him a nasty look, “Levi, don’t tell him things like that.”

  “What can I say,” Levi smiled at Logan.

  The minister spoke up again, hoping to not let things get too far out of hand, at least until tomorrow after the wedding had taken place and his job was done.

  “Then you and Jamie will lock arms and march down the aisle,” he said and then continued. “Then each of the bridesmaids will meet a groomsman here on this point and follow Logan and Jamie to the corner of the lodge. I understand after all the guests move up to the tables, the photographer will bring you all back up to this end of the pavilion for pictures. Any questions?”

  When no one asked anything, he continued, “Then that’s all for the rehearsal tonight. I will see everyone back here tomorrow at 4:00 PM sharp.”

  The group began to disperse, breaking up into little groups and talking as they walked through the outdoor area where the wedding would take place tomorrow afternoon.

  “What time is the rehearsal dinner again?” Levi asked Logan as they walked up the walkway between the tables that would be full of hungry wedding gu
ests tomorrow after the ceremony.

  “5:30 at Lou-Eddie’s” Logan replied. “They are going to have tables set up out behind the restaurant under the trees for us. Once everyone is there, they will set up a pizza and salad buffet.”

  “Sounds nice,” Levi replied.

  “See you then,” Logan said as they approached Jamie who was waiting for him at the top of the steps. “I have a few things I have to take care of so I’ll see you guys at dinner.”

  Levi stood and watched Logan and Jamie walk out towards the parking lot where some of the bridesmaids were waiting.

  Then he turned and looked back at his wife who was sitting at one of the tables talking to the minister.

  “I better get Jamie back to the cabin so she can change if we are going to make it to the restaurant by 5:30, it’s almost 4:00 now,” Levi thought as he glanced at his watch.

  As Logan held the door for Jamie to get into the car, Jamie stopped and looked at Logan, “Did you tell your parents we changed the rehearsal dinner from 5:30 to 6:30?”

  Logan looked startled for a moment then smiled, “No, I forgot about that. I just reminded my dad that dinner was at 5:30.”

  “Don’t you think you should go tell them that dinner has been changed to 6:30?” Jamie said.

  Logan looked at his watch, “No, we are running late. Besides, my Mom is always running an hour later for everything. My Dad will be surprised when they arrive on time. It will be OK.”

  “Are you sure?” Jamie looked at Logan with a questioning look on her face.

  “I’m sure, we have to go or we are going to be late for the final fitting of your gown,” Logan replied as he shut the door.

  Jamie’s quickly forgot about what time the rehearsal dinner was as a worried look crossed her face.

  Her wedding gown had been made of the material from her grandmother’s wedding dress.

  It looked great and fit perfect, that was until last week.

  When she tried on the dress last week it felt tight.

  She started to panic, but the seamstress assured her she could make the necessary adjustments before the wedding.

  Jamie had been a nervous wreck waiting for the lady to call to let her know the adjustments had been made.

  Jamie breathed a sigh of relief when she finally received the call this morning to let her know the dress would be delivered to her room today at 5:00 PM.

  That was cutting things too close for comfort.

  Jamie had barely been able to eat all week from worrying about the dress.

  Now she was worried the dress would be too big since she had probably lost five pounds worrying about it.

  Now all she could think about was, “What if the dress is too big?”

  Chapter 3

  Eric Brady sat on the stool in his lab at Davis Bio Enterprises. Davis Enterprises had a defense contract with the U.S. Military to analyze biological weapons and materials that the military uncovered in the Middle East.

  Security at the lab was now at an all-time high.

  Nothing or no one moved in or out of the facility without Eric and Charlie’s approval.

  Davis enterprises had been busy during the Gulf War when the U.S. first went into Iraq in the nineties.

  In the frantic search for weapons of mass destruction, the military had sent back a constant flow of materials for Davis Enterprises to analyze.

  When the focus shifted to Afghanistan, the amount of suspicious materials slowed to a crawl.

  Until recently, Davis Enterprises was concerned that their contract with the government would soon be cancelled as the need for their services declined.

  Eric had graduated from MIT seven years ago and was quickly hired by Davis Enterprises to help process what the government sent to their labs to help examine and analyze the vast quantity of specimens.

  During his first five years Eric felt almost overwhelmed with the pace of work. The amount of data generated was one thing, but then determining what if anything it all meant, which was critical to the mission, consumed all his time.

  The last two years, however, had become slow and mundane.

  The most exciting thing he had done lately was analyze some mustard gas that had apparently been lying dormant in Syria since World War II and examine the foul smelling remains of numerous bodies found in a mass grave near Kabul.

  Things had become so boring that Eric had begun to think about looking for a research job with a drug or medical supply company. Something that would be more productive and fulfilling.

  A job where he could put his skills and talents toward creating something. Developing something that would benefit mankind.

  Eric agreed to work for Davis Enterprises seven years ago because he was told the work would be important for national security.

  Eric had gone to college and then on to graduate school and obtained his degree and doctorate in Bio Engineering with a minor in Statistics and Probability.

  He had hoped to one day to develop an intelligent agent that would be able to find the weakness in the human immune system that caused many people to fall victim to various forms of cancer.

  Since mankind had failed to find a cure for cancer and various other diseases that had plagued mankind throughout history, Eric felt the obvious course of action was to prevent the disease from getting a foothold in the human body in the first place.

  After his computer was infected by a virus, Eric took a course on cyber security to try and avoid that kind of problem from happening again. It had cost him five hundred dollars to get his thesis unencrypted from some ransomware virus that had attacked his computer. He had little choice but to pay the money to get back all his valuable research and the paper that had taken him three months to write.

  It was after taking the class that he had learned that most computer antivirus programs were basically useless. It was like trying to close the barn door after the horses had already got out of the barn.

  The most progressive computer security companies were trying to focus on and develop a security program that used artificial intelligence to identify and defend against unknown programs. To defend against unusual behavior instead of trying to identify and defend against known malware.

  The old approach obviously didn’t work.

  It was the new unknown malware that caused the problems. If you knew something was bad, it was easy to defend against.

  It was the new unknown malware that was the problem. By the time someone identified it as bad, it was already too late for most people’s computers.

  They were already infected or worse, their research and valuable data was being held for ransom.

  It made Eric begin to think about his chosen field.

  Protecting mankind from illness and diseases that we already knew about wasn’t all that difficult.

  The problem was with what we didn’t know.

  The idea of obtaining a security program for his computer that was proactive, a program that looked for unusual activity and then took a proactive approach to prevent a security breach was the approach Eric wanted to explore in the medical field.

  If certain diseases couldn’t be cured, then maybe they could be prevented.

  The field of Bio engineering and behavior analysis was the best way Eric felt he could approach and accomplish something meaningful.

  Eric was also very patriotic.

  His family had a long history of military service. Eric’s dad was a twenty-year veteran of the U.S. Marine Corp.

  When he was approached by Davis Enterprises, he saw an opportunity to help his country and gain some insight that could lead to a possible defense against some of the world’s most lethal biological agents.

  After what had happened on September 11th, Eric was excited about helping his country in the fight against terrorism.

  However, his work as of late amounted to doing things a first-year lab tech would do.

  He also felt frustrated because he could see very little in how what he was doing was helping th
e country’s national security or would help him obtain his long-range goals.

  This all changed a few weeks ago when a special forces unit in Syria discovered what appeared to be an abandoned underground facility outside of Aleppo.

  The unit removed as many containers of the newly discovered unknown biological agent as they could before the city fell.

  Within forty-eight hours of the containers being delivered to the Davis laboratory southwest of Barstow, California, everything changed.

  They weren’t sure exactly what they had, but they knew it was imperative that they figure it out and do it fast.

  They began working from a theory they had deduced, based on the other items found in the facility near the containers. Unloaded shells and missiles seemed to indicate that the chemical agents in the containers were meant to be loaded into the shells and missiles and unleashed on populated areas.

  By whom and upon whom was still unknown.

  That would be up to someone else to determine, once Eric and his team could determine what would happen to the populated areas that were exposed to what was in the canisters.

  Some of the labels and markings on the containers they found were written in Russian, which concerned the military that the material found was Russia’s way of testing an illegal substance that could be used against the United States.

  What Davis Bio Enterprises soon discovered was that the containers held more than just raw chemicals.

  The materials had been biologically engineered to do a very specific task.

  What attracted Eric’s attention was that the material in the containers seemed to be able to defend itself.

  It seemed to be, for lack of a better word, intelligent.

  Their attempts to analyze the makeup of the material hadn’t yielded any useful information.