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 Cloudcroft, 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.”