Brett Battles - No Return

“If you see anything, anything , you tell me right away.”

“Hold on,” Wes said. “What, exactly, are we doing here?”

Lars took a moment, then said, “You were right about Adair.”

“Hold on. You’re telling me for sure the pilot wasn’t Adair?”

Lars nodded. “That’s what I’m telling you.”

“You’ve known this all along?”

“No,” Lars said quickly. “That part of things I didn’t know until this evening.”

“What things?”

“Look, the reason we came out here is because there’s information that will prove you were right, but I can’t just access it anywhere. I called in a favor and got the password to a secure computer terminal downstairs that does have access to the info. It’s not a perfect solution. But they won’t realize it right away, and our location out here will hopefully buy us a little extra time for me to find everything. What I need you to do is watch the roads and warn me if anyone’s coming.” He turned the phone on the closest desk to face them. “There’s an internal intercom in this building. When I get downstairs, I’ll call you on this line.” He pointed at an unlit indicator on the phone. “Just press that and we’ll be connected. All right?”

Wes looked at his friend for a moment, then nodded. “Yeah. All right.”

After forty minutes passed without Stewart returning to his room, the man in the car began to get annoyed. When it hit an hour, his annoyance became concern. Not for Stewart, but for the possibility that Stewart had given him the slip.

He waited an additional ten, then made the call he was dreading, and was told to look around the motel and see if he could find the missing cameraman.

He checked the rooms the rest of the crew were staying in, listening at doors and windows to see if he could hear Stewart inside. Most were quiet. The only exception was the sound of a TV in one.

He thought for a second that maybe Stewart had snuck off to have a little fun with the other woman in the crew who’d stayed for the weekend, the tall one. But when he checked her room, there was only silence.

Before getting back in the car, he checked Stewart’s room, just in case the guy had returned as stealthily as he left. Didn’t sound like it, though.

The son of a bitch was messing up the plan. Tonight was supposed to be the night.

“I have no idea where he went,” he said, checking back in. “As far as I can tell, he’s not anywhere on the grounds.… No, she’s still there.” He listened, then cocked his head, surprised. “Are you sure? … Okay, okay, if that’s what you want.… Yes, I’ll call as soon as it’s done.”

The man hung up, not completely sure how he felt. Changes were never something he was comfortable with. But what could he do?

He looked at his watch, marking the time, then leaned back, saving his energy for later.

“How’s it looking?” Lars asked over the speakerphone.

“Quiet,” Wes said.

Night in the desert meant miles and miles of nothing but dark. Wes would be able to see the headlights of any approaching vehicle in plenty of time for him and Lars to get away. So far the roads to the isolated set of buildings had remained empty.

“Good.”

“How’s it going there?”

“I’m in,” Lars said. “Just searching for the files on the flight.”

Wes continued to scan the desert, hearing only the clacking of a keyboard through the phone’s speaker. He became so lost in the darkness that it was several seconds before he registered that the typing had stopped.

“Lars?”

“Give me a minute.” Lars’s voice sounded hushed and anxious.

Wes checked each road again. There was a faint light off in the distance through the window on the right, but as far as he could tell, it wasn’t in-line with the road.

“Did you find something or not?” he asked.

“I can work faster if you don’t ask questions,” Lars told him.

More typing.

Wes looked out the windows again. The light he’d seen before was gone.

“The roads are still empty,” he reported.

A grunted acknowledgment, then nothing but keystrokes for nearly ten minutes.

Suddenly Lars said, “Got it!”

“What did you find?”

“Proof. I’m printing it out. Get back into the truck now!”

Wes reached forward to cut the intercom connection, but held up as he noticed movement out the window to his left. There was something on the road in the distance. It was almost as dark as the landscape, but it was moving fast.

“Lars, we have company!”

“I thought you said the roads were empty.”

“They’re coming in with their lights off. There are at least two of them. West road. I’d give us three minutes, tops.”

“Get your ass down here! Now!”

Wesflew along the second-floor breezeway and dove through the door into the stairwell. Taking the steps three at a time, he hit the first-floor door twenty seconds after he’d hung up the phone.

“Lars?” he called out.

The five office doors of the first floor were all closed. He moved quickly from one to another, trying each. The fourth knob he turned was unlocked.

“Lars,” he said, sticking his head inside. “They’ll be here any second. We need to go!”

His friend was across the room, standing next to a printer.

“Two more sheets,” he said. “Go wait in the truck.”

“Just leave them.”

“I can’t. This is the only thing that will keep us alive.”

“What the hell’s going on?”

Lars didn’t answer, so Wes pushed out of the doorway and raced to the end of the building. He peeked around the edge. From this angle he could see where the road that ran between the buildings intersected with the road the cars were on. As of yet, it was clear.

Hearing a door close behind him, he looked back. Lars was heading toward the truck, several sheets of paper in his hand.

Wes checked the intersection again. It was no longer empty.

“We’re not going to make it,” he yelled, running to join his friend. “They’ll be here in just a couple of seconds.”

“Here.” Lars shoved the papers into Wes’s hand. “Hide somewhere. I’ll distract them.”

“What?”

“You said yourself we’re not going to make it. If they find you here, we both go to jail. If it’s just me, I’ll get a hand slap. When we’re all gone, walk back, and find a way off the base without being seen. Can you do that?”

Wes was scared to death, but he nodded.

They could now hear engines approaching.

Wes started to turn away, but Lars grabbed him. “Wait.” He snatched back one of the papers, pulled out a pen, and scribbled on the back of the sheet. “That’s the key,” he said, shoving it at Wes. “Now go! Hide!”

Wes turned and ran straight into the desert.

About one hundred feet out, he found a shallow ravine cut by an ancient flash flood. It was just deep enough for him to lie flat below the prevailing ground level. Once prone, he tilted his head up and looked back at the buildings.

Lars was in the truck and had started it up. But he only went a dozen feet before a dark sedan darted out from around the corner of the building and skidded to a stop half a car length in front of him.

Brake lights flashed, and the truck slammed to a stop. Just then a second car swung around the back of the building and cut off any potential retreat. Two more cars soon joined the first near the front, then, almost as one, doors flew open, and over a dozen armed men rushed out, their weapons pointed directly at the truck.

This is not going to be just a slap on the hand .