Mind Games (19 page)

Ever since Melanie Garci
a
was changed to the night shift, Dallas kept a keen eye on Cameron’s behavior.

Sensing Dallas’s attentive nature, Cameron spent less time talking with Max. Still, over the last few days, Cameron saw Max exhibit impressive knowledge of the bank replica. It was clear that Max actually knew the replica better than anyone else in Unit Two.

Now that Cameron was assimilated into Unit Two, Dallas never supervised him during the day, but he still managed to cast threatening gazes during meal times or shift changes.

The hours following lunch always seemed to fly by for Unit Two. Instead of digging tunnels, the members of Unit Two were a closer-knit group, joking and laughing as they practiced robbing the bank.

As the supervisor for Cameron’s unit, Stan talked to the members sparingly, only offering opinions or corrections to the unit’s work in level two. More stoic than threatening, Stan complemented Max on his ability to complete the heist practice runs, and even assigned him to lead the small team of thieves for the real event.

After logging three more hours of practice runs through the bank replica, carefully adapting each time through, the majority of Unit Two ventured up the freight elevator for their afternoon break. Max told Stan he wanted a few more minutes with Cameron to look over the stolen blueprints from the real bank. Encouraged by Max’s enthusiasm for the heist to succeed, Stan left the two alone in the lobby of the replica.

Max waited for the heavy doors of the freight elevator to close before speaking with Cameron.

“Frosty, my man. What’s going on? You haven’t talked to me in like two days.”

“I know.” Cameron said. He walked over to the replica lobby desk and unrolled a set of blueprints. “It’s Dallas. I’m afraid he’s going to move one of us to the night shift just to separate us.”

“And you think this because…you tried to jab him in the jaw? Don’t worry about Dallas;he’s had a chip on his shoulder ever since he was captured. You’ve got to remember, he escaped from prison. You think he wanted to be in charge o
f
building on
e
? The guy is unstable.”

“Come here. I want to show you something.” Cameron smoothed out another roll of blueprints and pressed his fingers towards the corners to keep it open.

“Chill out, Frosty,” Max said, walking over to the table. “We don’t have to talk about the heist. I just said that to get Stan to leave.”

“I know. But there’s something we need to talk about.” Cameron moved his fingers along the writing next to the clean, white lines on the blue paper. “Dallas lied to me.”

“What a surprise…”

“Look, this handwriting belongs to my wife. She designed these security systems for the Empire bank. It was her job.”

Max leaned against the lobby table and took a closer look at the white handwriting. “What does that have to do with Dallas?”

“He told me that they never took my wife.”

“Cameron, these blueprints were stolen.”

“I know. They were stolen from my wife’s office in our house. I noticed they were gone the same night she was taken.”

“Well she can’t be here, Frosty. You’re the first new face we’ve had here since they brought in Melanie Garcia.”

“Melanie was my neighbor in ‘Cisco. I think Dallas switched her to the night shift to separate us.”

“Could be.”

“I bet Melanie knows where they’re keeping my wife.”

“Assuming she’s here.”

“I just have a feeling, Max. I can’t explain it.”

Max took another blueprint roll and twisted it into a tight tube in his hands. “There’s another possibility. She may have escaped.”

“How? What about the ankle trackers?”

“I haven’t told you yet, have I?”

“What?”

“About Blake’s great escape?”

“No. Is it important?”

“Very.” Max eyed the freight elevator. “They’re going to be expecting us upstairs soon. But Stan and I are on good terms.”

“You’d better talk fast. I’d say we only have about twenty minutes before someone checks on us.”

“You’re right,” Max said. “I’ll try to cover as much as I can.”

“Alright,” Cameron said. “I’m all ears.”

Max broke into a frenzy of words. It was clear the urgency in his voice had been building up over two years, waiting to be released to anyone who would listen.

“First, we need to talk about Blake.” Max pulled himself up to sit on the table, tapping the tightly bound roll of blueprints against the palm of his hand. “Blake and I were captured together. We made plans to go camping and had some unexpected car problems along the highway out there. So, this man seemed to materialize out of the trees.”

Max used the roll of blueprints to point onto the table and illustrate his story. “One minute Blake and I were trying to flag down help from other drivers, and the next minute, this guy’s standing there…right next to us. But he had a paper bag over his head. Blake kept staring at the bag, asking him about it. And the man just gave excuses about some grotesque surgery where they sliced his nose off accidently. And his voice. It was all robotic – electronic or something. Unnatural. He helped us with our car and offered to treat us to dinner. I thought
,
‘Geez, this guy is going out of his way to help us.
’
Nope. Hindsight is 20/20. I think Blake knew all along something was off. We refused to go anywhere with the man since the car worked again. But right as we were about to drive away, the masked man pulled a knife out of his jacket. Blake ran from the car, away from the highway, and into the trees. He’s kind of a coward.”

“So what did you do?”

“The man already had the knife to my back. He threatened to skin me alive if I tried to run, so I cooperated. He led me into the forest and brought me to the cottage. None of the windows were boarded up or anything. It just looked like a secluded house. The man introduced me to Sheri, and she made me Rabbit Stew.”

“Of course.”

“The masked man disappeared during dinner, so it was just this super awkward time with just me and Sheri. She made an apple pie for dessert. Then the man returned. This time, he had Blake. His arms were tied behind his back with twine. The man wrestled Blake to the ground in the forest.”

“How did he find him?”

“I don’t know. I bet Blake got lost in the pines. Disoriented or something. He had a few cuts on his arms. I think the man tried to get him with the knife.”

Cameron looked towards the freight elevator. “It was The Leader, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. We didn’t know that at the time. He was thinner then – more agile. I mean, he was fast enough to catch Blake. Sheri seemed so pleased to have another visitor, but The Leader had other plans for us.”

“The tunnels?”

“That’s right. Two years ago, there weren’t any tunnels. Blake and I broke ground, starting in the fireplace. They had us working for two months before capturing anyone else. We dug through the hardwood floor in the living room, then through the foundation, and eventually started digging out the dirt where the freight elevator is now.”

“Now I know why you said I was lucky.”

“No kidding. Anyway, The Leader put ankle trackers on us. After that, we didn’t see bag-face for a while. The Leader was gone for a really long time, but he’d always call and check in with Sheri about our progress with the tunnels. It went smoothly as long as we kept digging. But Blake had other plans. He hated The Leader.”

“I can understand why.”

“Before everyone else came, before they installed security cameras, Blake and I each got our own bedroom. Now, of course, those rooms are used for the sleeping quarters. Every night, Blake would tell me how he was going to escape. He was determined to go for it.”

“And did he get out?”

“Yes and no. One night, Blake snuck into Bill’s old library upstairs and scaled the bookshelves. He brought a shovel with him and banged out a hole into the attic. Sheri used to sleep in the living room and guard the front door. And the shovel method wasn’t exactly stealthy. Course, Blake didn’t care. He whacked the ceiling in the library until he somehow punched a hole through the rafters and crawled onto the roof.”

“And…”

“Now, this is where Blake made his big mistake. Sure, he got out of the house, but now he was on the roof. Vulnerable. What was he going to do? Jump?”

“Yeah, not from that height…” Cameron said.

“Now, if he would have jumped, his legs would have snapped like toothpicks. But Blake was smarter than I thought. Back then, there was a tall tree that hung over the house, and he used this to his advantage. He got a running start off the roof and lunged for the biggest branch, then he climbed down and ran towards the highway.”

“But, he was still wearing his tracker, right?”

“Yeah. He was. Still, I’ve got to give him some credit for trying.” Max grinned and paused for moment.

“So, what happened? I bet he just booked it.”

“Yeah, he did. But The Leader was no dummy. Even though he wasn’t there that night, he gave Sheri the tools to keep us in line. He set up a way for an alarm to go off if our trackers left the boundaries of the cottage. I was still in my bed upstairs, but I could hear Sheri’s alarm go off. At that point, I basically thought Blake was a dead man running.”

“How could Sheri catch him? She doesn’t seem that fast.”

“Speed had nothing to do with it.”

“What, did she shock him through the ankle tracker or something?”

“No,” Max said, “But you’re close. When Blake crossed the range threshold for his tracker, it set off an extremely loud, high-pitched sound. The kind that would make any dog go crazy, but it was still within the frequency humans can hear. Right on the fringe. But then something happened. Something that I doubt Sheri knew about. The ear-piercing whistle wasn’t meant to irritate Blake. It was designed to attract..
.
wolve
s
.”

“I’ve never heard anything about wolves living around here.”

“Around here? You mean the forest?”

“Well, just California,” Cameron said. “I thought gray wolves moved out of California. I saw it on the news.”

Max waved his hands, dismissing Cameron’s doubt. “On the news? What do they know?”

“So, wolves…”

“Yes, let me tell the story.” Max paused, closing his eyes for a moment. “Later that night, I heard something outside my bedroom window. I got out of bed and saw a pack of wolves clawing at the front door of the cottage. And it wasn’t just my imagination. They were real. Ghosts don’t have razor sharp teeth. Ghosts don’t leave scratch marks.”

“Are you a ghost hunter or something?”

“Shut up, Frosty,” Max teased. “Anyways, I walked downstairs to see what was going on. The door was locked, but Sheri got the shotgun. She stuck the barrel of the gun through the living room window and yelled something at the wolves, but never fired a shot. When she opened the door to shake the gun at them one more time, I saw the pack running into the night like some kind of rabid gang. The wolves kept howling and stuff.”

“And what about Blake?”

“Here’s what happened. A few days later, The Leader came back to check in on us. When he learned Blake was missing, he was furious. It was actually kind of funny because he tried to flip over the couch, but it was too heavy.”

“So, did Blake ever come back?”

“No.” Max looked down, letting a moment of silence pass. “The Leader was so angry about Blake’s disappearance that he stormed out of the cottage to look for him. But he never found him. After a few hours, The Leader swung open the door to the cottage. He was only holding one thing. It was Blake’s ankle tracker.”

“Geez.”

“And the worst part was…the lock on the tracker was still sealed. We figured the hunk of metal was the only thing left of him.”

“That’s horrible,” Cameron said and looked away from Max.

“I wanted to tell you about Blake so you knew it was possible to get away from here.”

“Even if the wolves got him first?”

“Better them than The Leader.”

Cameron cracked his knuckles. “How dangerous is he?”

Max unrolled one of the blueprints and folded it into a paper airplane. “The Leader? I’d say he’s the scariest man I’ve ever met.” Then he quieted his voice. “I’ve never actually seen his face. No one has, not even Sheri. He always wears the same paper bag over his head with the eye slits cut out. Apparently, he’s gained a ton of weight.”

“How do you know?”

“Well, he isn’t here that often. In fact, it’s been a while since anyone’s seen him. I’m sure he’s figuring out how to spend all the money we’re going to steal.” Max swung his legs off the lobby table and launched the paper airplane. “We didn’t just build this replica of the bank for nothing. Because of this, we’ve got some major dough comin’ our way. And everyone here is going to get a share. At least, that’s what The Leader promised.”

“Hey, Max.” Cameron motioned to the replica entrance. “Don’t you think Stan might come check on us?”