A day earlier, Phil Wasnic had received a special UPS delivery. The bill of lading on the small package indicated that it had been sent from a Leavenworth, WA company that Phil had never heard of but the sender’s name was well known to him. Six years earlier, Wasnic had been a bartender in Seattle when he witnessed a gang execution. It was his eyewitness testimony that had been the clincher in convicting Marco Barcello of first degree murder. The jury had recommended life imprisonment and the judge had agreed. Because Barcello had been considered a high risk convict, he was placed in a maximum security facility in northern California. So it was with a certain amount of surprise and fear that Wasnic saw the name Marco Barcello on the UPS document.
How had Barcello found him?
And what was in the package?
His hands began to shake with that nervous tension that accompanies the fearful unknown as he struggled to open the package.
He stopped. Should he even open it? Maybe it would be better if he simply took the unopened package to the local police station. Of course he would have to explain a little of his background, but he could handle that.
Half an hour later, Phil was standing in the waiting room of the Carstairs police station. He was aggravated by the typically slow moving small town police policies. As soon as one of the town’s two officers got back from whatever crisis they were currently dealing with, he would be the next in line. He could be waiting fifteen minutes or all day. On second thought, he didn’t have to wait at all. No-one was forcing him to be here. It was his fear of the past that brought him here and his impatience with the present that would send him away again. It only took 23 minutes for his impatience to win out. He couldn’t be bothered with this, he’d check out the package himself. After all, it had already been cleared by Canadian Customs.
Of course…why hadn’t he thought of that earlier?
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Chapter Two
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10:00 am 10:00 am
Excerpt from my new book…
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6:16 pm 6:16 pm
The early morning mist hung in the air like the ground beneath a wind blown cottonwood tree. You could still hear the faint whispers of the coyotes as they finished their nightly nourishment. Since the hours of darkness had been clear and slightly cool, the foraging night beasts had been able to thoroughly satisfy themselves. A soft breeze blowing through the decades old poplar trees sung the dawn song to any who were awake and near enough to hear.
Enclosed within a nearly ten foot wall was what looked like a couple of tennis courts except for the complete lack of nets or boundary lines. A three foot opening in the centre of the north side was the only break in the otherwise featureless fixture. At the southern end of the enclosure, a slight figure dressed in a dark tracksuit was carefully warming up, stretching and flexing muscles that obviously needed loosening. Moving slowly with a stiffness that reflected a sedentary lifestyle, an early morning exercise was the exception not the rule.
On the ground near the wanna-be athlete lay the reason for this uncomfortable break in routine. A small dark metallic object faintly glowing in the surreal light of the morning seemed to both captivate and repel. It’s shape familiar yet not quite identifiable.
Glancing over for the thirteenth time that morning, his pulse quickened when that face overpowered his inner vision again. The pit of his stomach threatened an uprising as he groaned, “Why now? After all these years!”