BLAMELESS: No Way Out! and DEAD RINGER 4

BLAMELESS: No Way Out CHAPTER ONE The early morning walk to the main office complex had been brisk in more ways than one—it was starting to get chilly in the late afternoons and this early in the morning it was cold—probably because the sun stayed hidden behind the clouds and fog banks longer this time of year—the days were shorter too—this old earth had almost ended its precessing 24◦ and would soon be heading back in the other direction on its timeless and lonely orbit around its star—its only friend, the Man-in-the-Moon orbited listlessly about the earth in dark space only showing fifty-one percent of his orb. Carly shivered and started walking faster. The walking path was full of small randomly swirled piles of dry and colorful late autumn leaves. The front lawn of the main prison building had a variety of a dozen deciduous trees and almost as many evergreens. The leaves crinkled noisily as she walked hurriedly along—she could hear the heavyset lady Sergeant scuffling along behind her. There had been a frost during the night—Carly shivered again, wishing she had worn a wool shell or a sweater beneath the light blue prison jacket. She sped up! The middle-aged Sergeant was huffing and puffing behind her even harder now—dry leaves crunching. The woman called out, “Carly girl! Slow down! Slow down! I’m not as young as you. The board will wait for you! They know the ‘blocks’ were late getting organized this morning due to the power outage. And there are ten brand new inmates who don’t know the drill yet—they held us up for over twenty minutes. The new ones come in every Friday and the board members were advised of this by the assistant warden so they know—slow down!” Carly thought, “Lose some weight!” This was one of the few female guards she didn’t like. “We don’t have to be there until 0920—they moved it up almost a half an hour. You will notice that the blinking florescent lights in the vestibule are just coming on now, so slow down!” One tube appeared to be burnt out. “I noticed Sarge!” Carly kept walking at the same pace. -------------------------- DEAD RINGER 4 CHAPTER ONE The sun-tanned face of the physically fit woman broke into a constrained smile, Las Vegas was less than an hour away even in this little unscheduled airplane—she loved visiting the desert city. It had been over four years since she had been there—just before she was transferred to Kabul. It was during the most dangerous part of the war when she had been given her orders—this was her sixth year in the Middle East—not all at once, but almost six years total. Her chief, four years ago, had given her a twenty day R and R in the States. She had spent part of it in Nevada. One of the passengers looked grim and kept her eyes averted. Former Air Force Captain, Susanne Lantue decided the older lady was afraid of flying. The man in the seat across didn’t acknowledge anybody either; he was white-knuckling the seat arms. This was an older turboprop regional airplane the sheet metal rattled and the two engines were noisy—plus it bounced around in the sky somewhat like a tethered hot air balloon in a brisk wind. The airplane had been “bouncing” through the skies since take-off and all of the passenger’s stomachs were churning—even Susanne’s and she had flown hundreds of hours in odd military aircraft and in even odder weather—Asian monsoons were not fun. They had left the Sky Harbor Airport in Phoenix forty minutes ago—when the plane had left there was not a cloud in the sky—now it looked like a storm was brewing over the Colorado River to the west. Ten more minutes passed—the wind was up—she could see dust clouds below—dust devils some folks called them. The little airplane was vibrating noisily—there was considerable wind shear—it was ragged.