Summaries

Synopsis

TRIDENTby Brian BrawdyThe first in The MortalUP Trilogy.

The following is based on real-life events. Officials will neither confirm nor deny its contents.

As calculative as homicidal,an unknown suspect cunningly pursuesand gruesomely murders Commander Mike "Rez" Broadhurst, the widowed father of daughters Callie Broadhurst and her younger teenage sister Camryn.

While driving home late that horrible night, Callie happens on the horrific crime. Mortified by the sight she uncovers, Callie is further traumatized by an overwhelming sense of guilt and shame.

Following the gut-wrenching funeral,she enlists to emulate her father and to escape the hideous ordeal.

Her grisly visions have another plan. Pushing the edge of a debilitating PTSD now threatens her career. She knows downrange, and damaged minds don't mix.

After six long years of Naval service, she's home in hopes of ending her torment.

Lieutenant Callie Broadhurst, in her late twenties, is gorgeous in an eye-catching way. Though beautiful on the outside, her mind's eye is the ultimate enemy combatant. The plane descends into Page, Arizona; Callies's stomach drops right along with the landing gear. Often, her daydreams slip into nightmares.

Before she exits, Callie pauses to help a struggling mother with two young children and a couple of overstuffed diaper bags. In perfect sherpa form, Callie shoulders the bags and enables the relieved mother to deplane.

Brida anxiously waits for her older sister at the TSA security exit. Brida "Brie" Broadhurst just turned twenty-one. She is as beautiful as she is bubbly, with eyes as deep brown as her long hair. The excitement to finally have her sister home is indelibly etched in her smile. She's brought Callie a small stuffed animal, a cute baby seal, as a welcome home gift. They hug like they mean it.Hand in hand, the sisters, walk to the exit.

Driving home and catching up on all the happenstance that transpired while they were separated, Brida and Callie are interrupted by three obnoxious occupants of a passing car, only a few minutes later to find them stopped by the local police.

Callie senses she will see them again.The rotating lights of the law enforcement vehicles trigger yet another flashback for Callie. She just can't outrun her vicious visions.

Arriving at Brida's new condo, they unpack and make plans to hit the grocery store for some goodies. Callie confronts a larger picture of her deceased father, hanging on the far wall; all smiles, decked out in Navy dress whites, his chest covered in medals and ribbons. Once again hijacked by her own head, the haunting memories boomerang back. Intuitively Callie knows she made the correct decision to come home for help.

While cruising the aisles of a local market, they bump into Jake Saunders. In his late forties, a former member of her father's SEAL team gets his ingrained narcissism from his strikingly handsome looks and chiseled athletic physique. He's been a Broadhurst family friend since the sisters were little.

Callie and Jake share a moment and comradery. He counsels her as best he can - and to the degree Callie is prepared to permit - on facing tragedy and how to handle its aftermath.

Back at the condo, Brida has a little surprise planned for her Big Sis. There is a knock on the door. BEN WILLOWS is all smiles and flowers. In his late twenties, built like the topography that raised him, with the perfect blend of height and heft, well-worn jeans and dusty cowboy boots, he and Callie were the high school romance everyone was sure of, but no one could prove. They are as thrilled to see each other as Brida is to have pulled off their impromptu reunion.

They decide to hit a local dinner and dancing place, the hotspot known as Western Winds Tavern, for an evening of relaxing. They have a blast all the way to "Last Call."

Heading to their car, Brida, Callie, and Ben are accosted by the gang they passed earlier in the day. As high-strung, obnoxious, and violent as Callie imagined, she is forced into a very brief physical confrontation with Venom, the ring's leader. It's over before it started.

Venom, twenty-five, a tattoo-covered, streetwise punk, ever hot-headed, vile, with deep-rooted defiance to all things contrary to his ego.

With the scream of approaching sirens, which he desperately wants to avoid, he vows his revenge to Callie as he retreats and escapes.

The deputies arrive too late to effect an arrest. They get an earful and an ominous warning from the tavern owner, Tag Jensen. Little if anything is settled.

The following day, Callie treats herself to an early morning Close Quarter Combat workout at her Grandfather's barn.

POP aka NIYOL "NEIL" DESCHENE, Callie's maternal Grandfather, is a humble stoic whose physical and spiritual posture broadcasts serenity with every word.She explains the intimate nature of her nightmares and hangs on Pop's every word of advice. He sends her on a horseback ride into the surrounding mesa's natural beauty to clear her mind.

Later that morning and back at Brida's, Ben is knocking to see if Callie is up for spending the day together hiking in the nearby wilderness. As is her way, Callie calls for an "audible," and the two thoroughly enjoy the day horseback riding.

Dusk turns dark as the Milky Way eclipses the Heavens. They build a fire, spread a blanket, and hang out under the stars sipping tequila. As the night progress, they positively answer the question of being high-school sweethearts next to the roaring flames.

Early the next morning, Callie attempts to cover her late-night tracks by sneaking into Brida's. Not to be fooled, Brida is on point and gently ribs Callie for letting her hair down in her overnight rendezvous.

While the ladies relax over breakfast, Ben is home taking a shower, thrilled to have spent the night under the stars and blanket with Callie. He is startled when Venom and his feral crew drag him from the shower and batter him mercilessly. Venom's viciousness is unquestioned. Ben's life lies in the balance on his bathroom floor.

Later that day, Brida receives a mysterious phone call. Ben's Mom is for Callie from the local hospital's ICU; she asks Callie to join her as soon as possible. Callie instantly complies.

Callie joins Mrs. Willows. Instantly taken aback by what confronts her, Ben's head is swollen, wrapped in compression bandages, gauze, and medical tape, intubated, multiple IVs, MACHINES BEEP to keep track of his critical condition, assisted breathing and heart rate. Their horror scales as Ben alarms Code Blue, and a cardiac trauma team crash cart in tow rushes in and escorts them out.

With a hole in her heart, Callie races out of the hospital parking lot.

Callie enters Western Winds, lead by a hunch. Mortified and on a mission, she makes eye contact with Tag, busy behind the bar serving a patron. Tag Jensen, built as sturdy and solid as the hand-honed antique bar inside, has spent fifty-nine years earning his full head of jet silver hair and living on the adjacent lot which borders Western Winds, the local watering-hole his family owns and has operated for generations.

In their brief meeting, Callie learns about Venom, his vicious crew, and their employer. Cartel Money Launderer/Banker Jose Miguel Becerra is President & CEO of High Mesa regional bank. As sadistic as he is articulate, he is passionate about meticulous control and cruelty, living to bully others with words and threats. At sixty-five, he has a lifetime of having his way, and his demeanor proves it.

We also learn that Callie is so much more than she presents herself to be; her Top Secret technology, connections, and personal grit prove it. She leaves Tag and his tavern with a plan.

Bright and early the following morning, Callie returns to Pop's barn, her crucible for honing the ever-escalating ferocity of her workouts. She executes blisteringly-efficient martial arts in a commanding fashion. In a subsequent conversation with Pop, Callie learns unloads her deep angst, to which Pop has a simple yet life-changing suggestion. It is here that we learn of the mystical quality of Tempus, Pop's favorite horse. Callie sets off once again for the open terrain and the stunning sunset.

Pop asks his Brother Nash and Nash's wife Yana to join him for dinner and craft a plan to help Callie. At a local restaurant, seasoned minds meet, huddle in a booth around a lit candle at its center. Old-school badasses are now in the game.

At sixty-five, NASHDOI "NASH" HOSTENE, a mountain of a man, is still never the second strongest in the room. His physique and persona communicate a "you might be best to find someone else to scrap with" aura.

Highlighted by the flickering candle at the center of the table, YANA HOSTENE, Nash's wife of forty-five years, with long, flowing gray hair pulled back in a pony-tail, exposes inner serenity possessing clear, fresh eyes wrapped in a reverent, no-nonsense mystique.

They have their ways. We will just have to see.

After a long ride into the setting sun's outstretched fingers that arm-wrestle the creeping shadows and into the surrounding blanket of dusk, Tempus pulls up at the entrance of Antelope Canyon. Callie experiences a strange pull and dismounts to explore her gut and the towering crevasse, like a giant harelip carved into the sandstone mountain before her.

As she moves closer, Callie realizes a glow within the mystical slot canyon's labyrinth. Thus begins her conversation with The Eons and the deepest recesses of her own mind. Her Dark Night of the Soul is full-on as Callie battles a force to which she is utterly outmatched.The ensuing vertigo is the very least of her worries.

Early morning rises in the Canyon, setting it aflame. Undulating waves of earthen rock welcome the brilliant reds and oranges of every hue dawn has to offer.Leaning up against a canyon wall, head tilted, the first rays of sunlight warm her face. She opens her eyes and draws a DEEP BREATH and a plan.

Unimaginably rejuvenated, Callie heads home. Mid-ride, Tempus slows to a stop, Callie dismounts, kneels to the horizon, and offers her intercessional prayer on Ben's behalf.

When she arrives back at Brida's, she heads to her room, unpacks her duffel, and retrieves an essential and tactical item. It is here we learn of Callie's thoroughly apropos nickname. She repacks her bag and hits the door.

Callie pulls surveillance, tails the Becerra vehicle, and interrupts his dinner. It is the first time they meet face to face, and they are posturing to figure each other out. At the end of the encounter, Callie is sure Becerra is involved, somehow in Ben's death.

As Callie leaves the establishment, Becerra grills his Head of Security, where we learn just how vicious he can be, even to his own employees.

Callie decides to call her old friend Jake and get his opinion on the coming battle. They agree to catch up as soon as he returns from a day trip.

As pigheaded, impatient, and persistent as Callie is, she begins her SOLO investigation only to op a suspect hideaway at the exact moment Venom and his crew is executed by an unknown assailant.

The battle intensifies between Becerra and Callie when she returns to his compound only to be spotted by his hi-tech drone. Becerra and his Head of Security watch the live-stream video footage. Becerra gives his security Chief one last ultimatum regarding "handling" the threat Callie has become.

The Third Act and Finale pit these two powerhouses in a battle that will redefine them both.