Andrew Klavan - The truth of the matter

He had his cap back on. He had his gun back too. He jammed it hard against the side of my head. With his free hand, he rubbed the spot on his temple where I’d clocked him.

“Try that again,” he said nastily. “See what happens.”

“All right, Jim,” said Waterman. “That’s enough. You can’t blame the kid for trying.” He was looking around the woods nervously. “Let’s get out of the open already.”

Dodger Jim gave me an angry shove down the trail. I looked at him. I looked at Milton Two, zipping around me in the twilight. I didn’t have much choice. I started walking.

Waterman and Dodger Jim both fell in line behind me. The small drone flew along at my side, watching me the whole time, ready to blast me if I tried another move.

None of them was taking any chances now.

Wherever we were going, whatever was going to happen, whatever they were going to do to me, there was no escape.

The Bunker We walked on down the trail. The cold grew sharper as the light continued to bleed out of the gray sky. The branches of the trees became gnarling black shapes around us. The forest began to disappear into the night.

But then, strangely, the twilight seemed to reverse itself. It became easier to see the trail in front of me. I realized the forest around me was growing thinner, the trees sparser. We were entering a clearing-that’s why there was more light.

We stepped out of a cluster of tall pines-and I stopped, staring, my lips parted in surprise. I heard my two captors stop behind me as well. The drone-Milton Two-stopped flying and hovered in midair next to my head.

We were standing at the edge of what had once been-I don’t know what-an enormous building maybe- maybe a compound made up of a lot of buildings. Whatever it had been, it was all in ruins now. Long barracks stood dark and empty, their windows shattered, the last glass in their frames jagged, broken. Taller structures rose and then fell away in a shambles. Columns stood free here and there. Rooms stood roofless, the doors torn away to reveal the interior. All around, the forest was moving back in to reclaim the space. Vines twisted down the broken walls. New young trees sprang up, breaking through old tiles and floorboards.

Even as I stood staring at it, the ruins faded into the deepening dusk. The first tendrils of a forest mist curled along the ground, coiled around the structures, giving the place an eerie, ghostly atmosphere.

“Keep moving,” said Dodger Jim. He prodded me roughly in the back with his gun. He was still angry about that shot to the head.

I walked forward, the mist parting before my feet.

“What is this place?” I said.

“It used to be a psychiatric facility,” Waterman answered. “They built it out here to keep the inmates away from the locals. Now it’s empty-except for us.”

The ruined, misty buildings surrounded me as I went on. I looked around, half expecting to see people-or other creatures-darting here and there between the structures. Sometimes I thought I caught a movement at the corner of my eye, but when I turned, there was nothing. It was-or at least I thought it was-only my imagination.

“Over here,” said Waterman.

Now he came around in front of me again. He knew I was no danger to him anymore. With that drone following my every move, ready to blast me if I tried anything-and with Dodger Jim eager for the chance to get some payback for that strike to the head-I didn’t stand a chance.

Waterman led the way confidently through the maze of broken, vine-covered walls. We moved toward the center of the compound. Up ahead, I made out what looked like the remains of a tower, a cylinder rising black against the surrounding darkness. As we got closer, I saw that its brick walls were crawling with ivy. It had no roof. The cylinder just ended in broken jags about ten feet above my head. Down below, where the door had been, there was now just an uneven opening.

Waterman stepped through that opening, disappearing inside.

I hesitated. I had the feeling that once I went into this place, I would never come out again.

Once more, Dodger Jim prodded me with the barrel of his gun.

“Move it,” he said.

I glanced back at him. He grinned at me, his eyes shining in the dark. He was waiting for me to strike at him. Ready this time. Milton Two hovered in the air just above me like a deadly hummingbird, its single eye trained on me.

“Yeah,” said Dodger Jim. “You have something to say?”

What could I do? I shook my head. I turned and stepped through the door into the tower.

There was nothing inside. Just an empty circular room with brick walls and a concrete floor. There was a winding stair leading upward, but it ended abruptly on a broken step, going nowhere.

Waterman waited for me to enter-then we both waited for Dodger Jim. When we were all inside, Waterman approached the wall. He began to move his hand over the bricks. He kept his fingers spread, the palm held out as he traced a complex pattern in the air, difficult to follow. It reminded me of a party magician making hocus-pocus passes over a handkerchief before making a rabbit appear.

But there was no rabbit. Instead, I heard a low buzzing noise. The wall began to open under Waterman’s hand.

There was a door hidden in the wall. A rectangle of bricks was sliding aside in a controlled electronic motion. Then, with a metallic thunk, it stopped. The door stood opened into blackness.

Waterman gestured to the opening.

“Go on.”

I moved to the black rectangle and peered in. From here, I could make out a narrow platform in front of a shadowy flight of metal stairs.

One more time, I looked up at Waterman. I searched his eyes, trying to guess who he was, what he wanted, whose side he was on. There was nothing there. His expression was sardonic and distant and impossible to read. He held his hand out and waited.

I stepped into the opening, onto the platform, then onto the stairs. I started down.

It was not a long descent, just an ordinary single flight into a deep cellar. A very dim security lamp was burning yellow at the bottom, giving just enough light for me to make my way.

I reached the bottom. The narrow flight opened out here into a small semicircular anteroom. There was no other entry or exit besides the stairs. Nothing but a blank metal wall.

The next moment, Waterman was down the stairs as well, standing next to me. Once again, he reached out and moved his palm over the face of the wall. He made the same pattern. I tried to follow it. I thought it might come in handy later if I ever got a chance to escape. I watched his hand make out a series of diagonals, then a series of straight lines-a square maybe?-then another diagonal. It was too complicated to remember. Again, when he was finished, there was a buzzing, grinding noise.

A door swung open and bright light flooded out.

After the forest twilight and the descent, the light hurt my eyes. I squinted against it, holding up my hand for protection. Meanwhile, a voice reached me from inside the brightness. It was a voice I recognized.

It said, “Charlie West is an extremely dangerous young man.”

Startled, I glanced at Waterman. “Rose!”

It was Detective Rose, the policeman who had arrested me for the murder of Alex Hauser.

When Waterman didn’t answer, I stepped quickly through the doorway into the light. There he was: Rose. His face was on a monitor on the wall in front of me, hanging above my head.

I remembered the guy only too well. He was a short, trim, round-faced black man with flat features and a thin mustache. It was his eyes you remembered mostly. Smart, cold eyes that always seemed to be calculating, thinking, considering. You looked in those eyes and you knew: he was a man with a purpose. Unfortunately, that purpose was to hunt me down, to bring me to what he thought was justice. He had believed I was innocent at first, and when he’d decided I was guilty, he’d never forgiven me for fooling him. He was embarrassed by the fact that I had escaped from prison too, escaped from him. He would never give up hunting me. He would never rest until he caught me.