Olen Steinhauer - The Nearest Exit

There were no guns involved, just a light, almost comforting, hand on his back, while the little man with the mustache hummed some song. He was clearly the boss, and it was he who unlocked the front door, typed the security code into the alarm, and pocketed a cell phone sitting on a fragile-looking end table beside the door. “Come in,” he said. “We’ll soon have you out of those restraints.”

It was all so polite that Milo began to sweat profusely.

They went downstairs, where the man turned on some lights and found, beside a spare bathroom, a heavy security door with a keypad. He typed the code with a flat hand, fingers covering the pad so it was impossible to tell the combination, then pulled open the door to reveal stairs heading deeper into the earth.

A couple of decades ago, he would have called it a fallout shelter. Times had changed, though, and these were now referred to as panic rooms, but the function was the same. A secure place where one could survive for days or weeks with no need of the outside world. Along the walls were shelves of provisions-canned food, soap, bottles of water. A refrigerator beside an electrical generator. A propane stove. There was a television/VCR combination, a radio, and a shelf of books. Two small monitors, now black, were assumedly connected to CCTV cameras observing the grounds. Two lounge chairs, one sofa, and a dining table. Against the stone wall in the back of the room, a single cot with fresh bedding. On the concrete floor beside it were two rolls of duct tape.

The mustached man gazed at cans of soup while the other two removed Milo’s cuffs and took his coat. “You needed to urinate?” he asked.

“Desperately.”

The man nodded in the direction of a small door, and the other two led Milo to it. Inside was a spotless toilet, but no sink. It was a small space, but both his guards squeezed in behind him, peering over his shoulder, hands on his back as he relieved himself. He pulled the chain to flush, then raised his hands. “Can I wash?”

Neither answered. They pulled him out and led him to one of the chairs. The mustached man, still reading the cans, said, “Are you hungry perhaps?”

“Could use some coffee.”

“Yes. So could I. Heinrich? Nehmen Sie auch einem?”

The block of muscle looked up from Milo. “Ja, danke.”

The mustached man turned to the wiry one. “Dann also für alle?”

The wiry one nodded and trotted upstairs.

Their exchange, figuring out how many coffees were needed, struck Milo as amusing. Nothing else did. He was in a secure basement from which he would never escape unless they let him leave. He was here for as long as they wanted, and in here they could do anything they desired. No one would hear a thing.

Heinrich took the chair across from Milo as a phone began to ring. The mustached man took out the cell phone he’d taken from the foyer and said, “Toledo Elektrik.”

A conversation followed. He got the name Schwartz, that something would take about an hour, and that a bill would be mailed. And Frau-ma’am-he was talking to a woman.

He pocketed the phone again and said to Heinrich, “In Ordnung.”

Heinrich looked relieved, though the mustached one didn’t seem concerned either way. He held Milo’s coat folded over his arm and paced the room slowly, peering at everything as if he’d never been here before. Perhaps he hadn’t. His free hand searched Milo’s coat pockets, coming up with receipts and lint. He stuck the receipts in his pants pocket and tossed the coat on the bed. “You should make yourself comfortable,” he said. “It’ll be some hours before things get started.”

“What, exactly, is going to get started?”

“Conversations.”

“When your boss gets home from work?”

The man stared at him.

“This is his house, isn’t it? Or her house. Your boss’s.”

“All that matters to you is that this is the easy part. Have some coffee, something to eat. Get over that headache… does it still hurt?”

“A little.”

“Heinrich.”

Heinrich half-rose from his chair and, with a large flat hand, struck Milo across the temple. It felt like a wooden board and rekindled the pain that had, until then, been subsiding. He cradled his head in his hands and stopped himself from shouting an obscenity. “What was that for?”

“For nothing,” the man said as he passed behind Milo. “I’m not a big believer in the carrot and stick. It’s fine for mules, but for people? No. Much too predictable, and anything that predictable can be manipulated. The unpredictable stick-that’s much more useful because there is no clear answer to it.”

Milo raised his head, half of it pulsing sorely, and could feel his damaged nose dripping blood onto his lips. “I think I understand,” he said.

“Good.” The mustached man sat on the sofa, just beyond Heinrich. He used a remote control to turn on the television against the wall. “My boss, as you say, isn’t entirely comfortable with modern digital technology. So we have this.” He pressed play, and the embedded VCR began to whir, flickering grainy images on the screen, the buzz of static, then voices. News items. A German newscaster. The image of a girl, Adriana Stanescu. A camera ranging over mountains, then a mountain road, the scene of a wreck, a path into the forest. Then again. Another newscaster-Spanish-and more of the same. And more: childhood shots of Adriana, swimming with her parents, a young birthday. Now Dutch. Then Italian. French. Moldovan. British. German. American. Polish.

It went on, in languages he couldn’t even identify, with scenes of the mother breaking down on camera, screaming, her stoic husband hollow-eyed behind her. The occasional angry person-on-the-street giving an opinion. It lasted for over an hour until it faded to black and the mustached man pressed STOP and then REWIND. As it whirred loudly, he said, “Heinrich,” and another board struck Milo’s temple.

“Jesus! Cut it out!”

He started to rise, but Heinrich pushed him down again. The mustached man retrieved one of the rolls of duct tape and tossed it smoothly to Heinrich, who began to strap Milo in the chair.

There was nothing to be done. This had all been planned ahead of time-the hard hand, the video, and even his eventual outburst. They knew what they were doing.

The VCR clicked loudly. Then they all looked up as their missing member trotted down the stairs holding a tray with large, steaming coffee cups. Milo wondered why it had taken so long to make them, then realized it hadn’t. The man simply knew he wasn’t to interrupt the videotape.

“Excellent!” The mustached one got to his feet. “What kind?”

The wiry one began passing out cups. “There was a bag of Starbucks grounds. Ethiopian.”

“Starbucks?” He seemed confused. “How about that? You know their coffee, Mr. Weaver?”

“Intimately.”

“Delicious,” he said and sipped from his cup, then leaned back. “Too hot for me. Heinrich?”

Heinrich was holding two cups-one for him, one for Milo. “Very hot,” he said, then looked over at the mustached man. Heinrich seemed to interpret his superior’s silence as an order. He poured a little of the steaming coffee onto Milo’s chest. It burned straight through his shirt, but he didn’t shout out this time, only grunted. Heinrich set down the cup and began to drink from his own.

The mustached man took his coffee to the stairs. “I think Mr. Weaver would like some more television.”

The one who’d brought the coffees used the remote to start the VCR playing again. Newscaster. Adriana. Barren trees.

“Let’s make sure we remember every image on that tape, yes? There’ll be a quiz later.”

The man with the remote laughed lightly, and Heinrich smiled. The mustached man left them alone as Adriana’s mother wept uncontrollably on-screen.