Джеффри Дивер - The Goodbye Man

This was an equally pristine room, about forty-by-forty feet. On the white-painted walls were unimaginative photos of sunsets or sunrises. On the back wall was stenciled in black ink:

On the side wall was another:

At the receptionist’s desk, near the door, sat another woman, presently on the phone. She was a blonde in her late twenties. She smiled and held up a just-wait-a-sec finger. Three other desks lined the back wall, and two were also occupied by young women, looking over their own pads. The tablets were mounted in stands so they could be viewed like monitors. These women also wore the blue and black outfits, along with the infinity jewelry. The only difference among them was in nail polish and accessories. All three women in the room were attractive and had radiant smiles and calm eyes. They, like everyone else Shaw had seen so far, were white.

There were several other applicants present as well. At the far desk was a balding man in a business suit, answering the employee’s questions. Speaking with the woman in the middle desk was a couple, apparently married, both middle aged and looking mildly embarrassed. They too were providing information, which was being recorded on this worker’s tablet. There was a third desk, on the far right, unoccupied. A tablet sat on this desk too, facedown.

When the receptionist hung up, she said, “Welcome, Mr. Skye.” She glanced at the pad and hesitated briefly. His sense was that she’d noted it had taken him a bit longer than normal to walk from the parking lot to Administration, as he’d stopped to assess the place.

“Your Intake specialist has been called away. It’ll just be a moment or two. There’s a bench outside. The weather’s not too bad today. Why don’t you wait there? I’ll come get you when she’s returned.”

He didn’t have much choice. There were no chairs in Intake or the Administration lobby.

“I guess. How old’s this place? Buildings look new.”

“Oh, I don’t really know. It’ll be ten minutes, tops.” Another of those smiles.

Shaw stepped out of Intake. As he passed the initial receptionist and nodded, she too smiled back. He noted that she turned her tablet slightly away.

On the porch he was greeted by the damp scent of pine sap once more, which never failed to take him back to his youth. In this instance, the memory was of stripping off his belt, slapping it around a tree and using it as a climbing sling to escape from what was pursuing him. Bears climb too but unless they’re really hungry they can be as lazy as anyone else. This one debated for a minute, seemingly confused about a prey that could both run and climb — and do both quickly. A new breed of predator maybe. Might be trouble. The creature had wandered off.

Musical tones rang out through the camp, the well-known opening fifteen-note theme of the “Ode to Joy” choral movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony. They were played on a synthesizer, in a low register. The last note stretched out until it faded to silence. Then a woman’s soothing alto called out through speakers, “The time is four-thirty p.m.”

Just as he was about to sit on the rustic bench on the porch, he stopped, hearing an urgent call from behind the Administration building. It was a man’s and it was raw and troubled. He couldn’t make out the words at first. Then louder:

“No! No! Stop!” Followed by a faint cry: someone was in pain.

Shaw glanced about and saw no one was nearby — and no security cams, at least none visible, pointed his way.

He walked along the side of the building, ducking when he passed windows. He crouched behind a thick stand of myrtle and camellia, which was in brilliant red bloom.

In a grassy strip that separated the buildings on the east side of the camp from the woods, a slim blond man in tan slacks and a blazer and T-shirt stood between two others, big men, both in the gray tunics and both wearing ASSISTANCE UNIT badges. They gripped the civilian by his upper arms, as a third man approached.

It was the driver of the van that had come to collect Adam and Erick, the one who’d dressed down the brunette and tried to grope her.

Also tunicked, he was about five-six, with thinning brown hair. Broad chested, swarthy of complexion. A placid, unflappable look on his face. He wore two badges. In addition to ASSISTANCE UNIT, there was SUPERVISOR. Unlike the other Assistance Unit men Shaw had seen, he wore an infinity amulet; his was silver.

Another person was present as well: a young woman similar in build, age and appearance to those Shaw had just seen inside the Intake room, wearing the same outfit as they. Maybe the third desk was hers, and this was to be his specialist.

There was one difference, though, between her and the women inside. She was not smiling and her eyes were cold, contracted dots.

The supervisor walked forward. He regarded his tablet and then nodded to the two guards. They released their grips. The man in street clothes slumped and rubbed his arms. “What’s this all about? They just assaulted me!”

The supervisor looked over the captive. “Mr. Klein, I’m Journeyman Hugh. I’m in charge of the Assistance Unit.” The voice was calm, a monotone. “Now, you’ve tried to gain access to the Foundation illegally. On the application, which you signed, it states clearly that entry under a false identity is prohibited and any attempts to do so will make you guilty of trespass.”

False identity? Shaw tucked that away.

“There’s some mistake. My name is Briggs. You saw my ID. You’ve got me mixed up with somebody. This is embarrassing. And frankly, I’m pissed off. You can’t touch me like that. I know my rights.”

Hugh nodded toward the woman. “Journeyman Adelle here was interviewing you when a facial recognition scan came back with your real identity.”

Oh, hell. Hadn’t figured on FR.

Adelle said, “It was doubly confirmed.”

Hugh said, “You’re Jonathan Klein, an investigative reporter for NewsCircle. We run sixty-point facial recognition. The algorithms are rarely wrong. To confirm, though, we called the publisher of your newspaper and were told you were away on assignment for a week, and when I called your house—”

Klein gasped. “My house? How did you—”

“—I got your wife to tell me you were away for a week in the mountains of Washington State on a story. She wasn’t sure where.”

“You fucker.” Klein leaned forward, his palms balling up.

The two large men in tunics looked at their boss for direction. Hugh shook his head. “What we do here at the Foundation is provide intense self-help treatment for individuals who are coping with a number of problems. Their issues are extremely sensitive. I’ve read your rag. Like most media, you take things out of context and inflate and distort. You’d jeopardize the treatment of people in our care just to sell a few internet ads. We care too much to let that happen.”

Klein snorted at this claim. “You’re not getting away with this.”

“Here’s what comes next, Mr. Klein. You never arrived here. You’ll drive back through Hope’s Corner and keep going twenty miles, then turn around, head in this direction and drive off the road.”

Klein blinked in surprise. “Hold on a minute.”

“Make it look real. The crash, I mean. When you get out of the hospital, and back to work, you’ll move on to other stories and you’ll make sure that no one from your news site tries to cover the Foundation again. I don’t know how you’ll do that but that’s in your lap.”