Джеффри Дивер - The Goodbye Man

Two gray tunicked men sat on the porch in front, unspeaking, eyeing everyone who passed. They glanced at Shaw without reaction. He kept his eyes forward and passed by without pausing. Was it a detention facility? A storeroom, containing sensitive data? Or something dangerous?

Weapons? Nearly every wilderness outpost had a rifle, in case of animal intrusion, but was there more? Shaw continued along the sidewalk until he was out of sight of the guards, then circled back. Like the others, Building 14 had a back door and the grass leading to it was tamped down from golf carts and foot traffic — presumably staff, making deliveries. He tested the knob. Locked and there was no give. It had a simple lock that could be picked but doing so would take time.

The windows were gridded by sturdy iron bars, fixed to the frames with screws whose heads had been filed down so screwdrivers were useless to remove them. The paint on the glass was thick; he could see nothing inside.

Building 14 would have to remain a mystery for the time being.

He headed for the south side of the camp, where the large residence building was situated. He noted that the majority of people he passed wore red amulets — Apprentices, the second level in the Process training. Some were Novice blue.

Of the two dozen people he’d observed, every one of them was white. Seemed to be out of keeping with Rule 5, but it wasn’t surprising.

Occasionally one of the Companions would send a dewy-eyed smile his way and give that odd gesture — touching their left shoulder with right palm. Shaw made sure to return the salute in kind.

Continuing to the back of the residence, he surveyed a tall rock face soaring eighty feet into the air. The face was amply cracked and fronted with outcroppings; Shaw could easily free-climb it — the technique of using ropes to prevent falls, not to assist in the ascent. It was also conducive to free soloing — climbing without any ropes at all — if one were so inclined. Shaw was not. Free soloing was incompatible with his central philosophy of life: survival.

So, south was not an acceptable escape route.

Neither was west, which was another cliff: the soaring Lord of the Rings formation whose gap he’d driven through on the driveway from Harbinger Road to the Foundation’s gatehouse.

North was the stockade fence and the parking lot, protected by the chain link. Climbing a wooden fence, even an eight-footer, isn’t impossible. However, this one was easily ten. That would be too difficult to surmount without a ladder, of which he’d seen none. And he knew the gates would be manned, maybe all of the time. North was out.

The eastern edge of the camp was the forest leading to the high bluff, with the lake beyond. In the clearing atop the cliff to the east, benches sat every fifty feet or so, overlooking the splendid view of mountains. Two miles or so that way — east — lay a state route, Shaw knew from studying Google and his Rand McNally. Along the highway were gas stations every ten miles or so, which meant a fair amount of traffic. Hitchhiking was a possibility, or trekking to one of the service stations and calling Mack to arrange for a ride.

But how to walk out of camp in that direction? He walked along the cliff’s edge; the face was too smooth to climb down. He stared at the sheer bone-yellow stone, and couldn’t help but think of the two people who had died by falling from such a place: Adam Harper at Hope’s Corner and, at Echo Ridge, Shaw’s father, whose death had been engineered by those he thought of as the Enemy — the woman named Braxton and Ebbitt Droon... And the others who worked with them. It represented too Shaw’s missions. It rankled some that he’d had to put the search for his father’s killers on hold. But there was no choice. Whatever had driven Adam to his death might imperil others. The quest to uncover the secret behind his father’s death would have to wait.

Turning away and continuing north, toward the front of the camp, he came eventually to the eerie gate and the tall wooden fence and followed it east. Where it ended deep in the woods a six-foot-high chain-link barrier ran from the fence to a steep drop-off onto rocks far below.

Eli sure didn’t want anybody leaving.

Or, Shaw reflected, entering without permission.

There was a padlocked gate in the chain link. Shaw debated. The lock was rusted, and the gate entwined with vines, the ground around it undisturbed. No one had been here for months. He found a rock and with a half-dozen blows broke off the hasp. The gate opened freely.

He could jog to the highway in twenty minutes.

So, he had his escape route.

A weapon?

Beethoven echoed through the camp. Then: “The time is six forty-five p.m. Dinner will be served in fifteen minutes.”

Shaw returned to his dormitory, sat on the porch and sketched out a map of the compound.

In case the notebook was examined, he added some notes about what Samuel had told him in the initial interview — to make it seem that he was taking the whole thing seriously. When he was done, Shaw scanned the map, noting the locations of his dorm, the central square and stage, the Assistance Unit, Building 14, the three-story residence. And of course, the escape path to the east.

Shaw was going to put his book back in his room but then remembered one of the rules.

Keep your notebook and a pen with you at all times...

He headed for the dining hall and queued, nodding to and chatting with other Companions. And keeping an eye out for Frederick, the man with orange sunglasses, who had possibly seen him at the site of Adam’s death. Trouble was, Shaw wasn’t sure he’d recognize the Companion without the eyewear and hat.

He searched too for the brunette.

No sign of either.

Had she left the Foundation?

On the one hand, that would be a setback: her reaction at Adam’s suicide suggested they had a connection. She might help him fill in the dots about his death. On the other, it would mean she was out of harm’s way.

Another possibility. After her rejection of Hugh, had there been repercussions? Shaw recalled the man’s face contorted with anger and then his snide smile and threat of demerits as she walked away from him, and his sadistic glow as he broke the reporter’s bones. He was a man who obviously took pleasure in inflicting pain. Was she hurt? Or worse? Was Building 14 a morgue, and the brunette’s body was stashed there, after Hugh’s retribution got out of hand?

Anywhere else, anytime else, that idea would be absurd. Not here. Reality was suspended within the web of the Osiris Foundation.

The windowless, mysterious structure might very well be a house of the dead. Colter Shaw, though, suddenly learned that the woman was not a resident. Head down, she walked directly past Shaw and joined the end of the dining hall line. Without a word of greeting to anyone, she opened her densely filled notebook and began to write.

The iconic fifteen notes composed by the nearly deaf German genius sounded, echoing through the cool, dank evening.

“The time is seven p.m. Dinner is being served. All Companions please report to the dining hall.”

The doors opened and the crowd of about seventy shuffled into the brightly lit room that resembled any one of a thousand school cafeterias around the world. The smell was of grilled meat or fowl. The perfume of Lysol could be detected.

Just inside the doors was a large board: a seating chart. Since everyone — all three levels of Companions: Novice, Apprentice and Journeyman — stopped to look, Shaw guessed that Eli shuffled diners around. Was there a strategy to this? Maybe helping out newcomers who could benefit from the company of mentors.