Джеффри Дивер - The Goodbye Man

Then he headed to the dining hall. He knew the correct concentration of the drug. It would do nothing worse than induce vomiting. Provided Victoria wasn’t allergic, of course.

The odds of that?

He didn’t play the percentage game. He wasn’t going to let a sexual assault happen and, since she was going to the clinic, the doctors would recognize an allergic reaction and respond accordingly.

As far as administering the verbena to her, that was easy.

Shaw set fire to the buffet table.

When he’d gotten his plate, he’d slid a napkin near the Sterno can. As he returned to his seat, it flared up. With everyone’s eyes on the flames, he’d stepped to Victoria’s table and — reaching across it for a water pitcher to play fireman — he opened his palm, releasing the verbena onto her plate of lasagna. He could see she never noticed.

The effects of that dosage, he knew, wouldn’t last long. She’d be feeling better already, physically. But he was sure she was still dismayed that she’d missed the chance to give herself to the man who was teaching her how to reunite with her lost family.

As he now stepped from the dining hall into the cool, clear evening, Shaw knew she’d be hoping for another chance to visit Eli in the Study Room.

But that wouldn’t happen.

For her or anyone else.

Colter Shaw would make certain of that.

Just give me one document about an offshore bank account in Nevis or Saint Thomas, Shaw thought. Maybe a video Eli filmed of liaisons in the Study Room, revealing a sexual assault. A memo hinting at tax evasion.

What Shaw hoped for most was something linking Eli to the murder of journalist Yang in San Francisco. A phone bill, emails.

He also wanted a list of the other Selects and where they were located. These men were, of course, time bombs.

Shaw would ideally find something, then hike out of the camp east to the highway and get the evidence to federal or state police, not the corrupt Snoqualmie Gap cops.

Where would be the best places to find something incriminating?

Administration, of course.

Building 14? He was looking at it now. Still two AUs in chairs in the front. Why the guards? And what was the purpose of the earlier furtive visit by the Selects?

Eli’s residence too. It would probably be the source for the most damning evidence, if there were any. Eli would keep it close to home.

He’d start with Building 14. He slipped into the strip of grass on the eastern edge of the camp and made his way to the back of the structure.

Shaw noted no security cameras. The AUs in front were talking, which meant they were distracted. Would they patrol back here? Not likely at this time of night, but even if so, on a windless evening he’d hear them coming.

The back door was a solid piece of wood, no windows. He examined the jamb carefully — no evidence of an alarm but, nowadays, there were so many subtle security systems, there could easily be one. The odds? He’d already been told there’d never been a theft here. Why go to the expense of an alarm? He recalled too that when the golf cart of Selects had entered the building the other day, they didn’t seem to have to shut off any security systems.

Shaw placed the risk of alarm at twenty percent.

Low enough to take the chance.

As for the entry itself? Not a problem. His father had drummed into the children that there might be occasions when they would have to break the law — to escape from threats, to steal food and weapons, to survive.

“Survival,” he liked to say, “bends the ethics.”

And so Ashton taught Dorion, Colter and Russell the basics of lock picking. This door was as simple as they came. No deadbolt. The locking mechanism was in the knob: a tumbler for the key, a face plate, a striking plate. A pro would go in through the keyhole with a motorized lock pick. Bang, open in ten seconds. Shaw didn’t have that luxury, though he did have an alternative tool: a dinner knife, which he’d just copped from the table in the dining hall. He supposed there might be an inventory but sometimes you just had to take a chance or two.

It was a simple if tedious job. The technique was to insert the blade, use it to slide the bolt away from the hole where it was seated in the strike plate. Then you pulled on the door hard to grip the bolt, which was spring-loaded, keeping it from popping back into the locked position. Shaw did this a dozen times, moving the bolt a millimeter each instance. Two dozen. Three.

Finally with a last tug, he pulled the door open. No lights, no blaring alarms.

He examined the ceiling and walls. No cameras.

He stepped inside and eased the door shut. The place was dim but illuminated by light bleeding in from under the front door and, faintly, through the painted windows.

Shaw looked around him. If he wasn’t so conscious of trying to remain absolutely quiet, he would have sighed angrily.

What was the secret that the AUs were guarding and that the zombie-like Selects had carted in?

Gardening supplies.

That was all: bags of carrot, wheat, corn, green bean seeds and fertilizer, containers of rodent and pest killer, rakes and hoes, some gas-powered tillers.

No firearms.

No file cabinets.

Discouraged, Shaw left the building and eased the door quietly closed. He listened for a moment but sensed no variation in the guards’ monotonous conversation at the front of the building. They hadn’t heard his intrusion.

He walked to the Administration building next. There was a back door here too — the one through which Hugh’s boys had dragged that poor reporter, Klein. Through the windows he could see workers, walking up and down the corridors. Three offices were illuminated and a half-dozen people came and went. Shaw guessed selling immortality was a booming business. He’d have to try a different time.

It was then he heard a snap and rustle in the brush. He dropped to his knees and turned toward the woods, irritated at his ridiculous light-blue costume, which even in the negligible moonlight made him stand out in contrast to the black-green grass and foliage. He closed his eyes briefly — to help focus his hearing — and listened. Yes. Another, similar sound. Not steps so much as a settling, as if a spy were crouching the same way he was, to make a smaller target of himself. He thought again of Frederick.

Or was someone else following him?

A killer Select?

He remained absolutely silent.

Nothing more.

Get on with the task.

The third source for incriminating evidence — the residence.

He eased up to it, staying in the bushes. The large structure would be occupied too, of course. The two bodyguards, Squat and Gray. Steve would be somewhere in the building by now. The dressing-down in the dining hall would mean little to him. Puppies like that didn’t go very far from their masters, even after their leashes were jerked.

Gazing at the octagon atop the building, Shaw saw Anja staring out the window over the camp, which to her was probably just a pattern of yellow lights. She was brushing her long hair absently. He didn’t see Eli.

The fifteen notes reverberated on the cool air. “The time is now ten p.m. All Companions will return to their dormitories. The curfew is now in effect.”

He couldn’t afford to be caught. He’d storm the castle tomorrow.

Besides, according to the rules, the wild animals were descending on the camp, impatient, and eager for their entrees.

With the absence of clocks and watches, Colter Shaw didn’t know the exact time when they came for him.

The sky was still dark and he felt as if he’d slept for only an hour; he guessed it was around midnight when his door crashed open and two burly AUs seized him by the arms and dragged him out of bed.