Харлан Кобен - Run Away

Dee Dee has left the building , Ash said to himself. Holly is here now.

He watched her walk through the gate. He tilted his torso to the right, so his eyes could follow her up a path. There were other women milling about, all dressed in the same drab-gray uniform. No men. Maybe they were in a different area.

The two guards saw that he was watching Dee Dee and the compound. They didn’t like it. So they stood in front of his car to block his view. He debated shifting the car into drive, hitting the gas, and mowing the fuckers down. Instead he chose to turn the car off and get out. The guards didn’t like that, but then again they didn’t like much that he did.

The first thing that hit Ash as he got out of the car was the silence. It was pure, heavy, almost suffocating but in a good way. There were normally sounds everywhere, even in the deepest part of the woods, but there was only quiet here. Ash didn’t move for a moment, didn’t even want to risk shattering the silence by shutting his car door. He stood and closed his eyes and let the quiet consume him. For a second or two, he got it. Or thought he got it. The appeal. He could surrender to this, this quiet, this tranquility. It would be so easy to turn over control and reason and thoughts. Just be.

Surrender.

Yes, that was that applicable word. Let someone else do the heavy mental work. Just toil or live in the moment. Get sucked into the stillness. Hear your heart beating in your chest.

But this wasn’t a life.

It was a vacation, a break, a cocoon. It was the Matrix or virtual reality or something like that. And maybe when you grow up like he did — or more, like Dee Dee did — a comforting delusion beats harsh reality.

But not in the long run.

He took out a cigarette.

“Smoking is forbidden,” one of the guards said.

Ash lit up.

“I said—”

“Shh. Don’t spoil the quiet.”

Guard One took a step toward Ash, but Guard Two put a hand out to block him. Ash leaned against the car, took a deep inhale, made a production out of blowing the smoke out. Guard One was not pleased. Ash heard the crackle of a walkie-talkie. Guard Two leaned in and whispered into it.

Ash made a face. Who uses walkie-talkies anymore? Don’t they have mobile phones?

A few seconds later, Guard Two whispered something in the ear of Guard One. Guard One grinned.

“Hey, tough guy,” Guard One said.

Ash let loose another long trail of smoke.

“You’re wanted up in the sanctuary.”

Ash started toward them.

“No smoking inside Truth Haven.”

Ash was going to argue, but what was the point? He threw the cigarette onto the road and crushed it under his foot. Guard Two had opened the gate with a remote control. Ash took in the setup now — the fencing, the security cameras, the remote. Pretty high tech.

He started toward the opening, but Guard One stopped him with his AR-15.

“You armed, tough guy?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe hand the weapon over to me then.”

“Aw, can’t I keep my gun?”

Both guards pointed their weapons at him.

“Holster on my right side,” Ash said.

Guard One reached for it, felt nothing.

Ash sighed. “That’s your right, not mine.”

Guard One slid his hand to the other side of Ash’s body and removed the .38.

“Nice piece,” the guard said.

“Put it in my glove compartment,” Ash said.

“Excuse me?”

“I won’t bring it in, but I’m leaving here with it. Put it in my car. The door is open.”

Guard One didn’t like it, but Guard Two nodded that he should listen. So he did. When the task was completed, Guard One made a big deal of slamming the door really hard.

“Any other weapons?” Guard One asked.

“No.”

Guard Two gave him a cursory search anyway. When he was done, Guard One gestured with his head for him to proceed through the gate. They flanked Ash as they entered the compound — Guard One on his right, Guard Two on his left.

Ash wasn’t overly concerned. He figured that Dee Dee had spoken to the Truth or the Volunteer or whoever and that they wanted to see him. Dee Dee hadn’t made it clear, but it seemed pretty obvious that someone in the cult was paying for these hits. Dee Dee wasn’t coming up with the cash or the names on her own.

Someone in this cult wanted these guys dead.

They started up the hill. Ash wasn’t sure what he expected to find inside Truth Haven, but the overriding word to describe the compound was... “generic.” In a clearing, Ash could make out a building painted the same drab gray as the uniform, maybe three stories high. The architecture was rectangular and functional and had all the personality of a roadside chain motel. Or maybe military barracks. Or maybe, and perhaps most accurately, it looked like a prison.

There were no breaks from the drab gray — no splashes of color, no texture, no warmth.

But maybe that was the point. There were no distractions.

There was nature, pushed to the side, and of course there was beauty in that. There was calm and quiet and solitude. If you are troubled, if you feel out of place amongst normal society, if you are desperately trying to escape modernity and its noises and constant stimulation, what locale could be better? That was how cults worked, wasn’t it? Find the disillusioned outcasts. Offer them easy answers. Isolate. Induce dependency. Control. Allow only one voice, one that cannot be questioned or doubted.

Succumb.

Several three-story drab-gray structures formed a courtyard. They led him across it. All windows and doors faced the courtyard, so you couldn’t even view the trees from your room. The courtyard had green grass and wooden benches, again painted in drab gray, and the benches, like the windows, all faced a large statue sitting high atop a pedestal with the word TRUTH written on all sides. The statue was maybe fifteen feet high. It was of a beatific Casper Vartage, his hands raised, half exaltation, half embrace of his flock. That was what you saw from every window — “The Truth” staring you in the face.

There were more women in the courtyard, all uniformed, all wearing headgear of some kind. None spoke. None made a sound. None so much as glanced at this stranger in their midst.

Ash was getting a bad feeling about this.

Guard One unlocked a door and signaled for Ash to enter. The room had polished hardwood floors. On the wall were portraits of three men. The portraits formed a triangle. The Truth aka Casper Vartage was at the top. His two sons — you could see the resemblance — were below him on either side. The Volunteer and the Visitor, Ash assumed. Some folding chairs were stacked in the corner. That was it in terms of decor. If one of the walls was mirrored, you might mistake this for an exercise studio.

Guards One and Two came and stood by the door.

Ash didn’t like this.

“What’s going on?”

They didn’t speak. Guard Two left. He was alone now with a heavily armed Guard One. Guard One grinned at him.

The bad feeling grew.

Ash started mentally prepping. Suppose, as he had already, that the cult had been the ones who hired him. Perhaps the people he killed were all former members of the cult, though on the surface that didn’t seem to add up. Gorse, for example, was a gay tattoo-parlor owner who lived in New Jersey. Gano was married with kids outside Boston. But still, it could be that. Maybe they were Truthers in their youth, and for some reason they needed now to be silenced.

Or maybe there was another motive. It didn’t matter.

What did matter was that Ash had done the job. The money had come through. Ash knew how to get funds and transfer them around so they wouldn’t be found. He’d been paid in full — half on taking each job, half on completion.