The Goodbye Man

by Jeffery Deaver

  “Jesus, burned to death.”

  He also described Hugh’s beating of the reporter and the murder of the journalist in San Francisco. “The helicopter? It was SFPD. But guess you didn’t see it. You were busy.”

  Honing her murder weapon, prepping a diversionary fire.

  “They’ve reopened the investigation into the reporter’s murder in San Francisco. Eli and his crew have been meeting about something. I’m worried that evidence’ll start to disappear. Witnesses too. I want to get into the residence and find something I can hand over to the FBI.”

  “So we ruined each other’s plans.” She gave a cool laugh. “You want to bring down Eli too . . . Just for the record, my way’s faster.”

  “Your way comes with a lethal injection.”

  She snickered, meaning: if they catch you. “You mentioned the Bureau.”

  “I have contacts there.”

  The woman scanned the surroundings once more, head cocked, listening for approaching threats.

  Never lose situational awareness.

  He supposed Victoria had a set of her own Never rules.

  “You’re not Carter?”

  “No. Colter.”

  She frowned. “I’ll tell you about it later. You?”

  “Victoria. No need for you to know the last. Where do we go from here?”

  “We’ve got at least one other person on our side.”

  He told her about his ally, Frederick.

  She nodded. “He was in the van with us, at Adam’s death. After Hugh read me the riot act, he was good. Trying to make me feel better about Adam and Hugh’s behavior.”

  “I’m going to try to break into the residence,” Shaw told her. “Frederick’s looking for a phone. Can you help him? He’s in the parking lot.”

  “Why would he believe me?”

  “Tell him I told you I got Walter, Sally and Abby out. He’ll know we talked.”

  “The older couple and that girl, right?”

  “She’s sixteen.”

  Her face revealed her disgust. “And Eli took her to the Study Room?”

  Shaw nodded. “That’s why they killed John. He knew about it.”

  “Son of a bitch.”

  “Meet behind Building C in forty-five minutes.”

  Victoria’s eyes had gone into hunt mode, scanning the grounds, the woods around them. She reached around to her back to make sure the knife was secure.

  Shaw said, “You’re not going to . . .”

  “Kill him?” Victoria asked. “Not at this point in time.” She wasn’t smiling when she said the words.

  58.

  Wouldn’t you know it? The only obvious video camera Shaw had seen in the entire camp sat directly above the one door he now needed to get through. The residence’s back entrance.

  Next steps?

  Growing up in the wilderness, Shaw and his siblings rarely watched films, and they saw virtually no TV shows.

  Ashton and Mary Dove didn’t object to watching big screens or small per se; it was simply a pain to have to trek thirty miles to the nearest theater to see an action-adventure or romantic comedy—literary cinema not being an option at that particular theater.

  As for TV, Ashton’s thinking was that a device that beamed information into your home could also beam information out.

  In recognizing this the man was ahead of his time.

  Shaw did recall that several years ago, he and Margot had seen a caper movie. He’d been amused at the elaborate means the hero used to defeat the security camera: the guy built a set that looked just like the back of the bad guy’s building. He recorded the empty alleyway, then hacked into the power grid, creating a ten second blackout in the neighborhood, during which he set up a miniature projection screen in front of the security cam and began playing the tape of the empty “alleyway.”

  He couldn’t remember if the heist was a success but he never forgot the utterly improbable plan to defeat the camera.

  At the moment, he was looking at a similar one behind Eli’s residence, above the back door.

  Next steps?

  What the hell?

  He seized a rock and flung it into the device, snapping it off the armature. He’d decided that there was a ten percent chance that somebody was continually watching the monitor—Hugh simply didn’t have that large an AU staff. Eli was legitimately concerned for his safety, it seemed, but at most the monitor would be watched at night, when the man would be the most vulnerable.

  Of course, odds are simply odds and Shaw now leaned against a tree and waited to see if any armed guards charged from the castle to stop the invasion.

  Nothing for five minutes. Good enough.

  Shaw went for the unsubtle approach once more and kicked the door in.

  No alarm.

  He stepped in fast and pushed the door closed. The room he found himself in was a storage area, filled with cartons and racks of musty clothing. Dominating one corner were full-sized fiberglass figures of Snow White and the dwarves, though only six, not the full complement. Shaw didn’t bother to speculate about the missing figure or, for that matter, the presence of Disney characters in the basement of a psychotic cult leader’s home.

  The door might not have been used regularly, though Shaw learned that it did have one potential function: an escape route. On the floor were three suitcases and a backpack, the latter of which turned out to be Eli’s go-bag. Inside was several hundred thousand in cash, credit cards in three different names and three passports in those same identities, all with Eli’s picture.

  No phone. No weapons. To Shaw’s irritation.

  He climbed the stairs and eased the door open slowly, revealing a dim, lengthy corridor. He oriented himself and headed in the general direction of the Study Room, whose location he remembered clearly from his time with Anja. He paused to listen every fifteen or twenty feet but heard nothing, other than the taps and creaks of a house growing accustomed to its surroundings—wood settling and walls protesting the pull of gravity.

  Shaw finally found one advantage of the ugly slippers on his feet: his passage was silent.

  He climbed to the second floor and turned left.

  A noise startled him. A tap. Metal on metal.

  Then footsteps coming his way.

  He tested two knobs before he found an unlocked door and stepped into what was a small guest bedroom. He left the door ajar and peered out. He could see only a shadow approaching. A latch up the hall clicked. He heard a grunt. The door slammed shut.

  The clinking of metal once more. A weapon? Had somebody spotted his entry point in the cellar?

  Another door opened and closed, nearer. The grunt was louder.

  The shadow approached. Shaw looked around for something to defend himself with. Break the decorative water bowl and pitcher and hope for a long, sharp shard. His preference to avoid using cutting and stabbing weapons would have to go out the window.

  Slipping the bowl under a blanket, Shaw struck it fast with the pitcher. This resulted in a functional porcelain shiv about eight inches long. He improvised a handle from the doily on the dresser and slid the remaining broken pieces under the bed.

  He eased the door open a bit farther so he could see into the hallway.

  This grunt was very close.

  Shaw gripped the shiv, inhaled deeply and held his breath.

  The stocky middle-aged cleaning woman waddled past, limping, carting a heavy bucket filled with bottles and rags. Her opposite shoulder slumped under a big vacuum on a leather sling, reminding him of a machine gun or rocket launcher. It was the source of the clinking. She also held a metal mop. She was sweating fiercely and her face was anything but happy.

  Shaw slipped the shiv into his waistband and stepped away from the door. The woman, a Journeyman, shuffled past. The grunting and clanking faded.


  Back into the hallway, Shaw continued on to the Study Room.

  He wasn’t surprised that the chamber was empty. The helicopter’s arrival and what Shaw guessed was Eli’s planning sessions—whatever they were—meant there’d be no time for intimacy today, however lustful the man was feeling.

  He found the door in the mural. It was unlocked and he stepped into Eli’s office, which contained a modern glass desk and a leather swivel rocker, several matching armchairs and tables. A bathroom was off to one side—the door slightly ajar—and unoccupied.

  With disgust, Shaw noted the battery-powered video camera pointed into the Study Room.

  A search revealed no phone. The computer was, of course, password protected.

  He noted stacks of documents in neat rows on the desk and he began reading. Nothing incriminating. Typical memos and notes on business plans, real estate prospectuses, notes on new Discourses, files on the Companions, bills.

  Shaw opened one of the four file cabinets against a wall. It would take days to get through them all. But he started on the first, digging through the folders, skimming quickly. He could find no videos of Eli in bed with Companions, though even if he had, this probably wouldn’t be a crime, unless Eli posted them without permission or, of course, they depicted someone underage.

  Something. Just give me something.

  He found no references to the slain reporter Gary Yang or his killer, Harvey Edwards. Or any other obviously criminal activities Eli had engaged in.

  Keep at it.

  Shaw pulled another stack of files out and was halfway through them when he became aware that he wasn’t alone in the room.

  59.

  He’d sensed the presence thanks to what his father described as a radar that tells us when sound waves reverberate around us due to someone’s presence.

  Reaching for the pottery stiletto, he turned.

  Anja stood in the doorway.

  Shaw lowered his hand.

  She asked, “It was you, wasn’t it? The helicopter?”

  A nod. “I found out that Harvey Edwards was a Companion. He killed the reporter in San Francisco just after his article about the Foundation ran. Edwards was a Select, wasn’t he?”

  Anja frowned. “I think so. Are you a policeman too?”

  “No. I have a personal investment in the place.”

  “I knew you weren’t like the others. He’s too blind to see. Everybody’s a mirror to him. He looks at them and he sees himself.”

  “Did Etoile—the detective. Did he interview you?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he ask?”

  “He found out that before Yang was killed somebody broke into his apartment and stole files. His editor said he was doing a follow-up on a cult story. One of them he was researching was the Foundation; there were copies of memos he’d sent to his editor about us. He wondered if Eli or anyone else from the Foundation had been in touch with Edwards recently.”

  “Had they?”

  “I have no idea. We were all relieved when that reporter died. It was a tragedy, but we didn’t want to be in some trashy exposé. I swear I didn’t know that David, that Eli was behind it.”

  “The Selects are muscle, you know. Like hitmen. Suicidal hitmen. That makes them very effective.”

  “He doesn’t tell me anything.”

  “Being told and knowing’re two different things.”

  She looked down to the floor. “Okay. I suspected.”

  “How many Selects are there?”

  “I don’t know. A dozen around the country. A half dozen or so here.”

  Though one less than yesterday.

  “What’s Eli’s plan? To escape somewhere?”

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me what he’s going to do until he does it.”

  “I need your help.”

  Her head sagged. She looked very tired. In a whisper: “He’s all I have.”

  Shaw’s reply was, “I count five deaths since I’ve become aware of the Foundation.”

  She said nothing.

  “This has to end.” Shaw pointed to the computer. “I need to get into that.”

  Tears flowed. “Carter . . . That’s not your name, is it?”

  “The computer.”

  Sobbing now. “He’s all I have! What’m I going to do? Go back to . . . hostessing?”

  “Better than wearing orange for the rest of your life.”

  She sniffed. “You don’t understand. He has this . . . spell. You’d rather die than betray him.”

  Shaw looked her way. “That’s exactly what’s going to happen. Now. What’s the passcode?”

  Wiping her eyes with the sleeve of her purple silk robe, Anja took a deep breath and whispered, “It’s impossible to guess.”

  * * *

  —

  Shaw met Victoria and Frederick behind his dorm.

  Together, the two of them had broken into about twenty cars and trucks without alarms—security was minimal, with most of the AUs absent from the lot—but they found no mobiles in glove compartments or side pockets.

  “Did you find anything?” Victoria asked, looking at the documents in Shaw’s hand.

  He handed them copies. They read in shocked silence.

  Frederick shook his head in dismay. He asked, “How’d you get them?”

  “Anja.”

  In the Study Room, it had amused Shaw to learn that Anja was cooperating, not being obstructive. Eli’s passcode was in fact: “ImpossibleToGuess.”

  This gave Shaw access to much information, though he wasn’t able to go online; the router had a separate passcode that Anja didn’t know, and Shaw didn’t have the time to track it down or try a hack.

  Victoria asked, “Next steps?”

  “You two hike out, call the numbers I’m going to give you and hand those over.” He gave Victoria one set of documents he’d printed out.

  “Not you?” she asked.

  “I can’t.” He showed them another piece of paper.

  Victoria and Frederick pored over it. Her face crinkled with faint, lovely crow’s-feet in the ruddy skin around her eyes. She was an outdoorswoman. Her nails were of medium length, so she didn’t rock-climb. He wondered if she skied or biked.

  Frederick looked up, whispering, “Jesus.”

  Victoria grimaced as she read the words. “You sure you want to do this? It could go south in a really bad way.”

  “You see any other choice?”

  Looking over the document again, she said, “No, I don’t. But how’re you going to pull it off?”

  Shaw said, “I was thinking we’ll find something in the kitchen.”

  She thought for a moment. Her frown vanished. “Oh. That’s good.”

  60.

  A half hour later, after the kitchen run and several other errands, Shaw, Frederick and Victoria were in the woods behind Shaw’s dorm once again. He pushed aside leaves and uncovered his war clubs, handed Victoria one. She eyed it with admiration. She slapped the head into her left palm.

  Frederick, the frozen yogurt guru, simply stared at the weapons.

  Shaw opened his notebook and showed them his map, indicating the gate in the east. “You can be at the highway in forty-five minutes.”

  “Thirty,” she said.

  So Victoria was a runner.

  She glanced at Frederick.

  He said, “I’ll try.” He looked into the woods. He said, “Northeast. Do we . . . I mean, do we look for moss?”

  “Moss?” Shaw asked.

  “You know—for directions. So we don’t get lost.”

  Shaw and Victoria both frowned his way. She said, “The sun.”

  “Oh. You can do that?”

  A trekker too.

  Shaw said, “Stop a driver. Tell him there’s bee
n a crime—assault or something—and ask to use his phone.” Shaw wrote Mack’s and Tom Pepper’s phone numbers on another sheet from the notebook and gave it to Victoria.

  Frederick asked, “Why not just nine-one-one?”

  Victoria said, “No. That’ll be routed to the closest LEA. That’s Snoqualmie Gap. Can’t let them know; they’re being paid off by Eli and Hugh.”

  Shaw continued, “If nobody stops or there’re no cars, go north. There’s a truck stop.” He handed her the credit card he’d taken from his luggage during the break-in earlier. “Now, get going.”

  “Oh. One thing.” Frederick looked at Shaw. He withdrew a notebook from his waistband. “It’s one of Adam’s. I thought you might want it.”

  Shaw nodded with gratitude and slipped it into his own waistband.

  Then Frederick and Victoria began jogging into the woods, the club handle tucked into her waistband, beside the knife. Frederick wasn’t at her level of conditioning but now—at the beginning, at least—he was keeping pace.

  The musical tones rang out from the loudspeakers throughout the camp, followed by instructions to assemble in the Square. This would be the ceremony Eli had announced earlier.

  Shaw folded the papers he’d gotten from Eli’s office and tucked them in his notebook. He was reaching for his war club when he heard a voice from the front of his dorm.

  “Hello, Novice Carter.”

  A trim man of thirty-five or so approached from the front of the dorm, arms at his side. Shaw couldn’t see his rank; he wore a blue sweater. But as he gave the salute he said, “Journeyman Timothy.”

  Shaw rose, leaving the club on the ground and, returning the gesture, he approached quickly so the man wouldn’t notice the weapon. “It’s Apprentice now.”

  “Really! So soon. Good for you! That’s right, you were expedited.” Timothy was fit, athletic and his blond hair was moussed up in a rooster’s crown. He had pinched features, a wrinkle on the bridge of his upturned nose. His skin was pocked. An illness or bad acne when young.

  “We should get to the Summons, Apprentice Carter.”