Deadlock

by Robert Liparulo

  Hutch pulled his head in and shut the door. Was the package from the person who was watching him? Most likely. But what if it was from someone else, someone who wanted to help? As a reporter, he often fielded calls from tattletales who wanted to remain anonymous. If the package was evidence against Page, he had to retrieve it . . . before someone else did. If it had not been left by Mr. Mustang, then that guy must have seen someone drop it off. Wouldn’t he come for it, score some extra points from the boss?

  Hutch cracked the door again and squinted at the colorful bag. He imagined grabbing its hardened-twine handles, spotting the spark of a detonator, then . . . nothing.

  He was being stupid. If they wanted to kill him, all they had to do was kick the door in and machine-gun the place. Or shoot at it with a grenade launcher. Or—he thought, disgusted with himself—put a mercury-switched bomb in a bag outside his motel door.

  He considered his options, and realized they were pretty slim: retrieve the bag or not. He would like to learn more—and thought of a way to do it.

  He opened the door and flipped the bolt so it wouldn’t close. He slipped on his leather jacket, crossed the room, and entered the bathroom. Over the toilet was a small window, glazed with pebbled glass. He unlocked it and slid it up. If there had ever been a screen on it, it wasn’t there now. Beyond a twenty-foot firebreak, the bathroom light caught the first vestiges of a dense forest.

  As he climbed through, the window kept coming down on him: first on his head, then shoulders, lower back, legs. He dropped down onto dirt and gravel and shot quickly to the edge of the forest. If Page’s people were watching him with any level of thoroughness, they would be keeping their eye on this open area behind the motel. Light shone through only three of the back windows. Still, he counted the windows from the edge of the building far to his left to make sure he knew which was his. He might have to reenter the way he left.

  Moving along the edge of the forest, he kept a lookout for anything that could help him—or anyone who would want to hurt him. He found one thing right away—a twig the diameter of a garden hose. After breaking protrusions off of it, the twig was in the shape of a pistol.

  The firebreak extended another twenty feet past the end of the building, where a shorter wing of the motel branched away. It was at the end of this extension that the Mustang had been parked.

  Hutch continued along the edge of the forest and turned right when it did. Halfway to the end of the building he stopped. The trees glowed red, then fell back into darkness. The man had touched his brake again, but something else made Hutch’s heart leap. In the brief glow in the brake lights, he thought he’d seen movement among the trees. A figure seemed to have darted behind foliage to escape the light.

  Did Mr. Mustang have a partner? Did they know that Hutch had sneaked out of his room? If they did, wouldn’t the partner have moved deeper into the woods sooner? Why not hide and wait for him?

  He decided to treat the movement he’d seen as a man, not an animal or a trick of his eye. He also chose to assume he had not been discovered. He considered moving deeper into the woods and finding the man lurking there. But the man would be difficult to spot in these dense woods, and even harder to sneak up on. That left returning the way he had come or getting to Mr. Mustang too quickly for his partner to react.

  The latter idea appealed to him more, since he still wanted to know who Mr. Mustang was and what he knew about the package. He continued edging toward the front of the building and the car, more carefully now. He listened for movement within the forest, watched for another clue to the man’s whereabouts. By the time he came even with the Mustang, he had not spotted the second man again.

  He crouched low and held his breath. The sound of a television program drifted from one of the rooms. Across the parking lot, the cursive neon words that told travelers the motel had vacancies flickered and hummed. Wind made the treetops sound like surf. If another man was nearby in the woods, he wasn’t moving.

  Stick to the plan, Hutch thought. Move fast. Grab him and go.

  A terrible scenario occurred to him: his standing at the driver’s door, yanking up and down on the handle, as both the man inside and his partner in the woods took a bead on him. He crawled farther along the tree line until the driver’s side was visible. He had hoped to see a window rolled down, maybe the driver’s elbow sticking out, but it was late November and the air had teeth. No one in his right mind would sit in weather like this with the windows down.

  The brake lights flashed on, illuminating the ground between the Mustang and Hutch—illuminating Hutch. The glow was so bright it allowed him to see Mr. Mustang’s face in the side mirror. The man’s eyes flicked to the mirror and away, then back again. They had become the size of silver dollars.

  Hutch ran for him. If the car door was locked, he would break the window: no hesitation. He pushed even harder, knowing his only chance was to get there before the man could pull a weapon or his partner could get off a shot. The toe of his shoe struck the edge of the blacktop, and he almost went down. Instead, he pinwheeled his arms and used the momentum to crash into the side of the Mustang. Before he could fully gain his feet, he had the door open—not locked! —and was grabbing at the man within. His fingers found a collar. He tugged at it, pulling the man sideways out of the car.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” the man was saying.

  Hutch jabbed the business end of the pistol-shaped branch into his ribs. He said, “Get up. On your feet.”

  They stood together. Now what? Hutch thought. He looked into the woods, expecting a muzzle flash or someone barreling directly at him. He moved his hand to the back of the man’s collar, the branch to his spine. He shoved him forward.

  “Okay,” Hutch said. “Let’s go.”

  TWENTY

  The man didn’t move. He said, “Wait! But—”

  “Shut up,” Hutch said. “Just move. Fast.”

  They approached the door and the bag sitting in front of it.

  Hutch said, “What’s in the bag?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Hutch cracked him in the head with the branch. He repeated the question.

  “I don’t . . . I saw someone set it down, knock on the door. That’s all I know!”

  “Who?” Hutch jerked back on the man’s collar, then pushed him forward again.

  “I . . . Don’t . . . Know.”

  “Don’t touch it,” Hutch said. “Open the door. Just push it.”

  Mr. Mustang’s foot snagged on the gift bag’s handle. He fell into the room, pulling the package with him.

  Hutch grimaced—but only for the millisecond he figured it would take for the bomb to detonate. When nothing happened, he once more scanned the area behind him. The porch lights did not reach far into the parking lot, but he saw nothing alarming and didn’t hear anything like the scampering of feet, the slamming of car doors, or the chambering of shells in weapons. He stepped inside and slammed the door.

  Mr. Mustang was rising to his knees. He was showing Hutch his hands, that they were empty. “I can explain.”

  Hutch pressed his back against the motel room door. His eyes fell to the thing that had fallen out of the bag. It lay on the floor between him and Mr. Mustang. It was black, about the size of a hardback book—or the box of cigars Page had promised. Could it be? It must have been upside down; he could not make out any lettering or other distinguishing features.

  He said, “What is that thing?”

  The other man shook his head. “I’m not the one who left it for you. I don’t know who did.”

  “But you saw him. What can you tell me?”

  “I didn’t see a car or anything. He just walked out of the darkness, set it down, and left. Black pants, black jacket. White guy. Brown or blond hair.”

  Hutch turned and put his eye to the door’s peephole. He sidestepped to the window. He looked through the blinds at the parking lot. His rental and a couple others shone in the light. Nothing else. He closed the curtains over the w
indow. When he turned back to Mr. Mustang, the man had the fingers of both hands interlaced on top of his head. His skin was ashen. His bottom lip—his entire body—quivered. This was no private investigator, let alone one of Page’s professional soldiers.

  Hutch said, “What do you do?”

  “Do?”

  “For a living.”

  “I’m an . . . I’m an . . . accountant.”

  Hutch had interviewed a few of them over the years. Enough for him to figure out if the guy was telling the truth. He said, “CPA?”

  The man nodded. “Small practice in Portland. Just me.”

  “What’s the professional organization most of you guys belong to?”

  “You guys who?”

  “CPAs.”

  “The . . . uh . . . AICPA. The American Institute of—”

  “Okay. Put your hands down,” Hutch said. “Why are you following me?”

  “I recognized you. From the newspaper articles. I’ve been researching Page Industries. Hard not to run into your name and picture lately.”

  “Why are you researching Page’s companies?”

  “My son. He joined Outis. He—”

  “Wait a sec,” Hutch said. He knelt beside the black box. He lifted it: heavy. He turned it over and returned it to the carpet. The other side appeared to be a flat-screen monitor. The only other features were two ventlike grooves running the length of the device above the screen—a speaker or microphone, he guessed.

  Mr. Mustang walked on his knees toward Hutch. “What is it?”

  “Looks like a TV.”

  “No switches,” the man observed. “Any place to plug a computer into? Anything like that?”

  Hutched picked it up and rotated it, inspecting each side carefully. “No,” he said. “I can’t even find a seam or any way this thing was put together.” He kept looking.

  Mr. Mustang cleared his throat. “Name’s Jim.”

  “Hutch. What about your son?”

  Jim frowned. “They won’t let me see him.”

  “It’s a closed academy,” Hutch said. “There are designated days for parents.”

  Jim was shaking his head before Hutch finished. “Something’s wrong.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  Jim rose from the floor, sat on the bed. He draped his arms across his legs. “I never liked it, right from the beginning. Too secretive. Too strict. Michael—that’s my boy—he wanted to do something with his life, but he didn’t do so well in high school, almost didn’t graduate. Outis came by his school. He came home with a brochure, an application. He was pretty excited. But ever since he’s been there, he’s been getting worse.”

  “Worse how?”

  “Temperamental, moody. When he calls, it’s not unusual for him to snap at me or his mother about something: we ask too many questions, we didn’t put enough beef jerky in our care package, we’re not speaking loud enough . . . silly stuff. When he came home for Christmas last year, he spent most of the time in bed. Didn’t want to hang out or talk. He hasn’t been home since. He told us a few months ago he wouldn’t be coming for Thanksgiving or Christmas. His mother is heartbroken.” His voice cracked on this last word. He wiped at his eyes. “Hell, I’m heartbroken.”

  “And you’re here to—what? Get him? Take him home?” Fat chance, Hutch thought.

  “I don’t know. I just need to see him, know he’s all right. He called this morning. He . . .” Jim dropped his face into his palms.

  Hutch touched his leg. “What’d he say?”

  Jim spoke without looking up. “He just cried.” He lowered his hands, found Hutch’s eyes. “He didn’t say hi, good-bye, Dad, nothing. I answered the phone, and it was him, crying. I tried to talk to him, find out what’s wrong, but he continued to weep for two, three minutes. Then he hung up.”

  Hutch’s heart ached for the man. He said, “Michael’s his name?”

  Jim nodded.

  “Do you think he’d come home now . . . if they let him?”

  Jim smiled sadly. “You’re the first person I’ve talked to who seems to know there’s an ‘if they let him’ factor to Outis. They call it a military academy, a training facility for private soldiers. But it’s more like a cult, or like they’ve kidnapped these kids, knowing they’ll come around to wanting to be there. It’s like . . .” He shook his head. “What’s that thing where hostages grow attached to their captors?”

  “Stockholm syndrome.” Hutch had heard the term applied to Outis’s methods before. He’d discovered a blog on which a mother had complained of this very thing. He tried to contact her, but the blog came down, her phone number was disconnected, and he couldn’t uncover an address.

  “I’m scared for him,” Jim said. “I’ve talked to other parents whose kids . . .” He stood, rubbed his face, walked to the door, turned back. “It’s like Outis simply swallows them. They get moved from facility to facility. I talked to one guy who was trying to get his kid out of there. He finally got his boy back.”

  “There, see?”

  Jim’s eyes bore into him. “In a body bag. An ‘accident’ during a training mission.”

  Hutch barely discerned a high-pitched whine, similar to the charging of photographic flashes.

  “I’m so afraid—” Jim started.

  Hutch held his hand up, cutting the man off. He brought his finger to his lips, straining to locate the source of the sound. As his eyes came to rest on the device, its screen flickered to life. He picked it up and sat on the bed. On the screen, a light zipped past and was gone, as though the camera were in a dark room and had panned past a single point of illumination. Different shades of blackness moved on the screen. He could make out nothing.

  Jim stepped over. He put a knee on the bed and watched. “What is it?”

  “Somebody moving through darkness, I think.”

  The angle changed, and Hutch gasped. It was his house in Colorado. The camera was outside. It was approaching the three windows that bent around one corner of the dining nook, next to the kitchen. The windows glowed brightly. Each time the camera swept away to capture darkness—Hutch knew it was an angle into the backyard—and returned, the windows flared with blurry whiteness for half a second. Then the camera would adjust, and the image would become as clear as a Spielberg movie.

  The camera approached a window, revealing the interior of Hutch’s house. The dining table was clear except for a water glass and a dried-flower centerpiece his mother had given him as a housewarming gift. Movement in the background, over the countertop that separated the eating area from the kitchen.

  His heart quaked in his chest. Laura was moving around, transferring dishes from counter to sink, wiping a cloth over the surfaces. Hutch touched the screen. Little rings of discoloration radiated out from each fingertip. He moved his hand away, using it to cover his mouth.

  “Do you know her?” Jim said. “What is this?”

  All Hutch could do was stare.

  The camera turned away and caught a figure darting across the yard. The person could have been of either gender, but something—the broadness of the shoulders, the muscular impression of its body and limbs—seemed masculine to Hutch. The man was dressed in black. A utility belt bounced against his waist. He had a low-profile pack strapped to his back. He wore a helmet—similar to a motorcyclist’s, the kind with a dark shield that completely masked the face. It was smooth and sleek, more like a mask than a helmet. Close to his chest, the man held a rifle or machine gun.

  As alien as his physical appearance was, his movements were more so. Crouching low, he darted to the edge of the back porch in short bursts of speed. His head snapped this way and that, seeming almost robotic, too quick. The man bolted around the corner column, which supported the porch roof, and disappeared. If he continued in that direction, he would pass the living room and reach the patio door into the master bedroom.

  The image came back around to the window. Laura walked to the table, picked up the glass, and returned to the kitchen
.

  “You know what this is?” Jim said.

  “My house,” Hutch whispered.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “When was this recorded?”

  “I don’t know. I—”

  The image on the screen angled away from the kitchen to one of the other dining area walls. It zoomed in to a clock: 8:11.

  Hutch wanted to scream, but he could barely breathe. He checked his watch, knowing what he would find: one hour behind the time on the screen. When his plane had touched down in Seattle that morning, he had adjusted his watch to Pacific time.

  “It’s live,” he said.

  “How can that be?” Jim said. Then: “They can hear us.”

  The device in Hutch’s hand crackled with static. A voice came through. “Indeed, I can.”

  Hutch almost dropped it. He said, “Page? What the hell are you doing?”

  “Just demonstrating my reach. Mr. O’Dey, I see you’ve joined us. A lesson for you as well.”

  The image on the screen had returned to the eating area and kitchen, as viewed through the window. Laura opened a cupboard, then another, looking for something. Somebody ran into view from the living room—Logan. The boy scanned the area, then quickly moved past the kitchen and the table. He disappeared off the right edge of the monitor. The camera panned in that direction. It moved over the stuccoed side of the house and stopped on another lighted window. It moved in, showing Hutch’s utility room. Logan was squatting on the far side of the dryer, peering over the top toward the room’s entrance.

  “Does he see something?” Jim said. “What’s he doing?”

  “See his smile?” Hutch said. “They’re playing . . . hide-and-seek by the looks of it.”

  I knew you’d warm up to Dillon.

  He could not believe what he was thinking. Armed men had surrounded his house, the people he loved, and here he was giving his son a thumbs-up for getting along. But he realized at once what was going on; he’d written about it. He was so shocked by the events, his mind had hiccupped. Psychologists disagreed about whether it was a form of denial, one a healthy person quickly overcame, or simply a stunned pause before the brain caught up with reality—like the seconds between conking your head and realizing you just conked your head.