The Man Who Walks Away

by Dan Ames

  So, he hoped that his home felt warm and welcoming.

  Because he didn’t just want Pauling to feel at home.

  He wanted her to stay.

  5

  The businessman's name was Scott Foster. He was from Los Angeles and had made his considerable wealth as a producer on some of Hollywood's biggest films.

  In the circles of the rich and famous in Tinseltown his name was very well known.

  Which is why on this day he was no longer a businessman.

  He was a hunter.

  He had purchased the property nearly a decade ago because it fulfilled all of his needs; the hunting lodge was remote, isolated, and none of his associates in California knew anything about it.

  It was south of Death Valley near the border with Nevada and getting to the property required an all-wheel drive vehicle as there were no roads.

  Power came from a generator and in one of the many outbuildings were several all-terrain vehicles.

  Foster had gassed up one of the ATVs and ridden it for nearly an hour and a half into the barren foothills with nothing but a satellite phone and a high-powered rifle.

  He’d been hunting for the better part of the day when he first noticed the buzzards. Since he'd seen nothing up to that point, the sight of the huge birds piqued his curiosity.

  Foster wound his way closer to the birds, first on the ATV and then on foot. He was curious what the buzzards were feeding on and if it was a dead animal, what kind. It might also tell him the type of large predators that were active and what they were hunting.

  He worked his way closer to the spot below the circling birds but he paused. Just in case whatever might have killed the object of he buzzards’ attention was still around.

  The building had just come into view and he was a bit surprised. He’d been hunting up here for quite some time and had no idea that a structure even existed here.

  Foster stopped several hundred yards away and used high-powered binoculars to get a better look.

  What he saw caused him to blink and then blink again.

  At first, he wondered if it was a joke. Or maybe he was being filmed, like a practical joke of sorts.

  He looked through the binoculars again and watched carefully as the buzzards fought over the lifeless form at the rear of a small farmhouse of sorts. Or maybe it was a deserted hunting cabin and the hunters had carelessly disposed of some entrails.

  Foster glanced over at his satellite phone and saw that his signal was plenty strong to make a phone call.

  He shook his head, unsure of what he was really seeing.

  As a Hollywood producer, he’d brought to the big screen many films that were pure entertainment, often requiring the viewer to suspend disbelief.

  Because deep down, everyone knew it was all made up.

  Fiction.

  So he picked up the binoculars and looked again, willing himself to be wrong.

  But he wasn’t.

  Scott Foster didn't want to believe what he was seeing but his eyes and his mind realized there was only one option.

  The buzzards were feeding on the body of a human being.

  6

  Pauling settled into her seat in first class on a direct flight out of LaGuardia.

  When the flight attendants offered her a beverage, she ordered a gin and tonic.

  What the heck, she thought. I’m unemployed.

  But then she corrected herself because, technically, she was employed by the firm who had bought her out. Part of the deal was an annual consulting fee of $100,000 a year but there were no duties required for it.

  As she sipped her drink she thought about what was waiting for her on the other end of this trip.

  She and Michael Tallon had a long history.

  They had worked together many times and it wasn't until he suggested she leave New York to come and spend time with him that things had gotten serious.

  It had simply worked out that as she weighed the offer from Tallon, at the same time, she was contemplating the enormous offer from her biggest and most aggressive competitor. One with very, very deep pockets.

  So as much as she considered compromising and saying yes to one offer and not to the other, she didn’t. At this point in her life she knew what she wanted and more importantly, what she didn’t want.

  So she said yes to both offers.

  While selling her firm was permanent, the “yes” to Michael Tallon was more of a test venture. She hadn’t made that explicitly clear to Tallon, but Pauling was fairly certain he knew. He wasn’t exactly the new kid on the block, and neither was she.

  Pauling looked at some of the other passengers in first class, most of them men. They were hunched over their respective laptops working furiously, combing through spreadsheets and PowerPoint presentations, probably ready to hit the ground running as soon as they landed.

  She closed her eyes and thought about her past relationships, some of them serious and some not so serious.

  Again, she thought of Reacher and how that was one of the few relationships where it wasn’t serious, but she had wanted it to be. Most times, it was the other way around.

  But that wasn’t Reacher’s way, she understood that. And had made peace with the knowledge.

  Pauling looked out her window and saw a mountain range pass underneath them, making her feel like she was crossing borders and entering new territory.

  She was happy. No doubt about it. She was very much looking forward to seeing Tallon, spending time with him and that feeling was without reservation. It was liberating and for the first time in a long time, she felt pure freedom.

  Pauling cared very deeply about Tallon and when the wheels of the plane touched down she moved quickly through the terminal, retrieved her bag and spotted a person holding a sign.

  The letters on the sign had caught her eye. They were big, block letters spelling out PAULING.

  And beneath the sign was a handsome and extremely well-built man.

  Pauling smiled.

  Michael Tallon.

  7

  Sheriff Melanie Bordeau parked her cruiser in the driveway of the remote farmhouse and shut off the engine.

  It had already been a long morning and now she was having to deal with what she was sure would turn out to be a hoax or a misunderstanding. Or, as often was the case, a hunter suffering from a monumental hangover so severe it created hallucinations.

  Over the years, she’d gotten calls from hunters who’d seen Bigfoot, werewolves and ghosts. In one instance, all at the same time.

  Eventually, they’d all admitted they were either horribly hungover or detoxing from drugs. In one case – it was an absence of drugs. A hunter from San Diego had forgotten his prescription antidepressants and withdrawal had caused him to see his dead grandmother throwing her famous homemade biscuits at him.

  Bordeau glanced up in the sky and noted the buzzards.

  Well, that might be something, she thought.

  The call from dispatch had said a hunter had found a dead body. A human body, which was why she had been skeptical. This was hunting country, as well as home to plenty of bears and mountain lions. Deer carcasses had a way of showing up repeatedly and once in awhile some person with a good imagination assumed the body was human.

  Bordeau had a feeling this was going to be another simple misunderstanding and she could get back to her regular routine of checking hunting licenses and settling innocuous domestic disputes.

  She left the cruiser and approached a man who was sitting astride an ATV. Bordeau could see the hunting rifle in its scabbard strapped to the side of the vehicle.

  The man slid off the ATV and approached her.

  “Hello officer,” he said.

  He was a tall man, with perfect hair and white teeth. She immediately assumed he was a wealthy businessman from Los Angeles, out “roughing” it in his Ralph Lauren hunting clothes.

  “Afternoon,” she replied. “You called in about a body?”

  “Yeah, it’s behind
the house,” he said.

  “What’s your name?” Bordeau asked.

  “Scott Foster.”

  “You live around here?”

  “No, I live in Los Angeles. I have a place about twenty miles to the west. A hunting cabin. That’s what I was doing when I saw the buzzards, so I drove over.”

  Melanie nodded.

  “Okay, stay here while I take a look.” She pointed him toward her cruiser, away from his rifle, which was still on his ATV, and walked toward the rear of the structure.

  She kept Foster in view, as well as the vehicle.

  It was a clear day, full sun, and hot. The air was dry and the brown grass crunched beneath her shoes. The house wasn’t much, a single-story cabin with unpainted, weathered wood and dirty windows.

  Bordeau reached the rear of the house and took a wide, cautious turn, her hand on the butt of her pistol.

  One look told her Foster had been right. It most certainly was a human body, even after the buzzards had finished tearing it apart. She walked closer and studied the remains, the smell reaching her nostrils and nearly triggering a gag reflex. Bordeau noticed the long hair and the small cowboy boots.

  A woman.

  She backed away until she could see Foster standing near her cruiser.

  “Did you go inside?” she asked him.

  “No, I thought I’d better not,” he said.

  “Okay, stay there.”

  Bordeau retraced her steps until she reached the house’s back door. She’d noticed that it was slightly ajar. She withdrew her gun and held it in front of her.

  “Anyone home?” she called out.

  There was no answer.

  She used her foot to push the door all the way open and took a quick peek around the doorjamb.

  “Holy shit,” she said, ducking back from the open door.

  What she’d seen had shocked her. A large, empty room, with multiple dead bodies on the floor. Dried blood everywhere.

  Bordeau keyed the radio on her shoulder and asked for backup.

  She raised her gun, held it in front of her, took a deep breath, and stepped into the room.

  8

  Blatch wasn't satisfied.

  Oh sure, he'd had a little bit of fun with the woman but he’d been a little too eager and he actually killed her when he still really wasn't quite satisfied.

  He hated that. It was like going to a movie and then the projector breaks down and you never get to see the end of the film.

  His fantasies were very elaborately created down to the most minute of detail and when the video didn't match the one in his head, it created a jarring effect that ruined the whole thing.

  It simply wouldn't do.

  He knew that Nash was really pissed off at him and Dawkins, too. They’d both screwed up once again. One of these days he was worried that Nash would kick him off the team. And he didn't want that. He loved fighting alongside this crew.

  Nash was one of the good guys. If there was only one fault Nash possessed it was that he didn't have the best control of his men. Blatch felt guilty even thinking about it.

  Especially now because he knew what he was going to do.

  It was close to midnight and Nash and Dawkins had already turned in for the night. In their minds, the mission was done. But he, Blatch, wasn’t even close to being finished.

  No, he was going to go out there and finish the thing so it matched the movie in his head. Only then could he sleep.

  He slipped out of his room, let himself out of the command trailer and drove down to the little redneck bar on the outskirts of town. No one there knew him and Nash had said the bar was strictly off-limits while they were doing their operation.

  Blatch took a seat at the bar and ordered a beer.

  The bartender was a woman and a little more masculine than Blatch usually liked. She had thick, broad shoulders and there was a weird tattoo on her upper back.

  She smiled at him when he ordered a beer. There were only a few other people in the bar and two of them looked like high schoolers wearing guilty expressions as if they'd sneaked in with a fake ID.

  There were also a couple of guys who’d probably been drinking since their softball game finished…and they lost.

  Blatch would wait them out because the upside of the bartender being a bit masculine was that she represented a challenge.

  Blatch liked it when they not only fought, but they fought well. It made his victory that much more gratifying.

  He slowly drank his beer and had no intention of getting drunk. The bartender was sneaking little glances at him and he knew from experience she was interested.

  Blatch looked at his lean, long face in the mirror and liked how his bright red hair contrasted with his blue eyes.

  He smiled back at the bartender so she would know that she was definitely going to get what she wanted.

  And a whole lot more.

  9

  “That’s it?” Tallon asked Pauling, a smile on his face, after they’d kissed and embraced. He was pointing at her luggage, or, more accurately, the lack of it.

  Pauling understood the point. She’d only brought one bag, implying this wasn’t a permanent move.

  “Packing light – it’s an old habit,” she said.

  He laughed, but she still felt a twinge of guilt. After all, Tallon had been the one who’d pushed for her to come out and spend time with him on a more regular basis. When she’d agreed, he may have been expecting a more long-term commitment.

  She didn’t blame him for perhaps being a bit surprised at just how much of a test run this trip was.

  But ever since she’d agreed to sell her company, Pauling had been telling herself to take things slowly. The worst approach would be to make a bunch of important life decisions in a short amount of time. No longer being in charge of her own company was a huge adjustment.

  No sense in making another.

  “If you’re planning on supplementing with shopping, don’t get your hopes up,” he told her.

  The little town of Independence Springs was nestled in the southwestern crook of Death Valley. Pauling knew it was a modest little city with a quiet main street, a few big box retailers at the edge of town and lots of wide-open spaces.

  “No one shops in stores anymore,” she said. “It’s all online.”

  Tallon maneuvered his 4x4 onto the freeway.

  “Congratulations again on the sale. How do you feel?” Tallon asked.

  “I would imagine it feels a little like sending your kid off to college. I raised my company from scratch, and built it into something I was really proud of. But I passed on some opportunities to make it even larger than it was, because I’d set a certain standard,” Pauling said. “Now, I feel like my company’s all grown up and I can only watch it from a distance.”

  “You can still visit, right?” Tallon said.

  Pauling laughed. “Yeah, but I’m not sure I want to. Technically, I’m a consultant, but I think some breathing room is in order. Both for myself and the new owners.”

  Tallon nodded.

  The freeway wound through some red and dusty foothills before descending into some desert flats. The land was so vast and empty, Pauling almost felt a sense of vertigo. She was so used to the claustrophobic nature of New York City. Coming out here was like being on a long flight to some exotic destination. The change in scenery could almost be a shock.

  It wasn’t long before they pulled up in front of Tallon’s house. Pauling loved the adobe ranch, and marveled at how well he had incorporated his need for home defense without ruining the architectural integrity of the place.

  As Tallon pulled into the driveway she drank in the view with the mountains in the distance, the setting sun and the beauty of Tallon’s home. It was like a western landscape painting and she couldn’t wait to explore the hills beyond the home.

  “Lovely, as always,” she said. She’d only been to the ranch once, but it was even prettier than she’d remembered.

  Tallon was a
ll business unloading her suitcase and showing her into the home. She could smell something delicious in the oven.

  “Some baked quail – I finally figured out how to set the timer on the stove.”

  Pauling laughed.

  “I hope it won’t be done for awhile,” she said as she slid into his arms.

  10

  It was the most secretive building on base.

  Located adjacent to the command center’s headquarters, it was a single-story structure with reinforced concrete walls and, many surmised, an underground bunker. On its roof were several sets of elaborate antennas and satellite dishes most presumed were built to enable secure and classified transmission of information.

  They were partly right.

  They were also partly wrong in the sense that the technology wasn’t designed to transmit, rather, it was built to defend. As in, prevent eavesdropping and/or any leakage of classified information.

  It was here, in the base near Death Valley, that the U.S. Army had designed and built a massive compound for the “new” war on terrorism. Any innovations in the battle against extremists almost always emerged from this highly isolated and hidden-from-public base.

  Now, in the secret building a small group of men convened in the structure’s only conference room. It, too, benefited from the latest technology designed to ensure all conversations were kept private. For eternity. No records, either on paper or digitally produced, were allowed. Once the last echoes of spoken words dissipated, they would be gone forever.

  There were two men in the room, polar opposites of each other. The older of the two was Crawford – a solid brick of a man with close-cropped silver hair, a deeply lined, tanned face, and piercing blue eyes.

  Across from him was a man ten years his junior, if not more. He had unkempt hair, a scraggly beard and wire-rimmed glasses. He wore a dark suit and tie.