He gave a cynical laugh to himself. Yes, ninety-five percent chance of surviving in the wood. But there was the caveat: if he escaped from four fit men, presumably armed with knives, as Timothy had been. Maybe a Taser. A firearm was another possibility. The chance of him getting away from them? Make it thirty-five percent.
Then again, thirty-five was as good as a hundred, if you had no other options.
Red, in the lead, held up a hand, signaling them to stop. He was former military, the gesture told Shaw. Discouraging. He’d have some hand-to-hand combat skills. He looked to the right, where fifty feet away Shaw could see the cliff edge. “Over there, I think. That’s it. Brad, with me.”
Leaving only the two guards on Shaw. Good.
As Red and Brad started through the woods, Shaw braced, preparing to tug, lunge, break his prey’s nose and then run.
Red, though, looked back. He squinted and returned. He crouched behind Shaw, who could only sigh as he felt a zip tie ratcheting into place on his ankles.
Hog-tied.
No sprint.
67.
Brad and Red returned from the cliff’s edge to Shaw, Blond and Scar.
“It’s there,” Red told the others. “Like a pit, ten feet deep maybe. Stinks like a butcher shop.”
“Made me dizzy,” Brad said.
Shaw said, “You saw the helicopter. California Highway Patrol and detectives from San Francisco. They’re investigating Eli for murder. You’re accomplices.”
“Quiet down,” Red said.
“You cooperate, I talk to the prosecutor. He’ll cut a deal.”
“We didn’t do shit,” Red told him. “We’re just rent-a-cops, wearing these stupid uniforms.”
“Well, you’re doing shit now,” Shaw said. “It’s already kidnapping. And pretty soon, it’s going to be murder.”
Red muttered, “You don’t know Hugh. He’s not somebody you want to fuck over.”
“All right, well, let me tell you this. If he wants an accident, then the zip ties have to come off. When the FBI finds my body, they’ll find the ties. Even after the animals get to me.”
The men were silent, Brad and Blond glancing toward Red.
“FBI?” Blond asked.
Red: “Shut up.”
“They already have your fingerprints and DNA all over them. So they have to go. And I’ll tell you this, whoever cuts them off . . . you’re going to die.” Shaw kept his eye on Blond. His voice was calm as the breeze around them. “I will crush your throat the instant my hands are free.”
Scar said, “Maybe he knows some shit like Hugh. That karate.”
“He doesn’t know anything.”
“He could sure handle that gun.”
Red sighed. “Let me ask you: Does it look like he has a gun now?”
Shaw looked from Scar to Blond. “One of you is going to die. And there’s nothing you can do to stop me.”
This was not remotely true. What they could do was simply bash him over the head here, cut the ties and throw him into the Notch. He was about fifty percent sure, though, that given the urgency of the situation none of them would think of this possibility.
Red said, “We’ll just beat you to fucking death here with a rock, cut the ties off and drag you down the hill.” He gave an obviously shrug.
Shaw said, “Leaving your hair, DNA and fingerprints all over more evidence. They’ll have you in a week.”
“We don’t have time for this,” Red muttered. “Get him down there. Now. Break both his legs.”
Blond and Brad dragged him forward.
They got ten feet before a high-pitched scream sounded from behind them.
The two men gripping Shaw turned fast.
Wincing, on his knees, his face as ruddy as his hair, Red was gripping his right shoulder with his left hand, a mocking version of the shoulder salute.
Standing over him, Victoria swung the war club once more. With a glancing blow to his head, Red went down hard.
68.
Brad and Blond released Shaw, who rolled to the ground.
Scar muttered, “Bitch.”
All three men pulled locking blade knives from their pockets and flicked them open.
The closest to her, Brad, charged. The woman easily sidestepped, crouched and simply held the club up. Basically, he shattered his own knee. The pitch of this scream was even higher than Red’s.
Shaw scooted to a tree and rolled upright. Blond was calling on his walkie-talkie. “We’re being attacked!” He sounded incredulous. “We’re near Bear Notch. We need help.”
A clattering response: “We’re sending people.”
Blond moved toward Victoria and nearly lost his jaw to the club before leaping back. He nodded to Scar, meaning flank her, which is something Shaw was surprised they hadn’t done earlier.
Brandishing the club and keeping her eye on them, Victoria jogged to Shaw. “Roll over.”
He did.
Blond called to his partner, “No, stop her!”
Scar moved in but a swipe of the club sent him scurrying back.
Victoria drew her butcher knife and sawed through the hand zips. She handed the blade to Shaw to cut the ankle ties. She rose fast, advancing with the club, standing low and well balanced. She never presented her back to either of them for more than one second.
Her eyes were as serene as could be.
Cold too. Ice cold.
Both men backed away.
Blond said to his partner, “You should’ve taken her. Afraid of a little pussy?”
“Fuck you.”
Shaw climbed to his feet, with the knife held firmly, ready to slash.
They faced off, the foursome. Shaw could see they were inclined to run but were probably terrified of what Hugh would do to them if they let these two insurgents get away.
Victoria said, “Let’s swap.”
They exchanged club for knife. She held the blade expertly, as he knew she would, and her face seemed to glow with anticipation of a good fight.
Shaw was filled with an exhilaration too. In these dense woods on a cool clear day. A primitive setting, a primitive fight, even odds . . .
The men moved forward. The AUs backed away and went through theatrical but absurd gestures with their blades, like little kids mimicking martial arts moves.
“Got to the highway okay?” Shaw asked.
“Flagged down a truck, then I headed back. Frederick was on the phone when I left.”
So the feds or state would be on the way.
Blond stepped in. Shaw sent him retreating quickly with some swings of the club. He thought about Hugh and Eli destroying or packing up evidence. “Better speed things up.”
While Victoria proceeded against an increasingly uncertain Scar, Shaw feinted forward then retreated fast from Blond, who snickered, “Go on, run, asshole.”
Shaw had gotten the distance he needed and launched the club underhanded—less lethal power that way. Its head clocked the AU in the center of the face, and he went down, groaning, blood pouring from his nose, hands covering the agonizing injury.
This left Scar advancing on Victoria. His confidence had returned, now that Shaw was unarmed. He eased closer yet to Victoria.
She too seemed to be impatient. “Okay.” Spoken as casually as a waitress might address a customer. Taking the knife by the blade, she threw it into the ground about six feet from Scar. It landed handle up in the soft earth.
Scar eyed it cautiously, maybe wondering why, with such apparent control over the weapon, she’d missed him by a wide margin.
Victoria explained to Shaw, “Just in case I need it.”
She wasn’t in a defensive position as she walked toward Scar. Posture upright, hands at her sides. Strolling, actually. When she was about seven or so feet away, he lunged. She slid to the left an
d gripped his knife hand in both of hers, stepped forward to make sure he couldn’t pull away, then twisted leisurely. With this maneuver, Shaw knew, you can control someone’s entire body with minimal effort, and drive them to their knees or belly.
Or you can shatter the wrist.
Victoria went for the second option.
Shaw could hear the pop from twenty feet away.
“Ah . . .” Scar went white and passed out.
Victoria plucked her knife from the ground and said, “Sometimes you just don’t feel like stabbing people. You have those days too, Colter?”
Resourceful, pretty and a sense of humor.
He said, “We have to go. Now. Eli and Hugh’re in Administration. Evidence is going to disappear.”
Quickly they zip-tied the men’s arms behind their backs and pulled Red’s knife from his pants pocket. Shaw slipped it into his sock. They flung the other blades deep into the forest. Shaw collected his bloody war club. Victoria pulled the walkie-talkie off Blond’s belt.
As they started north along a narrow path, toward the front gate, Shaw nodded his thanks.
“You weren’t in much danger,” she said.
He glanced toward the four thugs and beyond them, Bear Notch.
Break both his legs . . .
“I’d decided to come back as soon as we found a car or truck. You weren’t ready to advance.” Victoria was smiling.
The walkie-talkie kept clattering, with demands for updates about the attack. It was Hugh’s voice, growing increasingly angry at receiving no response. The good news was that he and, presumably, Eli were still in the camp.
Shaw collected his war club and gestured north, where Hugh and Eli were. She then touched Shaw’s arm. “Hostiles coming.” They sank into a dense huckleberry stand. Ahead were a half dozen AUs, fanning out, moving in their direction. The reinforcements Blond had requested. “Weapons,” she whispered, nodding forward.
Two of them held pistols.
Shaw and Victoria hurried back to the four men they’d just fought. Shaw bent down and whispered to Red, “You don’t believe in the Process, right? You think this life is it.” Shaw glanced at Victoria, who knelt and put her knife against his throat.
Gasping, he said, “I’m a fucking bouncer is all.”
She said, “What’s your name, and if you give me a fake one, you’re dead.”
“Bullshit. That’s murder.”
“No, it’s retroactive self-defense.” The blade pressed harder. Victoria’s eyes were dark pits.
Red gasped, “All right, all right. Andy.”
“Do you go by ‘Journeyman’ or any title?”
“No, none of that crap. Just Andy.”
Shaw flicked TRANSMIT on the radio. “This is Andy. Carter got away. We followed him to the residence. He’s inside. We need more men!”
The response: “Fucking hell. There were four of you.”
A moment later was a transmission ordering everyone to the residence.
The group of AUs approaching them apparently heard the transmissions as well. They turned south and jogged down the path.
Victoria and Shaw turned in the opposite direction and hurried toward the front of the camp. In a few minutes they were crouching, in the tree line, behind Administration and the Assistance Unit building. Shaw pointed.
There’d be firearms inside.
She nodded.
They both surveyed the grounds, which were much as you’d expect after the chaotic events that had just occurred. Clusters of Companions were standing together. Some sat despondently by themselves in the Square or on benches. A woman wept openly. An argument was going on between two ICs.
An SUV sat beside Administration, packed with computers and files. Gray and Squat hurried up to it and shoved in boxes of documents. They then turned back toward the residence.
“You want a club?” he asked.
“Probably.”
Shaw walked to his dorm and collected the second club still sitting in the nest of leaves behind the building. He returned, handing it to her. She wrapped the knife in the napkin and slipped it away in her back waistband.
She said, “They’ll have a gun safe inside. Diversion in the front?”
He shook his head. “Too many AUs.”
“Okay, we’ll just move in fast—the back door.”
It was ajar. Shaw looked. The back room—filled with office supplies and unmarked cartons—was unoccupied. And, yes, against one wall was a gun safe.
They shared a nod and, gripping the clubs, stepped inside fast. She pointed to herself and the door that led to the front part of the Assistance Unit, meaning she’d guard that. He went to the safe.
Damn. Locked tight.
He gestured to it and shook his head. Victoria scowled. He joined her and they peered through the crack into the corridor that led to the front office. Four doors lined the corridor, two on each side—one was where he’d been interrogated the other night. They slipped into the hallway and moved forward, testing the knobs. All the doors were locked. When they got close, Victoria lifted a hand and they both stopped.
Through the partially open door to the front office, they could see movement.
Yes, Eli and Hugh were here. Troubling. This meant that it was likely they’d finished destroying and packing up files and wiping the computers.
The two men were facing away. The men were speaking to someone Shaw and Victoria could not see. The conversation was amiable. There was laughter.
They were completely unsuspecting.
Shaw pointed to Hugh and formed a gun with his finger and thumb, meaning it was most likely that he was the armed one.
She nodded, understanding: Shaw would take Hugh. She would get Eli and the other person in the room.
There was a chance that Eli was armed but that seemed unlikely. In any event, he would know the least about firearms and would be the easiest to disarm.
Shaw held up three fingers and began tucking them away.
When the last digit curled tight, making a fist, he swung the door open and Shaw and Victoria stepped inside fast, clubs ready.
They stopped just as quickly.
Hearing them enter, Eli and Hugh turned, startled.
Shaw and Victoria stopped in the doorway. They both stared at the men’s wrists. They were handcuffed.
The person they’d been speaking with blinked in surprise and glanced from Shaw’s and Victoria’s faces to the war clubs and back again.
It was the sheriff from Snoqualmie Gap, the man who was deep in Eli’s pocket and who, Shaw understood, had just arrested the two men for the sole purpose of helping them escape before the real authorities arrived.
69.
Two gurneys rolled along the gravel path, powered and piloted by med techs from the Snoqualmie Gap Fire Department.
One of the complicated yellow contraptions sped along, the techs sprinting. The other moved more leisurely.
Anja was in the first. She was unconscious and ashen. Her neck was swathed in an occlusive—airtight—dressing. Shaw had once used Saran wrap for this very purpose; it was to avoid an air embolism. An IV dangled. It would contain not whole blood but a resuscitative fluid, like saline. Anja was alive because of the man who strode quickly alongside her, Steve. His hands and clothing were covered with blood.
The trailing gurney held the body of the man responsible for Anja’s condition, the man who had advanced, Timothy.
Shaw and Victoria stood outside of the Assistance Unit. They had retrieved their luggage, which sat at their feet, though cell phones and car keys were still locked up. This was reportedly a matter of finding keys to the lockboxes; Shaw was sure, though, the keys wouldn’t be “found” until the cult leader and his associate were long gone.
Another couple was present—Thomas and Carole. He was the one who had re
trieved the Glock when Shaw had been mobbed, and refused to hand it over afterward.
Shaw understood what had happened. Thomas would have forced his way into the Administration building with the stubby little weapon and insisted on a landline or one of the staff’s mobiles. He would have called 911.
Dispatch had dutifully referred the emergency call to the Snoqualmie Gap sheriff’s office. The same law enforcers Shaw had seen at the site of John’s death had arrived at the camp. The sheriff—his name badge identified him as Calhoun—knew that a pile of cash awaited him if he “arrested” Eli and Hugh and got them out of the camp before legitimate law enforcers showed up.
A deputy now led Hugh and Eli to Calhoun’s own SUV and the men were helped into the back. Their hands were cuffed in front of their bodies, a procedural violation in every law enforcement agency in the world. Hugh cast a lascivious glance toward Victoria. She parried with a look of pure ice.
The AU, also in cuffs, was led by another deputy out to the parking lot. The two men chatted like they were buddies on their way to a hunt on the first day of deer season. Arresting him and any other AUs was simply for show. They’d be released as soon as they were at the Snoqualmie Gap Sheriff’s Department, if not on the way there.
“Look,” Victoria said, nodding toward the path that led here from Eli’s residence.
Two deputies were carting luggage and go-bags.
“Bellboys,” Shaw muttered.
“Bet the tip’s going to be pretty nice.”
The men set the items in the back of the sheriff’s SUV and returned in the direction they’d come. Getting another load, Shaw thought cynically. The Guiding Beacon had to travel in comfort.
Shaw said to Victoria in a soft voice, “They’ll have to take a statement. Stretch it out for as long as you can. They don’t know Frederick’s got the feds and state police on their way.”
“Mine’ll take as much time as reading Moby-Dick. That’s a book I never finished; did you?”
“Never started it.”
The sheriff whispered to some of his deputies, who nodded, taking in the instructions. When he returned, heading toward his vehicle, Shaw stopped him. “Sheriff Calhoun.”
The Goodbye Man Page 29