Deadlock (16 page)

“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 window. 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.

He shook the screen. “Page! Get away from my family. Call your men off now, you hear?”

Jim tapped Hutch's hip. Hutch looked down to see him holding an open cell phone.

Call them. Of course.

He reached for the phone.

Jim pulled it away and shook his head. He mouthed a word:
video
.

Hutch glanced again and saw the bedspread showing on the phone's screen. It was already recording. Jim turned the phone-as-camera in his hand and slowly brought it up, trying to capture the monitor.

Evidence
, Hutch thought. But not as important as alerting Laura to the danger. He had to call, tell her to get everyone out of the house, just get away. He reached for his mobile phone in the pocket of his jacket, then remembered he had given it to Julian.

The monitor went black. Hutch gave it a shake.

“What did you do?” Jim said.

“Nothing,” Hutch said.

The monitor flicked on again—still peering through the utility room window at Logan.

Page's voice said, “In a few minutes, I'm going to ask you to put the monitor back in the bag and set it outside. I'll need that cell phone as well, Jim. You'll note the monitor you're holding is receiving a live feed. It contains no hard drive, no evidence.”

The person watching Logan shifted. The image jarred slightly. Hutch thought he'd hit the window with the camera. Logan's response confirmed it. The boy snapped his gaze toward the window. He squinted, as if seeing something, but not sure what. He rose and stepped toward the window.

The cameraman slowly moved down, making the window appear to rise off the screen. The monitor was dark, then the man turned the camera toward the dining room windows. Back to darkness, the man obviously stood once more, filling the screen with the utility room. Logan was gone.

The camera returned to the other window. Laura was still in the kitchen. Dillon came in from the living room, looking around. He said something to his mother. She shook her head no.

Hutch snatched Jim's phone out of his hand. He watched Dillon open the pantry door and step in. A moment later, he came out. Hutch flipped the phone shut, killing the video. He opened it and dialed his son's number.

“That's unnecessary,” Page said. “They are in no danger—for now. I merely wanted to show you how quickly your life could change. I told you earlier I recognized obsession in you. Irrational determination does not go away simply because somebody suggests that it should. It has to be satisfied or completely defeated. Tell me, Hutch, is this enough to defeat yours?”

Hutch held the phone to his ear. It started to ring. On the monitor, Laura perked up, hearing the phone. She walked around the counter to her purse, hanging on a dining room chair.

“Mr. E, respond, please,” Page said.

It took Hutch a moment to realize Page was addressing one of the soldiers. If that person responded, Hutch was not privy to that side of the conversation.

Page said, “Can we get some sound from your end?”

An icon of a speaker appeared in a corner of the monitor. “We're on,” a different voice said. The sound of breathing also came through.

Through the window, Laura pulled back the chair. The muffled screech of its legs on the hardwood floor emanated from the monitor's speakers. She set her purse on the table and sat to rummage through it.