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  But he couldn’t let Glenn know that he’d seen the change. “You’ll never own Spencer either.”

  Glenn sneered. “Somehow I think he’ll come around. And you know that too. Which leads me to believe that your attempt to flee the other day won’t be your last. That’s why I came to talk to you. I hope you realize by now that escaping the CAE is impossible. If you do try again, the little punishment you two received the other day will seem like a tap to the nose. That Darnell—you’ve only seen a bit of what he has to offer. Between you and me, he’s a bit of a backwater hick. But that doesn’t mean he’s stupid. Darnell’s real genius is his work. Try again and I’ll set Darnell’s full wrath upon you. It’ll be especially bad for Spencer. Thin and frail as he is, I don’t know if he’ll make it.”

  As much as Brad tried to avoid letting Glenn affect him, he couldn’t force Spencer’s howls of pain from his mind. The thought of Spencer receiving even harsher treatment made Brad begin to doubt his plan for a second escape.

  “And I’ll be there this time,” Glenn said, “to see if the lesson might actually sink in. In that sense, I hope you do try again. I think I’d really enjoy seeing you under the whip.” He turned on his heel, went to the door, and held it open before exiting. “That head of yours isn’t as strong as you think. It will be mine soon enough.”

  He left.

  Chapter 47

  It had been four years. Dale had vowed that he’d never go back to the CAE camp.

  He drove down the mottled gravel road in an old Jeep CJ-5 he’d borrowed from the Augusta County Sheriff’s Office. The access road to the camp had been rough enough during operation, and it had been years since anyone had owned the land. Now it was riddled with potholes and debris. Arancia wasn’t going to cut it out here.

  The road was two miles long, snaking through the forest to the main camp. Glenn had chosen the camp’s location because of its seclusion, and a big part of that was the natural buffer zone between the camp and the highway.

  The forest was pitch black. His headlights lit the tree trunks as they slowly rolled by. They had the bright, unnatural look that objects get when artificial light steals their cover of darkness.

  He had to stop twice to move fallen branches that blocked the road. Along with dodging the gaping potholes, it took him several minutes to reach the gate, a seven-foot steel affair with cinder block towers. Four years back, there would have been two guards standing on either side. Only authorized vehicles were allowed beyond that point. Now the entire structure was corroded and on the verge of collapse.

  There was a rusty chain and padlock on the fence. He hopped out of the Jeep and tugged on the padlock. Not budging. He grabbed a large flashlight from the back of the truck and walked around the side of the gate.

  He began to hike the last half mile to the camp. Wet gravel sloshed beneath his boots. He pointed the light toward the tops of the trees. They closed in on either side, forming a black tunnel around him.

  A thought kept intruding into his mind—Glenn Downey could very well want to kill him. Everything to this point now made sense. Glenn had systematically attacked everything about Dale. He had tried to humiliate him, to ruin him. The next logical step was to kill him. Dale tried not to think about it, but his chest was ready to explode. He felt a strange, conclusive melancholy. He thought about his mother.

  After ten minutes, every inch of him began to tense up as the muscle memory in his legs told him that he was drawing close. Right on cue, the road in front of him opened up. His flashlight showed the first structures of the camp in the distance. They were just as he remembered—square in shape and gray in color with all the purpose and charm of a Soviet missile silo. The doors and gutters and window frames were all rusted, and there were dirty veins of sediment staining the walls.

  The camp was three square miles with over forty buildings, so whatever Glenn had planned for him, he had plenty of spaces from which to jump out and scare the shit out of him. Before Dale had a chance to enter the veritable fun house and ponder all of these possibilities, a figure slowly strode out from one of the first buildings.

  The Man in Black. He wore the usual attire. Black pants and a black jacket, different than the one he left behind at the hospital. The hood was pulled up over his head, and he wore the same black mask with the jeering jester face.

  Dale stopped. They were twenty feet apart.

  “Thank you for coming,” the Man in Black said. The voice was Glenn’s airy Texas drawl.

  “I’m here. Let the hostages go.”

  “Don’t rush things. I need to savor this.” He put his hands behind his back. “Here he stands. Brad Walker. After all these years. The one who escaped. I want to remember this moment forever.”

  Dale turned his face. “Here. This is my best side. For posterity.”

  “Oh, that tongue of yours. Such sharp wit. No wonder you were such a popular writer. I suppose you think you’ve figured out why you’re here.”

  “I have a pretty good idea.” The melancholy feeling rushed over him again. It was somewhat relieving, even. Somehow dying didn’t seem as bad as it was cracked up to be. As long as he could help the missing people.

  “You think you’re here to take the poison you escaped the first time. And you’d do it, too, wouldn’t you? To save the lives of these people.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So noble. So, so noble.”

  “Where’s Susan Anderson?”

  “And coming to a woman’s rescue too. What are you, an Eagle Scout?”

  Dale took a step forward. “Let’s get on with it.”

  “No, Brad. You’re going to serve a bigger purpose. But first, I’m afraid I haven’t been entirely truthful with you.”

  Dale narrowed his eyes.

  The Man in Black put his fingers on the bottom of his mask and lifted upward. After the surprises Dale had been witness to during this investigation, the fact that it wasn’t Glenn Downey beneath the mask didn’t shock him. It was who was there in his place that was surprising. A young face. A face that was lean, somewhat pleasant-looking. Sandy blonde hair. Blue eyes.

  “Spencer …” Dale said.

  There was a sharp pain to the back of his head, and he collapsed. His face smashed against the gravel of the road. Just before he lost consciousness, he saw the boots of a Marshallite man who had emerged from the woods behind him.

  Chapter 48

  Dale’s eyelids slowly parted. He was somewhere dark. There was a throbbing sensation at the back of his head and pain in both of his wrists. He felt oddly cool.

  He peered up. It was dark except for a shaft of rust-colored light focused on him like a spotlight. Wherever he was, it was cavernous. He could feel the weight of open space around him, crushing him. He squinted at the light. It was far above him, fifty feet or so.

  He was bare-chested. His arms were outstretched. On each of his wrists was a strap connected to a chain that hung from above and disappeared into the darkness. His bodyweight had been resting on the straps while he was unconscious, putting pressure on his wrists. He planted his feet and stood up, sweet relief coursing through his arms.

  Like the moment of reminiscence that follows an early morning alarm clock, his memory flooded back to him. The Marshall Village case. Taking the gravel road to the CAE camp. The blow to the back of the head.

  Spencer.

  His heart raced, and there was a surge of dread. His bare flesh suddenly felt even colder, and he fought to keep himself from shaking. Or screaming.

  He was back at the CAE camp.

  He tried to think of his training. There were rational ways to avoid panic and resist jeopardizing the Bureau and its mission. But the thought kept intruding.

  He was back at the CAE camp.

  He was at the old camp, tied up in one of the warehouses, completely vulnerable.

  Deep breaths. Slow and controlled. He visualized the situation as an outsider. Disassociation. He was a camera floating above, looking down upon
a half-naked man chained to a ceiling, his arms spread in a Christ-like posture.

  Deep breaths. This wasn’t him. The situation was not his. Deep breaths.

  There was a noise in the distance. A metallic bang. A large door opening. The sound was deep and hollow, echoing through the vast blackness around him. Then a slow tapping of footsteps.

  His heart thumped harder again, and all the deep breathing and hippie yoga meditation techniques flew right out the window. He was tied up in an empty warehouse. And there was someone walking toward him.

  The footsteps stopped momentarily. There was a click in the distance, and the patch of light around him slowly got a bit brighter. The circumference of the light expanded, revealing several shapes a few feet away from him.

  They were wheeled chalkboards, the type used at business meetings. Six feet across, pivoting in the center. They were arranged in a circle around him and were covered in photographs. Black-and-whites. Taped one on top of each other, haphazardly. The images were of corpses. Dale knew what he was looking at. They were the dead people of the CAE. Glenn Downey’s followers. The ones who took the poison.

  Bodies on the ground. Lying in the dirt. In the puddles. Curled lips. Bared teeth. Vomit. Rolled eyes.

  The footsteps grew louder. They continued at a slow, even pace.

  Tap, tap, tap.

  They were coming from straight ahead of him. He peered forward and squinted, trying to look through the gap between two of the macabre collages.

  A figure materialized from the darkness and stepped into the circle of chalkboards. It was Spencer.

  Somehow seeing him calmed Dale’s nerves. Sure, he was half-naked and in bonds, but the person was someone he knew, someone he could easily outwit. He could manage this. So he did what he did best—he acted like a smart ass.

  “You know, you could have just asked,” Dale said. “I would have walked over with you to the camp.”

  “You think we’re at the CAE still? No, silly, no. You’ve taken a journey, Brad. You were out for quite a while. We’re at the little place where I keep all the lovely Marshall people.”

  Dale was more curious than alarmed. Where the hell was he? How long had he been out?

  Spencer gestured at the photos. “Do you like my pictures?”

  “You always did have talent with a camera. What’s the point of all this, Spencer? Did you really do all this because of me, or was that just part of your Glenn act?”

  “Yes and no. I do have a bigger goal, but first I needed to see if you could take it.” Spencer put his hands behind his back and began to pace before Dale within the confines of the small patch of light.

  “Take what?”

  “My little series of tests. Pretty amazing, huh? The whipping boy outsmarting the puzzle master? But I think you know the real reason behind everything.”

  Dale just nodded. Of course he knew the reason.

  “I saw you, Brad. I saw you on the boat. On the side, clinging to the ropes.”

  “I tried to get off and—”

  “You did nothing.” His voice echoed off the walls somewhere in the distance. “You watched them capture me. You watched them drag me back to the camp.”

  “I would never have caught up with you in time.”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I suppose we’ll never know. Remember that promise that Glenn made to you after the first time we tried to escape?”

  The conversation had played in Dale’s mind a million times since then.

  “Let’s just say he made good on his promise,” Spencer said. He unbuttoned his shirt, slowly, and pulled it open.

  Dale gasped.

  Spencer’s chest was an uninterrupted surface of scar tissue, bumpy and mottled. Long lines crisscrossed the mass. They were lash marks. Purple-pink with jagged edges. Dale had his own scars for a time, after the first punishment he and Spencer endured. His had now faded almost entirely. But these were worse than Dale’s had ever been. Much worse.

  “My god …” Dale whispered.

  Spencer ran his hand over his chest, circling the entire area. “Most of this is from the fire. I was on Father’s boat. You know that, right?”

  “I do.” Of the Appointed survivors, Spencer had been the only one who had been on Glenn’s boat.

  “I was covered in fuel. Burned me raw. But it still wasn’t enough to get rid of these.” He traced his finger along the most severe of the lash marks, the one that ran diagonally from his shoulder to his hip. “Darnell sure enjoyed himself that night. He was a vicious son of a bitch. Father watched. Then later he gave me one of his personal punishments.”

  Spencer was a wall of mangled skin. There were dark furrows in the scars, deep enough you could stick your finger in. His nipples were gone. But still the lash marks persisted, a large crosshatch pattern covering all of him.

  Dale stared. Words tried to escape his lips. “Spencer … I tried … I couldn’t …”

  “You wouldn’t believe how satisfying it was to watch Father burning to death, sinking beneath the water.” Spencer paused. “He was talented, wasn’t he? Controlling all those people. I’ve done so much better than he did, though, Brad. He couldn’t do it as well as I could. I’ve added another element.”

  “Hypnotism.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you couldn’t possibly have hypnotized a hundred forty-seven people. When a hypnotist works with a group, there are as many people who can’t be hypnotized as can.”

  “Exactly. The mind has to be willing to believe. It has to be weak. Who’s more willing to follow than people who joined a utopian community?”

  Suddenly Spencer didn’t seem so witless. In fact, he seemed like a demented genius. Of all the populations who could be controlled by hypnotism, a group of people already devoted unconditionally to an idea would be most gullible. The folks at the Marshall Village had unequivocally accepted Camden Marshall’s concepts, leaving the door to their minds wide open. And Spencer barged right in.

  “Marshall himself was the hardest,” Spencer said. “It took a while before I got through to him. But once I did, I was able to slowly convert his utopian community into a cult like Father’s. And eventually we all left, just as the Roanoke colonists did.”

  Taking advantage of people’s most fundamental beliefs was about the most despicable thing Dale could think of. “You’re sick, Spencer.”

  Spencer walked closer. He stopped six inches away and looked at Dale with an oily smile that was all too reminiscent of Glenn Downey’s. “The thing about hypnotism is you can have someone entirely under your control,” Spencer said. “They’re at your mercy. Just like you were minutes ago when you were unconscious.”

  “Except I’m quite certain you didn’t have me clucking like a chicken.”

  Spencer ran his hand along Dale’s cheek, tracing his jaw line to his chin. Dale winced.

  “Oh, you never know,” Spencer said. He took a step back and began buttoning his shirt. “You could have been anyone or anything while you were asleep. Like a dream.” He paused. “I really had you going, didn’t I? You really thought I was Glenn Downey?”

  “Yeah. You got me. Congratulations.”

  “A man you knew to be dead. A man everyone knows died four years ago. It was on TV, for Christ’s sake.” He threw his arms in the air. “All I did was imitate his voice, and suddenly you believed he miraculously rose from the dead. See how easily the human brain can be hoodwinked? Even one as brilliant as yours.”

  Dale didn’t respond.

  “The best part,” Spencer said, “was that I had you believing for the longest time that I was Darnell Fowler. I have two degrees of separation now. Who would ever suspect me? They’ll be out chasing Darnell. Of course, they’ll never find him.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “Thought you might ask that.” Spencer stepped back into the darkness and returned with a cardboard box about eight inches wide. He opened it up and pulled out something the size of a volleyball. Something gray
ish brown and dry. A head.

  Spencer held up Darnell’s familiar visage by its scruffy, red hair. The eyes were closed, and the mouth was open and contorted. The skin had turned to wrinkled leather, and it clung to the skull beneath.

  Spencer shook the head in his hand. “Hey, Brad, old buddy. How’s life been treating ya? I caught up with Darnell out in the woods that night before making it to the boats. He didn’t even get the satisfaction of going down with the rest of the Blue Guard.”

  He made a slicing motion across his neck then dropped the head back into the box. It rolled, Darnell’s face coming to rest against the side. It looked like one of those shrunken heads in National Geographic.

  This certainly explained why Dale’s APB on Darnell Fowler yielded no returns.

  “Christ, Spencer,” Dale said. “What happened to you?”

  “Let’s just say I was kinder to Darnell than he deserved. Listen, I have something I need to ask of you.” He snapped his fingers.

  Two men in Marshall Village clothes who had been hidden in the shadows stepped forward. Their sudden presence made Dale jump. And to think, they’d been there the whole time.

  The men pulled on the opposite ends of Dale’s chains, which had been lying on the floor in the darkness. The chains fell from the ceiling, and Dale collapsed to the cement. He was weaker than he thought. The sound of the chains hitting the ground echoed through the building. The men walked over and began to free his wrists from the straps.

  “What do you want?” Dale said as he lay like a discarded rag. He was in no position to act like a tough guy, but he did what he could.

  “Money,” Spencer said.

  Even with the two men hovering over him and Spencer standing only feet away, even while being broken, beaten, and tied, Dale couldn’t stop himself from laughing out loud. It always came back to money. “Of course. The truth comes out. It’s been about money. Just another common thug.”