Ron would not be the one to ambush Marcia, because that would be too extreme. He would be the witness. He was about six feet four and very muscular. She had thought, when she first saw him, that his being a martial arts instructor was incongruous: what opponent could he ever face that he couldn’t simply beat up without using all the throws and holds and secrets?
She wished it would be Ron. He would be gentle, to keep from harming her. He would only need to put a hand on her to control her and make his point. That would not be what Debbie did. For the first time after a month of study, Marcia gave herself permission to admit that she hated Debbie. There was something sick about the way she treated the women. She always implied that they had gone through life using their sex out of laziness, to avoid effort, and out of cowardice, to avoid danger. But she was here to unmask them and force them to experience what they feared. Look at you, and look at her-the tiny waist, the round breasts under her sports top, the firm, rounded bottom-wasn’t she as much a woman as you?
Marcia stepped off the path to her right and made her way through the grove of oaks that bordered the pine woods. She walked as quietly as she could, straining her ears to hear any sound from the direction of the path, and keeping her eyes in motion to watch for any sign of human beings ahead.
She concentrated on staying about fifty feet to the right of the path. She desperately wanted to foil their plan, but she also wanted to keep from missing the set of low wooden buildings that made up the main part of the camp. The few times she had been inland from the ocean in California, she had learned that hiking wasn’t the way it had been in the East. If you took a shortcut or walked away from a road, you might have to walk a hundred miles before crossing another, and that wasn’t something you could do. The camp was inside an area called Los Padres National Forest, but when she had looked at a map it had seemed that beyond the forest was not a populated area, only even emptier wilderness. If she walked in the wrong direction, she had no idea whether she would ever be found.
Her ear caught a faint rustling sound to her left, and she stopped. She could see along a narrow gully that formed a break in the low, thick trees. She had been right. Debbie Crane was crouching there waiting for her to come up the path. Ron Dolan walked up the gully toward her, zipping up his pants. He was walking through thick brush, and Marcia knew he had left the ambush to urinate in privacy. The noise of his return seemed to infuriate Debbie. She waved one hand at him, while her other held a finger to her lips.
He stared up the path in the direction of the combat firing range to verify that Marcia was not nearby, then sat down with a bored expression to wait.
Marcia remained still until he turned his head to look up the path again, then she hurried across the gully and off into the cover of the trees. She felt elated as she approached the compound. She had passed two tests today. She emerged from the trees far from where she had expected to. She realized that she must be near the road, because she heard the whispery sound of a car moving along on pavement. She followed the sound until she reached the high chain-link fence, and followed it to the gravel driveway that led to the main lodge.
As she walked past the veranda in front of the lodge, Parish stepped out of the doorway, followed by a man and a woman she had never seen before. The man was maybe forty-five and tanned, like an outdoorsman. The woman was only a bit shorter and wide, not soft the way an overweight woman usually was, but big like a woman who did physical labor-or maybe a policewoman. Marcia wondered if they might not be new instructors. She stopped to drink from the water fountain near the door.
Parish’s eyes widened slightly as he saw her, and she knew she had surprised him, but for the moment he ignored her presence and spoke to the man. “I was very sorry to hear it, of course. Any person you’ve spent time trying to know and trying to teach becomes a special friend.”
The woman said, “Did she seem to be afraid when she arrived?”
Parish said, “Afraid?” He paused and squinted into the distance, as though that were where the past could be found. “No. She didn’t.” He focused on the man. “You met her, Mr. Mallon. Did she strike you as a fearful person?”
The man he had called Mr. Mallon said, “No. But I wonder if a young woman would spend that kind of time and money on self-defense unless there was a clear reason.”
Parish looked at him thoughtfully. “There is a reason. As a rule, the students come here because they want to learn something new. They want to improve themselves. Virtually all of the older ones have already achieved a great deal in their lives, some in business or the professions, a few in the arts. It’s a certain kind of person who does that. He works terribly hard for all of his life to be better than his competitors, but even more, to be better than he was yesterday. After the initial goal is achieved-he’s a success-he doesn’t stop. The need isn’t imposed by circumstance, it’s internal. It doesn’t matter whether we meet them at Catherine’s age or seventy, it’s still the same kind of person.”
The woman said, “It’s a lot of money to pay unless there’s a reason that’s a little more tangible, don’t you think?”
“Our guests are the elite, people who are used to certain standards. The surroundings are intentionally kept rustic, but the amenities are expensive.”
The woman persisted. “They must be, for over a thousand a day.”
Parish seemed surprised at her attitude. “Our students receive a great deal of individual attention. This isn’t just a guest ranch with a theme. We’re dedicated to teaching a discipline that’s difficult to learn properly, and can be terribly dangerous unless it’s studied under the strictest supervision.” His eyes were on their way to the man when they stopped. “Excuse me,” said Parish, and held up a hand. He quickly glided to Marcia’s side, leaned close to her, and murmured, “This isn’t on the way from the range. Is something wrong out there?”
Marcia smiled slyly and shook her head. “I decided to take a different way back, just this once.”
Parish grinned and gripped her shoulder. “Good instinct. Exceptional. I’ll talk to you about this later.” He glanced at his watch. “You just have time to beat them to the gym.” He launched her up the gravel driveway with a gentle pat on the shoulder.
As she strode off toward the gym, she heard Parish saying, “I apologize for not introducing you, but my policy is to protect my students’ privacy and anonymity to the extent that I can. What were we saying?”
As soon as Marcia was around the bend in the drive, she broke into a run. Five minutes later, she was lying comfortably on the thick mat, staring at the bare beams of the barnlike roof, when she heard the door open. Ron Dolan walked to her feet and looked down at her. When she met his eyes, she saw him smile. As he walked away, Marcia sat up. Debbie had silently stepped in the door after him. She was standing to the side of the doorway, contemplating Marcia with her eyes narrowed and the full lips she was so proud of compressed into a thin, pale line.
Marcia stared back at her for a few seconds, her eyes wide with false innocence and expectation. Finally, Debbie spoke. “Congratulations. You’re beginning to get the idea. Let’s do some stretches to warm up before the others arrive and we can get started.”
CHAPTER 11
The fire in the fireplace had been allowed to burn out when the rest of the guests had gone to their cabins for the night, but Marcia could see the reflection of a row of red embers in Parish’s eyes as he turned toward her and began to speak. “Before we go out into the field, it’s essential that you understand how the hunt works, what everyone does.” Parish sat in a hard, straight-backed chair just like Marcia’s, his knees almost close enough to touch hers. He leaned his tanned face forward as he spoke, his light hazel eyes never blinking or straying from hers. She had sometimes thought she detected a faint remnant of a foreign accent when he spoke, and this felt like a foreign mannerism. An American would have placed a desk between them that had no function except to be between them.