But when he came upon the AAP compound itself, his heart began to sink. The main compound building was there, even several of the old trailers in the parking lot next to it, but everything was dark and deserted. Weeds grew a foot high from cracks in the lot. To Court it didn’t look like anyone had been here in years.

After watching through Zack’s night sight from the trees for a few minutes to make certain no one was around, Court rose, then walked through the wide-open gate at the front of the compound. He passed a sign that read Secure Facility, then he crossed the parking lot in front of the entrance to the building everyone in the program referred to as “The Center,” and he pushed on the front door.

It was unlocked.

Inside it looked like a typical public high school, but a high school during summer vacation. No light, no movement.

The floors were covered with dust and leaves that had blown in through a broken window somewhere, and there was water damage on the baseboards, as if the area had once flooded. The smell of mold filled the dank air.

Court wandered around for several minutes, checking the different floors and wings, and he found the entire building abandoned, and not a scrap of paper or a sign on the wall to give any hint as to what was once here.

He stood in the medical ward, he walked through the dormitory, he checked every locker in the locker room off the empty swimming pool.

Nothing.

Back outside in the parking lot he walked among the trailers on the north side of the building. These were individual classrooms for AADP recruits; Court had spent part of virtually every day for two years studying with his principal trainer in trailer 14b.

Many of the trailers were gone now, but 14b was still there, the last one on the second row, almost all the way to the perimeter fence around the parking lot. Court walked over to it. Where before the grounds around the lot had been manicured lawn, now it looked like the forest on the other side of the chain-link fence had pushed through. Young pine and oak dotted the ground almost up to the back of the trailer, and the asphalt lot the trailer rested on was buckled and broken, with weeds growing through the cracks.

The windows of 14b were all broken out, as well, and there was evidence of water and storm damage here, just like at The Center. The aluminum door was bent and it hung wide open.

Court looked in, shone his flashlight around. It was all but empty. He went inside and stood there in the middle of the dark space, flipped off his light, and thought about his time here, more than fifteen years earlier.