Chapter 6: The Immediate Periphery

Miller sat in Room 107 of the Travelers’ Rest Inn, watching a muted commercial on KTHV News Channel 4, waiting for the late-night news recap. The man in the advertisement, excessively tanned and wearing an open-collared shirt, made overly exaggerated gestures toward a three-piece sectional sofa that seemed offensively comfortable. Miller found the entire display deeply irritating. Watching television, especially bad local commercials, always felt like a waste of time. He was committed to the action of waiting, but the sheer banality of the medium chafed against his heightened state of alert. He had driven three hundred fifty miles to reach this point of relative anonymity and now he was stuck watching furniture sales pitches.

The commercial concluded abruptly, swallowed by a digital transition graphic involving a spinning, stylized globe. The screen switched instantly to the KTHV News logo, a much-needed break from the furniture salesman’s manic grin. A familiar breaking news banner appeared beneath the anchor’s desk: “Remote Hiking Accident Victim Identified,” scrolled in bold, red letters.

Frank Miller leaned forward. He reached across the small desk and touched the volume button on the remote, depressing it carefully until the sound level was just audible, a low, controlled stream of audio that would not carry through the thin walls of the motel room. He heard the anchor's polished, modulated voice.

The anchor, a woman with severely sculpted hair and an expression of practiced concern, stared directly into the camera. “We have an update tonight on the traumatic injury incident resulting in a dramatic medevac from the Allegheny National Forest earlier today,” she began, her tone grave. “The Allegheny County Sheriff’s Office confirmed moments ago the primary identification of the man rescued from a deep ravine in a secluded area of the park.”

Miller’s focus sharpened. He had already neutralized the possibility of the old German identification card surfacing, replacing it with a clean slate for the police to work with. He waited for confirmation of the identity he had supplied to Detective Vance.

“The victim is identified as Karl Neumann,” the anchor stated, pronouncing the German name with meticulous care. “Mr. Neumann, age 85, was found by a lone hiker, Mr. Frank Miller, following what investigators describe as a severe fall.”

Miller felt a small, inward clench of satisfaction. The naming was correct. The narrative was holding. The police had accepted his version of the discovery and the identity. They had the name, and they had him, Miller, as the sole source of that name, which meant they had nothing else.

The anchor continued, listing the consequences of the fall. “According to hospital sources, Mr. Neumann underwent lengthy neurosurgery at the Allegheny Regional Medical Center immediately following his extraction. The hospital now lists his condition as critical, but stable.”

Miller repeated the words in his mind, cataloging the data: lengthy neurosurgery; critical, but stable. That implied survival, at least for now. The training he received in battlefield medical procedures clicked into place. Head trauma of that magnitude required prompt intervention, and the fact that surgery was completed and the patient was now stabilized was a significant indicator of resilience. The old man, Miller thought with grim acknowledgment, was proving to be a difficult package to dispose of.

The camera cut to a brief, grainy still photo of the rescue helicopter hovering over a dense tree line; the angle was too far away to reveal any specifics of the operation. The anchor’s voice returned over the footage.

“Initial identification information was provided solely by the rescuer, Mr. Frank Miller, who administered sophisticated first aid at the scene and helped coordinate the successful evacuation. Sources within the Sheriff’s Office indicate Mr. Neumann possessed limited personal effects, making definitive identification difficult before Mr. Miller’s intervention.”

They were giving him credit. The news was positioning him as a hero, a Good Samaritan who acted decisively. This was the exact public perception he had wanted to cultivate. The Sheriff’s Office had zero interest in questioning the man who had just saved an elderly man’s life, especially when all the facts appeared simple on the surface.

The camera returned to the anchor, whose expression had tightened further into an almost unbearable sympathy.

“We also learned late tonight that due to the severity of the head trauma, Mr. Neumann is currently non-communicative and in a medically induced coma,” she announced, pausing for dramatic effect. “This unfortunate situation means police are currently unable to question the victim regarding the circumstances of his fall or his specific travel arrangements within the region.”

Miller let out a small, quiet breath, a sound that was less audible than the hum of the motel’s inefficient air conditioner. Non-communicative. Medically induced coma. That single sentence confirmed the absolute success of his carefully crafted silence.

With Neumann unconscious and unable to speak, the only living witness to the events leading up to the fall, and the only person who knew the truth of Neumann's identity before the Kennkarte was burned, was Frank Miller. The police had hit a dead end, precisely where Miller had intended for them to land. They had a victim, a name, a location, and a reliable witness account; lacking the victim’s testimony and any contrary evidence, the file would remain classified as an accident. The police investigation into Neumann’s background—the very thing Detective Vance had been hinting at—had been temporarily, perhaps indefinitely, halted by a medical procedure.

The report concluded quickly afterward, mentioning that the Sheriff’s Office was appealing for any close family members or acquaintances of Karl Neumann to come forward, presumably based on the address Miller had supplied, which he had pulled from a four-decade-old memory of the camp guard roster. The screen then returned to a new, equally absurd commercial for a local car dealership.

Miller reached for the remote again and pressed the power button, muting the television. The blue light of the screen instantly went dark. The sudden absence of light and sound felt heavy in the small, cheaply furnished room.

He sat motionless for several long minutes, allowing the physical reality of the situation to set in. Karl Neumann was alive. He was stable. The rescue had worked. The cover story had worked. The destruction of the only hard evidence had secured the narrative. He was safe from immediate scrutiny, and Neumann was safe from immediate exposure. The two objectives had been achieved simultaneously.

The immediate threat of discovery, the danger of being re-entangled in the past he had fought so hard to bury, had passed. He felt a wave of profound, exhausted relief wash over him, quickly followed by a sense of acute dissatisfaction.

He had performed the act of survival, prioritizing his decades-old directive to save life, even a life filled with so much past cruelty. Now, he was left with the outcome. Neumann was alive, entirely dependent on machines and medical professionals, and Miller was free to disappear back into his routine, leaving the consequences of the rescue to others.

But could he?

He thought back to the raw, visceral hatred he had felt when he first found the Kennkarte, the hatred that fueled the controlled violence of burning the document. That anger had not dissipated. It was simply banked, covered by the ash of tactical compliance. He had saved the man, not out of forgiveness, but out of a deeper, almost pathological commitment to his own internal code of conduct as a former combat medic.

He had inserted himself into Neumann’s fate once by saving him. He had inserted himself a second time by destroying the evidence that would have revealed his Nazi identity and, by extension, Miller’s connection to him. He was now, intrinsically, responsible for Karl Neumann’s immediate future. Retreating now, knowing that the man who tormented him was lying helpless just a few hours' drive away, felt like an unacceptable form of moral abdication.

Frank Miller realized that passive monitoring was insufficient. He could not leave the situation unresolved. The police would eventually run out of leads. They would eventually try to piece together the life of an 85-year-old man found injured in a remote American forest. Somebody would eventually look deeper.

And Neumann was in a medically induced coma. He would wake up eventually. Perhaps he would wake up with amnesia, maintaining the current firewall against the past. Perhaps he would wake up coherent and start asking questions, or worse, making accusations. Miller needed to be closer. He needed to be able to anticipate the next move. He needed to be physically present, hovering on the periphery of the situation, ready to intervene if required.

He reached for the small tablet he carried on his trips, a device specifically designed for minimal digital footprint and remote communication. He connected the tablet to the motel’s public Wi-Fi network. The connection was slow and unreliable, typical of budget motel bandwidth, but sufficient for his needs.

He initiated a search for the Allegheny Regional Medical Center, the hospital named in the news report. He cross-referenced the address with local commercial lodging options. He needed another anonymous place to stay, a neutral ground closer to the target.

He filtered the search results aggressively: motels within a three-mile radius of the hospital, cheapest rates, and—most importantly—only options that advertised external, drive-up room access and guaranteed 24-hour check-in. The goal was rapid, discreet access and egress.

Several results populated the screen. He clicked on each map location, checking the proximity to the hospital campus and the surrounding area. One location stood out: a slightly older motor lodge situated directly across a major thoroughfare from the main hospital parking garage. The Crossroads Inn.

He reviewed the minimal information available online. The reviews were tepid, suggesting thin walls and indifferent management, exactly what he preferred. A budget establishment with high turnover and a staff programmed for disinterest was his ideal temporary base of operations. The establishment was close enough that he could observe the main entrance of the hospital on foot if necessary, but far enough away that he was not directly on the hospital grounds.

He confirmed the location, ensuring it was not associated with the same chain as the Travelers’ Rest, reducing any chance of shared digital records or management oversight. He memorized the physical street layout and the distance. He would arrive and pay cash for the room; a digital reservation was unnecessary risk, especially since he was carrying sufficient funds.

Once he had the information, he disconnected the tablet immediately, securing it in his rucksack. He performed a quick self-inventory of the room. He had been meticulous about not leaving anything behind when he checked into the Truckers’ Rest. He confirmed the room was exactly as he found it: sterile, impersonal, and empty of any trace of Frank Miller.

He grabbed the small, heavy rucksack from the floor. He lifted the wooden armchair and moved it away from the bolted door, replacing the makeshift lock with the motel’s flimsy commercial security chain. He reached into his pocket and retrieved the large, cheap plastic fob containing the physical key.

Frank Miller did not use the internal phone system to inform the clerk of his departure. He did not require a receipt for his stay, so there was no need to check out formally. He intended to remove himself from the premises quietly and cleanly.

He opened the door to Room 107. The corridor light hummed faintly. He stepped out, closing the door behind him with a silent, deliberate motion. He walked toward the main lobby area.

The same bored young clerk was still stationed behind the desk, head resting on one hand, apparently engrossed in a paperback book.

Miller walked up to the counter and placed the heavy key fob silently onto the laminate surface. He nudged it forward until it reached the edge of the clerk’s field of vision.

The clerk looked up slowly, registering Miller's presence. “Checking out, sir?”

“Traveling light,” Miller confirmed, keeping his response minimal.

“Hope you had a nice stay,” the clerk replied without any real engagement, his gaze already drifting back toward the book.

“Quiet enough,” Miller said, which was enough of a response.

He turned from the counter, his departure completed without exchange of information or demand for receipts. He walked across the overly bright lobby, past the vending machine area, and out into the cool night air of the parking lot. The yellow light still flickered over his truck.

He walked quickly to the dark green pickup, unlocking the driver’s side door. He deposited the rucksack onto the passenger seat. He climbed into the cab, inserted the key, and turned the ignition. The engine caught instantly, the sound deep and strong in the relative quiet of the late night.

Miller checked the side mirrors and the rearview mirror. The parking lot remained still. He backed the truck out carefully, maintaining a slow, almost painfully deliberate pace, pulling the truck onto the paved feeder road that led to the highway access ramp.

He merged onto the Interstate, driving east again, following the predetermined course he had charted on the tablet. The destination was no longer simply away from the park; the destination was now a specific node point: the Allegheny Regional Medical Center.

He drove for a little over an hour, the highway becoming wider and the traffic increasing slowly as they approached the commercial hub of the county seat. The lights of the city started to illuminate the horizon, glowing with the promise of anonymity and large-scale infrastructure.

He navigated the complex system of interchanges, following the signs for the regional medical campus. The surrounding commercial activity was dense: pharmacies, specialist physician offices, and satellite medical facilities. The area felt entirely different from the vast, empty mountains he had left behind just hours earlier. This was a place of high population density and organized chaos, much easier to disappear in than the quiet woods.

He found the street listed for The Crossroads Inn. It ran parallel to a high concrete wall that bordered the main medical center parking structure, a large, multi-story monolith designed to handle thousands of cars daily.

He slowed the truck immediately. The Crossroads Inn was exactly where the map indicated, an older, two-story structure with external walkways, painted a faded, indifferent beige. The parking lot was well-lit but not full. It looked exactly like the type of place where someone could disappear for a week without the cleaning staff noticing.

Miller pulled the truck into the nearest available spot, positioning it against the back wall, away from the street, providing the maximum distance from the road and the closest proximity to the structural support of the hotel itself. He turned off the ignition, plunging the cab into silence again.

It was just after midnight. He waited for a few minutes, observing the entrance structure for any signs of unusual activity. There were no loiterers, no visible police vehicles, and the front lobby area appeared to be manned by a single, bored employee, visible only as a shape behind a glass window partially obscured by cheap vertical blinds.

He gathered only the essentials: wallet, keys, rucksack, and the jacket. He locked the truck, testing the handle twice.

He walked across the parking lot toward the small, brightly lit lobby. The floor tile inside was sticky. The air conditioning was working too hard, making the space cold.

A man in a worn blue polo shirt sat behind the counter, reading something small and dense. He looked up when Miller entered, but his expression remained flat.

Miller paused at the counter. He kept his expression neutral, projecting the weary exhaustion of someone who had been driving too long.

“Single room, two nights, need quiet access,” Miller stated clearly, laying a stack of twenty-dollar bills on the counter. He counted out an amount that exceeded the advertised rate, a small bribe for frictionless service.

The clerk looked at the money, then at Miller. Without asking for identification or a credit card, he nodded curtly.

“Room 214,” the clerk said, removing a key card from a slot on the wall. “Second floor, back corner. Elevator’s over there.” He pointed a thumb toward a discreet door in the corner of the lobby.

Miller took the key card.

“How far is the hospital from here?” Miller asked, a casual question that was entirely relevant to a man who had been driving all night.

“Cross the street, go through the garage, you’re there,” the clerk replied, already counting the cash, dismissing Miller entirely. “Can’t miss it.”

Miller nodded once. He turned and walked to the elevator. He ascended to the second floor, exiting into a long, dimly lit external corridor. He walked toward the back wing, the sounds of distant city traffic muffled by the surrounding buildings.

He reached Room 214. He inserted the key card. The small LED light flashed green. He opened the door and stepped inside.

The room was marginally larger than the one in Havenwood, equally anonymous, and smelling faintly of industrial air freshener mixed with stale cigarette smoke, a persistent odor that no amount of cleaning could eradicate. There was one window overlooking a dumpster area and a chain-link fence separating the motel property from the hospital staff parking lot.

Miller closed the door firmly. His first action was security. He grabbed the desk chair and firmly wedged it beneath the handle, just as he had done hours earlier. He did not trust the lock. He established perimeter security.

His immediate destination was not the bed, despite the hours of driving; his immediate destination was the window overlooking the fence.

He pulled back the thin, faded curtain. Through the glass, he could see the back of the medical center complex, the brightly lit, sterile windows of the upper floors of the main tower visible over the chain-link fence. That tower housed the Intensive Care Unit, the likely domain of traumatic head injuries.

He was less than five hundred yards away from the man he had saved, the man who was now comatose and entirely at his mercy.

He was now securely positioned in the immediate periphery of Karl Neumann’s survival, ready to insert himself further into the recovery when the time was right. His surveillance had begun.