Джеффри Дивер - The Final Twist

“Give her the SIG.”

Shaw withdrew the weapon and handed it to Karin grip first. She removed the magazine and the round in the chamber. She locked the slide back and then deposited the gun, the mag and the solo slug in a thick plastic bag. She put what seemed to be a damp cloth inside and sealed it up.

“My prints are on it,” Shaw told her.

A faint, amused squint. Meaning: They won’t be for long. Shaw wondered what the magic material was.

Broad Ty said, “Behind us. Hostiles.”

An SUV was speeding toward them. Shaw could not see through the glary windshield but he supposed that Droon had been picked up by the two black-suited security guards earlier than he’d originally anticipated. The vehicle skidded to a stop and all three got out. They were trotting forward, cautiously, hands inside their jackets.

Russell nodded to Matt, who replaced the broom with an H&K submachine gun, mounted with a silencer. The man pulled the slide to chamber a round. He aimed toward Droon, who, with the others, fanned out, seeking cover behind trashcans.

Russell said, “No personnel. Vehicle only.”

A muted chain saw of firing, and the slugs shredded the vehicle’s grill. He’d been careful to group the rounds so that they didn’t spill past the car and endanger anyone in the park.

Matt then joined the others, who were already in the van. Shaw slid the side door shut. He noted that it was particularly heavy and wondered if the panel was bulletproof. The vehicle’s tires squealed loudly as the male driver, lean and dark-complected, steered, skidding, into the side street, away from the alley and the smoking SUV, and accelerated fast. Shaw held on tight. Russell made his way to the front passenger seat. Shaw and those in the back were benched against the wall. Matt was looking over a tablet. “No activity. We’re good.”

Russell said, “First his bike. Then the safe house on Alvarez.”

I understand. You have questions...

An understatement, if ever there was one.

“How’d you place me at the library? From the air?”

There were so many questions to ask. Shaw wondered why he led with one of the least significant.

The two of them were alone in the safe house’s dining room, illuminated with an ethereal glow from the windows, as the sunlight knuckled away the pale pastel fog. They sat at a maple table, dinged and scraped, a wedge under one leg for stability.

Reading a text or email on his phone, Russell said absently, “Use drones some. Not in cities usually. FAA and Homeland Security’re problems.”

“That right?”

His older brother seemed to be debating what to say and what he shouldn’t. “Mostly, we had you on traffic and security cams. Algorithms. Handoffs.” A shrug. Meaning he didn’t want to — or legally couldn’t — be more specific.

Russell finished sending a message and rose and looked out the bay window in the front of the living room. Then he moved to the side windows and examined the view from there. It was limited. They admitted light only, as they faced a solid brick wall about ten feet away. Russell made a circuit to the back, where another bay overlooked the small garden, the alley and, beyond, an apartment that resembled Soviet-era housing. Shaw realized that there were no windows in any adjoining buildings — front, side or back — that faced the safe house. This would be one of the reasons why their father had selected it.

Shaw walked to the front window and peered outside. He could see quiet Alvarez Street and the burnt-down building across the way, the site of Tricia’s, well, Karin’s, supposed attack. He reflected that it was surprising no one had bought the lot and constructed residential property. The Mission was vastly popular and developers could make a killing. Then again, could was the operative word; San Francisco was a pressure cooker of a real estate market. You could go bust as fast as you could make ten-figure profits.

Shaw’s eyes moved from the building to the streets nearby. He was scanning both for BlackBridge ops, despite Russell’s associate’s reassurance they were clear, and for the Honda, his tail.

His brother returned to the table. The stocking cap was off and his dark hair wasn’t longish ; it was long, period.

“Does one of your people drive a dark green Honda Accord?” Shaw asked.

“No. Why?”

“Somebody was tailing me. They placed me here.”

“No, not us, not part of my operation. You get the tag?”

“No.”

Silence descended and now it was time for explanations.

Russell said, “Back there. Why were you targeted?”

“They weren’t trying to kill me. They needed me alive. For the time being.”

“Could see that. Angle of his aim. Still.”

“They wanted information. I’ll show you.”

Shaw rose and from the kitchen gathered the material Ashton had left in the basement.

“This was in the secure room.”

“Did you know about it before?”

“The room? No. All I had was the address.” A glance around the living room. “But I knew what to look for. Remember, Ash taught us how to build one, make it blend in and dim the outside lights. He called it ‘the camo of murk.’”

Russell’s eyes narrowed, as a recollection arose — probably of the time Ashton had taught the three Shaw children how to build a disguised door for a hiding spot in the shed behind the cabin. He had told them, “Anybody can hide hinges and latches. The most important thing in fooling intruders is the dust. Dusty walls don’t move.” He taught them how to use rubber cement spray on the disguised door and surrounding panels and then shake a feather duster over the adhesive. Six-year-old Dorion had done the best job.

Russell said, “You missed the flash-bang. I got an alert.”

“Careless. But at that point I didn’t know anybody else had been here, and Ashton wasn’t the IED sort.”

“No. He wasn’t.”

“You know, some people use Ring or Nest for home security — not explosives.”

Unsmiling, Russell shrugged, then nodded to the material on the table. “Saw that when I was here back a couple of years. Didn’t mean anything to me. Assumed it was Ash’s but you know... his rambling, the paranoia.”

“Wouldn’t mean anything without this.” Shaw dug into his backpack and retrieved the letter their father had written about BlackBridge.

Russell read. “So BlackBridge’s a dirty-tricks outfit. Never come across them before.” Spoken in a tone that suggested he was more than familiar with such operations. “Where did this come from?” A nod at the letter.

Shaw hesitated. “He hid it on Echo Ridge.”

The location where Shaw had convinced himself Russell had murdered their father.

His brother gave no reaction. “In the alley, they were all BlackBridge?”

“Right. The library was a front.”

“I know that. When you went inside, I checked. Found out it wasn’t connected to the university. And offshores don’t own libraries. Not legitimate ones.”

His resources were probably as good as Mack’s. Most likely considerably better.

Russell looked over the letter once more. “Half of Ashton’s worries were smoke.”

“At least.”

“Not this.”

“No.”

Shaw handed him the dead-drop note, written to their father by a sympathetic employee of BlackBridge.

Amos is dead. It’s in a BlackBridge courier bag. Don’t know where he hid it. This is my last note. Too dangerous. Good luck.

“‘It’? The evidence Ashton was talking about.”

“That’s right.” Shaw waved at the rest of the material he’d brought up from the basement. “Not like this, not supposition and suggestion. Whatever Gahl found is enough to get indictments.”