Джеффри Дивер - The Final Twist

Shaw looked toward his brother, who frowned. What on earth was it?

“And he died while they were torturing him to find out where it was?” Shaw asked.

“That’s right, I’m sure.”

A new track came on, louder. The men had to huddle close to hear and be heard.

Russell asked, “Where did he hide it?”

“He was afraid of the phone lines, so he gave me two clues. One was the ‘dog park.’ He meant Quigley Square. A friend of ours lived there and we’d walk her dog if she was traveling.”

Shaw knew the place, a transitional neighborhood in the city.

“The other clue was ‘It’s hidden underground, someplace you’d be expecting.’”

Great, thought Shaw. More scavenger hunt.

Another hit of the weed. “Then I heard a shout. It sounded like he dropped the phone. Then it seemed like there was a scuffle.” He grew silent for a moment. “That was the last time I heard his voice.”

“Any guesses where he meant?”

“No.”

Russell: “You ever think about going to Quigley Square and doing what he wanted to? Destroying it?”

His eyes, more tearful, looked down at the dimpled wood floor. “I thought, yes, but I didn’t. I’m a coward! Helms and Irena and Droon... they didn’t know I existed anymore. I erased myself. I thought about it, finding whatever it was, doing what Amos wanted. But in the end, I balked. They’re so powerful, so dangerous. They’ve got all the power of the police and the CIA!” His eyes grew wild — the way their father’s occasionally had. “You just don’t know... Besides, he died before he told them, so hidden it was and hidden it would remain. Forever. It was like being destroyed.”

“Except,” Shaw said, “they’re still after it. And we have to get to it first.”

“To save that family.” La Fleur’s voice was low.

“That’s right.” Russell called up a map of San Francisco on his phone. He focused in on Quigley Square. There were dozens of buildings bordering the park. Presumably they’d all have undergrounds — cellars or maybe tunnels.

Shaw asked, “Would it be in the friend’s house? The dog friend?”

“Amos would never endanger anyone. In any case, she moved years ago.”

Shaw wondered aloud: “Sewers? Transit system?”

“No BART station there,” Russell noted. “Where would we expect it to be hidden, when we don’t know what it is?” he muttered.

Shaw offered, “Maybe he hides it in a book and puts it in a cellar of a library or bookstore. He’s got a CD or tape, he hides it in a music store basement. It’s a computer disk, so it’s in the basement of a school with a computer science lab.” He shook his head. “We can’t keep throwing out ideas. ‘Never speculate.’”

Russell finished their father’s rule: “‘Make decisions from facts.’”

Shaw asked, “Who’s the client that wanted the Sanction?”

La Fleur said, “Banyan Tree Inc. It’s a big conglomerate. International. Into healthcare, medical equipment, transportation, communications, environmental work, real estate—”

“Real estate,” Shaw said. “UIP.”

Russell nodded.

Shaw asked where Banyan’s headquarters was.

“In the city here. It’s a skyscraper downtown.”

“Four hundred block of Sutter?”

“Could be, yeah. That sounds right.”

He said to Russell, “The tracker I tagged Braxton with placed her there.”

Shaw had a thought. “Who’s the head of Banyan Tree?”

“Jonathan Stuart Devereux.”

Russell fished out his phone and displayed the picture he’d shot of the round bald man with the busy hands and the fancy British car at the site of the drug handover in the Tenderloin.

La Fleur examined the screen. “That’s Devereux, yeah. Oh, he’s a son of a bitch. Ruthless. He just drove a competitor into bankruptcy. Devereux’s industrial spies — BlackBridge probably — found out they were breaking some laws or regulations and turned them in to the feds. It broke them. The CEO committed suicide.”

La Fleur angrily exhaled a wad of smoke. “You know what a banyan tree is?”

Shaw said, “It’s a fig. It strangles any tree competing with it for light.”

La Fleur nodded. “And it’s got the longest root spread of any tree on earth. Any doubt why Devereux picked the name?”

Russell said, “Endgame Sanction... Wonder in what sense.”

Sanction was one of those odd words that had contradictory meanings: it could be either permission — as in you’re sanctioned to attack — or punishment, as in imposing sanctions.

La Fleur said, “Or it might mean nothing. BlackBridge uses code names a lot.” He grew thoughtful. And tugged at his ponytail, then picked up the bong and lighter once again.

Shaw wanted to get to Quigley Square and get started on the search. He rose. Russell too.

La Fleur inhaled deep, let the smoke amble from his mouth. Then he rose, shut the music off, and walked to the door with the brothers. He began to unhitch the various latches and locks. “I gave Amos some advice. It’s one of those old clichés, but it’s true. When you aim for an emperor, you better not miss. He aimed and he missed. I guess the same happened to your father. You two? You can still walk away.”

He cracked the door, looked out and then pulled it fully open.

Russell eyed him sternly. “La Fleur, let me give you some advice.” The man eased back, his face revealing alarm at the brother’s fierce, dark eyes.

“First, never provide your enemy with cover.” He nodded at the drums sitting staggered along the path to the street. “Get rid of them or move them. Second, never use inferior materials in your weapons. Make a new bow. Use locust, lemonwood or yew. It should be a foot longer. And fletch your arrows with short, parabolic feathers. You don’t need accuracy at distance on a shooting zone this short. You need velocity. And order some parachute cord for the string. You got that?”

“Yessir,” La Fleur whispered. “I’ll get right on it.”

Endgame Sanction. The hell you think it is?” Russell was piloting the SUV through the roller-coaster streets of San Francisco, on their way to Quigley Square.

Shaw only shook his head. He received an email from Mack McKenzie. He’d requested a profile of Devereux and Banyan Tree.

Shaw read her response aloud to his brother:

“Jonathan Stuart Devereux. Estimated worth, $1.4 billion. CEO and majority shareholder of Banyan Tree Inc. BT is solely a holding company. Devereux is known in the business world as the king of subsidiaries, which run all of the company’s business. This is done to protect Banyan Tree and Devereux from liability. One reporter said, ‘Nobody hides behind the corporate veil better than Jonathan Devereux.’”

Shaw looked at his brother. “She gives a list of everything he’s into, which La Fleur told us. But there are some others. Data collection, information processing, media.”

He returned to the email. “Recent incidents that have made the news: A subsidiary in the UK, Southampton Analytics, is being investigated by MI5, the domestic criminal investigation division, for hacking and interference with elections in the UK, France, Germany and the U.S. One of the board members is a Russian national who had been a military intelligence officer. There was no evidence that Banyan Tree was directly involved. Devereux either.

“Another one: Police in New Delhi arrested the managers of a huge call center after a fire killed twenty-four workers, on the grounds of failing to maintain a safe workplace. The company was owned by layers of shell corporations, set up by Banyan Tree. But, again, Devereux and the company weren’t implicated.