Джеффри Дивер - The Final Twist

He circled slowly.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Shaw stopped.

“Russell.”

His brother looked toward him and then at what Shaw was gesturing toward.

High on a sturdy gray shelf containing scores of medical treatises, one object stood out. It appeared to be the spine of a book, though wider and taller than the others. Yet the brown leather did not bear any title, author or other information.

Russell, the taller of the two, slipped it from the shelf.

Was this the pot of gold?

It turned out to be a large briefcase that opened from the top.

“Courier bag?” Shaw asked.

“Hmm.”

He started to open the bag, but his brother touched his arm. “No.” The creaking had resumed. “Not here.”

As soon as the brothers had left the hospital, they walked to the Quigley Square Diner, not far away. It was a please-seat-yourself establishment and soon they were sitting across from each other in a booth. They’d bought sandwiches neither was interested in — rent for the booth.

In the deserted back portion of the place, Russell ran a nitrate detector over the case to sense for explosives.

Never assume an object that’s been in your enemy’s possession is harmless.

No unstable substances were present.

Then he scanned it for transmitters. This too was negative.

Russell picked the lock securing the top flap of the case in five seconds and popped it open.

A laminated card was inside.

Property of BlackBridge Corporate Solutions, Inc.

And there was a number below with the request to please return if found.

The brothers shared a look.

Then they began to unearth the contents.

The top layers consisted of folded copies of San Francisco Chronicle s and People s and Time s from years ago.

Then, like the archeological sites Margot Keller was so adept at excavating, things got more interesting the farther down you went.

Beneath the innocuous periodicals were hundreds of documents — both photocopies and originals. Most were corporate or financial in nature: spreadsheets, balance sheets, contracts for services and goods, maps, memos about cash transfers, real estate plots, shipping schedules, accounts receivable, along with various contracts.

They found a series of draft bills for some bodies of legislature, something that Gahl, the historian, had discovered in his job as a researcher for BlackBridge, Shaw guessed. Probably they’d been drafted for a governmental client of the company, one who — they gathered as they read through the papers — favored eliminating regulations on the environment, manufacturing and banking. Shaw read one that proposed redefining probable cause in criminal matters to make it far easier for the police to get warrants and detain suspects. Another proposed bill eased the burden of getting permission for surveillance. The authoritarian nature of the documents was troubling.

They continued to dig, briefly examining each piece of paper: more spreadsheets, some documents that were quite old, one more than a hundred years.

Shaw finally came to the bottom of the courier bag.

Nothing referred to the “Endgame Sanction.”

He did note, though, a bulge on the inside of the case — there was what seemed to be a hidden compartment, sealed at the top with Velcro. Shaw looked at Russell, who nodded.

Shaw pulled the flap open with a tearing sound, and looked into the space.

Bingo...

He extracted an old-style cassette player. Inside was a tape of the sort that could be played in a Walkman or similar device from the 1980s. There were no batteries, which was fortunate. After all these years, they would have corroded and chemical leakage might have destroyed the tape itself.

Russell left Shaw and walked across the street to a bodega. He returned with a package of AA batteries. Shaw loaded them in and, glancing once at his brother, hit rewind. The unit worked.

So. This was the moment.

What was on the tape? Was it the Endgame Sanction itself? A recording of a secret meeting about it? The contents might put all the other documentation in the bag in context, answer clues, tie everything together.

Devastating...

When the tape was at the beginning and the rewind button popped up, Russell hesitated a moment and pushed the play button.

Suddenly rock music poured out, loud. And tinny, given the small speaker.

A few customers glanced their way.

Russell turned the volume down. “Black Eyed Peas,” he said.

“That’s a group?”

A nod.

Fast-forward.

“Beyoncé.”

Fast-forward.

“Ludacris.”

“What’s ludicrous?” Shaw asked.

Russell eyed his brother. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

Fast-forward.

“Mariah Carey.”

Shaw: “I know her. Some Christmas song, right?”

On and on. Pausing at the end of each tune to listen for a voice explaining what the Sanction was, why it would be disastrous if it were to come into Jonathan Devereux’s possession.

But no, there was just a gap of static and then the next song would begin.

Russell’s still eyes gazed at the player.

They listened to the entire tape, both sides. Russell let it run all the way to the end and snap loudly off.

“Hmm.”

Shaw said, “What’s that technique called for hiding information in pictures and music?”

“Steganography.” He was stroking his beard. “But that only works with digital media. Bytes of data. Analog?” A nod at the tape player. “No.”

Shaw asked, “What about tracking? Something recorded over or under the music? Something we can’t hear, like a dog whistle. Can that be done?”

Russell considered this. “Don’t know. I’ll see.” He looked up a number on his phone and called.

A moment later he was saying, “It’s me... You free?... I’m going to play some music clips. Tell me if there’s anything out of detectable audio range.” He listened for a moment. Then: “No project number... I know. I’ll work it out later.”

Perhaps a reference to the fact he was using the group’s resources for a very non-group operation.

He set the phone beside the speaker and pressed play. It was a country western song. After a minute he stopped and fast-forwarded the tape. He played another sixty seconds or so of a different song. He did this a half-dozen more times.

“You got that?” Russell said into his phone. Then he was listening to the person on the other end of the line. “’K.” He disconnected. “She’ll get back to us.”

Five minutes later, after the brothers had gone through the contents of the courier bag once more and found nothing that even suggested the words endgame or sanction , Russell’s phone hummed. He took the call. As usual, his face gave nothing away. When he disconnected he told his brother, “Nothing she could pick up. She’s going to try a deeper analysis. But it doesn’t look likely. High frequency on analog is not a known technique.”

Shaw suspected Russell’s group was quite well versed in all the known techniques.

“Karin?”

“No.”

Shaw asked, “Could the names of the music groups spell out something? Or the songs.”

The suggestion even sounded lame. But they tried. Russell knew most of the groups, though only about half of the songs. After five minutes of playing the anagram game, they gave up.

“The lining?”

A nod.

Shaw set the bag in his lap and, after making sure no one was near, opened his razor-sharp locking-blade knife. He cut into the cloth linings. He put the knife away and reached inside. The search was in vain.