The Final Twist

by Jeffery Deaver

  Matt reached into the van and removed a broom and a spray bottle. He returned to the site of the shooting and spritzed liquid onto the bloodstain. The bullet would have been a hollow point, designed to expand in the brain, causing instantaneous lethal damage but remaining within the skull. Exit wounds created the biggest leaks.

  He slipped the bottle into his slacks pocket and swept dirt and gravel over where the body had lain. This had some sort of procedural precision to it and was done to confound a crime scene crew, though Shaw doubted any police would ever investigate. Certainly Droon and Braxton would not be calling 911 to report that the BlackBridge employee had met his end.

  “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.

  15

  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 s
moke.”

  “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.”

  “Ash told us ‘Never go to Echo Ridge. Terrain’s not so kind.’ But it wasn’t any worse than anywhere else in the high country. Maybe he didn’t want us going there because it was a dead-drop for him and his circle.” Russell glanced at Shaw, who nodded his understanding of the spy term. His brother continued, “The letter was meant for one of his colleagues. How’d you find it?”

  “Long story. Came across some clues that led me there.”

  “Any of the friends still around?”

  “Maybe, but most are dead or in hiding. BlackBridge is good at arranging accidents.”

  Shaw didn’t tell his brother that he believed the letter had been left not for a colleague but for him. It was he who had been given, and who deciphered, the clues that led to Echo Ridge—and ultimately to the safe house. It wouldn’t have been impossible for a colleague of Ashton’s to deduce where the letter and map had been hidden. But why situate a dead-drop three hundred miles from San Francisco, where most of their father’s associates were?

  “And BlackBridge, they’re behind Ash’s death?” Russell eyed Shaw closely. “At the funeral, the word was ‘accident.’ But back then I got the feeling you didn’t think so.”

  Was there something in his brother’s tone? Did he or did he not know Shaw had silently accused him of murdering their father?

  A chill flowed through him. “No, I didn’t.” He hesitated. “Some things didn’t add up. His shotgun, the Benelli, was nowhere near where he fell. And did you ever know him to lose his footing on rock, ice, snow, sand, gravel?” He was speaking quickly. Did he sound defensive as he threw out some of the reasons why he’d formulated the theory of patricide?

  He felt Russell’s eyes on him still, and he chose to meet the man’s gaze. Shaw said, “A couple of weeks ago I learned for sure it was BlackBridge.” He explained what Ebbitt Droon had told him about the company’s operative coming to the Compound to “talk” with their father. “That is, torture him and get him to tell them where the evidence was hidden. Ashton tipped to the op and ambushed him. But he was no match for the BlackBridge man.”

  “Hmm.”

  Shaw wanted so badly to grab his brother by the shoulders and shout: I was young, you were secretive. I saw the fight you and Ash had. And you were evasive about where you were on the night he was killed. I was wrong. But was what I did reason enough for you to vanish from the family altogether? Do you know what that did to our mother, our sister?

  To me . . .

  But of course, Colter Shaw couldn’t ask that question because the answer might very well be what he feared: Because I can’t forgive you.

  Before he could stop himself he said, “The Reclusive One.” Was it a subconscious jab at his brother’s disappearance?

  “What?”

  “Looks like your profession, whatever it is, it’s kept you true to your name.”

  Russell squinted. “The nicknames. When we were kids. Reclusive. You were restless. Dorie was clever.”

  “You’re using the house for some kind of operation. How did you know about it?”

  “I was in San Francisco for some training, long time ago, and Ash said there was a house he used when he was in town. We met here. He gave me a key. My group has operations here from time to time, so I use it as a command post.”

  “Group?”

  Russell said nothing.

  It would handle government security of some kind, he guessed. But out of the mainstream. The FBI, CIA, DoD, NSA and most of the rest of the alphabet soup of government entities couldn’t get away with shooting someone with a silenced pistol and making the body and accessories go away as if you were cleaning up a broken jar of pickles dropped on a kitchen tile floor.

  Shaw said, “I looked at the paperwork in the secure room. It’s classified?”

  “Not anymore, I guess.”

  “That a problem?”

  A pause. “Not really.”

  “You speak Chinese, Russian?”

  He didn’t answer, but obviously he did. Russell had had years to learn quite a few skills since Shaw had seen him last.

  “We have a full security setup when we’re active but we closed the file on that op early this morning. All the cameras and mics were packed up and gone.”

  Shaw could only laugh. “That was smooth. The assault outside. Karin and Ty.”

  “When the device went off I got a message. The secure room was compromised. And we had to find out who.”

  “You, Karin and Ty, you put the whole set together in minutes? The costumes, makeup.”

  Russell lifted an eyebrow. “What we do. We train for things like that. Improvise. And they were nearby. She was wearing a body cam. She started to run your picture through our facial recognition database, but . . .” He shrugged. “I saw the image. After, I put together a surveillance package on you.”

  Why? Shaw wondered.

  A moment later, Russell asked, “So you’re here because of Ashton and BlackBridge? There’s no reward?”

  Shaw must’ve reacted.

  “You’re in the news some.”

  So he was curious about me. But not curious enough to pick up the phone and give me or our mother a call.

  “No reward. It’s all about BlackBridge.”

  Russell’s look conveyed a question: But why?

  Shaw: “I know what Ashton said. ‘Never pursue revenge. It goes against the grain of survivalism.’”

  “Was thinking that, yes.”

  “Well, this isn’t revenge. It’s finishing what he started. His mission.”

  There was really nothing more to add.

  16

  Russell sent a text on his elaborate phone. It was a brand that Shaw had never seen before.

  He regarded his brother’s luxurious beard. You’d think it would be a problem in clandestine work, if that’s what Russell engaged in. He’d be instantly recognizable. Maybe he was famous in his field, though, and he sported the facial hair as a trademark.

  His brother’s phone hummed.

  “Nothing in our system about Urban Improvement Plan or Amos Gahl,” said Russell. He put the phone away. “Basic information about BlackBridge but they’re not flagged with any red notices.”

  Shaw imagined his brother had access to a database that was exceedingly robust.

  “Appreciate you checking. This group of yours . . . can you tell me?”

  “No.”

  “Just ‘group’ with a lowercase ‘g.’”

  “What we go by.” After a pause Russell asked, “You always use the Yamaha in your work?”

  Shaw explained about living in the Winnebago but renting cars on his jobs to stay unobtrusive. Much of the rewards business is surveillance and questioning witnesses, and nothing blended better than a black Avis or Hertz (he picked that color because it gave the impression he was law enforcement, though he never said he was). “Still might rent a car here. Depends on the weather.”

  Russell took a call. He listened for a moment. He said, “That’s right. Tell them it’s closed permanently.” He disconnected.

  Silence drifted between them.

  Shaw asked, “You have a family? Anyone in your life?”

  “No. You?”

  He thought of Victoria. �
��No.”

  “I heard you were married.”

  He thought of Margot. “No.”

  Roiling silence. Russell checked his phone once more.

  “Dorion’s good,” Shaw told him.

  “I know. I saw her and the girls last month.”

  “Saw them?” Shaw couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice.

  “I saw them. They didn’t see me.”

  “Last I heard, at the funeral, you were in L.A.”

  “Based there. Near there.”

  The chitchat depressed Shaw and appeared to bore Russell.

  All these years they hadn’t seen each other, and this was the best they could do?

  “Another question,” Shaw asked.

  Russell lifted his eyebrow.

  “Why the hell the Oakland A’s?” Shaw glanced at his brother’s backpack.

  No response to the levity.

  The children had laughed a lot growing up. With very few other friends their age, they relied on one another for amusement and diversion.

  Another blister of silence, then Russell said, “Need to get my team out of here.”

  “So you’re leaving.” Shaw had tried to keep his expression neutral. He wasn’t sure he was successful.

  “Assignments we’re scheduled for. It’s a busy time.”

  Spoken like a department store buyer planning for Christmas shopping season.

  “Sure.”

  Russell walked down to the cellar and returned a moment later with the duffel bag. The sun had burned away the last tatters of fog by now and the water bottles bent the light, pasting fracturing shapes of brilliant white on the plaster walls.

  His silent message resonated like a siren through the pleasant, yellow room: Your fight with BlackBridge isn’t my fight, even if the company killed our father.

  Shaw tipped his head. “Don’t need to say I appreciate you showing up when you did.”

  Russell reciprocated the nod.

  Shaw tried: “You want to give me a phone number?”

  “We get randomly generated ones once a month.”

  Shaw wrote down his number in one of his notebooks. He didn’t tear off the page and hand it to his brother. He held it up.