The Goodbye Man
- Автор: Дивер Джеффри
- Серия: Colter Shaw #2
- Год: 2020
- Язык: английский
- Год: G. P. Putnam’s Sons
- ISBN: 978-0-525-53597-3
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «The Goodbye Man». Краткое содержание книги:
“I’m Journeyman Hugh.”
“Carter Skye.”
The palm that Shaw shook was thick with calluses. Many martial artists spend hour upon hour punching and kicking bowls of dry rice and gravel to sheathe-up the striking portions of appendages. “If you wouldn’t mind following me, please, Mr. Skye.” Nodding toward the back door, the one through which reporter Klein had presumably walked to meet his fate.
Shaw glanced toward the front door. Twenty feet away.
No. Play it out.
He’d be oblivious till the end, then use surprise to try to take Hugh and the others. Get into the woods. They’d chase. That was fine. The wilderness was his world.
At the door Shaw paused, his eyes doing an “After you.”
Never let your opponent get behind you.
Hugh wasn’t going to make an issue of position. He had plenty of backup, not to mention lethal hands. The man walked through the door first, and Shaw followed.
They’d bypassed the main reception area of the Administration building and Shaw found himself walking down the dim corridor he’d seen earlier, extending to the back of the building.
At the end of the hallway, Hugh stopped beside an unmarked door and typed a number into the code pad, waited for one green light. Then he typed another. Shaw had never seen this type of lock before. Hugh pushed the door open, meaning Shaw should precede him, and this time he did. As he walked forward, he brushed Hugh’s right hip, trying to feel for a firearm. None. And the man was right-handed; that was the side on which a trained shooter would holster his gun.
Never cross-draw a pistol.
Inside, Shaw looked around. This was a very different room from Intake. The walls were painted violet and hung with bas-reliefs, paintings and plaques. Egyptian was the motif. A deity — Osiris, probably — was depicted in many. Shaw tried to summon what he’d learned in high school about Egyptian civilization. He was unsuccessful.
At one end of the room was a large wooden desk, behind which sat a tall-backed chair made of shiny dark-brown leather, affixed to the frame with brass buttons. Across from the desk were two matching chairs, though smaller, and a round table between them. Against the right side wall was a couch, also matching, in front of which was a coffee table. The furniture legs ended in talons gripping metal balls.
Shaw grunted. “Weird place.”
“Have a seat, please.”
Shaw half-expected Hugh to use his real name.
He sat in the chair across from the desk.
Was this where the initial “interview” of the reporter had occurred? It was hardly the spot for interrogations; the place resembled the office of an Egypt-obsessed CEO running a small but successful medical or office supply company.
The door opened and Shaw found himself looking at a pudgy man wearing the male version of the regulation uniform: blue shirt and black slacks. The infinity amulet he wore was, like Hugh’s, silver. His face was moon round and his thinning hair was combed back, accenting the shape of his head. He wore disks of glasses, also contributing to the spherical image. In his thick hand was yet another tablet, in which he was absorbed as he walked to the desk and then behind it.
The man eyed Shaw up and down. “We have a few things to talk about, sir.”
21
Shaw rose and separated his feet and rocked forward — a fighting stance.
“No, no, no. Sit, my friend.”
After a moment Shaw did, though he kept his weight forward, poised to leap. The pudgy man looked around. “Some room, isn’t this? Elegant. Small, though. Do you know where the word ‘claustrophobia’ comes from?”
Shaw eyed him, said nothing.
“‘Claustro’ is Latin for ‘bolt,’ as in bolting the door. And who doesn’t know what ‘phobia’ is? All those Jeopardy! questions. Do you watch Jeopardy!?”
“No.”
“Of course you don’t. No time. Busy, busy man. So, I apologize for the” — he lifted his arms — “windowless chamber. Master Eli is security minded. Insists that we all be. You, me, all God’s children. Our Assistance Unit boys sweep for listening devices. Did you know that you can buy high-tech bugs on Amazon, of all places? And get next day delivery if you order within four minutes and seventeen seconds.”
Shaw eyed him warily because that’s what somebody of Skye’s background, suspicious of authority and being in a closed space like this, would do.
The man seemed genuinely cheerful. However, Shaw thought: he’s softening me up. Shaw kept part of his attention attuned to the door behind him. He wondered if Hugh might come up with a Taser or choke hold, which when properly applied can render one unconscious in six seconds. Death rarely takes longer than ninety.
He glanced around, as if viewing the room. The head of the Assistance Unit had left silently.
Curious.
The man’s fat fingers typed on the tablet. Then he looked back to Shaw. “I’m Journeyman Samuel.”
Shaw looked for improvised weapons. The chair, the tablet, a pen. All would work. None well.
And “Journeyman” again. What was that about? It was a title, obviously, not a name — but what did it indicate?
More reading on the tablet. “There are certain applicants that Master Eli likes to flag, Mr. Skye.”
So they believed his fake identity.
Shaw offered silent thanks to Mack McKenzie.
Colter Shaw had had occasion to use false identities in the past; it’s not illegal if you’re presenting yourself as someone else to private citizens, and if you’re paying your way. Mack was an expert at ginning up documentation to turn you into someone else: driver’s license, non-active credit cards, employer ID and insurance, and shopper loyalty and AAA cards.
The real problem isn’t the documentation, though. It’s the damn internet, the place where everybody first turns to see if you’re really who you say you are.
Shaw hadn’t anticipated facial recognition but he had guessed that his cover would be checked, and Mack had worked hard to shore it up. When he’d decided to go undercover, she’d placed a call to one of her specialists: a “massager,” he billed himself. His bots would roam the Clearnet and dark web and eradicate or deeply bury references to his clients. Shaw’s own reward-seeking website was temporarily suspended and many of the news stories about him were either scrubbed or weighted down with so much autobot baggage that his real name sank to the bottom of Google and Bing and Yahoo.
At the same time, the savvy software would flood the web and social media sites with a phony identity: in this case, real and Photoshopped pictures of Shaw — as Carter Skye — on vacations, in news stories (fake news was de rigueur nowadays, of course, and so very easy to produce and place), employment and education records, blogs, Twitter and Facebook posts, Instagram, Snapchat. Like pregnant spiders, these bots would populate that ethereal world with gigabytes of data about Carter Skye.
Like Adam Harper, Skye had a troubled background — petty crimes. And like Harvey Edwards, there’d been some violent offenses in his past, assaults, including one with a deadly weapon.
Samuel now looked him over, a grandfatherly gaze. “People like you are perfect for the Foundation. You’ve got a bit of a past, if you know what I mean.”
“You mean, the law?” Shaw frowned. “Half of it was trumped up. Cops give you shit. I don’t put up with it.”
“Understood, understood. See, some people come here on a lark. Not really committed. You’re the kind of person that’ll keep your head down, do the work. You want to get better. I can feel it. You’d be a credit to us. And” — he lowered his voice slightly — “Master Eli likes those in his flock who are, let’s say... presentable. And you, Mr. Skye, are not hard to look at.”