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:
Shaw looked at the crowd, now silent. “You see? Eli knew about the poisoning ahead of time because he planned it. And the one who poisoned the wine was Journeyman Hugh and some AUs. Not Steve. Steve was his scapegoat.”
Eli muttered something to Anja. His rage was gone. Now his face revealed icy contempt.
Someone started a chant. “Lie... lie... lie.”
“Kill him!”
The vast majority of the Companions remained silent.
Somebody yelled, “Go on, Apprentice Carter.”
Shaw said, “His trips to the Far East in the winter? Not so far, really. ‘East’ is Florida, where he has two homes, worth millions, and five sports cars — thanks to all of you.”
“Stop him!” Eli was calling to two other AUs. They looked at each other uneasily and began jogging toward the stage. Shaw stopped them in their tracks simply by shifting the pistol slightly to the right. He didn’t even aim toward them.
One held his hands up, comically high. Hugh grimaced, and the stocky man lowered his arms.
Before Shaw could continue, however, a dozen Companions began whispering among themselves, mostly men. Their faces were dour, shaded with anger. They would be loyalists. They divided up and moved toward the stairs at the opposite ends of the stage, a flanking maneuver.
“Before you do anything,” Shaw shouted, “let me finish.”
Eli cried, “Stop him! Get him! If the Toxics he’s working for win, everything I’ve done for you will be wasted! The Process dies.”
The threat was enough. Ignoring the gun, the two groups rushed the stage from either side. Shaw fired one round into the ground — you never shoot into the air. That sent some Companions scurrying but the mob was undeterred. Maybe they knew he wasn’t really going to shoot any of them, or maybe they figured: I’m immortal; what’s the problem?
They plowed into Shaw from both sides.
The gun flew from his hand, and he went down hard on the stage, pinned under a ton and a half of frantic believers.
63
Gray limped on the stage, followed by Squat. Their restraints had been cut off.
Hugh glanced at Gray. “What good are you?” he whispered viciously.
Gray looked frantically for his Glock.
Eli called to the crowd. “He snuck in, a spy, a Toxic. I told you they’ll do anything to stop me.”
His gut and shoulder in agony from the piling on, Shaw struggled for breath.
“Kill him!” shouted someone.
Hugh and an AU pulled Shaw to his feet. Hugh said, “Get him to the Assistance Unit.”
A zombie-eyed young man standing on the sidelines — a Select — nodded.
There’d be another auto accident tonight. Hugh had just signed the young man’s death warrant but the assassin greeted the news as if he’d been listening to a weather report.
“Traitor!”
“Toxic!”
“Kill him!”
One woman, her eyes glazed with hatred, spat in Shaw’s face.
Others milled about, aimless, confused.
The AU and the Select who were gripping Shaw’s arms ushered him quickly off the stage.
When they got to the ground Shaw, gasping and breathless from the crush, called in a raspy voice: “United Technical Development. Triangle Pharmaceuticals. Talbot Manufacturing.”
He and his captors got five feet toward the path when a voice called, “Wait!” It was that of an Apprentice, a man in his forties with a trim haircut, wearing expensive wire-rimmed glasses. “That’s my company. UTD.”
A woman said, “And Talbot. I’m the financial officer.”
Shaw called out another company name, “Halifax Energy,” before another blow from the AU silenced him.
“Get him out of here,” Eli raged. “To the Assistance Unit.”
“Triangle Pharma?” a man asked in a loud voice. It was Henry, the balding Companion at Intake the same time as Shaw, the man who’d lost his wife.
He and a dozen other Companions stepped in front of the men leading Shaw away. The two captors stopped, looking back toward Eli, who shouted, “Go, go!”
“No,” the CFO of Talbot Manufacturing said. The slim woman with graying hair pulled back looked sternly toward Eli, then to Shaw. “Let him finish.”
The crowd was growing quiet.
Hugh was unsure how to handle the situation without a full-fledge battle beginning. He gestured the AUs to wait.
Shaw called, “Do you know why the trainers ask about your businesses?”
“Get him out of here,” Eli called.
“No, we want to know,” said a tall man in his forties. It was Thomas, the husband of Carole — the heretic assaulted by Eli and the mob earlier. He was the one who’d recovered the Glock that flew from Shaw’s hand — and he clearly knew what he was doing with the weapon.
Henry called, “I want to know too.”
“Let him talk!” From the back of the crowd. Murmurs of agreement.
Eli said, “Don’t listen to his lies. It’s all fake, what he’s telling you. He’s trying to take the Tomorrow away from you. I’m the only one who can give you what you want.”
“Shut up, Eli,” Henry shouted.
This caused a murmur from the ICs and the loyalists but no one moved.
Thomas stepped forward, Carole behind him. He looked over the AU and the Select, then nodded toward Shaw. “Let him go.” And raised the pistol to the Select gripping Shaw.
Henry growled, “Do it.”
Hugh nodded.
The strong hands released their grips and the AUs and the Select stepped back. A few loyalists stepped toward Shaw; Henry turned to face them, his fists balled up. Two other insurgents did the same.
Thomas said, “Go ahead.”
Flanked by Henry, Thomas and his allies, Shaw climbed back to the stage and picked up the microphone. He repeated what he’d started to say a moment ago: “Did you ever wonder why your trainers spent so much time asking about your businesses?” Curiously, seeing the rapt attention focused his way, Colter Shaw had an inkling of the power Eli felt during his Discourses.
“Your clients, contracts, deals? Looking for all the Minuses and Pluses? Because what Eli really wanted was insider information. He recorded your sessions and sent the tapes to his business partner in Miami. He uses one of their shell companies to buy stock and real estate.”
Some gasps. Companions were regarding one another, dismayed.
But then a voice, “You lie!”
A rock flew Shaw’s way; he easily dodged.
“Lies, lies, lie!” Eli’s voice, though, was by now white noise.
Shaw calmly continued, “Five years ago he went bankrupt. He decided to start a self-help outfit. He researched what would be the most profitable.” From the stage where they’d fallen, Shaw lifted the papers he’d printed from Eli’s computer.
“Here.” He scattered them to the crowd. “Spreadsheets, projecting income from different types of organizations. One was getting rich in the stock market, one was getting rich in real estate. One was self-assertiveness, one was about sex training. And one was about selling immortality. The projected return on investment for that one was ten times higher than any of the others. It also won in the focus groups he held.”
More of the loyalists had fallen silent.
“No, lies, lies!”
Shaw shook his head slowly and when he spoke next, he meant his words sincerely: “I’m sorry to tell you this. I know you wish the Process works. I wish it did too. But it doesn’t. It’s just a lie to get your money. Are any of you lifetime Companions?”