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:
“Do you go by ‘Journeyman’ or any title?”
“No, none of that crap. Just Andy.”
Shaw flicked TRANSMIT on the radio. “This is Andy. Carter got away. We followed him to the residence. He’s inside. We need more men!”
The response: “Fucking hell. There were four of you.”
A moment later was a transmission ordering everyone to the residence.
The group of AUs approaching them apparently heard the transmissions as well. They turned south and jogged down the path.
Victoria and Shaw turned in the opposite direction and hurried toward the front of the camp. In a few minutes they were crouching, in the tree line, behind Administration and the Assistance Unit building. Shaw pointed.
There’d be firearms inside.
She nodded.
They both surveyed the grounds, which were much as you’d expect after the chaotic events that had just occurred. Clusters of Companions were standing together. Some sat despondently by themselves in the Square or on benches. A woman wept openly. An argument was going on between two ICs.
An SUV sat beside Administration, packed with computers and files. Gray and Squat hurried up to it and shoved in boxes of documents. They then turned back toward the residence.
“You want a club?” he asked.
“Probably.”
Shaw walked to his dorm and collected the second club still sitting in the nest of leaves behind the building. He returned, handing it to her. She wrapped the knife in the napkin and slipped it away in her back waistband.
She said, “They’ll have a gun safe inside. Diversion in the front?”
He shook his head. “Too many AUs.”
“Okay, we’ll just move in fast — the back door.”
It was ajar. Shaw looked. The back room — filled with office supplies and unmarked cartons — was unoccupied. And, yes, against one wall was a gun safe.
They shared a nod and, gripping the clubs, stepped inside fast. She pointed to herself and the door that led to the front part of the Assistance Unit, meaning she’d guard that. He went to the safe.
Damn. Locked tight.
He gestured to it and shook his head. Victoria scowled. He joined her and they peered through the crack into the corridor that led to the front office. Four doors lined the corridor, two on each side — one was where he’d been interrogated the other night. They slipped into the hallway and moved forward, testing the knobs. All the doors were locked. When they got close, Victoria lifted a hand and they both stopped.
Through the partially open door to the front office, they could see movement.
Yes, Eli and Hugh were here. Troubling. This meant that it was likely they’d finished destroying and packing up files and wiping the computers.
The two men were facing away. The men were speaking to someone Shaw and Victoria could not see. The conversation was amiable. There was laughter.
They were completely unsuspecting.
Shaw pointed to Hugh and formed a gun with his finger and thumb, meaning it was most likely that he was the armed one.
She nodded, understanding: Shaw would take Hugh. She would get Eli and the other person in the room.
There was a chance that Eli was armed but that seemed unlikely. In any event, he would know the least about firearms and would be the easiest to disarm.
Shaw held up three fingers and began tucking them away.
When the last digit curled tight, making a fist, he swung the door open and Shaw and Victoria stepped inside fast, clubs ready.
They stopped just as quickly.
Hearing them enter, Eli and Hugh turned, startled.
Shaw and Victoria stopped in the doorway. They both stared at the men’s wrists. They were handcuffed.
The person they’d been speaking with blinked in surprise and glanced from Shaw’s and Victoria’s faces to the war clubs and back again.
It was the sheriff from Snoqualmie Gap, the man who was deep in Eli’s pocket and who, Shaw understood, had just arrested the two men for the sole purpose of helping them escape before the real authorities arrived.
69
Two gurneys rolled along the gravel path, powered and piloted by med techs from the Snoqualmie Gap Fire Department.
One of the complicated yellow contraptions sped along, the techs sprinting. The other moved more leisurely.
Anja was in the first. She was unconscious and ashen. Her neck was swathed in an occlusive — airtight — dressing. Shaw had once used Saran wrap for this very purpose; it was to avoid an air embolism. An IV dangled. It would contain not whole blood but a resuscitative fluid, like saline. Anja was alive because of the man who strode quickly alongside her, Steve. His hands and clothing were covered with blood.
The trailing gurney held the body of the man responsible for Anja’s condition, the man who had advanced, Timothy.
Shaw and Victoria stood outside of the Assistance Unit. They had retrieved their luggage, which sat at their feet, though cell phones and car keys were still locked up. This was reportedly a matter of finding keys to the lockboxes; Shaw was sure, though, the keys wouldn’t be “found” until the cult leader and his associate were long gone.
Another couple was present — Thomas and Carole. He was the one who had retrieved the Glock when Shaw had been mobbed, and refused to hand it over afterward.
Shaw understood what had happened. Thomas would have forced his way into the Administration building with the stubby little weapon and insisted on a landline or one of the staff’s mobiles. He would have called 911.
Dispatch had dutifully referred the emergency call to the Snoqualmie Gap sheriff’s office. The same law enforcers Shaw had seen at the site of John’s death had arrived at the camp. The sheriff — his name badge identified him as Calhoun — knew that a pile of cash awaited him if he “arrested” Eli and Hugh and got them out of the camp before legitimate law enforcers showed up.
A deputy now led Hugh and Eli to Calhoun’s own SUV and the men were helped into the back. Their hands were cuffed in front of their bodies, a procedural violation in every law enforcement agency in the world. Hugh cast a lascivious glance toward Victoria. She parried with a look of pure ice.
The AU, also in cuffs, was led by another deputy out to the parking lot. The two men chatted like they were buddies on their way to a hunt on the first day of deer season. Arresting him and any other AUs was simply for show. They’d be released as soon as they were at the Snoqualmie Gap Sheriff’s Department, if not on the way there.
“Look,” Victoria said, nodding toward the path that led here from Eli’s residence.
Two deputies were carting luggage and go-bags.
“Bellboys,” Shaw muttered.
“Bet the tip’s going to be pretty nice.”
The men set the items in the back of the sheriff’s SUV and returned in the direction they’d come. Getting another load, Shaw thought cynically. The Guiding Beacon had to travel in comfort.
Shaw said to Victoria in a soft voice, “They’ll have to take a statement. Stretch it out for as long as you can. They don’t know Frederick’s got the feds and state police on their way.”
“Mine’ll take as much time as reading Moby-Dick. That’s a book I never finished; did you?”
“Never started it.”
The sheriff whispered to some of his deputies, who nodded, taking in the instructions. When he returned, heading toward his vehicle, Shaw stopped him. “Sheriff Calhoun.”
“Yes?”
“I’ve been a witness to several crimes on the premises here and I’d—”
“‘Premises here.’ Hey, you sound like a lawyer. Are you a lawyer?”
“No.”
“Hey, gotta say, you got yourself some pretty fancy souvenirs.” A nod at the war clubs. “Sell them at the general store downtown. Fetch a pretty penny.”