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:
Unoccupied.
On the floor was luggage, backpacks, and cardboard cartons. The TV was on but silent. Local news.
Let’s get to it, he told himself.
From his pocket he extracted a tool with a flat blade. A window lock opener. Similar to the dinner knife he’d used to break into the various buildings at the Osiris Foundation, though this was made for that purpose and was therefore much more efficient. Thin and forged of titanium. In a few seconds, the lock was breached and he slid the window up. Just as at Abby’s dorm, Shaw went through the awkward maneuver of boosting himself up to the sill, sticking his head in and tumbling to the floor inside. He rose and looked around him.
He supposed the occupants were out to dinner and would return soon.
Shaw unfurled the grocery bag and walked around the room, filling the sack.
Five minutes later, he paused and listened. Then walked to the front door, undid the chain and deadbolt and opened it fast, stepping outside.
He nearly collided with the room’s two occupants, who, just like him, had parked their car some distance from the cabin and walked here.
David Ellis — Master Eli — gasped and dropped the carry-out bag of restaurant leftovers he held.
The man with him, Hugh Garner, didn’t waste a moment. Instinctively he went into a combat stance and launched a knuckly fist directly toward Shaw’s solar plexus.
78
Shaw didn’t move, intentionally not lowering his center of gravity into a defensive posture.
The result was that Hugh’s solid fist slammed directly into the bulletproof plate that was part of Shaw’s tactical jacket. At the thonk, the man blinked in surprise and winced in pain.
Hugh’s hand drew back, invisibly fast, for a second blow — aimed at the head — and now Shaw prepared to fight. He flung the filled grocery bag into the weeds outside the door, far from the reach of the two men. He braced and when Hugh’s knotty fist streaked toward him again Shaw danced aside and the hand glanced off his shoulder.
The blow didn’t hurt much and merely knocked him into the doorjamb.
Behind Hugh, Eli had drawn a pistol. “I’ve got him... get back.”
This was the opposite of what Shaw had anticipated; he’d thought Hugh would be armed and was planning on getting the gun away from him. Eli aimed, and Shaw did the only thing he could do: he dropped low and launched himself into Hugh, his shoulder connecting with the man’s belly and driving him back. He drew on his wrestling training and the grappling skills Ashton had taught the children when they were young. He gripped the man’s leg and tilted and they went down together.
“You fucker.” Hugh grunted.
“Get out of the way!” Eli was calling. Shaw held tight, knowing Eli wouldn’t fire as long as the two men were intertwined.
Hugh pounded hard on Shaw’s back and shoulder and head, chopping; the blows were painful, though not debilitating. Shaw managed to land a strike of his own — a lucky one — on Hugh’s ear and the man cried out in pain.
Shaw hoped the eardrum had ruptured but it probably hadn’t.
They rolled into the dirt, as Eli walked close, holding the weapon unsteadily. “Move, get away!”
“No, no shots!” Hugh whispered. “The noise.”
Shaw took advantage of Eli’s uncertainty. He broke away, lowered his stance and held his hands out, circling. Shaw assumed some generic kung-fu position — something he’d seen in a movie. It was meaningless. Hugh recognized it as such and smiled.
Eli said, “Hugh, let me—”
“No. I want to take him,” the big man muttered.
And that was undoubtedly true; Shaw had destroyed Hugh’s very lucrative and enjoyable life. But this fight would not be an opportunity for the former head of the Assistance Unit to take anything.
Shaw feinted to the right, then veered the opposite way and sprinted fast, tackling Eli. He went down hard. The man’s eyes turned from expressions of fury to fear. Shaw realized that his thoughts earlier were right. The otherworldly color of his pupils came from contact lenses. The shade now was everyday blue.
“Oh, Jesus Christ! Lose the gun. Toss it.” Hugh’s voice was thick with disgust. Maybe he was upset that Shaw wasn’t playing fair and participating in a mano-a-mano battle to the death.
Eli tried to pitch the Glock but Shaw ripped it from his hand, and rolled away. He racked the slide, making sure a round was chambered and he aimed between the two men.
Hugh held up his hands, palms out. “Look. We can get you a lot of money. I mean, a lot.” He nodded toward the grocery bag. “Just leave the documents, the evidence, whatever you stole. We can give you cash right now. Fifty thousand. A hundred.”
Involuntarily, into Shaw’s mind came some images: Samuel’s face of sorrow as he threw himself off the cliff.
Master Eli truly saved my bacon when it came to Mom and Dad...
Adelle’s expression as she sat, slumped on the bench.
I lost my baby two years ago...
And he heard Victoria’s voice as she told him of Gretta’s suicide.
The muzzle of the Glock strayed toward Eli, who cringed and held up a palm. “No, please... no.”
Shaw reflected on another of his father’s rules.
Never point a firearm at anyone unless you intend to pull the trigger.
Colter Shaw pulled the trigger.
79
As he bounded over the dirt road in his rental SUV, Colter Shaw learned a fact.
The men had another gun.
As they pursued him in an SUV of their own, Eli behind the wheel of the dark gray vehicle, Hugh would fire in Shaw’s direction.
This was because of the gunshot back at the motel. As tempted as Shaw was to kill Eli on the spot, he hadn’t in fact aimed for the cult leader. Instead, he’d shot Hugh in the calf, flung the gun into the lake and, snagging the grocery bag, sprinted back to his vehicle. Eli had apparently ducked into the motel cabin and got the second gun, and together they’d sped after Shaw.
Another crack of gunshot.
Handguns are relatively inaccurate under the best of conditions and the combination of the unpaved surface and Shaw’s evasive driving meant that none of the slugs fired his way hit the Land Cruiser.
As he barreled down the dark road, Shaw clocked the miles from the cabin: two, three, four... The vehicles were hitting sixty and seventy miles per hour, and Hugh and Eli’s — piloted by the desperate cult leader — was slowly gaining.
A glance at the GPS map. Ahead, a mile or so, was a sharp bend in the road. He wondered at what speed he should take it.
He ducked as, finally, a bullet hit the rear of his rental. No injury, no damage — other than a hole, of course. He began to swerve even more severely, though.
Which is when he came to the jog.
It was more pronounced than the Google map had suggested, and with a solid crack of something within the vehicle breaking, his SUV crashed into and through a low berm of dirt and brush and sandy mulch. It plowed into a field on the far side, the front wheels trapped in a bed of sand and loose earth. The airbag exploded. It was an impressive experience.
Shaw heard Eli’s vehicle squeal to a stop and, grabbing the grocery bag, he leapt out, taking cover under a rise topped with a stand of forsythia and holly.
“Carter... whatever your name is, listen to us.” Eli was standing at the roadside, while Hugh leaned against the hood, sweaty, wincing.
“Drop the bag. We’ll let you go. Just throw it here. That’s all you need to do. It’ll all be good.”