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:
The glue at the seams was thick and hard, unbreakable. He used his locking blade knife to cut open the top. He extracted a waterproof pouch, which he also cut open, more carefully than the exterior container.
A large envelope was inside. He tore the top open and removed a half dozen sheets of paper filled with Ashton’s handwritten notes, printouts of articles, and a map of the San Francisco Bay Area, as well as two keys on a ring; they appeared to be for a structure, a house or office. On top was a letter, also written by his father. Shaw smoothed the crackly sheet and leaned forward.
Hello:
My name is Ashton Shaw, former professor, amateur historian and student of political science. Over the course of my years in academia and doing my own research and writing, I grew to distrust most large corporations, institutions and individuals, as well as many politicians and lobbyists — those who thrive in the netherworld between legality and illegality, democracy and dictatorship. I’ve published numerous articles and organized and attended protests exposing those wrongs.
Of course I received threats from some of the organizations I challenged. For safety’s sake I moved my family from the Bay Area to a place where I could better protect them, while continuing my campaign underground. I know this was hard for them. But I saw no other choice.
Working with a few colleagues, I like to think we made some headway in smoothing some of society’s rough edges: exposing graft and corruption in the government or corporate world.
And then, a few years ago, I came across BlackBridge Corporate Solutions.
While I was doing research into the dangers posed by big drug companies, I learned that the incidence of addiction in certain lower-middle-class neighborhoods that had little history of drug problems increased suddenly and dramatically, almost overnight. As a result, crime would soar, property values would plummet. The neighborhoods became unlivable.
I learned, to my shock, that this trend was not the natural outgrowth typically facing challenged neighborhoods. The entire drug infestation was engineered by BlackBridge. It’s a highly secretive corporate espionage firm, based in Los Angeles. Originally small but now international, it’s made up of former corporate executives, intelligence community members, military, mercenary soldiers and even criminals. Its clients are some of the most powerful companies around the world.
Several of those clients hired BlackBridge to engineer a massive decrease in property value of certain target neighborhoods, so their clients could move in and buy up the property at fire-sale prices. BlackBridge did this by creating an artificial drug problem. BlackBridge operatives would flood the neighborhoods with drugs, supplying them virtually for free to gangs. Sometimes they would simply scatter opioids, fentanyl and meth on the streets for anyone — including children — to take. The plan resulted in hundreds of deaths from drugs and crime, and thousands of residents dislocated, many of them becoming homeless.
This real estate scheme, by the way, is simply one of dozens of such dirty-trick projects BlackBridge performs for clients around the world.
I suppose such firms are not uncommon, and you may wonder why BlackBridge became my colleagues’ and my — if I may — White Whale.
The answer is simple. A brilliant graduate student in my and several of my colleagues’ classes graduated and went on to law school and then was elected a city councilman in San Francisco. We were in touch frequently. Todd became a friend. He was the one who told me about the curious influx of drugs in the district he represented.
He had just begun looking into the matter when he and his wife were murdered. The crime appeared to be a robbery but little was taken and the police found forensic evidence linking the killer to the new drugs found on the street.
My belief is that BlackBridge killed Todd to shut him up. At the very least, they are responsible because of the drugs they seeded into his district.
Nearly all BlackBridge employees refused to talk to us — terrified of the consequences — but I found several who were disgusted with the operations and agreed to meet with me. They wouldn’t give me any evidence themselves but they did refer to a former employee, Amos Gahl, who had stolen some documents from the company, something the company was desperate to recover; they believed it was evidence that could bring down BlackBridge and, in doing so, their corrupt clients as well.
Gahl hid these documents somewhere in the San Francisco area, they told me... but before he could contact the authorities about them, he was killed in a car crash that did not appear to be accidental.
It became my obsession to find what Gahl had hidden.
Then BlackBridge discovered us.
One by one, under overt or subtle threats, my colleagues backed out of our crusade. Two others died from apparently natural causes that seemed far too coincidental.
The BlackBridge operative in charge of finding us and stopping our search for the evidence — or stealing it from us if we did — is a woman named Irena Braxton. She may look like somebody’s grandmother but she’s utterly ruthless and does not hesitate to order physical assaults as part of her planning. We had thought she was dead, at the hand of a former assistant of hers no less, but — unfortunately — that report proved to be false. Her search for us continues.
Now, we get around to you.
You’ve clearly followed the breadcrumbs I’ve left leading you to Echo Ridge, and now know the whole story.
I can hardly in good conscience ask you to take on this perilous job. No reasonable person would. But if you are so inclined, I will say that in picking up where my search has ended, you’ll be fighting to secure justice for those who have perished or had their lives upended by BlackBridge and its clients, and you’ll be guaranteeing that thousands in the future will not suffer similar fates.
The map included here indicates the locations in the city that might contain — or lead to — the evidence Gahl hid. After leaving this letter and accompanying documents, I will be returning to San Francisco and I hope I will have found more leads. They can be found at 618 Alvarez Street in San Francisco.
Finally, let me say this:
Never assume you’re safe.