The Goodbye Man

He had not originally suspected her. When she’d come up to him at the camp, proposing a book about Eli and the dangers of the Foundation, he’d believed she was legitimate.

But during her phone call to him later she’d alluded to the fact she was a journalist. That certainly would have been a good cover to get close to Shaw. Except for one detail she didn’t know: Eli would never let a reporter into the camp as a Companion. She was lying.

He recalled too what his father had written about Braxton:

She may look like somebody’s grandmother but she’s utterly ruthless...

Shaw tried to figure out how they’d orchestrated the theft.

He supposed Braxton and Droon — who was probably the SUV arsonist — could have followed Shaw to the camp or intercepted his phone calls and texts and learned what he had planned. He changed phones frequently and used burners but as his FBI friend, Tom Pepper, said, “If they wanta listen to you they’re gonna listen.”

From the hills above the camp, the two could have observed what the Foundation was about. After Shaw’s speech exposing Eli, which they would have heard, Braxton saw an opportunity to get close to him. When the authorities arrived, she could have just strolled into the chaotic camp, put a discarded amulet around her neck and walked up to Shaw with the story about writing of her experience.

Her goal, of course, was to find out whatever information he had about Ashton’s search for Amos Gahl’s evidence.

Shaw had to plan countermeasures carefully. At the meeting with her this afternoon, they might try to strong-arm and torture him. He was prepared for that; he now wore body armor under the sweats, and his .380 Glock was in his back waistband. Also, he had an open phone line with Mack, throughout the conversation with “Bascomb.” The PI would call the local police if it turned violent.

But why not avoid a fight? Shaw made it easy for them: He left out, in plain sight, the A.S. file

Which was, of course, fake.

Shaw had photographed the real file and uploaded the material, encrypted, to both his and Mack’s secure servers, then hidden it in a secret compartment in the floorboards of the Winnebago.

On the map in the fake file, Shaw had marked areas of the San Francisco region that were in the opposite direction of those of the actual map, which were places where Amos Gahl had hidden the evidence that could bring down BlackBridge and its clients.

The rest of the material in the mock file was meaningless — and misleading — downloads from years ago, at the time when Ashton and his colleagues were actively looking for the incriminating evidence.

The file Braxton had stolen would lead them in dizzying circles.

Shaw fired up the camper’s engine, dropped the transmission into gear and pulled out of the parking lot, now filled with rescue vehicles, smoke and excited shoppers taking selfies with the smoldering SUV.

He steered south. In seven or eight hours he’d be at his destination: San Francisco, his specific journey’s end. Ashton’s safe house on Alvarez Street.

As he piloted the comfortable — and comforting — vehicle along the smooth highways, Colter Shaw was thinking this: it was a possibility, of course, that Ashton had hidden the package for the benefit of his colleagues, who’d decided to forgo the safety of anonymity and take on BlackBridge once again.

But if so, why hide the material on Echo Ridge? He could easily have picked a place in the Bay Area.

No, the more he thought about it, the more convinced he was that the letter was directed not to any colleagues, but to one of his children. They alone would know how his mind worked — the scent tracking, for instance — and could find the document, when no one else could.

They alone had the wherewithal to confront the risks posed by BlackBridge. Ashton had, of course, trained them so rigorously throughout their young lives in the fine art of survival.

But which of the siblings did Ashton intend the letter to be read by?

He had an inkling that it was he, Colter the Restless One, who’d been in his father’s thoughts when he set down his plea for help in the letter, jotting in such fine penmanship, better even than Shaw’s.

The odds that this was Ashton’s intent? Impossible to say. Maybe ninety percent, maybe ten.

In the end, it didn’t matter. Colter Shaw had made his decision. The father’s quest was now the son’s.