The Final Twist by Jeffery Deaver

Author:Jeffery Deaver [Deaver, Jeffery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Mystery, Thriller
ISBN: 9780525539131
Google: yfooEAAAQBAJ
Amazon: B08KPHT6KV
Goodreads: 55573517
Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
Published: 2021-05-10T05:00:00+00:00

41

Was that the car? The green Honda?

“Turn left. Fast.”

Russell, behind the wheel of the big SUV, apparently trusted his brother’s instincts. He spun the wheel hard, braking a little. Shaw would have gone faster.

Ahead, two blocks away he saw a green car reverse fast into an alley.

“There. I think that’s her. Catch her.”

“Her?” Russell asked.

Shaw hadn’t told him that the driver following him was a blond woman. He mentioned this now, leaving out the “hot” part.

The SUV picked up speed and approached the alley the Honda had zipped into.

“When you get to the mouth, turn but don’t drive in.”

“Why?”

“She may have left a booby trap.”

“These windows are bulletproof.”

“What about the tires?” Shaw explained about the nails the woman had scattered earlier.

Russell lifted an eyebrow then skidded the vehicle to a stop.

Yes, a blanket of nails littered the front of the alley. Ahead of them, several blocks away, the car vanished into traffic.

“They have big heads,” Russell said.

Shaw looked at his brother.

“The nails. They’re roofing nails. You run over average nails, they stay flat. These, when the tire hits them, the points turn up, and into the tread.” He knocked the Navigator into reverse. “You have no idea who she is?”

“Might be related to a job I did in Silicon Valley a couple of weeks ago. Made some enemies in the high-tech world.”

Russell backed up and turned toward Alvarez.

“Keep an eye out when you’re on your bike. She throws some in front of you, at speed, you’ll set it down. Won’t be good.”

“I’ll keep that in mind.”

He parked two blocks away, not far from the coffee shop where Shaw had first seen Russell, though he hadn’t known it at the time. Shaw was keeping his cycle locked here too, away from the safe house—in case someone had made one of the vehicles and traced it.

Inside, Shaw lifted Amos Gahl’s courier bag onto the kitchen table and divided its contents into two piles.

He pushed one toward Russell and kept the other. The two men began reading through each sheet of paper carefully once more. Were there helpful notes in the margin? Were passages circled? Was a magazine opened to a certain article, a newspaper folded in a particular way?

Had Amos Gahl, who apparently loved his puzzles, been cautious and coy once again, using these publications and other documents to send a message about what the Sanction was?

Shaw thought again about the word sanction.

Permission. Punishment.

Or just a meaningless code name?

But poring over the contents uncovered no clues, no codes, no secrets subtle or obvious.

After an hour, both men sat back. “Maybe he just liked to read the news,” Shaw said.

They sat in silence for a moment. Shaw gazed at the cassette recorder and, after collecting his tool kit from his backpack, unscrewed the back. Nothing inside but solid state electronics. He used a magnifier on the cassette itself but could see no writing or code. The labels on each side, which were blank, were glued tightly to the plastic; they couldn’t be pried up to reveal a message hidden beneath them without tearing the paper.

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