The Goodbye Man (A Colter Shaw Novel) by Jeffery Deaver

Author:Jeffery Deaver [Deaver, Jeffery]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2020-05-12T05:00:00+00:00

39.

Shaw dogged the golf cart as it drove slowly over the bumpy forest path. He kept off the walkway and used trees and foliage for cover.

The cart and Hugh arrived at the YESTERDAY, TODAY, TOMORROW gate. Shaw noted that no Companions were present, only some Assistance Unit men. Hugh’s walkie-talkie call had probably been to alert them to keep others away.

At the gate, which was open, the cart stopped. The driver climbed out and looked around, flung the tarp back. He easily pulled John from the bed of the vehicle. The young man was barely conscious. He’d vomited and was groggily protesting, though he had no strength to offer even minor resistance. He was dragged through the parking lot and dumped into the backseat of an old, idling Ford, in which another Companion, a young man, sat behind the wheel. He was a Select—wearing the uniform but no amulet.

A burly AU carried a large backpack—John’s luggage, Shaw guessed—to the Taurus and placed it in the trunk. The driver and Hugh shared some words.

This wasn’t like the journo, who hadn’t actually discovered anything incriminating on the Foundation. A beating would suffice with him. No, John could report Eli’s sexual assault of a minor. The young man would have to die. The supervisor would be giving instructions on how best to murder John and hide the body. Maybe in one of the lakes. Maybe in a deep ravine, where the animals would make the body vanish in days.

So, plan it out.

Shaw couldn’t get to the car here, in the camp itself. Too many AUs.

No phone to call the local police.

So he’d try to stop the Ford while it was still near camp.

He closed his eyes and pictured the map. Heading down the mountain near the camp, Harbinger twisted through a series of switchbacks for several miles. The Ford would have to take those tight turns slowly, giving Shaw a chance to catch it. Once the switchbacks ended, though, Harbinger became a straightaway where the car would accelerate to fifty or so miles per hour.

How to intercept the car?

Only one idea occurred.

He’d run.

As the Ford pulled from the parking lot and through the chain-link gate and the gap in the tall granite cliff, Shaw sprinted east to the path he’d found yesterday evening before dinner, his escape route. Instead of continuing in that direction, though, he turned north, running to the top of the rocky ridge and looking down. He could see the Ford driving perpendicular to him along the first of the switchbacks.

Shaw surveyed the ground before him: a fifteen-degree downward slope through greenery and trees and occasional swamp. The surface was loam and rock, some grass.

Well, get to it.

Shaw plunged down the hillside, heading north toward the switchbacks.

Inhaling hard, and wishing he’d had time to stretch, Shaw picked his way around the dense shrubs and over the uneven ground. No time to pace himself. He was dashing flat out—or at least with as much velocity as he could muster, given the surfaces and obstacles.

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