The Final Twist (A Colter Shaw Novel, Band 3) - Softcover

Deaver, Jeffery

Softcover

ISBN 10: 052553914X ISBN 13: 9780525539148

Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 2022

Inhaltsangabe

THE INSPIRATION FOR THE CBS ORIGINAL SERIES TRACKER

“The master of ticking-bomb suspense” (People) returns with a devilishly good thriller, and reward seeker Colter Shaw's most personal case to date.

Just hours after the harrowing events of The Never Game and The Goodbye Man, Colter Shaw finds himself in San Francisco, where he has taken on the mission his father began years ago: finding a missing courier bag containing evidence that will bring down a corporate espionage firm responsible for hundreds, perhaps thousands, of deaths.

Following the enigmatic clues his father left behind, Shaw plays cat and mouse with the company's sadistic enforcers, as he speeds from one gritty neighborhood in the City by the Bay to another. Suddenly, the job takes on a frightening urgency: Only by finding the courier bag can he expose the company and stop the murder of an entire family—slated to die in forty-eight hours.

With the help of an unexpected figure from his past, and with the enforcers closing the net, Shaw narrows in on the truth—and learns that the courier bag contains something unexpected: a secret that could only be described as catastrophic.

Filled with dozens of twists and reversals, The Final Twist is a nonstop race against time to save the family...and to keep the devastating secret Shaw has uncovered from falling into the wrong hands.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Jeffery Deaver is the #1 international bestselling author of more than forty novels, three collections of short stories, and a nonfiction law book. His books are sold in 150 countries and translated into 25 languages. His first novel featuring Lincoln Rhyme, The Bone Collector, was made into a major motion picture starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie. He's received or been shortlisted for a number of awards around the world, including Novel of the Year by the International Thriller Writers and the Steel Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association in the United Kingdom. In 2014, he was the recipient of three lifetime achievement awards. A former journalist, folksinger, and attorney, he was born outside of Chicago and has a bachelor of journalism degree from the University of Missouri and a law degree from Fordham University.

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1

 

The safe house.

 

At last.

 

Colter Shaw's journey to this cornflower-blue Victorian on scruffy Alvarez Street in the Mission District of San Francisco had taken him weeks. From Silicon Valley to the Sierra Nevadas in eastern California to Washington State. Or, as he sat on his Yamaha motorcycle, looking up at the structure, he reflected: in a way, it had taken him most of his life.

 

As often is the case when one arrives at a long-anticipated destination, the structure seemed modest, ordinary, unimposing. Though if it contained what Shaw hoped, it would prove to be just the opposite: a mine of information that could save hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives.

 

But as the son of a survivalist, Shaw had a preliminary question: Just how safe a safe house was it?

 

From this angle, it appeared deserted, dark. He dropped the transmission in gear and drove to the alley that ran behind the house, where he paused again, in front of an overgrown garden, encircled by a gothic wrought-iron fence. From here, still no lights, no signs of habitation, no motion. He gunned the engine and returned to the front. He skidded to a stop and low-gear muscled the bike onto the sidewalk.

 

He snagged his heavy backpack, chained up the bike and helmet, then pushed through the three-foot-deep planting bed that bordered the front. Behind a boxwood he found the circuit breakers for the main line. If there were an unlikely bomb inside it would probably be hardwired; whether it was phones or computers or improvised explosive devices, it was always tricky to depend on batteries.

 

Using the keys he'd been bequeathed, he unlocked and pushed open the door, hand near his weapon. He was greeted only with white noise and the scent of lavender air freshener.

 

Before he searched for the documents he hoped his father had left, he needed to clear the place.

 

No evidence of threat isn't synonymous with no threat.

 

He scanned the ground floor. Beyond the living room was a parlor, from which a stairway led upstairs. Past that room was a dining room and, in the back, a kitchen, whose door, reinforced and windowless, led onto the alleyway. Another door in the kitchen led to the cellar, an unusual feature in much of California. The few pieces of furniture were functional and mismatched. The walls were the color of old bone, curtains sun-bleached to inadvertent tie-dye patterns.

 

He took his time examining every room on this floor and on the second and third stories. No sign of current residents, but he did find bed linens neatly folded on a mattress on the second floor.

 

Last, the basement.

 

He clicked on his tactical halogen flashlight, with its piercing beam, and descend to see that the room was largely empty. A few old cans of paint, a broken table. At the far end was a coal bin, in which a small pile of glistening black lumps sat. Shaw smiled to himself.

 

Ever the survivalist, weren't you, Ashton?

 

As he stared into the murk, he noted three wires dangling from the rafters. One, near the stairs, ended in a fixture and a small bulb. The wires in the middle and far end had been cut and the ends were wrapped with electrician's tape.

 

Shaw knew why the two had been operated on: to keep someone from getting a good view of the end of the cellar.

 

Shining the beam over the back wall, he stepped close.

 

Got it, Ash.

 

As with the rest of the basement, this wall was constructed of four-by-eight plywood sheets nailed to studs, floor to ceiling, painted flat black. But an examination of the seams of one panel revealed a difference. It was a hidden door, opening onto a secure room. He took the locking-blade knife from his pocket and flicked it open. After scanning the surface a moment longer, he located a slit near the bottom. He pushed the blade inside and heard a click. The door sprung outward an inch. Replacing the knife and drawing his gun, he crouched, shining the beam inside, holding the flashlight high and to the left to draw fire, if an enemy were present and armed.

 

He reached inside and felt for tripwires. None.

 

He slowly drew the door toward him with his foot.

 

It had moved no more than eighteen inches when the bomb exploded with a searing flash and a stunning roar and a piece of shrapnel took him in the chest.

 

2

 

The risk in detonations is usually not death.

 

Most victims of an IED are blinded, deafened and/or mutilated. Modern bomb materials move at more than thirty thousand feet per second; the shock wave could travel from sea level to the top of Mount Everest in the time it takes to clear your throat.

 

Shaw lay on the floor, unable to see, unable to hear, coughing, in pain. He touched the spot where the shrapnel had slammed into him. Sore. But no broken-skin wound. For some reason the skin hadn't broken. He did a fast inventory of the rest of his body. His arms, hands and legs still functioned.

 

Now: find his weapon. A bomb is often a prelude to an attack.

 

He could see nothing but, on his knees, he patted the damp concrete in a circular pattern until he located the gun.

 

Squinting, but still seeing nothing. You can't will your vision to work.

 

No time for panic, no time for thinking of the consequences to his lifestyle if he'd been permanently blinded or deafened. Rock climbing, motorbiking, traveling the country-all endangered, but not something to worry about right now.

 

But how could he tell where the assault was coming from? In a crouch he moved to where he thought the coal bin was. It would at least provide some cover. He tried to listen but all he could hear was a tinnitus-like ringing in his ears.

 

After five desperate minutes he was aware of a faint glow coalescing at the far end of the cellar. Light from the kitchen above.

 

So his vision wasn't gone completely. He'd been temporarily blinded by the brilliance of the explosion. Finally he could make out the beam of his tac light. It was ten feet away. He collected it and shone the bright light throughout the basement and into the room on the other side of the hidden door.

 

No attackers.

 

He holstered his weapon and snapped his fingers beside each ear. His hearing was returning too.

 

Then he assessed.

 

What had just happened?

 

If the bomber had wanted an intruder dead, that could've easily been arranged. Shaw shone his light on the frame of the hidden door and found the smoking device, gray metal. It was a large flash-bang-designed with combustible materials that, when detonated, emitted blinding light and a stunning sound but didn't fling deadly projectiles; its purpose was to serve as a warning.

 

He looked carefully to see why he'd missed it. Well, interesting. The device was a projectile. It had been launched from a shelf near the hidden door, rigged to explode after a half second or so. This is what had hit him in the chest. The trigger would be a motion or proximity detector. Shaw had never heard of a mechanism like this.

 

He carefully scanned the room for more traps. He found none.

 

Who had set it? His father and his colleagues had likely made the secret room, but they probably would not have left the grenade. Ashton Shaw never worked with explosives. Possessing them without a license was illegal, and, for all his father's serious devotion to survivalism and distrust of...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 052553914X
• ISBN 13: 9780525539148
• Einband: Taschenbuch
• Anzahl der Seiten: 528
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Nicht verfügbar