The Final Twist

25

The Shaw brothers had two missions, interwoven like ropes in a Gordian knot.

One, saving the SP family from the hitman who would replace Blond; the other, bringing down BlackBridge. In saving the family, they might find hard evidence linking the hit back to Braxton, Droon and maybe even Ian Helms himself. Or, finding that evidence in the first place might allow them to identify and save the family.

Their initial task was to try to identify Blond, and so after leaving the safe house they drove to Hunters Point, a neighborhood on the eastern edge of the city, jutting into the Bay.

Hunters Point and neighboring Bayview were among the toughest parts of the city, and the most densely populated with gangs.

Which gang could the hit order mean?

Shaw had enlisted some help and this morning had sent a text to his friend and rock-climbing buddy, Tom Pepper, who, at the FBI, had worked terrorism and organized crime.

As Russell’s SUV — a Lincoln Navigator — idled in a parking lot, Shaw’s phone hummed. He answered, “Tom.”

“Colt.”

“You’re on speaker here with my brother, Russell.”

A pause. Shaw wondered what the man would be thinking. He knew of the estrangement, though not its basis. “Hello, Russell.”

“Tom.”

“Here’s what I’ve got. Two main crews in Hunters Point — Bayview. One’s Anglo. The Bayneck Locals. You know the Peckerwood Movement?”

Shaw replied, “Vaguely. White supremacists, prison culture, drugs. Started in the South, right?”

“In the thirties. Then spread, lot of the members ended up in California. Skinheads, yeah, but they have some alliances with Latinx gangs. The Baynecks aren’t technically Peckerwoods — there was some falling-out — but they’re cut from the same cloth.

“The second main gang in that area is Black. The Hudson Kings. It’s rap based, like the old Westmob and the rival Big Block. Okay, listen. They’re all businessmen first — drugs and guns mostly — but that doesn’t mean they’re not violent and territorial and will take out a threat in an instant. I’m saying: They won’t be inclined to cooperate.”

Shaw said, “I’m going to appeal to their better nature.”

Pepper chuckled. “Whatever you’re doing, make sure it’s during the daylight hours.”

“We’re here now,” Russell said. “They have a social club, hang someplace?”

“The Kings had an HQ in a storefront on Northridge. I think near Harbor. The Baynecks used to operate out of a biker bar on Ingalls. Bayview and Hunters Point have complicated boundaries, so I’m not sure which ’hood they’re in. I don’t know anybody in the Baynecks but there’s an O.G. high up in the Kings. Kevin Miller. He was a stand-up guy. Didn’t exactly cooperate, but he kept things calm. Nobody got shot. And that’s saying something.”

Russell was on his phone, checking GPS.

Pepper said, “I hope it’s a damn big reward you’re after.”

“No reward.”

“So. Last week you nearly got killed in a cult and there was no reward. And now you’re tap-dancing with the crews in Hunters Point, and there’s no reward.”

Shaw said, “Sums it up.”

“Good luck. Nice meeting you, Russell.”

“Same.”

Shaw disconnected. “Which first?”

“Hmm. Bikers’re closer.”

26

As they drove through the streets, both residential and commercial, Shaw looked around him. Hunters Point had always borne the brunt of commerce unwelcome in other parts of the city. At one time it was acres upon acres of slaughterhouses, power plants, tanneries and shipyards, all of which dumped waste into the land, the air and the water of the western Bay.

A hard place, battered and grubby, the Point was only somewhat improved over its nineteenth-century incarnation. Part workaday industrial, part slowly emerging residential and retail redevelopment, part weedy fields and labyrinthine foundations cleared of superstructure. Quite the mix: they drove by a series of vacant lots and a burned-out building right next to which was a small, Victorian-style opera house, painted bright green. Just past that was a construction site on which a sign announced this would be the future home of a division of a well-known internet company, whose headquarters was about fifteen miles south, on the eastern edge of Silicon Valley.

They soon spotted their destination. Lou’s was the name of the bar and it was right out of central set design for a 1960s chopped-cycle movie. Peeling paint, grimy windows, a few unsteady tables and less steady chairs out in front, presently unoccupied. Two Harleys and a Moto Guzzi cycle leaned at the curb.

Russell parked and the two men got out, adjusting jacket and coat to make sure their pistols were invisible.

The interior of the bar was dim and smelled of Lysol and cigarette smoke. The only décor, aside from the ignored no smoking sign, was old and fly-specked posters of surfers — more women than men — along with a wooden Nazi iron cross and a picture of Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s mountain retreat.

There were a half-dozen Bayneck crew sitting at three tables. They’d been talking, before they turned en masse to gape at the newcomers. Breakfast beers, in bottles, and coffee mugs clustered on the scarred table. Four of them were classic bikers: huge and inked, with long frizzy beards and hair to the shoulders or in ponytails. Their cloth of choice was denim. The remaining two — slimmer — had shaved heads. One wore a Pendleton flannel shirt, the other a T-shirt under a bomber jacket. Both were in Doc Martens boots. One had a skateboard at his feet. Shaw knew that in this gang culture, extreme sports like boarding and, his own, motocross, were popular.

The smallest of the bearded men — marginally the oldest, Shaw estimated — looked them over and said in a gravelly voice, “Well, you’re here for some reason. They don’t letcha wear face hair like that in the Bureau or SFPD so this’s about something else. Maybe you’re with an organization” — he rolled the word out, adding an extra syllable or two — “that might have a contrary interest to ours.”

Shaw noticed the bartender, a stocky man, balding, drop his hands below the level of the bar. And one of the shaved-headed men casually put his hand on his thigh. “This’s a private club. Why don’t you get the fuck out?”

Russell unbuttoned his jacket.

Shaw said, “Who’s got the MGX-21?”

It was a top-of-the-line Moto Guzzi, and a beautiful cycle. The body was black and the cylinder head and front brake pad bright red.

The leader of the gang cut a glance to the bartender, whose hands became visible once more.

“Mine,” said the biggest of the bikers.

“Hundred horses?” Shaw asked.

“Close enough. You ride?”

“I do.”

“Bike?”

Shaw said, “Yamaha.”

“XV1900?”

This was the largest Yamaha in production.

“Smaller.”

“Figured,” the leader said, both grunting and snickering simultaneously.

The leader said, “Now that we’re done comparing dicks, why don’t you take my young associate’s advice.” He nodded to the door.

Russell said, “We’re looking for somebody. If you can help us it’ll be worth something for you.”

“Explain yourself.”

Russell said, “I’m reaching for my phone.” He did this very slowly. He held out the picture of Blond.

The man wouldn’t know he was looking at a dead man. Karin had yet another talent apparently: Photoshop. She’d removed the bullet hole and adjusted the eyes a bit. Apparently there was a filter called “Liquify,” Russell had explained, which gave the deceased man a bit of a smile. The image was grotesque only if you knew the truth.

“He scammed our mother out of twenty K,” Russell added.

The brothers had prepared what they thought was a credible story, Russell providing most of the material. After all, he was the one who had been the director of the “mugging” theater outside of the safe house yesterday morning.

The leader frowned. Whatever this gang did for a living, robbing mothers was apparently off the table.

Shaw said, “We know he’s some connection with a crew here. You get us his real name and who he runs with, there’s a thousand in it for you. So, he wear your colors?”

The six men looked at the picture again, then regarded one another.

The leader said, “Not one of us. Never seen him.”

The others agreed. Shaw believed they were telling the truth. There had not been a single flash of recognition in any eye.

Russell put his phone away.

The Bayneck in the flannel shirt — a twitchy man — said, “I think our looking was worth something.” It was he who’d placed his hand on his thigh earlier, and the fingers now moved closer to where his weapon would rest.

For a very long moment not a soul moved.

Then the biggest of the bikers said, “Naw, forget it. Too early for that kind of shit. And I ain’t finished but one beer yet. So I’m not in any mood.”

The leader said, “All I’ll say is why weren’t you looking after your mother? Two grown men like you. Sad. Now, get on out.”

27

Now the SUV was cruising through a different part of the district.

They were on their way to the Hudson Kings’ headquarters.

They were near the waterfront and Shaw looked out on the dark water at the decommissioned Hunters Point Naval Shipyard, dominated by the massive gantry crane that bore a skeletal resemblance to the battleships whose turrets it lifted off so that the cannon could be replaced fast. A huge civilian and naval shipbuilding and repair facility for more than a hundred years, the yard was now closed and parcels were being sold off for condominiums and commercial buildings — that is, if and when the land was decontaminated. The place was a Superfund toxic waste site and much of it was still tainted, including by radioactive materials. It was from this shipyard that the USS Indianapolis sailed to the Mariana Islands, its cargo parts for Little Boy and Fat Man, the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August of 1945.

Cleanup was a big business here. Many small craft operated by a company called BayPoint Enviro-Sure Solutions were collecting drums with hazard warnings stenciled on the sides. The workers were wearing so much protective gear, they looked like astronauts laboring on the moon.

Russell turned and steered away from the water. A moment later he pointed to a storefront. “That’s it.”

There was nowhere to park nearby so he drove a block and a half farther, and pulled to the curb. The brothers climbed out and started to walk toward the storefront.

A trio of rats slipped from an abandoned warehouse nearby and nonchalantly vanished into a drain.

“Yo, you buying, man?”

The voice belonged to a skinny young man sitting on an unsteady chair in front of a dubious shop selling prepaid phones and minutes cards, along with vaping paraphernalia. Two figures inside were speaking into flip cells.

The brothers moved on without responding.

Some kids, from teens to mid-twenties, were clustered together on the corner between the brothers and the social club. They were smoking joints, a few cigarettes. The clothing was hoodies and T-shirts and baggy slacks. Their running shoes were nice, and the hairstyles ranged from shaved to elaborate works of art. A few wore medallions, chains and other bling. They looked over the white men walking slowly past and grew energized, whispering and snickering. They were assessing the men as easy targets: beard on one, slim build on another.

Three of the crew broke from the clutch and strode up the sidewalk, stepping in front of and stopping Shaw and his brother.

“You need directions? I give you directions. You know what I’m saying? C-note, and I give you directions.”

“You lost? They lost.”

“What you about, man?” A young man got right in Shaw’s face.

The brothers had no time for a fight.

Never resort to violence unless you have no alternative.

Ashton might have added: especially with foolish teenagers.

Two others joined the trio. The newcomers postured, gesturing broadly with bony hands. The grins were cold.

Courage in numbers isn’t courage.

“I’m talking to you an’ you ignoring me. That rude.”

“Is Kevin Miller around?” Russell asked.

They fell silent.

Shaw said, “It’s all good. We’ve got money for him.”

The skinniest of them — a boy of about fifteen or sixteen — said, “I’ll take it to him. Save you the trouble, you know what I’m saying?”

It was then someone else joined the clutch. A tall, lanky man in his mid-thirties. His face was wrinkled and he bore tats in the shape of teardrops near his eyes. They could signify either a long prison term or that he’d committed murder.

The boys glanced at him with a measure of respect.

“Yo, Kevin!”

“What up, Kevin?”

Signs were flashed, fists bumped.

So this was Tom Pepper’s O.G. — original gangster — one who had earned his colors years ago and managed to survive life on the street.

“My man.”

“Dog.”

Both Shaw and Russell looked at him, holding his gaze steadily. Neither of the brothers said anything. Eyes still on the interlopers, Kevin said to the crew, “Right. Everybody, move off.”

“But...” one protested.

A brief glance was all it took. The kids cast murderous looks toward Shaw and Russell but headed down the sidewalk.

“You wanted me, you got me.” Kevin swiveled back, smooth, looking them over. “You L.E.?”

“We’re not law.”

A squinting assessment. “No. You don’t smell law. How’d you get my name?”

“Tom Pepper vouched.”

Kevin nodded. The teardrop beneath his eye was inked well. A bit of skin showed through the black and gave the image three dimensions.

Russell displayed Blond’s doctored picture. “We’re trying to find this man. He’s got a connection with a crew here, Hunters Point, Bayview.”

“That hair, it ain’t normal.”

Blond’s complexion had grown lighter in death but the hairdo remained as brightly jaundiced as ever.

“I’ve got a thousand, if you help us out.”

“Why here? He’s white.”

Shaw asked, “Don’t you do business with everybody — regardless of race, creed, et cetera.”

Kevin chuckled. “Talk to the rednecks.”

“We did. They don’t know him.”

“Lemme see that picture again.”

Russell displayed it.

The O.G. nodded with a thoughtful frown. “Sorry, brother. No idea. And I’m as connected as they come.”

“Any other crews here?” Russell asked.

“Nothing righteous. Some franchises from Salinas keep flirting with the shorefront, north. They show up, we discourage them. They go away. They come back. You know what it is. All right. I got business.” He looked at Shaw. “Tom Pepper. He was okay. Fair man. Good thing he still with us.”

Kevin returned to the social club, and the men to the SUV. “We could canvass here a week and that’s the only answer we’re ever going to get. There’s got to be a better way,” Shaw said.

“Yeah. Find the courier bag. Use it as leverage to stop BlackBridge.” Russell started the big engine.

Shaw looked out the passenger window. He saw one of the young men who’d confronted them on the street — one of the skinnier, with a shaved head. The kid stood on a pile of rubble about thirty feet away. He reached up under his burgundy hoodie as he stared toward the vehicle with a demeaning smile.

Shaw tensed and his hand went toward his hip.

Russell glanced his brother’s way.

Suddenly, the kid’s hand zipped from under the sweatshirt and, with his fingers formed like a pistol, pointed at Shaw and mimicked firing, the hand jerking back in recoil. The smile vanished. His hand tightened into a fist and the next gesture involved a single finger. He clambered down the rubble heap and vanished.

Shaw said, “Let’s pick up on Ashton’s leads. Burlingame first.”

“Put it in GPS.”

Shaw pulled out his phone, then paused as he looked over the screen. “Not yet. Braxton and Droon are on the move.”

28

The GPS tracker hidden in the spine of Henry David Thoreau’s meditation on self-sufficiency had led them back to the Tenderloin.

They were not far from where Shaw’s unexpected reward job — to locate Tessy Vasquez — had begun.

Russell parked the SUV in a spot in front of a dilapidated retail storefront, closed now. The window bills pleaded for lessees. A homeless man, wrapped in a gray blanket, slept in the doorway. A few dollar bills peeked from under the corner of his covering. Russell knelt and pushed them out of sight. Shaw had been about to do the same.

Orienting himself, glancing around the neighborhood, then at the GPS app, Shaw pointed to an alley.

The brothers declined an offer from a pale young woman in her early twenties and they stepped over another man, about the same age, unconscious and lying in the mouth of the alley. He too was presumably homeless, though his clothes were more or less clean and he didn’t have any of the accoutrements that most street people possess: bags, shopping cart, blankets, extra clothing. Was he dead?

Russell apparently caught his brother’s thought. He nudged the man’s arm with his shoe and got a reaction. Three doors away was a storefront of a community outreach service. Shaw walked to it and stepped inside. A thin man of about fifty in a clerical collar looked up and offered a pleasant smile. “Help you?”

“There’re two men, up the street, passed out. Maybe you’ve got somebody who could help. One’s drunk, I think, but the other one might’ve OD’d. Out the door to the right.”

He rose and called into the back room, “Rosie, come on and bring your bag.” He said to Shaw, “Terrible. Overdoses’re up fifty percent in the past couple months, and we’ve got a gang injunction here. I don’t know what’s going on.”

The Urban Improvement Plan is what’s going on.

Shaw returned to his brother and they proceeded down the alley, with Russell behind, checking for threats from that direction, just as Shaw did in the front. This was instinctive.

Never believe your enemies aren’t pursuing you.

At the far end of the moist, soiled passage, they found themselves on the edge of a large area — taking up several blocks — that was in the process of being cleared. Bulldozers and backhoes, their yellow and black paint jobs spattered with mud, sat unoccupied, parked in the north section of the space. The site was a mix of partially demolished buildings and vacant ground. Pits of oily standing water shimmered and modest mountains of scrap materials from the destroyed buildings dotted the landscape. The terrain was light in color, almost beige. The soil would be clay.

In the center of the flattened area sat a black SUV, a Cadillac Escalade. The GPS indicated that it was the source of the pings. Braxton probably had with her a briefcase or backpack containing the material she’d stolen from Shaw’s camper the other day, including the bugged book.

The Escalade’s doors opened and Droon, who was the driver, and Braxton climbed out. They looked around — Russell and Shaw crouched behind a pile of scrap wood and plasterboard. When they rose and looked again, the pair from BlackBridge was in a heads-down conversation. Droon was nodding.

Another car pulled in and the two BlackBridge employees looked up. It was a Rolls-Royce, dark red. The sleek vehicle eased slowly over the uneven ground and parked, side by side with the Caddie.

No doors opened.

Braxton took a phone call.

Droon stretched and lit a cigarette.

Russell took out his phone, snapped some pictures, then put it back. “Look at the tags.”

On the Rolls there was a sheet of white cardboard or plastic over the license plate. The illegal obfuscation would be only temporary; as soon as they hit the street, the driver would pause and pull off the rectangle.

Who was the visitor?

Braxton disconnected and the driver of the Rolls, a huge Asian man in a black suit, got out. He looked around, necessitating another dodge by the brothers. Then he opened the back passenger side door. The man who climbed out was of fair complexion, short, balding and round. He wore a pinstripe suit, navy blue, a pink shirt and a wide burgundy tie. A white handkerchief exploded from the breast pocket. His white-rimmed glasses were oversize and the lenses square — maybe stylish, maybe necessary for a serious vision malady. His expression suggested irritation or impatience.

Russell’s phone appeared again and he took pictures of the newcomer.

Braxton and Droon joined him, rather than he them, which meant he was a BlackBridge client and, given the wheels, a valued one.

Shaw recalled what the woman had told her lieutenant earlier, in the Stanford library.

We have that meeting tomorrow. I want to tell him something. Something concrete...

That something would have been what they’d tortured out of Colter Shaw — the location of Gahl’s evidence. Shaw guessed that where they now were was an example of the UIP. He thought of the unfortunate addicts on the street they’d just walked around, and all the clearing going on before them. The man in the Rolls was probably a developer who’d bought the land for a song.

Braxton and Droon would now have to share that Shaw had not, in fact, led them to the evidence, which would implicate Mr. Rolls too.

How chilly would the meeting be?

The body language suggested that the BlackBridge duo felt something other than respect for a wealthy client. Shaw was looking at two very intimidated people, and to see Irena Braxton this way — an ice queen, if ever there was one — was oddly unsettling. As the chubby man spoke with them, unsmiling and gesticulating with his stubby hands often and broadly, she nodded and gave a polite, attentive frown, like a schoolgirl who’d flubbed a homework assignment. This attitude was, Shaw had no doubt, wholly alien to the woman.

But after what seemed to be her breathless reassurance, the client calmed. He gave them a smile of the sort you might affect when you hand a dollar to a homeless man, and his hands began to fidget less.

They were moving on to other business. Droon unfolded a map and held it up against the side of their SUV. Why not the hood? Shaw wondered. Oh, because the client was too short to see the map there. Everyone consulted the fluttering sheet.

“Who uses a paper map instead of a computer or tablet?” Russell asked.

Shaw nodded at the rhetorical question. Someone who doesn’t want electronic evidence, that’s who. You can set fire to paper and it’s gone forever, unlike digital data, which will last as long as bones from the Jurassic era. Russell produced a range-finder telescope. He looked, then handed it to Shaw.

After five minutes of discussion, the fat man pointed to several locations on the map and Droon marked them with a Sharpie. Then heads nodded and hands were shaken. Braxton and Droon remained where they were while the client stepped to the door of his Rolls. The driver swung the back passenger door open once more. Shaw got a look at two tanned legs, protruding from a short red skirt. Also: impressively high heels, which he thought odd for a woman to wear in the company of a short man like this, who, given the vehicle and his clothing had a surplus of ego. But, of course, there was no accounting for taste... or desire.

Before he got into the Rolls he turned and, no longer smiling, fired off more words, accentuated by the curious, jittery hand gestures. Braxton and Droon responded with scolded-dog nods. The man climbed into his sumptuous vehicle. The driver too, and the car sagged under his weight. The car rocked away over the packed construction site dirt.

29

Standing beside their SUV, Irena Braxton lifted a phone from her purse and made another call.

The vibrant handbag was similar to one of Margot’s, Shaw recalled from their time together. Hers had been made by indigenous people in South America. It wasn’t inexpensive but much of the purchase price went to a nonprofit organization that opposed the burning of the Amazon rain forest. Had Braxton, a known killer, bought hers from the same seller and for the same purpose? In his rewards business, Shaw had learned that the values and priorities people embraced were infinitely contradictory and enigmatic.

She replaced the phone and she and Droon fell silent. Less than a minute later a white van, with no markings on the side, pulled up. Out climbed two men, both white, both in good shape. Their outfits were similar: dark gray slacks and jackets, zippered up. One was tall and bareheaded, with a crew cut, the other short and crowned with a black baseball cap. They were unsmiling and cautious, but didn’t scan the surroundings, perhaps assuming if Braxton and Droon were here, the place was safe. Their right hands, though, stayed gyroscopically close to their right hips, where their guns would reside.

They joined Braxton and Droon, who opened the map he’d had moments before and spread it out on the hood of the Escalade. The discussion among them was brief and ended with a nod from the two newcomers, one of whom kept the map. Then Braxton and Droon climbed back into the SUV. The vehicle left.

The brothers, however, remained. The BlackBridge ops were waiting for something and Shaw and Russell wanted to see what it might be.

The answer arrived about five minutes later: two slim men, in shorts and T-shirts, one of them loud red, the other white. The shirts were untucked — a likely indication of concealed weapons. They had light blue vinyl shoulder bags slung over their shoulders. Their heads were shaved and their complexions dark. The TL was the home to several pan-Asian gangs, most notably the notorious Filipino Bahala Na Gang, more ruthless than the Mafia or the Mexican cartels, Shaw had heard. The BNG’s heyday was the end of the last century but many of the murderous crew still were active up and down the West Coast. San Francisco was their primary turf.

“Cutouts,” Russell said. “The white-van men. They’re insulating the man in the Rolls and Braxton and Droon. The actors never know who they’re ultimately acting for. This is pro.”

Among the men on the ground a discussion ensued. One of the van men pulled open the side door and took out two clear plastic bags, appearing to weigh two pounds each — maybe a kilo. Russell looked through the telescope again. He then gave it to Shaw, who scanned the clearing. He could see that the bags contained small packets of pills. These they handed over to the gangsters. The van man who’d kept the map now unfurled it.

“UIP,” Shaw said. “Ashton’s letter I showed you?”

His brother nodded, understanding blossoming in his face. He’d be recalling the Urban Improvement Plan, the cruelly ironic name for the BlackBridge operation that dumped hundreds of pounds of drugs on the streets of neighborhoods to destroy them.

Shaw said, “Monkey wrench.” He dialed 911.

The woman’s calm voice: “What’s the nature of your emergency?”

“There’s a drug deal in the construction site behind Turk at Simpson. I think they might have guns... wait, yes, they do!” He put some urgent dismay into his voice, a rattled citizen. He described the men and then disconnected without giving the requested identifying information about himself. Dispatchers were often skeptical about anonymous calls, but with a big drug deal, they’d definitely send a patrol cruiser.

And indeed they did. Almost immediately Shaw heard a vehicle approaching over the gravel. It was an SFPD car with two officers inside.

“That was fast,” Russell said, frowning.

The squad car drove right up to the van and the cops climbed out. The driver was a Latino patrol uniform. The other, a tall Anglo, was a detective, wearing a light gray suit, a badge on his belt. They looked over the van men and the two Filipinos. Shaw found himself tensing in anticipation of a firefight. He and Russell would not want to get involved, but he dropped his hand near his gun, in case any of the crew charged their way to escape up the alley, with their own weapons drawn.

The foursome turned toward the cops. One of the men from the van nodded a greeting. The detective smiled back.

“Hell.” A whisper from Shaw.

The gold shield had a discussion with the van men. Then all six in the construction zone turned and gazed around them, as Shaw and his brother ducked once more.

“Why they were here so fast,” Russell said. “The cops were up the street standing guard.”

“They going to come looking?”

But no. The men in the center of the cleared land stopped scanning; they’d apparently decided that whoever had dimed them out via the 911 call had, like most concerned citizens, hightailed it away. The two officers gave some words of farewell, maybe including the advice: pick a less visible place to meet next time. The taller of the van men gestured to one of the BNGs who fished some packets of Oxy or fent out of his bag and handed them to the officers, who nodded thanks then drove away.

The bangers and the BlackBridge duo pored over the map once more, so the distributors knew what neighborhood they were to poison today.

“How much?” Shaw asked.

“Value? At the group we don’t get into that much. Guess a hundred K.”

Scattering it on the street for free or at a bargain price. But, of course, Mr. Rolls would be making a thousand times that in the real estate deal.

The business was concluded — thick envelopes were handed out to the BNG men, who placed them, along with the drugs, into the shoulder bags. The van men returned to their vehicle, which was soon speeding away, leaving a trail of dust.

It was only then that Shaw realized it was a workday, and construction equipment and supplies were present, yet the site was completely devoid of workers. The owner — presumably Mr. Rolls — would have ordered the place closed down for the meeting.

And who are you? Shaw wondered of the man in the Rolls. Did you ever hear the name Ashton Shaw? Did your hands twitch and your mouth smile as Irena Braxton told you that one of her men was on the way to the Shaw Compound to have a “conversation” about what he’d discovered?

They didn’t have license tags for an ID, but maybe Karin could get a facial recognition hit.

The BNGs donned flashy wraparound sunglasses — the lenses orange — and started out of the site.

The brothers rose.

As Shaw started after the gangbangers Russell turned the other way — back to the alley where they’d parked their SUV.

Both men realized they were on opposite courses and looked back to regard the other.

Shaw whispered, “We’ve got to stop them. This way.” Nodding toward the BNGs.

Russell said, “No.”

Shaw flashed back immediately to the avalanche field of their youth so many years ago, when he had sped out to save the life of the woman photographer on the steep and dangerous slope — and Russell had held back.

It’s not our job...

He was about to lay out the urgent case for stopping the BNGs when his brother said tersely, “You thought I was leaving?”

Shaw didn’t reply.

“Hawker’s Pass,” his brother muttered, seemingly irritated, and continued on his way.

Shaw said, “Oh.”

30

In the shadows, close to the brick walls in the alley, Shaw followed the slim men who stalked up the cobblestones out of the demolition zone. He stepped over several dead rats and two more men, sprawled on their sides. They were breathing.

Where were the two Filipinos going to scatter their goods like farmers sowing corn seeds in the spring? What property did Mr. Rolls have his eye on?

He picked up his pace; the men ahead of him were walking quickly.

When they were nearly to the end of the alley, one glanced down and touched his partner on the arm. They stopped, removed the gaudy sunglasses and glanced at the wallet, lying on the cobblestones. They looked up and down the alley and spotted Shaw. He was strolling along in the same direction as they, paying the two no mind, pretending to talk on his cell phone as if in the middle of a pleasant conversation, perhaps a romantic one. Their looks revealed they didn’t consider him a threat.

Red Shirt took a packet of drugs from his bag. While they were being paid to scatter the product on sidewalks and in alleys, what harm could there be in selling a bit? A little double-dipping never hurt anyone. As White Shirt bent and lifted the wallet and started to go through it, Red Shirt offered the packet toward Shaw.

He said, “I’ll call you back.” And slipped the phone away.

Shaw gave an intrigued smile as he stared at the drugs. He approached to within six feet and stopped. BNG crew were often skilled at the devastating forms of martial arts known as Suntukan and Sikaran, punching and kicking. The Philippines were also home to several grappling styles of combat.

The banger could be thinking to lure Shaw close and mug him. After all, why sell your product when you can make off with both the cash and the drugs?

“What is it?” Shaw asked.

“Oxy.”

“How much?” He squinted at the bag.

“Twenty.”

“How many pills? I can’t see.”

The BNG held the packet higher.

Which is when Russell stepped into the mouth of the alley and came up behind White Shirt and Tased him in the kidney. He groaned, shivered and dropped.

Red Shirt spun and reached for his weapon, which Shaw, lunging forward, snagged with his left hand, while seating the muzzle of his Glock against the man’s ear.

“Mapanganib ito... Dangerous what you do!”

Shaw pulled Red Shirt’s silver revolver from his hand. His confrere had a Glock and a switchblade knife, both of which Russell pocketed. They took the men’s phones too.

Rising unsteadily and wincing against the pain in his back, White Shirt said in a thick accent, “You fucker, you die. You aren’t know.”

Russell picked up his wallet — emptied of ID and containing only cash — and slipped it back into his hip pocket. While Shaw covered both men, his brother plucked the barbs from White Shirt’s skin. Then he collected the man’s shoulder bag. Shaw gripped the strap of Red Shirt’s tote but the man held on to it hard and turned, looking up at Shaw with furious eyes. “You stupid. This danger shit. It get you cut.”

Russell had reloaded the Taser and was aiming. The man slumped and Shaw pulled the bag away.

“Run,” Shaw whispered.

The man glared once more and, after White Shirt picked up his sunglasses — as enraged at the scratches on the lenses as at the theft of the drugs and money — they strode off, looking back. For the second time that day the brothers received a single-finger salute.

“They’ll be stealing burners in five minutes and calling it in. We’ve got to go.” Russell nodded up the alley. They walked to the SUV and climbed in. Russell pulled into traffic and the heavy vehicle sped out of the TL.

Hawker’s Pass...

A battle between a settlement and a group of claim jumpers in Northern California during the Silver Rush days. The settlers planted a half-buried strongbox on the back road into the camp, and when the outlaws found it and started to dig it up, one group of settlers came in from the north side of the road, the other from the south and easily took the distracted jumpers. Shaw remembered sitting beside his father and brother and watching Ashton draw a map of the battle, as he lectured the boys about tactics.

Never attack an enemy directly when you can distract and flank...

So, no, Russell had not intended to leave. He had made stopping the BNGs his fight, as well as Shaw’s, and had come up with a good strategy to do it with no bloodshed.

They left the TL and Russell drove back to the waterfront at Hunters Point, where they pitched the drugs and the BNGs’ guns and phones and the knife into the Bay.

They returned to the safe house on Alvarez. Russell ran the plate of the van — it was not obscured, like the Caddy’s and the Rolls’s — and the information came back that it was registered to a corporation that was undoubtedly owned by an offshore entity. Russell sent the picture he’d taken of Mr. Rolls to someone — presumably Karin. Soon he received a text in return.

“Too far away for facial recognition.”

“Burlingame now. Nadler’s house.” The town was south of San Francisco, a working-class and commuter community, the home of San Francisco airport. Shaw had seen a picture of the house, which Mack had sent. It was a tidy one-story dwelling, painted yellow and set amid a small but well-tended garden.

Shaw was calling up the address when his phone dinged with an incoming email.

It was from Mack McKenzie. He read the message.

He said, “We have to make a stop on the way.”

31

Ghirardelli Square — part of the tourist magnet Fisherman’s Wharf — wasn’t busy on this cloudy day. Rain threatened.

Shaw and Russell were in the SUV, parked near the corner on which a man strummed a guitar. His case was open and people would occasionally toss coins or bills in. He was tall and lean and long blond hair flowed from beneath a cowboy hat with a tightly curled brim.

You could smell chocolate, exuding by chance or design from the Ghirardelli building. He explained to Russell how he’d come to take on the reward job to find Tessy Vasquez.

He then told him that his private investigator had, among her contractors, an audio analyst, to whom she’d sent Tessy’s message. The expert had filtered out the young woman’s voice and analyzed every sound on it.

The email Shaw had just received in the Tenderloin contained the results of that analysis. He called it up and the men read.

“Whoever did it is good,” Russell said.

Shaw was looking around. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He climbed out of the vehicle and approached the guitarist. He pulled a twenty from his pocket and dropped it into the guitar case.

“Hey, man, thanks.” His eyes were wide.

“Got a question.”

“Sure.” Maybe hoping: Was he free to sign a multimillion-dollar recording contract?

“Do you know this girl? She’s gone missing. I’m helping her mother try to find her.”

“Oh, yeah. Tessy. Jesus. Missing?”

“When did you see her last?”

“I just got back from Portland. Before that. A week maybe.”

“You know her well?”

“No. Talked about music some. Mostly just to divide up the corners, you know. So we didn’t sing over each other. This sucks. I hope she’s okay.”

“You ever know if she had trouble with anyone?”

“Never saw it. Guys’d flirt. You know. She could handle it.”

“Was she ever with a man named Roman?” Shaw described him.

“Doesn’t sound familiar.”

Shaw thanked him. He studied the block, turning in a slow circle. His eyes came to rest on a gift shop, specializing in saltwater taffy and objets d’art based on cable cars, the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz.

He caught his brother’s eye and nodded at the store. Russell joined him.

“Video?” his brother asked.

“It’s right in the line of sight. Hope so.”

The two men greeted the manager of the store, dressed for some reason like a clerk in an Old West general store. Straw hat, candy-striped shirt, suspenders and a sleeve garter. When they explained why they were here, he said, “Oh, no. Terrible.” He added that he knew Tessy. She occasionally would come into the store and exchange the tip coins she’d received from performing for bills.

He handed over the counter to another worker, and the men followed him into the back room.

He logged on to a cloud server and typed in the date and time from the call Tessy had made to her mother. Scrubbing back and forth... Finally, in fast motion, Tessy walked into view, removed her guitar from the case, which she opened for the tips, and then slung the instrument over her neck. She was in a red blouse and a black gypsy skirt. Her dark hair was loose.

She began to sing, smiling to passersby. The chord changes seemed efficient. No fancy jazz riffs. He’d heard that a guitar had never been intended as a lead instrument, but a rhythm one. That came from his distant past, from Margot, who’d been a source of much of his popular cultural knowledge. The woman had then added, “But tell that to Jimi Hendrix.”

Shaw’s own personal favorite guitarist was the Australian Tommy Emmanuel, who seemed to pry an entire orchestra from his git-fiddle.

Shaw was amused that her guitar was a Yamaha, the same brand as his motorbike. He supposed they were the same company — though that was about as diversified a manufacturing operation as you would find.

“Can you scrub to where she leaves?”

The man did. They saw her put her guitar away and pull a phone from her pocket. She made a brief call — probably the one to her mother. She then picked up the guitar case, slung a purse over her shoulder and started up the street away from the store. She walked to the corner and turned right.

“You catch that?” Shaw asked.

“The van,” Russell said.

A gray minivan, which had been parked on the same side of the street as Tessy was on, pulled into traffic as she walked by and proceeded slowly, as if following her. It made the same turn she did.

“Christ, you think they did... I mean, did something to her?” The manager’s face radiated concern.

“Scrub back to where it arrives.”

That was about twenty minutes before she left.

“Let it play in normal time.”

Yes, it was suspicious. After the van parked, no one got out. And no one got in; it wasn’t there to pick someone up. Then the passenger side doors opened and two men got out. They were Anglo, pale with thick black hair — one’s was slicked back, the other’s was a disorderly mop. They were in dress shirts and slacks. The one from the front seat removed a phone from his pocket and took a picture of the square, then fiddled with the screen.

“He’s sending the picture.”

A moment later, after what seemed to be a text exchange, Slick put the phone away. He lit a cigarette and the two climbed back into the van.

“We should call the police.”

Russell said, “We will. Any way we can get a copy of that vid?”

“Sure.” He rummaged in the desk and found an SD card. “From the time she arrived?”

“If you would, yes.”

He typed some commands and within a minute the video, in the form of an MP4 file, was on the card.

Shaw said, “We’ll pay you for it.”

“No, no. Just get it to the police right away. God, I hope she’s okay.”

Shaw described Tessy’s ex, Roman. “Was she ever in here with somebody who looked like him?”

“Not that I remember.”

They thanked him. He handed them a business card. “Please let me know what happens.”

Russell said they would and the men returned to the SUV.

As his brother fired up the big vehicle, Shaw sent a text to Mack, with the priority code, requesting information on a vehicle. He’d memorized the van’s California license tag.

“Let’s look at the cross street.” Russell pulled into traffic and, following the same route as the gray van, turned the corner. The street was not much more than an alley — it was lined by the backs of buildings and loading docks, no storefronts or residences.

“Couldn’t’ve picked a better place for a snatch,” Russell said, “if we’d planned it out ahead of time.”

32

Shaw’s phone hummed with a text.

Shaw read this to his brother, as he piloted the SUV to Burlingame.

“Doesn’t look good. Police? This isn’t a BlackBridge thing.”

“They’re undocumented. Tessy and her mother. They’ll be deported. Or Maria will be, by herself, if I can’t find Tessy. Anyway, the police won’t get on board with what we have.”

He couldn’t tell his brother’s reaction.

After fifteen minutes of silence, Russell asked, “It’s like PI work then?”

“The rewards? Pretty much. Looking for escapees, suspects. Some private. Like Tessy.”

“You do BEA?”

“No.” Bond enforcement agents pursued bail skippers and FTAs — “failures to appear” at hearings or trials. The criminals whom bond agents pursued were invariably punks and drunks and could usually be located with minimal mental effort — in places like their girlfriends’ or parents’ basements or in the same bar where they got wasted the night they committed the crime they’d been hauled to jail for in the first place. He explained this.

“You want a better quality perp.”

“A more challenging perp.”

More silence.

“What’re the rewards like?”

“You mean, amounts?”

Russell nodded.

“From a couple of thousand. To twenty million or so.”

“Million?”

“Not my kind of work, generally. It’s a State Department reward. The way those work is somebody in the bad guy’s organization gets location information to the CIA. Then it’s time for SEAL Team Six.”

“Who’s the twenty million?”

“Guy named Idrees Ayubi... He’s a...” Shaw’s voice faded as he saw his brother nodding knowingly. Given his profession, it wasn’t surprising that he’d know the name of the terrorist with the highest bounty offered by the U.S. government.

After some silence Shaw said, “But it’s not about the money. What I like about a reward is it’s a flag. It means there’s a problem that nobody’s been able to solve. Never be bored.”

“Was that one of Ash’s? I don’t remember it.”

“No.”

The boys had once asked their father — whom Russell dubbed the King of Never — why he phrased his rules beginning with the negative. The man’s answer: “Gets your attention better.”

Russell fell silent once again. Shaw wondered if he was still angry at the suggestion that he was running away from confronting the BNGs.

“A cult? Tom Pepper was saying?”

“Last week. Washington State.”

“Somebody posted a reward to get a follower out of the place?”

Shaw explained that, no, he had learned about the cult on a reward job and he’d been troubled by the cult leaders’ sadistic and predatory behavior. “I went in undercover, found a lot of vulnerable people — there were a hundred members altogether. I did what I could to save some of them. Made some enemies.”

Shaw now realized two things: One, he was rambling, and he was doing it for the purpose of encouraging his brother to engage, to dive beneath the surface of their cocktail-party small talk.

And, two, Russell was simply filling the thorny pits of silence; he evidently had little interest in Shaw’s narrative.

Finally Shaw said, “Something on your mind?” He didn’t think he’d ever asked his brother this question.

Russell hesitated then said, “An assignment I have to get to.”

“Here?”

“No. Can’t say where.”

“You don’t want to be doing this, do you?” Shaw asked. He gestured toward the pleasant street they were coursing along in Burlingame but meant the pursuit of BlackBridge.

“Just, we should get it done.”

Another voice ended the conversation: the woman within the GPS announced that their destination was on the left.

Ma’am, I wonder if you’d be willing to help us out,” Shaw said.

The woman in the doorway was early seventies, he estimated. She looked at them with a smile but with still eyes, as one will do with doorbell ringers who seem polite but are wholly unexpected. She’d be wondering about this pair in particular, who bore a very slight resemblance to each other. She wore an apron, not the sort serious chefs donned like body armor, but light blue, with frills and lace, insubstantial. A garment from a bygone era.

“My husband will be back soon.”

Offered as a reason that she might be less helpful to them now, being only half the complement. And spoken too as a shield. Reinforcements would arrive momentarily.

Her name, they’d learned thanks to Mack’s research, was Eleanor.

Shaw introduced himself and Russell and then said, “My brother and I are looking into some family history.”

This was indisputable. Not the whole truth, but how often is that really necessary?

“We were going through some old family papers and found out our father had some interest in this house or whoever lived here.”

Russell qualified, “A long time ago.”

“Well, this’s my husband’s family’s house. He’s lived here thirty years. Who’s your father? Oh, you said ‘had.’ Does that mean he’s not with us any longer?”

“No, he’s not,” Shaw told her.

“I’m sorry.” Her face exuded genuine sorrow. This was a woman who had experienced loss herself.

“What was your father’s name?”

“Ashton Shaw.”

A squint, and faint lines appeared in the powdery face. “I don’t think I know the name. Maybe Mort does. You have a picture? Maybe it’ll jog my memory?” She was more comfortable now, since the men weren’t trying to talk their way inside and sell her insurance or aluminum siding.

Shaw was irritated with himself for not thinking to bring a picture of their father. He was surprised when Russell produced a small photo — and not on his camera but from the location where family pictures used to be kept: his wallet. Shaw was stung even deeper at the thought that he had accused his older brother — even if silently — of killing a man whose picture he carried around with him after all these years.

Glancing down at the faded rectangle, he was more surprised yet to find that the shot was not of Ashton alone, but of the three Shaw men: father and sons. Ashton was behind, the boys in front. Shaw was about twelve. They were rigged for rappelling in the high country.

He turned back to Eleanor, expecting her to say, My, I can see the resemblance, or something similar.

Instead she was frozen, gaping at the picture.

“Ma’am?” Russell asked.

“I do know him.”

Shaw’s pulse picked up. “How?”

“Years ago, ages. He was older than in your picture and his hair was wilder. And whiter. But I remember him clearly. It was at the funeral. He was looking very distraught. Well, we all were, of course. But he seemed especially troubled. We thought that was odd since no one in the family had a clue who he was.”

Shaw: “Whose funeral was it?”

“My son. Amos.”

“Amos Gahl?”

“That’s right. I’m Eleanor Nadler now. I remarried after my first husband passed.”

She tilted her head and looked each of them over, and it was a coy, conspiratorial gaze. “Why don’t you come in? I’ll make some coffee. And you boys can tell me why you’re really here.”

33

The house smelled of mothballs, which, Shaw supposed, most people associate with grandparents’ homes and old clothing in odd cuts and colors stored away forever.

Shaw’s thought, though, was of snakes: during one particularly dry, infestive year, Ashton and the children had ringed the cabin and gardens with pungent spheres of naphthalene to ward off persistent rattlers searching for water and mice.

Eleanor nodded to a floral couch, and the Shaw brothers sat. She disappeared into the kitchen. Given his childhood, Shaw had no reference point for television sitcoms but he and Margot had occasionally lain on inflatable mattresses during one of her archeological digs and, on a tablet or computer, watched the shows her parents and grandparents had loved. Surreal to have just made love to a sultry woman, in the wilderness of Arizona, your pistol handy in case of coyotes, and be watching The Andy Griffith Show (funny) or Bewitched (not his style).

This home was immaculate, well dusted, pastel. There were many objects sitting on many surfaces. China figurines were outnumbered only by family photographs.

Five minutes later the woman returned with a silver tray on which sat three delicate porcelain cups, filled with black coffee, on saucers. A sugar bowl and pitcher filled with viscous cream, not milk, sat beside them. Also, three spoons and three napkins folded into triangles. She passed out one cup each to Shaw and Russell and took one for herself. The brothers doctored with cream. The coffee was rich. African. Kenyan, Shaw was pretty sure.

In her soft voice she said, “I have a feeling that this isn’t about 23andMe genealogy, is it?”

“No, Ms. Nadler—?” Russell began.

“Eleanor,” she corrected. “I have a feeling we have something important in common. First names seem appropriate.”

“Eleanor,” Shaw said, sipping again and putting the cup down. The clink seemed loud. “We’re here looking into how our father died.” He had to say the next part. “We think he was killed under circumstances similar to your son’s death.”

“It was no accident,” she muttered. “I know that.”

Russell said, “Not long before he died, our father was in touch with some coworkers who knew Amos.”

“At BlackBridge.” Her lips tightened.

A nod. “They think Amos smuggled some evidence out of the company. Evidence of crimes they’d committed.”

Shaw went on to explain about the Urban Improvement Plan and other illegal activities that the company was involved in: the stock manipulation, the kickbacks, the phony earthquake inspections.

She didn’t know UIP or other specifics — Shaw supposed her son intentionally didn’t tell her too much, to protect her — but she said, “There was always something wrong about that place. He was never comfortable there.” Her eyes strayed to a picture on the wall. It depicted Gahl in his early twenties. He was in a soccer kit. Curly dark hair, a lean face. “He was such a good boy. Smart. Good-looking... Oh, he was a catch. I’d thought he’d bring home the most beautiful girl in college.” A laugh. “He brought home some beautiful boys... That was the way he went. Fine with me.” A sigh. “My son was happy. He loved academia.”

“Where did he teach?” Russell asked.

“San Francisco State. He was happy there.” Her face tightened. “Then he joined that company. It wasn’t a good place. It was dark. But he got tempted. Where else could somebody with a history degree make the kind of money they paid him?”

Shaw: “Are you comfortable telling us more about his death?”

She was silent for a long moment, her eyes fixed on a ceramic statue of a bird, a mourning dove on the coffee table.

“Officially it was a car crash. He went off Highway One. You know how bad that can be south of the city?”

Both men nodded, and Shaw thought of the article in Ashton’s secret room about the state assemblyman’s crash and the ensuing fire that destroyed some records he had with him.

“It was near Maverick. The beach.” The extreme surfing capital of the state.

“Only he had no reason to be driving that way. He’d left BlackBridge and was spending all his time in the city on some project of his. That was odd — why he was fifty miles south of the city. And then...” She took a moment to compose herself. “And then there was the mortician.”

Shaw encouraged her with a nod.

“He asked me if the police found who attacked him. I was dumbfounded. Attacked him? What did he mean? Oh, the poor man was beside himself. He thought I knew. You see, the body was badly burned but in getting it ready for the crematorium, he noticed stab wounds, deep ones. Someone had...” She steadied herself. A few breaths. “Someone had stabbed him and then twisted the knife. To cause more pain.”

Shaw pictured the SOG knife, recalled Droon’s gesturing with the blade yesterday morning.

Insert, twist...

His torture method of choice.

With her jaw tightly set, she whispered, “He said it looked like he was stabbed in the leg and the blade hit the femoral artery. That would be an accident. They wanted to keep him alive — I guess to find out where the evidence you mentioned was.”

Had they caught him at the library yesterday Shaw too would have been strapped down and the SOG knife plunged into his arm or leg.

And with each question would have come another twist of the blade.

“Did Amos leave anything here? Records, files, computers, hard drives? Maybe a briefcase? He called it a courier bag.”

She sipped from the cup and thought for a moment. “No. And near the end he didn’t come by very often. He seemed paranoid. He believed he was being watched. But he would meet a friend here. At first, I thought it was sweet. Bringing a boyfriend home to meet Mom and Stepdad. They were... well, it was easy to see they were close. He was a coworker at BlackBridge, though I think he’d quit by the time he came here. But they weren’t completely social get-togethers. We’d have a meal and then they’d go down to the cellar to talk. I think they wanted a place that was completely private and secure.” Her eyes darkened. “Maybe Amos and his friend thought their own houses were bugged.”

“Do you remember his friend’s name?”

“I do. Because it was one you don’t hear very much. A pretty name. La Fleur. Last name. It means ‘flower’ in French. I don’t remember his first.”

“Do you know where he lives?”

“Marin, I think he said at dinner. Nothing more than the county. Maybe he was paranoid too. Even here.”

“And you think La Fleur had quit BlackBridge?”

“I’m pretty sure so.” A scornful laugh. “He probably had a conscience.”

“Anyone else Amos met with from the company?”

“La Fleur’s the only one I remember.” She chuckled. “If I thought Amos was paranoid, you should have seen the friend. During dinner, he asked what kind of encryption our phones used. Mort and I laughed. Heavens! We thought it was a joke. But he was serious. When we said we didn’t have an idea Amos made us shut our phones off. We thought he was humoring his friend. I suppose not. Sometimes it’s not really paranoia at all, is it?”

Again, the brothers shared a glance.

They rose and thanked her for her time. Shaw said he’d be in touch if they learned anything else.

She walked them to the door. She looked out into the front yard, a pleasant setting. A Japanese maple dominated. Some bright flowers, purple and blue, lorded over recently mulched beds. Shaw, like all survivalists, knew some plants well — those that are edible, that are toxic, that can be used as medicines and antiseptics. Of flowers that were merely decorative he was largely ignorant.

Eleanor said, “Amos wasn’t a fool. He’d know there was a chance that he’d get found out. And that means he wouldn’t hide the evidence, this bag, so far out of sight that it couldn’t be found by somebody else after he was gone.”

Which echoed Shaw’s very thought when he was searching for the bag in the Stanford library yesterday morning.

The woman continued, “You two are that somebody else.”

She looked from one brother to the other, then tugged tight the drawstring of her frilly apron, not a stain upon it. Her placid, sitcom-grandmother face grew hard. Her eyes locked onto Shaw’s. “Find it. And take those motherfuckers down.”

34

Sausalito is a quaint bay- and cliffside suburb north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

The demographics are artists and craftspeople and, given the views, the fine scone and muffin bakeries, and the high-speed ferries to downtown, well-heeled professionals.

In Russell’s SUV the brothers were presently rocking through the winding and hilly streets, which were lined with dense foliage.

The inimitable Karin had tracked down La Fleur — first name Earnest, spelled the nontraditional way — and gotten his address but, interestingly, the group’s databases offered little other information about him.

The man was off the grid. No phone, no social media. Amos Gahl’s mother had said that La Fleur had been an employee of BlackBridge but even that assertion, which Shaw had every reason to believe, was not available for confirmation. Shaw suspected his identity had been scrubbed to vapor.

Learning this about La Fleur, Shaw reflected how his father had come up with perhaps the best form of scrubbing in existence — never entrusting a single fact about himself, his work, his family, to the digital world.

“That’s it,” Russell said, nodding ahead of them to a cul-de-sac.

The narrow street, on which there were no sidewalks, was bounded by old-growth trees and interwoven tangles of foliage. In this part of town were few houses and the ones they’d passed were fronted with short picket fences through which grew thick greenery. La Fleur’s property was different. It was protected by a solid pressure-treated stockade fence, eight feet tall, aged to gray. The slats topped with strands of barbed wire.

Russell parked and they walked to the gate, which was locked.

“No intercom,” he said.

Shaw knelt and looked through a foot-round hole that had been cut in the wood for mail. All he could see was more foliage.

Russell took a small flat object from his pocket — like a black metal fingernail file — and, after examining the crack between gate and fence, slipped the latch in with a swift move and pushed the gate open. They stepped inside and looked over La Fleur’s house. The rambling residence, an architectural mess in Cape Cod gray, was on a steep hillside, with stilts holding it aloft, forty feet above the rocks below. This entire area was subject to tremors of varying magnitude and Shaw would not have lived in a stilt house here for any money, whatever the view.

On the other hand, the building was at least three-quarters of a century old and had clearly survived various past shakings, perhaps damaged but suffering no mortal injury.

The men started toward the structure down a serpentine path, which was, curiously, interrupted every ten feet or so with oil drums filled with concrete. They were a version of what you saw in front of embassies and government security agencies overseas, to prevent suicide bombers from plowing their explosive-filled Toyota pickups straight into the front door.

“Hmm,” Russell said.

As they approached the last drum, Shaw suddenly tilted his head. Russell too.

Both men dropped fast, taking cover behind one barricade.

Nothing is more distinctive than the creaking sound of a homemade bow being drawn.

The arrow hissed over their heads and lodged in a tree to the left, fired by a figure standing just inside the front door of the house. They couldn’t see clearly but his garment appeared to be a variation on nighttime camo — various shades of blue and black. He wore dark brown leather gloves.

The arrow was a crude projectile, also homemade, but it still traveled at typical arrow velocity — around two hundred feet per second — and embedded itself neatly in a eucalyptus, which is not a soft wood.

“That’s a warning shot. Get the hell out of here!” The voice was raspy and manic.

“Mr. La Fleur,” Shaw called. “We just want to talk!”

“You’re trespassing!”

Russell: “You don’t have an intercom.”

Shaw said, “And you don’t have a phone either.”

“How the fuck did you know that?”

Another arrow banged into the steel drum to their right.

The men surveyed the field of fire. Shaw estimated: fifteen feet to the bottom step, then three up to the narrow porch, three more to the door.

Shaw tried to calculate the odds. A crossbow, which takes some effort and time to cock and fit with a bolt, would have been no problem. They could easily cover the ground in the time it took to reload. But a recursive bow like this? One could fire about eight arrows a minute, if the archer were aiming carefully.

A skilled archer, that is. It didn’t seem that La Fleur was. He dropped another arrow as he tried to notch it. Then he got it ready to launch. Shaw noted that his hands were trembling.

“Sir, we’re not a threat!” Russell called. “We’d just like to talk to you about—”

Clunk...

This arrow hit the drum they were behind.

Shaw was getting irritated. “Hey, cut it out! You could hurt bystanders doing that!”

“No, I could fucking hurt you!”

The brothers regarded each other again and nodded.

Another arrow hissed in their direction. As it flew by, Shaw and Russell were instantly on their feet, sprinting to the door. Shaw slammed into the heavy panel with his shoulder. The door in turn bowled the man to the floor.

La Fleur howled, dropped the weapon and held his hands up.

Russell pushed into the foyer just after Shaw, his pistol drawn, in case La Fleur chose to attack with a knife or, who knew, a broadsword or battle-axe.

But the skirmish was over as fast as it had begun.

He skittered over the oak to a corner, huddling and crying out, “Bastards!”

The man had wild white hair, not unlike Ashton’s toward the end, though La Fleur’s was pulled into a sloppy ponytail. He had lengthy blanched eyebrows. He was gaunt. Beneath the camo, he wore a red floral shirt and on his feet were sandals with tie-dye straps. Bronze earrings dangled. The man was a combat-ready hippie.

“Nazis! Fascists! I have rights!”

“Calm down,” Shaw said, pulling the man’s gloves off and zip-tying his hands behind him. He noted he hadn’t trimmed his nails in ages. They were yellow.

“No!”

Shaw: “I’m just doing this so everybody’s safe. We’re not going to hurt you.”

“You already did. My butt aches.”

“Calm. Down.”

The volume of the muttering diminished some and La Fleur nodded, as if he were afraid of the consequences of even speaking to the two home invaders.

Shaw re-latched the many locks.

“Anybody else in the house?”

A negative twisting of neck and head.

Guns drawn, the brothers went about clearing the place anyway. Though they hadn’t seen — let alone trained with — each other since they were children, they fell instantly into the procedure that Ashton Shaw had taught. “Door closed, left... Bathroom, half-open right... Clear. Breeze from second bedroom, window open. Barred... No hostiles. Clear!... No cellar... Attic sealed...”

They returned to the living room. Shaw looked over the place, which was perfumed with three distinctive smells: damp fireplace ash, rich pot and ocean. Two windows faced east, the direction of San Francisco Bay. These would have offered stunning views had they not been covered with thick metal shutters. Shaw knew their make and model. They were bulletproof, expensive and a favorite of cartel bosses. He knew of these qualities from a reward job a few years ago. He could also attest to the fact that when hit by automatic gunfire, the resulting bang was as loud as the muzzle burst itself.

The house could have been outfitted by a survivalist. There were stacks upon stacks of sandbags, piled halfway up the walls, enough to stop a fusillade of bullets. Ports had been cut into the wall through which he could pepper attacking hordes with his caveman arrows. La Fleur also had medical supplies aplenty, including a satchel labeled self-surgery kit.

Also fifty-gallon drums of drinking water and hundreds of pounds of MRE. Meals ready to eat were a staple for the armed services... and for gullible pseudo-survivalists who listened to paranoia-dishing talk radio hosts.

Ashton Shaw had taught the children that true survivalism means learning how to grow, gather and hunt for your own food.

One difference between this cliffside dwelling and the Compound: La Fleur had a computer and a TV. In the Compound there’d been no electronics whatsoever, except an emergency cell phone. It was kept charged but shut off. The only time Shaw remembered its being used was the cold October morning when he went off to look for his father on Echo Ridge, after the man had gone missing.

35

The brothers helped La Fleur into an indented armchair of faded green fabric and Shaw cut the restraint off. Now the grizzled man was trying a different tack; he was contrite. “It’s all a mistake. Me shooting at you? I thought you were burglars. Really. There’s been a string of robberies in the neighborhood. I have clippings. Do you want to see them? I would never have shot you if I’d known you weren’t burglars. Don’t hurt me!”

Russell frowned. “Burglars? Hmm.”

“Who’d you really think we were?” Shaw asked.

“From BlackBridge?” Russell asked.

The man froze and then looked down. It was as if the very word paralyzed him. He gave the faintest of nods.

“We’re not,” Shaw said.

Russell tapped the grip of his SIG Sauer. “If we were BlackBridge, you’d be dead. Right?”

La Fleur rubbed his wrists. He reached for a bong and a lighter on the chair-side table.

“No,” Russell said.

“You want some?” he offered the stained glass tube. Both men ignored him. He put it down.

“Amos Gahl’s mother told us about you.”

His face softened “Eleanor! How is she?”

“She’s fine.”

“And her husband? Mort.”

“Apparently okay,” Shaw said. “He was out. Now, Earnest. We need your help. Amos found some evidence against BlackBridge. We think it’s proof about the Urban Improvement Plan. You know about it?”

He frowned, taking this in. He remained cautious. “Who are you?”

“Our father,” Shaw said, “was killed by Irena Braxton and Ebbitt Droon. Ian Helms too.”

“Your father?”

“Ashton Shaw. Did you know him?”

“I don’t remember the name. But there was somebody... wild-eyed, like a cowboy.”

Russell displayed the picture.

“That’s him. He stopped me outside where I was living. He told me he was a professor and one of his students had been killed by BlackBridge.”

“Todd Zaleski, a city councilman.”

La Fleur squinted. “That was it, yes! Supposedly a robbery but your dad didn’t believe it. Like you guys — he was looking for what Ame had taken from BlackBridge. I told him I couldn’t help him. He left and I never heard from him again.”

“You were close to Amos, his mother told us.”

A nod and his weathered lips drew taut.

“Will you help us? Whatever Amos found is in a courier bag. He hid it somewhere in the Bay Area.”

Eyes again on the floor, La Fleur mumbled, “I don’t know anything. I swear to God.”

In the rewards business, Shaw had done a fair amount of kinesics analysis — using body language to spot deception. Included in that fine art was noting verbal tics. Anyone who ends a sentence with the assurance that they’re not lying probably is, and it’s a double hit if a deity is invoked.

Shaw stared at him until La Fleur added, in a whisper, “BlackBridge is the devil — the whole company. Everybody. Not just Helms and Braxton. It’s like the buildings are evil, the walls are evil... It’s so dangerous. Why do you think I’m living like this?”

“Don’t you want Helms to go to prison for what they did to your friend?” Shaw asked.

The man looked away.

Shaw felt frustration. This man knew something. He said, “There’s a family that Droon and Braxton are going to kill tomorrow.”

La Fleur’s face revealed some concern at this. “Why?”

Russell: “We don’t know.”

“We find Amos’s evidence and go to the FBI. They arrest Ian Helms and Braxton and Droon. We stop the killing. Help us save them.”

Russell stirred impatiently. Shaw had refined his interviewing and interrogation skills over the years in seeking rewards. Though he could be firm, he generally used logic, empathy and humor to win over the subjects. He suspected his brother took a somewhat different approach.

Shaw persisted. “You and Amos met at Eleanor’s house a few times. You met there because she hadn’t been ‘Gahl’ for years. She’d remarried and changed her name. So Braxton and Droon wouldn’t know about her.”

Shaw studied La Fleur patiently until he decided, it seemed, it wasn’t too incriminating to answer. “That’s right.”

“What did Amos tell you when you were over at his mother’s, the last time you met?”

He fidgeted, played with the bong. “Nothing. Really! We just chatted. Chewed the fat.” His evasive face gave a smile. “My grandmother used to say that. When I was a kid I never knew what it meant. I still—”

Russell snapped, “What did Amos tell you?”

Shaw said patiently, yet in a firm voice, “They’re going to murder a family. There was a note we found, a kill order. It didn’t say ‘target’ singular or ‘couple.’ Husband and wife. It said ‘family.’ That means children. We have no idea who they are and we’ve only got twenty-four hours to find out and save them.”

Russell said nothing more. With dark, threatening eyes he stared at the man.

Good cop, bad cop.

“The evidence,” Shaw said. “Amos was going to hide it. I think you know where.”

La Fleur shook his head vehemently. “No, no, no! We didn’t talk about anything like that. We talked about plants, fertilizer.”

“At midnight?”

“How did you know that’s when we met?” The man’s eyes grew alarmed.

Shaw hadn’t, but it was logical.

“I’m a gardener. Look outside!” He uttered a forced laugh. “My last name, you know. ‘Flower’ in French. Amos was into plants too. We had some wine and talked about gardening.” The sadness returned.

Russell shot a glance to his younger brother, who handed off the interview to him, easing back and falling silent.

As Russell leaned close, La Fleur shied, kneading his hands into fists then opening his fingers. Over and over. “I’ll send an anonymous text to BlackBridge, attention Braxton and Droon. It’ll have two items in it. One, your name. Two, your address.”

“What?” A horrified whisper.

“When they come at you with their M4 assault rifles, your arrows aren’t going to do anything but piss them off.”

Bad cop had become worse cop.

His shoulders slumped. He sighed. “I’m probably screwed anyway. They tracked you on your phones.”

“We have shielded and encrypted burners,” Shaw said.

He didn’t seem to believe them. “Oh yeah? What’s your algorithm?”

“AES, Twofish and Scorpion.”

With a glance toward Shaw, Russell said, “That’s mine too.” Curiously the brothers had, on their own, picked the same encryption package.

La Fleur snapped, “Let me see.”

Russell offered his phone. La Fleur grabbed and studied it, then for some reason shook the mobile as if to see what kind of data would rattle out. He examined the screen once more. He handed it back. He seemed marginally relieved and didn’t bother with Shaw’s unit.

The man’s zipping eyes settled on the knotty-pine floor. He rose and walked to a shuttered window. He opened the metal slat a few inches, ducking — as if to slip out of a sniper’s crosshairs. After a moment he stood, crouching, and looked out.

Apparently satisfied there were no surveillance devices, or rifles, trained his way, he closed and re-latched the shutter. Walking to a far corner of the room, he turned on an elaborate LP record player and, pulling on latex gloves, removed an old-time album from its sleeve. He set the black disk gingerly on the turntable and, with infinite care, set the needle in the groove of the first track.

Music pounded into the room, some rock group. Anyone trying to listen in would hear only raging guitar and fierce drums.

La Fleur removed the gloves and replaced them in the box. He looked his intruders over. “You two really have no clue what’s going on.”

And with a defiant look at Russell, he grabbed the bong, lit up and inhaled long.

36

The smoke spiraled upward, dissolving at its leisure.

Never into recreational drugs, Shaw nonetheless found the rich smell of pot pleasant. He waited until La Fleur exhaled and sat back. A twitching tilt of his head like a squirrel assessing a tree. The man put the blue tube down.

“Oh, yes, Amos found something, and he hid it. But it had nothing to do with the Urban Improvement Plan. I have no idea why you’re harping on that. Your father was wrong: there is no evidence against the company. If there were, Ame would have found it. He searched and searched. But there wasn’t and there’ll never be any evidence. Helms and his people’re too smart to leave anything incriminating. They used cutout after cutout, encoding, anonymous servers, shell companies, encryption. The CIA should be as good as BlackBridge.”

“Facts,” Russell said. “Not drama.”

La Fleur shot him a look that managed to be simultaneously hurt and defiant.

“My poor Ame... He got himself in over his head, didn’t he? He took it upon himself to end the UIP. Helms had something his main client wanted desperately. It was code-named the Endgame Sanction. Braxton and some thug had found it in the Embarcadero. Maybe Droon. Looks like a rat, doesn’t he?”

Shaw said, “The Hayward Brothers Warehouse?”

“I don’t know. But she found it and it was like... the ring of power. The client had wanted it forever, was paying a retainer of millions to track it down.” A faint chuckle. “And you’ll never guess what Ame did. He heard Helms talking about it, about how it was the end-all and be-all... and when the big boss stepped out of his office, my Ame simply waltzed in and nicked it! Dropped it in his courier bag and walked out the front door with a nighty-night to the guards.”

“Why?”

“He was going to use it as leverage, get the company to shut down the UIP program. Or maybe stealing it, he thought the client would fire Helms, and then BlackBridge’d go out of business. I don’t think he had a plan. He was just sick of working for such a vile bunch of men and women.”

“What was this thing?”

“He never had a chance to tell me.” His voice went soft. “He stole it about five p.m. He hid it about an hour later. Then at ten that night he called me. I’d never heard him so panicked. He said he’d done some research and found out what the Sanction was, and it needed to be destroyed. It was devastating. The client could never get it, no one could. He was going to destroy it himself but he couldn’t get back to where he’d hidden it. He knew BlackBridge ops were searching for him. If anything happened to him, I was supposed to find it and get rid of it.”

Shaw looked toward his brother, who frowned. What on earth was it?

“And he died while they were torturing him to find out where it was?” Shaw asked.

“That’s right, I’m sure.”

A new track came on, louder. The men had to huddle close to hear and be heard.

Russell asked, “Where did he hide it?”

“He was afraid of the phone lines, so he gave me two clues. One was the ‘dog park.’ He meant Quigley Square. A friend of ours lived there and we’d walk her dog if she was traveling.”

Shaw knew the place, a transitional neighborhood in the city.

“The other clue was ‘It’s hidden underground, someplace you’d be expecting.’”

Great, thought Shaw. More scavenger hunt.

Another hit of the weed. “Then I heard a shout. It sounded like he dropped the phone. Then it seemed like there was a scuffle.” He grew silent for a moment. “That was the last time I heard his voice.”

“Any guesses where he meant?”

“No.”

Russell: “You ever think about going to Quigley Square and doing what he wanted to? Destroying it?”

His eyes, more tearful, looked down at the dimpled wood floor. “I thought, yes, but I didn’t. I’m a coward! Helms and Irena and Droon... they didn’t know I existed anymore. I erased myself. I thought about it, finding whatever it was, doing what Amos wanted. But in the end, I balked. They’re so powerful, so dangerous. They’ve got all the power of the police and the CIA!” His eyes grew wild — the way their father’s occasionally had. “You just don’t know... Besides, he died before he told them, so hidden it was and hidden it would remain. Forever. It was like being destroyed.”

“Except,” Shaw said, “they’re still after it. And we have to get to it first.”

“To save that family.” La Fleur’s voice was low.

“That’s right.” Russell called up a map of San Francisco on his phone. He focused in on Quigley Square. There were dozens of buildings bordering the park. Presumably they’d all have undergrounds — cellars or maybe tunnels.

Shaw asked, “Would it be in the friend’s house? The dog friend?”

“Amos would never endanger anyone. In any case, she moved years ago.”

Shaw wondered aloud: “Sewers? Transit system?”

“No BART station there,” Russell noted. “Where would we expect it to be hidden, when we don’t know what it is?” he muttered.

Shaw offered, “Maybe he hides it in a book and puts it in a cellar of a library or bookstore. He’s got a CD or tape, he hides it in a music store basement. It’s a computer disk, so it’s in the basement of a school with a computer science lab.” He shook his head. “We can’t keep throwing out ideas. ‘Never speculate.’”

Russell finished their father’s rule: “‘Make decisions from facts.’”

Shaw asked, “Who’s the client that wanted the Sanction?”

La Fleur said, “Banyan Tree Inc. It’s a big conglomerate. International. Into healthcare, medical equipment, transportation, communications, environmental work, real estate—”

“Real estate,” Shaw said. “UIP.”

Russell nodded.

Shaw asked where Banyan’s headquarters was.

“In the city here. It’s a skyscraper downtown.”

“Four hundred block of Sutter?”

“Could be, yeah. That sounds right.”

He said to Russell, “The tracker I tagged Braxton with placed her there.”

Shaw had a thought. “Who’s the head of Banyan Tree?”

“Jonathan Stuart Devereux.”

Russell fished out his phone and displayed the picture he’d shot of the round bald man with the busy hands and the fancy British car at the site of the drug handover in the Tenderloin.

La Fleur examined the screen. “That’s Devereux, yeah. Oh, he’s a son of a bitch. Ruthless. He just drove a competitor into bankruptcy. Devereux’s industrial spies — BlackBridge probably — found out they were breaking some laws or regulations and turned them in to the feds. It broke them. The CEO committed suicide.”

La Fleur angrily exhaled a wad of smoke. “You know what a banyan tree is?”

Shaw said, “It’s a fig. It strangles any tree competing with it for light.”

La Fleur nodded. “And it’s got the longest root spread of any tree on earth. Any doubt why Devereux picked the name?”

Russell said, “Endgame Sanction... Wonder in what sense.”

Sanction was one of those odd words that had contradictory meanings: it could be either permission — as in you’re sanctioned to attack — or punishment, as in imposing sanctions.

La Fleur said, “Or it might mean nothing. BlackBridge uses code names a lot.” He grew thoughtful. And tugged at his ponytail, then picked up the bong and lighter once again.

Shaw wanted to get to Quigley Square and get started on the search. He rose. Russell too.

La Fleur inhaled deep, let the smoke amble from his mouth. Then he rose, shut the music off, and walked to the door with the brothers. He began to unhitch the various latches and locks. “I gave Amos some advice. It’s one of those old clichés, but it’s true. When you aim for an emperor, you better not miss. He aimed and he missed. I guess the same happened to your father. You two? You can still walk away.”

He cracked the door, looked out and then pulled it fully open.

Russell eyed him sternly. “La Fleur, let me give you some advice.” The man eased back, his face revealing alarm at the brother’s fierce, dark eyes.

“First, never provide your enemy with cover.” He nodded at the drums sitting staggered along the path to the street. “Get rid of them or move them. Second, never use inferior materials in your weapons. Make a new bow. Use locust, lemonwood or yew. It should be a foot longer. And fletch your arrows with short, parabolic feathers. You don’t need accuracy at distance on a shooting zone this short. You need velocity. And order some parachute cord for the string. You got that?”

“Yessir,” La Fleur whispered. “I’ll get right on it.”

37

Endgame Sanction. The hell you think it is?” Russell was piloting the SUV through the roller-coaster streets of San Francisco, on their way to Quigley Square.

Shaw only shook his head. He received an email from Mack McKenzie. He’d requested a profile of Devereux and Banyan Tree.

Shaw read her response aloud to his brother:

“Jonathan Stuart Devereux. Estimated worth, $1.4 billion. CEO and majority shareholder of Banyan Tree Inc. BT is solely a holding company. Devereux is known in the business world as the king of subsidiaries, which run all of the company’s business. This is done to protect Banyan Tree and Devereux from liability. One reporter said, ‘Nobody hides behind the corporate veil better than Jonathan Devereux.’”

Shaw looked at his brother. “She gives a list of everything he’s into, which La Fleur told us. But there are some others. Data collection, information processing, media.”

He returned to the email. “Recent incidents that have made the news: A subsidiary in the UK, Southampton Analytics, is being investigated by MI5, the domestic criminal investigation division, for hacking and interference with elections in the UK, France, Germany and the U.S. One of the board members is a Russian national who had been a military intelligence officer. There was no evidence that Banyan Tree was directly involved. Devereux either.

“Another one: Police in New Delhi arrested the managers of a huge call center after a fire killed twenty-four workers, on the grounds of failing to maintain a safe workplace. The company was owned by layers of shell corporations, set up by Banyan Tree. But, again, Devereux and the company weren’t implicated.

“I found at least six similar incidents. Let me know if you want details.

“Banyan Tree has been in the news in California. The Pacific Business Review reported that over the past few years it’s acquired one hundred and forty-seven small companies in the state. He’s fired all the employees and’s keeping them as shells. In the filings the stated purpose of them is to quote ‘engage in various services for the public.’”

The king of subsidiaries...

“Mack has some things on Devereux’s personal life. Born in England, U.S. citizen now. He’s fifty-one. Married. His wife’s fifty-six. I have a feeling she was not the miniskirted one in the Rolls at the UIP drop.”

“Hmm.”

Shaw summarized: Devereux had two teenage sons. His homes were in San Francisco, L.A., Miami Beach, London, Nice and Singapore. He was described as tireless, obsessed, always in motion.

Shaw remembered the constantly moving hands when the brothers had spied on him at the drug exchange.

Russell asked, “Anything about a relationship with BlackBridge?”

“No.”

Shaw continued to read. “It’s disputed by genealogists, but Devereux claims he’s descended from Robert Devereux, Second Earl of Essex. It was during Elizabeth the First’s reign, the fifteen hundreds. He was a favorite. And then he led a coup against the throne.”

“Assume that was a bad idea.”

“Beheaded in the Tower of London. The executioner wasn’t exactly a pro. Took him three swings to get the job done.”

38

Underground, where you’d be expecting.

Not much in the clue department.

“Think,” Russell said. He brushed his beard absently.

The brothers looked around modest Quigley Square, at the center of which was a pleasant urban park — half concrete walks and benches and half trim lawns, bushes and trees. The surrounding streets echoed the San Francisco of the 1960s and ’70s. Head shops and stores offering LP albums, souvenir tie-dye shirts and windup cable cars. You could even buy cassettes of classic thirty-five-millimeter adult films from that era.

Shaw looked over his phone. “The tracker’s dead.”

“In the Walden book?”

He nodded. “To fit in the spine, it was a small battery. Lasted longer than I thought. Or they might’ve found it.”

Russell said, “So, we’re black on hostiles. Act accordingly.”

Shaw slipped the unit away and turned his attention back to the neighborhood.

Trying to guess Amos Gahl’s clue — “underground, where you’d be expecting” — the brothers noted the retail shops, as well as an old red-brick hospital, a classic diner, bodegas, a sushi restaurant that Shaw would avoid at all costs, dilapidated industrial buildings, car repair shops.

“Where would we expect something to be hidden?”

“And underground.” Shaw pointed to a small regional bank. “Safe deposit box? A downstairs vault?”

“Need a key and ID.”

They walked half a block to a warehouse. The building was huge and, they could see through the barred doors and windows, filled with construction equipment. If Amos Gahl had hidden the Endgame Sanction in the basement, it would take eons to find it.

Besides, why would they expect it to be hidden there?

“Underground,” Shaw repeated absently, eyes on a sign in the concrete at his feet.

The words were stenciled beside a storm drain grate. There were dozens of them. But nothing could have survived after all these years down there. You heard much about California’s droughts and Shaw recalled the lessons his father gave the children in distilling salt water to make it drinkable. But the winter season here could still be counted on to dump a billion gallons on the city. Anything in the drains would have disintegrated and slushed into the Bay years ago. How did one get into a storm drain anyway?

“Where you’d be expecting...”

Shaw and Russell walked around the square, side by side. Homeless, always the homeless in San Francisco. Shaw could hardly blame them. Why live on the street in Minnesota or Anchorage? He would have come to San Francisco, the home of a warmer clime and wealthy executives, ready to toss a coin or bill into an inverted baseball cap.

He observed that none of these street people seemed strung out, unlike those he and Russell had seen that morning in the TL. Apparently, BlackBridge hadn’t targeted Quigley Square for the Urban Improvement Plan. At least, not yet. But he could see it coming: two blocks away was a long expanse of glittery, glass-fronted high-rises. A developer standing on the soaring roof might look down at Quigley Square and think, “That’s my next conquest. Get the BNG to work.”

More scanning.

Then Shaw stopped fast, looking up.

No, couldn’t be.

A glance to his right. He wasn’t surprised to see that Russell was looking at exactly the same thing he was.

“It possible?” Russell said.

Where you’d be expecting...

They were looking at the hospital.

There was no doubt a good portion of the patients inside would certainly be expecting.

“Hmm.” Again Russell almost smiled. He pulled out his phone and sent a text as they walked to the looming structure.

At the receptionist’s station in the lobby, Russell slipped his phone away and stepped in front of Shaw and said, “We’re here to visit a patient. Abigail Hanson. She had a C-section.”

A computer screen was consulted. “Room seven-forty-two,” she told them.

“Thanks,” Shaw said.

So that was the text Russell had sent. As they walked to the elevators, Shaw asked, “Karin?”

“Hmm.”

She was good.

In the basement Shaw had expected locked doors or gates. But no. The cellar was an easily accessed storage area. Lights were, however, a problem. Only two of the twenty overhead bulbs were functional. Shaw had not brought his tac flashlight. After a search for more switches, Russell cocked his head, looking up, and gripped one of the darkened spheres in his substantial fingers and twisted. It came to life. Maintenance staff had apparently been ordered to partly unscrew the bulbs to keep utility costs down.

The men executed the same maneuver a dozen or so times and the place was soon awash in glare.

Shaw noted that the diminutive size of the room did not mean their task would be an easy one. It was packed with cabinets, cartons, wooden boxes, cases of what seemed to be antiquated medical instruments — even, he was amused to see, the same fifty-gallon drums of civil defense water they’d found at La Fleur’s sanctuary. Shelves were filled to overflowing with books, files and — eerily — organ and tissue samples in jars of what was probably formalin. Hearts and kidneys were especially popular.

The brothers paused. Footsteps sounded not too far away. A creak too, like a janitor’s cart whose wheels needed oiling. It faded.

They resumed their search.

Where would Amos Gahl have hidden his courier bag?

While Russell began with filing cabinets — easily picking the simple locks — Shaw stepped back against the wall and gazed over the room.

The trick to finding something that’s been hidden in plain sight is to look for what’s just a bit out of order. Like those puzzles in the magazines he and his siblings would read when they were children: Spotting what was the difference between two adjacent cartoons or drawings. What’s wrong with this picture?

What was out of place in this chamber of outmoded instruments, cold soggy organs and dusty faded treatises on medical practices and procedures that had most likely become outmoded a year after they were published?

He circled slowly.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Shaw stopped.

“Russell.”

His brother looked toward him and then at what Shaw was gesturing toward.

High on a sturdy gray shelf containing scores of medical treatises, one object stood out. It appeared to be the spine of a book, though wider and taller than the others. Yet the brown leather did not bear any title, author or other information.

Russell, the taller of the two, slipped it from the shelf.

Was this the pot of gold?

It turned out to be a large briefcase that opened from the top.

“Courier bag?” Shaw asked.

“Hmm.”

He started to open the bag, but his brother touched his arm. “No.” The creaking had resumed. “Not here.”

39

As soon as the brothers had left the hospital, they walked to the Quigley Square Diner, not far away. It was a please-seat-yourself establishment and soon they were sitting across from each other in a booth. They’d bought sandwiches neither was interested in — rent for the booth.

In the deserted back portion of the place, Russell ran a nitrate detector over the case to sense for explosives.

Never assume an object that’s been in your enemy’s possession is harmless.

No unstable substances were present.

Then he scanned it for transmitters. This too was negative.

Russell picked the lock securing the top flap of the case in five seconds and popped it open.

A laminated card was inside.

Property of BlackBridge Corporate Solutions, Inc.

And there was a number below with the request to please return if found.

The brothers shared a look.

Then they began to unearth the contents.

The top layers consisted of folded copies of San Francisco Chronicles and Peoples and Times from years ago.

Then, like the archeological sites Margot Keller was so adept at excavating, things got more interesting the farther down you went.

Beneath the innocuous periodicals were hundreds of documents — both photocopies and originals. Most were corporate or financial in nature: spreadsheets, balance sheets, contracts for services and goods, maps, memos about cash transfers, real estate plots, shipping schedules, accounts receivable, along with various contracts.

They found a series of draft bills for some bodies of legislature, something that Gahl, the historian, had discovered in his job as a researcher for BlackBridge, Shaw guessed. Probably they’d been drafted for a governmental client of the company, one who — they gathered as they read through the papers — favored eliminating regulations on the environment, manufacturing and banking. Shaw read one that proposed redefining probable cause in criminal matters to make it far easier for the police to get warrants and detain suspects. Another proposed bill eased the burden of getting permission for surveillance. The authoritarian nature of the documents was troubling.

They continued to dig, briefly examining each piece of paper: more spreadsheets, some documents that were quite old, one more than a hundred years.

Shaw finally came to the bottom of the courier bag.

Nothing referred to the “Endgame Sanction.”

He did note, though, a bulge on the inside of the case — there was what seemed to be a hidden compartment, sealed at the top with Velcro. Shaw looked at Russell, who nodded.

Shaw pulled the flap open with a tearing sound, and looked into the space.

Bingo...

He extracted an old-style cassette player. Inside was a tape of the sort that could be played in a Walkman or similar device from the 1980s. There were no batteries, which was fortunate. After all these years, they would have corroded and chemical leakage might have destroyed the tape itself.

Russell left Shaw and walked across the street to a bodega. He returned with a package of AA batteries. Shaw loaded them in and, glancing once at his brother, hit rewind. The unit worked.

So. This was the moment.

What was on the tape? Was it the Endgame Sanction itself? A recording of a secret meeting about it? The contents might put all the other documentation in the bag in context, answer clues, tie everything together.

Devastating...

When the tape was at the beginning and the rewind button popped up, Russell hesitated a moment and pushed the play button.

40

Suddenly rock music poured out, loud. And tinny, given the small speaker.

A few customers glanced their way.

Russell turned the volume down. “Black Eyed Peas,” he said.

“That’s a group?”

A nod.

Fast-forward.

“Beyoncé.”

Fast-forward.

“Ludacris.”

“What’s ludicrous?” Shaw asked.

Russell eyed his brother. “You don’t get out much, do you?”

Fast-forward.

“Mariah Carey.”

Shaw: “I know her. Some Christmas song, right?”

On and on. Pausing at the end of each tune to listen for a voice explaining what the Sanction was, why it would be disastrous if it were to come into Jonathan Devereux’s possession.

But no, there was just a gap of static and then the next song would begin.

Russell’s still eyes gazed at the player.

They listened to the entire tape, both sides. Russell let it run all the way to the end and snap loudly off.

“Hmm.”

Shaw said, “What’s that technique called for hiding information in pictures and music?”

“Steganography.” He was stroking his beard. “But that only works with digital media. Bytes of data. Analog?” A nod at the tape player. “No.”

Shaw asked, “What about tracking? Something recorded over or under the music? Something we can’t hear, like a dog whistle. Can that be done?”

Russell considered this. “Don’t know. I’ll see.” He looked up a number on his phone and called.

A moment later he was saying, “It’s me... You free?... I’m going to play some music clips. Tell me if there’s anything out of detectable audio range.” He listened for a moment. Then: “No project number... I know. I’ll work it out later.”

Perhaps a reference to the fact he was using the group’s resources for a very non-group operation.

He set the phone beside the speaker and pressed play. It was a country western song. After a minute he stopped and fast-forwarded the tape. He played another sixty seconds or so of a different song. He did this a half-dozen more times.

“You got that?” Russell said into his phone. Then he was listening to the person on the other end of the line. “’K.” He disconnected. “She’ll get back to us.”

Five minutes later, after the brothers had gone through the contents of the courier bag once more and found nothing that even suggested the words endgame or sanction, Russell’s phone hummed. He took the call. As usual, his face gave nothing away. When he disconnected he told his brother, “Nothing she could pick up. She’s going to try a deeper analysis. But it doesn’t look likely. High frequency on analog is not a known technique.”

Shaw suspected Russell’s group was quite well versed in all the known techniques.

“Karin?”

“No.”

Shaw asked, “Could the names of the music groups spell out something? Or the songs.”

The suggestion even sounded lame. But they tried. Russell knew most of the groups, though only about half of the songs. After five minutes of playing the anagram game, they gave up.

“The lining?”

A nod.

Shaw set the bag in his lap and, after making sure no one was near, opened his razor-sharp locking-blade knife. He cut into the cloth linings. He put the knife away and reached inside. The search was in vain.

“Microchip?” Shaw asked his brother.

“Hmm. I can order a scan. Doubt it.”

The men found themselves looking at the please-call-if-found tag.

They shared a glance.

“Maybe,” Russell said. His own knife appeared. It seemed the brothers both owned Benchmade folding knives, among the best on the market. Shaw’s was a Bugout. Russell’s was the Anthem model, costing about three hundred dollars more.

Russell used the blade to slit the tag and slowly pulled the lamination away from the cardboard.

He found nothing.

He dropped the tag and wire inside the courier bag and folded up the knife, put it away.

Shaw suggested, “The newspapers and magazines?” He explained: maybe there was something marked in an article, or several of them, that could point them in some direction.

“Possible.”

“But back at the safe house,” Shaw said, looking around. “We’ve been here too long.”

“Agree.”

The men gathered up their booty and left the diner.

On the way to Russell’s SUV, Shaw voiced what had been in the back of his mind from the moment the first arrows hissed their way from Earnest La Fleur’s bow: “Percentage chance that Gahl was unstable and paranoid? He never had the Sanction at all. Ash — and Braxton and Droon — just thought he did.”

Russell didn’t put a number on it but he said the exact word that Shaw was thinking: “High. Too high.”

Which meant that what their father had perished for was not evidence to bring down one of the most ruthless corporations on earth, or this mysterious Endgame Sanction.

Ashton Shaw had died for a greatest-hits mixtape.

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.

Nodding at the stack of papers, Shaw said, “I’m not accepting it.”

Russell glanced his way.

“That this is just somebody’s imagination. It’s real, the Sanction. And it’s here.” Pointing at the material on the table.

“You making that assumption?”

“Call it that.”

After a pause Russell said, “I agree.”

“So. We’ll have to go through everything—”

Just then a persistent beep came from Russell’s phone.

Instantly he was on his feet. His hand was near his weapon. “Have a sensor, front door. Somebody’s picking the lock.”

Shaw drew his Glock and crept to the closest window. “Droon, plus an entry team, five, six. Long guns too. How’d they make us?”

His brother shook his head.

Shaw saw one of the attackers standing at the open tailgate of an SUV. The men looked up and down the street. He then pulled something from the vehicle, turned and eyed the front of the safe house. He squinted directly toward Shaw. Then raised to his shoulder what looked like a large shotgun with a blunt object protruding from the muzzle. He pulled the trigger.

“Grenade!” Shaw shouted.

The brothers dove to the floor.

42

Irena Braxton, wearing a staid gray suit, stood with her arms crossed over her chest, surveying the interior of the safe house, as if she were waiting for her grown son and daughter-in-law and the brood of grandchildren to arrive for Sunday supper.

Other BlackBridge workers — a lean, unsmiling blond woman in a black tac outfit and a solidly built Latino — were tossing the living and dining rooms. Tossing. That was the technical term for searching a home or office, though there was in fact nothing sloppy about the process. They were meticulous and careful and breaking or destroying nothing. Drawers were opened, cabinets, the refrigerator and freezer, the microwave, the closets, the spaces under cushions, under couches, under chairs.

Another man from the team was examining the empty BlackBridge courier bag. He was the one who’d fired the grenade launcher. He had set down the weapon but like the others — aside from Braxton — he wore a sidearm, another expensive SIG Sauer.

One of the ops, a tall brunette woman, was in the living room. Hands on hips, she called, “Nothing. The Sanction’s not here.”

“What?” Braxton snapped, turning on her. “Is your search finished? How can you say it’s not here if you’re not finished?”

“Yes, ma’am. The case was empty, I assumed they took it with them.”

“Oh, they didn’t hide it here maybe? Do you think that’s a possibility?”

The woman scurried back to work.

The others kept quiet and continued their tasks.

Ebbitt Droon came down from upstairs. “Didn’t get out that way. Windows locked from the inside. Clothes, ammunition. Nothing helpful.”

This scene was unfolding on Russell’s laptop, four split screens. And remotely. The brothers were a block away — in the coffee shop where Shaw had first seen the man with the thigh-length coat, stocking cap and the A’s backpack, the texting customer who had turned out to be his brother.

The grenade had not been a deadly fragmentation model, just a large flash-bang to stun and deafen, similar to the one Russell had used as an alarm on the door to the secure room in the cellar. The projectile had been fired accurately. But what the BlackBridge assault team didn’t know — nor did Russell or Colter Shaw — was that in fitting out the safe house years ago Ashton had installed bullet-deflecting windows. The grenade would have hit the plexiglass at about four hundred feet per second, slow enough so that the device merely bounced off. This bought the brothers a little time, since the tables were turned and the device flashed and banged outside.

Upon learning they were under attack, the Shaw brothers knew they weren’t in any position to engage four heavily armed tac ops. They chose to escape. Shaw shoveled the contents of the courier bag into his backpack, as Russell grabbed their computers.

“Basement,” Russell said, at the same time as Shaw said, “Cellar.”

So his brother had seen the coal bin too. Shaw had recognized right away that it was fake; the house wasn’t more than fifty years old. No urban dwelling of that age had ever used coal for heat.

Ever the survivalist, weren’t you, Ashton?

As they heard footsteps above them, they’d pulled the bin away and slipped into the four-foot-wide tunnel, then pulled the bin back in place behind them.

Never use a safe house that doesn’t have a trapdoor...

A moment later they’d heard: “Cellar clear” and the thud of footsteps up the stairs.

The brothers had continued through the tunnel for about thirty feet and come to another wooden panel. They’d muscled it aside and, guns ready, stepped into the basement of the Soviet-bloc apartment building across the alley from the safe house. The large, mold-scented room was empty. They left via the service entrance and five minutes later were in the coffee shop, more unwanted food and drink at hand, just any other customers, watching Braxton, Droon and the others.

When Russell had returned to the safe house with the news about the text ordering the hit on the SP family, he’d brought with him surveillance equipment. The four cameras, fitted with sensitive microphones, were in household objects — lamps, a clock, a picture frame. They were wireless but transmitted on the same frequency as Russell’s internet router in the closet in the front hall — so anyone scanning the house for surveillance, as Droon had done, would see only the server transmissions, not the spy cams.

Shaw said he was impressed, and Russell said his group had some people who came up with “clever ideas.”

On the computer screen it was easy to see that Braxton was growing angrier. “We had eyes on them. They were here. How’d they get out?”

“Back window?” one of the male operatives said.

“And then why weren’t any of you in the back?”

No one had an answer for that, and the searching continued.

“Look,” Shaw said.

He was referring to Droon, who was only marginally interested in the cassette player. He punched a button, listened to a few seconds of a tune, then fast-forwarded and did the same several more times. He shut the unit off, shrugged toward Braxton and continued searching the room, leaving the device on the table.

Shaw continued, “They’d have to have audio engineers too, like your group. It means the Sanction’s not electronic.”

“Hmm.”

Droon then took over examining the courier bag. He did so as closely as Shaw and Russell had done. He could see that the lining was cut but he was taking no chances. Maybe he was searching this carefully because it was his nature. Maybe it was self-preservation, so desperate were the minions to please Devereux.

Russell said, “Be helpful if they said what they’re looking for. Help us narrow it down.”

If anyone from BlackBridge mentioned a keyword, it might be possible for the brothers to identify the Endgame Sanction in the stack of material sitting in Shaw’s backpack.

Russell typed. A camera scanned to the left, taking in the blond woman operative. Then to the right.

Shaw then said, “Notice a pattern?”

Russell nodded. “All they want is paperwork. That’s why they don’t care about the cassette. It’s definitely paper, and probably — the way they’re fanning pages — a single sheet.”

After five minutes Droon muttered, “Bastards took it with ’em, don’tcha know?”

Braxton now seemed to accept this possibility. She nodded. “We found it once. We’ll find it again. Devereux brings in ten million a year. And you know what the bonus’ll be when we get it.”

Braxton’s attention turned to the window. The doorbell buzzed and one of the ops walked into the front alcove.

Then, just barely audible through the microphone, came the sounds of a creaking floor as a large man in a black suit stepped into sight. Shaw recognized him. He was Devereux’s Asian American bodyguard and driver. Shaw recalled him from the construction site in the Tenderloin, where the BNG gangbangers had gotten their Johnny Appleseed bags of drugs to plant around the community as part of the UIP program.

The man looked around and, apparently after verifying that it was safe, he eased back into the alcove.

Jonathan Stuart Devereux stepped into the living room.

“You all right?” he asked in his cheery prime minister accent.

Braxton nodded in return.

Devereux sighed. “Your look, I can see your look. Your face. Don’t faces tell us everything? We don’t need words. Words lie, people lie. Faces don’t. It’s not here, is it?”

“We’re on course. We’re moving in.” Braxton added, “We found the courier bag Gahl stole.”

“All those many years ago.”

“It had that tape recorder inside.” She nodded toward the unit.

“But I’m not so very interested in a tape recorder, am I?”

Devereux examined the courier bag, peering inside, pulling it open wide. He paced through the house, gazing around him. Not looking for the Sanction, it seemed, just assessing what kind of lair his enemies had. In the kitchen he opened the refrigerator, plucked out a bottle of water and drank down half of it. He strolled back to the living room, picked up some of the items that the ops had searched. He studied magazines that had been here since Ashton’s time. “My. Look, a cover story about that young, fresh unknown Taylor Swift.” He dropped it. “And Prince Charles.” Then he said, a hint of mocking in his voice, “But you’re on course, you’re moving in.”

Braxton cast a taut glance to Droon.

A red-haired woman, twenty years younger and six inches taller than Devereux, stepped into the front hallway. Was it the same one as in the Rolls earlier? Her skirt and shoes were different. She was in a clinging white dress, hem high, top low. It clearly wasn’t his fifty-six-year-old wife.

Braxton’s glance toward her gave away nothing, but she couldn’t be happy that he’d brought the woman to a professional endeavor. Devereux looked back at her with a grimace and he shooed her off with a wave of his hardworking fingers. She vanished.

The CEO of Banyan Tree walked in a slow circle. At a shelf he picked up some figures and examined them one by one. “This is cute, isn’t it? A cat. Is it a cat? Bit dodgy. Maybe a dog with unfortunate ears. Yes, I think that’s it.”

He set it down and his hands went back to being energetic.

The grenade shooter continued his search, looking up under the furniture, until Braxton waved at him to stop.

“Was there anything else in the bag?”

“It was empty when we got inside.”

“And they were here when you came knock, knock, knocking on the door?”

“We saw them, yes.”

“And the sentence that would accompany that one is: But we don’t know how they got out.”

“That’s right.”

“With my prize, my prize... What’s on the recorder? My, it’s quite the old one, isn’t it? Don’t see those outside of movies.”

“Just music.”

“Was Gahl a music lover?”

“Apparently so,” Braxton said.

“And you’ve explored every place that he had a connection with, everywhere he could have hidden it?”

“Yes.”

His expression perplexed, Devereux said in a snide voice, “Oh, but wait. Wait. That can’t be right.”

She looked at him, lips tight.

“It appears you didn’t explore one place. The one where Mr. Colter Shaw found it and you did not.” He looked at the woman, eye to eye. They were the same height. “Do you suppose he gamed you, Irena? That map you stole? Do you think it was fake?”

Her face went still. She didn’t answer.

“What is our only priority? Mine and yours and Ian’s?”

“The Endgame Sanction.”

“Ex-actly,” purred the man.

“We’ll find it, Mr. Devereux.”

He could see it pained her to use his last name. He’d probably done some whip-cracking about protocols when he signed on as a client of BlackBridge. He’d want to be worshipped. He was the heir to sloppily beheaded royalty. His company was in better economic shape than Spain. And as his minions had not delivered the precious Sanction, he could snap a vicious whip whenever he wanted.

She offered, “It’s a minor setback. Shaw did most of the work for us. He found the courier bag. Now we just have to get the Sanction from him.”

A hurry-up gesture of Devereux’s hands. “But he got away from you here.”

“He did. But I’m sure he doesn’t even know what it is. He’d never recognize it.”

Shaw shook his head. He’d hoped they would say something more about it, so they could identify it in the contents of the courier bag — or know for certain that it wasn’t there and begin a new search.

Devereux glanced back toward the street, where the woman in the white dress would be waiting for him. Then his eyes took in the blond BlackBridge op, looking her up and down. The gaze was the same as that in the faces of Shaw’s nieces when they were about to devour ice cream sundaes.

“Who’s the other one? The one with the beard?”

“We don’t know. Maybe the son of another one of Ashton’s colleagues.”

Devereux examined another ceramic figurine. “How do you propose to find him?”

“Oh. He’ll come to us.”

His flitty British accent seemed more exaggerated than earlier as he asked, “And that will happen how?”

The woman pulled a piece of lint off her sweater and let it spiral to the floor. She didn’t answer Devereux but said to Droon, “Get some people to Bethesda. And find somebody in Fresno. Somebody good.”

“I’ll do it now.”

His heart pounding, Shaw looked at Russell, whose face had gone cold.

Their sister, Dorion, lived in Bethesda, Maryland.

And Fresno was the closest large city to the Compound, where their mother, Mary Dove Shaw, was at that very moment.

43

“Hello?” the woman on the other end of the phone line asked. Her voice was melodious.

Colter Shaw said, “The roses arrived. They look good.”

There was silence, as he knew there would be. Dorion Shaw was processing the words.

“Anything I should know about them?”

“No details at this time.”

“Thanks. Good talking to you.” Dorion hung up.

Those words put in motion Escape Plan B. This involved the recipient’s dropping everything and leaving the premises instantly — along with other family members. In Dorion’s case that would include her husband and the ice-cream-loving daughters.

Before Dorion married, she’d told her fiancé about certain irregularities of her life growing up, and that there might be the occasional threat, some worse than others. Plan B meant that they were in imminent danger. It was one of Ashton Shaw’s two most serious alerts, and one that nobody in the family ever questioned.

The sturdy woman in her late twenties would by now already be marshalling children and spouse and grabbing GTFO bags from the cellar and heading, via a circuitous route and a cutout car or two to a “vacation house,” which is what the girls would think of it as. They were out of school and they might feel some pique that they had to miss photo camp or soccer practice. But they too would have received some lessons in what life might be like if you were a Shaw.

His next call was to his mother. His message to Mary Dove was different. He said, “Dinner will be late tonight.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.”

“But the guests’ll be arriving soon.”

“I’ll look forward to seeing them.”

Both hung up simultaneously.

This message invoked Plan A. It did not signal escape, but defense. Dorion lived in a vulnerable suburban setting, while Mary Dove was on the Compound, a place she would never be forced from — especially in the case of invaders responsible for her husband’s death. The whole point of Ashton’s survivalism was to prepare for threats like this. His mother was the best shot in the family, and she had a go bag ready in case she needed a temporary retreat into the wilderness — and pity any BlackBridge op who followed her there.

But against this crew it would be wise for her to have allies. Hence, the soon-to-arrive “guests.” Of course, she had one ally in Victoria Lesston, the decorated former Delta Force officer who could bring down a game bird with a single shot from a handgun. But Shaw wanted more, so he called Tom Pepper and told the former FBI agent specifically what the concern was. He said he’d have two armed former special services ops at the Compound in a half hour.

“Would Mary Dove mind a helicopter landing in her backyard?” Pepper asked.

Shaw considered this. “Just tell them not to use the garden as a landing zone if they can avoid it. She just planted the root vegetables and she’s especially partial to them.”

44

The Embarcadero.

This was the name of both a lengthy road that runs along the northeast waterfront of San Francisco and the district for which that highway is a spine.

The two-mile-long strip was for years associated with transportation: the roadway itself, of course; a Belt Railroad, lugging products and produce north and south; an impressive pedestrian footbridge; and a second subterranean road.

It was, however, vessels that defined the Embarcadero. Liners, cargo, ferries. The ships operating out of Piers 1, 1½, 3 and 5, in the central Embarcadero, would transport thousands of passengers and untold tons of freight daily to ports foreign and domestic, including the picturesque waterway up to Sacramento. During the Second World War, the Bayfront became a de facto naval base.

Then came the Bay Bridge, connecting San Francisco to Oakland.

And almost immediately the Embarcadero began to die. Not helping the vitality of the neighborhood was the transition from the old-style break-bulk vessels to enormous container ships, which needed massive piers and cranes and warehouses for which only Oakland had the space — and aesthetic tolerance.

The dilapidation of the Embarcadero lasted only so long, however. Given that much of the neighborhood was flanked by upscale Telegraph Hill to the north and the spreading financial district to the west, it was only a matter of time until the neighborhood began to recuperate. It was now largely gentrified and farmers-marketed, though its original blunt scruffiness could still be found in the southern regions.

It was in one of these neighborhoods that Russell parked his SUV, near Rincon Park, in which Shaw could see the Cupid’s Span sculpture, a huge bow facing downward with an arrow buried in the ground. Supposedly this was a nod toward San Francisco’s reputation as the City of Eros, or something like that. Shaw wasn’t sure he got it, and the sculpture now brought to mind not art but Earnest La Fleur’s sharp-tipped greeting in Sausalito.

The brothers climbed from the vehicle and walked half a block to an ancient three-story red-brick building. Above the arched doorway was etched in sandstone: haywood brothers warehousing & storage.

“Optimistic,” Shaw said.

Russell looked at him with a frown of curiosity. Shaw nodded at the lintel over the door.

“Warehousing and storage. Their business plan was set in stone. Literally. Never thought they might have to diversify.”

“Hmm.”

Russell was simply not going to fall victim to humor.

They walked into the scuffed lobby with checkerboard tile for flooring. The walls were yellow stucco and the crown molding featured grizzly bears, the state animal of California.

Which, of course, put Shaw in mind of the statuette his father had given his brother, following the incident on the avalanche field so many years ago.

The Reclusive One...

A double door at the back of the lobby was chained and padlocked. To the right was a glass door on which a stenciled sign read: manager.

Inside, a round man in a white short-sleeved shirt sat hunched over a computer. Shaw noted that when he and Russell entered, the man’s right hand had strayed toward a drawer before assessing there wasn’t much threat these two presented. The Embarcadero was not completely tamed.

“Help you?”

They had a cover story, which was similar to the fiction they’d spun upon first meeting Eleanor Nadler, Amos Gahl’s mother. They were brothers researching their late aunt’s life — she was a well-known professor at Cal — for a self-published book. It would be a Christmas present for their mother — the woman’s sister.

“Mom’ll love it,” Shaw said.

The manager said, “Women do seem to like that family stuff, don’t they? More’n us guys, I’d say.”

Russell said with a faint, utterly uncharacteristic laugh. “You got that right.” He really was quite the actor.

“We found a reference to the warehouse here in one of her diaries,” Shaw told him. “We’re curious what the connection was. Has this always been a working warehouse?”

“Not a working anything now. We’re closed up.” He nodded at the computer. “I’m making appointments for prospective buyers. The partnership owns it is putting it up on the block. This neighborhood is changing, you can see. Going to be condos and retail, probably.”

The air was close, the temperature hot in the office — a renegade boiler, it seemed — and the man mopped his brow with a Kleenex, which he’d taken from his pocket, unfolded, used and then replaced.

“Only thing is, unless your aunt was connected with the government somehow, I doubt she would’ve had much to do with the place.”

Shaw said, “Yessir, she did some government work.”

“On occasion,” Russell said, looking toward the door that seemed to lead to the warehouse proper. “What was stored here?”

The manager continued, “You know the earthquake, nineteen oh-six?”

The brothers nodded. The estimated 7.8- or 7.9-level event had destroyed about eighty percent of the city, killing three thousand.

“The quake was bad enough but it was the fires that did the most damage. Stop me if I’m telling you something you already know.”

“Please.” Shaw gestured with his hand for the man to continue. He seemed happy for the visitors. Shaw noted it was not an appointment calendar but a game of solitaire that was on his computer.

“The fire chief was killed in the initial quake and no one knew back then how to fight blazes that big, you know, ruptured gas lines and all. They dynamited buildings to make firebreaks but didn’t do it right. That just started more fires. Worst part was that insurance companies wouldn’t write earthquake policies but they would for fire damage. So people started setting fire to their own houses for the coverage — and most of them were wood. You can imagine.

“Anyway, there was fire in the Embarcadero, a lot of buildings went, but not these blocks, so the government workers loaded up all the official documents and records and drove them down here for safekeeping. Drove hell for leather, with the blaze right on their heels. The city and state removed a lot of the crap over the next decade. Went to the new city hall and the state and federal buildings. But they still left the warehouse half full. Millions of documents.”

Shaw regarded Russell. “So, that’s what she was doing, I’ll bet. Researching something in the archives.”

Shaw assessed that their acting was acceptable. Not Broadway, but superior community theater. To the manager: “She was a history prof.”

“Was she now?”

“Can we show you a picture of her?” Russell asked.

He frowned. “Would this’ve been in the last two years? That’s as long as I’ve been here.”

“Lot longer than that.”

“Well, I took over from a guy’d been at this desk for twenty years. Jimmy Spilt. I know, the name’s a burden.”

“You in touch with him?” Shaw asked.

“On and off.”

“What’s your name?”

“Barney Mellon.”

Russell shook his hand. “I’m Peter and this’s Joe.”

Shaw gripped Barney’s palm too.

“Say, Barney, any chance we could send Mr. Spilt a picture? See if he recognizes her?”

Russell added, “Tall order, but we’d appreciate it.”

“You boys sure must love your mom.”

“That’s the truth,” Shaw said.

Russell asked for Barney’s phone number and sent the picture, which was of Irena Braxton.

Colter Shaw didn’t have enough information to assess the odds of success. The best he could come up with was: Long shot, but let’s hope.

Barney sent the photo off to the oddly surnamed former manager and it was no more than thirty seconds later that his mobile hummed. He regarded the screen and answered. “Heya, Jimmy, how’s it hanging?... You still getting out to the mountains? Uh-huh... Heard it was bad, lost twenty thousand acres... Now, about that picture... These two fellows are here, doing something up nice for their mother.” He listened for some moments, nodding broadly. “Sure, I’ll let ’em know. So, what’re you doing on Wednesday?... Good, good...” A fierce grin was on his face. He sat back, made the used Kleenex reappear and mopped his brow.

Russell and Shaw shared a glance. Russell’s eyes dipped to the drawer, then the phone in the man’s hand. Shaw gave a slight nod.

Russell stepped forward fast and clamped a hand on the drawer, an instant before the manager got to it. Simultaneously Shaw plucked the phone from his hand and disconnected.

Barney’s chair rolled four feet and hit the wall. “Please, don’t hurt me!”

Russell opened the drawer and removed the little .25 semiauto, ejected the round in the chamber and pushed out the bullets from the mag one by one. He pocketed them.

“What’d he tell you?” Russell asked bluntly.

When Barney didn’t answer, Russell drew his own weapon.

Barney eyed the SIG and, vacillating between fear and rage, said breathlessly, “You didn’t goddamn tell me your aunt was a psychopath. Now, what the hell do you really want?”

45

“So,” Shaw said, “Spilt recognized the picture.”

“Of course he did. Wouldn’t you remember somebody who handcuffs you, drags you through the archives and threatens to shoot you if you don’t cooperate?”

“What was she looking for?” Russell said.

“I don’t know. How would I know?”

Shaw said, “Call him back.”

“What?”

“Call Spilt back.” Shaw nodded impatiently, and Barney did as told.

Shaw took the phone from him.

“Barney,” came the urgent voice on the other end. “Are you okay? What’s going on?”

“Jimmy,” Shaw snapped. “Listen to me. Barney’s okay. So far.”

“Oh, Jesus,” the manager gasped.

Russell touched his own ear, and Shaw too heard the siren in the distance.

Goddamn it.

“Jimmy, I need you to do two things.”

“The fuck’re you? You the nephew of that bitch who—”

Shaw put the phone on speaker and glanced at the manager. “Two things, Jimmy, if you want your friend to be okay.”

Barney called, “Please, Jimmy. Do whatever he asks.”

“Okay, okay,” came the voice.

“First, we’re going to hang up and you call nine-one-one back and tell them it was a mistake. Somebody was playing a joke on you. Or something. Be credible. Then call me back.”

Russell was on his phone. He lifted it toward Shaw.

“And, Jimmy,” Shaw said, “we’ve got a scanner here, police scanner. We’ll know if you don’t do it. And that means you can say goodbye to Barney, and we’ll come visit you too.”

“Jesus, no, no, no! I’ll do it. I’ll do it!”

“Call. The. Police.” Shaw disconnected.

What Russell was displaying probably wasn’t a scanner app. More likely, Shaw guessed, he’d be speaking with Karin, but she would be patched into the city’s emergency frequencies.

Fifteen, twenty seconds later the sirens stopped and Russell, listening into his mobile, nodded.

Just after that, Barney’s phone hummed.

Shaw glanced at it and answered, punching the speaker button once more. “Okay, Jimmy, good job. The second thing you need to do. Answer some questions. Then we’ll leave you and your buddy alone. Are we happy with that?”

“Yes, yes, anything.”

“Tell us exactly what happened that day our aunt came to the warehouse.”

“The hell are you?”

Barney cried, “Jesus, Jimmy! Answer the man’s question. He’s got a gun. Are you fucking crazy?”

“All right, all right. It was some weekday morning, I was the only one working. You know for the past fifty years the place’s just been a repository. Nobody brings stuff in or takes it out. Your aunt comes in and asks for some records. I tell her it’s not like a library. Only polite. I was real polite to her. Before I can release anything, I need a form filled out at city hall. She says she doesn’t have time. And she’s with this guy who’s acting weird, twitchy, you know. They both scared me.”

“Did he look like a rat?” Shaw asked.

“Yeah, kinda.”

Russell: “What did she want?”

“Judicial records, she said. Judges’ files. I tell her again I can’t do anything without the form from city hall or the state, filled out proper. I tell her to leave and that’s when she pulls a gun. The guy with her puts handcuffs on me.

“I tell them I don’t know where judicial files’d be. She asks me how they’re organized and I tell her by year. She says that’s good enough. So, we go in the back and, and I point them to the year she wants, nineteen oh-six. And they both start going through everything, throwing stuff all over the floor. This goes on for an hour, maybe less but it seemed like an hour. Then she finds something and is like, ‘Goddamn. At last,’ or something.

“They look at me like they’re deciding to kill me, not to kill me... Jesus. I’m begging them. She says, ‘We were never here.’ I just nod. I can’t even speak. Then they leave.”

“What was it she found?” Shaw took over the questioning.

“I have no idea. I didn’t ask. They were ready to shoot me!”

“Was it a single sheet of paper or a bound document?”

“One page.”

“Judicial records. So, a court decision?”

“No, we don’t have those. They’re published anyway. They could’ve found those in a law library or online. She wanted correspondence, notes, anything in judges’ individual files.”

“You call the police?” Russell asked.

“Of course not. They knew where I worked. They might come back.”

Shaw said, “Listen, Jimmy. Just forget we talked to you.”

“You fucking bet I’ll forget.”

Shaw disconnected and set Barney’s phone on the desk.

Russell held up the peashooter of a gun. He hit a button and pulled the slide off. “This’ll be in one trashcan outside, the magazine in another.”

Shaw was amused. Maybe this was playbook procedure in some circles. Ebbitt Droon had done the same thing with Shaw’s weapons in Silicon Valley not three weeks ago.

As the brothers walked to the door Shaw looked back.

Barney held up his hands, as if he were a surrendering soldier. “I get it. I get it. Just like your aunt — you were never here.”

46

The new safe house wasn’t bad; it certainly was in a better neighborhood than the one in the Mission.

Located in picturesque Pacific Heights, in the northern part of the city, the two-bedroom suite was in a sandstone apartment building whose front windows offered views of the Bay, Alcatraz, the Golden Gate Bridge and Sausalito, where some of the faint, distant greenery might have been Earnest La Fleur’s yard.

The building was three stories high and represented classic 1960s architectural style, no frills, functional, uninspired.

The suite featured three escape routes — front stairs, back stairs and windows overlooking the roof of the one-story bicycle shop next door. Neither Shaw nor his brother had studied parkour — the leaping, sprinting and diving art of urban gymnastics — but they practiced tumbling and how to land safely when jumping from heights. Shaw was inspecting this particular exit now: out the open window he could look down and see tarred roof about eight feet below.

The safe house complied with Ashton’s rule: Never be without an escape plan. (The accompanying dictum, Never be without access to a weapon, was taken care of, given the firepower the brothers carried.)

“Here,” Shaw said, handing his brother a box of nine-millimeter ammunition.

Russell glanced down.

They were safety slugs, specially made to penetrate flesh but not exit and continue their path, injuring bystanders. The bullets would go through a piece of Sheetrock, if you missed your human target, but they lost deadly muzzle velocity soon after. In a setting like this new structure, where innocents might be just feet away behind walls and doors, they were a necessity.

Russell, though, looked at the ammo with a frown. Maybe he was thinking he was a good enough shot that he wouldn’t miss and endanger anyone else. Maybe he found it helpful to shoot through walls and doors sometimes, in spite of Ashton’s proscription:

Never fire a weapon when you don’t have clear sight of your target...

“We have to,” Shaw said.

“Not a firing solution I’m comfortable with. That’s not standard procedure.”

And his brother did not reload.

“Up to you.” Shaw himself ejected the rounds and replaced them with the blue-tipped bullets. He was thinking: The brothers had worked well together on the investigation so far — especially their choreographed performances at the warehouse. Now tension seemed to have returned.

You don’t want to be doing this, do you?

Just, we should get it done...

Shaw wondered if the resentment about Shaw’s tacit accusation regarding Russell’s role in Ashton’s death was surfacing.

And, if so, where would it lead?

Shaw opened his backpack and emptied the BlackBridge courier bag’s contents onto the table. Once again he and Russell divided it up and flipped through the documents, now knowing that the Endgame Sanction was judicial in nature and from 1906.

“Got it,” Shaw said. “I saw it before but didn’t think anything of it.”

He set the aging sheet of paper on the table.

So here it was: the Endgame Sanction.

An elaborate signature was beneath the text.

Russell picked up the sheet and turned it over. The back was empty. He then held it up to the light to look for hidden, or obscured, messages.

“Nothing.” Russell rubbed the back. “It’s an original, not a copy.” A typewriter had been used to produce the document and you could just feel indentations from the keys.

Shaw read it once more. “I don’t see how ‘sanction’ fits.”

“La Fleur said it might be just a code. Maybe Helms and Devereux didn’t want anyone to use the words ‘tally’ or ‘ruling’ in public. They wanted to keep this secret.”

Shaw shook his head. “Devereux is desperate to find it.” He recalled that La Fleur said if the Sanction were found the consequences would be disastrous.

Russell asked, “What’s Proposition Oh-Six?”

Shaw booted up his computer and logged on through an encrypted server. He Googled the question. There was nothing in Wikipedia but he found a reference in an archive of California State constitutional and legislative measures. “It was a referendum in nineteen oh-six to amend the state constitution.” He turned the Dell so both he and Russell could read. They scrolled through paragraph after paragraph of legalese, having to do with taxation, immigration and trade mostly.

Why was Gahl as desperate to destroy this document as Devereux was to get his hands on it?

Then an idea occurred to Shaw. He pulled out his Android and placed a call to her equally shielded burner phone.

Mary Dove answered on the second ring.

“How is it there?”

“We’re good. Tom Pepper’s men are here. They’ve set up a perimeter. Electronic warning. And, Colt, they have a machine gun. I mean, a big one, on a bipod. Can you imagine?”

“Good. I don’t think it’ll come to that.”

“Hope not. We don’t want to disturb the bears. We’re right in the heart of mating season. Are you all right?”

“We’re both good, Russell and I.”

“Russell?”

“He came back to help me on Ashton’s job.”

“Well.”

“I just have a minute. But I’ve got a question. And you’re the only one who can answer it.”

47

After a complicated drive, to make sure no one was following — and a scan for drones in the area by the resourceful Karin — they arrived in Berkeley, across the Bay, north of Oakland.

They were on their way to meet one of Ashton Shaw’s academic colleagues, who lived near campus: Steven Field. He was a semi-retired professor of political history. When Shaw had called his mother a half hour ago, he’d asked if she knew of any of Ashton’s associates who had this specialty. Mary Dove immediately mentioned Field.

Shaw had a vague recollection of seeing the man several times years back. Field had come to visit at the Compound. Those were the days when Ashton was at his peak. Oh, Shaw could remember a few bouts of bizarre behavior but Mary Dove would put on her psychiatrist’s hat and make sure he got the right meds and monitored his behavior and he’d soon return to his animated, witty self.

One of the hardest parts of the move from the Bay Area to the Compound was the severing of social contacts. This was true for Colter and, particularly, his older brother; Dorion was just a toddler. Looking back, Shaw was sure it had been tough on Ashton and his wife too. They had both been professors and she had had the additional job of university principal investigator. Those vocations were callings that came with daily contact with colleagues, administrators, corporate executives and students. All of that vanished abruptly when he took the family to the Sierra Nevadas.

He would, however, encourage a few, select colleagues from the Bay Area to come for visits. Young Colter could recall men and women sitting in the living room in front of the huge fireplace, talking far into the night. Like all children, he paid little attention to the words but from time to time he would note the adults’ animation, and feel, rather than hear, the laughter. As a child he didn’t grasp all the nuances, but he enjoyed the animated talk about political science, law, government, American history and — Ashton’s odd hobby — advanced physics.

Though invariably as the night grew later, the restless boy would become bored and head outside to listen to owls and wolves and gaze at the radiant canopy of stars.

Sometimes he’d take short nighttime hikes.

Often, with Russell.

His brother now asked, “You think Field was part of Ash’s circle — to take on BlackBridge?”

Shaw had wondered that himself. Then, considering the matter, he said, “Doubt it. Those people’re all gone now. I’d say they were just friends, fellow professors.”

Earlier, Shaw had called Field and arranged to meet him in the privacy of his home.

But with a stipulation.

“We’d like to come in through your back door, off the alley.”

The man’s cheerful voice had said, “You must be a Shaw. You sound just like your father. He was always going on: They’re watching me.” Then he paused and laughed. “I was going to give you my address but if you know there’s an alley — I won’t even ask how you found that out — I guess you don’t need it.”

Shaw was aware of an urgency — the attack on the SP family was now a little more than twenty-four hours away. But they had to be careful and were taking a long route to Field’s house, looking out for any sign of Droon or Braxton, as well as the mysterious green Honda.

They registered no threats, and Russell turned onto the street that would take them to the professor’s home.

He found they had to divert, though. A protest was underway and the street was blocked.

Ashton had read his children plenty of fiction as bedtime approached in the Compound, but he also read them the news and history too — among those the rich history of demonstrations at the university and in the town itself. Civil rights, the Vietnam War and free speech were the main topics in the mid-sixties protests. Recently there’d been a series of violent clashes, mostly political and often involving free speech.

Shaw caught a glimpse of one of the signs.

That seemed to be the theme of the past few days.

Russell parked the SUV on the street two blocks from Field’s house, standard procedure within his group, Shaw guessed. The huge vehicle was a sore thumb at the curb. Most of the modes of transportation here were hybrids, electric or human powered. Shaw even noted a few of the now-discontinued Smart cars.

Berkeley. Say no more.

The men proceeded into the alley. They continued along the pebbly lane for about fifty yards and then slipped through the gate in the picket fence into Field’s backyard, where they followed a gently curving, moss-dotted flagstone path to the back door. The house might have been transplanted from a small English Midlands village. Clapboard siding in brown, forest-green windows, trim and doors. The garden was more lush and meticulously tended than the garden of Eleanor Nadler — Amos Gahl’s mother.

Goateed Steven Field invited them into the kitchen, fragrant with the scents of baking. He was thin, balding and of grayish pallor — though he didn’t seem unhealthy. He probably didn’t get outside very much. He certainly had plenty to occupy him here. There must have been five thousand books neatly arranged on shelves in all the visible rooms — which didn’t include the bedrooms. Even the kitchen was filled with reading matter.

Field wore pressed gray wool slacks, a white shirt and tie and a gray cardigan sweater. Shaw had a sense that he dressed this way every day, whether he was teaching or staying home.

He was sorry they couldn’t meet his wife. She was teaching a class.

“Gertie’s a professor at Cal too.” His eyes crinkled. “Last year, I got married. A younger woman... One month younger!” He chuckled.

The three men sat in overstuffed chairs in the library, Field, against a dark wood-paneled wall, on which were mounted delft blue plates, pastoral scenes of Dutch farmhouses, windmills and level countryside.

Shaw and Russell opted out of any offered refreshments. Field was drinking tea from a cup that still had the bags — two of them — inside. The aroma was of herbs.

He looked them over. Now came the resemblance comment, how each brother bore some characteristics of his father, and how they differed. “I was so sorry to hear about Ash. An accident of some kind?”

“That’s right.” There was no time for details. To explain what had happened at Echo Ridge could take hours, and the clock was ticking down on SP and their family.

“Unfortunate. And Mary Dove, and Dorion?”

“They’re doing well.”

As well as can be expected while hunkering down in survival mode.

“Dorion’s married and has two girls.”

“Ah, wonderful.” He looked them over carefully. “Now what can I do you gentlemen for?”

Shaw explained that they’d found a document, an old one. “A lot of people want to get their hands on it. I remember you and Ashton would spend hours talking political science and law and government. We thought maybe you could help us figure out what it is, why it’s so important.”

“Ash didn’t teach poli sci, I believe, but it was one of his passions. And with your father, that’s passion with an uppercase ‘P.’”

Shaw took the ruling from his backpack and handed it to the professor.

Before he read, Field turned it over in his hand, held it up to the light. “Original.”

“That’s right. Nineteen oh-six.”

“Typewritten. Most official documents were, back then. People think typewriters’re a modern invention.” Field produced glasses and pulled it closer, pushing aside the teacup so there’d be no accidents. He began to read, speaking absently. “Did you know the first electric typewriter was invented by Edison in the eighteen seventies? It became the ticker tape for the stock market and—”

He stopped speaking abruptly and his eyes grew wide as he stared at the words.

“Professor Field?” Shaw asked.

The man didn’t seem to hear. He leapt to his feet and pulled down an old leather-bound book from the shelf. He cracked it open and read, his face a knot of concentration. He closed this volume and found another. He flipped pages again and, still standing, traced a passage with his finger.

Then he uttered a gasp of shock and whispered, “Holy Jesus.”

48

Field ushered the brothers into the kitchen. “Bigger table. We need a bigger table.”

The professor cleared the round piece of furniture of flowers and cookbooks. Then he set about gathering books from the library and stacking them here.

“Can we help?” Shaw asked.

Field didn’t answer. He was lost in thought — and clearly dismayed.

Russell ran the back of his hand over the beard and he and his brother eyed the titles of the books the professor had plucked from shelves, all of which seemed to have to do with California history.

The last batch involved law books, California reporters and treatises. A U.S. Supreme Court Reporter too.

The professor didn’t say a word. He kept skimming passages, marking some with a Post-it note and, in other instances, apparently synopsizing them on a yellow pad. Finally he sat back and muttered to himself. “It’s true. It can’t be but it is...”

“Professor?” Shaw was getting impatient. It was clear that Russell was too.

Staring at the tally certificate as if it were a land mine, Field said, “California’s always had direct democracy — where citizens themselves approve or reject a certain law, including constitutional amendments. The governor and legislature approve a measure and then it goes to the people directly for a vote. If the majority approves, it changes the constitution. No further action’s required.

“Enter Roland C. T. Briggs. Nineteen oh-six.” Field tapped a thin, leather-bound volume with the man’s name embossed in gold on the cover and spine. “He commissioned this biography himself. It wasn’t exactly a bestseller. The subject was, let’s say, unappealing. He should have had a co-author byline: written with his ego. Briggs was a real estate and railroad baron. Typical of the time: stole Native American land, worked his employees to death, drove competitors out of business illegally, monopolized industries. And I won’t even get into his personal peccadillos.”

Shaw thought immediately of Devereux.

“His team of lawyers drafted Proposition Oh-Six. It was full of obscure changes to trade and taxation. Briggs and his operatives managed to coerce and cajole — and bribe — the state assembly and the governor into approving the referendum vote. And it went on the ballot.

“His bludgeoning didn’t stop there. He and his political machine pressured the people to vote for the referendum and it nearly made it. But it failed by a hairsbreadth. Everyone thought that was the end of the matter. But — according to this — no. It actually passed.” He nodded at the tally.

“I guess someone noticed irregularities in voting in the Twelfth Congressional District. That’s San Francisco. Maybe new ballots were discovered or there was evidence some were forged or duplicates. Anyway, a complaint must have been lodged and a state court judge reviewed the ballots and certified the new count — which was enough for the measure to pass and amend the constitution. Except that never happened.”

“Why?”

“Because of the earthquake. Look at the date on the certified vote tally. April seventeenth. The earthquake was at five in the morning the next day. A number of government buildings and records were destroyed, and dozens of officials were killed. The judge, this Selmer Clarke, was one of the fatalities. In the chaos and destruction after the earthquake, the recount was forgotten — and no one knew the proposition had in fact passed. Briggs probably wanted to put the matter on the ballot again but he died not long after — of syphilis, it seems — and the whole question of the amendment went away.”

Shaw asked, “What’s the ‘Holy Jesus’ factor?”

“Proposition Oh-Six was dozens of pages long, but Briggs didn’t care about ninety-nine percent of the measure. That was all smoke screen — so no one would focus on the only provision he cared about. Paragraph Fifteen.”

Field opened a book and thumbed through musty pages. “Here.” He pushed the volume toward the brothers.

Shaw and Russell read the passage then both looked toward the professor questioningly.

“Let me explain. Like all business tycoons of the day Briggs hated Marxism, and the growing communist movement, which said basically all the woes of the earth come from the elite owning the means of production and oppressing the working class. Lenin wouldn’t start the revolution in Russia for another ten years but there was plenty of evidence that communism as a form of government was coming.

“Briggs — and more than a few of his ‘comrades,’ if I may use the word — wanted to start an opposing movement. He wanted capitalism intertwined with government. And so — this.”

Another tap of the book containing the language of Proposition 06.

Field said, in a whisper, “Does anything strike you as odd about those words? Anything bizarre? Anything revolutionary?”

Russell looked his way impatiently.

“Maybe in the third qualification,” Field prompted.

Shaw suddenly understood. “Can’t be,” he whispered.

Field replied, “Oh, yes. This amendment gives a corporation the right to run for and hold office in California.”

49

“Impossible,” Russell said.

The professor said, “Not impossible at all. It’s one of the smartest political coups of all time. Most subversive too.”

His finger traced the tally, then perhaps realizing it was an original, historic document he quickly removed his hand.

Russell said, “It doesn’t say anything about corporations.”

It was Shaw’s legal experience that had given him a rough understanding of the implication. “Yes, it actually does.”

Field nodded. “You’re right, Colter. Let me explain.” Field’s eyes shone, both troubled and exhibiting a hint of admiration, as he stared at the paragraph. “Read it again.”

The brothers both did.

“One, to hold office a person must have been a California resident for five years. The law is well settled that corporations can be residents of states. For tax purposes, they must be. Two, the person must have attained the age of twenty-one. It’s an easy argument to make that a corporation begins to age from the date of incorporation.

“Ah, but the third line...” Field said this as if the words he was referring to were a magical incantation. “The third line is the key. To hold office a person must have been a U.S. citizen for ten years, but only if you’re a natural person, not a corporate one. Corporations are excluded from that requirement. So to hold office in California, a company need only be a resident of the state for five years and incorporated at least twenty-one years ago.”

His eyes on the judge’s order, Russell said, “But this thing is over a hundred years old. It can’t become law.”

Field said, “It is the law. Now.”

Shaw frowned. This was beyond his legal ken.

“In nineteen oh-six, the minute it passed, the constitution was amended. The governor, the state assembly — they don’t need to approve anything. This has been the law for a hundred and ten years. It’s just that nobody knows it.”

Russell’s face was still, as he stared out the window.

“And there’s more.” The man’s visage revealed how unnerved he was.

“Go on,” Shaw encouraged.

“Now, any U.S. citizen can run for office in California, unless you’re a convicted felon or disqualified by term limits. The law doesn’t require you to have been a citizen for a certain amount of time.” A tap near the voting tally. “This, though, requires you to be a citizen for ten years.”

Shaw said, “Which has the effect of ousting, what? Hundreds of people holding office now?”

Field nodded. “There’ll have to be special elections or appointments for all the seats.”

Shaw looked at Russell, who apparently had Shaw’s very thought in mind.

To Field, Shaw said, “There’s a man who’s been looking for this: Jonathan Stuart Devereux.”

Field’s face filled with understanding. “Devereux, of course — mastermind of multinational conglomerates and corporate acquisitions. What’s his company again? I can’t recall.”

“Banyan Tree.”

“That’s right, sure. So he’s the Roland C. T. Briggs of today. Of course he’d want the tally. Devereux can enter his company in any elections in the state... And he can bring all the company’s resources to the campaign. You can spend as much money as you want on your own election. Campaign finance limits are on third-party donations. How can anyone win against an opponent who can spend a billion dollars?”

The professor was shaking his head. “And the language of Prop Oh-Six says ‘hold’ office, not just run in an election. The corporation could be appointed as head of the state environmental board, taxing authorities, immigration board, planning and zoning, financial regulation, sheriff, judges. My God. He could spin off subsidiaries and each one could run for office. Devereux could eventually control the legislature, judgeships, the state supreme court. And even if his companies didn’t run for office, he could threaten other candidates, get them to agree to positions he wants in exchange for not crushing them at the polls.”

Russell said, “Afraid there’s something else.”

Field sighed and seemed to prepare himself.

Shaw delivered the news: “Over the last few years, Devereux has been on a buying spree. He’s acquired nearly one hundred and fifty subsidiaries in California. I’m sure they were incorporated more than twenty-one years ago — to meet the ‘age’ requirement.”

“My God. He knows that those assemblymen and senators will be out of office. His companies’ll run for the seat and bring all of Banyan Tree’s money to the game. And of course, because of the new citizenship requirement, the politicians who’ll be ousted are minorities. Asian and Latinx. People who fought for equal rights in the state. With them gone and Devereux calling the shots... I can’t imagine what’ll happen. It’s like going back to the days before the Civil Rights Act.”

It now occurred to Colter Shaw that the phrase Endgame Sanction was not a randomly picked code name at all. The first word could describe Devereux’s companies coming into political power. And sanction ironically could be read in both senses. Banyan Tree would have permission to do what it wanted... and the power to punish.

“But how would it work? Who would actually sit in the assembly?”

Field said, “There are some practical issues, yes. But that could be worked out. The CEO or shareholders could appoint a representative.”

Shaw said, “There’ll be a court challenge.”

Russell sat back in the chair. “Has to be struck down.”

Field was looking out the window at some striking red flower. The Bay Area was a perpetual greenhouse. “I wish that were the case. But I wouldn’t be too sure. At one point in our history, that would have been true. The founding fathers were smart enough to draw a distinction between corporations that ran cities and performed civic duties, on the one hand, and, on the other, those that were purely for profit, which they knew could be predatory. They looked at the British East India Company and called it ‘imperium in imperio,’ an empire within an empire. They distrusted that.

“But eventually corporations began to grow in power and the owners and their lawyers found it helpful to, quote, ‘impersonate’ humans — so they could bring lawsuits in their own names. Eventually the federal government and all of the states enacted legislation that defined ‘person’ as including corporations for all legal purposes.

“And the expansion continues: A few years ago, we had the ‘Citizens United’ case. The Supreme Court ruled that corporations had a First Amendment right, just like humans, to make campaign contributions.

“Some think the decision might open the door for corporations to do more than just exercise freedom of speech.” Field browsed his shelves and lifted a Supreme Court Reporter, a large hardcover bound in yellow, and thumbed through the densely packed pages. “I’m going to read you something. This is from Justice Stevens’s dissent in ‘Citizen’s United.’

“‘Corporations have no consciences, no beliefs, no feelings, no thoughts, no desires... They are not themselves members of “We the People” by whom and for whom our Constitution was established... At bottom, the Court’s opinion is thus a rejection of the common sense of the American people, who have recognized a need to prevent corporations from undermining self-government since the founding, and who have fought against the distinctive corrupting potential of corporate electioneering since the days of Theodore Roosevelt.’”

Field closed the book.

Shaw said, “So, some sharp lawyer might claim that holding office is a form of expression and a First Amendment right.”

“Oh, I could see that argument being made. There’d be others too.” He looked at Russell. “So would it be struck down? Who knows? But I guarantee that Devereux’ll throw massive amounts of money into lobbying for his side. I wouldn’t put it past him to bribe or threaten to make sure the amendment stands.”

That would be just the job for BlackBridge.

“And this is only the start. Devereux has to have plans to move into other states too.”

“The man who would be king,” Shaw said. Russell caught his eye, nodding.

Before they left the Bay Area for the media-free Compound, the young brothers had watched television. One night they’d seen an old movie, The Man Who Would Be King. Based on a Rudyard Kipling novella. It was about a couple of former British soldiers who set off to India and Afghanistan, aspiring to become just what the title suggested.

“That’s Devereux,” Field muttered.

Russell said, “We know what his agenda is too — his company gets elected.”

Shaw recalled the memos in the courier bag: legislation and regulations to eliminate protections on the environment, banking, working conditions, civil rights. They hadn’t made much sense at the time. Now the purpose was terribly clear. He explained this to Field, who took the news with an expression of disgust.

“Our country’s two hundred and fifty years old. That’s a long time by some standards. No country lasts forever, and there have been more governments overturned from within than by invasions.” A scornful look at the tally.

Shaw slipped it into an envelope and placed that in his backpack.

“What...” Field cleared his throat. “What are you going to do with it?”

Shaw had not yet thought about this. He glanced at his brother, who shrugged.

Field walked them to the rear door. Before he opened it, he eyed Shaw closely, then Russell. His eyes were focused. His brows furrowed. “Does Devereux know you have it?”

“Not for certain.”

“Then I see you have two options. One: Convince him that you never unearthed it. Hide it somewhere. Pray he gives up looking and never finds it.”

“What’s the other option?”

“It’s an amendment that passed, yes. But I imagine that the people wouldn’t have voted for it if they’d known the truth. So, I say: as Americans and lovers of democracy, you should light a bonfire and throw the damn thing in.”

50

North Beach.

This neighborhood, the jewel in the crown above Chinatown, was one of the main Italian American portions of the city. The seashore part of the name came from one end of the district, the Barbary Coast, maybe the most notorious red-light district of any city along the Pacific coastline.

More sustaining was the Bohemian culture that developed in the 1950s and early ’60s. North Beach was folk music at the hungry i and pot and Mad magazine wit. It was the half-century-old City Lights bookshop, owned and managed by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti, making it the epicenter of the Beat movement. It had a tastefully risqué side too. North Beach was home to the Condor Club, a gentlemen’s establishment that morphed through many iterations and was known internationally as the venue were the famed Carol Doda performed.

Shaw paused at the crest and caught his breath. Grant was not the steepest street in hilly San Francisco but it was one of them. He turned to his right and continued several blocks until he came to a storefront, Davis & Sons Rare Books and Antiquities.

Walking inside — his presence announced by an actual bell, mounted to the door — Shaw was greeted with a smell that took him back immediately to the wilderness cabin where he and his siblings had grown up. In the escape from the Bay Area to the Sierra Nevadas, Ashton and Mary Dove had carted with them a ton — quite literally — of books of all sorts. Hardbound mostly. That perfume of paper, cardboard, leather, glue and must was unforgettable and present in abundance here.

He looked around the large, jam-packed store. Every shelf was filled with volumes, organized according to curious categories.

On and on.

A young man behind the counter was on the phone and he smiled at Shaw and held up a just-be-a-sec finger.

Shaw nodded and browsed. In addition to books the store also offered writing and drawing implements and supplies going back hundreds of years. He walked to a case in which were fountain pens, holders and nibs, even quills. Antique notebooks too, early-era versions of the one he’d used in his meeting with Maria Vasquez in the reward job to find Tessy.

The man hung up and joined him.

“Hi.”

Shaw nodded. The shop was Dickensian, to be sure, but the clerk wasn’t Oliver or Pip. His stylish hair was moussed up, he bore an earring, and if his white shirt, floral tie and black slacks had been purchased with proceeds from the shop, then the antiquarian book business was doing exceedingly well.

“You interested in anything in the case?” He produced a key.

“I might be. But first, I’m interested in framing.”

From his backpack he extracted a manila folder. Inside was a sketch he had drawn of Sierra Nevada mountain peaks as seen from Echo Ridge. He’d inherited his father’s penmanship and skills at cartography, so he was not a bad artist.

Donning white cloth gloves, the man picked it up. “Not bad.”

He turned it over, glancing at the typewritten words on the back.

“Oh, that’s nothing. Some scrap paper my father found at work and did the sketch on.”

The Maybe-Davis turned it over without finishing the earth-shattering words.

He then took a loupe and examined the sheet. Finally he set it down. “You want it framed but also protected.”

“Do I?”

“Of course you do. Now, before the mid — eighteen hundreds, most paper was made from cloth, usually by mechanical means. This meant that the stock was composed of long fibers. It was strong and chemical free. After that, manufacturing shifted to chemical pulping and the use of alum-rosin sizing — that led, of course, to sulfuric acid. Then too you’ve got your nitrogen oxides, formic, acetic, lactic and oxalic acids. Generated by cellulose itself. And, heavens, we haven’t even gotten to pollutants in the air and the water in the factory.”

Shaw took this in, nodding, having no idea what the point of the lecture might be.

“In other words, for framing, I can do some things to protect it but your basic plastic won’t keep it from disintegrating. That would require a complete acid reduction or removal process.”

“How long would I have?”

“I’m sorry?”

“I’m in a hurry, so if you just mounted it in a normal frame, how long until it disintegrated?”

The young man’s face screwed up, as he prepared to deliver the bad news. A breath. “Your best-case scenario? I’d give it two hundred years.”

Which, Shaw supposed, in the world of antiquarian documents, might be like a doctor looking up from an MRI scan and saying, “You’ll be dead by Tuesday.”

“I’ll go with the plastic.”

“Ah. Well. The customer is always right.”

Though what he was really saying was: It’s your funeral.

51

At 9:15 that evening, Colter Shaw braked the Yamaha to a stop.

He was in the heart of Haight-Ashbury. It was ironic in the extreme that the area, named after two ardent nineteenth-century capitalists, was the birthplace of the Diggers, one of the most successful socialist movements in the history of the country. It was also where hippies first appeared and was ground zero for the Summer of Love in 1967.

A Whole Foods was not far away but the street where Shaw parked didn’t reflect such recent aesthetic and economic enlightenment. Metal shutters as thick with layers of paint as a Leonardo da Vinci canvas were ratcheted down, protecting a tattoo parlor, a nail salon, a bodega and, of all things, what seemed to be an old-fashioned cobbler. A sepia painting of a woman’s buttonhook boot was above the door.

Shaw parked and chained. Then stood and looked up at a huge red-brick building, which was old, and at the painted metal sign on the front, which was new.

The club was housed in a three-story former factory, constructed of smudged and soiled red brick, in whose walls were set windows that were painted over. As the name explained, it had in the early twentieth century been a steel-fabricating operation.

The only clues as to what was occurring inside were the line of people outside waiting admittance, and the resonating bass beats that assaulted anyone within fifty feet of the building. Colter Shaw looked the place over clinically and decided: pure hell.

In the days when he might have clubbed he was working out for the wrestling team at the University of Michigan, studying for classes, and engaging in orienteering competitions in the Upper Peninsula or camping with one of several equally outdoor-minded girlfriends.

He zipped his leather jacket up, then walked past the crowd to the front door, where a skinny man, lanky and sporting a mop of unruly red hair, sat on a stool.

Some in the queue of about thirty or forty also studied him, with glares. They were mostly in their twenties. The dress code was jeans or cargo pants, sweats, tank tops, faded loafers and boots. Impressive beards, though, unlike Russell’s, they were overly topiaried. Tattoo artists had made thousands of dollars inking and modifying this crowd. Shaw sensed bathing was not a priority.

He said to the bouncer, “I need to find somebody in there.”

“You gotta wait. We’re at capacity.”

Shaw laughed.

The skinny guy looked at him quizzically.

“No. You’re over capacity. How many fire doors you have?”

Exits are vital to survivalists, fire exits in particular. The odds of having to escape from murderers, terrorists, kidnappers or black bears were infinitely small. Fleeing a tall wave of speedy, thousand-degree flames, however, was well within the realm of possibility.

“The hell are you?”

“I won’t be long.” Shaw started inside. The man who was next in line for entrance shouted, “There’s a line here! No budging!” He lunged and went for Shaw’s arm. Shaw stopped and stared. The man froze.

Shaw frowned. “Did you really say ‘budging’?” He turned to the man’s girlfriend. “Did he really say ‘budging’? Are we in the high school lunch line?”

Blushing, the man grimaced and backed off. His girlfriend muttered to him acerbically, “Told you not to be an asshole.”

The bouncer took over the defense of the castle. “You can’t come in. I told you.” He stood up. He wore an expandable baton on his hip. Shaw had been whipped by one. They really hurt.

He looked over the man. “I’m going inside to get my niece and then we’re going to leave. She’s sixteen.”

The bouncer paused. His eyes swept the sidewalk. “She’s what?”

The man, trying not to look stricken, glanced inside. Then back to Shaw. “All right. Go in. Get her. Just make it fast.”

Shaw strode into the packed, sweaty crowd. He wasn’t exactly sure what the point of the place was. There was a disc jockey and some people were dancing, or gyrating, on a large hardwood floor. Many sat on mismatched chairs and couches or were perched on stairways or wooden crates. They were shouting and drinking and vaping and smoking pot. Some were passed out. A few had thrown up; he navigated carefully.

No, this wasn’t just hell, Shaw thought. It was Dante’s Ninth Level — an appropriate metaphor, considering that a man named Dante Mladic was the owner of the club.

He made a circuit of the mad place, making his way through the sweating bodies, avoiding jostling, avoiding several drunk women and one man who came on to him.

Then, in the back, he noted two doors.

It was the one on the right he wanted because a guard sat on the chair just beside it. He was lean and about thirty, with curly blond hair and razor-sharp features — his nose, cheekbones, his chin. He was hunched over, reading something on his phone.

Shaw staggered up and tried the door. It was open, but instantly the man was on his feet, pushing it closed. “What’re you doing?”

“Bathroom.” Shaw’s speech was slurred. He thought he was doing a pretty good job. The rewards business from time to time required a bit of acting.

“S’over there.” The big man gestured with a thumb.

“No, it’s broken. Something’s broken. A pipe.”

“Get the fuck out of here. I’ll have you thrown out.” The Balkan accent was faint.

“Bathroom,” Shaw said again and walked to the second door, and stepped into a business office, which was empty and dark.

“The fuck,” the man said and followed him in.

“Bathroom.” Shaw kept with his preferred line of dialogue.

When the guard’s fist drove forward toward Shaw’s solar plexus, he easily sidestepped and dropped his center of gravity. He executed a fair wrestling takedown, his right arm going between the man’s legs and around to his spine. In college his coach had said, “Can’t be shy in this sport. You queasy about going for the jewels, take up fencing.”

Shaw leveraged up and, gripping the man’s collar with his left hand, he took him off the floor entirely and dropped him hard on the oak. Factories made very hard floors and his head banged with a sound you could hear over the music.

Still he needed to debilitate the man, so he dropped his fist into his gut. Hard but nothing broke.

He got out of the way in time to avoid the vomiting.

It was one hundred percent certain that Colter Shaw had just committed an unprovoked assault (the fear of an attack) and battery (an unwanted touching and, in this case, head banging and gut punching).

The question remained: Was it justifiable?

He believed it was.

Shaw was here because Mack McKenzie had finally traced the gray van into which Tessy Vasquez had possibly disappeared near Ghirardelli Square. Through several layers of offshore corporations, she’d learned that it was ultimately owned by a company controlled by Mladic, a San Francisco club owner. And suspected drug dealer and sex trafficker.

His base of operations was this club, the Steelworks.

If the man presently gasping for breath in front of him was not involved in crimes, Shaw would have some consequences to face. But he’d seen no option.

So he searched the man.

And discovered two things. One was a Glock 17 semiauto pistol, which he slipped into his waistband. The other was some information. His driver’s license indicated he was Gregor Mladic, presumably Dante’s son or nephew.

Make that three things.

In his rear pocket was a packet of zip ties.

Two of which Shaw used to bind his wrists and ankles.

Now, for the door on the right.

He opened it.

Colter Shaw drew his gun and started silently down the stairs descending into the old building’s massive, pungent basement, redolent of mold and heating oil.

52

The pounding feet on the dance floor above them had stopped. Everyone had evacuated. The roar of the flames was the only sound encircling them.

Shaw turned to the hole they broke open in the Sheetrock and said to Nita, “Up the stairs now, fast. There’ll be police.”

“But... what about you?”

He smiled to her. “Not yet.”

And turned back, jogging to the far end of the corridor.

It had been twenty minutes since Shaw had descended the stairs from the door on the right down to the cellar of the Steelworks club, and the blaze was growing by the minute — the blaze set by the men in the TV room, under what was surely Dante Mladic’s order to destroy incriminating evidence in the office.

The TV men were gone, Nita was gone.

But Colter Shaw knew that he was not alone down here.

Choking, his mouth covered with his untucked shirt, he made his way down the main corridor, toward the far end.

Shaw believed he heard sirens, though it was hard to say over the raging fire.

At the end of the main corridor he turned down the hallway to the right. He drew his flashlight and hurried forward. Now that the footsteps above were gone and he was around the corner from the flames, he could hear thuds and the muffled cries of “Help” and “Get me out! Please!”

Shaw couldn’t kick the door in — it opened outward — so as quickly as he could, he used the knife trick once more. In thirty seconds it was open.

He lifted his flashlight and played the beam over Tessy Vasquez. She gave a brief scream and huddled away. She was still wearing the outfit that she’d worn in the variety shop security video: the red blouse and gypsy skirt.

“Tessy, it’s all right. Your mother sent me.”

“Mother?”

“I’m going to get you out.”

His knife was still open and with it he cut the restraints around her ankle.

“This way. Come on.”

Heads down, coughing, both of them returned to the corridor.

“There are men, they have guns.”

“They’re gone.”

She staggered along behind him, her legs not used to activity during her imprisonment.

They came to the turn and stepped into the main corridor.

Where Shaw saw that the escape route no longer existed.

The fire now spread from wall to wall. The two of them faced a roiling sheet of flame, floor to ceiling, slowly moving their way.

Soon, they’d be unconscious from lack of oxygen.

Shaw glanced at Tessy, who was crying.

He pointed toward the storeroom that had been Nita’s cell. “Find some cloth or paper towels, soak them with the bottled water and cover your face. Get low.”

Ashton had taught the children that a wet cloth was good protection against smoke, but it was a myth that urine was a better liquid to dampen the cloth. That was only helpful, and marginally, in protecting against chlorine gas.

“We’re going to die!”

“Do what I told you. Now.”

She shuffled into the room, coughing hard.

Shaw got as close as he could to the flames, until he could hardly bear the searing heat. He drew from his waistband the Glock the guard upstairs had been carrying. It was a larger caliber, with a longer barrel, and the magazine contained more rounds.

He squinted into the fire and fired a shot.

A second, third.

Fourth, fifth, sixth.

It was on the seventh that the bullet found its target: the building’s boiler. A stunning explosion rocked the basement accompanied by the banshee cry of escaping steam.

Shaw dove for cover in Nita’s cell. They were some distance from the explosion, but still were hit with a blast of the moist heat that shot into the corridor and filled the rooms. Superheated steam, in a closed container, can reach extraordinarily high temperatures — 900 degrees Fahrenheit. Had that been the case the steam could have melted the Sheetrock like newsprint and Shaw and Tessy might have been scalded to death. But he was ninety percent sure that a boiler this age was probably heated only to the standard 212.

Shaw rose and looked into the corridor. Some flames still flickered, but the path was clear.

“Let’s go,” he told Tessy and helped her to her feet. He went in lead, having replaced the guard’s gun with his own, in case the traffickers returned, which he doubted would happen. The police and firemen would be there soon if they weren’t already present.

Shaw glanced in the office and noted that not everything was destroyed. Crime Scene should probably find enough evidence to convict Mladic.

As they got to the stairs, they stopped. Footsteps were coming down. Shaw lifted his gun.

His tear-filled eyes peered through the smoke.

The heavy steps came closer.

Shaw got the gun into his pocket just before firemen arrived. The large men, fitted with their bulky equipment, plodded down the stairs.

One pulled his oxygen mask off. “Anyone else down here?”

“No. There’s still some fire in the office. First door on your right.”

Another fireman surveyed the scene. “What happened?”

“Boiler blew. Put out the flames.”

“Lucky you.”

As they started past, Shaw said, “Save the files and computers. The district attorney’ll want to see them.”

Shaw felt a fireman’s head turn his way, then he and the young woman were climbing the stairs.

53

They sat on the couch of the Pacific Heights safe house.

Shaw and Tessy were alone. Russell was presently conducting surveillance at the Alvarez Street safe house, trying to spot and identify the blonde in the green Honda. He’d reported seeing nothing. Shaw texted his brother that he’d found and rescued the young woman.

The two had taken respective turns in the bathroom, scrubbing away sweat and soot, though the aroma of smoke was embedded in hair and clothing.

Tessy was sipping tea. Ashton was a big tea drinker, he recalled, and apparently so was his older son. The house had come with a supply of staples, including English breakfast and some herbals. Tessy had picked chamomile. Shaw didn’t believe he’d had a cup of tea in five or six years.

The young woman’s eyes were hollow as she explained what had happened. As Shaw and Russell had deduced, the men in the gray van had grabbed her.

“Was Roman involved?”

Her face screwed up with disgust. “Yes, he was behind it. He was so angry I told him I wasn’t going out with him unless he got sober. I didn’t want to be with him, but I thought maybe he’d stop using and become a better person. But he was just a psycho. He likes to hurt people.”

“He was involved in the human trafficking himself?”

“I’m sure he was. He and the owner, Dante, hung out together.”

There’d be records about Roman, probably, in the Steelworks. But to make sure the authorities learned of him, Shaw would also get his full name and particulars from Tessy and send them to his former FBI agent friend, Tom Pepper. He, in turn, would relay the information to SFPD and the Bureau field office here. That way Tessy would remain anonymous and wouldn’t have to worry about Immigration and Customs.

“I... thank you for what you did. It was terrible. So terrible. There were some men who came to look at me. Like they were buying cattle or hogs at market. I would have died first.”

He nodded. Colter Shaw had never been comfortable with gratitude. He didn’t discount his contribution, but in most rewards jobs, he was merely returning life to the status quo.

After a minute, Tessy asked, “You have a girlfriend?”

Do I? he wondered. He nodded. A good way to end whatever she was thinking of.

“Good. I’m happy for you.”

The doorbell rang. He went to the intercom, spoke with Maria Vasquez and buzzed her in.

She flung her arms around her daughter.

“Ay, all the smoke.”

“He saved me, Mama. These men kidnapped me.”

“It was that club? On TV?”

Shaw nodded. He asked, “Any casualties? I haven’t seen the news.”

“Some people were hurt. Nobody got killed. The police arrested people there, the owner. Human trafficking. Drugs.” She began to sob. Her daughter held her tightly.

When he’d called 911 he’d mentioned he’d seen somebody in an office in the back of the club. “He seemed to be tied up. I don’t know what that’s about.” He hoped Mladic’s son was one of those who’d been collared.

Shaw said, “I got her out of there fast. We didn’t talk to the police. They don’t know your name.”

He didn’t tell her that he was no more eager to get the police involved than they were.

“I don’t have the money with me now.”

Shaw said, “Keep it. You can pay me when times are better for you.”

“Bless you, bless you.” She hugged him hard. Tessy did as well.

After they left, Shaw took his typical hot-then-cold shower and, when he’d dressed again, he drank down a whole bottle of mineral water, then opened a beer.

He caught a whiff of smoke, arising from the pile of clothes he stripped off. Into the trash. No time for dry cleaning.

He lifted his Android off the table and loaded the browser. At the website he sought, he had to scroll through a dozen numbers until he found one he thought might be helpful. He dialed and, despite the late hour, someone answered, a pleasant woman. He gave the name of the person he wanted to speak to and then his own.

It took no more than ten seconds to be connected.