Jeffery Deaver

A breakneck thrill-ride.”
– Wall Street Journal

“Unlike similar crime books, this focus only lightly on the torture scenes and creates tension through satisfying Sherlock Holmes-type detecting and the spunky personalities of the investigators. A fine thriller.”
– Midwest Book Review

“Deaver marries forensic work that would do Patricia Cornwell proud to a turbocharged plot that puts Benzedrine to shame.”
– Kirkus Reviews

“Exciting and fast-paced.”
– Peter Straub

Narrated by Jeff Harding. Listen to an excerpt.

 

When Edward Carney said good-bye to his wife, Percey, he never thought it would be the last time he’d see her.

He climbed into his car, which was parked in a precious space on East Eighty-first Street in Manhattan, and pulled into traffic. Carney, an observant man by nature, noticed a black van parked near the townhouse. A van with mud-flecked, mirrored windows. He glanced at the battered vehicle and recognized the West Virginia plates, realizing he’d seen it on the street several times in the past few days. But then the traffic in front of him sped up. He caught the end of the yellow light and forgot the van completely. He was soon on the FDR expressway, cruising north.

Twenty minutes later he juggled the car phone and called his wife. He was troubled when she didn’t answer. Percey’d been scheduled to make the flight with him — they’d flipped a coin last night for the left-hand seat and she’d won, then given him one of her trademark victory grins. But then she’d wakened at three a.m. with a blinding migraine, which had stayed with her all day. After a few phone calls they’d found a substitute copilot and Percey’d taken a Fiorninal and gone back to bed.

A migraine was the only malady that would ground her.

Lanky Edward Carney, forty-five years old, and still wearing a military hairstyle, cocked his head as he listened to the phone ringing miles away. Their answering machine clicked on and he returned the phone to the cradle, mildly concerned.

He kept the car at exactly sixty miles per hour, centered perfectly in the right lane; like most pilots he was a very conservative driver. He trusted other airmen but thought most drivers were crazy.

In the office of Hudson Air Charters, on the grounds of Mamaroneck Airport in Westchester, a cake awaited. Prim and assembled Sally Anne, smelling like the perfume department at Macy’s, had baked it herself, to commemorate the company’s new contract. Wearing the ugly rhinestone biplane broach her grandchildren had given her last Christmas, she scanned the room to make sure each of the dozen or so employees had a piece of devil’s food sized just right for them. Ed Carney ate a few bites of cake and talked about the flight with Ron Talbot, whose massive belly suggested he loved cake but in fact he survived mostly on cigarettes and coffee. Talbot wore the dual hats of operations and business manager and he worried out loud if the shipment would be on time, if the fuel usage for the flight had been calculated correctly, if they’d priced the job right. Ed handed him the remains of his cake and told him to relax.

He thought again about Percey and stepped away into his office, picked up the phone.

Still no answer at their townhouse.

Now, concern became worry. People with children and people with their own business always pick up a ringing phone. He slapped the receiver down, thought about calling a neighbor to check up on her. But then the large white truck pulled up in front of the hanger next to the office and it was time to go to work. Six p.m.

Talbot gave Carey a dozen documents to sign just as young Tim Randolph arrived, wearing a dark suit, white shirt and a narrow black tie. Tim referred to himself as a “copilot” and Carney liked that. “First officers” were company people, airline creations, and while Ed respected any man who was competent in the right-hand seat, pretension put him off.

Tall, brunette Lauren, Talbot’s assistant, had worn her lucky dress, whose blue color matching the hue of the Hudson Air logo — a silhouette of an falcon flying over a gridded globe. She leaned close to Carney and whispered, “It’s going to be okay now, won’t it?”

“It’ll be fine,” he assured her. They embraced for a moment. Sally Ann hugged him too and offered him some cake for the flight. He demurred. He wanted to be gone. Away from the sentiment. Away from the festivities.

Away from the ground.

And soon he was: Sailing three miles above the earth, piloting a Lear 35A, the finest private jet ever made, clear of markings or insignia except for its N registration number, polished silver, sleek as a pike.

They flew into a stunning sunset — toward big, rambunctious clouds, pink and purple, leaking bolts of sunlight.

Only dawn was as beautiful. And only thunderstorms more spectacular.

It was 723 miles to O’Hare and they covered that distance in less than two hours. Air Traffic Control’s Chicago Center politely asked them to descend to 14,000 feet, then handed them off to Chicago Approach Control.

Tim made the call. “Chicago Approach. Lear Four Niner Charlie Juliet with you at one four thousand.”

“Evening, Niner Charlie Juliet,” said yet another placid air traffic controller. “Descend and maintain eight thousand. Chicago altimeter thirty point one one. Expect vectors to 27L.”

“Roger, Chicago. Niner Charlie Juliet out of fourteen for eight.”

O’Hare is the busiest airport in the world and ATC put them in a holding pattern way out over the western suburbs of the city, where they’d await their turn to land.

Ten minutes later the pleasant, staticky voice vectored them into the landing pattern.

“Niner Charlie Juliet, heading zero nine zero over the numbers downwind for 27L.”

“Zero nine zero. Niner Charlie Juliet.”

Carney glanced up at the bright points of constellations in the stunning gunmetal sky and he thought, Look, Percey, it’s all the stars of evening . . .

And with that he had what was the only unprofessional urge of perhaps his entire career. His concern for Percey arose like a fever. He needed desperately to speak to her.

“Take the aircraft,” he said to Tim.

“Roger,” the young man responded, hands going immediately and unquestioningly to the yoke.

Air traffic control crackled, “Niner Charlie Juliet, descend to four thousand. Maintain heading.”

“Roger, Chicago,” Tim said. “Niner Charlie Juliet out of eight for four.”

Carney changed the frequency of his radio to make a unicom call. Tim glanced at him. “Calling the company,” Carney explained. When he got Talbot he asked to be patched through the telephone to his home.

As he waited Carney and Tim went through the litany of the pre-landing check.

“Flaps approach. . . . twenty degrees.”

“Twenty, twenty, green.”

“Speed check.”

“One hundred eighty knots.”

As Tim spoke into his mike, “Chicago, Niner Charlie Juliet, crossing the numbers. Through five for four,” Carney heard the phone start to ring in their Manhattan townhouse eight hundred miles away.

Come on, Percey. Pick up! Where are you?

Please. . .

ATC said, “Niner Charlie Juliet, reduce speed to one eight zero. Contact tower now. Good evening.”

“Roger, Chicago. One eight zero knots. Evening.”

Three rings.

Where the hell is she? What’s wrong?

The knot in his gut grew tighter.

The turbofan sang, a grinding sound. Hydraulics moaned. Static crackled in Carney’s headset.

Tim sang out, “Flaps thirty. Gear down.”

“Flaps, thirty, thirty, green. Gear down. Three green.”

And then, at last — in his earphone — a sharp click.

His wife’s voice saying, “Hello?”

He laughed out loud in relief.

Carney started to speak but before he could, the aircraft gave a huge jolt — so vicious that in a fraction of a second the force ripped the bulky headset from his ears, and the men were flung forward into the control panel. Shrapnel and sparks exploded around them.

Stunned, Carney instinctively grabbed the unresponsive yoke with his left hand; he no longer had a right one. He turned toward Tim just as the man’s bloody, rag-doll body disappeared out of the gaping hole in the side of the fuselage.

“Oh, God. No, no . . . ”

Then the entire cockpit broke away from the disintegrating plane and rose into the air, leaving the fuselage and wings and engines of the Lear behind, engulfed in ball of gassy fire.

“Oh, Percey,” he whispered, “Percey . . .” Though there was no longer a microphone to speak into.

* * *

“Fair warning to newcomers: Author Deaver is just as cunning and deceptive as his killer; don’t assume he’s run out of tricks until you’ve run out of pages.”
– Kirkus Reviews

“The pace, energized by Deaver’s precise attention, never flags; and if the romantic angle is a little obvious (Rhyme’s seeming concern for one of the Dancer’s female targets sparks Amelia’s jealousy), Deaver manages to renovate many of the hoariest conventions of the ticking-clock-serial-murder subgenre. Another original renovation is his Nero Wolfe-ish Rhyme—a detective who lives the life of the mind by necessity, not choice, and who thinks of everything but can’t even pick up a phone without help. Trust Deaver’s superb plotting and brisk, no-nonsense prose to spin fresh gold from tired straw.”
– Publishers Weekly

 

Narrated by William Dufris. Listen to an excerpt.

The Digger’s in town.

The Digger looks like you, the Digger looks like me. He walks down the wintry streets the way anybody would, shoulders drawn together against the damp December air.

He’s not tall and not short, he’s not heavy and not thin.

His fingers in dark gloves might be pudgy but they might not. His feet seem large but maybe that’s just the size of his shoes.

If you glanced at his eyes you wouldn’t notice the shape or the color but only that they don’t seem quite human, and if the Digger glanced at you while you were looking at him, his eyes might be the very last thing you ever saw.

He wears a long, black coat, or a dark blue one, and not a soul on the street notices him pass by though there are many witnesses here — the streets of Washington, D.C., are crowded because it’s morning rush hour.

The Digger’s in town and it’s New Year’s Eve.

Carrying a Fresh Fields shopping bag, the Digger dodges around couples and singles and families and keeps on walking. Ahead, he sees the Metro station. He was told to be there at exactly 9 A.M. and he will be. The Digger is never late.

The bag in his maybe-pudgy hand is heavy. It weighs eleven pounds though by the time the Digger returns to his motel room it will weigh considerably less.

A man bumps into him and smiles and says, “Sorry,” but the Digger doesn’t glance at him. The Digger never looks at anybody and doesn’t want anybody to look at him.

“Don’t let anybody…” Click. “let anybody see your face. Look away. Remember?”

I remember.

Click.

Look at the lights, he thinks, look at the…click…at the New Year’s Eve decorations. Fat babies in banners, Old Man Time.

Funny decorations.  Funny lights.  Funny how nice they are.

This is Dupont Circle, home of money, home of art, home of the young and chic.  The Digger knows this but he knows it only because the man who tells him things told him about DuPont Circle.

He arrives at the mouth of the subway tunnel. The morning is overcast and, being winter, there is a dimness over the city.

The Digger thinks of his wife on days like this.  Pamela didn’t like the dark and the cold so she …click… she… What did she do? That’s right.  She planted red flowers and yellow flowers.

He looks at the subway and he thinks of a picture he saw once.  He and Pamela were at a museum.  They saw an old drawing on the wall.

And Pamela said, “Scary. Let’s go.”

It was a picture of the entrance to hell.

The Metro tunnel disappears sixty feet underground, passengers rising, passengers descending.  It looks just like that drawing.

The entrance to hell.

Here are young women with hair cut short and briefcases.  Here are young men with their sports bags and cell phones.

And here is the Digger with his shopping bag.

Maybe he’s fat, maybe he’s thin. Looking like you, looking like me. Nobody ever notices the Digger and that’s one of the reasons he’s so very good at what he does.

“You’re the best,” said the man who tells him things last year.  You’re the…click, click…the best.

At 8:59 the Digger walks to the top of the down escalator, which is filled with people disappearing into the pit.

He reaches into the bag and curls his finger around the comfy grip of the gun, which may be an Uzi or a Mac-10 or an Intertech but definitely weighs eleven pounds and is load with a hundred-round clip of .22 long-rifle bullets.

The Digger’s hungry for soup but he ignores the sensation.

Because he’s the…click…the best.

He looks toward but not at the crowd, waiting their turn to step onto the down escalator, which will take them to hell. He doesn’t look at the couples or the men with telephones or women with hair from Supercuts, which is where Pamela went. He doesn’t look at the families. He clutches the shopping bag to his chest, the way anybody would if it were full of holiday treats. One hand on the grip of whatever kind of gun it is, his other hand curled — outside the bag — around what somebody might think is a loaf of Fresh Fields bread that would go very nicely with soup but is in fact a heavy sound suppressor, packed with mineral cotton and rubber baffles.

His watch beeps.

Nine A.M.

He pulls the trigger.