Hunting Time
ALSO BY JEFFERY DEAVER
NOVELS
The Colter Shaw Series
The Final Twist
The Goodbye Man
The Never Game
The Lincoln Rhyme Series
The Midnight Lock
The Cutting Edge
The Burial Hour
The Steel Kiss
The Skin Collector
The Kill Room
The Burning Wire
The Broken Window
The Cold Moon
The Twelfth Card
The Vanished Man
The Stone Monkey
The Empty Chair
The Coffin Dancer
The Bone Collector
The Kathryn Dance Series
Solitude Creek
XO
Roadside Crosses
The Sleeping Doll
The Rune Series
Hard News
Death of a Blue Movie Star
Manhattan Is My Beat
The John Pellam Series
Hell’s Kitchen
Bloody River Blues
Shallow Graves
Stand-Alones
The October List
Carte Blanche (A James Bond Novel)
Edge
The Bodies Left Behind
Garden of Beasts
The Blue Nowhere
Speaking in Tongues
The Devil’s Teardrop
A Maiden’s Grave
Praying for Sleep
The Lesson of Her Death
Mistress of Justice
SHORT FICTION COLLECTIONS
Trouble in Mind
Triple Threat
More Twisted
Twisted
SHORT FICTION INDIVIDUAL STORIES
The Deadline Clock, a Colter Shaw Story
Scheme
A Perfect Plan, a Lincoln Rhyme Story
Cause of Death
Turning Point
Verona
The Debriefing
Ninth and Nowhere
The Second Hostage, a Colter Shaw Story
Captivated, a Colter Shaw Story
The Victims’ Club
Surprise Ending
Double Cross
Vows, a Lincoln Rhyme Story
The Deliveryman, a Lincoln Rhyme Story
A Textbook Case
ORIGINAL AUDIO WORKS
The Starling Project, a Radio Play
Stay Tuned
The Intruder
Date Night
EDITOR/CONTRIBUTOR
No Rest for the Dead (Contributor)
Watchlist (Creator/Contributor)
The Chopin Manuscript (Creator/Contributor)
The Copper Bracelet (Creator/Contributor)
Nothing Good Happens After Midnight (Editor/Contributor)
Ice Cold (Co-Editor/Contributor)
A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime (Editor/Contributor)
Books to Die For (Contributor)
The Best American Mystery Stories 2009 (Editor)
G. P. Putnam’s Sons
Publishers Since 1838
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Copyright © 2022 by Gunner Publications, LLC
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Deaver, Jeffery, author.
Title: Hunting time / Jeffery Deaver.
Description: New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 2022. | Series: A Colter Shaw Novel; 4
Identifiers: LCCN 2022040283 (print) | LCCN 2022040284 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593422083 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593422090 (ebook)
Classification: LCC PS3554.E1755 H86 2022 (print) | LCC PS3554.E1755 (ebook) | DDC 813/.54—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040283
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022040284
Cover design: Tal Goretsky
Cover images: (man) Maria Heyens / Arcangel; (woman) Miguel Sobreira / Plainpicture; (factory) DEEPOL by Plainpicture; (sky) Spreephoto.de / Moment / Getty Images
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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Contents
Cover
Also by Jeffery Deaver
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Part One: The Pocket Sun
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Part Two: Hide and Seek
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Chapter 71
Chapter 72
Chapter 73
Chapter 74
Chapter 75
Chapter 76
Chapter 77
Chapter 78
Chapter 79
Chapter 80
Chapter 81
Chapter 82
Chapter 83
Chapter 84
Chapter 85
Chapter 86
Chapter 87
Chapter 88
Chapter 89
Chapter 90
Chapter 91
Chapter 92
Chapter 93
Part Three: Never
Chapter 94
Chapter 95
Acknowledgments
About the Author
To all my friends at the Kastens Hotel Luisenhof, in Hannover, for their true kindness and generosity during my recent trip to Germany. Danke Schoen!
To be human is to be an engineer.
—Billy Vaughn Koen, Discussion of the Method
PART ONE
THE POCKET SUN
TUESDAY, SEPTEMBER 20
1
The trap was simplicity itself.
And as usual with simple, it worked perfectly.
In the long-abandoned fourth-floor workshop of Welbourne & Sons Fabricators, Colter Shaw moved silently through dusty wooden racks stacked with rusty tanks and drums. Twenty feet ahead, the shelves ended and beyond was a large open area, filled with ancient mahogany worktables, scuffed and stained and gone largely to rot and mold.
Here stood three men, wearing somber business suits, engaged in conversation, offering the animated gestures and the untroubled voices of those who have no idea they’re being watched.
Shaw paused and, out of sight behind a row of shelves, withdrew a video camera. It was similar to any you’d pick up on Amazon or at Best Buy, except for one difference: there was no lens in front. Instead the glass eye was a tiny thing mounted on an eighteen-inch fl
exible stalk. This he bent at a ninety-degree angle and aimed around the side of the storage shelves before hitting record.
After a few minutes, when the men’s backs were to him, he stepped out of his hiding place and moved closer, slipping behind the last row of shelves.
Which was when the trap sprung.
His shoe caught the trip wire, which in turn pulled a pin from the supporting leg of the shelf nearest to him, releasing an avalanche of tanks and cans and drums. He rolled forward onto the floor, avoiding the bigger ones, but several slammed onto his shoulders.
The three men spun about. Two were of Middle Eastern appearance—Saudi, Shaw knew. The other was Anglo, as pale as the others were dark. The taller of the Saudis—who went by Rass—held a gun, which he’d drawn quickly when Shaw made his ungainly appearance. They joined the intruder, who was rising from the grainy floor, and studied their catch: an athletic blond man in his thirties, wearing blue jeans, a black T and a leather jacket. Shaw’s right hand was gripping his left shoulder. He winced as his fingers kneaded the joint.
Rass picked up the spy camera, looked it over and shut it off. He pocketed the device and Shaw said goodbye to twelve hundred dollars. This was not a priority at the moment.
Ahmad, the other Saudi, sighed. “Well.”
The third man, whose name was Paul LeClaire, looked momentarily horrified and then settled into miserable.
Shaw’s blue eyes glanced at the collapsed shelf with disgust and he stepped away from the drums, some of which were leaking sour-smelling chemicals.
Simplicity itself . . .
“Wait!” LeClaire frowned. “I know him! He’s working for Mr. Harmon. He’s in human resources. I mean, that’s what he said. But he was undercover! Shit!” His voice cracked.
Shaw wondered if he was going to cry.
“Police?” Ahmad asked LeClaire.
“I don’t know. How would I know?”
“I’m not law,” said Shaw. “Private.” He turned a stern face to LeClaire. “Hired to find Harmon’s Judas.”
Ahmad walked to a window and looked out, scanned the alley. “Anyone else?” Directed at Shaw.
“No.”
The man then stepped to the front of the workshop, his body language suggesting taut muscles beneath the fine gray suit. He slowly opened the door, looked out, then closed it. He returned to the others. “You,” he said to LeClaire. “Check him. Weapons. And whatever’s in his pockets.”
“Me?”
Ahmad: “We weren’t followed. You were careless.”
“No, I wasn’t. Really. I’m sure.”
Ahmad lifted a palm: We’re not paying you to whine.
LeClaire, more dismal by the moment, walked forward. He patted down Shaw cautiously. He was doing a sloppy job and if Shaw had been carrying, which he was not, he would have missed the semiauto Shaw often wore on his hip.
But his uneasy fingers managed to locate and retrieve the contents of Shaw’s pockets. He stepped away, clutching the cell phone, cash, a folding knife, a wallet. Deposited them on a dust-covered table.
Shaw continued to knead his shoulder, and Rass tilted his head toward him, silently warning him to be cautious in his movements. Rass’s finger was outside the trigger guard of the pistol. In this, he knew what he was doing. On the other hand, the gun, with its mirrored sheen of chrome plating, was showy. Not the sort a true pro would carry.
Never draw attention to your weapon . . .
LeClaire was looking toward an open attaché case. Inside was a gray metal box measuring fourteen inches by ten by two. From it sprouted a half-dozen wires, each a different color. To Shaw he said, “He knows? About me? Mr. Harmon knows?”
Colter Shaw rarely responded to questions whose answers were as obvious as the sky.
And sometimes you didn’t answer just to keep the inquirer on edge. The businessman rubbed thumb and index finger together. Both hands. Curiously simultaneous. The misery factor expanded considerably.
Ahmad looked at the phone. “Passcode.”
Rass lifted the gun.
One wouldn’t be much of a survivalist to get killed over a PIN. Shaw recited the digits.
Ahmad scrolled. “Just says he’s coming to the factory to check out a lead. It’s sent to a local area code. Others to the same number. He has our names.” A look to LeClaire. “All of ours.”
“Oh, Christ . . .”
“He’s been onto you for a while, Paul.” Ahmad scrolled some more, then tossed the phone to a desk. “No immediate risk. The plans still hold. But let’s get this over with.” He removed a thick envelope from his pocket and handed it to LeClaire, who, not bothering to count his pieces of silver, stuffed it away.
“And him?” LeClaire’s strident voice asked.
Ahmad thought for a moment, then gestured Shaw back, against a wall.
Shaw walked to where the man indicated and continued to massage his shoulder. Pain radiated downward, as if pulled by gravity.
Ahmad picked up the wallet and riffled through the contents, then put the billfold in his pocket. “All right. I know who you are, how to find you. But I don’t think that troubles you so much.” He scanned Shaw, face to feet. “You can take care of yourself. But I also have the names of everyone on your in-case-of-emergency list. What you’re going to do is tell Harmon you tracked the thief here but by the time you managed to get into the factory we were gone.”
LeClaire said, “But he knows it’s me!”
Ahmad and Rass seemed as tired of the whimpering as Shaw was.
“Are we clear on everything?”
“Couldn’t be clearer.” Shaw turned to Paul LeClaire. “But I have to ask: Aren’t you feeling the least bit guilty? There are about two million people around the world whose lives you just ruined.”
“Shut up.”
He really couldn’t think up any better retort?
Silence filled the room . . . No, near silence, moderated by white noise, unsettling, like the hum of coursing blood in your skull.
Shaw looked over the configuration of where each man stood and he realized that examining the wallet and the in-case-of-emergency threat were tricks—to get him to move to a certain spot in the room, away from the drums that had tumbled to the floor when the trap sprung. Ahmad had no intention of letting him go. He simply didn’t want to take the risk of his partner shooting toward canisters that might contain flammable chemicals.
Why not kill him and buy time? The Saudis would be out of the country long before Shaw’s body was discovered. And as for LeClaire, he’d done his part, and they couldn’t care less what happened to him. He might even be a good fall guy for the murder.
Ahmad’s dark eyes turned toward Rass and his shiny pistol.
“Wait,” Shaw said harshly. “There’s something I—”
2
You’re a lucky SOB, Merritt.”
The pale and gaunt prisoner, unshaven, brows knit, looked at the uniformed screw.
The guard glanced at Merritt’s balding head, as if just realizing now that the man had more hair when he’d begun serving his sentence than now. What a difference a near year makes.
The men, both tough, both fatigued, faced each other through a half-inch of bulletproof glass, a milky sheet as smeared as the walls were scuffed. The business end of eighty-year-old Trevor County Detention had no desire, or reason, to pretty itself up.
Slim, tall Jon Merritt was dressed in a dark suit—the deepest shade of navy blue, good for job interviews and funerals. It was a size too big. A complementing white shirt too, frayed where frays happen. The last time he had worn this outfit was more than ten months ago. In the interim his garb, not of his choosing, had been bright orange.
“You’re looking like an ace,” the guard said. Larkin was a large Black man whose uniform was much the same shade as Merritt’s suit.
“Oh, I just shine, don’t I?”
The guard paused, maybe wondering how stinging the sarcasm was meant to be. “Here you go.”
Merritt took the envelope that contained his wallet, watch and wedding ring. The ring went into his pocket, the watch onto his wrist. The battery had behaved and the instrument showed the correct time: 9:02 a.m.
Looking through the wallet. The bills—$140—were still there, but the envelope no longer contained the coins he’d had. A credit card and an ATM card were present too. He was surprised.