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e1dbbf1
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Maree opened her eyes wide. "Wait, wait . . . I know you." She regarded me with a frown. I must have blinked in surprise. Had we met? The woman added, "You're on that reality show. The Vacation from Hell. You're the tour guide."
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Jeffery Deaver |
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4d187c2
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I could see the palm of Freddy's hand tap the butt of his Glock. We do this to reorient our muscles and nerves so we know exactly where our weapons are. Like I noted the pressure of the Baby Glock, in the small of my back. I left it in the holster for the moment. Ryan
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Jeffery Deaver |
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6d99141
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You're sure it was Loving?" "Yes. That's exactly the kind of strategy he'd choose. There's no doubt it was him." I was aware of the corollary to that conclusion: Loving would know too--because of the escape strategy--that I was the opponent he was now playing against."
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Jeffery Deaver |
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d86d5ba
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All right." He glanced at my gun. "You tapped?" Meaning: Was my Glock threaded for a silencer? I rarely had reason even to draw my weapon, let alone make sure it fired in a whisper. "No." He handed me his. "One in the bedroom. Safety's on." He'd tell me this because Glocks don't have a safety lever; they have a double trigger that prevents accidental discharges. I was familiar with the Beretta, though, and slid the lever smoothly to the fir..
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Jeffery Deaver |
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d3e6e67
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I want to say something," I told her. "It's important." "Under these circumstances," she said, with a dark grin, "one wouldn't really expect unimportant, now, would one?" --
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Jeffery Deaver |
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5f81df0
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Maree may have noted that I said "wife" and not "ex," which imparted some information to her. She was smarter than the package suggested. She frowned her sympathy, which I didn't respond to."
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Jeffery Deaver |
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5c4f93a
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I realized finally what the problem was," I told Maree. "It wasn't him. It was my wife. She was treating him like a normal human being. Polite, giving him the benefit of the doubt, humoring him. She was a good person, just thinking about who he'd been when they'd been going out, charming and funny. But that was the past. When all this happened he wasn't a normal human being. He was something else. You can't be friends with a shark or a rabi..
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Jeffery Deaver |
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0fcf9b9
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The young woman shrugged, walked to her computer, picked it up. She flopped down on the couch and scanned through it. This was something else I'd noticed that my principals had done more and more recently, in the safe house and halfway motels: withdrawn into their cyberwombs. Joanne
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Jeffery Deaver |
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913cbea
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The government's Intelligence Assessment Department is a very small federal agency with very large computers, located in Sterling, Virginia. The IAD's purpose is to maintain files of names, faces, physical attributes and personal preferences of national security threats and to analyze data about all of the above. If anybody's ever wondered why the CIA or the military can be so certain that one bearded thirty-year-old on the streets of Kabul..
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Jeffery Deaver |
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8d54535
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The sky was overcast and the scenery was probably what it had been for dozens of years: bungalow farmhouses, shacks, trailers and motor vehicles in terminal condition but still functioning if the nursing and luck were right. A gas station offering a brand I'd never heard of. Dogs toothing at fleas lazily. Women in stressed jeans, overseeing their broods. Men with beer-lean faces and expanding guts, sitting on porches, waiting for nothing. M..
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Jeffery Deaver |
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dd471b0
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I sat for a moment and again looked out the window of my organization's unmarked headquarters in Old Town Alexandria, the building aggressively ugly, 1970s ugly. I stared at a wedge of grass, an antique store, a Starbucks and a few bushes in a parking strip. The bushes lined up in a staggered fashion toward the Masonic Temple, like they'd been planted by a Dan Brown character sending a message via landscaping rather than an email. My
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Jeffery Deaver |
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5b255b1
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I WAS SITTING in one of our director's scuffed chairs next to a man who clearly knew me, since he'd nodded with some familiarity when I entered. I couldn't, however, place him beyond his being a federal prosecutor. About my age--forty--and short, a bit doughy, with hair in need of a trim. A fox's eyes. Aaron
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Jeffery Deaver |
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611aa49
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What he was really asking was this: Was he making the right decision in assigning me, and not someone else, to the job of guarding principals from Henry Loving? In short, could I be objective when the perp was the one who'd murdered my mentor and had apparently escaped from the trap I'd set for him several years before?
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Jeffery Deaver |
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1a16e30
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A serial killer is a rare and specific criminal profile. In males the motives're sexual in nature usually, or nonsexual sadism. And while there's ritualistic behavior, that's limited in most cases to binding or arranging the victims in certain ways or leaving fetishes at the scene or taking trophies, postmortem. The behavior doesn't rise to the Composer's level of elaborate staging--the videos, the noose, the music. He's a multiple perpetra..
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Jeffery Deaver |
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408b466
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For her part, Joanne would be considering exactly what and how much she could tell him--which, in theory, was nothing. The British have their Official Secrets Act, which forbids government employees from talking about their activities while they were in the employ of certain agencies. We don't have quite such a grandly named law but similar regulations are in effect. She'd already committed federal offenses by her disclosures here in this r..
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Jeffery Deaver |
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107c840
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This that you are proposing, it is irregular and we are not people who are well with irregularness." At"
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Jeffery Deaver |
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43daeb7
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Joanne's federal government employment history had been hidden very efficiently, of course. DuBois hadn't found anything specific about what the woman or her coworkers did. But you could deduce their mission from what my protegee did uncover: the group's funding (lavish and murkily channeled through nonexistent government agencies) and jurisdiction--in the U.S. only (office leasing and travel authorizations). Its history was enlightening to..
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Jeffery Deaver |
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3dc4476
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I'm thinking about it," she mused, almost to herself. "The building burned. . . . There was a DNA match. I recall the report. There were some typos in it, remember?" Claire duBois was older than her adolescent intonation suggested, though not much. Short brunette hair, a heart-shaped and delicately pretty face, a figure that was probably very nice--and I was as curious about it as any man would be--but usually hidden by functional pantsuits..
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Jeffery Deaver |
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4c0d965
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In a matter-of-fact voice, she said to me, "Have you found out anything more than that?" She glanced toward the documents, which said nothing directly about her job. "Only that you were with the Sickle project. My associate's good but she couldn't get much more than that. Your archives're locked pretty tight. As for active files--if the group is still active . . ." She said nothing. "If it's still active, she didn't find anything on record...
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Jeffery Deaver |
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c37dccf
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Every case I worked is closed. All the principals were either abducted and resettled . . . or zeroed," she said, using a verb that I'd heard from time to time if my principal was in a similar line of work. It had become popular among the Mossad. They liked to use shorthand they thought was American. Zero"
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Jeffery Deaver |
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616dcc5
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One said, "Nobody paused in front of the house since we've been here." I slipped my ID case away. "Any out-of-state tags?" "Didn't notice any." Different answer from "No." One"
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Jeffery Deaver |
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32e9a6b
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glanced at Pogue. From his pocket he withdrew earplugs. I was familiar with them. They block out the high decibels and pitch of gunfire but allow human voices through. He handed a pair to me. I shoved them in. I took a deep breath and let fly the piece of glass, which landed with a tink in the far corner of the room. The
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Jeffery Deaver |
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02ee4af
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Remember that this is a game of defense as well as offense and be prepared to protect the areas which you occupy. --FROM THE INSTRUCTIONS TO THE BOARD GAME RISK
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Jeffery Deaver |
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fc4e5e6
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of your bed as you slept. Sachs had brought Braden Alexander's clothing too. Cooper
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Jeffery Deaver |
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f5da249
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And him?" I looked toward the revived guard. Freddy said, "Wants a lawyer like a baby wants a bottle."
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Jeffery Deaver |
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ed1e36c
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I didn't blame him one bit. I'd give them up too, in circumstances like that. Abe Fallow himself said to me when I joined our organization, "Corte, listen. Rule number one, and it's a rule we don't mention to anybody but ourselves, is at the end of the day your principals are packages. They're a dozen eggs, they're crystal vases, lightbulbs. Consumer goods. You risk your life to keep them safe. You don't sacrifice your life for them. Rememb..
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Jeffery Deaver |
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a110e6b
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what
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Jeffery Deaver |
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d7b7400
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was mildly surprised to see) and in the smallest
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Jeffery Deaver |
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b1113c9
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about trying to escape the past. It's like a dog on a tether. No matter how much he runs, he just can't get away.
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Jeffery Deaver |
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a04f59b
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Which one I like better?" "That's the question, Mr. Tour Guide." I felt suddenly awkward, like I was being tested on something I hadn't studied for. I didn't really know which one I liked more. The only photos I looked at regularly were surveillance and crime scene shots. Aesthetics didn't count. Finally,"
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Jeffery Deaver |
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58a20fd
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Prewar." It occurred to Rhyme that in Italy the phrase would, in most people's minds, refer to the Second World War. Unlike America for the past eighty years, Italy had not regularly dotted the globe with tanks and infantry and drones. Thom"
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Jeffery Deaver |
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f91c9c8
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right?" Rhyme"
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Jeffery Deaver |
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e9940c7
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all he could about the men who had defiled her
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Jeffery Deaver |
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670b27e
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little too undistinguished, a little
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Jeffery Deaver |
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284b065
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notebook and
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Jeffery Deaver |
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f6ef0ac
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I criminalisti adorano i sospetti che soffrono di malattie.
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Jeffery Deaver |
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a3c598a
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Another thing about the outbuilding. The designers completely soundproofed the place. The reason for this was so that the principals couldn't hear threats or demands coming from the outside. The corollary was that neither could you hear screams from inside. Night
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Jeffery Deaver |
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d1c0278
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chest. 'You are committing a felony! There
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Jeffery Deaver |
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4e527a9
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even souvenir seekers. One of the worst contaminants was fellow officers, especially brass grandstanding if reporters were present and eager to grab a video bite to slap on the twenty-four-hour news cycle. One more glance at the circular coffin. Okay, Amelia Sachs thought: Knuckle time... A phrase of her father's. The man had also been cop, a beat patrolman working the Deuce--Midtown South; back then Times Square was like Deadwood in the 18..
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Jeffery Deaver |
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4b4e25c
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studio and the junkyards
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Jeffery Deaver |
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f78e88f
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didn't install them promptly then there's nothing we can do.
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Jeffery Deaver |
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5705a1a
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No, the
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Jeffery Deaver |
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e2f7ced
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Loving was playing a Bayesian game now, one modeled on imperfect information.
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Jeffery Deaver |
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cffa149
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the man had stabbed his wife, Rostov's mother (though only in the face and only with a screwdriver, so hardly a problem).
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Jeffery Deaver |