Authors: Jeffery Deaver
Edge (55 page)
Your enemy's purpose will dictate your responseâBond silently recited another maxim from the lectures at Fort Monckton's Specialist Training Center in Gosport. You must find the adversary's intention.
But what
was
his purpose?
Bond pulled out the monocular again, clicked on the night vision and focused. The partner opened a panel mounted on a signal beside the switch rails and began fiddling with the components inside. Bond saw that the second track, leading off to the right, was a rusting, disused spur, ending in a barrier at the top of a hill.
So it was sabotage. They were going to derail the
train by shunting it on to the spur. The cars would tumble down the hill into a stream that flowed into the Danube.
But why?
Bond turned the monocular toward the diesel engine and the wagons behind it and saw the answer. The first two cars contained only scrap metal but behind them, a canvas-covered flatbed was marked OPASNOST-DANGER! He saw, too, a hazardous-materials diamond, the universal warning sign that told emergency rescuers the risks of a particular shipment. Alarmingly, this diamond had high numbers for all three categories: health, instability and inflammability. The
W
at the bottom meant that the substance would react dangerously with water. Whatever was being carried in that car was in the deadliest category, short of nuclear materials.
The train was now three-quarters of a mile away from the switch rails, picking up speed to make the gradient to the bridge.
Your enemy's purpose will dictate your response. . . .
He didn't know how the sabotage related to Incident 20, if at all, but their immediate goal was clearâas was the response Bond now instinctively formulated. He said to the comrades, “If they try to leave, block them at the drive and take them. No lethal force.”
He leaped into the driver's seat of the Jetta. He pointed the car toward the fields where he'd been conducting surveillance and jammed down the accelerator as he released the clutch. The light car shot forward, engine and gearbox crying out at the
rough treatment, as it crashed over brush, saplings, narcissi and the raspberry bushes that grew everywhere in Serbia. Dogs fled and lights in the tiny cottages nearby flicked on. Residents in their gardens waved their arms angrily in protest.
Bond ignored them and concentrated on maintaining his speed as he drove toward his destination, guided only by scant illumination: a partial moon above and the doomed train's headlight, far brighter and rounder than the lamp of heaven.
JEFFERY DEAVER,
a former attorney and the
New York Times
bestselling author internationally hailed as “the best psychological thriller writer around” (
The Times,
London), is the originator of the acclaimed detective hero Lincoln Rhyme, featured in nine hit novels, including
The Bone Collector
âwhich became a Universal Pictures feature film starring Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolieâand
The Cold Moon,
which won a Grand Prix from the Japanese Adventure Fiction Association and was named Book of the Year by the Mystery Writers Association of Japan.
A lifelong fan of Ian Fleming's James Bond novels, Deaver was honored to be handpicked by Fleming's estate to carry on the literary tradition, beginning with his eagerly anticipated new thriller,
Carte Blanche,
now in hardcover.
His numerous stand-alone novels include the
The Devil's Teardrop,
which became a Lifetime Television movie; and
The Bodies Left Behind,
winner of the 2009 Best Novel of the Year award from the International Thriller Writers organization.
He's been nominated for seven Edgar Awards from the Mystery Writers of America, an Anthony Award, and a Gumshoe Award, and was short-listed for the ITV3 Crime Thriller Award for Best International Author. He is a three-time recipient of the Ellery Queen Readers Award for Best Short Story of the Year, and a winner of the British Thumping Good Read Award. He has also won a Steel Dagger for best thriller of the year for
Garden of Beasts
and a Short Story Dagger from the British Crime Writers' Association.
Visit
www.jefferydeaver.com
.
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A
LSO BY
J
EFFERY
D
EAVER
Carte Blanche
Edge
The Burning Wire*
Best American Mystery Stories 2009
(Editor)
The Watch List (The Copper Bracelet
and
The Chopin Manuscript
) (Contributor)
Roadside Crosses**
The Bodies Left Behind
The Broken Window*
The Sleeping Doll**
More Twisted: Collected Stories, Volume Two
The Cold Moon*/**
The Twelfth Card*
Garden of Beasts
Twisted: Collected Stories
The Vanished Man*
The Stone Monkey*
The Blue Nowhere
The Empty Chair*
Speaking in Tongues
The Devil's Teardrop
The Coffin Dancer*
The Bone Collector*
A Maiden's Grave
Praying for Sleep
The Lesson of Her Death
Mistress of Justice
Hard News
Death of a Blue Movie Star
Manhattan Is My Beat
Hell's Kitchen
Bloody River Blues
Shallow Graves
A Century of Great Suspense Stories
(Editor)
A Hot and Sultry Night for Crime
(Editor)
Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
(Introduction)
*Featuring Lincoln Rhyme and Amelia Sachs
**Featuring Kathryn Dance
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2010 by Jeffery Deaver
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ISBN 978-1-4391-5636-0
ISBN 978-1-4391-5897-5 (ebook)