The Sentinel

by Lee Child

  The reality was very different. At least at the facility the town used. It was surrounded by a ten-foot-high fence made of metal strips, divided and sharpened at the top, and draped in razor wire. Very old school. Inside the gate the operation was ingenious rather than advanced. The blacktop gave over to compacted dirt, rising and turning to form a broad, elevated half doughnut before dropping back down towards the exit. Within the semicircle there were six dumpsters, extra large, with no lids. They were arranged end-on, meeting in the centre like the spokes of a wheel. Each one was dedicated to a different material. Giant signs specified which kinds. Paper and cardboard went in the first. Then glass. Ferrous metal. Non-ferrous metal. Plastic. And finally a catch-all for any other kinds of trash that had been brought there by mistake. Reacher assumed the recycling trucks would drive up, swing around to the appropriate dumpster, and unload. The height and width and incline and turn radius had probably been calculated specially. There was only one snag that he could see. There was no place designated for electronic equipment.

  Sands stopped the minivan between the third and fourth dumpsters and Reacher climbed out to investigate. He discounted paper and glass and was wondering whether computers could be classed as plastic due to their outer cases, or metal due to their inner workings, when he heard a voice. A man’s. Yelling at him.

  ‘Hey!’ the guy said. ‘The hell are you doing? You can’t be here. Where’s your permit?’

  The guy had emerged from a Portakabin that was hidden from the entrance to the site by the earth mound. It was presumably some kind of an office. Or a place to hide from the sun. He looked to be in his mid-sixties. His face was burned and wrinkled like a walnut. His hands were shrivelled and the veins and tendons stood out like cords under his skin. His hair was thin and grey and tangled and it hung down past his shoulders. Technically he was wearing faded blue coveralls with some kind of corporate logo on the chest, but he was so skinny and the material was so stiff from the laundry it looked like the clothes had swallowed him.

  ‘Computers,’ Reacher said. ‘Which dumpster would they be in?’

  ‘Get back in your car,’ the guy said. ‘Leave. Right now. Or I’m calling 911.’

  ‘It’s no good calling 911. The police department’s phones are down. Haven’t you heard? And there’s no need. We’ll be happy to leave. Just as soon as we pick up something that got sent here by mistake. Something that belongs to us.’

  ‘If it’s here, it belongs to us. It says so in the contract with the town. You take something, you’re stealing it. Can’t have that.’ The guy ducked back into the cabin and reappeared a moment later holding a shotgun. A Benelli M1 Tactical. A nice weapon. Shipped in all the way from Italy. Capable of holding six 12-gauge cartridges. It looked brand new. ‘That’s why the company gives us these. And trains us how to use them.’

  Reacher wasn’t entirely convinced that a recycling company would hand out military-grade weaponry to its employees. And he was certain that this particular employee had not gone through any kind of training. Not in the last thirty years, anyway. Given the state he was in, if the guy pulled the trigger the recoil would knock him on his ass. Break his collarbone, for sure. Maybe his whole shoulder. But if he pulled the trigger from that range, any damage the guy did to himself would be the least of Reacher’s worries. He was conscious of the captured Beretta in his waistband. The old guy’s movements had been pretty slow up to that point. Putting him out of action before he could bring the Benelli to bear would be pretty straightforward. But maybe a little premature at that stage. It was a little early to abandon diplomacy altogether.

  Reacher started to move away from the minivan. Very slowly. Just in case negotiations failed.

  ‘Hold it,’ the guy said. He raised the shotgun to his shoulder. ‘I told you to get in the car. Not move away from it.’

  The driver’s door opened and Sands climbed out. She had a black leather wallet in her hand. She held it out in front of her, at shoulder height, like a tiny shield. ‘Federal agents,’ she said. ‘Put the gun down.’

  Diplomacy, Reacher thought. Or lying. It could be hard to tell them apart.

  The old guy lowered the gun, but he didn’t let go of it.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Sands said.

  The guy hesitated for a moment. ‘You can call me Polk.’

  ‘OK then, General. Here’s what we’re going to do. First, you’re going to answer a question. The electronic equipment that gets brought here from the town. What happens to it?’

  ‘It gets stored. Along with the ’tronics from our other clients. Then it gets taken away.’

  ‘Who by?’

  The guy shrugged. ‘Whoever buys it, I guess. One year it’s one guy. The next year, someone else. I don’t get to pick.’

  ‘When do they take it? How often?’

  ‘Once a month. First Monday, usually. Unless they’re late. Which they sometimes are.’

  ‘So everything that came in the last three weeks is still here?’

  ‘Right. Why wouldn’t it be?’

  ‘Where?’

  The guy gestured over his shoulder, to the cabin. ‘In there. Locked up.’

  ‘Show me.’ Sands started down the slope.

  ‘Hold it,’ the guy said. ‘You got a warrant? You can’t come in demanding to see stuff without one. I know my rights. We’ve had training.’

  Sands continued until she was standing right in front of him. Reacher tracked her movement, keeping six feet to the right.

  ‘You want paperwork, huh?’ Sands tipped her head to the side. ‘I’m surprised. You don’t look much like a paperwork kind of guy. But that’s no problem. Not for me, anyway. Got a fax machine in there? I can get warrants. Subpoenas. Criminal records. Whatever I want. Assuming that’s a path you want to go down?’

  The guy didn’t respond.

  ‘Anything in the system your bosses don’t know about?’ Sands said. ‘Yet?’

  ‘Assholes,’ the guy said. He ducked back into the cabin and replaced the Benelli in its rack, then led the way to the far end of the structure. He worked a lock. Pushed down on a handle, which took all his weight. Heaved open a pair of doors. Leaned inside. Hit a switch, which brought four pairs of fluorescent tubes flickering into life. Then stood to the side.

  ‘See for yourself,’ he said. ‘It’s all there.’

  The space accounted for half the footprint of the cabin. There were grey metal shelves, floor to ceiling, lined up around all three walls. Some smaller items were scattered on the shelves nearest the entrance. Reacher could see cell phones and cameras and DVD players and a couple of laptops. But the main action was on the floor in the centre of the room. There were dozens of computers and keyboards and monitors and printers and widescreen TVs along with a bunch of other devices Reacher didn’t recognize. All heaped up together. All tangled in a chaotic jumble of cables and wires like a giant electronic spider had been absorbing it into its web.

  ‘Which ones are they?’ Reacher moved to let Sands get a better view. ‘Can you tell?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Sands said. ‘There’s no sign of the cabinet they were in. But that did have a broken door. They probably took the servers out and threw the rest of it in one of those dumpsters. Better get Rusty down here. I’ll need help finding them in all this junk.’

  ‘I’m here.’ Rutherford appeared from around the corner of the cabin. He looked into the room and nodded his head. ‘All right. They must be buried in the middle of all this. Come on. Let’s get to work. I want all eight of them, just in case.’

  Rutherford scrambled through the mess to the far side on the basis that each new delivery was apparently shoved in on top of the last and the servers could have been there for a couple of weeks. Sands handed her purse to Reacher and went in after him. It was hot inside. The roof was made of metal. So were the walls. There was an air conditioner but it only cooled the office area. Not the storage side. It was as if their prize was hidden in an oven. Reacher stayed outside. It was
n’t a great deal cooler in the direct sun. But he wanted to keep an eye on the guy with the grey hair. He knew the man pulling Marty’s strings had put out an order to watch for Rutherford. The man with a liking for suitcases and bone saws. There was no reason to believe the grey-haired guy was involved. Or that Fisher’s cell would be put back on active duty if anyone called in a sighting. But plans change. Opportunities present themselves. Sometimes they’re too good to resist. They were in a remote location. Two of them were in an enclosed space. And the guy had a shotgun.

  Rutherford and Sands continued to sift through the mound of discarded equipment. The grey-haired guy leaned one shoulder against the cabin wall and watched them. He made no move for his phone. Or a panic button. Or an alarm. The sun continued to beat down. Reacher continued to watch all three people. Until finally Rutherford and Sands emerged into the open air. They were blinking against the light. Their clothes were clinging with sweat. Their skin was smeared with dust. And their hands were empty.

  Sands took back her purse.

  Rutherford approached the grey-haired guy. ‘Where’s everything else?’

  The guy straightened up. ‘Like what? This is everything.’

  ‘It can’t be. Some things are missing. Eight things, at least. From the town IT department.’

  The guy shrugged.

  ‘Where else could they be?’

  ‘You accusing me of something?’

  ‘What? No. Is there another site somewhere, is what I mean. Like an overflow?’

  ‘No. Everything comes here.’

  ‘Who else works here?’ Reacher said.

  ‘No one. Just me.’

  ‘What if you’re out sick? Or on vacation?’

  ‘My boss would send someone. To fill in for me.’

  ‘When was the last time that happened?’

  The guy chewed on his lower lip for a moment. ‘Let’s see. Last time I was sick was 1986. In the summer. I had my appendix taken out. At Vanderbilt. Nice place. And my last vacation? It was at the millennium. I went to Canada to see my brother. Used to go every New Year’s. But now he’s dead.’

  ‘I don’t get it,’ Rutherford said. ‘These things. What could have happened to them? They can’t have disappeared into thin air.’

  The guy shrugged again. ‘If they’re not here, whatever they are, then they never came. Or they’ve already been taken away again.’

  ‘What about site logs?’ Sands moved across and stood next to Rutherford. ‘You must keep records of what comes in and out?’

  ‘Deliveries and collections,’ the guy said. ‘Sure.’

  ‘Show me.’

  The guy sighed, then led the way to the entrance to the office. He indicated that everyone should remain outside and ducked through the door, reappearing a moment later with a clipboard in each hand. He passed the first one to Sands. Reacher read it over her shoulder. It was for collections. There were eight entries for the current month. But only one for electronics. It was dated the second. Before the ransomware attack. Before Rutherford had trashed the servers. So before they could have arrived at the facility, let alone been removed.

  Sands swapped clipboards. The second one listed the deliveries. There had been thirty-two so far that month. The most frequent kinds were glass and non-ferrous metal. Bottles and cans from the local bars and restaurants, Reacher guessed. Then paper. Probably a surge due to the municipal computers being down. Electronics was all the way at the bottom. There had only been two consignments. Both had come from the town’s IT department. And both were after Rutherford had discovered his backup had failed.

  ‘The electronics deliveries, here and here,’ Sands said, pointing at the entries. ‘Show me the itemization for those.’

  The guy looked at her blankly for a moment. ‘What itemization? We don’t list all the things that come in. How could we? There are too many. And what would be the point? Computer mouse, beige, not working. Computer mouse, beige, not working. Computer mouse, beige, not working. How would you tell one from the other?’

  ‘OK.’ Sands pointed to another entry on the sheet, next to the column for the delivery vehicle’s licence plate. ‘Driver ID. It’s the same both times. #083. Whose number is that?’

  The guy looked at the signature line. ‘Dave. Dave Thomassino.’

  ‘Where can we find him?’ Sands said.

  ‘How would I know? He’s a delivery guy. He drives in, drops off a bunch of stuff, and drives away again. It’s not like we hang out.’

  ‘What’s his route today?’

  ‘How would I know? I’m not his boss.’

  ‘When’s his next delivery scheduled?’

  ‘No idea. The guys just show up when their trucks are full and they need to unload.’

  ‘Where does he live?’

  ‘No idea. Like I said, we’re not buddies.’

  ‘What about his truck?’ Reacher said. ‘Does he take it home at night?’

  ‘No.’ The guy shook his head. ‘They’re not allowed to. They leave the trucks at the depot. Drive home in their own vehicles.’

  ‘Do they work on their own?’ Reacher said. ‘Or in pairs? Or teams?’

  ‘For the bigger stuff it’s two men to a truck,’ the guy said. ‘Thomassino’s is smaller. He works alone. You don’t need two men to toss in a bunch of iPhones or whatever.’

  ‘Where’s the depot?’ Sands said.

  ‘Next to the office,’ the guy said.

  ‘Where’s the office? And don’t say next to the depot or we’re going to have a problem.’

  ‘I’ll write the address for you.’

  ‘Write Thomassino’s cell number as well.’

  ‘I can’t. I don’t know it.’

  ‘Good,’ Sands said. ‘Make sure it stays that way. Because if Thomassino doesn’t show up at the depot for any reason, I’ll be coming back. And you’ll be spending whatever time you have left on this earth in a federal penitentiary.’

  EIGHTEEN

  Reacher, Rutherford and Sands left the guy with his clipboards and trudged back up the slope. They climbed into the minivan. Sands fired up the engine. She cranked the air all the way up and set off slowly, following the curve around and down and off the dirt and through the exit gate and back out on to the blacktop. No one spoke. Reacher sprawled out in the back. He was thinking about the servers. About what might have happened to them. He had two plausible theories. Option A was that they’d been trashed. He pictured the guy, Thomassino, going to collect them. Thomassino worked alone. Which was probably fine when he was picking up small things like cell phones. But there were eight servers. They were housed in a cabinet. It was six feet tall. Heavy. Hard to manoeuvre. Stuck on some kind of irregularity in the floor. And its door was broken. Glass shards would be sticking out. Making it dangerous to handle, as well as difficult. The log showed that Thomassino arrived at the recycling centre after 5:00 p.m. on each occasion. Probably his last job on both days. Would he have bothered to wrestle with the cabinet on his own, so close to the end of his shift? Or would he have slipped the guys on the regular garbage duty a couple of crisp twenties to take care of the problem for him?

  Option B assumed Thomassino would have made the effort to remove the cabinet. Or at least its contents. It was only Rutherford’s experimental software that had failed. The servers themselves were in working order. Maybe Thomassino kept an eye out for such things. Maybe he had a regular buyer on standby. Reacher had no idea what second-hand computer equipment was worth. Maybe a lot. Maybe not very much. The reward may not have been high. But the risk was virtually non-existent. How would the theft ever come to light, under normal circumstances? The town guys would be happy because their unwanted items had been removed. The recycling guys would never know to expect them, because nothing was itemized.

  So, laziness or greed? Even money in Reacher’s experience. Impossible to pick between them without knowing more about Thomassino. And most likely irrelevant, anyway. The servers could have been crushed or incinerated or sent t
o a landfill. They could have been wiped and restored to factory settings and sold. Either way the data would be lost. The identity of the Russian spy would remain a secret. And Rutherford would still be in danger. Reacher would have to decide what to do about that. Staying in town to babysit him indefinitely was out of the question. So was leaving him alone and vulnerable. The best option would be to persuade him to get out of town, but Reacher had tried that. He saw little hope of getting Rutherford to change his mind. Not without divulging dangerous information. Maybe Sands could help, he thought. She was ex-Bureau. He could talk to her. Hint at the source of the problem. Obliquely enough to avoid compromising Fisher. Directly enough to stress the urgency. That might work. Unless Thomassino rendered the problem moot. Maybe he would serve up a miracle. Maybe the servers were sitting safely at his house, untouched, contents intact.

  Hope for the best.

  Given a free hand Reacher would have proceeded directly to the depot. The site log showed Thomassino working past 5:00 p.m. on the days he delivered electronics to the recycling facility but there was no guarantee those were his regular hours. The safest course would be to locate the truck drivers’ personal vehicles as quickly as possible and wait. An hour. Two hours. Five. As long as necessary. It was all the same to Reacher. He could wait all day. But he could see it wasn’t the same for Sands and Rutherford. They were cranky after failing to find their equipment. Probably worried about their prospects of ever recovering it. And definitely uncomfortable after rooting around inside the hot metal cabin. He was going to have to cut them some slack. Unless he went to find Thomassino on his own. Which was a possibility. The risk should be minimal. Fisher’s cell was stood down to surveillance only.

  Reacher decided they should stick together. There was another factor to take into account. Suppose their luck changed and Thomassino came clean immediately. Admitted to stealing all the serviceable equipment he came across and took Reacher to his stash. Reacher didn’t know what a server looked like. He needed Rutherford with him to handle the identification. And Sands had proved herself more than valuable, finding the location of the recycling plant and then duping the guy with the shotgun. A little downtime wouldn’t kill them, Reacher figured. As long as they were at the depot by 4:00 p.m.