The Sentinel (Jack Reacher)

by Lee Child

  Reacher wasn’t worried. Not until Fisher leaned forward and jammed the tip of the SOCOM’s suppressor into the base of his skull.

  ‘I know what you’re thinking,’ she said.

  Fisher’s hand seemed to twitch slightly. Not enough to pull the gun away from Reacher’s skin. Nothing that the other woman would notice from the other side of the back seat. Nothing that would catch the Moscow guy’s attention. But enough for Reacher to feel the variation in pressure. Three short jabs.

  A slight twitch.

  Or an S in Morse code.

  ‘You’re wondering if you could escape,’ she said.

  Her hand twitched again. One long push. A T.

  ‘Well, you can’t,’ she said.

  A jab, and a push. An A.

  ‘That would be a mistake,’ she said.

  A push, a jab, and two more pushes. A Y.

  ‘You could get hurt,’ she said.

  Four jabs. An H.

  ‘And there’s no need, anyway,’ she said.

  One jab. An E.

  ‘We just need to check that the server’s the real deal,’ she said.

  A jab, a push, and two more jabs. An L.

  ‘That won’t take long. Then we’ll give you your money,’ she said.

  A jab, two pushes, and another jab. A P.

  ‘And then, and this is the truth, you can go,’ she said.

  Reacher put the letters together. STAY HELP. ‘Me?’ Reacher said. ‘I’m not going anywhere. Not without my money.’

  The Moscow guy drove west for eight miles, not too fast, not too slow, and twelve minutes later he pulled up outside the room furthest from the office at a motel that Reacher thought must be a similar vintage to his own. It had a similar mythical bird on its sign, lit up with neon. Similar wood cladding. The same selection of vending machines. A familiar rhythm of window and door, window and door. Only this place was built in a straight line, not around a courtyard. It had half the number of rooms. And when the Moscow guy led him into number eighteen, Reacher saw there was already someone inside. A woman, in her late thirties. She was wearing a pale, knee-length skirt. A peach-coloured polo shirt, with a logo. Her hair was cut in a neat bob. Her face was plain but earnest. She was sitting at a large wooden table with a laptop computer. A thick blue wire led to a three-foot-high equipment cabinet with reinforced edges and heavy-duty castors, parked next to her chair. She was the Russians’ version of Rusty Rutherford, Reacher figured. There to assess the server. And she was already in place. Reacher appreciated the efficiency.

  Beyond the woman at the table with her computer Reacher could see that the space was much larger than his motel room. It was more like a suite. There were doors leading to a pair of bedrooms. A small kitchen. And a sitting area with a couch and a TV. The Moscow guy pushed Reacher a couple of yards further forward. The other woman on the crew followed them in and continued into one of the bedrooms. Fisher came in last. She put the stripy bag containing the server on the table and pulled out another chair. Then she took Reacher by the arm and guided him to it.

  ‘Sit,’ she said. ‘And be careful. Don’t break it.’

  Reacher lowered himself down and Fisher took a length of paracord from the thigh pocket at the side of her pants. It was blue with red flecks. And narrow. Its diameter wasn’t much greater than a decent bootlace. But Reacher knew the size was deceptive. It would be strong enough to take a regular person’s weight, in an emergency. He would have no chance of snapping it. Fisher used it to tie Reacher’s right ankle to the leg of the chair. She bound it tight. There was no slack. No room to wriggle free. No way it could come undone. Fisher pulled out another piece of cord and tied Reacher’s left ankle. Then she grabbed hold of the little finger on his right hand. Pulled it to the side, as far as it would go. Took a folding knife out of her pocket. And extended its blade.

  ‘I’m going to cut this tie,’ she said, sliding the knife blade between Reacher’s wrists and the plasticuff. ‘Do anything stupid and I’ll break your finger.’

  ‘I’ve already done something stupid,’ Reacher said. ‘I’ve come here with you.’

  Fisher freed his wrists and tied them one by one low down to the chair’s back legs. When she was done she moved aside. The Moscow guy took her place. He checked the knots. Each one in turn. Carefully. And when he was satisfied he turned to the woman at the table. The server was lined up next to her laptop, and another pair of cables snaked down from the back of it and into the portable cabinet.

  ‘How does it look?’ he said.

  The woman nodded. ‘Genuine. No doubt about that.’

  ‘Good. Call me the second you find the document. Or when you’re certain it’s not there.’ Then he turned to Fisher. ‘And you – watch Mr Reacher. Carefully. He and I will need to have a conversation. Whatever the outcome.’

  Fisher waited for the door to close behind the Moscow guy then sat down next to the woman at the table. Reacher could see the laptop screen between their heads. It was like when Sands had searched the original server at their motel. A succession of images, presumably documents and records of various kinds. Reacher could see official-looking scrolls and seals on some but others looked more like handwritten letters and notes. Most of the words were impossible to make out. They were too small. Too spidery and intricate. And he was too far away. Though he doubted they would be any more interesting if they were legible. To him, anyway. The Russians clearly had a different reason for reading them. They didn’t just want to confirm that the server was genuine. They wanted to know if the incriminating detail was there. If it wasn’t they were free and clear. There would be nothing that could help the FBI expose the spy. And they’d have no further use for Reacher. If it was there, though, that would be a different story. There would be a chance for Fisher to save The Sentinel. And then the question of copies would come into play. As in, had Reacher kept any. Which was presumably the reason the Moscow guy had changed the plan. Why he had wanted to bring Reacher to the motel. That, and his desire to stamp his authority on the team. Neither of which amounted to an attractive proposition, from Reacher’s point of view.

  Fisher kept up a constant stream of conversation. She talked about TV shows. Movies. Celebrity gossip. She was trying to bond with the computer woman, Reacher guessed. To appear friendly. Non-threatening. Not the kind of person who needed to be kept in the dark. Not the kind who would steal a vital secret. The woman paid her no attention. She was too focused on her screen and her mouse. She had fallen into a steady rhythm. She clicked an entry on a list. An image opened. She studied it for about a second, then she closed it. She clicked on the next entry. Studied the image for a second. Closed it. Clicked. Studied. Closed. On and on. Over and over. The whole thing made Reacher simultaneously tense and bored.

  The other woman appeared in her bedroom doorway. She fetched a bottle of water from the fridge, crossed to the table, watched the images flicker across the screen for a couple of minutes, then went back to her room. The computer woman kept going like a robot. Click. Study. Close. Click. Study. Close. She went on for another ten minutes. More than five hundred documents. Fisher was still chatting away. Then the woman’s pattern changed. She held one image open for three seconds. Then she checked five more, reverting to a one-second interval for each.

  ‘Time for a bathroom break.’ The computer woman closed the laptop, stood up, and headed for the second bedroom. ‘Back in a minute.’

  Fisher rested her head on the table and looked for all the world like she was about to fall asleep. But the moment the bedroom door closed she sat back up, fully alert. She opened the laptop. A picture appeared on the screen. A church, all bright colours and twisty onion-shaped domes. It was clearly Russian. Reacher recognized it. The Church of the Saviour on the Spilled Blood. In St Petersburg. Reacher had visited the city on a trip after the Soviet Union fell. He remembered it because it was the first major church to be designed from the outset for use with electric light.

  A box popped up in the ce
ntre of the screen. There was a line of Cyrillic characters in a bar at the top. Reacher assumed it was asking for a password. Fisher typed something. Reacher couldn’t tell what because each keystroke was represented by an asterisk. But whatever she entered, it worked. The church gave way to the list of files. Fisher used the mouse to select the entry five places above the one that was highlighted. An image appeared. Fisher pulled a small folding cell phone out of her pocket. She opened it and took two photographs of the screen. She closed the phone. Closed the image. Opened the entry that had been highlighted. Closed it. Closed the computer. Then stepped across to Reacher. She pushed the phone into his pocket, followed it with a car key, and leaned in close to his ear.

  ‘Found it,’ she whispered. ‘There was a third brother. You have to get the picture to Wallwork. Wait till the tech comes back. Break free. Should be easy; I removed most of the screws. You’ll have to knock us both out. Me first, so she sees. Sonya too, if she comes out. The car’s parked out front. Chevy Malibu. White.’

  Fisher gripped Reacher quickly on the shoulder and rushed back to the table. She rested her head on the surface. The technician came back from the bedroom. Sat down. Opened the laptop. Entered her password. And resumed her routine. Open. Study. Close. Open. Study. Close. Reacher gave it two minutes. More than a hundred extra documents. Then he leaned forward, lifting the chair legs and pivoting on the balls of his feet. He slammed back down. The chair disintegrated. Reacher wound up on the floor surrounded by fragments of wood. Some were smashed and shattered. Others were virtually intact. The upright sections of the legs were still attached to his wrists and ankles by the paracord. He ignored them and started for the door.

  Fisher blocked his path. The SOCOM was in her hand. The suppressor was still attached. ‘Stop. Hands behind your head. Right now.’

  Reacher glanced at the technician. She was still sitting, frozen, no sign of a weapon. He looked at the bedroom door. It was still closed. That simplified the geometry. He kicked the gun out of Fisher’s hand then moved half a step to his right so that his body was in a straight line between the two women. That way the technician could see him pull his arm back. Wind up for a punch. Launch his fist towards Fisher. But she couldn’t see what kind of connection he made. All she saw was Fisher crash down to the side, hit the floor, and lie there totally inert.

  Reacher checked the bedroom door. It was still closed. He looked at the technician. Her training had finally kicked in. She was scrambling for her purse. Trying to pull out her Glock. Reacher stepped across and hit her on the side of the head, left-handed. Not too hard. Enough to put her lights out. But not to cause lasting amnesia.

  Reacher retrieved the SOCOM from the floor. He looked at the bedroom door. The handle was turning. It was beginning to open. The muzzle of a Glock appeared in the gap. Held in two hands. Moving slowly forward. The woman was clearly cautious. Which was fortunate. It kept her out of danger when Reacher fired two quick rounds into the door frame. She ducked back inside the room and slammed the door. Reacher made for the exit. The shots hadn’t made an excessive noise, thanks to the suppressor. Like someone whacking a table with a rolled-up magazine. But it was possible the sound had carried to the next room. Maybe occupied by other members of the Russian crew. Maybe by civilians. Either way, Reacher figured that the charade had gone on long enough. He went outside. Identified the car. Climbed in. Started the engine. Nudged the lever into Drive. And pushed the gas pedal all the way to the floor.

  Reacher drove fast for half a mile then pulled over to the side of the road. He slid the SOCOM under his seat and took out the phone Fisher had given him. He needed to call up the pictures she had taken and then send them to Wallwork. He hit the menu button. Then closed the phone.

  Something was bothering him. Something about the situation was not right. He put the phone back in his pocket. Pulled back on to the road. And continued, as fast as he dared, to the truck-stop motel where he’d left Sands and Rutherford.

  The same time Reacher was approaching the truck stop, Speranski’s secure phone was starting to ring.

  ‘The bait has been taken,’ the voice at the end of the line said.

  Speranski smiled to himself. ‘How soon will they bring her?’

  ‘I said the bait’s been taken. Not swallowed. She gave the phone to the drifter. He left with it. But he hasn’t sent the message.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I don’t know. Maybe he’s holding out for more money. Maybe he doesn’t know how to work the phone. Maybe he got cold feet. We’ll find out. And we’re monitoring around the clock. The moment he sends it, you’ll know.’

  Reacher parked the Chevy outside room eighteen and hurried inside. Sands was there. She was standing at the end of the second bed. Eyes wide. Feet shoulder-width apart. Arms straight. Holding her Colt in both hands. A classic shooter’s stance. The isosceles. Named for the triangle shape made by the back and the arms. A good stance for accuracy. Which could have been a problem for Reacher, given that Sands was aiming directly at his chest.

  ‘Reacher!’ Sands lowered the gun and hurried towards him. ‘Where have you been? I was worried sick. I kept calling and you didn’t pick up.’

  ‘Long story,’ Reacher said. ‘Major developments. I’ll explain everything, but right now I need your help.’ He pulled Fisher’s phone out of his pocket. ‘There’s a picture on here. Of a document. From the server I gave the Russians. Fisher thinks it’s the one with the spy’s ID. She wants me to send it to Wallwork.’

  ‘That’s easy. Give me the phone. I’ll do it now.’

  ‘No. I think there’s something wrong. I think Fisher is being set up.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘A few reasons. Starting with the flowers. Klostermann’s edelweiss. They weren’t there when Rusty and I went to his house. Then they were the next day. When he was meeting with the Nazis. Seems a little coincidental.’

  ‘Not necessarily. Could be lots of reasons for not having flowers every day.’

  ‘There’s also the money. Why pay fifteen thousand dollars for the server when Klostermann could just wait a week for the ransom to be paid and the digital archive to open up again? That’s what a normal person would do. And why pay Toni Garza to go looking for the server the moment the ransomware attack happened? It’s like he knows the archive won’t be unlocked.’

  ‘It won’t be unlocked, according to Agent Fisher.’

  ‘That’s my point. How could Klostermann know that? Only the Russians know, because they’re behind the attack.’

  ‘But Klostermann is part of the Nazi group. You met them. Saw their tattoos. They’re organizing a rally. That’s all for real.’

  ‘The group’s for real. The rally’s for real. That doesn’t mean Klostermann is. Those Nazis believe he’s one of them. But that doesn’t prove anything. They weren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer. Klostermann could easily be a Russian. Discord and division. The core of their strategy. Boost rival groups and set them against each other. Breed violence and hate.’

  ‘But if Klostermann is a Russian, why was Fisher’s team not pulled out when he got the server?’

  ‘Here’s the favourable explanation. They didn’t believe me when I said it was the original. They were waiting to see if any other copies came to light. So they could mop them all up.’

  ‘That makes sense. And what’s the unfavourable version?’

  ‘Long story short, I wound up at the Russians’ motel after I was at the diner. They had a computer expert there, ready to go. She homed in on this file right away. Even though the FBI guys haven’t found it in what? Almost forty-eight hours.’

  ‘She knew what she was looking for. The FBI guys didn’t.’

  ‘Maybe. But this expert, she practically signalled to Fisher that she found it. Then she left the room, making it mighty easy to get a copy. And as for my escape, I just strolled out of there. So here’s what I’m worried about. They left her team in the field specifically so that Fisher would see the docu
ment.’

  ‘They planted it? Why?’

  ‘To misdirect the FBI. To protect their agent by setting up a second, disposable asset to take the fall.’

  ‘You know what that means. They know Fisher’s a mole. They’re playing her. Reacher, the Bureau has to pull her out.’

  ‘If I’m right, yes. But we need to be sure. Can we see if the document Fisher found is on our server? If it isn’t, we know it’s a fake. And if it is, we can compare the two.’

  ‘Theoretically. But there are thousands of documents. It could take weeks to find it. We need something to narrow it down.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘A filename would be great.’

  ‘Where would we get that?’

  ‘It would be in a bar at the top of the image, probably. Like a title. Here – give me the phone.’ Sands looked at the screen then shook her head. ‘The image is too small. And the phone’s too basic to have email. I’ll text the image to my phone, then send it to the computer.’

  Sands hit some keys on Fisher’s phone, then some more keys on her own phone, then led the way through the connecting door to room nineteen. They found Rutherford standing next to his bed. He looked pale. His hair was a disaster. But he was upright, and that had to count as progress.

  ‘What’s happening?’ he said.

  Reacher brought Rutherford up to speed while Sands woke the laptop and retrieved the email she’d sent herself. The screen filled with the image of a form displayed on another computer screen. The picture was a little fuzzy but it looked like the paper had originally been a very pale green. With some kind of large watermark at the centre. A Greek key border in black around the edge. The official headings and boxes and instructions were also printed in black. So was a stamp saying DRAFT. Then back in 1949 someone had completed the necessary sections by hand, in flowing cursive, with royal blue ink. They had stated the address, which was familiar. And the names of the three owners. Artur Klich and Kamil Klich, the spy brothers. And Krystian Klich, who must have been the third brother. Whose identity had been kept secret. Who Fisher thought was the link to the spy at Oak Ridge.