The Sentinel (Jack Reacher)

by Lee Child

  ‘There, look,’ Sands said. She pointed to a strip of white text at the centre of a blue band at the top of the image. Scan00001968.jpg. ‘That’s what we need.’ She typed on the keypad and clicked on the trackpad and entered the filename into a box that appeared. She hit the enter key, and a second later the screen filled with a clearer version of the same form.

  ‘Wait,’ Sands said. She pointed at the section of the form that listed the property owners. It looked like the same handwriting. It was the same colour ink. It also gave three names. Artur Klich. Kamil Klich. And Natalia Matusak. ‘It isn’t the same. And who’s Natalia Matusak?’

  ‘Natalia Matusak is Henry Klostermann’s mother,’ Reacher said. ‘Heinrich Klostermann was her second husband. A dime gets a dollar her original name was Klich. The third agent wasn’t another brother. It was her. Artur and Kamil’s sister.’

  ‘This document was a draft,’ Sands said. ‘They destroyed it to keep Natalia’s existence a secret. Or thought they had. But this is the original version. The one Fisher saw had been altered.’

  ‘How could they do that?’ Rutherford said. ‘The server was never out of your sight. Except when it was in the trunk.’

  ‘They must have gotten a copy of the document from the server we sold Klostermann. That would give them plenty of time to doctor it. Their expert loaded it while Fisher was tying me up. Then she made sure Fisher saw it, knowing she would pass it to the FBI. Who would miss the connection to Klostermann. And jump to the wrong conclusion about the identity of the spy at Oak Ridge.’

  ‘How would that help them? If the third brother is made up, there can’t be a trail leading to anyone.’

  ‘There absolutely can. The Russians will have planned for this. There’ll be a perfect trail. Complex enough to seem real. Not so convoluted that the average agent couldn’t follow it. It’ll lead to a patsy. Someone sitting in Knoxville right now. Probably with a copy of The Sentinel hidden in their shoe. Waiting to run. And to get caught. And to confess.’

  ‘Why would anyone do that?’

  ‘They could think they’re making a noble sacrifice for a worthwhile cause. Or to get a big payday for their family back home. Or to stay out of the gulag. Who knows?’

  ‘But if the evidence is fake, how can the Bureau figure out the right identity?’ Rutherford said. ‘They’re back at square one.’

  ‘They’re not,’ Reacher said. ‘They can start with Klostermann. He mentioned having a son. He might have grandkids by now. The angle was never followed up because no one knew his mother was a spy.’

  ‘That makes sense,’ Sands said. ‘The Bureau wanted the server because the Russians knew it could reveal the spy’s identity. The link in that document is to Klostermann. So Klostermann must be linked to the spy.’

  ‘Not using the Klostermann name, obviously,’ Reacher said. ‘Or someone would have noticed. Maybe Matusak, since that’s the name they were trying to hide.’

  ‘OK,’ Rutherford said. ‘I see that. But take a step back. The journalist found the document in the archives. The document showed there was an extra branch to the spy brothers’ family tree. The Russians didn’t want anyone to know about that because it would lead to Klostermann. And his son. And maybe grandchildren. So they destroy the physical archive. Lock up the digital one. And get hold of the server. The wild card. Why not leave it at that? All their tracks were covered. Why set up Agent Fisher with this red-herring ID?’

  ‘The FBI knew the Russians had a spy at Oak Ridge,’ Reacher said. ‘If the Russians had destroyed the records and left it at that, the FBI would have kept on digging. Maybe found some other clue. If the Russians’ plan had worked the FBI would have thought they’d caught the spy. And stopped digging. There’s no need to search for something you already have.’

  Speranski was pacing around his living room when his secure phone rang again.

  ‘The bait has been swallowed,’ the voice at the end of the line said. ‘The message has been sent. But not to the Bureau itself. To a former agent who is now a cyber security expert. The Americans must believe it’s genuine.’

  ‘So, Natasha?’

  ‘She’s outlived her usefulness. The Center says you may do with her as you please.’

  Reacher left Sands and Rutherford looking through other random records on the server and went next door to call Wallwork. He told him Fisher’s cover was blown. And about the two possible leads to Oak Ridge. One likely fake. One likely real. Wallwork wasn’t too worried about the difference.

  ‘We’ll find them both,’ he said. ‘Even if one’s only a decoy. And we’ll nail them both. Then pull Fisher out. Make sure she’s safe.’

  ‘No, Wallwork,’ Reacher said. ‘You’ve got to pull her out right now.’

  ‘We can’t do that. If Fisher disappears right after seeing the records on the server, the Russians will be suspicious. They’ll pull their agent out of Oak Ridge. We’ll never know if The Sentinel is compromised. What we have to do is coordinate her exfiltration exactly with the arrests.’

  ‘You’re wrong. You’re still looking at the mission from your original position – that Fisher’s identity was unknown to the Russians. But they do know about her. They’re using her as a conduit for misinformation. So they’re not going to let her live until their patsy is arrested. Right now Fisher believes what she sent is genuine. She was focused on finding it for months, so when it was dangled in front of her she bit. It was a reflex. But when the heat of the moment has passed? And all the coincidences line up in her head? They won’t run that risk. They’ll kill her as soon as they’re confident you’ve received her information. In other words, now. So you’ve got to act. Immediately.’

  Wallwork didn’t reply right away. Reacher could hear him fiddling with a pen. He pictured the guy. The pieces falling into place in his head. Him not liking the picture that was produced.

  ‘OK,’ Wallwork said after another minute. ‘You’re probably right. We have a small window. But we’re lucky, in a way. How things worked out, with her giving you the phone.’

  ‘How’s that lucky?’ Reacher said.

  ‘I think you’re right that they’ll kill her as soon as they know her information has been sent. But how will they know it’s been sent? By monitoring her phone.’

  ‘Fisher wouldn’t use a Russian-issue phone.’

  ‘Of course not. She procured a clean one, specially for the purpose. They’ll have cloned it. That’s what I would do, in their shoes. It’s easy, and it will tell them the moment a message is sent. Or a call is made. But we don’t have that problem. You didn’t send me the picture, and you called me from your own phone.’

  ‘But a message was sent from her phone. Just now.’

  ‘Why? Who to?’

  ‘We needed a filename to trace the original document. To compare. The picture was too small to read on the phone. We needed to see it on the computer.’

  There was another pause. Reacher heard Wallwork fiddling with his pen again. Then there was the sound of breaking glass.

  ‘Well, congratulations, Reacher,’ Wallwork said. ‘You just killed Margaret Fisher.’

  Sands drove Reacher to the Russians’ motel. Wallwork had warned him not to go. He promised to send in the cavalry himself. But then he mentioned procedures. Levels of classification. Clearance protocols. Reacher knew what words like those added up to. Delays. So he figured it was an outside chance, but if Fisher was still there, and still alive, maybe he could do something more direct. Something that didn’t involve warrants. Or sign-offs. Or permissions of any kind.

  All the cars had gone from the end section of the building. When they swung by they could see the drapes in room eighteen were open. No one was visible. So Sands stopped the Chevy right by the office door and went inside with Reacher. They went straight to the counter. A guy was sitting behind it, maybe thirty years old, with a plain baseball cap and a grey shirt with red piping and the name Chuck embroidered in an oval on his chest.

  Sands pulled out h
er worn black wallet. ‘Federal agents,’ she said. ‘We’re looking for the people who are renting room eighteen. Are they here?’

  ‘They were,’ Chuck said. ‘The same group had fifteen, sixteen and seventeen as well. The four rooms all the way at the end. Anyway, they’re gone now. They checked out a few minutes ago.’

  ‘Did they say where they were going?’

  ‘No, ma’am. And one of them didn’t seem well. One of the women. I think she was sick. Or drunk.’

  Fisher, Reacher thought. Drugged so that she would be easier to manipulate.

  ‘OK,’ Sands said. ‘Never mind. We’ll need to see inside the rooms.’

  ‘No problem.’ Chuck took four keys from a pegboard on the wall and set them on the counter. ‘Just bring these back when you’re done.’

  They started in eighteen, as that had been Fisher’s room. Then they moved on to the others. The rooms were pristine. Reacher had checked into places that weren’t as clean. Even the bullet holes he’d made in the bedroom door frame had been spackled over. There was no trash. Nothing of any kind had been left behind. Not by accident. Not hidden by Fisher. Reacher looked under the mattresses and between the folded towels and inside the toilet rolls and in the cupboards and drawers and wardrobes. He tried everywhere he’d ever heard of anything being found in all his years in the military police. He even ran hot water in the basins in the bathrooms in case Fisher had left a message on any of the mirrors. He didn’t find as much as a hair.

  ‘Nada,’ Sands said as they finished up in fifteen. ‘What now?’

  ‘Call Wallwork back,’ Reacher said. ‘See if he has anything to add.’

  They ducked into the office to drop the room keys on the way to the car, and Chuck beckoned them closer.

  ‘I was thinking, ma’am,’ he said. ‘I don’t know where those people went. But I know what they went to do. Would that help you at all?’

  ‘It might,’ Sands said. ‘What?’

  ‘They went golfing.’

  Sands crossed her arms. ‘Golfing? Are you sure?’

  ‘Pretty sure. I heard two of them talking. They were speaking Russian. I know a little because my grandparents were from St Petersburg. Anyway, one of the people used the word бункерный. It means bunker. Where do you get bunkers? Golf courses. There are a few around here. The second guy said something about it having been there for ever, so it must be an old one.’

  ‘Golf?’ Reacher said, when they were back in the car. ‘What an idiot.’

  ‘He was wrong about the golf,’ Sands said. ‘That’s for sure. But I think he just told us where the Russians took Fisher.’

  ‘He did? Where?’

  ‘When you were on the phone with Wallwork, Rusty and I pulled up some of the old records. We found a few for the lot next to the Spy House. The Klich brothers bought it about the same time they bought the land for the house. They filed a bunch of construction permits. Some more than once. And there were file notes about neighbours complaining about noise. From excavators and cement trucks. Rusty thought that was weird, because the Spy House is pretty much on its own. He said there was nothing built next to it. Not above ground, anyway. So I’m thinking, what kind of thing do you need excavators and lots of cement to make?’

  ‘A bunker,’ Reacher said.

  ‘Right,’ Sands said. ‘Only a Cold War bunker. Not one that’s full of sand and golf balls.’

  ‘Fisher thought the spy brothers did nothing while they were in Tennessee,’ Reacher said. ‘She was wrong. They supervised the building work.’

  ‘And when they left their sister took over,’ Sands said. ‘Klostermann’s mom. They took her off the records so no one would make the connection. She married Heinrich Klostermann and the house went in his name. Like money laundering, almost. Only with real estate.’

  ‘Then their son Henry took over when they died.’

  ‘Which is why he still lives there. You can’t sell a house with a Cold War bunker in the back yard without raising a few eyebrows. Not that the bunker can be much use these days.’

  ‘Until now. Come on. We need to head over there and recce the place.’

  ‘We can make a start from here.’ Sands picked up her phone and prodded and pinched at the screen until a satellite image of the Spy House’s yard was displayed. She zoomed in as close as she could but there still wasn’t much to see. Just an expanse of flat, scorched grass on the far side of a row of trees. The kind of field you might keep a donkey in if you didn’t like it very much. There was only one other feature. A set of concrete steps. They were at the end of a dirt driveway, and appeared to descend directly into the raw earth. ‘There’s not much to it. I thought there’d be hatchways and ventilation pipes and water tanks. Things we could use to get in.’

  Reacher shook his head. ‘It was built for people to shelter in after a nuclear war. Everything will be self-contained. The water, the air, it will all be treated and recirculated. By machines. Deep underground. There could be some kind of umbilical connection to the house, I guess. For power. Maybe water. To keep things ticking over during peacetime. Or for maintenance. But probably no other contact with the outside world at all.’

  ‘We should let Wallwork know. He’ll need explosives. Digging equipment. Tunnelling machines.’

  ‘He will. If the place is locked down. I’ll call him from the car. But then I want to see this bunker for myself. There’s one thing that’s on our side.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They don’t know we’re coming.’

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sands stopped the car in front of Klostermann’s gate. She looked at Reacher, crossed her fingers, then stretched out and hit the intercom button.

  There was no reply.

  Hope for the best.

  She tried again.

  Nothing happened.

  The gate was made of iron. It was eight feet high. And it was the kind that slides to the side so there are no hinges. No join in the centre. No weak spots at all. So there was no chance of breaking it down. Or forcing it open. If no one operated it for them, the only way through was to enter the correct access code.

  A four-digit code has ten thousand permutations. They needed to narrow the odds, so Reacher climbed out and scooped up some dirt from the base of the wall. He ground it into fine powder between his finger and thumb. Blew it very gently across the keypad. Blew again to remove the excess. And saw that a tiny trace of dust had stuck to three of the keys. The zero, the two, and the four.

  Now there were eighty-one permutations.

  In Reacher’s experience people often used dates as code numbers. They’re easy to remember. And they often have some kind of sentimental significance. In which case the first digit would have to be zero. The second would have to be two or four. And the final pair could not both be zero. Now he was down to ten possibilities. Or possibly only one. Reacher remembered the black Mercedes. The neighbour, whose land was earmarked for the rally. Who believed that Klostermann was a fellow Nazi. Reacher entered 0420. Hitler’s birthday.

  The gate started to move.

  Reacher jumped back into the car and Sands drove through. She headed away from the house. Into the scrubby field. To the top of the steps they’d seen on the satellite image. Two cars were already parked there. A black Lincoln Town Car. The one the Moscow guy had been driving. And another Chevy Malibu. This one was red. Sands stopped right next to it.

  Reacher got out and headed down the steps. There were twenty-six. Made of concrete. Pale and flaky and pitted from age and the weather. A vertical drop of maybe twenty feet. Leading to a metal door. Painted grey. It was dull. Featureless. Solid. Reacher pushed it with both hands. It didn’t move. He leaned his shoulder against it, braced his feet on the bottom step, and shoved again. Harder. The door didn’t give even a fraction of an inch.

  Reacher climbed back up and got into the car. Sands drove across and parked in front of the house. They crossed the porch, approached the door, and Reacher knocked. There was no
response. He figured there was no point looking for a hidden key so he landed a solid kick right below the handle. The door swung open, scattering pieces of frame across the tiled floor. Reacher crunched over them and turned to his right, alongside the staircase. Sands followed. There was a door at the far end. It led to a flight of stairs, heading down. They descended and came out into a basement. Reacher found the light switch. There were wooden shelves along the left-hand wall, stacked high with suitcases and cleaning supplies and all kinds of cardboard boxes and plastic tubs. There was a furnace on the right along with a bunch of other air handling equipment, all feeding into rectangular metal ducts that disappeared into the ceiling. And a little further along, set into the wall, was a pair of grey metal breaker boxes.

  Reacher ducked down to avoid the joists and made his way across to them. He opened the first one. A printed label inside said HOUSE. The label in the second one said simply PANEL 2.

  ‘A house this size doesn’t need two panels,’ Reacher said. ‘The second one must feed the bunker. When it’s not running its own generator.’ He pointed to the master switch. ‘Give me three minutes, then throw that. It should cut them off. Then they’ll send someone to investigate.’

  ‘What if they don’t?’ Sands said. ‘What if their generator is working, or they have a battery backup? Or the panel is for something else altogether?’

  ‘Then we wait for Wallwork’s people. But we have nothing to lose by trying. Throw the switch, then wait for my text. After that, get clear. Find somewhere safe to wait.’