by Lee Child
“So why did you run?”
“Because I was freaked. I’m a Pentagon guy. I never saw blood before. And I didn’t know who else might be in it with your guys. There could have been more.”
Frasconi and Kohl.
“You’re very good,” he said to me. “You came right here.”
I nodded. Thought back to his eight-page bio, in Kohl’s tidy handwriting. Parents’ occupations, childhood home.
“Whose idea was it?” I said.
“Originally?” he said. “Frasconi’s, of course. He outranked her.”
“What was her name?”
I saw a flicker in his eyes.
“Kohl,” he said.
I nodded again. She had gone out to make the arrest in dress greens. A black acetate nameplate above her right breast. Kohl. Gender-neutral. Uniform, female enlisted, the nameplate is adjusted to individual figure differences and centered horizontally on the right side between one and two inches above the top button of the coat. He would have seen it as soon as she walked in the door.
“First name?”
He paused.
“Don’t recall,” he said.
“Frasconi’s first name?”
Uniform, male officer, the nameplate is centered on the right-side breast pocket flap equidistant between the seam and the button.
“I don’t recall.”
“Try,” I said.
“I can’t recall it,” he said. “It’s only a detail.”
“Three out of ten,” I said. “Call it an E.”
“What?”
“Your performance,” I said. “A failing grade.”
“What?”
“Your dad was a railroad worker,” I said. “Your mom was a homemaker. Your full name is Francis Xavier Quinn.”
“So?”
“Investigations are like that,” I said. “You plan to put somebody in the bag, you find out all about them first. You were playing those two for weeks and weeks and never found out their first names? Never looked at their service records? Never made any notes? Never filed any reports?”
He said nothing.
“And Frasconi never had an idea in his life,” I said. “Never even took a dump unless somebody told him to. Nobody connected to those two would ever say Frasconi and Kohl. They’d say Kohl and Frasconi. You were dirty all the way and you never saw my guys in your life before the exact minute they showed up at your house to arrest you. And you killed them both.”
He proved I was right by trying to fight me. I was ready for him. He started to scramble up. I knocked him back down, a lot harder than I really needed to. He was still unconscious when I put him in the trunk of his car. Still unconscious when I transferred him to the trunk of mine, behind the abandoned diner. I drove a little way south on U.S. 101 and took a right that led toward the Pacific. I stopped on a gravel turnout. There was a fabulous view. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and the sun was shining and the ocean was blue. The turnout had a knee-high metal barrier and then there was another half-yard of gravel and then there was a long vertical drop into the surf. Traffic was very light. Maybe a car every couple of minutes. The road was just an arbitrary loop off the highway.
I opened the trunk and then slammed it again just in case he was awake and planning to jump out at me. But he wasn’t. He was starved of air and barely conscious. I dragged him out and propped him up on rubbery legs and made him walk. Let him look at the ocean for a minute while I checked for potential witnesses. There were none. So I turned him around. Stepped away five paces.
“Her name was Dominique,” I said.
Then I shot him. Twice in the head, once in the chest. I expected him to go straight down on the gravel, whereupon I was planning to step in close and put a fourth up through his eye socket before throwing him into the ocean. But he didn’t go straight down on the gravel. He staggered backward and tripped on the rail and went over it and hit the last half-yard of America with his shoulder and rolled straight over the cliff. I grabbed the barrier with one hand and leaned over and looked down. Saw him hit the rocks. The surf closed over him. I didn’t see him again. I stayed there for a full minute. Thought: Two in the head, one in the heart, a hundred-twenty-foot fall into the ocean, no way to survive that.
I picked up my shell cases. “Ten-eighteen, Dom,” I said to myself, and walked back to my car.
Ten years later it was going dark very fast and I was picking my way over the rocks behind the garage block. The sea was heaving and thrashing on my right. The wind was in my face. I didn’t expect to see anybody out and about. Especially not at the sides or the back of the house. So I was moving fast, head up, alert, a Persuader in each hand. I’m coming to get you, Quinn.
When I cleared the rear of the garage block I could see the catering company’s truck parked at the back corner of the building. It was exactly where Harley had put the Lincoln to unload Beck’s maid from the trunk. The truck’s rear doors were open and the driver and the passenger were shuttling back and forth unpacking it. The metal detector on the kitchen door was beeping at every foil dish they carried. I was hungry. I could smell hot food on the wind. Both guys were in tuxedos. Their heads were ducked down because of the weather. They weren’t paying attention to anything except their jobs. But I gave them a wide berth anyway. I stayed all the way on the edge of the rocks and skirted around in a loop. Jumped over Harley’s cleft and kept on going.
When I was as far from the caterers as I could get I cut in and headed for the opposite back corner of the house. I felt real good. I felt silent and invisible. Like some kind of a primeval force, howling in from the sea. I stood still and worked out which would be the dining room windows. I found them. The lights were on in the room. I stepped in close and risked a look through the glass.
First person I saw was Quinn. He was standing up straight in a dark suit. He had a drink in his hand. His hair was pure gray. The scars on his forehead were small and pink and shiny. He was a little stooped. A little heavier than he had been. He was ten years older.
Next to him was Beck. He was in a dark suit, too. He had a drink. He was shoulder to shoulder with his boss. Together they were facing three Arab guys. The Arabs were short, with black oiled hair. They were in American clothes. Sharkskin suits, light grays and blues. They had drinks, too.
Behind them Richard and Elizabeth Beck were standing close together, talking. The whole thing was like a free-form cocktail party crammed around the edges of the giant dining table. The table was set with eighteen places. It was very formal. Each setting had three glasses and enough flatware to last a week. The cook was bustling about the room with a tray of drinks. I could see champagne flutes and whiskey tumblers. She was in a dark skirt and a white blouse. She was relegated to cocktail waitress. Maybe her expertise didn’t stretch to Middle Eastern cuisine.
I couldn’t see Teresa Daniel. Maybe they planned to make her jump out of a cake, later. The other occupants of the room were all men. Three of them. Quinn’s best boys, presumably. They were a random trio. A mixture. Hard faces, but probably no more dangerous than Angel Doll or Harley had been.
So, eighteen settings, but only ten diners. Eight absentees. Duke, Angel Doll, Harley, and Emily Smith made four of them. The guy they had sent to the gatehouse to replace Paulie was presumably the fifth. That left three unaccounted for. One on the front door, one in Duke’s window, and one with Teresa Daniel, probably.
I stayed on the outside, looking in. I had been to cocktail parties and formal dinners plenty of times. Depending on where you served they played a big part in base life. I figured these people would be in there four hours, minimum. They wouldn’t come out except for bathroom breaks. Quinn was talking. He was sharing eye contact scrupulously among the three Arabs. He was holding forth. Smiling, gesturing, laughing. He looked like a guy who was playing and winning. But he wasn’t. His plans had been disrupted. A banquet for eighteen had become dinner for ten, because I was still around.
I ducked under the window
and crawled toward the kitchen. Stayed on my knees and slipped out of my coat and left the Persuaders wrapped in it where I could find them again. Then I stood up and walked straight into the kitchen. The metal detector beeped at the Beretta in my pocket. The catering guys were in there. They were doing something with aluminum foil. I nodded at them like I lived there and walked straight into the hallway. My feet were quiet on the thick rugs. I could hear the loud buzz of cocktail conversation from the dining room. I could see a guy at the front door. He had his back to me and he was staring out the window. He had his shoulder leaning on the edge of the window recess. His hair was haloed blue by the wall lights in the distance. I walked straight up behind him. Shoot to kill. Them or me. I paused for one second. Reached around and cupped my right hand under his chin. Put my left knuckles against the base of his neck. Jerked up and back with my right and down and forward with my left and snapped his neck at the fourth vertebra. He sagged back against me and I caught him under the arms and walked him into Elizabeth Beck’s parlor and dumped him on the sofa. Doctor Zhivago was still there on a side table.
One down.
I closed the parlor door on him and headed for the stairs. Went up, quick and quiet. Stopped outside Duke’s room. Eliot was sprawled just inside the doorway. Dead. He was on his back. His jacket was thrown open and his shirt was stiff with blood and full of holes. The rugs under him were crusty. I stepped over him and kept behind the door and glanced into the room. Saw why he had died. The NSV had jammed. He must have taken Duffy’s call and been on his way out of the room when he looked up and saw a convoy coming toward him on the road. He must have darted toward the big gun. Squeezed the trigger and felt it jam. It was a piece of junk. The mechanic had it field-stripped on the floor and was crouched over it trying to repair the belt feed mechanism. He was intent on his task. Didn’t see me coming. Didn’t hear me.
Shoot to kill. Them or me.
Two down.
I left him lying on top of the machine gun. The barrel stuck out from under him and looked like a third arm. I checked the view from the window. The wall lights were still blazing. I checked my watch. I was exactly thirty minutes into my hour.
I went back downstairs. Through the hallway. Like a ghost. To the basement door. The lights were on down there. I went down the stairs. Through the gymnasium. Past the washing machine. I pulled the Beretta out of my pocket. Clicked the safety. Held it out in front of me and turned the corner and walked straight toward the two rooms. One of them was empty and had its door standing open. The other was closed up and had a young thin guy sitting on a chair in front of it. He had the chair tilted back against it. He looked straight at me. His eyes went wide. His mouth came open. No sound came out. He didn’t seem like much of a threat. He was wearing a T-shirt with Dell on it. Maybe this was Troy, the computer geek.
“Keep quiet if you want to live,” I said.
He kept quiet.
“Are you Troy?”
He stayed quiet and nodded yes.
“OK, Troy,” I said.
I figured we were right underneath the dining room. I couldn’t risk firing a gun in a stone cellar right under everybody’s feet. So I put the Beretta back in my pocket and caught him around the neck and banged his head on the wall, twice, and put him to sleep. Maybe I cracked his skull, maybe I didn’t. I didn’t really care either way. His keyboard work had killed the maid.
Three down.
I found the key in his pocket. Used it in the lock and swung open the door and found Teresa Daniel sitting on her mattress. She turned and looked straight at me. She looked exactly like the photographs Duffy had shown me in my motel room early in the morning on day eleven. She looked in perfect health. Her hair was washed and brushed. She was wearing a virginal white dress. White panty hose and white shoes. Her skin was pale and her eyes were blue. She looked like a human sacrifice.
I paused a moment, unsure. I couldn’t predict her reaction. She must have figured out what they wanted from her. And she didn’t know me. As far as she knew, I was one of them, ready to lead her right to the altar. And she was a trained federal agent. If I asked her to come with me, she might start fighting. She might be storing it up, waiting for her chance. And I didn’t want things to get noisy. Not yet.
But then I looked again at her eyes. One pupil was enormous. The other was tiny. She was very still. Very quiet. Slack and dazed. She was all doped up. Maybe with some kind of a fancy substance. What was it? The date rape drug? Rohypnol? Rophynol? I couldn’t remember its name. Not my area of expertise. Eliot would have known. Duffy or Villanueva would still know. It made people passive and obedient and acquiescent. Made them lie back and take anything they were told to take.
“Teresa?” I whispered.
She didn’t answer.
“You OK?” I whispered.
She nodded.
“I’m fine,” she said.
“Can you walk?”
“Yes,” she said.
“Walk with me.”
She stood up. She was unsteady on her feet. Muscle weakness, I guessed. She had been caged for nine weeks.
“This way,” I said.
She didn’t move. She just stood there. I put out my hand. She reached out and took it. Her skin was warm and dry.
“Let’s go,” I said. “Don’t look at the man on the floor.”
I stopped her again just outside the door. Let her hand go and dragged Troy into the room and closed the door on him and locked it. Took Teresa’s hand again and walked away. She was very suggestible. Very obedient. She just fixed her gaze out in front of her and walked with me. We turned the corner and passed by the washing machine. We walked through the gymnasium. Her dress was silky and lacy. She was holding my hand like a date. I felt like I was going to the prom. We walked up the stairs, side by side. Reached the top.
“Wait here,” I said. “Don’t go anywhere without me, OK?”
“OK,” she whispered.
“Don’t make any noise at all, OK?”
“I won’t.”
I closed the door on her and left her on the top step, with her hand resting lightly on the rail and a bare lightbulb burning behind her. I checked the hallway carefully and headed back to the kitchen. The food guys were still busy in there.
“You guys called Keast and Maden?” I said.
The one nearer me nodded.
“Paul Keast,” he said.
“Chris Maden,” his partner said.
“I need to move your truck, Paul,” I said.
“Why?”
“Because it’s in the way.”
The guy just looked at me. “You told me to put it there.”
“I didn’t tell you to leave it there.”
He shrugged and rooted around on a counter and came up with his keys.
“Whatever,” he said.
I took the keys and went outside and checked the back of the truck. It was fitted out with metal racks on either side. For trays of food. There was a narrow aisle running down the center. No windows. It would do. I left the rear doors open and slid into the driver’s seat and fired it up. Backed it out to the carriage circle and turned it around and reversed it back to the kitchen door. Now it was facing the right way. I killed the motor but left the keys in it. Went back inside the kitchen. The metal detector beeped.
“What are they eating?” I asked.
“Lamb kebabs,” Maden said. “With rice and couscous and humus. Stuffed grape leaves to start. Baklava for dessert. With coffee.”
“That’s Libyan?”
“It’s generic,” he said. “They eat it everywhere.”
“I used to get that for a dollar,” I said. “You’re charging fifty-five.”
“Where? In Portland?”
“In Beirut,” I said.
I stepped out and checked the hallway. All quiet. I opened the basement door. Teresa Daniel was waiting right there, like an automaton. I held out my hand.
“Let’s go,” I said.
She ste
pped out. I closed the door behind her. Walked her into the kitchen. Keast and Maden stared at her. I ignored them and walked her through. Out through the door. Over to the truck. She shivered in the cold. I helped her climb into the back.
“Wait there for me now,” I said. “Very quiet, OK?”
She nodded and said nothing.
“I’m going to close the doors on you,” I said.
She nodded again.
“I’ll get you out of there soon,” I said.
“Thank you,” she said.
I closed the doors on her and went back to the kitchen. Stood still and listened. I could hear talking from the dining room. It all sounded reasonably social.
“When do they eat?” I said.
“Twenty minutes,” Maden said. “When they’re through with the drinks. There was champagne included in the fifty-five dollars, you know.”
“OK,” I said. “Don’t take offense.”
I checked my watch. Forty-five minutes gone. Fifteen minutes to go.
Show time.
I went back outside into the cold. Slipped into the food truck and fired it up. Eased it forward, slowly around the corner of the house, slowly around the carriage circle, slowly down the driveway. Away from the house. Through the gate. Onto the road. I hit the gas. Took the curves fast. Jammed to a stop level with Villanueva’s Taurus. Jumped out. Villanueva and Duffy were instantly out to meet me.
“Teresa’s in the back,” I said. “She’s OK but she’s all doped up.”
Duffy pumped her fists and jumped on me and hugged me hard and Villanueva wrenched open the doors. Teresa fell into his arms. He lifted her down like a child. Then Duffy grabbed her away from him and he took a turn hugging me.
“You should take her to the hospital,” I said.
“We’ll take her to the motel,” Duffy said. “We’re still off the books.”