The Essential Jack Reacher 12-Book Bundle

by Lee Child

  “Who was the third?” Helen asked.

  “The woman,” Franklin said.

  Linsky called Chenko, and then Vladimir, and then Sokolov. He explained the mission and pulled them all in tighter. Franklin’s office had no back entrance. There was just the exposed staircase. The target’s car was right there on the apron. Easy.

  Reacher said, “Tell me about the woman.”

  Franklin shuffled his notes. Put them in a new order of priority.

  “Her name was Oline Archer,” he said. “Caucasian female, married, no children, thirty-seven years old, lived west of here in the outer suburbs.”

  “Employed in the DMV building,” Reacher said. “If she was the specific target, Charlie had to know where she was and when she would be coming out.”

  Franklin nodded. “Employed by the DMV itself. Been there a year and a half.”

  “Doing what exactly?”

  “Clerical supervisor. Doing whatever they do in there.”

  “So was it work-related?” Ann Yanni asked.

  “Too long of a counter delay?” Franklin said. “A bad photo on a driver’s license? I doubt it. I checked the national databases. DMV clerks don’t get killed by customers. That just doesn’t happen.”

  “So what about her personal life?” Helen Rodin asked.

  “Nothing jumped out at me,” Franklin said. “She was just an ordinary woman. But I’ll keep digging. I’ll go down a few levels. Got to be something there.”

  “Do it fast,” Rosemary Barr said. “For my brother’s sake. We have to get him out.”

  “We need medical opinions for that,” Ann Yanni said. “Regular doctors now, not psychiatrists.”

  “Will NBC pay?” Helen Rodin asked.

  “If it’s likely to work.”

  “It should,” Rosemary said. “I mean, shouldn’t it? Parkinson’s is a real thing, isn’t it? Either he’s got it or he hasn’t.”

  “It might work at trial,” Reacher said. “A plausible reason why James Barr couldn’t have done it, plus a plausible narrative about someone else doing it? That’s usually how you create reasonable doubt.”

  “Plausible is a big word,” Franklin said. “And reasonable doubt is a risky concept. Better to get Alex Rodin to drop the charges altogether. Which means convincing Emerson first.”

  “I can’t talk to either one of them,” Reacher said.

  “I can,” Helen said.

  “I can,” Franklin said.

  “And I sure as hell can,” Ann Yanni said. “We all can, apart from you.”

  “But you might not want to,” Reacher said.

  “Why not?” Helen asked.

  “You’re not going to like this part very much.”

  “Why not?” Helen asked again.

  “Think,” Reacher said. “Work backward. The thing with Sandy being killed, and the thing in the sports bar Monday night, why did those two things happen?”

  “To tie you up. To prevent you hurting the case.”

  “Correct. Two attempts, same aim, same goal, same perpetrator.”

  “Obviously.”

  “And the thing Monday night started with me being followed from my hotel. Sandy and Jeb Oliver and his other pals were cruising around, standing by, waiting until someone called them and told them where I ended up. So really it started with me being followed to my hotel. Much earlier in the day.”

  “We’ve been through all of this.”

  “But how did the puppet master get my name? How did he even know I was in town? How did he know there was a guy here who was a potential problem?”

  “Someone told him.”

  “Who knew, early in the day on Monday?”

  Helen paused a beat.

  “My father,” she said. “Since early on Monday morning. And then Emerson, presumably. Shortly afterward. They’d have talked about the case. They’d have communicated immediately if there was a danger that the wheels were coming off.”

  “Correct,” Reacher said. “Then one of those two guys called the puppet master. Well before lunch on Monday.”

  Helen said nothing.

  “Unless one of those two guys is the puppet master,” Reacher said.

  “The Zec is the puppet master. You said so yourself.”

  “I said he’s Charlie’s boss. That’s all. We’ve got no way of knowing whether he’s actually at the top of the tree.”

  “You’re right,” Helen said. “I don’t like this line of thinking at all.”

  “Someone communicated,” Reacher said. “That’s for damn sure. Either your father or Emerson. My name was on the street two hours after I got off the bus. So one of them is bent and the other one won’t help us either because he already likes the case exactly the way it is.”

  The room went quiet.

  “I need to get back to work,” Ann Yanni said.

  Nobody spoke.

  “Call me if there’s news,” Yanni said.

  The room stayed quiet. Reacher said nothing. Ann Yanni crossed the room. Stopped next to him.

  “Keys,” she said.

  He dug in his pocket and handed them over.

  “Thanks for the loan,” he said. “Nice car.”

  Linsky watched the Mustang leave. It went north. Loud engine, loud exhaust. It was audible for a whole block. Then the street went quiet again and Linsky dialed his phone.

  “The television woman is out of there,” he said.

  “The private detective will stay at work,” the Zec said.

  “So what if the others leave together?”

  “I hope they don’t.”

  “What if they do?”

  “Take them all.”

  Rosemary Barr asked, “Is there a cure? For Parkinson’s disease?”

  “No,” Reacher said. “No cure, no prevention. But it can be slowed down. There are drugs for it. Physiotherapy helps. And sleep. The symptoms disappear when a person is asleep.”

  “Maybe that’s why he wanted the pills. To escape.”

  “He shouldn’t try to escape too much. Social contact is good.”

  “I should go to the hospital,” Rosemary said.

  “Explain to him,” Reacher said. “Tell him what really happened on Friday.”

  Rosemary nodded. Crossed the room and went out the door. A minute later Reacher heard her car start up and drive away.

  Franklin went out to the kitchenette to make coffee. Reacher and Helen Rodin were left alone in the office together. Reacher sat down in the chair that Rosemary Barr had used. Helen stepped to the window and looked down at the street below. She kept her back to the room. She was dressed the same as Rosemary Barr. Black shirt, black skirt, black patent-leather shoes. But she didn’t look like a widow. She looked like something from New York or Paris. Her heels were higher and her legs were long and bare and tan.

  “These guys we’re talking about are Russians,” she said.

  Reacher said nothing.

  “My father is an American,” she said.

  “An American called Aleksei Alekseivitch,” Reacher said.

  “Our family came here before World War One. There’s no possible connection. How could there be? These people we’re talking about are low-life Soviets.”

  “What did your father do before he was the DA?”

  “He was an assistant DA.”

  “Before that?”

  “He always worked there.”

  “Tell me about his coffee service.”

  “What about it?”

  “He uses china cups and a silver tray. The county didn’t buy them for him.”

  “So?”

  “Tell me about his suits.”

  “His suits?”

  “On Monday he was wearing a thousand-dollar suit. You don’t see many public servants wearing thousand-dollar suits.”

  “He’s got expensive tastes.”

  “How does he afford them?”

  “I don’t want to talk about this.”

  “One more question.”


  Helen said nothing.

  “Did he pressure you not to take the case?”

  Helen said nothing. Looked left. Looked right. Then she turned around. “He said losing might be winning.”

  “Concern for your career?”

  “I thought so. I still think so. He’s an honest man.”

  Reacher nodded. “There’s a fifty percent chance you’re right.”

  Franklin came back in with the coffee, which was a thin own-brand brew in three nonmatching pottery mugs, two of them chipped, on a cork bar tray, with an open carton of half-and-half and a yellow box of sugar and a single pressed-steel spoon. He put the tray on the desk and Helen Rodin stared at it, like it was making Reacher’s point for him: This is how coffee is served in an office.

  “David Chapman knew your name on Monday,” she said. “James Barr’s first lawyer. He’s known about you since Saturday.”

  “But Chapman didn’t know I ever showed up,” Reacher said. “I assume nobody told him.”

  “I knew your name,” Franklin said. “Maybe I should be in the mix, too.”

  “But you knew the real reason I was here,” Reacher said. “You wouldn’t have had me attacked. You’d have had me subpoenaed.”

  Nobody spoke.

  “I was wrong about Jeb Oliver,” Reacher said. “He isn’t a dope dealer. There was nothing in his barn except an old pickup truck.”

  “I’m glad you can be wrong about something,” Helen said.

  “Jeb Oliver isn’t Russian,” Franklin said.

  “Apple pie,” Reacher said.

  “Therefore these guys can work with Americans. That’s what I’m saying. It could be Emerson. Doesn’t have to be the DA.”

  “Fifty percent chance,” Reacher said. “I’m not accusing anybody yet.”

  “If you’re right in the first place.”

  “The bad guys were all over me very fast.”

  “Doesn’t sound like either Emerson or the DA to me, and I know them both.”

  “You can say his name,” Helen said. “His name is Alex Rodin.”

  “I don’t think it’s either one of them,” Franklin said.

  “I’m going back to work,” Helen said.

  “Give me a ride?” Reacher asked. “Let me out under the highway?”

  “No,” Helen said. “I really don’t feel like doing that.”

  She picked up her purse and her briefcase and walked out of the office alone.

  Reacher sat still and listened to the sounds out on the street. He heard a car door opening and closing. An engine starting. A car driving away. He sipped his coffee and said, “I guess I upset her.”

  Franklin nodded. “I guess you did.”

  “These guys have got someone on the inside. That’s clear, right? That’s a fact. So we should be able to discuss it.”

  “A cop makes more sense than a DA.”

  “I don’t agree. A cop controls only his own cases. Ultimately a prosecutor controls everything.”

  “I’d prefer it that way. I was a cop.”

  “So was I,” Reacher said.

  “And I have to say, Alex Rodin kills a lot of cases. People say it’s caution, but it could be something else.”

  “You should analyze what kind of cases he kills.”

  “Like I don’t have enough to do already.”

  Reacher nodded. Put his mug down. Stood up.

  “Start with Oline Archer,” he said. “The victim. She’s what’s important now.”

  Then he stepped to the window and checked the street. Saw nothing. So he nodded to Franklin and walked down the hallway and out the door to the top of the outside staircase.

  He paused on the top step and stretched in the warmth. Rolled his shoulders, flexed his hands, took a deep breath of air. He was cramped from driving and sitting all day. And oppressed by hiding out. It felt good just to stand still and do nothing, high up and exposed. Out in the open, in the daylight. Below him to his left the cars were gone except for the black Suburban. The street was quiet. He glanced to his right. There was traffic building up on the north-south drag. To his left, there was less. He figured he would dodge west first. But a long way west, because the police station must be near. He would need to loop around it. Then he would head north. North of downtown was a warren. North of downtown was where he felt best.

  He started down the stairs. As he stepped off onto the sidewalk at the bottom he heard a footfall fifteen feet behind him. A side step. Thin soles on limestone grit. Quiet. Then the unmistakable crunch-crunch of a pump-action shotgun racking a round.

  Then a voice.

  It said: “Stop right there.”

  An American accent. Quiet, but distinct. From somewhere way north. Reacher stopped. Stood still and stared straight ahead at a blank brick wall across the street.

  The voice said: “Step to your right.”

  Reacher stepped to his right. A long sideways shuffle.

  The voice said: “Now turn around real slow.”

  Reacher turned around, real slow. He kept his hands away from his body, palms out. Saw a small figure fifteen feet away. The same guy he had seen the night before, from the shadows. Not more than five-four, not more than a hundred and thirty pounds, slight, pale, with cropped black hair that stuck up crazily. Chenko. Or Charlie. In his right hand, rock-steady, was a sawn-off with a pistol grip. In his left hand was some kind of a black thing.

  “Catch,” Charlie said.

  He tossed the black thing underhand. Reacher watched it tumble and sparkle through the air straight at him and his subconscious said: Not a grenade. So he caught it. Two-handed. It was a shoe. A woman’s patent-leather dress shoe, black, with a heel. It was still slightly warm.

  “Now toss it back,” Charlie said. “Just like I did.”

  Reacher paused. Whose shoe was it? He stared down at it.

  Low heel.

  Rosemary Barr’s?

  “Toss it back,” Charlie called. “Nice and slow.”

  Assess and evaluate. Reacher was unarmed. He was holding a shoe. Not a stone, not a rock. The shoe was lightweight and unaerodynamic. It wouldn’t do anyone any harm. It would stall and flutter in the air and Charlie would just swat it away.

  “Toss it back,” Charlie said again.

  Reacher did nothing. He could tear the heel off and throw it like a dart. Like a missile. But Charlie would shoot him while he was drawing his arm back and winding up. Charlie was fifteen feet away, poised, balanced, unblinking, with the gun rock-steady in his hand. Too close to miss, too far to get to.

  “Last chance,” Charlie said.

  Reacher soft-tossed the shoe back. A long, looping underhand throw. Charlie caught it one-handed and it was like the scene had rewound right back to the beginning.

  “She’s in summer school,” Charlie said. “Think about it like that. She’s going to get acquainted with the facts of life. She’s going to work on her testimony. About how her brother planned in advance. About how he let slip what he was going to do. She’s going to be a great witness. She’s going to make the case. You understand that, right?”

  Reacher said nothing.

  “So the game is over now,” Charlie said.

  Reacher said nothing.

  “Take two steps backward,” Charlie said.

  Reacher took two steps backward. They put him right on the curb. Now Charlie was twenty feet away. He was still holding the shoe. He was smiling.

  “Turn around,” he said.

  “You going to shoot me?” Reacher asked.

  “Maybe.”

  “You should.”

  “Why?”

  “Because if you don’t, I’m going to find you and I’m going to make you sorry.”

  “Big talk.”

  “Not just talk.”

  “So maybe I’ll shoot you.”

  “You should.”

  “Turn around,” Charlie said.

  Reacher turned around.

  “Now stand still,” Charlie said.

&nbs
p; Reacher stood still. Faced the street. He kept his eyes open. Stared down at the blacktop. It was laid over ancient cobblestones. It was full of small humps in a regular pattern. He started counting them, to fill what might be the last seconds of his life. He strained to hear sounds behind him. Listened for the whisper of clothing as Charlie’s arm extended. Listened for the quiet metallic click as the trigger moved through its first tenth of an inch. Would Charlie shoot? Common sense said no. Homicides were always investigated.

  But these people were crazy. And there was a fifty percent chance they owned a local cop. Or that he owned them.

  Silence. Reacher strained to hear sounds behind him.

  But he heard nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing at all. One minute. Two. Then a hundred yards away to the east he heard a siren. Just two brief electronic blips from a cop car forcing a path through traffic.

  “Stand still,” Charlie said again.

  Reacher stood still. Ten seconds. Twenty. Thirty. Then two police cruisers turned into the street simultaneously. One from the east and one from the west. They were both moving fast. Their engines roared. Their tires howled. Their sounds beat against the brick. They jammed to a stop. Doors opened. Cops spilled out. Reacher turned his head. Charlie wasn’t there anymore.

  CHAPTER 14

  The arrest was fast and efficient. It went down the usual way. Guns, shouting, handcuffs, Miranda. Reacher stayed silent throughout. He knew better than to speak. He had been a cop and he knew the kind of trouble that talking can get a guy into. And the kind of delay it can cause. Say something, and the cops have to stop to write it down. And Reacher couldn’t afford for anyone to stop. Not right then.

  The trip to the station house was mercifully short. Not more than four blocks. Reacher guessed it made sense that an ex-cop like Franklin would pick an office location in the neighborhood he was accustomed to. He used the drive time to work on a strategy. He figured he would be taken straight to Emerson, which gave him a fifty percent chance of being put in a room with a bad guy.

  Or with a good guy.

  But he ended up a hundred percent sure he was in a room with a bad guy because Emerson and Alex Rodin were both there together. Reacher was hauled out of the squad car and hustled straight to Emerson’s office. Emerson was behind the desk. Rodin was in front of it.