The Jack Reacher Cases (The Man Who Works Alone)

by Dan Ames

  The JACK REACHER Cases

  THE MAN WHO WORKS ALONE

  Dan Ames

  A USA TODAY BESTSELLING BOOK

  Book One in The JACK REACHER Cases

  CLICK HERE TO BUY NOW

  Copyright © 2019 by Dan Ames

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Contents

  The Jack Reacher Cases

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

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  The Jack Reacher Cases

  The Man Who Works Alone

  by

  Dan Ames

  No one was cheered and nothing was discussed;

  Column by column in a cloud of dust

  -W.H. Auden

  Chapter 1

  He was no stranger to the sight of blood.

  Nor was the image of such a tremendous amount of blood foreign to him.

  No, what troubled him at the moment was that the blood was his.

  The man known only as Paco dragged his battered body across the hotel room floor and struggled to grasp his bloody cell phone. His hands shook and he cursed himself for not being better prepared.

  Ever since he’d left active service and become a private soldier for hire – a mercenary – he’d always worked alone. It wasn’t that he hadn’t enjoyed the camaraderie of his fellow special ops soldiers. In fact, he was still good friends with many of them. His decision to be a lone wolf, to be a man who worked alone had to do with his desire for operational control. He’d grown to hate the decision-making process of a larger military unit and since then had relished being the entire control and command apparatus for each mission.

  Until now.

  Which is why, as he felt the blood gush from his wounds, he knew there was no point in finding blame elsewhere.

  It had been his mission. His decisions.

  Impeccable planning was one of his hallmarks and this mission had not been up to his usual standards. For that, he avoided the temptation to fault the accelerated schedule and abbreviated timeline – two factors he had overlooked because of the oversized paycheck – instead he took full responsibility for his current predicament.

  Still it pissed him off.

  He finally managed to grasp the cell phone and he went directly to his contacts. The first person he wanted to call was probably the best fit for what he needed. Plus, he didn’t live far from Vegas and could be here in time to possibly save his life.

  He had blood on his hands and the phone was slippery between his fingers.

  Paco heard footsteps outside the door.

  Of course they followed me, he thought. No surprise there.

  For a moment, he hesitated. He was down to his last gun and by his own count only had a few rounds left. The running gun battle had been an obscene display of firepower. Paco still couldn’t believe the cops hadn’t intervened. Hey, it was Vegas, he guessed. Anything can happen.

  More blood seeped from his gunshot wounds. He wasn’t sure how many times he’d been hit but he knew he’d taken rounds in the shoulder, stomach, leg and hip. He knew the hip wasn’t bad as it had glanced off his bone instead of crashing into his pelvis. If that had happened he wouldn’t have been able to walk let alone run.

  The hip hurt like hell, which was odd because out of everything it was the stomach wound that would kill him. A gut shot was slow death, but it was usually death nonetheless.

  Paco tapped on the contact’s cell phone and then hit the speaker button. He placed the phone on the floor and picked up his last remaining gun, a .45. It felt surprisingly light and now he wasn’t sure if he had any rounds left at all. He quickly ejected the magazine, saw he had three bullets left, plus one in the chamber, and then slammed it back home.

  Four shots at life, he thought.

  Paco heard the door to his hotel room beep and saw the green light momentarily flash. He was impressed once again. He couldn’t believe they had found him so fast and now, they’d even managed to get a key to his room.

  Whomever his opponents were, they were good.

  Very good.

  He glanced down at the phone and saw the call connect.

  A voice told him to leave a message.

  At the same time, the door swung open and Paco saw the empty hallway beyond and then it was instantly filled with the orange and red flash of gunfire as a shape moved in. Paco fired center mass but the bullet that entered his forehead made it to his brain first – before the knowledge he’d missed all of his shots arrived.

  His last vision was the shape stepping into the room, smoke in front of his eyes and the room tilting sideways and fading to black.

  The killer stood over Paco and fired another round into the man’s skull.

  He glanced down at the phone. It appeared the target had been in the process of leaving someone a message. The killer didn’t know exactly how much information had been conveyed. He peered more closely at the phone and read the name of the contact the newly dead man had called. The killer then pointed his gun at the phone and fired a bullet into it. It shattered.

  He didn’t need the phone, anyway.

  All he needed was the name, which he’d been able to read.

  It was a name he didn’t know.

  Michael Tallon.

  Chapter 2

  ONE HOUR EARLIER

  Mikael Gladhus, CEO of Gladcon, Inc., stared in drunken fascination at the female escort stripping off her clothes in front of him. She was utterly without inhibition and she was going much too fast.

  “Wait,” he said. She was a tall, lithe blonde. Mikael could see her dark roots and hoped that he wouldn’t be able to compare anything natural down below. He preferred his hookers be completely shaved. Smooth as glass.

  He hadn’t intended to wind up here in a hotel in Vegas. It had just kind of happened. Normally a man of swift decisions, he’d gone back and forth on this one. Namely because it was the biggest one of his life.

  He didn’t know what to do frankly. He’d de
cided to move in one direction, driven by one emotion. And then, he’d had second thoughts, caused by an entirely different motivation.

  Gladhus had almost pulled the trigger but then decided to hole up in a hotel room and think it through. Naturally, it being Las Vegas, he’d ordered the most expensive bottle of vodka from room service and then fortuitously crossed paths with this blonde beauty. He knew she was a professional – any woman who looked like this and lived in Vegas probably was.

  Normally, when he was in town he got his girls from an outfit called Platinum Exports. He’d used them before many times here in Vegas and Los Angeles, too, and although their girls were the most expensive in town, in his opinion, they were also the best. Absolute top-notch quality.

  She had unbuttoned her top, kicked off her stiletto heels and was in the process of sliding out of her black stockings. “Put your shoes back on,” he said. His voice was slurred and his eyelids were at half-mast.

  She hesitated and Mikael thought he may have seen an eye roll. She did as she was told though and knelt down and strapped the heels back on.

  Damn right you do what I tell you, if you want to make that money, he thought.

  He watched as she fastened the straps of her heels. The move caused her ample breasts to squeeze together.

  Mikael licked his lips in anticipation.

  “Roll over,” she said.

  “What?”

  “Roll over. I always start with a massage.”

  Her voice was clipped. Not American, he thought. Or maybe it was a fake accent to disguise the fact she was American. You never knew. This was a city of facades.

  He liked how her tone carried a sense of command she was clearly used to.

  He decided to play along and obey her.

  The bed shifted slightly and Mikael felt her straddle him. He was already naked and quickly the sensation of warm oil being poured onto his back made him close his eyes. Her hands were already on him and soon, his muscles began to relax.

  If she didn’t tell him to flip over soon he was going to do it himself-

  The sound of a click made him think the door had just closed. But that was impossible. The girl was still on top of him.

  He tried to turn but the girl slid up and pinned his arms in place with her knees. She is stronger than she looks, he thought.

  Mikael felt her long nails scrape down his back. They pierced his skin and pain caused him to jerk upward but she pushed him back down. He tried to roll onto his back but she held him in position.

  Something cold touched the back of his neck.

  It was hard.

  Metallic.

  “What–”

  “Shhh.”

  The CEO of Gladcon never felt the bullet that entered the base of his brain and left nothing in its wake but instant death.

  He also didn’t live to see the expensive hooker slip her clothes back on, gather his briefcase and laptop computer, and let herself out of the room.

  Chapter 3

  Ah, Vegas.

  Paco hadn’t made a regular habit of coming to Sin City, but he was no stranger to it, either. Most guys like him who’d spent their entire lives in the military usually at one point or another touched down in Las Vegas.

  Whether it was a meeting, convention or just to blow off steam, the city saw guys like Paco on a pretty regular basis.

  But this trip was certainly not for pleasure.

  Business had called in the form of a private contract submitted to Paco’s business manager. That term was used loosely and sometimes sarcastically by Paco’s fellow freelance soldiers.

  In any event, the person who’d contacted Paco’s go-between had done so via encrypted messaging and made him a lucrative offer: pick up a laptop and briefcase from another agent in Las Vegas and await further instructions on where and when to deliver them.

  Easy enough.

  Paco expressed no small amount of skepticism when he’d seen the sparse details of the job.

  But the accompanying bid for Paco’s service was quite high and he wondered why. He also wondered why there had been little time for planning and preparation. It was always like this in his line of work: the bigger the paycheck, the larger the risk.

  Unfortunately, he’d had a mishap that required medical work and without insurance, he’d racked up a pretty hefty medical bill. This would cover it with plenty left over so he’d gone against his instincts and accepted the job.

  Now, he sat in a busy coffee shop across from the entrance to the hotel from which the woman was supposed to emerge. She was going to be a tall, slender blonde, provocatively dressed. She would have the briefcase and possibly a second bag containing said laptop. She would most likely also have a purse.

  Paco had already spent the past hour at various points along the street. He’d parked nearby two hours ago and examined the building from every possible angle. He’d even ventured inside the hotel and checked for anything that seemed out of place.

  So far, nothing had triggered a warning.

  Everyone was who they were supposed to be. He’d spent years conducting surveillance and was confident he hadn’t missed anything.

  Still, the money involved troubled him. It was the kind of cash that would allow him to pay off his medical bills and travel the world for six months, maybe more. Or he might even buy an old boat and just cruise around islands in the Caribbean and drink rum all day.

  Paco chastised himself. He was spending money he hadn’t even earned yet.

  He brought his attention back to the task at hand.

  A group of businessmen passed by the coffee shop. Paco imagined them eight hours from now, after the work was done, drunk and gambling. Perhaps taking part in some of the city’s seedier offerings.

  Paco himself looked like a businessman. He’d put on a tailored charcoal suit and sat with his cell phone in his hand, as if he were waiting for a colleague to join him. Although he was extremely muscular, the suit camouflaged his considerable physique. A custom-made shoulder holster was home to his gun, a Beretta 9mm.

  A woman entered the coffee shop and glanced at him. He ignored her. The last thing he wanted was any kind of conversation. Paco heard her order some fancy drink with at least three names. Before him in his paper cup was simple black coffee.

  So far it sat untouched.

  Across the street, a uniformed doorman opened the hotel’s front door and a blonde woman emerged. Paco narrowed his eyes and studied her. She had on a tiny black dress, wholly inappropriate for this time of day, high heels, and she carried three bags; a purse, a briefcase and a computer bag with a shoulder strap.

  Paco couldn’t see her eyes as she was wearing oversized sunglasses but he saw the angle of her face change and he knew she was looking across the street at him.

  Not a good sign. That was an amateur move, through and through, Paco thought.

  She walked away from the hotel and began to cross the street directly toward him.

  Jesus, even worse, he thought. If someone was watching…

  The luxury SUV, a black Cadillac Escalade came from Paco’s right and was going at least twenty miles over the speed limit.

  It slid into Paco’s vision with astonishing speed.

  The blonde had just enough time to look to her left as the big vehicle slammed into her without slowing down.

  Even through the glass windows of the coffee shop Paco could hear the sound of flesh and bone being obliterated by thousands of pounds of Detroit-made steel.

  The blond woman’s slender body went airborne and all three items in her possession flew in opposite directions.

  Paco exploded from his chair and was out the door of the coffee shop in less than three seconds. The Beretta was in his hand.

  The girl was already dead, he knew that. A human body can’t withstand that kind of force and be bent in that many directions without the loss of life.

  It simply wasn’t possible.

  But the briefcase and the laptop bag were still there on the stree
t.

  The Escalade skidded to a stop.

  Paco hit the street at a dead run, the gun in both hands, held forward.

  The first person to emerge from the SUV was the driver. He was a white guy with dark sunglasses and he wore a dark suit.

  Paco shot him center mass, a double tap. The two rounds stopped him in his tracks and he sagged to the ground. The second man out of the Cadillac was a black guy, bald, with the same kind of black suit the driver had. Paco fired at him, but missed.

  He got to the bags first and scooped them up.

  The black man’s first bullet hit him in the hip and spun him around. Paco landed on his side. However, he landed facing the shooter so he was able to bring the Beretta to bear. He fired and this time he didn’t miss.

  His bullet went high and sheered off the top of the black man’s bald head. Blood sprouted like a lawn sprinkler coming to life.

  Paco didn’t wait to see what happened next.

  He grabbed the briefcase, and with the laptop bag strapped across his shoulder he got to his feet and ran for his car, parked a block away. More shots rang out behind him and something punched him hard in the leg and in his abdomen. But by then, he made it to the corner and he ducked around it, unlocked his vehicle and dove inside.